Are writers obsessive-compulsive? Overly superstitious? Or do habits and rituals provide security for writers who never know where the next idea, or the words to write it, will come from?
Searching for clues to the secrets of writing, Suite 101 has an exclusive interview with Mary Reed, best known for the John the Lord Chamberlain Mysteries which she writes with Eric Mayer.
Q: How much research and plotting do you do before you're ready to write a book?
A: A Very Great Deal of the former, plus more as needed when the writing gets under way. For the novels we draft a fairly detailed outline, but when it is being written it tends to deviate from the outline as the plot advances and different characters clamour to appear or interesting twists suggest themselves. This is probably common with most writers.
Q: What hours do you devote to your writing and what time of day do you prefer to write?
A: I'm a night hawk and prefer to work then, but since we're both full time freelancers it's a question of getting up and immediately cranking up the computer...
Q: Do you take breaks, and if so, what do you do during them?
A: Yes, to top up the coffee pot and break for chow as well as stopping now and then to check the email or the latest headlines.
Q: Where do you write?
A: A small room upstairs!
Q: What do you write with?
A: Computer now, although the first couple of John novels were part drafted by hand on yellow legal pads and then transferred to the computer. Now it's all done by keyboard.
Q: ...and why is that your preference?
A: Convenience and quick revisions. Our "work-work" is also done by computer since much of the needed information arrives through it.
Q: What do you like to keep within arm's reach while you're writing.
A: A mug of Satan's brew, as my family calls coffee. And no, I am not keen on tea and regard iced tea as a particular abomination!
Q: What can you see when you look up from your writing.
A: Mostly a couple of bookcases (I said this was a small room...) though they feature anything but books. Among other things there's a shelf with various types of coffee, boxes of tax returns and other business records, some retired computer cords and an elderly modem, an unused fan or heater depending on the season, office supplies, and the cat, which has a nest on a bottom shelf. To balance it out, the tin containing the ashes of her old buddy resides on the top shelf of the next bookcase as rather than leave him behind when we moved from NY we brought him with us.
Q: What was the first thing you wrote which was published?
A: In fiction, a short story in EQMM, unless you count the first piece I sold, which was broadcast on the BBC Overseas Service.
Q: What is your latest book?
A: Seven For A Secret, published this spring by Poisoned Pen Press. We're now well into the first draft of Eightfer, currently untitled since the counting rhyme from which we took previous titles ends at seven.
Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, Mary Reed now lives and writes in Pennsylvania, USA. Find out more from the website.
Read about Peter May, Jane Finnis, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many other Writers' Rituals
Janice Hally - Janice Hally has written more than 300 broadcast hours of prime-time TV drama in the UK, as well as fiction and non-fiction books.
