Remembering Elmore Leonard

1925-2013

Elmore “Dutch” Leonard’s overnight success began in 1951, when he flipped a mental coin to decide between writing crime novels and westerns. “Westerns won because I liked western movies a lot,” he said, “and because there was a wonderful market for western short stories. You could aim at the Saturday Evening Post or Colliers, and if you missed there, try Argosy, Blue Book, and on down to the lesser paying pulp magazines, the most prestigious being Dime Western and Zane Grey. Right behind them were Ten-Story Western and Fifteen Western Tales.”

Leonard was always been an avowed reader. “A bookworm, yes,” he said, “beginning with The Bobbsey Twins and The Book House volumes of abridged classics that included everything from Beowulf to Treasure Island. In the fifth grade I read most of All Quiet on the Western Front, serialized in the Detroit Times, and I wrote a World War I play that was staged in the classroom, my first piece of writing.”

His first nine years were spent south of the Mason-Dixon Line, the youngest of two children. He lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Memphis before moving to Detroit in 1934, during the World Series. Raised a Catholic, he graduated from Detroit High School and the University of Detroit, both Jesuit institutions where he majored in English and philosophy.

A baseball player during high school, he acquired his nickname “Dutch” from teammates, who borrowed it from the Washington Senators knuckleball pitcher. The second Dutch Leonard served in the Navy during World War II with a Seabee unit in the South Pacific. Four years later, he acquired a bride and a new job with an advertising agency.

Leonard lusted for full-time writing, and remembers a letter from his agent in 1951, which attempted to discourage him from quitting his advertising copywriting job to freelance. He had concentrated on truck advertising for Chevrolet and, by that time, had a tank full of writing catchy ads. Getting out of bed at five o’clock, he wrote two pages of fiction before going to work “with the rule that I couldn’t put the water on for coffee until I’d started writing. I’ve been a disciplined writer ever since.”

While working for the ad agency, he supplemented his early morning writing by placing a pad of paper in his desk drawer. With the drawer partially open, he wrote fiction on the job. His first two short stories were rejected, so he decided to spend more time and effort on research. Although he had never set foot west of the Mississippi, he concentrated on the Southwest, Apaches, the cavalry and cowboys, while subscribing to Arizona Highways magazine to learn all he could about the arid terrain. His first sale the previous year was a novelette titled, “Trial of the Apache,” which sold to Argosy for their December issue. His next story, “Tizwin,” earned him a rejection letter from Argosy and a sale to Ten Story Western, which eventually appeared in print in 1952 under the title, “Red Hell Hits Canyon Diablo.”

Thirty of his short stories sold during the 1950s, four of them to Argosy and the Saturday Evening Post, while the majority appeared in Dime Western and Zane Grey. Leonard sold everything he wrote with the exception of his first two short stories and several with contemporary settings. By the end of the fifties, television had taken over. “The pulps faded away and the book advances didn’t compare to what was once offered. It took nearly two years to sell Hombre, for an advance of $1,250.” Multiple printings followed, with the book listed among the twenty-five all-time best westerns. Hombre more than made up for its meager beginning, along with a film version starring Paul Newman, which earned the writer a modest $10,000.

Gunsight was his last western novel, written at the request of Marc Jaffe in 1979 for Bantam Books. Leonard then flipped his genre coin and found that crime can pay quite well. Stick and LaBrava made him an overnight success, nicely padding his wallet along with the 1985 film version of Stick, starring Burt Reynolds, a production he prefers to ignore. The writer’s innate humor is deadpan, he said, not slapstick.

Glitz sparkled for eighteen weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, ensuring him top billing on the literary marquee, but although the film rights were optioned by Lorimar, production stalled for more than two years.

His sudden popularity cut deeply into his writing time. “It’s nice to get fan mail,” he said, “a few letters a week, and being recognized on the street, but the interviews are wearing me out. I’m asked questions about writing, and about my purpose in the way I write that I’ve never thought of before. And I have to take time to think on the spot and come up with an answer. I’m learning quite a bit about what I do from recent interviews, and getting a few answers.

Interviewers ask Leonard for advice for budding writers. He usually responds with: “The worst thing a novice can do is to try to sound like a writer. I guess the first thing you have to learn is how not to overwrite.” His advice is simply to write. “Don’t talk about it, do it. Read constantly, study the authors you like, pick one and imitate him, the way a painter learns fine art by copying the masters. I studied Hemingway, as several thousand other writers have done. I feel that I learned to write westerns by reading and rereading For Whom the Bells Toll.”

