Katy McDermott

It’s official. Fall is upon us. Well, it’s been official since September 22, but I’ve been in denial. The current trifecta of Halloween, Election Day, and Daylight Savings Time has made me (reluctantly) take my head out of the sand.

Actually, there are a lot of things I like about autumn – it’s winter that I really hate. When I was little, I used to love back-to-school shopping (for supplies, not so much clothes – all I wanted was a new pencil case – yes, I was an odd child). But the memory of last winter has scarred me.  WAY too much snow. Seriously, if I wanted that much snow, I’d move to Montana.

But thankfully, it’s not winter yet. So in honor of my former favorite season, here’s a list of pros and cons about this time of year:

Farmers’ markets – pumpkins, hayrides, cider doughnuts, caramel apples, mums. Farmers’ markets look gorgeous, smell amazing, and get you into the Fall spirit like nothing else can. (Good)

Daylight Savings Time – anytime you have an event that’s associated with a psychiatric condition (Seasonal Affective Disorder, aka the brilliant acronym SAD), you know you’re in trouble. I dread it every year, and seem to get SADder every year too. You can have your extra hour of sleep – I just want more light! (Bad)

Turtleneck sweaters – not only do I love how turtleneck sweaters look and feel, I love what they represent. Every year, there comes a time when you rediscover half of your wardrobe you haven’t worn in 6 months, and are therefore excited about. Also, you don’t have to worry about the horror that is bathing suit shopping for awhile! (Good)

Frost on the car – as if it weren’t bad enough that the mornings are getting colder and colder (we’ve gone from “brisk” to “chilling” and will soon be at “I don’t care if I get hat-head – I’m freezing!”), we now have to scrape our windshields too. Just a harbinger of the delightful snow-shoveling that awaits… (Bad)

Election Day – manipulative TV ads, radio spots featuring narrators whose voices drip with contempt when discussing the opposition… I’m almost tempted not to vote, because apparently all of the candidates knock little old ladies off their walkers, kick puppies, and/or worship Satan. (Bad)

Thanksgiving dinner – the knowledge that I’ll soon have to cook it. (Bad)

Thanksgiving dinner – the knowledge that I’ll soon get to eat it. (Good – so that one’s a wash)

Foliage – it’s a cliché for a reason, folks! The staggeringly beautiful sight of bright red, orange, purple, and yellow leaves on the trees – their last hurrah before falling off and carpeting people’s lawns – never fails to astound me.  (Good – I don’t have a lawn)

Halloween – when I was a kid, this was, of course, good. (It was especially good for us Catholic school kids, since November 1 was All Souls Day and we had off from school and could basically spend the day in our pajamas, watching cartoons in a Clark-bar-induced coma.) Now that my priorities have changed, I’m not so wild about it. In my office, there’s candy everywhere, and I also have to deal with reminders that I’m getting old. A 25-year-old colleague recently told me she went to a Halloween party dressed “as an 80s girl” – my misspent youth is now a costume, apparently. (Bad)

Baking supplies – I’m a pretty busy person, so I don’t bake that often, but this time of year puts me in a cookie-making frame of mind. That grocery-shopping trip when I stock up on supplies like cinnamon, allspice, brown sugar, chocolate chips, and flour is a delightful annual ritual. (Very very good!)

Christmas stuff – we have a radio station in our area that plays Christmas music starting the day BEFORE Thanksgiving. I first saw holiday ornaments in Hallmark back in August (not kidding – August). Malls are tricked out in tinsel and holly, grocery stores’ “seasonal” aisles are already filled with poinsettias, and Starbucks is using their snowflake-and-Santa cups. It’s too soon, people! (Bad)

Holiday specials – and here’s where I contradict myself. I know I just said it’s too early to be thinking Christmas-y thoughts in the Fall, but there’s one area where that doesn’t apply. Television. I don’t let myself watch them until we’re trimming our tree, but just the knowledge that soon I’ll get to see “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” can cheer me up on even the darkest Fall day. Heck, the Grinch’s change of heart happened when he stood “with his feet ice-cold in the snow.” The least I can do is not grumble when I have to scrape my windshield. (Good)

Faraway family – I have several family members that I only see once or twice a year. Spending time with them pretty much cancels out all the things I rated as “bad.”

So if I total up, I find that I’m even – until I get to that family part. Then the “good” obliterates the “bad.” Which is kind of nice, when you think about it…

And now I’m off to have a snack – a nice crisp apple would hit the spot about now, I think…

Not long ago, I decided to try to use YouTube to promote my second book, “Meeting Darkness.” How to use a video to advertise a book? The mind boggles – or at least, mine did. At first.

Eventually, however, I decided on the idea of a slideshow – pictures from Chatham, MA (the inspiration for my fictional town of “Barcliff”) juxtaposed with excerpts from my book. All of it accompanied by my brother’s music. Thankfully, I have a brother who’s a professional composer, and he promised not to sue me for using his stuff… although I didn’t get that in writing… hmmm.

