If you live or work near Chicagoland this coming weekend, and you want to be a writer, come on over!

I'm conducting a workshop to ignite your creativity and motivation.

Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010

Time: 10-11:30 a.m.

Place: Elgin Art Showcase, 164 Division Street, 8th Floor, Elgin, IL

Reason: I like to share. Plus, I'm in town for staged readings of my new play. More about that below.

Do you have a story to tell but don’t know how or where to begin?

Do you wish you could find time in your busy life to write?

Have you started a novel or other writing project and then lost your momentum?

Have you promised yourself that someday you’re going to write a book?

When? How?

Let me show you the way. I'm a novelist and playwright, and I know all about the forces that can keep you from writing . . . and how to defeat them.

My workshop will teach you how to launch, plan, and complete your writing project—no matter what.

If you long to express yourself in writing, I can help you make your creative dream come true.

My 90-minute workshop will get you past whatever hurdles are holding you back. Whether you lack ideas, experience, confidence or time, I offer the tools you need.

Bring a laptop computer or pen and paper—and your desire to write.

For more information, contact [email protected]

Check out the cool City of Elgin page. And as long as you're in town, you might as well stick around for the free staged reading of my latest play, On My Boyfriends' Bicycles. See the blog entry below for details about that. I'd really love to meet you.

For the first time in years, I recently returned to my play-writing roots and completed a brand-new full-length dramatic comedy.

I'm thrilled to report that On My Boyfriends' Bicycles will have not one but two staged readings in Chicagoland this summer. Director Richard Pahl, well known for his artful casting, has assembled an awesome troupe of professional players as well as a talented design team. I applaud the promotional postcard, pictured here.

Of course, I'll be in Elgin for the big event; I'll also teach a writing workshop while I'm in town.

I'll post more info here soon. In the meantime, get out there and ride your bike. It's officially spring at last!

Evening view from my office window: it's white and wet out there.

An unsual sight from my office window in Dallas

When invited to speak about the “magic of being an author,” I immediately considered the euphoria that accompanies being published: the enchantment of seeing your name in print, the heady power of creating a whole series of books in which characters grow, change, and even give birth. I thought about my own heroine Whiskey Mattimoe discovering she’s pregnant in her latest mystery, Whiskey with a Twist. A development I didn’t see coming. That's the real magic of being an author.

Sure, it’s thrilling to see your stories bound into books and translated into languages you can’t speak. But I wouldn’t call that magic. What mesmerizes me is the creative process, whether I’m working as a novelist or a playwright, hoping my words will come to life on a published page or a lighted stage. Trusting a higher power—Divine or otherwise—to work through me ignites an engine of creativity that I can neither explain nor take credit for. However, I do know how to conjure it.

For the magic to happen, I have to be engaged in my craft, committed whole-heartedly to a project. That might be a symptom of my stern Midwest-Swedish upbringing, a life of dark Lutheranism leavened only later by Saint Garrison Keillor. This writer was raised to work hard and take every day seriously. Although I now find that life makes sense only if we laugh about it, I still work hard.

My muse is no fairy godmother waving a wand above my idle brain as I await a story’s arrival. She’s more like a magician for hire, willing and able to produce amazing feats if I pay my own way. Do I want to “channel” voices and scenes? Then I must pony up some dedicated desk-time, actively immersing myself in the world of my fiction. For me, thinking or talking about writing isn’t writing. Neither is Googling, as productive as it may seem. For me, the way to invite the magic in is to roll up my sleeves and write, write, write.

But what about those times when I can’t write because the insights aren’t coming? My story is stuck. My characters are flat. Nothing short of magic will do. Here’s how I get some:

by writing without trying to write (drafting a scene just for fun, skipping to the end or the next “easy” part, interviewing characters, turning a story into a script or vice versa)
by reading earlier scenes aloud
by thumbing through my Idea Notebooks
by taking my draft to my critique group
by going for a long walk, swim, or bike ride
by washing my car in the rain (works every time)
by grabbing my man or my cat and dancing (dipping is required)

Those are my incantations. I may have to try more than one, but the magic will come.

Sometimes the magic appears before I know I’ll need it. I may dream a scene or a character so vivid that I add it at once to my notebook even though it has nothing to do with my current projects. My muse knows I’m working, so she rewards me. I like to think she pays it forward.

