 Thanks for coming. I have to tell you about about sisters in crime I have this t-shirt that says sisters in crime and I was wearing it one day and Some women were kind of whispering over in the corner and finally one of them approached me you said Well, is that people who have committed crimes that have maybe done time for? No We commit crimes on paper So I have a Distinguished group here and what I'm gonna do is just ask each of them to introduce themselves But not immediately what I'm gonna do is ask them a question and then they can introduce themselves It's a little more informal that way. It's not quite, you know, go down the line and ask each person a question. So Joanne just told me that she got some good news. So why don't you introduce yourself and tell your good news? I did I Have a series out set in World War two where the US government includes psychics to find Nazi spies I found that the second book of the series that came out June 21 is a finalist position for East Texas Writers Guild Congratulations, that's wonderful. So let me ask you this. What are you psychic? Is that one reason that you felt like you should? What what led you to start writing this series like this about the psychic? Had four other books out They were romances and in one of the medieval romances I had pulled in a touch of the paranormal having because my heroine was sight impaired and I had her have her grandmother her the ghost of her grandmother come at Times to help her find the direction to get out of trouble because on her own It just was a little impossible in a medieval castle. So having that touch. I liked it and I Had gone in my early days to Berkeley psychic Institute that was in the 60s in the 70s when The competition between the US and Russia on the paranormal was at its height and there were a lot of books around and I went from 74 to 78 and I did I was doing it for healing, which I think worked very well And I but I did get exposed to other kinds of paranormal However in writing the series or writing any book you can't Yeah, you have to have what happens fit the story. I just can't take things from life I have to have it fit the story. So my critique partners and I We brainstormed and we came up with characters that would be needed to get them out of different kinds of situations That's how the paranormal came in with my heroine who's clairvoyant with a woman who sees who has healing hands a man who sees ghosts and a crystal ball reader and Man who's a medium all of them coming out of the woo-woo 60s and 70s Great Heather you write a very funny series and I see you have a brand new book out So why don't you tell a little bit about yourself and then tell us about your new book? Okay Let's see. I was born on a trunk in Ringling Brothers Circus. That's always a good way to start My father was an elephant trainer and my mother was a trapeze artist. So oh, yeah, true Is that really true? It's really true. Oh my word. That's my mother on here. That's really my mother and So I took their story Their romance they met he was actually this is not any what was it's a mystery and it's not funny, but it's a noir He was very kind to elephants. He was one of those four thinking for runners. He didn't use the hook He didn't do this. He didn't do that. He actually thought, you know, teach them by love and train them that way So my mother fell in love with them and they were married and all that stuff and blah blah blah And I said, well, this is an interesting past kid. You've really yeah, this works so I wrote this story and it's all of her particular day-to-day life and in In the circus Ringling Brothers It was also Ringling Brothers at the heyday of Ringling Brothers 51 elephants and all these very big things so I wrote that book and that took me six years and I said, okay, I ain't never doing that anymore because I'm too. Oh, I mean, you're not 20 kid. You can't be doing that So I have this series which I can crank out about once every ten months to a year and it takes place today This was in 1942. It's today and it's Silicon Valley with a Detective agency and what I threw in there, which was important to me was that it's about an immigrant An immigrant from Mexico is and he makes he does well He does well and he makes meets and marries a Palo Alto blue blood and they have these two children and the Protagonist is from there's an offspring in there. So she's like half Mexican American She's Latina, but wait a minute. I'm supposed to be you know, this cool ice princess So she's always doing that and they own this detective agency and they're always falling over dead bodies and they're there's a cat You know the obligatory cat, but I love it tugger and so they have fun and I have a new one coming out in in September this is kind of a prototype thing called the CEO came DOA and That's fun too, and that's what I do Would should I say anything else was that was that enough well, I'll ask you some other questions later, but that but that was wonderful I I actually ran into somebody at Thriller Fest last week. Who's a trapeze artist? Oh my god She's also a doctor. So go figure. So that's great. Okay now We have we have two very unusual people and then we have Lisa Brackman whose first book Made a splash in the New York Times and if you have not read rock paper tiger you have missing a great book and Everyone that she's come out with since then I have a 29 year old son who said when she wrote her second book Which was called get away and said in Mexico. He said when is she gonna write another one? I loved it. So now I think she's written is that a sequel to it that that We're calling it a second cousin twice removed So tell us about both of your series. They're very different, you know, where did that come from? Oh First I want to say that it's it, you know, if you're gonna follow the elephants. That's never gonna go well so Here I am So yeah, rock paper tiger was set in in contemporary China And