Happy Easter and a case of brilliant marketing ...

In Norway Easter is about oranges, marzipan, snow - and crime novels. The oranges, snow and sweets are easy to understand - but what's with the crim novels, you may ask.
This article was published in Mystery Readers Journal - Scandinavian issue, in 2007.
The piece is about crime novels and Easter, but it's also about what brilliant marketing can do for a book - or in this case, for a genre.
Happy Easter everyone!
Natalie

Crime at Easter

by

Singh & Normann

Norwegian crime writers have something no other writers in any other country have. Something other crime writers envy us, and love when it happens to their (translated) work.

About two-three weeks before the Easter holidays, there’s a crime wave in Norway. And by that we don’t mean criminals run free. No, it’s the crime writer’s that run free – or at least their books. Every publisher will have at least one or two crime novels in the bookstores for this season; it’s tradition. In Norway, a crime novel is as much a part of the Easter Holidays as snow, Easter eggs and fluffy bunnies.

It’s been going on for 84 years!
What happened was that two university students, low on cash, got a bright idea. They wrote a crime novel about six students robbing a train on Holy Saturday.
Not really a very original or sensational plot, you ask? You’re right.
The brilliance was in the advertising:

On 24 March, 1923, the headline in Norway’s largest paper read: “The train to Bergen robbed tonight!” in large captions. The headline scared people all over the country, and family and friends called the police to enquire about their loved ones on the night train. The police directed their attention to the small print in the corner of the ad: written by Jonathan Jerv. The brother of one of the students was the head of the largest publishing house at the time, and he agreed to print a small numbers of books. The advertising was his idea. The book became a huge success.
From there it grew, and now it’s A Tradition.
Something crime writers, their publisher and crime lovers are very grateful for. For the crime writer it means better chances for your book to be noticed. You rarely have to fight the celebrity bio, the latest “Great Novel of the Year” and so on at Christmas. (Of course, you do have to compete with all the other crime novels). People want crime fiction.
So, if you’re to be published in Norwegian, ask your Norwegian publisher for the Easter season. Chances are, you’ll be well received.

The Plan ...

A writer's life is mostly behind a desk, staring at a computer,hammering away at moments of inspiration and lots of coffee. And even if my computer screen now turns pink whenever it feels like it, just to wake me up, the work can get tedious - okay, boring, if I don't do something to keep it fresh. So I like to give myself new challenges. It's good practice and it makes the writing more interesting. It's also great for ignoring witer's block, btw.
I'm starting a new book- the third in a series - and I want to do it in as short time as possible. I know I can write one of these books in five weeks, I've done it before.
Therefore April's challenge is this:  can I do a first draft in even shorter time than five weeks?
God knows.
I'm not obsessive about deadlines, but I find that my work takes on a better flow with a deadline looming in the horizon. There's nothing like panic to get the creative juices flowing ...
When I make one of these writing challenges for myself, it always means I have to plan. I never totally follow the Plan, but it keeps my head tidy to a certain point. I have the Plan under a clear plastic thingy my computer stands on, so that I can see where I am and what I have to do.
That's the idea, anyway.
To make this master plan I pull out my trusted copy of Elizabeth Georges Write Away. I first read it years ago when I was preparing for my ever first interview with a famous writer, and I was so nervous my hands were shaking all the way through the lunch and the interview. Elizabeth George couldn't have been nicer or easier to interview, but I was still nervous. Mostly because I was deeply impressed after reading the book several times. She plans her books in detail, and then she writes - following the plan. Wow.
I can't do that. I can plan and I can use the plan, but I need to throw it out the window if I want to.
So.
To prepare myself this time, I've read through about half of Write Away again, making notes, thinking about what I need, and so on.
And this is what I'm using: Since I've finished the first two books of the series, I'm now comfortable with the characters, the setting, the historic research and I know how to bring the story forward. I also know that if I just start on page one and write whatever falls into my head, I'm more than likely to bring the story forward to fast, ending up with a lot of rewriting and loose lots of time.

