New WIPs keep things exciting!

Taking Maggie (from MAGGIE RISING, my current Work in Progress) to the Butte County Jail last week got her rolling faster than ever. The ideas are flowing for the book I'm calling "not your typical reluctant psychic turned detective meets reluctant ghost turned witness story." I couldn't be happier with the progress.

Meanwhile Marcie Carmody is reappearing after some eleven years away in RETURN TO RAINBOW ROCK and that book is practically writing itself. Then, a couple of nights ago, when the beginning of some uninvited virus was keeping me from sleeping well, I thought through the whole plot for a sequel to Marcie's book. Who knows? There could be a whole new Rainbow Rock series!

Occasionally when I've done presentations to writing classes or library groups, people have asked, "You're a writer? Where do you get your ideas?" It's a question that baffles all the writers I know.

We may wonder how someone knows to wear X color with Y (a combination that looks terrific, but we would never have thought of it) or how a person did that calculation so quickly in his head (many writers are number-challenged), but we have no trouble coming up with ideas. Maybe that's part of what makes us writers. The ideas are there. It's making the time to try to get to them all that poses a challenge.

Just now I'm trying to make more time to play with all my imaginary friends. It's the only way I know to quiet the demanding voices of characters who wish to become. Stay tuned to hear how it goes!


Susan's first eight books are available at Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=susan+aylworth, at Barnes & Noble, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/susan-aylworth?store=allproducts&keyword=susan+aylworth, at Smashwords, http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Susan+Aylworth, and many other online sites.

Spending the day in jail

My characters have taken me to some fascinating places: Florence, Italy; the top of Pico Espejo in Venezuela; the Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon. Last week a character in my new WIP took me to the Butte County Jail.

Captain Andy Duch, the jail commander, is a great guy I've met several times. When I called and told him I'm writing a novel that involves his jail, he was pleased to show me around. He invited Correctional Deputy Janice Young to accompany us, since he has never booked a woman.

What I learned was amazing, but mostly I learned there are all kinds of good reasons for staying on the right side of the law.

Of course my heroine, Maggie, is falsely accused, but it makes no difference to the people who do the booking. They don't even know what the charges are (or will be) for the people who come in. Every prisoner, no matter his or her alleged crime, is treated exactly the same.

It isn't pretty. The stuff you've heard about strip searches? All true--and necessary to try to keep dangerous contraband out of the facility. Deputies don't touch any more than needful, but there are ways . . .  Standing in the hallway, listening to the deputy describe how the patient is standing in front of the shower fully naked and vulnerable during an intense exam (mouth, between the toes, body orifices) made me feel pretty vulnerable myself. How can it not be demeaning?

During my visit, I learned a few fascinating facts:

1. Our county jail dresses inmates in 14 different colored jumpsuits. Deputies can tell in an instant that the woman in the dark green quilted one-piece is threatening suicide and know not to mix colors X and Y or Y and Z, identifying members of rival gangs.
2. Prisoners in single-cell housing (those considered most potentially dangerous) are inside their cells 23 hours out of every day. When they are allowed "yard time," they are out there totally alone except for guards.
3. Every prisoner is required to do a census check twice a day. The guard walks down the hallway between cells and calls last name. Using a "headboard," or registration sheet, she checks each name as the correct prisoner answers.
4. One of the major punishments to being in prison is the boredom--hours every day with little or nothing to do. Inmates may read (anything examined and approved by guards) and write (anything that can be produced in pencil) so long as they are not being disciplined. Under discipline, such privileges are removed.

One of the more chilling moments in my visit came when Deputy Young opened the heavy barred door to one single cell and pulled it shut, letting the CLANG ring through the hallway. "That's a pretty scary sound when you hear it behind you," she observed. I agreed. My character, Maggie, feels that way, too.

Most prisoners are cooperative once inside. "They just want to do their time and not have any trouble," Captain Duch told me. "We try not to hassle them and they try not to give us any reason to." It was heartening to see how he recognized several of the prisoners and spoke to them quite pleasantly, by name. With more than 600 at a time in his facility, that was pretty impressive.

It wasn't impressive enough, however, to make me want to stay. I'm just hoping my one tour was thorough enough that I won't need to go back there -- ever, ever again.

Susan's new Work-in-Progress is called MAGGIE RISING. Her first 8 books are available in digital form at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Kobo and other online sources.




 

Just Like Me -- Only Different

When people ask how I come up with different characters for multiple books, the anwer is always the same: I make them all just like me, only different.

I suspect it's the way most novelists work. The question "What if...?" motivates most fiction (as in "What if there were real vampires, only they were sexy and beautiful and one fell in love with a mortal he wanted to eat?" or "What if a futuristic central government used the old Roman style of putting down rebellion by taking the children from the tribute districts and requiring them to kill one another in an elaborate gladiatorial game?")

The natural spin-off question then becomes, "What would I do and how would I behave if I were that age and in that situation?" Of course it's an ideal "what if" situation, so Katniss is the perfect personality for an unwilling-volunteer gladiator and Bella is the ideal victim/love interest for Edward, but there remains some realistic motivation the author herself (or himself) would feel if he/she were that unreal person in that unreal situation ... if any of that makes sense.

Thus Meg (RIDE THE RAINBOW HOME, Book 1 in the Rainbow Rock series) is just like me in the sense that she was the principal's daughter in the small town high school where she spent her teens, but she is unlike me in some critical ways. While Golden Weddings run in my family (my parents were married 63 years), Meg is the daughter of a serial-marrying mother who has grown up afraid of commitment. Naturally the guy who attracts her comes from a family like mine.

