By CJ Verburg
March 23, 2018
I knew exactly what I wanted to write. My life plan revealed itself in college, where I devoured Agatha Christie and Mary Stewart novels between Tolstoy, Joyce, and Woolf. I would travel to exotic places and write a romantic mystery in each one.
The pesky need to earn a living steered me into publishing, but I soon jumped off the career ladder. Moving into a waterfront mansion in Marblehead, I fell in love with one of my 7 housemates, a woodworker who was rebuilding a derelict yacht. Every morning I sat overlooking the harbor and wrote; every afternoon I hopped on my bike and pedaled 3 miles to the Salem boatyard. My lover’s life plan was to sail around the world, winding up in the Caribbean with a charter business.
I’d learned from Melville what can happen to a sea captain who’s gripped by an obsession. As months became years, as my lover’s funds and charms dwindled while his ship stayed in drydock, I moved to Cambridge to stir things up again.
The agent who’d embraced my Marblehead manuscript brought back grim news. A “bodice-ripper” boom had bulldozed the romantic suspense market. Not even Mary Stewart’s publisher wanted the kind of book I’d planned to spend my life writing. The heroine couldn’t be a smart accidental sleuth who joins forces with an enigmatic stranger. She must be ravished by a handsome scoundrel, thereby launching his transformation into a hero. Or she can have occult powers. Or (preferably) both.
What to do? I’d bought a plane ticket to Paris. I’d outlined the novel I wanted to write there. Back to Square One?
Maybe not. This was the heyday of rock music. If I pushed my plot toward whodunit and threw in a band, would that light enough fireworks to satisfy a publisher? Worth a try. I spent a week in a French village, celebrating their annual strawberry festival. Real fireworks! Perfect!
Back home, I conjured up a narrator: Boston journalist Cory Goodwin, a NY private eye’s daughter, assigned to cover an American band in France. It was ages, though, since I’d hung out with rock musicians. Research break! I told friends I was looking for a band to let me sit in on a rehearsal, to catch up on how they spoke, dressed, and so forth.
One friend knew a keyboard player. I called him, slightly nervous. It was OK: he didn’t sound drugged or deranged. Sure, I could come observe, only they weren’t rehearsing. They were playing clubs all over New England. Did I want to join them?
No way. Travel with five male strangers? Hang out every night in a different bar? Unthinkable.
“Isn’t that what your book is about?” he asked. “A writer who follows a band on tour?”
Well, yes (gulp), but…
I tossed my skis in my car, so this trip wouldn’t be a total bust. No problem. I learned so much about music, musicians, the entertainment business, and life, and I had so much fun, that I didn’t end my odyssey after the first leg. I sailed on with my 5 new friends (6, counting the sound man) into much more than a musical mystery novel called Another Number for the Road. Coming home I hit a killer blizzard which became Scene One of my next Cory Goodwin mystery, Silent Night Violent Night.
Writing of course requires applying butt to chair and eyes to screen. But a central reason WHY I write — and why I chose to write mysteries — is the adventure. I can’t know which of my books will click with any given reader, or with the ever-changing publishing industry. I do know that anytime “write what you know” hits a dead end, I’d rather expand what I know than shrink what I write. Shake it up, baby!
~~~