So yesterday I sat down - with Write Away on my desk, a notepad, and the 3000 words I already have on the book. I started by making vertical lines on the notepad and then I wrote down what I know will have to happen in this book. I didn't worry about order or sense, I just wrote it down as I see it in my head. I asked questions while I did this - any questions that fall into my head. (I will organize them later). When I finished, I
had lots of scenes, lots of questions.
Today I opened a new document on the computer, split it in half, and started to organize the notes in two very neat rows. Tomorrow I will do it again, fine tune it, if you will. Then I will start to write.
As I said earlier, under my computer I have a clear plastic thingy that covers half the desk. Under there I stick small notes with inspired thoughts, scratch cards I've won on, things from magazines that inspire me, shopping lists, phone numbers -  and the Plan.
I also have a second part of the Plan there, this one hand-written. The paper is divided in two, there's dates on both sides. I like to write down how many words I write in a day, so that I can follow the progress. (the target is about 40.000 words). There's two lines for every date. The daily target is somewhere between 1000 and 2000 words. And I started this on April 15. Since I haven't really started the writing yet, I'm already two days behind schedule.
Which means that tomorrow's work also include making a new daily plan, starting from the April 18.
The most important thing is to always know that the Plan is not set in stone.
Otherwise you can't make a new one when it's necessary.
No worries, then!
Natalie

To do, or not to do, or did anway.

I love deadlines. I really, really do. I get things done when I have deadlines looming over my head. That is, I get manuscripts done. Everything else falls by the side, like discarded toys.

What I haven't done the last three weeks: 
Read my letters - Oh, yes, I get lovely letters in the mail sometimes.
Answered messages on my phone. So if there's anyone out there who wants to get a hold of me, like an agent or a publisher, use my e-mail. It works. And I do read that.
Read a good book.
Read any book, good or bad.
Gone for walks and discovered Spring - outside my window there's still snow. So why bother, right?
Updated my blogs.
Been to the library.
Seen a movie - again, bad or good. No, that's wrong I did go to see The Fighter. Good movie, actually.
Done any useful research.
Called people - any people.
Gone to the hair-dresser. I'll qualify for the best scarecrow outfit if this goes on.
Left dry-cleaning with the dry-cleaner.
Forgotten about the loose buttons on my coat - right now four of them is sown with purple thread, one with white and the last with black.
Cleaned my windows - the birds are leaving "marks" all over the glass.
Slept more than five or six hours at night - I forget to keep track of time when I'm in a good writing space.

And why, you might ask, do I committ myself to this hermit-like state?

Rewriting two manuscripts at once. It's a foolish attempt, but then again, I can be pretty foolish. And right now, that works for me. This manuscript involves the two of us, and that makes it easier to not be stuck on a particular plot detail. This manuscript is finished, and was today copied on to the editors reading gadget to be read at leisure. Or at the lates after Easter. Which ever comes first.
I'm  well into the next manuscript, but alas, there I'm on my own. On the other hand, it's way shorter, and a lot more finished, so there's not that much new writing, more like tweaking and pruning.
I seriously love my job ...

Finishing a new/old manuscript ...

We're having busy days now. I've just delievered a manuscript in my romance series, and the next three weeks is dedicated to finishing a new thriller. (It's not new, it's old, but it's new because it's not finished).
Sounds great, yes?
We've been working on this particular manuscript so long we just refer to it as The Manuscript.
Anan has been working on the characters and the text for a couple of months, and at one point he realized the whole thing has to be re-plotted. If that's a word.
What it means is that the story has flaws. Well, that's not much of a schocker. Every story has flaws - there's no such thing as a perfect story. Not if you start breaking it down.
So we have gone through the story scene by scene, and have now agreed on a storyline we are sure will work. Well ...
The first 80 or so pages are in good shape, I can see the story starting to connect. The manuscript is about 350 pages (we've cut out 50 already), and if the rest are in the same shape, we'll be finished in a week, or three ...
We even have an ending!
I can't wait to finish it - I've loved this story for so long, and I can now see the end nearing. It's really a matter of getting everything together, making if work - and hopefully it will fly!
Besides three weeks is all I have. I have to start on a new series-manuscript asap if I'm to finish before Easter. And I'm alone on those, so it's all on me!
Natalie

The hardship of rewriting ...