In any case, I was up in Chatham a few weeks ago for a book signing, and I took a bunch of pictures to go with certain excerpts from my book – my hope was that the viewer would fall in love with the area just as I have. This book may be a murder mystery, but it’s also a love letter to the Cape…

Fun bit of trivia: it was WINDY when I took a lot of the pictures, and I had to delete plenty that had stray locks of hair interfering with the image! Needless to say, I stopped caring about how I looked about 10 minutes in…

Cameos in the video include: my husband Jack, my brother’s house, the late Senator Paul Tsongas’ place, not one but two bars from which my husband “appropriated” glasses, my favorite place on earth, one wicked good bowl of “chowdah,” and some fairly realistic pictures of what commercial fishing is really like.

When we got home from the book signing trip, I put together a list of what pictures went with what excerpts, chose the music – and left the rest to my husband. He did an absolutely amazing job! See for yourself  -

YouTube Direkt

Apologies to my devoted-yet-miniscule readership. I haven’t been updating this blog for the simple reason that I haven’t been writing. Why, you ask? See if you can guess:

1. I broke both arms in a freak fencing accident.

2. I won the lottery and have only just returned from a round-the-world cruise.

3. I quit smoking and have been too much of a depressed loon to take on a big new endeavor.

If you guessed “3,” you’re right! Ding, ding, ding! Johnny, tell the lady what she’s won!

Incidentally, in addition to being a depressed loon, I’m also extremely vulnerable to “trigger” situations – and writing is the biggest for me. Pen in one hand, cigarette in the other – that’s always been my modus operandi. I’m like Pavlov’s dog - now I just need to reprogram my brain to do something other than smoke (or eat!) when I start to write…

I’ve gotten a new “writing chair,” de-smokified my office, steam cleaned the carpet and laundered the curtains, but I’m not quite feeling strong enough yet. (Last time I quit, I went back to smoking after 5 days because I tried to write and couldn’t). I’m getting there, though – today is Day 47, and I’m starting to really miss writing. So I’ll probably get back into it soon…

In the meantime, there’s lots of research to be done. In non-smoking environs, thankfully!

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I haven’t heard a word about Meeting Darkness yet. I don’t want to be a pest, so I’m not going to follow up with the agent for another month. I suppose all this enforced patience is good for my soul or something…)

Well, Meeting Darkness is done. Written, typed, proofread, edited (several times), and finalized.

And I just sent the full manuscript off to an agent (who’d read the first two chapters and said he’d be willing to look at the whole thing.) Now, it’s time for me to fret in earnest… What if he doesn’t like it? What if I never hear back from him? And so on…

I wrote in my last post that I was already starting to make notes for my third book, and so I am.

But I’m taking the day off tomorrow (and not setting the alarm for a change). And tonight, I’m planning to catch up on all the mindless reality TV my writing/typing/editing schedule hasn’t allowed for lately. Vegging on the couch, a cat in my lap, a glass of good wine on the coffee table, my husband in his big comfy chair…

I’ll start writing again soon, but for now, that sounds like absolute heaven.

Cheers!

So what have I been up to lately? Why have I forsaken all 3 of my regular blog readers?

Well, there are two reasons, actually.

Reason #1: I’ve been typing like mad to key in the finished manuscript of my second book, Meeting Darkness (did I mention that I’d settled on a title? And I like it!). There’s an agent who’s willing to look at the full manuscript, and I don’t want to keep him waiting. Unfortunately, I write longhand, so nothing’s been typed in yet – hence the long absence from posting to my blog.  (The upcoming holiday weekend looks to be a typing fest – carpal tunnel, here I come!) It may prove to be fruitless – but at least I’ll have a typewritten manuscript at the end of it.

Two: I’ve started making notes for my third book, believe it or not (and sometimes even I don’t). I want to read in the evening, but I find my hand keeps straying to my notebook. Who’s the killer, who’s the victim, what are the clues, what’s the motive… I can see the birth of a new obsession even now.

My third book, God help me. And I haven’t even finished typing my second…

According to Stephen King, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Ernest Hemingway used almost no adverbs. In fact, scores of English professors have noted that adverbs are a sure sign of lazy writing.

Oops.

I use them, I admit. Use them too much, probably. I often find there’s no better way to inject a bit of color into a character’s action than to add a nice juicy adverb. The writing guides (as well as Mr. King and those English professors) advise against it, of course. They suggest that a writer should always substitute a stronger verb for a weaker-verb-plus-adverb combo.

But I have to ask: is “So-and-so simpered” always better than “So-and-so said sweetly”? I think the answer is simple: sometimes yes, sometimes no. When I reach the editing phase of my book, I plan to look at every single adverb and see if I can replace it with a stronger verb. But in some cases, I’ll leave things as they are.

To me, adverbs are like the directions screenwriters must put in their scripts to tell actors how to say a certain line. I tend to write like I’m talking, and I want my readers to feel like they’re eavedropping on people’s conversations. And so, I believe, adverbs have their place.

After all, JK Rowling uses loads of adverbs in her Harry Potter books – and she’s the richest woman in England.

Seriously.

