Winifred Morris's Blog
May 13, 2021
The Backstory Part 1
I’ve decided to try writing a blog here—since I’m getting nowhere with the book I’ve been working on. This entry is my backstory—it’s on my website as the first half of “The Backstory”—and I’ve written it at least partly to remind myself of all the books I’ve written—yes, I have managed to pull books together in the past even though that skill eludes me now. How did I do that? Why did I do it? And most importantly, what do I do now? I’m sure you all have backstories too, and mine may not be that interesting to you, but it’s where I feel I need to begin to get to where I am now.
In fact, I have to begin when I was ten. I bought spiral notebooks back then and filled them with stories, clutching my pencil so tightly I still have a callous on the third finger of my right hand. I used the much more glamorous name of Mirycha Myra—apparently I already knew some authors used pseudonyms, and I had a hard time seeing myself as a Winifred (I still struggle with that). I invented a publishing company too (as many self-published authors now do). I have to credit all this creative activity to my fifth grade teacher, who was the most boring teacher I’d had so far. I can still see him in his checkered polyester pants, the pockets pouchy with Kleenex. But possibly because he was bored with the whole situation himself, he let me and three of my friends sit together around a large table, and he didn’t seem to care what we did there. So we wrote stories. And we shared our stories. So I wrote more of them. Having someone read my stories has always helped to motivate me.
By the time I was twelve, however, I’d developed an internal critic, which is probably essential for an author to produce anything that’s actually readable, and yet it can been demoralizing. I noticed my stories weren’t as good as the ones I read. Also, I got it in my head that most authors were dead. My father, who had written a few short stories before I was born and may have fantasized about being another Damon Runyon, discouraged me too, telling me it was impossible to get published. (This is the kind of thing parents often do, believing they’re protecting their child from disappointment, and as a parent myself, I am baffled by what you should tell a kid who wants to pursue a career in the arts. It is rife with disappointments.)
The best pursuit for a woman, he thought, was to be a secretary. “A good secretary can write her own ticket,” he said. This dates me since women do all sorts of other things now, but it dates him even more. What exactly did he mean? Is she writing a parking ticket? Or a movie ticket? Whatever kind of ticket it was, according to him it would have to be typed. So he forced me to take a typing class—at night school since I refused to waste any of my regular school electives on something so tedious. I hated it, and I always made too many errors to ever be a secretary (aka administrative assistant). But hey, as things have turned out, I’m glad he made me learn to type.
At this point, life swept on. I tried teaching. I was about as effective as Miss Hart in Living in Suspension before she got her act together. There was the Viet Nam War, Timothy Leary, and the back to the land movement. I found myself living where Kiva decides to start her new life in Of Mice and Money, on the dry side of Oregon, in the pine forest surrounded by wheat fields. There my husband and I built a homestead, and I helped plant more than a million trees with our tree planting crew. I also piled a lot of brush, the way Kiva’s daughter Amy does. I even sang for a while in a country rock band prophetically called Lost from the Start. I also had two sons.
But when my sons got old enough to ride the school bus, I remembered how much I had loved to write. And maybe because I was so involved in being a mom right then, or possibly because I read an article that claimed it was easy to get juvenile fiction published, I started writing for kids. What’s remarkable is that the article was right—at least for me. I submitted With Magical Horses To Ride to Atheneum and they bought it. I wish I could say the rest is history and mean it in the way it’s usually said, as if it was smooth sailing from then on. But history has not been smooth sailing, and it still isn’t.
In fact, I have to begin when I was ten. I bought spiral notebooks back then and filled them with stories, clutching my pencil so tightly I still have a callous on the third finger of my right hand. I used the much more glamorous name of Mirycha Myra—apparently I already knew some authors used pseudonyms, and I had a hard time seeing myself as a Winifred (I still struggle with that). I invented a publishing company too (as many self-published authors now do). I have to credit all this creative activity to my fifth grade teacher, who was the most boring teacher I’d had so far. I can still see him in his checkered polyester pants, the pockets pouchy with Kleenex. But possibly because he was bored with the whole situation himself, he let me and three of my friends sit together around a large table, and he didn’t seem to care what we did there. So we wrote stories. And we shared our stories. So I wrote more of them. Having someone read my stories has always helped to motivate me.
By the time I was twelve, however, I’d developed an internal critic, which is probably essential for an author to produce anything that’s actually readable, and yet it can been demoralizing. I noticed my stories weren’t as good as the ones I read. Also, I got it in my head that most authors were dead. My father, who had written a few short stories before I was born and may have fantasized about being another Damon Runyon, discouraged me too, telling me it was impossible to get published. (This is the kind of thing parents often do, believing they’re protecting their child from disappointment, and as a parent myself, I am baffled by what you should tell a kid who wants to pursue a career in the arts. It is rife with disappointments.)
The best pursuit for a woman, he thought, was to be a secretary. “A good secretary can write her own ticket,” he said. This dates me since women do all sorts of other things now, but it dates him even more. What exactly did he mean? Is she writing a parking ticket? Or a movie ticket? Whatever kind of ticket it was, according to him it would have to be typed. So he forced me to take a typing class—at night school since I refused to waste any of my regular school electives on something so tedious. I hated it, and I always made too many errors to ever be a secretary (aka administrative assistant). But hey, as things have turned out, I’m glad he made me learn to type.
At this point, life swept on. I tried teaching. I was about as effective as Miss Hart in Living in Suspension before she got her act together. There was the Viet Nam War, Timothy Leary, and the back to the land movement. I found myself living where Kiva decides to start her new life in Of Mice and Money, on the dry side of Oregon, in the pine forest surrounded by wheat fields. There my husband and I built a homestead, and I helped plant more than a million trees with our tree planting crew. I also piled a lot of brush, the way Kiva’s daughter Amy does. I even sang for a while in a country rock band prophetically called Lost from the Start. I also had two sons.