I'm sitting here with a manuscript I've gotten back from my editor. And although I very much appreciate her feedback and enduring encouragement, as well as her sense of language and drama - I'm not happy right now. It'll pass as soon as I've done the necessary rewriting - I'm sure - but I do not like it.
Some writers love rewriting, going over their words over and over again, cutting here, tweaking there - and I do. Sometimes. But mostly when it's done.
The rewriting is something that only you can do on your own manuscript. There's no substitute because the vision is yours and yours alone. So you have to accept all of it, all of the work going into a mansucript, everythying - warts and all.
These are warts from the manuscript: What time of year is this, and please write something about the nature. What are they wearing? Too much repetition. More drama and feeling (that's a popular one), more horror and fear. Another popular one is: no, no, no! Or you can't have person A doing ... when person B is ....
The list goes on.
Every time I figured that now I've got it, now I've cracked the formula or the secret, there's more. I'm learning to accept the process, I guess. I'm very oriented towards the end result, wanting to finish as soon as possible, so I can write something else. But that's not always the wise thing to do. Sometimes words has to be tweaked and cut, sometimes more than words, sometimes even whole pages, has to go.
The story is everything, and anything standing in the way of a smooth reading, just has to go out. It doesn't matter that I worked like a mad on those two pages - if they're wrong for the story.
So I am grateful for my editor who never lets on that she can sense my resentment or hurt feelings (they never last), and never gives up. There's an awful lot of inspiration in that feedback, and my novel is all the better for it.
If I can just get started on that blasted rewriting!

Choices ...

I distrust choices. I don't like to make them, I get a headache from thinking about it, and I'm more than happy to let things work themselves out - go with the flow, so to speak.
Now I know this about myself. Making choices is hard, and mostly I'll do what's easiest at the moment. Then it doesn't interfere with what I really want to do: to write.
The irony of course, is that writing is all about choices.
You start with the idea; that one or that one? Then the characters: who are they, what do they do, how do they look, what to they want; then the story: what happens next?
There's an infinite number of "what happens next" - there's no clear path - just decisions.
Every choice will lead to another choice, there will be consequences in the text, leading to other choices.
If you're anything like me, you start with an idea, write until your fingers ache, and postpone the decisions until the editing process - and then you really have to start making choices.
And right now, it's making my head hurt.
I can't even decide whether or not to go to bed. Perhaps I'll just fall asleep on my keyboard, and that'll be that.
Or I could close my computer, go to bed, sleep, and go back to writing again sometime tomorrow afternoon. Or not. 
The birds are singing. It's five in the morning, and I ... oh ... I wonder if there's anything on the telly?

Two manuscripts and so little time ...

I may just have written myself into a corner, so to speak.
I have comitted myself to finish a manuscript by mid February, and another by March 15.  And that's not very much time ...
For some reason dates that are more than a week away, always seems so far, far away. Like it's never going to happen, and there's an infinite number of days ahead of me.
It was the same way in school. Exams? I didn't have to study for this exam or finish that paper now! I had so many other interesting things to do, so usually I'd forget about it. Until about a week before, or in most cases, the night before - I'd suddenly remember, work like possessed and sort of slide through it. (I wasn't much of a scholar, I'm afraid).
Of course, I can't do that anymore. For one thing I'd starve to death... and the publisher wouldn't be very pleased. And also I love finishing a book. There's just no better feeling.
I actually have to work pretty hard every day to finish, and since two manuscripts is a bit much, I'm worried.
The only way to manage the deadlines, is to work everyday. Which I do. But there is only so much you can do in one day.
The first manuscript is the second book in a new series. I have a contract for that, the first book has been approved, and I should have finished this manuscript by now. At least a first draft. And I'm halfway. I'll get it ready, I'm sure of it. This is the 13th book I'm writing in this genre, so it's not like I don't know what I'm doing. (or at least pretend I know).
The second is a new thriller, and I want to finish it so badly, I can't sleep. Anan has been rewriting and doing extra research on it for a couple of months, and now it's my turn to work on it. A first draft has been completed, it's just not good enough yet. There are so many holes in the story, it's not fit for editorial eyes.
We have been working on it for years, and we are way past the point of no return.
Deadline is looming ...