I've done three books. They feature in Accidental a rock war vet named Ellie McEnroe who finds herself in Beijing associating with contemporary Chinese artists. So if you're interested in Contemporary Chinese art the war on terror Environmental disaster and lifestyles of the super rich and heinous in China. You might enjoy these books They've got one of them on the back table there, which I should have had up to go like this But I didn't think about that This is my book that just came out It's not really a series I never intended to write series I didn't intend to write three books set in China But I did and I did the book in Mexico. It was my attempt at a Noir thriller, you know, which which in my formulation is a Woman or a man in trouble meets a man or a woman who is trouble and things go from bad To very bad to very very very bad, you know, because otherwise there's no book so I finished that book and I thought it was done and I didn't plan on Revisiting those characters at all and then my my publisher said Think about writing a sequel to that and I was like No, why would I want to do that? It's done And then I thought a little bit about it and I thought about the main character in particular who when you meet her in The first book. She's a woman who's experienced personal trauma She's on vacation in Mexico having her had her life totally upended and feeling betrayed And she doesn't know what she's going to do and and she meets the guy who is trouble and Things don't go well, but you know, she starts from a position of being in completely over her head because you know ordinary people Who just go on vacation in Mexico don't expect to be dealing with the kinds of things she ends up dealing with And the people that I write about tend to be very They're normal ordinary people who get involved in extraordinary situations So I thought it would be really fun to take her where she is at the end of the book after a very steep learning curve and and show how she responds to getting in another really horrible situation and it was a lot of fun to write and it's centered around the the US prison industry for profit prisons the war on drugs and Black money 501c4s and you know fun things, you know, you can tell that she just writes with just a very light sort of a thing Yeah, I enjoy it. Yeah. Well, I just like to know a couple I mean, I've always loved mysteries and in the first in the first reading I ever did three years ago a man in the Audience said do you write mysteries because you think you're not good enough to write mainstream fiction? Well, that was a challenge But but I actually had a I had a good answer for him Which was that I felt that a lot of some of the best writing that's done today is done in the mystery genre And I have bookstore owners who say that they have trouble deciding whether to put the books in the mystery section Or whether they put them in the mainstream section because there's some very meaty mysteries out there So look, I'd just like to ask each of you just in a few sentences What why mysteries to have you always wanted to write mysteries or just to grab you did that subject grab you? How did that happen Joanne? I Started out writing romance because when I started writing which is as I was coming up onto retirement The romance industry had 50% of all the sales and it was a lot easier to get into it And I hadn't written anything and I had read a lot of romances in the 1980s. So I thought I'd give that a try I The intention was to make some money on top of my social security. I didn't realize that Writers don't make money at least especially in the early days In fact, the joke is that the only people who make money in publishing are those who sell services to authors Those are good boy. Yeah. Anyway, I started out with romance and one of them had a mystery in it And I found out I couldn't write mystery, but I was really good at suspense and thrillers I'm really good at getting the pace up and that keeping the tension up So with the mystery I had to keep all a few things away from you readers And I'm used to giving you all the information You're in the head of my villains as well as my heroine and my hero and I Just had a hard time keeping things back my critique partners were on me all the time So I finally don't write mysteries. I write thrillers soft thrillers and suspense. Oh, I'm gonna talk to you afterwards I'm writing a thriller and I'm having trouble with some of the action scenes Oh, I want that. Yeah, so let's just go down the line with this one. Lisa. Why mysteries or That I to write more suspense than than traditional mysteries and I Do it for a bunch of reasons I guess Oh, by the way, you know the action sequences you get those two little artists dolls the little bendable ones and then Well today, I was that actually work. Yeah today. I was doing this to myself. Yeah I Think in part because I do like dealing with contemporary themes rock paper tiger aside from What's going on in China? And I spent a lot of time in China, you know for going back to 1979 But you know, I was interested in the surveillance state. I was interested in Chinese art I was interested in infuriated with the war on terror On and get away. I was really like I said I mostly wanted to just write a fun little noir thriller, but there are issues of corruption on both sides of the border Our of the rat, you know, China has horrible devastating environmental problems And that was something that I thought would be fun, you know to deal with and and also our own role in that and You know go between I said what that was about and I think you know the fun thing about writing suspense is that it really is a way To to deal with contemporary issues and put it in a form where you're not, you know I'm not somebody that can write a didactic essay Preaching about all the things that I'm upset about or what what I think is wrong And I'm not really interested in in reading that either But there