From Lowell Cauffiel, author of Masquerade and House of Secrets:
It’s a simple fact that the quality of your true-crime book will be directly proportional to the quality of your research. I try to schedule tasks when I’m researching a book, but once you open up a thread it can take days to run it down.”
Heh. Or weeks.
I haven’t had a very productive October so far when it comes to developing my true-crime book.
Perhaps it all depends on how you define it, however. On the one hand, I’ve had some deep frustrations in terms of getting access to documents and people I need in order to substantively proceed:
— For nearly two months, I’ve been trying to arrange a short interview with Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, in regards to her policy and practice in acting upon the recommendations of her Clemency and Pardons Board. Things went well at first, with her communications director promising to see if he could arrange something for me. Then he abruptly quit his job and moved back home to North Carolina. And while an interim successor has been named, I’ve had a hard time getting him to return my e-mails and phone calls. The deputy directors haven’t returned them, either. I even turned to some statehouse reporters — fellow members of the newspaper brotherhood — and they haven’t been returning my e-mails, either.
Finally, today, one of the deputy directors got back to me, apologizing for the delay in responding, and — you guessed — promised to see if she could arrange something. My confidence in actually getting face time with the governor isn’t high at the moment, as you might imagine … but at least one of the many doors on which I’ve been knocking has cracked open a bit.
— As readers of past posts on this blog might recall, I’ve shifted my focus from writing one book compiling short stories on several Clemency and Pardons Board cases to writing several books on individual cases. First up, as things stand now, is the story of a man who helped hold up and try to murder a fellow Seattle-area drug dealer before taking off to California with his girlfriend — another attempted murderer on the run — before being featured on “America’s Most Wanted” and being caught on a tip from an AMW viewer. And now, 12 years later, the man has been recommended for clemency and early release to the governor, largely on the strength of supportive testimony from his victim. The delay there has been in getting hold of the petition paperwork — including the court documents — that make up the factual backbone of the story. My paralegal contact in the state Attorney General’s office is finally coming through on my request, however, and I should have a CD bearing the entire file in the mail in a day or two. Reading what’s contained in that file will pave the way to several other avenues of research, I imagine. It’ll also enable me to start interviews in earnest with Les LeMieux, the victim in the case, who has agreed to work with me.
— Aaron Borrero, the man who tried to kill LeMieux, hasn’t yet fully pledged his cooperation with me, but he has agreed to meet with me so I can answer his questions about my project. Problem is, he’s at McNeil Island Corrections Facility. And while he’s agreed to put me on his visitors list, the state Department of Corrections hasn’t yet approved me as a visitor. If this sounds like a familiar complaint from an earlier blog … well, that’s because it is. I sent in the paperwork nearly a month ago and haven’t heard a word. (I’m also trying to get access to an inmate at the state women’s prison about whom I’m also writing; she murdered her parents as a teenager 26 years ago.) In the meantime, however, his sister found me on this blog, and hopefully she and I will be able to sit down for a conversation soon.
That’s on the one hand.
On the other hand, that’s left me plenty of time for the necessary drudgery of true-crime writing — transcribing interviews (which I really hate, because I hate the sound of my own voice) and drawing up timelines for the other cases I’m working on, for which I have most of the documents already.
That’s been going slow, because I have a low threshold for boredom. And that’s a real problem in writing a credible book, obviously. My attention tends to wander after half an hour or so, and usually sitting for an hour straight stretches me to my limit. So I get up, read or write for an hour or two, and guilt myself back to the kitchen table where I do my work. The upshot is that I get some stuff done, but not as much as, you know, an actual adult would. (Did I mention that I’m 44 years old?)
That’s going to make November interesting. Because, by Nov. 1:
a) I may well have everything I need to proceed with my main story, which I fervently wish to have finished in six to eight months. Which means I could easily spend every waking, non-working moment doing something productive toward that end.
b) I still need to do the drudgery work.
c) I still need to chase new cases, and there’s a new Clemency and Pardons Board hearing coming up at the end of November.
d) NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo?
Do you know about National Novel Writing Month? Basically, it’s a big challenge: Write a novel of at least 50,000 words between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. I did it last year, and completely faceplanted. I failed to draw up an outline, thinking it would be better to start cold from the first word, and wound up seeing my frontstory get sidetracked by my backstory. So I started over in mid-month, and while I did better, my efforts at frenetic catching-up fell short, and I finished at 42,000 words.
So, this year, I’m torn. At this time last year, I hadn’t even developed a zygote of an idea for the nonfiction project that’s all but consumed me this year. And I know that trying to shoehorn NaNoWriMo into all the other things I have going on is probably asking for more from myself than I can possibly deliver.
And yet, I’m driven by two things:
1. My friend Craig Lancaster, my wingman and daily confidante from last year’s NaNoWriMo effort, not only finished his novel in 30 days (with some 80,000 words, yet), but self-published it. And, based, on the positive word-of-mouth he was able to generate from that effort, he landed a mainstream publishing deal. And just after this year’s NaNoWriMo kicks off, Craig’s novel, 600 Hours Of Edward, will be re-released by Riverbend Publishing. I couldn’t be more proud of my friend … or more inspired by what he’s accomplished.
2. I really like my idea. I won’t bore you with a comprehensive plot summary, but suffice to say that it’s a dark thriller about an estranged father and son who team up in the course of a single night to kill a lot of people what need killing — and work out their longstanding differences with each fresh addition to the body count.
3. I really need to just fucking write. A year of researching and interviewing has been like a year of foreplay — fun as far as it goes, but eventually it’s got to get you where you really want to go. I think I can work out some of my long-shelved ya-yas in November by just diving in and happily humping away at my novel. It’s just a month, honey … you’ll understand, won’t you? (I hear myself in my mind asking my nonfiction project for permission.)
I think I’m going to go for it. As hard as it’s going to be. And hard it will be, because I won’t neglect this blog, either.
I vote forwriting FICTION. Only because its my favorite medium, and allows your mind to escape for awhile, and be creative. Go for it!
I’m using NaNo to finish a book rather than write a full one. I figure it’s all good as long as there’s writing being done. (I’m not “entering,” per se, but I’m participating.)
Jim,
You are now approved on Aaron Borrero’s visiting list. Aaron has lost your address and needs your address to contact you. You can visit him on Mondays or Fridays as those are the best days. Please write him and let him know in advance when you will be visiting. If you have a phone number he can call you.
Marilyn Stephens (Aaron’s mother)
uniongap@gte.net
253-631-7728
I’m frequently looking for brandnew infos in the world wide web about this subject. Thanx.