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Mystery Writer, Laurie R. King Laurie was kind enough to allow me to interview her about her writing experience over the last 15 years and below are the results of that interview. Q. What is the process you go through to assure yourself you have hit your mark in your story? Do you lean heavily on your editor, husband or is it a group? Who's your muse? Who keeps you going? A. I'm rarely sure that I've hit my mark, but when I've written something and can't think of any ways to improve it, that's how it stands. I never show a piece to anyone until the first draft is finished, since that feels too much like painting with an audience looking over my shoulder making suggestions. Once I've reached the end, even though the book is far from a finished product, it feels less vulnerable to intrusion, and I pass it out for comment. First drafts I often don't give to anyone, since they're sometimes so fragmentary as to be unreadable. If my editor wants to see it, I will give it to her, since I trust her to know me and my work well enough not to freak at the mess in front of her. Most of the time, I put everyone off until I've cleaned up the first draft and the thing makes some kind of sense. Q. Did you ever start writing a book and stop in the middle? Are there any great Kate Martinelli wannabees in your file cabinet? Or should I ask how many? Do you find that you can go back to a story and write it better? Do you get back to them? A. I do have one I've been working on for a while, a futuristic novel, that I take out and polish every so often, but once the book is in the hands of the typesetters, I let it go. If I see a wince-making passage in the finished book, I will sometimes ask the publishers to change it in their next edition. However, because of production costs I only do that if there's something that's either flat out wrong or incomprehensible, not just that the style offends me. But no, I have no unfinished manuscripts festering in a drawer. Too compulsive, I guess. Q. Have you ever thought of writing in any other type of genre? Is there an alias already out on the shelves? A. As I said, the futuristic novel, which I'm talking to my editor about currently. Q. What was the seed that started each one of your series? Were you in a restaurant and watched someone open a bottle of Martinelli wine? Did you think, Martinelli, what a great character name? What triggered you? A. It's possible that Martinelli apple juice gave me Kate's name,
but I wasn't aware of the connection (it's a local company). I just needed
an Italian-sounding name. Q. How do you research for the historical Mary Russell series? What libraries do you use or online sources? Are there any particular books you find helpful? How long do you usually research a story? A. Research tends to be of two sorts, whether it's historical for a Russell, police procedural for a Martinelli, or any of a hundred varieties for the stand-alones. The early stages are very general, wandering around the time and the place to see what catches my mind's eye, what attaches to the themes and settings I've already got in mind for the book, that sort of thing. With the historicals, I'm trying to get a sense of the time, so I read a lot of memoirs, page through the various Twenties magazines I've bought over the years, that kind of thing. Then later, when I've written the first draft (or, more rarely, as I'm writing it) I'll go hunting down some specific information, where I've noted that the story is thin, or something I'm not at all certain about. I wouldn't quite say that I write the book and then do the research, but at times, that's what it amounts to. Q. Are you a habitual person or slap hazard? Do you have a regular time of day when you write? Is there any particular pen that you use? A particular place or chair you like to sit in? A. I generally write in the mornings when my brain has woken, continuing on to the afternoon depending on whether there's food in the cupboards or the cats need to go to the vets. I generally write in my study, sitting with my feet up on a day bed and my oversized artist's clipboard on my lap. I used to write there with a pad and a fountain pen, now I've shifted to a small laptop, but I go back to the pen sometimes. Q. What is the hardest thing you have had to reach for in your experience as a writer? What was in your way of getting the job done? A. Faith. That I could finish the book, that the thing wasn't an utter pile of crap, that the words as they stood were adequate, that if I just kept plugging I'd have a book-sized manuscript and not a brief (and unsaleable) novella. My head gets in the way, all the time, the critic on my shoulder. I remember a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, when he described the blank canvas staring at him and saying, "You know nothing." Yeah, I know that feeling. Q. I remember when my children where toddlers and how difficult it was just to get a shower. How did you manage to write a book, the Beekeeper's Apprentice, with a four year old in the house? Did you have live in help? A sister? When does your excellent mothering/time management book come out? A. I was terribly fortunate to have next-door grandparents and a hands-on father for a husband. And I didn't start writing until the kids were in school at least part time. I am also fortunate to be a fast writer, or at least I was then, who could also work all the hours given her. If I had ten hours to myself in a day, that's how much I wrote, which adds up to six or eight thousand words in a day. But no, I had no help. Still don't, which explains the state of my floors this morning, three days after the Thanksgiving crowd left.... Q. How in step with the 1920's attitudes is Mary Russell? When she demands her rights to try new things like flying, how did you come to put that in your story? Did this arise from some actual figure in history, a relative perhaps? A. Well, I did have a grandmother who took off into the wilds
of Mexico with a girlfriend in 1910, driving a Model T Ford, camping equipment
strapped to the running boards and snake-proof boots on their feet. But
actually, when you begin to look into the period, it's astonishing how
radical were the beliefs and life-styles of some of them, particularly