But when my sons got old enough to ride the school bus, I remembered how much I had loved to write. And maybe because I was so involved in being a mom right then, or possibly because I read an article that claimed it was easy to get juvenile fiction published, I started writing for kids. What’s remarkable is that the article was right—at least for me. I submitted With Magical Horses To Ride to Atheneum and they bought it. I wish I could say the rest is history and mean it in the way it’s usually said, as if it was smooth sailing from then on. But history has not been smooth sailing, and it still isn’t.
April 29, 2015
Genre Busting
When most people bought their books at book stores, genres were somewhat helpful to those buyers. If you liked mysteries, you could go straight to the mystery shelf. Genres might have been useful to some authors back then too—if they happened to like to write mysteries. Or science fiction that was similar to what Isaac Asimov wrote. But what if, like Kate Wilhelm, your science fiction was more character driven than most of the genre? Well, after a while, she gave up and switched to mysteries.
I think some authors have always found genres limiting and annoying. Does Connie Willis write science fiction or historical fiction? She’s received both Hugo and Nebula awards, but clearly her historical research is extensive. I recommend Blackout and All Clear if you’d like to feel what it was like to be in London during WWII.
I’m pleased to say that Amazon has Blackout, at least the Kindle version, listed in Science Fiction>Time Travel and also in three categories of Historical Fiction. And I’m not surprised there is no category called Science Fiction>Time Travel>Historical. But digital categories still seem to be limited. Why? In a bookstore, there were only so many walls, so many shelves. But now in the wall-less, shelf-less digital bookstore, why is there still no category for comic romantic suspense?
Okay, I didn’t write Of Mice and Money to fit a genre. It was my first attempt at an adult book. I started it with a vague idea that I wanted to write a Donald E. Westlake novel with a female protagonist, but Kiva’s emotions took over, and then her daughter showed up. But with Bombed I diligently tried to emulate Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, one of my favorite books. I love the combination of humor, romance, and suspense. But I’ve now found there’s no way I can list Bombed on Amazon so that all those sides of it show. Amazon calls Agnes and the Hitman Romantic Comedy, and also Romance>Suspense. But there’s no category called Romantic Comedy>Suspense or Romance>Suspense>Humorous, and I’m sure I’m not the only reader looking for books like that. (Interestingly enough, Westlake’s comic caper novels are listed as Crime, Suspense, and Mystery. No mention of the clever humor.)
I became even more exasperated with this when I tried to buy ads. That’s when I discovered Romantic Suspense is all dark and moody, at least judging by the covers. Romantic Comedy seems to fit Bombed better, but what about all the thriller plot stuff that I worked on so much—and was a lot of fun to write?
Comic romantic suspense is my personal beef, but I know many authors have been frustrated by these genre barriers. Granted, there have always been “best sellers,” also referred to as “commercial fiction,” that stretched across genres. The belief seems to be that if a book is good enough, or just popular enough, it doesn’t have to adhere to a genre. But now with digital book stores, it seems there could be more extensive categories even for books that don’t have huge marketing budgets. That would certainly serve authors better, and would serve browsing readers better too. Now if I search Amazon for comic romantic suspense, I find suspense and romance, but I don’t find any humor. Grrrr.
I think some authors have always found genres limiting and annoying. Does Connie Willis write science fiction or historical fiction? She’s received both Hugo and Nebula awards, but clearly her historical research is extensive. I recommend Blackout and All Clear if you’d like to feel what it was like to be in London during WWII.
I’m pleased to say that Amazon has Blackout, at least the Kindle version, listed in Science Fiction>Time Travel and also in three categories of Historical Fiction. And I’m not surprised there is no category called Science Fiction>Time Travel>Historical. But digital categories still seem to be limited. Why? In a bookstore, there were only so many walls, so many shelves. But now in the wall-less, shelf-less digital bookstore, why is there still no category for comic romantic suspense?
Okay, I didn’t write Of Mice and Money to fit a genre. It was my first attempt at an adult book. I started it with a vague idea that I wanted to write a Donald E. Westlake novel with a female protagonist, but Kiva’s emotions took over, and then her daughter showed up. But with Bombed I diligently tried to emulate Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, one of my favorite books. I love the combination of humor, romance, and suspense. But I’ve now found there’s no way I can list Bombed on Amazon so that all those sides of it show. Amazon calls Agnes and the Hitman Romantic Comedy, and also Romance>Suspense. But there’s no category called Romantic Comedy>Suspense or Romance>Suspense>Humorous, and I’m sure I’m not the only reader looking for books like that. (Interestingly enough, Westlake’s comic caper novels are listed as Crime, Suspense, and Mystery. No mention of the clever humor.)
I became even more exasperated with this when I tried to buy ads. That’s when I discovered Romantic Suspense is all dark and moody, at least judging by the covers. Romantic Comedy seems to fit Bombed better, but what about all the thriller plot stuff that I worked on so much—and was a lot of fun to write?
Comic romantic suspense is my personal beef, but I know many authors have been frustrated by these genre barriers. Granted, there have always been “best sellers,” also referred to as “commercial fiction,” that stretched across genres. The belief seems to be that if a book is good enough, or just popular enough, it doesn’t have to adhere to a genre. But now with digital book stores, it seems there could be more extensive categories even for books that don’t have huge marketing budgets. That would certainly serve authors better, and would serve browsing readers better too. Now if I search Amazon for comic romantic suspense, I find suspense and romance, but I don’t find any humor. Grrrr.
