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Writer's Notes

It Takes a Village

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By Thonie Hevron

You’ve all heard the African proverb (a cliché these days), “It takes a village to…” fill in your blank. My answer is “write a book.” Writers are solitary creatures—shy by nature. But if you think a writer completes their work alone, let me educate you.

Granted, most of the hard work is done solo. Charlotte Bronte hardly had a critique group to whip her text into shape. While “taking a village” may be a stretch, the support systems we have now weren’t around in their day. I refer to critique groups, beta readers, editors, and experts.

Here are a few words on my support systems:

  • I owe my growth as a writer to the members (current and past) of my critique group. They’re honest enough to say, “This just doesn’t work,” and tell me why. If I want compliments, I’d ask my mother. If I want the truth (and constructive suggestions), I ask my critique partners. To be clear, I’ve written these pages in solitude. But their review and input are part of the process. Their criticism can only improve my work—and it has.
  • Another writer notion is that writers prefer aloneness. We do. I cannot deny it. But having a group of people behind you, cheerleading, challenging, and empathetic, soothes the ouch of an agent’s rejection letter. When I joined Redwood Writers (RW—a branch of the California Writers Club) in 2006, I had two books completed and I needed to figure the next step. Between monthly speakers and workshops, I realized I had more work to do before the manuscripts were polished enough to submit to a literary professional. Through the club, I found my critique group, mentors, learned how to set and achieve goals, and many other lessons. I learned the value of networking. As my genre is mystery/thriller/police procedurals, I joined the Public Safety Writers Association (PSWA). I applied RW lessons here. This group was comprised of active and retired law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, and military personnel. Several publishers also belong. It was through PSWA that I found my publisher.
  • While I could write a post on each of these support systems (I think I will!), here I need to stress how important it is to put another pair of eyes on my work. I wouldn’t think of letting an agent look at a manuscript without review from two or three Beta Readers (readers who check for general critiques-flow, plotting, etc.).
  • An editor is critical. A submission should be as error-free as possible. More on that later, too.
  • I can’t live without my “experts.” I had my third novel almost half done when I found Mike Brown, a retired lieutenant from Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. I’d worked with Mike years before and re-connected on Facebook. After he looked at my outline, he said, “It couldn’t happen like that.” Sheesh. As I market heavily to law enforcement, I knew my story had to be authentic. Back to the drawing board. The result was, “With Malice Aforethought.” Yet to be published, it won PSWA’s Writers Contest second place award in the 2016 unpublished novel category.

All this before the book is even published! In the weeks that follow, two of my esteemed colleagues will present their ideas on the same topic. Be sure to check in every Friday, or better yet, subscribe to my blog post, Just the Facts, Ma’am.

Thonie

 

 

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Writer's Notes

With Malice Aforethought-Progress Report

By Thonie Hevron

website: thoniehevron.com

Lake Sonoma overlook
Lake Sonoma overlook

The week slips away and I’ve missed another of my artificial deadlines. As I’ve said before, being so structured, I set goals for myself—for the completion of With Malice Aforethought (WMA), my latest thriller. Because this work is not under contract, I only have to answer to myself. Nonetheless, I’ve missed most of my targets on this project.

Life happens. This year, my husband and I sold and bought homes, moved, traveled for numerous family events both happy and sad, attended a conference, took a real vacation, and most recently, attended a high school reunion. Now, I’m dealing with family health issues that demand my attention—and are the priority.

If all this sounds like an excuse, well, I guess it is. I like to take one year to write and edit a new manuscript. WMA has gone over by three months and is behind schedule. The manuscript has “The End” typed on it but in version five, there are still mistakes to correct. I’m at the point where I read the text out loud. I catch so much with this method, that I can’t skip it. I have two-thirds of the manuscript left.

Dry Creek Valley--Collier Falls Winery
Dry Creek Valley–Collier Falls Winery

Next step, is off to beta readers. I have beta readers to perform several different tasks. First, my husband reads it. Being a retired fire fighter, he knows about car wrecks (there’s one for him to choreograph), electrical matters (for some MacGyver action), and lastly, the characteristic of wildland fire. Then, on to Billie Payton-Settles for editing. She culls the work for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure. At the same time, I’ll send it off to Mike Brown, a retired Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lieutenant who has specific knowledge of the procedures and culture of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. The homicide investigation that Nick Reyes and Meredith Ryan embark on is set in the beautiful and wild Dry Creek hills area of Sonoma County. As you know, authenticity is very important to me as a writer and a reader. After I make corrections from these three, I send it to two other law enforcement professionals who will read my work for realism—John Schembra, author of Retribution and many other books and Dave Freedland, author of Lincoln 9.

One of the many fire roads that lace the countryside in Dry Creek hills area.
One of the many fire roads that lace the countryside in Dry Creek hills area.

When I receive the manuscript from the beta readers, I’ll make the corrections and decide whether to send it to another editor for a final review. Then, it’s off to Oak Tree Press. My publisher Billie Johnson has agreed to read the manuscript. My hope is that she will find it a compelling enough story to publish under her banner. With all the work that goes into the manuscript, I hope she does. If this goes according to schedule, I look for With Malice Aforethought to be available this winter.

At least my excuses aren’t totally lame. The point is two-fold: I want the reader to know that there are very sound reasons this book is slow to finish and secondly, by posting this, I keep myself honest to those who read and anticipate my next story.