A portrait of Hemingway hung on the wall of his office, reminding him that he studied the revered novelist’s work for “construction, for what you leave out as well as what you put in. But I was not influenced by his attitude, thank God. My attitude is much less serious. I see absurdities in serious situations, influenced in this regard by Vonnegut, Richard Bissel, and Mark Harris, and this shows in my writing. It’s your attitude that determines your sound, not style.”

Leonard wrote for many years in longhand on specially-ordered yellow sheets, rewriting and revising until he was ready to type his final draft. “I’ll do a few pages this way and then put it in my Olympia manual office-model typewriter,” he said. “I hate to change ribbons, but have no interest in electronic advances. How the words are eventually reproduced is not my concern. I revise as I type, aiming for five or six clean pages a day. Then I continue to go back and revise and the pages begin to pile up. Sometimes I’ll go back and add a scene or shift scenes around, but most of the revising has to do with simplifying, cutting out excess words, trimming to make it lean or to adjust the rhythm of the prose.”

(This was an early interview with Dutch Leonard and can be read in it's entirity in my book,  Maverick Writers.)

Halloween Around the World

Halloween isn't just an American holiday. It originated in Ireland, where it was originally known as Oiche Shamhna or Samhain Night. The end of summer's Agricultural Fire Festival was held for the deceased who were said to revisit the earth on that night. So the practice of building large community bonfires was enacted to ward off evil spirits. The name Hallowe’en evolved from All Hallow’s Eve, and the holiday was imported from Ireland during the 19th century. Halloween spread to other countries, including Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada as well as the rest of the British Isles.

In 837, Pope Gregory decreed that All Hallows, or All Saints Day, previously known as Feast of Lemures, would be held every year on November 1, in the name of the Western Catholic Church. Previously celebrated on May 13 in other countries, it coincided with the Irish Samhain. During the 9th century, the two holidays were celebrated on the same day because the Church decided that the religious holiday would start at sunset the previous night, according to the Florentine calendar. All Saints Day was celebrated in northern European countries, and was a day of religious festivities. Until 1970, it was also a day of fasting.

The jack-o-lantern originated in Europe and was carved from turnips and rutabagas. Small candles were inserted in the hollow vegetables and they were used as lanterns. Because the human head was believed to contain the spirit, the Celts carved the vegetables to represent heads to ward off evil spirits. According to Irish legend, a hard-drinking farmer named Jack tricked the devil into climbing a tree, where he was temporarily trapped. Farmer Jack then carved a cross in the tree, which condemned the devil to wander the earth at night with a candle inside a hollow turnip.

Carved pumpkins are a North American custom, originating with the fall harvest, and known to have preceded the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49. Carved pumpkins, or jack-o-lanterns, were not associated with Halloween in this country until the mid 19th century.

In Scotland, the embers of huge bonfires built in the villages were taken home to form circles. A stone for each family member was then placed inside the circle. The Scots believed that if one of the stones was displaced or broken by the following morning, the person it represented was doomed to die within a year. Northern residents of Wales built bonfires called Coel Coeth in every village. Members of each household would throw white stones into the ashes bearing their names. If any stone was missing the following morning, that person was destined to die before the following Halloween.

The village of Fortingall in Perthshire held a festival of fire, or Samhnag. Every Halloweeen they danced around the fire in both directions. As the fire burned low, young boys grabbed embers from the flames and raced around the field, tossing them in the air and then dancing around them. Later, they would have a jumping contest over the collected embers. When finished, they returned home to bob for apples. They also practiced divination, the art of foretelling the future or interpreting omens.

Halloween wasn’t celebrated in Mexico until around 1960. Our southern neighbors have followed our customs of costuming their children and allowing them to visit neighborhood homes, seeking candy. When they knock or ring the bell, the children say, "¡Noche de Brujas, Halloween!" which means "Witches' Night, Halloween!" Young people have Halloween parties and the holiday lasts for three days prior to All Saint’s Day, which is also the start of the two-day celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

In the Netherlands, Halloween has become popular since the early 1990s. Children dress up for parades and parties, but trick-or-treating is rare because the holiday is so close to St. Martin’s Day. St. Martin’s is the day when Dutch children ring doorbells and sing a song dedicated to the saint, in exchange for small treats.