are ways to embed these themes very deeply within the structure of your story So that you're not preaching and you're not being didactic, but people still Get something out of it because of the way the potential for story to carry meaning in a very different way And I guess I just like working with that Well, you answered three of my questions all it runs right there. That's great. No, no, that's great I like it. I mean it was a wrap-up there I Remember hearing Denise Mina. Is that her name? Did she pronounce it? Minna or Minna? I'm not sure, but she's hilarious. Well, she is a really serious books, but she's one of the wonderful writer But I remember she has a PhD in She's a PhD psychologist and she said that she thought well I could go in and and reach one person at a time or I could write Mystery novels and reach a lot of people and I thought that was a very interesting thing to say so Heather How about you? What brought you to mysteries? Well, first of all, I wasn't just in love with Nancy Drew And the secret of the old clock is the first book I ever read That well no uncle Remus was the first book I ever read But I mean it's kind of going to the library and picking out your own book I picked out Nancy Drew and the secret of the old clock and there was just no turning back I said I want to be her and I want to write about her But I grew up a little bit and I don't quite write about her and any more But I still think it was a big influence for me. I really enjoy those so I like I tend to write mystery thrillers I I think my Heroin gets in trouble every now and then but we always know that she is going to do it in Prada heels and She is going to be fine. I like to pride myself on writing a beach raid I'm I ride something not not this this was my this as a six years Really guys I like to write something that is going to take people away make them escape. I try to have a little bit It's all family involved. I think that's important family is important and in this one It's about the immigration terrible issues with that but all done with a lot of humor so I like to write funny things and That's it. That's what I like to write Well, I guess I'm the only straight mystery writer here I write about semiocratic is a chief of police in a small town in Texas a Man who feels a great sense of responsibility for being the chief of police. He's An upright guy and he's never worn any Prada shoes in his whole life So, yeah, that's that's where mine goes Um Tell me tell me Lisa What is your favorite part about writing? What do you like? What do you like about writing? Why would you even do it? The part where I write and No, okay, that's um You know, that's a really hard question because writing, you know when you're doing it is a professional author for publication It's a job and you know, you can have the best job in the world, but some days. It's just work, but you still It's it's you know, I think there's this idea that as a writers You're supposed to be inspired by the muse and that you know You wait for this inspiration and it floods down upon you and you know, and it's not really how it works for me I Approach it like it. It's a job that I sit down to do that said it's a pretty interesting fulfilling and challenging job where I'm not bored and Every most of jobs I've had I'm I'm a little ADD I get very bored and I don't get bored with writing books. I really enjoy being able to absorb a lot of material Crafted into a narrative tell stories through people There's something about The act of writing and when you write when you you come up with I Just finished a partial that I turned into my agent and I was like I get to the end of it And I'm like I stuck that landing. I knew I did And it felt so good. There's just something about the act of creation. I mean You can't beat it when when you do it right well the I Think that's right. I guess what? For me when I'm writing a lot of times when I'm starting I start with an image and I just the image just haunts me and bothers me and then I think of somebody in a particular scene and it just keeps going and going and then I think well What if this happened and what if that happened? So that was sort of what I was thinking about as well is how that how that little germ of something grows and Becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and then the next thing you know You're writing along and only one of my books went off in a really bad direction and by the end I said What happened here? I had to go all the way back about halfway back and just rip it to pieces because it had taken A wrong direction and I never quite figured out why it was as if I my I let the characters get away with too much or Something so joy and what about you? How do you how do you start it? What do you like about doing it? And how do you start it? Fortunately, although I started out with an economic reason. I fell in love with writing and I will do it for the rest of my life no matter what and I'll probably keel over at the keyboard And I'm doing the next book in the sequel The operation Delphi series. I like best editing. I Feel like yes I feel like I'm a sculptor I am taken away that the rough stuff and getting down to the core of the image and I love doing that oh Interesting because I I feel like when I start a first draft I feel like it's just you know just put the words on the page I don't care what the words are just put them down there and I'm the same way once I get to the editing Sort of like it's to shape it. Yeah, I started out as a writer for gray Advertising and then I moved to no soap radio, which was a lot of fun and I wrote commercials and Basically, it's a job. I would have to go and go to work and when I was with no soap radio I not only had to go to work I had to be funny and we would sit around a table and We would all discuss how we were going to be funny and what the best way of being funny was and that was our job And the best part about