I’d like to welcome Marlie Parker Wasserman to the blog for #WriterWednesday! Things you need for your writing sessions: I need two things—coffee, of course, strong and black, and also scrap paper and a pencil. I need paper and pencil to write down random thoughts and also synonyms for terms I overuse or for terms that don’t seem right for the time period of my novels. For instance, if I realize I describe all my characters as rushing from one place to another, I’ll jot down other words to use—hurrying, dashing, scurrying. These lists serve as reminders to stretch my conventional vocabulary. Each word has a slightly different feel. This morning I might hurry to make my bed, dash to collect the mail, and scurry to organize my groceries on the supermarket’s moving belt.
Things that hamper your writing: When I sit down in the morning, if I have a messy desk, I might as well not even open my laptop. I spend the first five minutes throwing away shopping lists and filing receipts, until I see only my desk, my scratch pad, and my coffee cup. Then I have no more excuses!
Things you love about writing: Writing for me is all about freedom, both creatively and logistically. No one is telling me what to write, or standing over my shoulder and guessing every decision I make. I can experiment, decide I don’t like my first effort, and try again. I can change genres. I can change point of view. I can change settings. Wow. Logistically, I can write wherever I want—the desk or the beach—and I need nothing but a computer or even just paper and pen. Writing is a portable, inexpensive activity.
Things you hate about writing: Writing is a lonely activity. The flip side to the freedom I raved about above is that at the end of a writing session, most of us have no one handy, by our side, to comment on our efforts. If we are headed down the wrong path, we are likely to keep going instead of making a u-turn.
Things you never want to run out of: I live in fear of running out of coffee. I need that elixir to write and to keep headaches at bay. I always have backup bags in the cupboard. Coffee aficionados know that’s not a great idea, because when bags sit around too long, the coffee grows stale. But I can’t stop myself. Fear of caffeine withdrawal prevails over good sense.
Things you wish you’d never bought: I own five different winter coats, none of which I wear. Having lived in both Chicago and New Jersey, I collected these coats, one for dress, one for shoveling snow, one for shopping, and so on. When I moved to North Carolina, I should have left the coats behind or given them to people who could use them. Instead, they take up precious closet space. The outwear of choice here in North Carolina is a sweatshirt.
Words that describe you: Organized. Too often people use that word in a binary way—if you are organized you are not creative. I am pushing against that stereotype. For me, if I am organized I have time to do more than unorganized folks, or so I like to think.
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: Sob. I hunch over these days, after hours at the computer. I need to stand up straight, imagining books balanced on top of my head. Want to recommend any exercises?
Something you’re really good at: The wonderful folks who read my books know I enjoy research. I love digging into historic newspapers, genealogical records, novels of the period. I need to force myself to stop and to remember that I’m likely to incorporate a tiny portion of what I find.
Something you’re really bad at: I’ve turned into a terrible typist, which is a big problem for a novelist. I make one error after another and don’t always catch them. The “read aloud” function in Word saves me. I can hear if I’ve typed a word twice or omitted a word, even when I can’t see it through proofreading.
Something you wish you could do: I wish I could play the guitar. After three years of guitar lessons, and heaps of money for those lessons, I can’t even play Old McDonald. I finally gave up in disgrace. I blamed small hands, but we all know that’s a lie.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: I wish I’d never learned to bake chocolate cake and chocolate cookies. I eat whatever I make, with scary results. You see, I’m an excellent baker!
Things you’d walk a mile for: I will walk a mile or many miles for ice cream, preferably chocolate or coffee or mocha. My husband and I sample ice cream and gelato in every country we visit. We evaluate the offerings and broadcast our advice to every tourist we encounter.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: I am afraid of all animals except humans. I will never have a cat, a dog, a parakeet, or a frog in my home. It’s tough for me to visit pet owners. Also, if I find myself in a circle of mystery writers who incorporate pets into their stories, I keep quiet.
Things you always put in your books: I want my characters to be good and bad at the same time. Aren’t we all? No pure villains, please. And certainly, no pure heroes.
Things you never put in your books: You will find not a single pet in any of my books. Since I am afraid of all dogs and cats, my brain never incorporates them into my stories.
Favorite places you’ve been: Ahhh, where do I begin? I am a born tourist and I love almost every place I’ve seen on a trip. Italy sits at the top of my list, but Bryce Canyon and the Lake District of England sit just behind. I could keep this list going but I’ll control myself.
Places you never want to go to again: Although I love travel, I don’t love the airports where I’ve waited endlessly for delayed flights. I try to avoid the airports in Miami, Houston, and Auckland (New Zealand). No fond memories of any of those places.
Favorite books (or genre): No surprise—historical crime fiction remains my great love. Whether reading in this genre or writing in it, I learn details of the past, while trying to make those details come alive through the stories of real and imagined characters. I add some crime for the conflict that drives our daily lives and resolutions, and aim toward the perfect mixture.
Books you wouldn’t buy: I’ll be brave and face the fact that I may make enemies here. I don’t like fantasy or sci fi. For me, life is strange enough without inventing what we have never seen. It’s true that when I’ve been forced to read sci fi for a book club or an assignment, I sort of get it, but I’ll never go to that category on my own initiative.
Most embarrassing moment: Have we all replied to someone through email, thinking that we’ve pressed the simple reply button instead of reply all? I once sent a confidential critique of a job candidate to the person responsible for hiring, not realizing that my evaluation went to ten people.
Proudest moment: When I left my job as a publisher, several young people in the publishing house wrote unsolicited notes, thanking me for my support and encouragement. I can’t imagine nicer going-away gifts.
The nicest thing a reader said to you: I love readers who tell me they knew nothing about my topic before picking up my book, and I gave them a greater appreciation of xyz. I widened their horizon. That’s one of my goals, as well as entertaining.
The craziest thing a reader said to you: A reader once counted all the characters in the first draft of one of my novels and reported I had 107 individuals. I had avoided counting myself! Yes, I do sometimes overdo the number of characters, but after hearing that number I now take care to trim the list at least a bit, to reintroduce characters as necessary, and to hint when a character is of only passing interest.