Alexa (AT THE RAINBOW'S END, Book 2) is just like me in her ambition to be a writer. Unlike me, she put the career ambition ahead of her dreams of home and family--at least until she meets a man who is all about family. Sarah (DON'T PROMISE ME RAINBOWS, Book 3) is a turn on Alexa: she married young, had her dreams shattered, and is skittish about ever committing again, especially with cute, younger Chris.

Cretia (Book 4, A LITTLE NIGHT RAINBOW), took it one step farther: she married too young, suffered as a result, and has finally gained some independence when Max comes into her life. Eden, from Book 5 (A RAINBOW IN PARADISE) faces a different quandary. Although she considers herself "allergic" to marriage, it's all she wants when she meets Logan, who is unwilling to be part of a cross-cultural romance.

I came back closer to me when I wrote Angelica (Book 6, THE TROUBLE WITH RAINBOWS). The only child of parents old enough to be her grandparents, Angelica has grown up completely out of touch with her peers and misunderstood by them. It's only after he returns to town widowed, with two young children, that Joe ever gives the high school Ice Queen a second look. My reasons were different, but I was as shy and out of place as she.

So how do I write the heroes? They are the perfect pairs for the women I create which, of course, means that all of them have some of my husband in them--different, but the same. It's just how we roll.


The six Rainbow Rock books, as well as Susan's other novels, are all available in e-book format for Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers, at the Apple I-Store for Apple devices, and at Smashwords and other sites for home computers.

How do you describe a character in her own POV?

One of the tricky challenges when writing in first person is describing the Main Character (MC). There's the old device of having MC look in a mirror, but it is ... well ... old. So how do you pull it off when you want your reader to be able to see your MC, but you're in that character's point of view?

In MAGGIE RISING, a current Work-in-Progress, I used the technique of comparison. By having Maggie describe the client she is just meeting and tossing in comparisons to herself along the way, I hope to give the reader a fair sense of Maggie's appearance.

Here are the opening lines from the manuscript of MAGGIE RISING. I'd like to hear what you think.

            “So, are you really a psychic?”

The girl at the counter looked just like so many I’d seen since hanging out my shingle last summer. I wanted to answer, Hey, look: You came here because the sign says Psychic Readings. What do you expect? Instead, I gave her my wisest, most knowing smile while sizing her up.

She was somewhat shorter than my five-feet-eight, but most women are, and she was fuller than I am, especially through her surgically augmented chest. Her blonde wasn’t natural, either, though her roots weren’t as dark as my near-black curls. Even her coloring, like mine, was more rubies-and-ivory than peaches-and-cream. The rest was easy: sorority chick; more money than brains, all of it Daddy’s; party girl looking for a thrill and probably trying to figure out whether Jason (or Fred or that guy from the fraternity mixer last night) was worth giving it all up for.

.

By the time a reader gets this far into the manuscript, I'm hoping she will have a pretty good idea of not only Maggie's appearance, but also what she does for a living, how she feels about it, as well as something of her voice and attitudes. The question now is: Does it work for you?

Susan Aylworth's books are available for digital download. Find them at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=susan+aylworth or http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=susan+aylworth.

Getting the end right

If you're a writer (or if you've ever written), you can probably appreciate the opening scene from "Romancing the Stone" where the author cries as she composes the final lines of her book. One sure clue that you've got the end "right" is that emotional surge, usually resulting in a tear and a sniffle, that says you're finally there.
By contrast the stories with incomplete or poor resolutions leave you feeling unsatisfied, like you want to go back to the manuscript and read it again hoping it might turn out right the second time.
I don't want to give away the endings of my novels by citing samples here, but I will show the end of a scene that I particularly liked. This comes from the conclusion of Chapter 1 in AT THE RAINBOW'S END, second book in the Rainbow Rock series. Alexa was on her way to Burbank to interview for a position as a screenwriter when her car broke down. She missed her opportunity and has just learned it will be several weeks before the studio can interview her again. Kurt McAllister is speaking as this scene begins:

"I own a business and we could use some help around the place—simple things, like answering phones and such. Since you're going to be looking for a job anyway, why don't you just stick around here until it's time to head for Burbank? Mom will enjoy your company out at the farm and I can use your help around the shop. What do you think?"

"What kind of shop?" Alexa asked, still wary.

"Rainbow Productions. My sister-in-law and I make instructional videotapes and documentaries."

Alexa smiled. To Kurt, it looked like dawn rising over the desert. "Really? You make movies out of Holbrook, Arizona?"

"Well, yeah." Kurt decided to play his trump card. "You're in movies too, aren't you?" She nodded. "You're an actress?"

Alexa felt her breath catch in her throat, then let it out in a surprised giggle. "Me? Acting? I'm scared to death of cameras!"

"Then..." The unspoken question sat between his eyebrows.

"I'm a writer," she said, tipping up her chin. "With a little luck, by mid-June I'll be a screenwriter."

Kurt blessed the Fates as he smiled back at her. "Alexa," he announced, "we do have something to talk about."

AT THE RAINBOW'S END, together with the other Rainbow Rock books, is now an e-book, currently available for Kindle, Nook (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/at-the-rainbows-end-susan-aylworth/1001096240?ean=2940014532761), and every other type of e-reader or computer. Enjoy!