As I tune in to overheard pieces of conversation, posted signs, and bizarre situations, I write them down; if I mishear or misread, so much the better: Lapgevity, the sign in front of a business, looked to me like Largevity and spawned a brood of amusing notions. By recording my inspirations, I invite the magic and encourage my muse. The result is a stock of fiction fodder I can turn to whenever I’m stuck. As I thumb through fifteen years of notebooks, I’m amazed at how many notions I’ve morphed into fiction. If something stirs me enough to write it down, I’ve been touched by magic, illuminated by a spar

I'll admit that it took me awhile to find true beauty in Dallas. Finally I found it at the Arboretum, the Diamond of the Big D.


Below are a few photos I shot there last fall. The first one is my fave.

by Nina Wright

I’m as big a fan of online auctions as the next compulsive shopper. Way bigger than I should be, given the depressed economy and my modest advances to date. So imagine my delight when I discovered a secondary use for auction sites. One that costs me nothing except my time and offers limitless fictional inspiration. Although you can play this game at virtually any online auction site, it’s especially fun at bid4assets.com.

Here’s why: The U.S. Marshals Service offers an amazing, if not bizarre, array of articles for public auction: residential, commercial and agricultural real estate; timeshares; sport fishing vessels, aircraft, high-end vehicles and collector cars; artwork, antiques and collectibles; fine jewelry and financial instruments. Federal courts ordered these assets to be either forfeited or sold, so let the novelist’s fun begin!

Surfing the categories is diverting enough. Consider these samples from vehicles, antiques, and jewelry:
· A low-mileage black 2001 Chevrolet Corvette two-door convertible (minimum bid $11,000)
· A handmade knotted all-silk Oriental runner rug in excellent condition (minimum bid $800)
· A 7-carat Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet (minimum bid $300)

Fusing these elements into a single story premise, I imagined a young auburn-haired woman receiving the Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet from an older man with a mysterious past and dubious taste in jewelry; he collects Corvettes and inherited his late mother’s Oriental rug. Now what kind of trouble is he in with the Feds? Or, in my tale, did he murder his mother? Does he plan to murder the young woman? What’s his game?

My most efficient use of Bid4Assets is shopping for quirky character details. Let’s say I need a hobby for my antagonist. Or an unusual vehicle. Or, more exciting yet, a “prop” to launch the mystery or provide a valuable clue.

A random surf through Bid4Assets consistently yields intriguing possibilities. Imagine the criminal who would . . .

Drive this “old school” ’63 Chevy truck with camper trailer.

Or collect a “fine antique” Wagner Turbidimeter, manufactured circa 1925, which according to the post writer would be a “welcome addition to any museum, tech school, or industrial office.” (I must confess I had no idea what a turbidimeter was. But it's fun to pronounce.)

Or purchase a Pete Rose Gold Signature Series autographed baseball. Not just a signed souvenir, please note, but a GOLD signature on a dramatic BLACK leather ball. The perfect symbol of the dubious career of a flawed baseball hero. A “must have” for sports fans likewise inclined to bend the law.

But my favorite Bid4Assets story-starter this week is a replica of Jackie Kennedy’s Minaudier purse, gift from French President Charles De Gaulle in June 1961. That’s right, folks! With its dark red velour lining, push-open catch, and detachable 24kt gold-plated shoulder chain, it comes in the original gift box accompanied by a Camrose & Kross certificate of authenticity. Best of all, it’s “approved by the Jacqueline Kennedy Foundation.” I’m having too much fun imagining the person who prizes that item.

Enough surfing amid someone else's mistakes. It’s time to put these details to work in my mysteries. Any plot suggestions? What are your favorite online sources for fiction fodder?

by Nina Wright

I’m as big a fan of online auctions as the next compulsive shopper. Way bigger than I should be, given the depressed economy and my modest advances to date. So imagine my delight when I discovered a secondary use for auction sites. One that costs me nothing except my time and offers limitless fictional inspiration. Although you can play this game at virtually any online auction site, it’s especially fun at bid4assets.com.

Here’s why: The U.S. Marshals Service offers an amazing, if not bizarre, array of articles for public auction: residential, commercial and agricultural real estate; timeshares; sport fishing vessels, aircraft, high-end vehicles and collector cars; artwork, antiques and collectibles; fine jewelry and financial instruments. Federal courts ordered these assets to be either forfeited or sold, so let the novelist’s fun begin!

