For twenty years I debated: am I a real writer?  I finally decided I was.  I’d been writing: diary, poetry, even a novel.  Nothing published, but it finally hit me: a writer is one who writes.  Then at age thirty-one my first poem was published in a poetry journal a friend, Paul Foreman, and I started, Hyperion Poetry Journal.  My writing life now, at age seventy-six, is more settled, confident, and ritualized.  I have five poetry books out, two non-fiction, and a mystery, Killer Frost.  I expect another mystery, Farm Fresh and Fatal, and a new poetry book, Beaver Soul this fall.

            I have about seventy unpublished books.  I have a great drive to write and feel best when I’m writing.  I use a schedule, spend two hours each morning writing in my diary, then, when I can free the time to write a book, two hours in the afternoon, and two hours in the evening.  I set aside two months when I won’t be teaching or otherwise distracted, this year, July-August.  I’ll do my farm work, a good break from the intensity of creating, let my mind go slack, pick figs, preserve soups for the winter, read mysteries. 

            Elizabeth George’s Write Away gave me my model.  Once I get my basic idea, I use George’s character prompt form to brainstorm new characters: what they look like, how they talk, what their goal is, in life and in the story, significant events, etc.  I want them to become alive for me.  Then I start sketching out the scenes.  I can usually rough out the whole novel.  Some chapters have several scenes; some only one. 

            Then I start composition. If the story moves in an unexpected way, I trust that intuition and follow it, even if the killer changes.  I often draft the whole novel in six weeks, normally 60-70,000 words.  I write by hand and revise as I type it on the computer.  Generally, I don’t change a lot.  I compose like a Japanese painter–study what I want to make vivid, see it clearly in my mind’s eye, and when it is quite real to me, then I describe what I see and hear.  I hear the dialogue better than I see the people.  The roughed out scenes are a guide, and I always reread what I wrote my last session, or more if I need to get into the flow of the novel.  Then I send it to two readers who like my work and help me find inconsistencies or more detail I might need.  Typing and later getting it published and promoted I can do with more interruptions, but composition needs me to become immersed in my book.  It’s work, but very gratifying, and it uses all of my mental life: feelings, experiences, personal history, concerns for justice.  I’ve been active in my community to improve conditions, but my best gift to other people and to justice is the books I write.