Romanians, regardless of age, party and parade in costumes not unlike North Americans, but the holiday focuses on Dracula. In the town of Sighisoara, where countless witch trials were once held, parties are held in the spirit of Dracula. Actors also reenact the witch trails on Halloween.
Some South American countries, influenced by American pop culture, celebrate Halloween, which has caused consternation among a number of Christian groups, who deplore the lack of attention to the more spiritual aspects of All Hallows Eve. But businesses profit from the sales of costumes and candy, so the holiday has been allowed to remain a favorite of young people. The same is true in Japan, Spain and Germany, among other countries.

Women Serial Killers

This post is a departure from those that I usually write but  Halloween is fast approaching. And I've wondered whether serial killers use costumes or disguises to lure victims to their untimely deaths.

We rarely hear about women serial killers. They usually maintain a lower profile than their male counterparts, and they’re generally more efficient, according to Sean Mactire's book, Malicious Intent. They’re also just as lethal. Mactire lists them in four categories: black widows, nurses, terrorists and assassins.

Black widows murder their own husbands and children, as well as other relatives. They’ve also been known to kill their employees and tenants. Remember the Sacramento landlady who planted her boarders instead of flowers? And the film, "Arsenic and Old Lace"?

Nurses are the most prolific serial killers because of their unlimited opportunities to murder without detection. Many consider themselves angels of mercy. Terrorists, on the other hand, kill for political reasons while assassins murder for money. The latter categories have increased in numbers at an alarming rate.

Body counts average 8-14 victims, higher than the male serial killer’s tally of 8-11, and they’ve been known to kill for as long as 30 years. The average age of women killers is 32, and they’re intelligent. In fact, most are white, middle to upper-class women. Surprisingly, they’re not only nurses but debutantes, housewives, farmers, waitresses, college students, business owners, housekeepers and career criminals.

Women murderers have been recorded throughout history, but none more frequently than during the Roman era. Prior to the advent of Christianity, women held positions of near equality with men and, in matriarchal societies, even higher because their wisdom and skills were considered superior. When emerging western societies gradually eliminated women’s influence and power, the murder rate increased. During the ninth through eleventh centuries in Normandy, poison was known as the “widow maker” because it was frequently used by disgruntled wives, who preferred widowhood to divorce. Poisons still account for half the murders committed by women in this country today. We'll never know how many.

The primary reason female killers have escaped attention is that society’s perception of women is one of caretakers and nurturers. Many find it difficult to believe that women are capable of murder, other than an impromptu domestic killing. Known women serial killers are few because they’re almost impossible to detect. They murder quietly and usually don't take part in wild killing sprees unless they’re suffering from severe psychosis.

Serial killers, regardless of gender, prefer to prey on the weak and helpless: children, elderly women, and hospitalized patients, but they’ve also been known to kill politicians, policemen, hitchhikers and landlords. Many have killed husbands for their insurance payoffs. One black widow killed a number of her husbands with stewed prunes generously seasoned with rat poison. When she ran out of husbands, she poisoned her mother, sisters, grandson and nephew. By then she apparently ran out of prunes.

Breathing New Life into Orphaned Books

How would you react if your publisher suddenly died and orphaned your series? Panic? Tears? Or would you follow the trend and republish the books yourself? Few publishers will consider a series after the third novel is published, so I resurrected my small press, which I operated years ago to feature fledgling authors.

I’m electronically challenged, but my husband learned to upload files for both ebooks and print editions. And, because the books were previously published, there was little editing to do. It wasn’t long before we had seven books online as well as local stores stocking them.

Fortunately, I’ve served as a news, magazine and small press editor, and my husband does a good job designing book covers. We’re both bibliophiles with a large home library, so our love of books keeps us motivated.

The next problem is how to promote our books. With so much competition from more than a million ebooks, and thousands more published each day; we need to find ways to make our books stand out. But how to do that? Too many blurbs on Facebook and other social media sites only turn readers away. So how do you let readers know about your books on a limited budget?

Besides guest blogging at popular sites, I decided to take part in virtual book tours. The best part of blog tours was hearing from readers who stop to comment about our books. Having someone say, “My husband grabbed your book before I had a chance to read it,” really makes a writer’s day—an entire week even. 

