My guest this week is the wonderful mystery writer and my dear friend Melodie Johnson Howe, whose latest, City of Mirrors, is just out. John Lescroart says of it, “The moral decay of the movie business has rarely been so deftly portrayed and with so little sentimentality … Jet-propelled narrative drive, non-stop action, a dark and twisting plot, and a mega-tough yet sympathetic heroine make this one impossible to put down.” And Michael Connelly calls it, “deftly written and smart … entertaining as hell.” I ADORED Melodie’s The Mother Shadow, which I read in paperback but is now also available as an ebook. Her sense of humor is delightful, as is her mystery plotting. I’m looking forward to a quiet moment to dig into City of Mirrors. But in the meantime, I absolutely love her post, and her slightly different slant on how she became a writer. Don’t miss her video on the subject included below her post as well. – Meg
A few weeks ago I got a copy of my new novel, City of Mirrors. I held the book in my hand. I walked around the house feeling the weight of it, stroking the dust jacket, and flipping through the pages. Eventually my husband asked, “Are you ever going to put it down?” “No,” I said.
Many years ago I was an actress under contract to Universal Studios. One of the last starlets. I had always wanted to be a writer but I got discovered and ended up in from of the camera with such leading men as Clint Eastwood, James Caan, Allen Alda and many others. Fate is a sly fox.
While I was acting I went to UCLA extension taking courses in creative writing. The first critique I got on my work was from a young man, who asked, “how can you write with a body like that?” Fate can also be cruel.
When you’re acting it’s all close-up. Your creative thinking is tunneled to the script, the other actors, the director, and the camera. But my mind was always working on the pull-back, observing the larger picture. I wanted to write down the things people said, not act them out. I wanted to write my own dialogue. I knew if I didn’t quit acting I would never be a writer. They are two very different disciplines. And acting is very seductive.
One day I went on an interview for a lead in a TV show. There were three other actresses in the room. We looked at each other, nodded, and smiled then went back to studying our scripts. The dialogue I ran over in my mind was dialogue I’d been acting in one version or another for what seemed an eternity. I peered at the other actresses. They were blonde, as I was. Pretty, as I was. We were all about the same age, height and weight. There was a definite theme going here. It was then I realized that I would never have my own voice if I stayed an actress.
Heart pounding, I stood up, laid my script on the assistance’s desk, and told her I would not be reading. She called the producer and he came out of his office. I told him I wasn’t reading because I didn’t want to be an actress anymore. He asked me if I was crazy. I didn’t answer. But his words stayed with me down the hallway, out to my car, and every time I sit down to write.
Maybe I was crazy to want to develop my own voice. A female voice. Most women are talkers, natural storytellers, (if a little self-obsessed) and most of us have a self-deprecating humor about our mistakes, our bodies, our loves, and lives. We talk in crazy rhythms, the rush of words growing with our need to be heard, our need to express.
When I became a published writer I ran into my then ex- Hollywood agent in a restaurant. He asked how I was doing? I explained I was a writer now, that I had published two novels. He said, “Why do women when they reach menopause need to write books?”
And now my search for a writing life was perfectly bookended between the young man who had wondered how I could write with a sexy body and my ex-agent wondering why I, a menopausal woman, needed to write. Fate has a wicked sense of humor.
Diana Poole, my protagonist in City of Mirrors, is the character that brings my knowledge of Hollywood and my voice together.
Now I walk around the house with my book in my hand. Yes, I was crazy. I am crazy. I’m a writer. – Melodie