I’m not finished my first draft yet (still writing it – yes, in longhand – feel free to chortle at will), but I just reached the 2/3 mark. I know the time is fast approaching when I’ll need to key everything into Word, which begs the question: what will I do about those pesky grammar questions?

For example: sometimes I write “two o’clock in the afternoon,” sometimes “2:00pm,” and sometimes “2pm.” Which is correct? “Toward” vs “towards” gives me fits, as does “into” vs “in to.” And punctuation within a phrase (when a character thinks something to him- or herself)? Don’t get me started.

It’s all quite humbling. I pride myself on good grammar and excellent spelling. (It makes me crazy when I see “affect” and “effect” confused in a presentation at work.) But with a 300-page manuscript, there are ample opportunities for mistakes. Mistakes that could make my final book look unprofessional at best and downright sloppy at worst.

But I won’t be doing it alone, that’s one comfort. Thank God for my eagle-eyed copy editor!

Recently, I visited the 5th and 6th grade classes at the school where my mother-in-law teaches. The purpose? For me to talk to the kids about writing – specifically, the importance of revision. The result? A lesson for me about the importance of persistence.

It started innocuously enough. The 5th grade class dutifully raised their hands (ah, Catholic school – plaid uniforms and knee socks – it all came rushing back!) and asked me questions about Meeting Murder. Why had I chosen to write a mystery? Where did I get my ideas? How did I think up names for the characters?

As I answered, I was afraid a silence would fall – how could I engage a roomful of tweens on the subject of writing, of all things? As it turns out, very easily. All I needed to do was ask who had read the Harry Potter series (all of them) and who had read the Twilight series (all of the girls).

After a brief detour to discuss the relative hotness of Robert Pattinson and Daniel Radcliffe, I told the kids why I think JK Rowling is the far superior writer – excellent dialogue, fully realized characters, intricate plots, and terrific pacing.

Eventually, the conversation turned back to Meeting Murder. I passed around one of my notebooks containing part of a handwritten early draft, which I hoped would make an impression on the students. (Shout-out to my husband Jack for the idea – thanks Jack!)

Well, I know it made an impression on at least one boy. He flipped through the many pages of crossed-out, arrow-filled, insert-laden handwriting, and announced in a horrified voice that there were “too many words!”

(That was one of my favorite comments of the day. My absolute favorite, though, came from another boy who asked me “Are you famous?” To which I optimistically replied “Not yet.”)

Then the kids started asking me questions about my current book. Do I work on it all the time? Well, most nights, I answered – not being famous yet, I still have to go to my regular job every day. How long will it take? It should be done before Christmas, I said. I’m shooting for a completed first draft by the third week of July, then allowing another few months for rewrites, then several more weeks for a final polish.

Which is where my lesson comes in.  Why am I doing this? My first book isn’t exactly a bestseller (yet!) In fact, my latest royalty report shows that I sold exactly 6 copies in February.

And yet, I keep going. Stubbornness and refusal to face reality? Perhaps… but I prefer the reasoning I offered to one of the 6th graders: once you know what you love to do, you’ve got to keep doing it.

I’ve always been an eat-your-vegetables kind of girl (well, perhaps not vegetables – hate them, and I rebelled against them even as a child – but you know what I mean.) That’s how I’ve been as I write this book – I’m writing it linearly, as the reader will experience the story, trusting the end will work itself out.

Problem is: I’m not quite sure how the book will end myself.

Now that I’m halfway through, it’s time to start plotting my end-game. Which has meant departing from my usual routine of trying to write at least two scenes during the week and focusing instead on the big picture – all the way up to the ending. I’m making lots of notes, but not writing any scenes per se.

I’ve known where the story needs to go for a while now, but as I said, I just haven’t known exactly how to get there. Giving myself the week “off” from writing has proven to be incredibly freeing – and instructive. What if this person does that? What if that person says this? The developments have been a bit surprising, to be honest – the story has taken at least one turn that I never planned on – but the changes all make sense.

And hopefully, make a better book…

It’s enough to make me want to buy a Tastykake Chocolate Junior from the vending machine at work and skip my spinach salad lunch entirely.

Here’s my routine: I work every weekday, leaving my house at around 7:15am, usually getting home 11 or 12 hours later. After a hasty dinner and a few chores, I go up to my office to write for an hour or two before falling into bed and doing the same thing the next day. On weekends, I try to keep my household running by doing more chores and errands, and I try to have a bit of a life too.

I’ve got a writing schedule to adhere to, a self-imposed deadline (like I don’t get enough of those at work!) that keeps my nose to the grindstone. I have to keep going, every chance I get. Have to get this first draft finished. I don’t want to lose momentum…

But sometimes, I fear I’m rushing. Writing too fast, not laboring over every word and phrase, every nuance and cadence the way I should. Basically, I’ve become a slave to my page count.

I keep telling myself I’ll have a chance to fix all the awkward patches once I get the first draft written and enter the rewrite stage, and that thought makes me optimistic.

After all, the Hare didn’t get a chance to run the race over, now, did he?