Our little escapes

Many readers tell me that a good book should help them escape. They're usually pretty vague after that, as if the word "escape" covers it.

It's up to our imagination to guess what so many people want to escape from: their troubles, their cares, monotony itself.

But then I realize that for the writer, it doesn't matter what each person wants to leave behind, only that they want to leave something behind. It's my job to make whatever is on the page more introspective and interesting than the personal problems a reader may have at the moment.

This, I think, is also the essence of Halloween. It's a night to throw-off the mundane, to be less serious, to discard the ordinary.

It seems a little morbid that so many of us want to enter another person's reality in order to gain respite from our own. Whenever we pick up a book, it offers the chance to trade our problems for another person's.

Fortunately for writers most people are willing to make this bargain.

Why spend time on taxes, bills, the dishes, or taking out the trash? No. People would much rather run from Michael Meyers, hunt vampires, or try to survive a zombie apocalypse. Scary stories can make hearts race and palms sweat. When was the last time household chores ignited our need to survive?

So to the goal of escapism, I raise a toast of Halloween cider. For if a good story helps us escape, then what is an author but an escape artist?

Unlike Harry Houdini, us authors don't have to chain ourselves up and get in our underpants to do our job. We can do it from the safety of our keyboard.

For the writer, then, there's a little escapism too.

You didn't think the readers had all the fun, did you?

Deadline: how an old enemy became a good friend

Deadline.

I've always hated that word.  It reminds me too much of words like "homework" and "chore."  You know, those really nasty concepts that could ruin entire weekends.

It took a long time for me to realize how important deadlines are.

Before I was published, back when I wrote only fiction, deadlines were a rather aloof topic.  People would ask when I would write a book or get a story out.  The truth was that I didn't know.  I always answered in vague timetables like "later" or "this year."

Finally, I got tired of my own procrastination and started working for a local newspaper.  That's where I learned how to write and how to write fast.

No longer could I tell someone "I'll write it later" or "this year."  Stories were due often a few hours after I interviewed someone.

At first, this terrified me.  I had always told myself that I could write a really good story if I were given more time.  I'll admit that sometimes that's true, but procrastination is never the answer.

In 2010, I pushed myself to the limit by signing up for what became a 22 part series for my newspaper.  I had always wanted to do a series, and I was thinking big--something that would really make me stick out.  I wanted to profile prominent Mainers for their success across the state.

This meant I would have to snag interviews with busy hard-to-reach people, write stories and turn them in well before my usual deadline.  My editor wanted it to be a front-page series, so there was no fudging the dates.  I agreed, and to this day, I surprised myself.



I took this picture in 2010 when I interviewed author and actress Victoria Rowell. It made the front page along with my story.  Everyone I knew was shocked that I got to meet her. In Maine, she's known from her roles in prime-time series like "Diagnosis Murder" and "Dumb and Dumber" with Jim Carey.



During that time, I interviewed people like Victoria Rowell from "The Young and the Restless,"  former Maine governor Angus King, UFC Fighters Marcus Davis and Tim Boetsch, and New York Times Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, among many others.

I churned the stories out as fast as I could because half my time was spent scheduling interviews, some of which never worked out.
  



But more importantly, I learned more about myself and what I could accomplish.  I just needed a deadline to do it.


Here's a pic of UFC fighter Tim "The Barbarian" Boetsch (right) in action.  Due to his training schedule, I wasn't able to meet Tim, but he spoke to me over an hour on the phone.   His UFC record is an impressive 16-4.  He knocked this opponent, Mike Patt, out in the first round at UFC 88.


I learned that there are too many stories that need attention.  As a writer, each one is a step in improving your craft.

Writing is a lot like lifting weights.  If you want to see results, you don't start working out the night before your big date.  You have to do it consistently over time.

Sometimes you won't lift that much.  Sometimes you might drop the weights.  But what matters is that you're doing it.  Only by lifting weights do you see results, and only by writing do you finish a story.

The thing I hated most--the deadline--helped me finally become a writer.  Now with more than 200 articles published in various newspapers and magazines, I've come to recognize the deadline as an ally in the continuous battle against procrastination.

If you need to organize your ideas, make a deadline. Nothing will light a fire like that.

If you want to write fiction every week, create a writers group.  Nothing will make you write more than sharing your work with others on a regular basis.

Only writing will make you a writer, and if you're anything like me, you need a deadline to make you write.

Influences & Inspirations

David Eddings gave me a gift every writer needs.  He made me love to read.

I discovered his Belgariad series in middle school at the height of that awkward teen age that most of us go through.  The pimples, the hormones, the timorous anxiety that someone, somewhere knew I was the biggest geek on the planet and would soon share that news with the whole world.  It wasn't a fun time.

My older sister brought me to the town library and insisted I pick out a book to read.  (Author's note:  It's the same library that has refused to let me read my own, now published book there.  Pretty sad.)

Her direction felt like torture.  Up until that point, I hated reading.  It was synonymous with homework.  Throughout my childhood, it had cut into my precious playtime, and I couldn't figure out what was so great about it.  Hadn't television replaced that old, quaint hobby yet?

I thumbed through the books looking for something--anything--that might be appealing.  That's when I saw it, Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.  The cover was only semi-appealing, but the book was about a boy under the protection of his aunt, Polgara, who was secretly the Queen of Sorcery.  Together, they lived on a quiet farm hiding from an evil god whose minions were, of course, about to find them.

I took the book home, and the characters bounced off the page.  I wasn't just reading anymore.  I was IN the story.  I was there as it happened.  I knew the characters personally and rooted for their safety.  I laughed out loud. I worried.  It was awesome.

I had written my own stories before, but Eddings helped me see what made a good tale even better.  I tore through the five-book Belgariad series and learned to appreciate good characters, quick pacing, and the scattered gems of human insight.  For the first time, I bought books for pleasure and read them in my spare time.  For the first time, they brought me joy.

That seed stayed with me as I continued working on my own writing and labored on my own now-shelved fantasy manuscript.

When I got a little older, I also started reading the local paper. I never thought much about news stories.  They were usually pretty bland, but one writer really stood out: Gerry Boyle.  He did a tri-weekly column about crime and justice, only he took those big topics and made them human.

For example, if someone had been caught drunk driving, he found out why, what had happened in that person's life up to that point and how they planned to overcome it.  He looked into what that person's family thought, and what the justice process was like.

He wrote about people at their most vulnerable and made the reader see how important the cogs in the law were.

He covered "daily justice" like why local cops became local cops, what it was like to be a judge.  He made the people involved characters, not just stereotypes.  The police blotter came alive, and he showed the real people involved from the prosecutors to the criminals.

Every column told a true story, but each was written with the same type of  details you'd find in fiction.

Years later, when I became  newspaper correspondent myself, I recalled Gerry Boyle's writing style and how much I enjoyed his work.  He showed me that short, true stories can be every bit as powerful as fiction, except they carry even more weight because they were actually happening in our local community.

Boyle is now a crime novelist with two mystery series under his belt, and I had the pleasure of interviewing him and thanking him for helping me to appreciate the newspaper.  His latest book, Damaged Goods, is out right now.

Many hands have encouraged my writing skill over the years, but these two men were writers who touched me through their words.  Although they were strangers, they offered me insight, encouragement and a little relief from the trials of life.

To this day, I want to do for others what these two men have done for me.