it was that what I learned was the work is the singularly most important thing So everybody's ego went back. Could you come up with the best idea? Could you come up with the best joke? Could you come up with the best ending? Could you come up with the best phrase imagery? Whatever and it didn't matter who did it because it was the end product that we were dealing with and For me it's carried over into everything. It's carried over into writers group That I've been in when I've taken classes and writing then I you know, I'm sure everybody else does it too. You study It's a craft. It's like playing tennis. You get better the more you practice the more you do it You're gonna be better and I think Terry and I were just talking a little bit earlier And she says everybody thinks that the last book is the best book probably because it is you get better Every time you write now, maybe there's a point when you just go gaga and they need to take you away Okay, but that's like a different thing I think we all get better at our crafts every time we do it and that's what this is a craft It's really not done by smoke and mirrors. It's done by by just working at it I love to be taken away into the silliness of a situation or into The import of it or into the tragedy of it I I I love that part when in my mind I'm going somewhere other than Myself or other than me the world of imagination. I think as a writer You have to be willing to make an ass of yourself That is very crucial. You have to be willing to put something down on paper and Say well, let's see if this flies. Let's see if this works and then you go with it if it doesn't for me They're just words. I have a million of them. I have thrown out more stuff kept other stuff. So it's a job Absolutely, but it is the most fun job. I've ever had I'm so grateful because life took over and it's hard to make a living as a writer I did it for a while in New York City and then life happened and you know all that stuff And I got a chance to go back to it About 15 years ago and started writing the novels and I've never looked back And I think for everybody here and there to do what inspires you do what you love And it doesn't matter whether you make money at it or not You know do it because life is short guys. I was 19 years old just two years ago. I remember Boy, do I know what you're talking about You know, I hadn't actually planned to do this but something you said made me think of this And that is you know really being involved in what you're writing but there is a movement that has just started because of the ubiquity of guns in our In our society there has been started a group of Writers who write crime fiction who have decided they're not gonna put guns in their books So what I'm very curious to know what kind of what kind of Weapons do you guys use? Oh? boy Well, I use she has a blue lady gun Which rarely gets most of the time it's kept in her safe, but she's a black belt in karate I mean, this is my dream. I can make this up. It's my stop Exactly you can make it up So and yeah, and she's a frustrated ballerina too, but basically she's a black belt in karate and most of the time She uses her smarts her noodles and occasionally a swift kick in the Stomach wherever yeah, wherever. How about you Lisa? Do you? I Don't know. I mean, I don't really I don't remember in your books I mean, yeah, I did they don't have a super high-body count although the one I'm working on now. Yeah, definitely does Great, I Mean the only weapon I can really think well, I can't really say cuz Okay, I can't really say What my worst weapon was I said a rock I had I there was a golf club gets involved In one of the books, but you know, it's some they're not my main characters the ones that I've written none of them are black belts in anything and They're not this isn't their skill set The the gal who's in this one after her really really really bad experiences You know, she does some self-defense training. She learns how to shoot But you actually don't see her employing those skills very much at all. It's really about Thinking and trying to figure things out and and it's a lot of it in this book is I think your friend of mine described it as you you just know something really terrible is going to happen, but you know It's yeah, well someone asked me on a panel recently What what the best weapon that my my protagonist uses and I said his attitude. Yeah, he's the boss So how about you join? My novels are set in World War two. So guns are gonna come in there somewhere. Yeah, right now It's only the shore patrol who's carrying them because My characters are looking for spies and they're doing it through paranormal means. There was a lot of mental activity But no guns have been drawn Very interesting. Okay. Well, that's terrific So What's your favorite fan letter you've ever gotten If you've gotten fan letters, what have you got that what did what did you like? early on when I was writing romances the One and only fan letter that I got with actual mail through some mail mail. I'm talking about emails, too was from a woman who was paralyzed and a homebound and She liked my novels and said I'll be your fan for life can't get better than that. Yeah So The China books rock paper tiger the protagonist is as I mentioned is sort of an accidental Iraq war vet She had the background of being a medic and experience is a lot of really I was inspired if you can use that word by Abu Ghraib and prisoner abuses. So just know that there's a lot of dark and very unpleasant things in these books and I guessed the the Emails that have meant the most to me the response has been from from veterans Iraq veterans because I was extremely worried about my ability to do that credibly and I wanted to do it right and one of the emails I received was from a woman who thanked me for the books and said that it helped her make some sense of some things she had been feeling since she got back and I was I