the Q. One of your characters in Folly is a fellow who works for an underground railroad for battered women. Recently, the Mercury News printed an article that sited a group similar to the one in your story. When you wrote Folly, did you know about this group at the time? How did or does this affect you? A. There are a number of groups like this, more or less organized. I deliberately avoided reference to any of them in the book, other than one run by Faye Yaeger, disbanded because of her excessive commitment to publicity. When a system doesn't work--and our means of protecting children from abusive situations often does not--intelligent people will find a way to circumvent it. Q. Choosing to write a story about a lesbian woman is very controversial. Strictly speaking this action could limit book sales for the Martinelli series. Treating that character as fairly as you do is courageous, and I wish it was required reading for those people who have little respect for homosexuality. What motivated you to give your character this sexual orientation? A. As with most of my main characters, their makeup is less a matter of deliberation than an unconscious awareness of how they look. They more or less introduce themselves. So as I say, Kate Martinelli just (ahem) "came out" that way. Q. Did you say anything to the publishers who rejected your first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, after it became accepted? Are you somewhat exonerated now that The Beekeeper's Apprentice is so hugely successful? A. Actually, the publishers who took the book was one of the houses that had rejected it when I first sent it around, before I had an agent, before I had a contract for Grave Talent. So you can be sure I didn't say too many rude things to them. Sure, "I told you so" is a warming phrase, but only when said internally. Q. How do you feel about the business side of writing? Do you have problems negotiating? A. Any negotiations are carried on by my agent. Naturally, we agree beforehand on what I'm looking for--which books the contract is for, how much--but she does the hard stuff. And if I have any requests or complaints, generally she's the one to voice them. So far, I haven't had any real fights over contracts, but if I did, it would enable my editor and me to carry on in our working partnership, since any mud-slinging had been done between them, not me. But as I say, so far no mud has needed to be slung. Because I've always tried to go along with their requests, and because I've always made it very clear how much I appreciate everything they do to make the books stronger and to sell them well, I have a reputation of being reasonable and cooperative. Which means that when I do ask for something, it's usually granted. Q. What are some of your horror stories or do you have any book tour tales about those adoring fans? Someone try to steal your pen, cut a clip of your hair? Tell us the details? A. Adoring fans who drag themselves out of their sick beds to come and lean across the table at a signing and cough in my face and shake my hand are always top on my list. Nothing I love more than coming down with a cold halfway through a tour. As for tours themselves, I recommend having a teenager or two waiting for you when you get home, to remind you that you forgot to buy enough milk or laundry soap, to prick that inflated ego you get by having an escort holding your hand from airport to hotel, and facing rooms full of strangers hanging on your every godlike word. Q. Can you add anything more to the business part of writing? A. Only that I wouldn't recommend writing as a career to anyone who frets themselves into ulcers by hugely irregular paychecks. Q. Other Authors say "Write what you know" yet your books are based totally on fictional lives that you personally have had no experience with. Have you ever thought you might have had a past life as a crime reporter, or detective or maybe a criminal? Could you be tapping into your previous life experience? A. Er, no. Q. I saw on your website that you chose mystery because you are "sending your characters off on the modern equivalent of a holy quest, a search for truth and righteousness, a reassertion of the order that exists in the universe." How does it feel now that the writing quest that you embarked on in 1987 is reaching over 2 million readers and 16 languages? How has that success changed you? A. I'm far too busy to participate in interviews now. I'm having one of my six secretaries do this one for me. And my daughter signs all my books. And I have a butler to answer the phone. Yeah, right. A lot of those numbers are due to sheer persistence, publishing a dozen books in ten years. I'm not a writer who automatically hits the NY Times list, I still have to work for my audience. Which means that I'm still edgy about it, still think with each book, Maybe it won't work this time. Maybe the reviewers will hate it, people will stay away. Probably even if I did hit the Times list, I'd feel the same way--I'm neither Jewish nor Catholic, but feel the burdens of both. Q. What is your favorite quote? A. About me? Probably the one by the eminent philosopher Richard Rorty in the journal Common Knowledge, where he exhorts people to "Be the first on your block to join the cult that is about to develop around Laurie R. King." Q. What advice would you give to new writers? A. Keep writing. And read. Then read, and write again. I had three
books on the shelf before I sold one. It terribly impresses people that
you can come out with two books in a year, when actually they were already
written. If you would like to learn more about Laurie R. King check out her website
at http://laurierking.com/ Any of these, or any titles on the Books page, can be ordered siged from
Crossroads Books in Watsonville, California, If you would like to write to Laurie King in person, she invites you to send her a letter via "snail mail" at: PO Box 1152, Freedom, CA 95019. She picks up her mail about once a week, and is more than happy to correspond. |
Laurie
R. King (pictured left) is a mystery writer I heard speak at a California
Writer's club meeting. She has published over fourteen novels and has
two very different mystery series, the Mary Russell series and the Kate
Martinelli novels and several stand-alones. I became sold on Laura's writing
style after the first pages of her book, Grave Talent. My "Oooh,
Good" sense kicked in and I felt warm and happy just knowing I had
hit a good read.