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More Street Stories

A Commentary from a Friend

By Joe Mariani, a retired Marin and Sonoma County teacher and administrator

re-posted from Facebook, with permission 

 

First of all, I love to read your Hal Collier stories.

But what sad news last night!

As a school administrator for SRCS [Santa Rosa City Schools] I regularly worked with the SRPD [Santa Rosa Police Department] & SO [Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office] and Probation. Several years before I retired in ’99 and then for the following decade when I was an on-call substitute administrator at all of the secondary schools in SRCS, we finally got 5 campus based PD officers who would split their time between our five high schools and their five feeder middle schools. As a building administrator I also attended the monthly Sonoma County gang- related meetings with the the same three groups at the SRPD main, where we would discuss the previous month’s gang activities & share intelligence.

Most regular citizens don’t have a clue about the dangerous and hard job that police & sheriff officers face every day, and how much we rely on them for our safety.

Also, it was always so great to see the paramedics & fire truck roll up – please no code 3! – when we had a badly injured or really sick student down. I go crazy when I see all if the bad press that today’s cops are getting, when I know from personal experience that all of the people who I worked with were good guys & ladies. And I also know that there is a “rest of the story” about the people who cops deal with every day/night that usually gets glossed over in the news. I dealt with middle & high school kids, non-students coming on campus, and adults for over 3 decades in a zillion “rest of the story” situations. It was so great to call or finally have a designated police officer to help with my 1056 [suicide/attempt], 415 [peace disturbance- can be a domestic or dog barking and everything in between], 242 [battery], H&W [Health and Welfare Code-known also as Welfare and Institutions Code-violation usually pertains to laws specifically to protect children’s welfare] , & even occasional 245 [assault with a deadly weapon], et al!

So my heart & prayers also go out to one more member of our “thin blue line, his Department, and his family.

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Writer's Notes

Fledgling Authors

By Thonie Hevron

It’s occurred to me that I may have something to offer to those fledgling authors out there. Not so long ago, I was in your ranks. In fact, I consider that most of my writing years were at this level. This was for three simple reasons: I was busy making a living, I had direction but no real goal set down, and I thought I had enough smarts to write a book without educating myself further.

If I knew then what I know now….blah, blah, blah.

San Rafael PD Meter Maids c1973 Marie Morris, Sharon Bunker, Thonie Mulcahy (Hevron)
San Rafael PD Meter Maids c1973 Marie Morris, Sharon Bunker, Thonie Mulcahy (Hevron)

Let me articulate the three points that I now work by: “making a living” —for me, this meant working at my alumni police departments (and Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office). But more than just “making a living,” I was learning all the technical and emotional aspects of law enforcement. When I got serious about writing, I heeded the old adage, “Write what you know.” I certainly knew cops and emergency services. What’s more exciting than saving lives?

Besides, one of the earliest inspirations for a story came from witnessing a detective come into my office, yell at the top of his lungs in frustration (over a broken typewriter, of all things), then leave. My first thought was that it could be a short trip for him to go postal. Oh, no. What if he took us hostage? In our own police department? How would that work? Ewwww, what a story! That became a book that I wrote after “By Force or Fear.” It’s now sitting in my closet tucked away in a box until I have time to re-work it.

Anyway, the point is that all those years I worked, my brain was storing up details, impressions, and feelings about the job. All to be mined for future novels.

The second point was not having a goal set down. I wrote my first story in the fifth grade, “How the Leopard Got His Spots.” Between journaling and fiction, I’ve been writing ever since. But with no discernable goal, most of my stuff was never fully imagined, thus never finished. Despite my parents support as well as my husband, Danny’s (he once fully remodeled a bedroom into an office for me), I plodded, putting words down…to no end.

What happened to change that? About the year 2005, my husband pointed out an advertisement in the local newspaper for a writing group. I joined and over the following year, jumpstarted my writing. The instructor, Pat Tyler, encouraged me to join her writers’ club—Redwood Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club (founded by Jack London and literary friends). Through this club, I was able to discern my genre—suspense/thriller/police procedural, then define my goal—to publish my novel.

Redwood Writers
Redwood Writers

The third part of this process was a two-parter: to educate myself and keep writing. Redwood Writers had several workshops each year as well as contests, anthologies and conferences. I devoured information from magazines, blogs, websites, books and newspapers. The changing face of publishing made all of us authors entrepreneurial. Self-publishing is no longer considered vanity press because so much of what is available is independently published.

But even if you have a publisher, you must do most of your own marketing.

Thonie reading at RWC
Thonie reading at RWC

Daunting, to be sure. An introvert by nature, what writer wants to put him/herself in front of a crowd and say, “Come buy my book.” Well, that’s exactly what we must do. Through workshops, conferences, et al, I have learned how to put myself “out there” via social media and public contact. I’ve pushed past my comfort level and have read my work in public—with many more events to come—and God help me, I’ve found my inner ham. I’m pushing my limits by enjoying being in the public eye while keeping my audience entertained.

All these lessons come hard. Even though I suffered sweaty palms before getting up in front of a crowd, pushing myself made it easier each time. Still, I wish I’d paid attention earlier. I could’ve been writing with purpose all along.

But the instructions have been heard: pay attention to the lessons of life, decide on the goal, and writing and education continue forever.

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