Category Archives: writing

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

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I recently read an article that claimed that people who worked at home were more efficient.  Apparently studies suggest workers waste a lot of time socializing with co-workers.

Well, maybe. As someone who works at home (a writer !) I am not so sure that article is correct. When I write early in the morning, I am uninterrupted. Later in the day, interruptions come fast and furious – anything from phone calls to mail to my husband. And I have found the interruptions even more constant with the beginning of the holidays.

We had 16 guests for a total of 18 people; 9 adults and 9 kids. (I won’t describe the ruin of my basement.) Prep and purchasing Christmas presents for family members who won’t be with us for that occasion, have absorbed at least a month.

Some of the dinner conversation concerned shopping on Thanksgiving itself, whether the store should open or not. Pretty much everyone agreed that it was terrible and no one planned to shop. They couldn’t anyway, since they were at my house, and the final guest left at 9:30 pm.

That sparked my interest in Thanksgiving. I mean, everyone knows the story about the Pilgrims and the Indians who came to the first Thanksgiving. I always believed this holiday continued on in an unbroken line since 1621. Well, not so much.  Until the time of Lincoln, Thanksgiving’s date varied depending upon the state. And some states did not observe it at all. The final Thursday in November did not become the usual date until the 1800’s. President Lincoln declared by proclamation that all states should observe Thanksgiving on the same date in 1863.  Since this was during the Civil War, I would guess many of the Southern states elected not to comply.

Anyway, during the later third of the 19th century, the final Thursday in November became Thanksgiving. Ah, but we celebrate it the fourth Thursday. Yes, we do. Franklin Roosevelt changed the date in 1941 in an effort to give the economy a boost. He thought the extra time before Christmas might give people more time to shop.

I wonder what he would think of this most recent change.

ALA in Chicago

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As a lifelong librarian, I have gone to more conferences than I can count. Mostly local (Library Association of Rockland County, New York Library Association, and occasionally a national conference. I would have wanted to go to New Orleans but I’ve never made it. Not yet anyway, but I hope to one day.

This year, though, the conference was in Chicago. What an interesting city!

McCormick Conference Center

My usual plan is to take a few workshops and hit the exhibits. Always the exhibits.

In Exhibit hall

And now that I am a published author, I do writing stuff.

panel discussion

I look like I’m sleeping but I’m not. Really. I was on a panel with Charles Finch, Julia Keller,T heresa Schwegel and Tasha Alexander. All very talented writers. After the panel discussion, we signed books. I met a fan, one of the great thrills of my life.

SINC booth

I signed three and a half cartons of books at the Sisters in Crime Booth. I am seated with Libby Hellman here.

Any downsides? Well, I didn’t get to stay in Chicago as long as I would have liked. And now I plan to reread the Harry Dresdens. As I traveled around Chicago, I kept looking for a likely building that would house Harry’s apartment (destroyed in one of the newer Books – Ghost Story I think.) I also believe the McCormick Center was featured in one of the more recent works. I want to find out, now that I’ve been here.

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Although no one has actually asked me where I get my ideas, I have gotten plenty of other questions along those lines. The thing is, because writing is so individual, and so unconscious, it is pretty hard to answer any of these questions at all satisfactorily.

The ideas just pop into my head. I don’t know it it’s because of something I’ve read or what. Sometimes, the idea is fully formed. Other times, I need to massage it into something workable.

Then, because I don’t outline, I write scene by scene. Does this mean I have to go back and rework until I’m heartily sick of the entire work? Yes. But, by not outlining, I allow my characters to find their own space. Sometimes, as with Lydia, they become something different than I had intended. They take over, in effect.

Other times, the characters only become fully formed after I’ve rewritten them three or four times.

Although I think the writer who said, and I’m paraphrasing, that writing is easy; you just sit down and open a vein, was definitely overstating the case, it is true that it can be a much more difficult job than anyone would believe. I must have reread A Simple Murder at least 25 times – and that’s after I thought I’d finished it.

One definitely has to be addicted to writing to be able to continue it, especially in the face of rejection.!