Anticipating the End

December 24, 2014 / Lisa / 5 Comments

I love the tingly sense that the end of a story is near. You can see it out there on the horizon, so close, but not ready to be touched just yet. You know it’s creeping in, but you can’t look at it directly or it will dissipate like fog, gone forever.

And since it’s Christmas Eve I’ll use that analogy – it’s like being a little kid again, sitting near the tree with its lights and decorations, grasping that nutcracker and thinking, tonight the magic will happen and he will turn into a prince.

Hands hovering, fingers near the keyboard, or lightly holding the pen, breath almost held, knowing the words are almost here, almost free.

Of course the downside of that anticipation is the fact that soon, the gifts will all be open. The end of the story will be written and all that’s left to anticipate is the long slog of revising and the business end of getting the book out there.

But for right now, the story is still just mine, still magical, still unknown.

And oh so close.

Potential piece of cover for book #3, Ghost Roads

Branding

November 6, 2013 / Lisa / 3 Comments

I have to say I’m struggling with this concept of a brand, as it relates to marketing books and authors. I attended a conference this past week, and in one panel, Whitney Keyes (a very nice lady and author of Propel) said that a brand is not a logo.

That made sense. Up until that moment that’s exactly what I thought a brand was. As in branding a cow. In the two books I have out, there’s a cougar paw print. I’ve used that as my mark, so to speak, and plan on having it in each book. I thought of that as a way to easily identify the series, by having that mark on the spine. A brand, right?

Apparently not. It seems a brand is actually more like a theme, if I’m understanding correctly. How do I want to be perceived, how do I want the books to be perceived. A suggestion was made to think about how you describe yourself as a writer, and pull the key words from that, which then gives you an idea of what your brand can be. I haven’t been able to do that.

This evening a friend and I had a great visit, and during that we talked about an author we both like. Elly Griffiths and her Ruth Galloway series. One of the things I said was that the author has such a sense of place. And I realized that place, land, setting, is vital to me as a reader. It’s also something I’ve always wanted to be able to do as a writer. I want to be able to sink into a place so completely, that the mountains and rivers and forests come alive in the imagination.

That’s the kind of writer I want to be known as. One who has that sense of place, one who can connect a reader to the mountains, through a story. I don’t think I’ve reached that place, but that is what I would strive to be.

I have a vague sense that somewhere in that is a brand. I just haven’t been able to pull it out yet. Until it does, I will have to stick with the cougar print.

How do you perceive brand vs. logo? What would you consider your brand, your sense of self to be?

1975

August 22, 2013August 23, 2013 / Lisa / 6 Comments

In 1975 I was fifteen. Watergate was current news. The Weather Underground was also making news. Charlie Chaplin was knighted. It was the time of the Convoy of Tears, for those familiar with Vietnam. In music, Glen Campbell was singing Rhinestone Cowboy and I sang When Will I Be Loved along with Linda Ronstadt. My husband, out there in the world unbeknownst to me, was thirteen, which is just really weird to think about. I think I had a crush on a senior at the time. Definitely was not interested in thirteen year old boys.

And I bought a new release book for seventy-five cents. Crocodile on the Sandbank.

That book started a love affair with mysteries, and is probably why I write mysteries. For thirty-eight years I have been reading books by Elizabeth Peters. And books written under her pseudonym, Barbara Michaels. And books under her real name, Barbara Mertz.

Thirty-eight years. Think about that a moment.

Can you imagine the amount of paper she, as a writer, accumulated? You writers will know exactly what I’m referring to. We collect scraps. Scribbled dialog overheard at the laundromat, bits of news that might make a good story some day, notes on writing craft, deleted scenes from drafts that might work in a different tale, and so on. And we always swear some day we’re going to organize all those pieces of paper.

What does that have to do with Elizabeth Peters? Well, she died recently, and it feels like losing a close friend. I have lived thirty-eight years within her imagination. Her words have sent me to places I have never physically been. She has inspired me and made me laugh. And I can’t imagine a future without the anticipation of a new Amelia Peabody or Vickie Bliss. And that made me wonder how her family was doing, and that got me thinking they are probably going through years and years of scraps of paper.

To her family, those scraps will be incomprehensible. I can hear them saying to each other ‘why did she keep that?’. I bet those scraps will make them shake their heads, cry, laugh, and grieve together. But only the writer who saved the snippet will understand the reason.

Someday my son will probably be found kneeling by boxes trying to figure out why in the world his mother kept a list of true things police officers have said to people they pull over (I might have a character in that situation some day), or a very tattered book called 2000 Baby Names (character names). Or maybe the book on how people lived in the 1800s (I think I have a western story in me some where).

I am willing to bet Elizabeth Peter’s family decides to hold on to some of those scraps.

Because even if the reason is unknown, they will still understand that words were of value to the writer.

Rest in Peace, Elizabeth, surrounded by stories.

Lisa Stowe – The Story River Blog

Writing, Editing, Reading and Words in General

mysteries

Anticipating the End

Branding

1975

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