Before I close, I’d like to ask you, my visitors how publishers 
attract your attention and what makes you decide to buy their books? I appreciate any comments you’d like to make.

Jeffrey "Hammerhead" Philips

Jeffrey Knox Philips, an internationally known underwater naturalist, has pursued his passion for large marine animals such as hammerhead and tiger sharks, humpback whales, sea lions, and manatees around the world from Bridgetown, Barbados; Peti-Goave, Haiti, to Lucuala, Fiji. Twice winner of the Okefenokee Wildlife annual contest for his underwater photography, his photographs often appear in the pages and on the covers of half a dozen dive magazines. 

His articles have appeared in Florida Scuba News and Shark Diver magazine and his video footage has been used in several documentaries aired on the Discovery Channel. As an underwater naturalist he often is interviewed on TV by CBS affiliate WPECand NBC affiliate WPTV in south Florida, as well as nationally, which has helped to get the word out about the destruction of turtle nesting sites, over harvesting of lobsters and anchor damage on the coral reefs. He also offers advice on undersea homeland security issues. So when he decided to write mystery novels, the sea was a natural setting.

Jeff, you have an impressive background in underwater photography. How did your interest in large marine animals come about?

It is easier for a large animal to fill the viewfinder than it is for a little guy. Photographing flighty palm-size fish becomes frustrating unless you have lots of patience. The key for me was to start with slow moving, fat creatures. Manatees are easy to learn the craft. After gaining confidence and experience, I set my lens on french angelfish, queen angels, rainbow parrotfish, each species getting a little larger. The most curious were nassau groupers who seemed to enjoy seeing their reflection in the dome ports or lens glass.

What’s a shark rodeo? And why do you prefer to photograph hammerhead and tiger sharks?

I believe “Shark Rodeo” was first coined by the dive staff on Walkers Cay, Bahamas in the ‘80s. They would take a 50 gallon trash barrel, fill it full of fish and freeze it, thus making a chumsicle. Once frozen, they’d take it out to a sandy bottom site that is surrounded by brain corals with a boat load of nervous divers. Over the years the sharks learned that anytime they heard the whine of a particular boat propeller, that they would get fed. While revving the diesel engines , the Bahamian boat captain said “I’m ringing the dinner bell. Time for supper.”

The divers then descended into about 30 feet of water and laid or knelt on the sandy bottom. The frozen chumsicle, tied to a float ball, would stay suspended about 15 feet below the surface. As soon as the ball started to melt, the sharks swam in. Not a few, but around a hundred. Nurse sharks, black tips, Caribbean reef, and bull sharks. The divers had to follow one rule, don’t touch the bait and stay at least 15 feet away from the frozen fish chunks. The sharks would circle the bait ball, tearing bits out of it, just like a wild rodeo. The sharks often swam between the divers, over the divers, around the divers. Strobes firing from cameras, newbie divers and first timers wide eyed. Definitely a heart pumping, adrenalin pulsing time. Often nurse sharks would lie beside divers to rest and hope to get scratched. The encounter lasted little over an hour. Plenty of time to capture an award winning shot and memories never to be forgotten.

What’s the most dangerous situation you’ve found yourself in underwater? And how did you survive?

The most dangerous situation? Sun burn. And so far I’m surviving. The dermatologist says I have perfect skin. Some of the more interesting: Cave diving at a place called Eagle’s Nest. After squeezing through a chute about the diameter of a fireplace chimney, I popped out into an opening larger than a small island. OK, maybe not that large, but large enough that my silver-cadium battery lights didn’t reach the cave’s sides. Another one of interest, swimming into a school of silversides that blocked out all sunlight. Or being boomed by a 300 pound goliath grouper. Every bone in my body vibrated. Maybe dancing with a six foot green moray. Or how about a bull shark biting into my fin and giving it a shake so violent I thought he broke my leg. It’s hard to decide the most interesting. I always say, the next encounter I’m going to have.

Why did you leave corporate America at the height of your career ten years ago to take fledgling naturalists on dive trips to educate them about coral spawning, turtle nesting, fish dancing and other wonders of the deep?

