The day, and it was a day, that writing started to be fun for me, the day things began to really click, was the day I stopped trying to write sentences and started writing stories.
Sentences are hard for me—as you can see—but stories flow naturally from my heart and head.
I have a unique writing style. For better or worse, maybe a little of both, I have a voice. Michael Connelly described my style like this: “What Jim does is boil a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It’s what fires off the movie projector in the reader’s mind.”
I don’t know how often I actually succeed at that, but it’s what I try to do. And I think Mike Connelly is probably more perceptive about my writing than I am.
I’m pretty sure there are some good stories in this book, but I don’t know if there are any really good sentences.
That sure wasn’t one.
Elaine Petrocelli, the owner of one of the best bookstores in Marin County, California (or just about anywhere else), occasionally reads my books. She had a heart attack a while back. While Elaine was recovering in the hospital, she was given 1st to Die, the first of my Women’s Murder Club novels.
The idea for the Women’s Murder Club came from an observation I had while working at J. Walter Thompson. It was my experience that many of the women at Thompson were more collaborative than the men. So I had an idea to put four women together in a mystery series—specifically, a detective, a medical examiner, a journalist, and an assistant district attorney. I wanted to see what would happen if they collaborated on the most difficult murder cases.
The other stimulus for the Women’s Murder Club mystery series was my home life back in Newburgh. The tone of voice for the novels came out of real-life experiences with my mother and grandmother, my three incorrigible sisters, our female cat. Their buzz and purr are still inside my head. Like, right now. Drives me a little crazy!
In the first chapter of 1st to Die, Lindsay Boxer, our detective, arrives at a San Francisco hotel. There’s been a murder—of course—a beautiful couple on their beautiful honeymoon. Have I no shame? No, none at all. Next, we meet the medical examiner, Claire Washburn. She and Lindsay Boxer have worked on cases before. They’re good friends. I’ll stop right there—and get back to my favorite bookstore owner in Marin County.
Elaine Petrocelli told me, “A couple pages in, I had to put your damn book down! I’m in the hospital. I’m recovering from a heart attack. I cannot read a book called 1st to Die. Tell me the ending.”
I would not.