Writers' Rituals - Donis Casey
The Mysterious Writing Habits of the World's Top Crime Writers
Nov 24, 2008
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 Donis Casey author of the Alafair Tucker Mysteries. The series is set in Eastern Oklahoma during the boom days of the early 20th Century, just before the first World War.
Q: How much research and plotting do you do before you're ready to write a book?
A: I do enormous amounts of research on Oklahoma prior to and during WWI, farm life, and early 20th Century housewifery. More than I need, really, but I get so wrapped up... I only have a basic plot outline before I begin to write. I generally know the beginning, and who the murderer is, but as the book progresses, the characters always take me in directions I never planned. Each book features a different one of Alafair’s children, who manages to get her/himself involved somehow with a murder investigation. Alafair comes to the rescue, sometimes welcome, sometimes not, and always more concerned with her child’s welfare than with the niceties of the law. I try very hard to capture a sense of the times and the details of Alafair’s life. Having to cook three enormous meals a day for 12 people - from scratch - or do laundry in a tub in the back yard, tends to intrude upon one’s crime-solving schedule
Q: What hours do you devote to your writing and what time of day do you prefer to write?
A: Most of the time, I write in the afternoons. I long ago developed the habit of doing my chores and errands in the morning, before the Arizona heat is at its worst.
Q: Do you take breaks, and if so, what do you do during them?
A: I routinely take a break at about 3:00 for 15 or 20 minutes, to eat an apple, stretch, and maybe read something that has nothing to do with anything. However, if I’m on a roll, all bets are off.
Q: Where do you write?
A: I write in my office, which is a converted den.
Q: What do you write with?
A: On my computer. I often work out problems and story alternatives with pen and paper.
Q: ...and why is that your preference?
A: Typing is effortless. There is no gap between thought and the appearance of the word on the page. It’s like automatic writing. On rare and blessed occasions, it IS automatic writing.
Q: Describe what you like to keep within arm's reach while you're writing.
A: A glass of water, my reading glasses, my latest notes.
Q: Describe the things you can see when you look up from your writing.
A: Books to the left of me, books to the right. I’m facing a wall upon which is hung four watercolors my husband and I painted when we lived in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France in the ‘70s, and beside the computer sits a picture of the Buddha.
Q: What was the first thing you wrote which was published?
A: A chapter on IRS tax publications in a book called Business Publications of the U.S. Government. It was riveting.
Q: What is your latest book?
A: My most recent book is The Drop Edge of Yonder, which was published by Poisoned Pen Press in Sept. ’07. My fourth Alafair Tucker Mystery, The Sky Took Him, will be out in January of 2009.
Donis Casey, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Dec. 29, and taken home from the hospital during the most widespread snowstorm in national history. She now lives in Tempe, Arizona, where it never snows.
And here is a very special offer from Donis. Did you know that Donis is Cherokee for “my daughter” and Casey, is Irish for “watchful”. Well, speaking of names... Donis will name a character in her next book after anyone who can name the year of that snowstorm, during which she was born!
For more details or to contact Donis, visit her website. Donis also blogs here.
Read about Peter May, Jane Finnis, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many other Writers' Rituals
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