It was an easy decision. Should I stay in a high rise tower with a window view of the world, or take my friend’s job invitation to work every day on the ocean? Working in corporate America has many advantages, job security, health care benefits, paid vacation, a nice salary, and more. But when I started sitting in the bathtub every night wearing my mask, fins, and snorkel, my wife said it was time to change jobs and be a dive guide. I left an environment where people were unhappy, always striving to produce more, work harder, meet unrealistic goals for a work atmosphere where every day I met happy people. Divers who look forward to see sights most people in this world cannot even imagine. How do you compare anything to watching at 2am a 200 pound loggerhead turtle lug her body up on the sandy beach, spend an hour digging a nest, laying 200 eggs, then crawl back to the sea. How about coral spawning? Around midnight on a full moon in August seeing millions of BB size eggs being ejected out of star coral, floating to the surface and fish coming in to gorge themselves. Some people comment on the beauty of a blue sky. That is pale when descending into the depths of blue in the ocean. The shades turn darker and more vibrant in the depths. Once the ocean salt entered in my veins, I keep being called back like an outgoing tide.

When and why did you decided to write underwater mysteries?

I was told to write about what I know. But better advice, write about what you love. The ocean has me handcuffed to it. I feel at home in salty water. Ever since I was a kid pulling on my first set of fins, I loved to read mysteries. Thus the two just naturally formed.

Tell us about your protagonist .

Jesse Stoker is also a man who loves the ocean. The only thing he really wants to do in life is take people diving, show them the wonderful fish, and insure they have a great time. But he has demons. His wife disappeared in a scuba diving accident, the Coast Guard says her body descended into the depths and will never be found. Stoker holds himself accountable. Then a local radio personality goes missing from his boat on a night dive and it is up to him to find her and clear his name.

Your wife holds a 100-ton Coast Guard captain’s license? Please explain.

My wife, Kitty, the prettiest mermaid in the ocean, wanted to captain the dive boat we owned, while I dove with the guests. Out boat was big enough to hold 24 divers, which required her to have a 100 ton vs. a 50 ton license.

Thank you, Jeff.

You learn more about Jeffrey Phillips at his website: www.jeffreyphilips.com, his blogsite: www.handcuffedtotheocean.com and his Facebook page. He says, "I’m the one standing on the stern of a boat in front of a yellow shark cage cutting bait. Please 'friend' me.'" You can also find him at GoodReads, MurderMustAdvertise, Coral-reefs, Flsnorkeladdicts, Floridascubadiving and Scubadiving2.

Writing a Series

After you write that standalone novel, your publisher may suggest that it become a series. So it’s important that you like your protagonist(s) and want to continue writing about them. Agatha Christie grew tired of writing about Hercule Poirot and wanted to kill him off, just as Conan Doyle attempted to rid himself of Sherlock Holmes.

When I began my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, I named my two protagonists Shirley Lock and Dora Holmes. They were known as Shirl Lock & Holmes, a corny spin on the detective and his physician narrator. When my publisher closed its doors, I resold the series and changed the names to Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. By that time my two women sleuths had become like old friends, whom I enjoy visiting to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Dana is a bit autobiographical while Sarah is similar to my friend Marge, who is outspoken and often so funny that she has me laughing tears. Dana is a mystery novel buff, who, with her friend Sarah, a private investigator’s widow, buy a motorhome to travel the West, as I’ve done. Making the two women mobile provides them new settings in each novel. Although two of their motorhomes have been wrecked in the first three books, Dana’s wealthy sister dies and leaves her a considerable sum of money as well as a Wyoming mansion. The money allows them 

Sixth in my Logan & Cafferty series

additional   mystery solving opportunities as well as extensive travel.

Most protagonists have a job and the author needs to be knowledgeable about the occupation, or at least know the basics. And above all, enjoy writing about the job on a continuing basis, without becoming bored. Another pitfall is to change the tone of the writing. For instance, you shouldn't  begin writing a cozy and decide in the middle of the series to darken it to a noir. Readers will complain. I’ve covered various subjects in my series, including adultery, drug gangs and homegrown terrorists, blackmail and extortion, mental illness, serial killers and wolves, but with humor, so I’ve been able to get away with subjects not usually associated with two 60-year-old feisty amateur sleuths. And readers have fortunately told me that each book has been a fun read.