Surfing the categories is diverting enough. Consider these samples from vehicles, antiques, and jewelry:
· A low-mileage black 2001 Chevrolet Corvette two-door convertible (minimum bid $11,000)
· A handmade knotted all-silk Oriental runner rug in excellent condition (minimum bid $800)
· A 7-carat Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet (minimum bid $300)

Fusing these elements into a single story premise, I imagined a young auburn-haired woman receiving the Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet from an older man with dubious tastes in jewelry; he collects Corvettes and inherited his late mother’s Oriental rug. Now what kind of trouble is he in with the Feds? Or, in my tale, did he murder his mother? Does he plan to murder the young woman? What’s his game?

My most efficient use of Bid4Assets is shopping for quirky character details. Let’s say I need a hobby for my antagonist. Or an unusual vehicle. Or, more exciting yet, a “prop” to launch the mystery or provide a valuable clue.

A random surf through Bid4Assets consistently yields intriguing possibilities. Imagine the criminal who would drive this “old school” ’63 Chevy truck with camper trailer.

Or collect a “fine antique” Wagner Turbidimeter, manufactured circa 1925, which according to the post writer would be a “welcome addition to any museum, tech school, or industrial office.” (I must confess I had no idea what a turbidimeter was. But it's fun to pronounce.)

Or purchase a Pete Rose Gold Signature Series autographed baseball. Not just a signed souvenir, please note, but a GOLD signature on a dramatic BLACK leather ball. The perfect symbol of the dubious career of a flawed baseball hero. A “must have” for sports fans likewise inclined to bend the law.
But my favorite Bid4Assets story-starter this week is a replica of Jackie Kennedy’s Minaudier purse, gift from French President Charles De Gaulle in June 1961. That’s right, folks! With its dark red velour lining, push-open catch, and detachable 24kt gold-plated shoulder chain, it comes in the original gift box with a Camrose & Kross certificate of authenticity. Best of all, it’s “approved by the Jacqueline Kennedy Foundation.” I’m having too much fun imagining the person who prizes that item.

Enough surfing amid someone else's mistakes. It’s time to put these details to work in my own mysteries.

In the middle of the night on a mist-shrouded country road, Michael Starkwedder runs his car into a ditch. When he goes to the nearest house for help, he finds a murdered man in a wheelchair and a woman holding a smoking gun.

That's the opening scene of Agatha Christie’s classic play, The Unexpected Guest, adapted as a novel by Charles Osbourne. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that the action goes inside-out when Michael Starkwedder arrives.

Precisely what happens when unexpected guests appear on my pages. Even though I (attempt to) outline before drafting, characters I never saw coming invade my plays and novels. In response, I do the only thing I can: sit back and watch as they take over what I erroneously believed was my story.

Case in point:An Ann Arbor-based animal rights advocacy, Four Legs Good (a.k.a. Fleggers), blindsided me while I was drafting the second Whiskey Mattimoe mystery, Whiskey Straight Up. Founded by a veterinarian with a speech impediment and no sense of humor with humans, Fleggers has been shaping my plotlines ever since. Poor Whiskey still struggles with the term “anti-speciesist.” So do I.

Another case in point: A hunky Scot named MacArthur stunned me when he showed up in Chapter One of Whiskey and Water claiming to be a “cleaner.” His biz had nothing whatsoever to do with either yard work or maid service although he did pick up dog shit. You’d have to read the series to appreciate how much that pleased Whiskey. The cleaner revealed many talents, including a knack for erasing celebrity hijinks. And selling real estate. He's versatile enough to resurface in the book I’m writing now, Whiskey with a Twist. I wonder what he’ll do in this one.

That’s not a misspelling. Although music moves me as I write, so do visual images, including—yup—cartoons.

Now you know why I subscribe to the New Yorker magazine and have for almost 20 years. My office bulletin board is festooned with recent faves; I rotate them to suit moods and assignments. Current attractions include cartoons by Tom Cheney and P.C. Vey. Since I don't have permission to post them here, I'll (lamely) describe a couple that connect to my work.

You may think I like cartoons because I write mainly humorous stuff. But there’s more to it. I'm in awe of art forms that are at once succinct and insightful. While I, the novelist, trudge through tens of thousands of words to deliver my point, other artists perform their jobs with stunning concision. In that camp I include cartoonists, poets, short-story writers, songwriters, musicians, potters, painters, and photographers, not to mention comedians, floral designers, and chefs. We can appreciate their work in a single sitting, a glance, a gulp. And when it thrills us, we replay it. We view it from various angles. We chew slowly.

