A couple of weeks ago I attended the semi-annual retreat held by my writer’s group.  It took all of Saturday and most of Sunday.  There were eight of us.  We each read aloud from a piece we’re working on and the others read along silently and then critiqued the work.  By Sunday afternoon, we were all tired and at the same time energized as hell.

I’ve been a part of this writer’s group for eighteen years.  We have a name.  We call ourselves Crème de la Crime.  We’re all mystery writers.  Some of us are published, some are very close to publishing, and some probably never will publish.  Whenever I’m asked what I consider the most important element in my development as a writer, I always begin with Crème de la Crime.

In 1992, when I sat down to begin work on the manuscript that eventually became my first published novel, Iron Lake, and decided it was going to be a mystery (because I was desperate to be published and I stupidly thought any moron ought to be able to write and publish a mystery) I found myself stymied.  I wasn’t a great reader of mysteries at that time.  My father was a high school English teacher, and he raised his children on literature with a capital L.  Growing up, I didn’t even read The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew.  So I didn’t know the first thing about how write in the genre.  What did I do?  I took a course at The Loft (a well-known center in the Twin Cities, devoted to the written word) called, I believe, How To Write A Mystery.  The class was taught by Mary Logue, a marvelous writer in many genres, including mystery.  It was a great experience, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so.  When the class ended, ten of us who’d been students decided to form a continuing support group, and Crème de la Crime was born.

For eighteen years, we’ve met every Thursday evening to critique one another’s work.  I recall vaguely that in the beginning some adjustment was necessary for all of us.  Hearing your work criticized is never easy, and learning how to critique effectively is a learned skill.  Some of the original group didn’t survive the adjustment period.  Those of us who did have greatly strengthened our editorial ability over the nearly two decades of our association.

Every writer needs a good editorial eye.  And writers need to hear constantly that whether they’re published or not, the path they’re on is worthwhile.  (Our culture views success in so narrow a focus that publication and huge sales seem to be the most gauge of writer’s ability; what a travesty!)  A writer’s group can provide both these very necessary forms of support.

That said, not all writer’s groups are beneficial.  Like any human association, a writer’s group can be dysfunctional, and if you find yourself in one of these, get out as quickly as you can.  In my own mind, there are a few elements that can ensure the success of a group.  First, all members should be focused on the same genre.  Poets or essayists, for example, or even many literary fiction writers don’t have the frame of reference to critique a mystery effectively.  A group should meet regularly, and members should be willing to make that time commitment to the group.  And finally, writers should learn how to critique; there are a number of resources out there with good suggestions in this regard, but the bottom line is be respectful, be encouraging, and be honest.

I wish good luck to those of you searching for a group, and I hope sincerely that your experience is as profoundly beneficial as mine has been.

Even those of you without children will probably understand this.

You want to be proud of your children.  You want your children to be strong and go out into the world capable of standing against adversity.  And selfishly, you want your children to represent you well, to bring honor to your name, and in doing so, pay you back, not in small measure, for all the time, effort, and love that you poured into their upbringing.

I have flesh and blood children, but I also have literary children, and in many ways I feel much the same way about my books as I do about my daughter and son.

I’m not prepared at the moment to talk about all my literary children, but I’m more than happy to discuss my first born: Iron Lake. I finished re-reading it last night, and I’ve got tell you, I love this kid.  The first in a series is a dicey proposition for an author.  You’re laying the foundation on which story after story will be built, and if any of the lines or levels are dramatically off, whatever it is you create is, at some point, going to collapse.  In the Midwest where I live, pride is the second greatest sin, right behind murder.  At the risk of putting myself beyond salvation, I’d like to say I’m really proud of this debut work. As a foundation for every book that follows, it’s pretty damn reliable.

It took me four years to write Iron Lake.  The first three were spent in creating the first iteration of the manuscript, which I tried unsuccessfully to market to literary agents.  (Thirty-six in New York City alone turned me down.)  The final year was devoted to following the advice of a marvelous woman named Jane Jordan Browne.  I’d sent the manuscript to Jane, who had a literary agency in Chicago.  She and her colleague Danielle Egan-Miller read that early effort and saw promise in it.  But Jane told me the novel, at 500 pages, was too long, and she wouldn’t represent it.  If, however, I was willing to cut it by a hundred pages, she’d take another look.  Although it sounded to me as if she was asking me to amputate my right arm, I took her up on the offer.  Over the course of the next twelve months, I cut the manuscript by 120 pages.  It was the best thing I could have done.  I cut whole chapters, then scenes, then lines, and finally words.  I merged characters so that one accomplished the work of two.  I tightened everything, which kicked up the pace.  And in the process, I learned that I didn’t have to spell out everything; I could trust the intelligence of the reader.

In my re-reading of Iron Lake, I had only vaguest sense of what I’d edited out.  What I did see was a riveting tale, a story more complex and layered than I’d recalled, with solid, believable characters I cared about.  And when Molly died, I wept all over again.

Children can sometimes disappoint you.  I am happy—and very relieved—to say that this one didn’t.

Now on to child number two: Boundary Waters.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

I took the first step this past week.

For anyone who missed my initial blog entry, here’s the deal.  I’ve embarked on a journey this summer that will involve a first for me—rereading all the books in the Cork O’Connor series.  My perspective has always been that once a book is finished and published, what’s the use in going back over it?  There’s been a good deal of hullabaloo recently regarding Jeffrey Archer’s reworking of his bestselling saga Kane and Abel. Frankly, I don’t understand his decision.  Why spend time repaving an old road when there’s lots of country still ahead to explore?

In my own journey, I don’t intend to make any changes.  I’m just an observer.  I’m interested in revisiting the stories I left behind to see if my memory of them matches their reality.  Honestly, many of the details of the books are vague things to me now, lost in the mist of the past.  So this is a journey of reacquaintance, not reworking.

This week I began reading Iron Lake, my first published novel and the first entry in the Cork O’Connor series. I’m halfway through the book and here are my initial reactions, taken directly from the notes I’ve been making as I read:

Love this prologue.

This is a reference to the opening scene, in which a young Cork O’Connor goes on a bear hunt that helps end his grieving over the death of his father.  This is a scene that I wrote when I was nearing the end of the book, at the suggestion of my writer’s critique group.  A great suggestion.

Oh, Jesus, Henry Meloux is so different.

Henry, a very old Ojibwe Mide, is my favorite character in the series.  Much of who he is in the stories is already there (his humor particularly), but in the first few scenes he’s roughly drawn and in ways that I don’t visualize when I write him now.

Moves a little slowly.

I’ve learned that in the genre, pace is everything and anything that slows pace ought to end up on the cutting room floor.  There’s plenty here that drags the pace down.  Which is interesting, because, at my agent’s suggestion, I cut the initial manuscript by one hundred and twenty pages to move the story along more rapidly.  I thought I’d done a good job.  I could have done better.

Hmmm…the geography is not as I see it now.

The town of Aurora, the configuration of Iron Lake, the details of the locations on the reservation and in Tamarack County are not now in my imagination as I created them back in the 90s.  Damn, I should keep a black book of all details so that they don’t change!

That’s it for now.  I’m sending some postcards along so that those of you who have never seen the North Country of Minnesota might understand the beautiful place that is the home of Cork O’Connor.