didn't even know how to react to that. It was actually both really gratifying and extremely upsetting because you know, nobody should need my help Processing an experience like that That's incredible. Yeah I just I get emails and fan letters, which I love and a lot of times they're from man What the best one there's two good ones that I really got one of them was from a woman who was going through chemo Therapy and she had her sister because she was she couldn't really read it at that time had her sister read it and that it distracted her and made her laugh and made her feel some pleasant hours and Man when you can do that for somebody help somebody through a tough day You've done it. The funniest one is very recent a man wrote and Sent me an email saying that he he thought my books he read Death Runs in the family, which it takes place in Las Vegas And he said I read this and despite the fact that there are all these cats in it He said because I can't stand the little buggers Said but actually, you know if you take the cats out the hero wouldn't like it, but I'd say give it a 10 stars Thing so I tend because I'm kind of warm and fuzzy Did you pick that up? Okay, so I'm kind of warm and fuzzy So I get emails that are warm and fuzzy and I always respond to them and I used to respond to When reviews when people would write reviews and I understand we're really not supposed to do that Which really breaks my heart because I've made some friends and everything on when they write reviews on Amazon I think it's mostly you're not supposed to respond to negative reviews because sometimes those people are very Sensitive about that. I don't know anyway because I've made some friends by Responding to I think the world needs more touchy-feely. I really do I think we all need that and I wish I could respond So if anybody ever wants to email me, please do I'll I'll send you brownies. I mean I'm good Okay, so I have two favorites one was after the first book a woman wrote to my Publisher and said I just love this book by Terry shames and I will read anything he writes And then she said and I especially like the size of them because they fit right into my purse Okay, and then I got one recently from a man who Who said I am so happy that I was introduced to your books by my bookseller I went and bought all five of them because they're just so wholesome and so I'm thinking wholesome Do you understand this is about murder? And it was from some Reverend somebody from a mega church in North Carolina Those people are blood thirsty So How do you come up with your plots? I have such trouble with plots. How do you come up with your place? Read the paper? I'll tell you the truth. Okay. I'll do that truth is stranger than fiction. Don't you think? Yeah? I was very dry and often a cruel or For sure. Yeah, so you get yours from the newspaper. Is that right? Oh, yeah, I'll go. Yeah In fact, a wedding to die for which was the second book came from I was reading National Geographic, which I do And I like that magazine and in there was an article about a family in Egypt that for 60 years had been pilfering this lesser known Egyptian Kings tomb Pharaoh's tomb and through the years and it was they followed the progress of them because they would only take one piece and they would sell it on The slide whatever that meant that them that the whole extended family was enriched and made better So they all got educations. They all so after 60 years. These people were Lawyers doctors Indian chiefs, you know all these kind of wonderful thing. Oh, I probably shouldn't have said Indian chiefs That was very un-PC forgive me. That's okay. You're absolved there anyway and They were discovered after 60 years and there was probably 80 80 of them in this family and only because one of the family members got greedy he was working at the famous museum in Cairo and he Substituted a real piece of Antiquity for a fake it was discovered and they tracked everything down and found that this family had done that So I just took that and ran. I said, oh, this is just too good. I have to write so I transferred it to Mexico I made it between the Toltecs and all this kind of stuff. I had a lot of fun with it So I tend to base mine always on on what I read. Okay. Okay, Lisa. How about you? Obviously, I'm inspired by current events, but it's not generally a specific story like that it's more of a broader issue and I tend to I tend to go very wide and just take in a lot of information because you know, you don't know what you Don't know and and I want to kind of learn it I'm really inspired by place It you know places a character to me and then with the characters Well at this point I have had characters that I've written in more than one book But when I start a book It's a really weird kind of mental process where I feel like I'm Watching these people that they're outside of me and I'm observing their behavior, which I know is not normal Writer it is. Yeah, and and then eventually when I get to know them, you know It's the interaction of the characters the characters have to drive the story. I I don't It's a really hard thing for me to explain how I do it. I don't really know Exactly, but it's those so you got sort of social or a Contemporary theme that you work from and that fits in with that. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean it really it really has to be You know, I mean I write one scene and then I then it's like well what happens next and then I write what happens next So what if yeah, yeah, yeah, and and you know, I don't really ever feel like the you know That whole thing where the characters are out of control and they're doing stuff I don't feel like that I don't yeah, but you know You do have to let them guide The process or it's not going to be true to life right Joanne, what about you and then I add a car chase or something that exactly Explosion or two right I Don't write contemporary because I don't have a clue. What's going on today and also Especially the technology I can't deal with technology. So I've always written historical My first romances were medieval. That's because Ainsworth is an Anglo-Saxon name So I tried to go back and take a period where there was some equality for women and a period of time without war It took me until a generation after the Norman conquest to find one even though Ainsworth starts in the nine hundredth then my His my westerns were set in Buffalo in 1895 and I had lived in Buffalo, Wyoming In it for four months and did a lot of historical tours there So I said well, why don't I use that and then when I decided on doing World War two? I was live back then I was going into first grade So I had a lot of the feel of the times and I figured I wouldn't have to do as much of research on that The I am very structured. I don't sit down and write anything I peace mine together I craft and pull it together from here and there My critique partners are very influential in the first part with the brainstorming getting the idea and Piece by piece putting the story together and then once that part's done Then I love to edit and I massage it and get it going You know you've mentioned your critique partners. Do it do either of you Have critique partners as well or do you did do you what I do is I want to write the whole book? And then I show it to a writers group that I've had for 20 years only four of us and the other three do not write mysteries and So I don't really like to do it as I go along. I don't want to hear what anybody has to say until I'm all done But what what about you two? Do you do that? I mean do you have? I Have a writing group to for I tend the beginning of a book to me is very important That's where you make the contract with your reader. It's where the interest they're gonna make the investment of time So to me I I want to make sure and also you're making this all up I'm making it up. Am I nuts today. Is this gonna fly is this gonna work? I don't know So they also my group does not write they don't not only do they not write mysteries. They don't write genre They're actually serious literary writers, you know the big stuff the New Yorker all that stuff. That's what they want to do That's where they're going. I'm the only genre writer So I give it to them and I hope that they I give them like the first 50 pages How is this going? Does this have any interest for you at all and? And and they are always Wonderful feedback, don't you think that you get do all of you have critique groups that you deal with the brighter groups? Because I often don't I often don't give my stuff to the critique group because I have a deadline And I don't have time to do it and I feel in the same Eocratic series I feel very confident about what's coming out, but in the last one I gave it to them because I was very excited I thought it was probably really a good book and They said that it was the best for sure and that was nice, you know Although I have to argue with you on that one point about that every book is probably better than the ones before because Haven't you all read something? You know that you've read series and all of a sudden you read one you think What happened here? That was doesn't work out so well, you know And I don't know if people just get bored with it or if they weren't fully present when they were writing it But what do you think? Critique partners I have a couple of friends, you know that I show things to on occasion not not regularly Both of whom are writers. I I Kind of try to balance the need to be working things out on my own with I really want to get some feedback on this Just tell me it's perfect. That's all I really want to hear Yes, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't And what was the other question? Oh about why why people sometimes to have a why the series fall off? Yeah, I think you know With with the Ellie books, you know, there was a point where my publisher wanted one You know, they want one a year and I just went no I can't do it and I think it's because in the case of those books It wouldn't be credible for that character to continue to be in these situations to experience You know and trauma adventure all of these things to pick yourself up dust yourself off and do it again Once a year. I just felt like that And and and I need more time. I need more of a break between the character So I wrote three and if I never write another one, I feel like I completed it I may do another one at some point, but I have to I have to want to do it I have to really feel it I have to feel like there's some story that I want to tell with this character with this setting that I couldn't do with anything else and and I think what happens is It's comfortable to do a series because all kinds of things are set up for you You don't have to rethink them every single time you approach the book. I think you can take it too far I think you know, I think especially if you're under pressure to publish You know, here's another one. Here's another one. Here's another one, you know, and it's it's really easy It's really easy to get into that situation and every books just not Going to be as good their books I have writer friends who publish a lot of books and they'll say things like yeah, I know this one wasn't as good But I was in a hurry and you know, I mean, you know, they're very they're very honest about it and it's just like you know, I Find that it is so hard to write a book anyway that it's not worth my time to Half-ass it why bother, right? I think what you're talking about is integrity that you have some integrity about what what do you want to put it? But isn't each book fresh for you for me each book is like the beginning It's maybe I know the names of people but it's always a different approach I challenge myself every single time so for me every book is fresh and new but that's that's what you have to do I mean everybody's got a