A cartoon, like any good picture, is worth a thousand words, and may require as many to describe. You can recount a cartoon to someone who can’t see it, but there’s no way you’ll match the artist's punch. It’s like describing a hedonistically delicious dessert or a brilliant comedic monologue. (Or, for that matter, great sex, but that's for another blog.) In short, you gotta be there.

But cartoonists face some of the same challenges that we novelists do. For instance, they must create a viable world. A favorite Tom Cheney toon features a Realtor showing a property with a gaping hole in the floor through which the cosmos is visible. The Realtor says, "Of course, the real charm of the place is that hole in the space-time continuum."

I write about fantastical phenomena and Realtors, though not always at the same time. Drafting my novel Sensitive, I took pains to vividly render my characters astral-projecting and talking with the dead. Since I had never done either, I had a license to imagine the experiences as well as an obligation to do enough research to get the details mostly right. When we spin suspense fiction, our series protagonists regularly bump up against violent death. Thus we must build a universe on the page that makes heinous crime both shocking and inevitable. Whiskey Mattimoe is a Realtor whose clients have a high probability of turning up dead. I enhance that probability by making Magnet Springs a resort town that attracts the rich and greedy.

Like all true artists, cartoonists make connections where none typically exists. They twist clichés and thwart expectations. And yet they make sense. If they don’t, we don’t "get it," and the cartoon fails. The same is true of the stories we tell on our own broad canvases. Our characters must be recognizable but completely fresh. Our endings must satisfy and surprise as solidly as a single-frame cartoon.

In closing, allow me to describe a toon by P.C. Vey: Two women are having tea. Next to the hostess is a cat wearing a Zorro mask. The hostess says, "I know it's illegal, but quite frankly we couldn't get by without the cash and jewelry he brings home every night."

Yeah, yeah, you gotta see it, and I did. And it started me drafting a new mystery series starring a woman who trains her Devon rex cat to steal. If you think that's impossible, you haven't seen this video or met my Devon rex, Flannery, who as far as I know steals only hearts. Still, Flan gets into enough trouble to make a genuine cat burgler seem plausible. At least in the world of art I can make.

by Nina Wright

<?xml:namespace prefix = o />As we conclude the holiday season, let's contemplate seasons in another light. Think of a particular novel or movie and ask yourself what time of year it takes place. Or, if the story sprawls across seasons, which ones are most significant, and why? Is time of year a mood-setter, a point of contrast or a catalyst? How conscious of season does the writer want the reader to be? To what end does the writer manipulate time of year?

In fiction the role of season ranges from texture to plot point to theme. Doctor Zhivago is first and foremost a story of place and time (and character), but the wintry elements are what many of us remember best, especially from the film. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, for all its hilarity, is about Thanksgiving: Steve Martin’s character wants only to be with his family while John Candy’s character has no family and nowhere to go. The Wizard of Oz depends on tornado season to provide a key plot element as well as the revelation that there's no place like home.

Season creates reader expectation. For instance, juvenile fiction set in summertime seems to promise a lack of structure and adult supervision. But exceptions abound, as I discovered while playing with notions for my teen novel Sensitive. There could be summer school or summer camp. Or a summer job. The point is that novelists can elect to follow or flout seasonal expectations. Oh, the possibilities inherent in, say, no teachers showing up for the first day of school...or a January that's warmer in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Montana than in Tennessee...or a Thanksgiving when our protagonist has nothing to feel thankful for....

Season is on my mind, and not just because I’m stuck in Ohio for the winter when I would rather be at least three climate zones to the south. I’m writing Whiskey with a Twist, the fifth book in what some might call a season-based mystery series, emphasis on humor. Each installment takes place during the next tourist event in or around a Lake Michigan resort town. It starts with leaf-peeping in Whiskey on the Rocks, moves on to a winter jamboree in Whiskey Straight Up and then the annual Miss Blossom pageant in Whiskey & Tonic, followed in Whiskey and Water by a rash of riptides. My novel in progress was inspired by my own experiences at a fall dog show in Lancaster, PA. Whiskey with a Twist features Afghan hounds amid the Indiana Amish. Add harvest season, and this fictioneer can’t type fast enough.

What role does season play in the novel you are writing or reading right now? Does the author comply with seasonal expectations or defy them? How does season impact character, plot and/or theme?

