Tuesday, October 30, 2007

New Ideas from the Road (or Shower)



I get some of my best ideas in two places – the car and the shower. Don’t ask me why. My husband bought me a recording unit so I would stop making notes on paper napkins while driving down the interstate. And the shower thing. I don’t get that either. My memory is so short, I’ve been known to rush through the house wrapped in a towel, leaking water and searching for pen and paper.

So it wasn’t surprising that I had new thoughts about the direction of my career while driving home from Magna cum Murder (one of the best fan events around). Seven hours of epiphanies.

The main one is this – I love, love, love writing multiple points of view, which I discovered while working on the first of my doll collecting mysteries. A little nervous about exploring a new area, I only had two different povs in the first book—Gretchen’s and her mother’s. The next book had more. To tell you the truth, I’m having trouble controlling an urge to add too many. I have to rein in my eagerness. A plot becomes very complex when viewed through eyes other than those of the protagonist and at times I feel horrible lost. But then it all comes together.

Once I have more time, I’m going to try a stand-alone suspense novel. In the meantime, I want to push the fourth doll book even closer to the edge of cozy mystery and into suspense where life is a little scarier. What do you think? A shower scene perhaps?

3 comments:

Joanna Campbell Slan said...

Deb,

I remember hearing Alex Haley of Roots say that whenever he got "stuck," he would take a shower and the water helped him think through his block. He said he'd never been so clean in his life! Or something like that.

I find showers enormously helpful--and long drives. I guess I'm not alone.

Camille Minichino said...

I think it's fun that you have 3 copies of this blog up, as if Janet Leigh is just screaming and screaming and screaming!

Deb Baker said...

LOL! Camille, I have no idea how that happened. I'd like to say I'm that creative, but.....