different way of doing it But a lot of people don't and you know and it gets when you have series It just go on and on and on you can tell when people are phoning it in Well, I feel like my series I have to have that you do I have to have Something central that is a social issue in each of mine that and that has I have to do that Otherwise I would be bored with it. Yeah. Yeah Well, I'm gonna ask one more question and then we'll and then we'll turn it over to the audience and the last question I'd like is everyone always seems to want to know what your process is I will just briefly say When I'm doing I get up really early in the morning and when I'm working on my first draft The best thing I can do is start about six o'clock and just just write just you know, let it flow I don't always do that, but that's really my best time and then I just write as much as I can during the day I can't write more than about four hours because I get really tired I just I've always and four hours is always always even when I was really young that was just it bam I'd hit her wall and I'd say well, I can't go any farther But I do plenty of fooling around in between and then there's all this promo that has to get done Which is awful. So how about you? I am also an early riser My latest book just came out June 21. So right now. I'm in the midst of marketing and not getting any writing done However, I normally get up early 5 30 6 30 and write for about three four hours and like you It's really hard on the brain. You're constantly making decisions. Which way your character should go and It's really hard. So I like to do it when I'm fresh in the morning and For my technique of writing I usually start with a time period that I like and I say what is the problem that I can have in that time period well for World War two spies coming in on the East Coast was the problem Then what kind of characters do I need in order to find these spies and I I build from there I build my characters up in the story eventually comes out of that particular mixture and Oh, and my retic partners are in on it from the very first word and in the early days I cry a lot Oh, I drink heavily Six in the morning I sleep at six in the morning Well, okay, so You know, I usually I've had day jobs on and off and certainly when I started I was working full-time and I Decided when I needed to take writing more seriously. It wasn't that I hadn't done a lot of writing I had but I was like, you know There's a book called the war of art That's by Steven Pressman and it's a very useful little book. It's a little repetitive But it has some really good principles in it for me and that's the treating it like a job And are you talking about the art of war? No the war of art the war of art. It's it's Steven Pressman Yeah, it goes it goes like that, but but I have it It's worth reading yeah, and you know the idea that you know if you have a job you show up And that's the number one principle and so even though I drink heavily I would set a schedule of the heavy drinking in the writing and and like so I was ice when I started it from like 10 to midnight and My goal was to write two pages and I had all these kinds of rules that I made for myself But that was the main thing show up every night do the work You do and then the next day you know you do it again, and and that's really kind of carried carried over I I now find that I actually write better during the day than I used to Which is sad because I was so used to the Night writing which is great because it's quiet and you know, but I'm a little I'm a little sharper during the day But not early and you know I have a lot of distractions. I don't try to get a ton of words done You know five if I get over 500 words. That's fantastic. I rarely hit a thousand words in a day But you know I I don't I've gotten to the point with my writing where my drafts are pretty much that's Draft that came out as the draft that's in the book I write slowly and I I'm also learning that I need to get myself time off which was a lesson That actually you know a week just like I've been traveling doing promo For this book That's also really healthy for the creative process for the book that I'm working on now Just you know, it's like you write you write you write you write and it's like okay I got a I've got you know, 155, you know I've got a good over a third of a draft and now I really need to stop and think about what the rest of the book is Going to look like so it's both being disciplined trying to be consistently productive But also to realize that things take time and don't rush the important things Yeah, I I'm somewhere in the middle of all of this although. I'm a heavy drinker. Okay. I'm saying it I tend to start at the Coffee and my husband so wonderfully makes me coffee. Oh god. That's so great anyway And then at 8 o'clock I usually start writing and I'm there until 11 or 12 I think the magic four hours or something like that, but then I often go back and sometimes I have inspiration very late at night It's amazing. What a martini will just let you write So for me, it's a lot of fun I also here's one thing that I do we do a lot of cruises my husband loves to cruise I'm attached to this guy. Can you tell that anyway? Okay, and I call them writers retreats because otherwise I would go stark raving mad. I mean your honor ship for me. Who cares? I mean It's water, you know water water everywhere So I get to have uninterrupted and on cruises I tend to write six to eight hours a day. I really am totally productive and I changed in this book right here I changed villains over the Bermuda Triangle sure That had something to do with it. I had her my first book was written on a boat Yes, it's very peaceful isn't it and and they can't get you and then you put it down Then you put it down. You've done like it is. Oh my god. I'm telling me. Oh, okay, and then someone makes you dinner Someone you know someone else someone gives you