As I write this, a new year is opening before us. Whether the season is sunny, snowy or rainy where you are, I wish you a bright Aught-Eight.

Sensitive, the sequel to Homefree, follows sixteen-year-old Easter Hutton through her first weeks at the mysterious Fairless Grove Academy. The academy is the headquarters of Homefree, an agency dedicated to helping teens with paranormal abilities learn how to use their gifts. Easter discovers that in addition to her unusual talents for time travel, astral projection, and invisibility, she is a Sensitive—someone who can communicate with spirits.

Using her paranormal skills, Easter is called upon to settle a two-hundred-year-old misunderstanding while also dealing with her best friend’s mental breakdown, her own forbidden passions, and the whereabouts of her missing mother.

By Nina Wright

For three years I was glued to my chair writing one book after another on deadline. Six books, six sales. Very satisfying.

In recent months, however, my goals and my pace have changed. I’ve researched, contemplated, and started a half-dozen fiction projects unrelated to anything I’ve done before. Since I write for younger readers as well as adults, I’m continuously monitoring trends in several markets at the same time that I audition new ideas. Although the “market mindset” is necessary, I find it also potentially distracting and, worse, discouraging. Thus I’ve concluded that it’s time to stop obsessing over what sells and simply write from my heart.

Finding "the way in" is different every time. I vividly recall walking through a cemetery in Tecumseh, Michigan five years ago when I imagined a girl who saved a key from every apartment she lived in with her troubled, itinerant mother. At the time I was facing a move that seemed both inevitable and ill-advised. Notes for Homefree traveled with me and found their way into a draft that endured many revisions and submissions before it was published in 2006. The notion of the saved key survived but ended up a sidebar rather than the center of the story.

When I wrote Whiskey on the Rocks, the book that launched the Whiskey Mattimoe series, I was sharing my rural home with Lucille, a dog rescued in late pregnancy by my then-husband and me. Not remotely an Afghan hound, Lucille was a mutt with fast legs, a scary snarl and bafflingly high self-esteem. Like Abra, she had no apparent maternal instincts and a libido that wouldn't quit. She also had a propensity for chasing anything that promised misadventure. Given the slightest opening, Lucille would take off running full-tilt toward the nearest tavern, which lay on the other side of a vast soybean field. She'd ignore our calls for at least 24 hours before—I swear—she came home stinking of whiskey and cigarettes. I could never figure out what the bitch was up to. So my creativity kicked in. An old friend from college had an energetic Afghan hound; mentally I morphed the two dogs into one and added a healthy dash of imagination. The result was Abra.

What inspires me these days? Mostly, things that go wrong. Or could go wrong, or at least madly off course. Example: While I was grooming my father's cat, the feline kicked a wadded up paper toward me. It contained a confusing partial message written in a cramped hand; my father claimed he'd never seen the note before. Who wrote it, and why did the cat have it? That incident went straight into my notebook of potential story ideas. Since I’m inclined to use the most recent notions, I periodically review older entries to see whether any of those ignite sparks. When they do, it’s the lonely writer’s equivalent of Christmas.

Other ways in: Because I favor visual stimulation, once I get an idea working, I look for photos to feed it. Dozens of pictures of St. Augustine, Florida (for my teen books) and Afghan hounds (for the Whiskey books) fill my walls and computer files. My screensaver is always a slideshow related to my current projects.

Music provides another access point. Whiskey and Water, the fourth Whiskey Mattimoe mystery, was fueled by a Barenaked Ladies soundtrack. Imagining Whiskey’s first marriage set to those tunes made the writing not only easier but a helluva lot of fun. My close friends benefited, too; they got copies of BNL’s Greatest Hits.

Now and then I track my dreams, and whenever I do, something intriguing shows up. A Southern woman named Picket Pie came to me in my sleep. She explained that her name was short for Elizabeth Bye and promised she’d be back. Months later she appeared on the page as a leading character in my play Cherchez Dave Robicheaux.

All writers know that the way in is both simpler and more complicated than I make it sound here. I eavesdrop shamelessly; free-associate wildly; take lots of photos; go for long walks, swims, and bike rides; brainstorm exhaustive lists and alternate scenarios; and draft interviews, monologues, dialogues, and character bios. Sometimes I bounce ideas off friends. What’s your way in? The key, I think, is to get out there and in there and turn off your mental critic. Put another way: “Travel boldly, listen closely, and carry a bright light.”