If your series becomes popular, you may have to continue writing it longer than you had planned. J. K. Rowling was able to discontinue her Harry Potter series after seven books, but Sue Grafton is committed to 26. Her schedule has changed over the years and she now only writes three hours a day with one published novel every two years. Now in her early 70s, she’ll be nearly 80 when Z is for Zero is released, but she plans to continue writing about her private investigator on a standalone basis after the series ends. She admits that Kinsey Millhone is her alter ego and that she enjoys writing about her.

I can't imagine writing 26 novels about someone you don't like and I'm glad that I enjoy my characters, especially my lovesick sheriff.

A Visit with J. A. Jance

Bestselling novelist J.A. Jance has two recently released novels, Fire and Ice from HarperCollins and Trial by Fire by Simon and Schuster. She's pictured with her dogs, Aggie (with the white face) and Daph, named for Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier.

Judy, when did you first know you wanted to become a mystery writer?

I knew I wanted to be a writer from the time I was in second grade. I didn't specifically want to be a "mystery writer" but because I always read mysteries it was a natural fit.

Tell us about Fire and Ice and Trial by Fire.

Fire and Ice is the second pairing of my two detectives, Joanna Brady in Arizona and J. P. Beaumont in Seattle. They are working seemingly separate cases but, by the end of the book, they find the two are definitely connected. Beau's parts of the story are told in his first person voice. Joanna's parts are told in the third person.

Trial by Fire, Ali number 5, has her working as a newly appointed Media Relations Officer for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Department. When eco-terrorists burn down a supposedly unoccupied house, Ali is part of the investigation that first must identify the victim before locating the killer.

How did your J.P. Beaumont, Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds series come into being?

Until Proven Guilty, the first Beaumont book was published in 1985. When I wrote it, I thought I was writing a one-time book. I was new to Seattle, but the character was a Seattle native. I had to do a lot of research to make that work, and writing in from a male first person point of view was challenging. After writing nine Beaumonts in a row, I was growing tired of the character.

My editor suggested I come up with some other character so I could alternate. When I wrote the first Joanna Brady, Desert Heat, I knew I was writing a series but I used my experiences of being a single parent, of living in the Arizona desert, and of working in a non-traditional job to create her character. Ali Reynolds grew out of seeing a longtime Tucson female newscaster pushed out of her job due to age factors.

What in your background prepared you to write grisly crime and horror novels?

I have the dubious honor of having spent sixty days of my life in the early seventies being stalked by a serial killer, someone who is still in prison as I write this. During that time I wore a loaded weapon, and I was fully prepared to use it. I used some of what I learned from that investigation to create the background for Hour of the Hunter, Kiss of the Bees, and Day of the Dead.

Where do you do your best writing, in Seattle or Tucson, and why?

I write in both places. It remains to be seen which writing is best. And I don't have to BE in Arizona to WRITE about Arizona. It was in trying to turn the landscape around Bisbee into words when I finally realized why with the red shale hills and the limestone cliffs that Bisbee High School's color are red and gray.

Who are your favorite authors and which one most influenced your own writing?

I started out reading Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene. But I read John D. McDonald and Mickey Spillane. Those were the people who showed me it was possible to write a series of books for adults.

What’s your writing schedule like and do you aim for a certain amount of words each day?

Since I'm on a two book a year schedule, I write every day. I don't have a set number of words. I'm also a wife, mother and grandmother. I like having a life.

What are the basic ingredients for a bestselling novel? How long did it take you to reach the list?

I don't know the basic ingredients. I guess I'd say characters and plots. As for when did I make the list? Fifteen or twenty books ago probably, but making the lists is entirely arbitrary and based on decisions that are made far away from the author's effort. I don't think the books I wrote before making "the list" were of any lesser quality than the ones that have.

When did you begin donating a percentage of your bookstore earnings to charities, and which ones?

Very early on. I don't remember exactly. I've been involved with the YWCA, the Humane Society, the Relay for Life, ALS research.

Advice to fledgling writers.

When I bought my first computer--1983--the guy who installed my word processing program fixed it so every time I booted up the computer, these were the words that flashed across the screen: A writer is someone who has written TODAY! Those were words I clung to when I was a "pre-published" writer and that still resonate with me today. Today I AM a writer. I'm working on Chapter 5 of the next Ali book.

J. A.'s website is www.jajance.com. She also has a blog there as well as at www.Seattlepi.com in the City Brights section.