a drink. No, I had to make the dinner They make your bed. They make your bed. I mean cruises are great for writing I was gonna add one other tip which for me is really important and that's getting exercise. I'm very very Vigilant about that taking walks is really really helpful for the I got up and do 45 minutes of exercise every single yeah Yeah, and you know whatever it is you need to do, but it's it's such a sedentary Activity that that's the thing I always recommend to everybody have an exercise program. It's really important You'll think better too. Okay Well, I think we have just about just a little time to answer some questions if anybody has any questions out there Go for it. Yes Well place is also a value for me I mean, it's really important to me. This is said in Texas. I know this this made up place I can you know Lisa you said that you feel like you just immediately start Being there and seeing what things are as soon as I start I feel like I'm I feel like I'm there well a couple things when I Decided to write seriously to write a book for publication I asked myself what I could write about that I what I could talk about that was somewhat unique and at the time You didn't have very many Westerners American writers writing books that were set in contemporary China They were writing books that were set in period China not contemporary. I traveled to China a lot I'm thinking this is really interesting This was something I would like to be able to share with people Mainly I think that you know characters exist in The physical world in a particular environment and it controls a lot of how they interact. It's it's it's what they're bouncing off of So I try to look at place in in both of these ways When it comes to China for example You you don't want to exoticize a place That to a million a billion and a half Chinese is the place they wake up in every morning But I also write stuff set say in Southern California, which was where I was born and raised Which to me is very normal until I got out in the rest of the world and heard people how they reacted to that So you want to try to find the ordinary and the exotic and the exotic in the ordinary? Well for me with the social issues I Am very interested in how people How people keep why they keep secrets and how it it informs their lives what they do So that's always sort of at the bottom of it. The other thing I'm interested in I'm not interested in serial killers or people who I'm interested in what Causes a person who is a perfectly normal everyday person to suddenly feel as if their life has spent out of control and The best way they can deal with it is to get rid of someone and I actually had an experience where I Said this to a crowd and a woman came up afterwards and said she had never heard anyone say that before and That her daughter had been killed by a man that had that happened to he walked into a 7-11 and someone recognized him He killed everyone there because he said he just he just couldn't stand the idea that someone would know that he had done this So he did something much worse In my second book I was it was about veterans of the war of The Gulf War about how veterans are treating this country It just drove me crazy and then the next one was about the banking industry and the fact that The town had gone bankrupt and what people had you know how people had to deal with it the fact that suddenly there was not a Library in the library in volunteer time. It's a small town So each of them has had an issue in the very last one the issue was having someone who was Mentally ill as a young woman and was sent away and her parents. They just left her there for 20 years. It turns out I Actually know someone that that happened to who found out that she had a twin sister that she did not know about until she was in her 50s I think and She went and she went and found the sister. It's a it's a Thrilling story found the sister her sister was profoundly retarded and blind and deaf and Not blind. I'm sorry and deaf and She just died as one of the world's most most important artists in the United States Her sister took her into an art program in San Francisco and this woman's art is everywhere And there's just been a book published about it. It's just thrilling. I'm sorry I didn't mean to get off on that, but I just think it's such a it's our passion, you know We talk about our passions. Yes, and that's that's what what makes us what's what makes us right? Yeah passion of it all really others other questions Yes, go for it. Oh, that's a constant problem Everybody I think I mean the short answer is that that a mystery is something that the that the The reader doesn't know any more than the person who's in who's investigating In a thriller you often know who the bad guy is and the question is how is it gonna? How's it gonna play out in the end? You know house? Yeah, and suspense is are you gonna get to that ticking bomb in time? There's actually three. Yeah mystery thriller suspense a lot of times they're combined and psychological suspense So it's sort of the opposite of what we were talking about feeling I think what happens a lot of the time And I know we've got to get going and let the Let you let you guys yeah, but what happens just in the in the real world is you know the writer You have all the time you need for your first book Then you get a contract and you have to come up with the second book on contract So I think a lot of the times that's why the second book is gonna seem rushed because it is it hasn't had all those years to develop I don't think that's true for me and the way my career path is gone But that is really really common in publishing. Also what you find is sometimes the person a person has a Mystery tucked away in the drawer somewhere and they say bring out anything else you have so the second one Maybe is not it's good because it's older and not written as well And thank you so much It's a great audience