I’ve been chafing under the mystery genre for a while now.  Don’t get me wrong, I love mysteries.  Reading and writing them.  But lately I’ve had a hard time finding new authors because when I read the jacket blurb, they feel too formulaic.  In reading the short blurb I can tell exactly how the story is going to go and no longer feel the need to read the book.  That’s not true of all of course, just many.  It’s almost as if the mysteries out there these days are falling into the ‘Harlequin’ of the mystery genre.  You know, the author looks up the required template, changes the names and the book is written. 

I’m starting to wonder if that chafing feeling means it’s time to stretch as a writer and try something new.  The problem is, I can’t switch to a genre that I don’t read and am not familiar with.  At least that’s the common school of thought.  Plus, I still love mysteries, and anxiously await new ones from my favorite authors.  Which then begs the question, what is it about the formula mysteries that bugs me?

Something awful happens, the woman gets involved, a man shows up to help or hinder, becomes a romantic conflict, there’s a big drama where she almost dies, either saves herself or the guy saves her, and then she solves everything. 

If that’s the basic premise of most mysteries, and the basics are bugging me, then maybe the problem is not switching genres, but figuring out how to take some of those elements and turn them on their head.  Not a unique idea, I know.  Some of the best mystery writers do just that.  The problem for me is figuring out how to accomplish that, without copying someone else, and with still keeping the story uniquely mine. 

And doesn’t that boil down to the basic problem for all writers?  How to create a story that is original, unique, and alive, when there are only so many basic story structures out there?  I’m thinking in particular of the structure of The Hero’s Quest, which is where almost all mysteries get their underlying plot structure. 

Maybe the problem isn’t me getting bored with the mystery books out there.  Maybe it’s actually me getting bored with my writing.  Not with writing, but with my skill level.  Maybe that chafing feeling is actually the need to grow as a writer.

Mystery solved.

Was it Stephen King who said that those who sit in coffee shops and cafes with their laptops are those who want to be seen writing rather than actually writing?  I can’t remember who wrote that, but I remember laughing out loud.  Being fairly new to the taste of coffee, I have gone into these places and smiled inside (with a superior look, I’m sure) at those sitting with their laptops.  I’ve even felt that I can point out who is the writer and who is sitting there playing Mafia Wars (my husband).  One place had a young man with stylishly messy curls, those tiny little rectangle glasses, the carefully casual clothes, and boots that have never tasted dirt.  He looked so earnestly hard at work.   A writer struggling with his craft.  Yet I never saw his fingers touch the keyboard.  Not even once.  So I doubt he was writing, or even editing.  But he sure looked like a writer.

Now, with the advent of the Christmas laptop from the Mafia Wars husband, I have become one of those coffee-house writers.  The reason?  High speed internet.  We don’t have the internet at home, and locally it is still dial-up.  Which was fine with me, until my husband and son made it so easy for me to discover the joys of the real world.  I write a blog post, click  ‘publish’ and whoosh, it’s gone.  No waiting and waiting and waiting for it to download.  Of course that ‘whoosh’ means I have to be really sure I’m ready for the piece to disappear before I hit the send button.

I now sit in the local coffee shop with my laptop, and feel very self-conscious, very aware that others can look at me and think, ‘there’s a writer on display and not writing’.  But here’s something else I’ve discovered besides high-speed internet.  For some strange reason, it’s easy to write with the background noise of commerce.  I used to write with music, and still do.  I can write in absolute quiet, too.  Or at least I used to, until radiation changed my writing, as I’ve posted ad nauseam.  I’m still learning what works for me when it comes to writing, and clearly, I like that public noise.  I don’t think it will work for editing; for that I still need quiet and solitude.  But for writing a blog post that’s going to be public, a crowded coffee shop works.  Weird.

I’m sure all writers know the old adage that if you are blocked or struggling, to try a different writing location.  Move from the bedroom to the living room, from the office to the couch, from the laptop to the notebook, etc.  I guess that works. 

And just so you know, when I’m sitting there in front of the laptop and not writing, not touching the keyboards, it’s not because I’m wanting to be seen as a struggling writer.  It’s because I’m eavesdropping on all the conversations around me and saving up tidbits to appear later in stories.  As the other old adage goes, ‘Careful or you’ll end up in my novel.’

I remember many years ago talking about writing with my mother.   She very carefully suggested that I find a ‘backup plan’.  She didn’t say this in a cruel way, but in a very worried tone.  I proceeded to haul my notebooks and pens into the closet, where I kept writing in secret.  However, I carry inside a critic who looks and sounds exactly like my mother.  She sits behind me and whispers to me that writing is futile, my writing is terrible, and then she proceeds to drop a crushing weight labelled ‘why bother’ on top of me.

Most of the time, especially the last two years dealing with radiation fallout, I find it next to impossible to crawl out from under that critic.  But sometimes I manage to take a healthier view and realize that a writer can learn from that internal critic.  If you can find a way to take only what you need to improve your craft, and leave behind all the personal insults, that inner critic can become a strength rather than a debilitating voice.  But, man, that’s hard.  Very hard.

Which brings me to a good friend who shall remain nameless here.  She struggles with an inner critic who is at least the size of mine, if not larger and heavier.  This inner critic lately has been relentless, and the result is that a few days ago she told me, through tears, that she is walking away from writing.

Now, I’ve tried to do that, too.  And I know others who have.  Because writing is damn hard.  Those who don’t write probably don’t understand how hard it can be, but trust me, it is.  What usually happens is that you leave writing, and then over a space of time, days, weeks, months, a tiny little movement starts inside.  Words just stirring ever so slightly in there, like a tiny leaf floating and circling gently in a tiny track of water.  After more days, weeks, months, the leaf starts to swirl, the track of water becomes a stream, and is followed by the realization that the stories are there, and you can’t walk away because they go with you.

I’m hoping this abandonment of part of my friend’s soul is temporary, like it has been for other writers.  But she sounds pretty serious and the pain is so strong.  If she comes back to writing, it’s going to be a long, long time.  And during that vacuum of no words, the rest of us will have lost something because her writing is so strong and so powerful.  If only that inner critic of hers would shut up or die, if only she would believe me when I tell her that the critic is lying.

But for now, her river of stories has been so  flooded with tears that the words have sunk to the bottom.

If I could commit murder on those amorphous inner critics I would.  But for now I’m in mourning.