Writers' Rituals – Susan Fleet
The Mysterious Writing Habits of Crime Writers from Around the World
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 Susan Fleet. Susan Fleet is known for Absolution, her New Orleans crime thriller, the first in a series featuring NOPD homicide detective Frank Renzi. Like Susan, Renzi moved to New Orleans from Boston. He was a cop. Susan was a professional trumpet player.
How much research and plotting do you do before you're ready to write a book?
Absolution was inspired by a series of violent murders in Baton Rouge. An FBI profiler predicted the killer would be an unattractive white male in his thirties with “woman issues.” The actual murderer was a good-looking black man, and a known womanizer. Racial profiling figures in my book, but my killer is very different, and he terrorizes women in New Orleans.
I research the psychological makeup of my characters and do a rough plot outline, based upon “what if” scenarios. It might take three months before I begin writing.
What hours do you devote to your writing and what time of day do you prefer to write?
I swim a mile three times a week and often work out my characters and plot issues in the pool. I start writing around 12:30 PM and work five or six hours, six days/week.
Do you take breaks, and if so, what do you do during them?
Except for going back and forth between my computer and my dining-room table, I don’t take breaks. It ruins my creative flow. I divide my novels into four sections. At the end of a section, I shift gears and write profiles of the fabulous female musicians featured on my website. That lets me return to my novel with a fresh eye.
Where do you write?
At my computer or my dining-room table where I revise and cogitate.
(What do you write with?
I use a pen to jot down ideas on plot, characters and whatever else strikes me. For the actual writing, I use my computer. I can type really fast, which lets me go with the flow. I use a pen to revise hardcopy printouts, because it’s easier to spot mistakes, and I never have music on when I’m working. It’s too distracting. To me, music is never “background.”
Describe what you like to keep within arm's reach while you're writing.
A six pack of beer, shots of Tequila and a pack of cigarettes, like most authors of gritty crime novels ;)
Describe the things you can see when you look up from your writing.
From my dining room table, I see the shimmering blue water of a swimming pool, surrounded by swaying palm trees. Of course, during hurricanes they’re not swaying, they’re lashing about and bending horizontal, but I don’t let that distract me. I just keep working.
What was the first thing you wrote which was published?
A two-part feature article about suicide and the issues faced by surviving family members and friends. The article ran on the front page, below the fold, in the Woonsocket (RI) Call in 1982.
What is your latest book?
Absolution was set pre-Katrina. The next book in my Frank Renzi series is set in New Orleans one year post-Katrina. A creepy stalker is obsessed with a beautiful female flutist. A sub-plot involves the murder of a young black girl by a drug lord. Bad things happen in both cases, but in my books Renzi always gets the villain in the end.
Find out more about Susan Fleet and her books, here.
Read about Peter May, Jane Finnis, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many other Writers' Rituals
Susan Fleet
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Absolution by Susan Fleet
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