1st Person Familiar

  

I went looking for a book I hadn’t read in 60 years – a novel called The Golden Warrior, that I was assigned in the 8^th grade or thereabouts – and for whatever reason, I was curious to read again, or at least leaf through.  Something about it had stuck in my mind.  They didn’t have it at the library, and I found it on the internet.  For nine bucks, I was thinking trade paper, but it’s a hardcover, from 1950.  It came from a mail-order outfit called ThriftBooks, highly recommended.  https://www.thriftbooks.com/

The Golden Warrior is about the complicated political and dynastic struggle between Harold, last Saxon king of England, and William, duke of Normandy, that ends in 1066, with the Conquest.  It picks up the story fifteen years earlier, when William visits England to talk some turkey with then-king Edward.  Edward the Confessor is known for his piety, which unhappily means his marriage is without issue.  He has no heir, and Duke William wants to be named.

The first thing I noticed was that the dialogue seemed a little strained, at least to my ear, and theatrically archaic.  I don’t mean like Sir Walter Scott, and Ivanhoe, where the flourishes are exaggerated to the point of parody – think Danny Kaye, in The Court Jester – but you find yourself thinking, Did these people actually speak like this?  You understand the need for a certain formality, or discretion, or indirection, and plain speaking could invite a rain of troubles.  Still, the elevated speech patterns push you away, they don’t ask you in, they make you all too aware that it’s artificial, a construct. 

Historical fiction is, of course, tricky.  There’s a higher bar to clear, the suspension of disbelief.  It’s easy to make fun of Sir Walter Scott, but the books that are closer in time to his own, Old Mortality, say, or The Antiquary, ring less false, for the simple reason that he can actually imagine or conjure up how those people talked, whereas the speech of a 12^th-century Crusader is beyond him.  (I’d think it was pretty much beyond anybody.)

If you look at Patrick O’Brian’s work, though, or Mary Renault, they somehow get around this problem.  Renault, in particular, uses a device you could call the First-Person Familiar, or the First-Person Intimate.  Think about it for a second.  I recently read Tana French’s In the Woods, and liked it a lot, but the way she chooses to tell the story is unreliable: the first-person narration is as much about concealment as it is about peeling away secrets.  The buried past, the buried present.  See, instead, how Renault opens The Last of the Wine, or The Mask of Apollo.  It’s a sleight of hand, which appears transparent; she seems to withhold nothing.  “When I was a young boy, if I was sick or in trouble, or had been beaten at school, I used to remember that on the day I was born my father had wanted to kill me.” 

It’s so matter-of-fact.  It might remind you of Dickens, Copperfield, maybe.  The later Dickens is slyer, more oblique, sliding up into the story from below.  This, the beginning of Last of the Wine, starts with the boy being born, but in fact in the middle of the story, the war with Sparta already a decade old.  Renault gives us an immediate present, nothing that smells of the lamp.

Actually, that’s not accurate.  It does smell of the lamp.  Not in the metaphorical sense, from Plutarch, meaning labored, but in the literal sense: you can smell the oil in her descriptions, see the light flickering on the wall. 

I’ll get past my initial resistance to The Golden Warrior.  I’ll accommodate the rhythms, the storytelling, the manners of speech.  You learn the beat, the time signature.  Some writers are more easeful than others, is all.  Renault can be deceptive; it goes down so smoothly, you never taste the hemlock. 

Parenting Choices Can Drive Crime Fiction Involving Minors

I've addressed before the benefits of writing crime stories involving children and teenagers. Simply because of their age, they could lack good judgment, be more willing to engage in risky behavior than an adult would, and not have sufficient experience to foresee the consequences of their actions, among other issues. As such, they could be useful for a crime-fiction author.

But parents can play a large role in what minors do, and this also opens a lot of opportunities for authors. You've probably heard the terms helicopter parents (for parents who take an overly active interest in their children's lives) and free-range parents (for parents who take a more laid-back approach to parenting). Depending on what you want your child/teenage characters (and your parent characters) to do in your story, you might give the adult a parenting style that is more controlling or more easy-going or somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. 

Helicopter parents

 

For instance, imagine parents who keep their son home on weekends to keep him away from a bad crowd. The boy could rebel, which opens up many opportunities for crime stories. Or the boy could follow the parents' rules and become a victim of bullying by kids who make fun of him for being so obedient, which also opens up crime-story opportunities. Or the boy could pretend to follow his parents' rules but sneak out and wind up in a whole different kind of trouble than the parents were trying to prevent. Again, crime-fiction opportunities galore. (Of course, the boy also could stay home and study a lot and earn a full college scholarship and live happily ever after, but that's not really useful for crime fiction.)

Free-range parents

 

On the other end of the spectrum, picture parents who are easygoing with their children. They give their kids slack, thinking overly protected children could rebel (see the prior example) or could fail to learn how to deal with problematic situations because they never got the chance. These parents could want their kids to learn self-reliance. They could want their kids to have the carefree childhood they remember themselves. Or they could be bad parents who simply don't care what their kids do. Or they could care but be overwhelmed by life and unable to oversee their children as much as they should or as much as they'd like. There are many reasons a parent could have a laid-back parenting style--good reasons and bad ones--and there are just as many potential consequences for the child/teenager characters. Once again: crime-fiction opportunities galore. (And once again, kids of free-range parents could exercise good judgment, never get in trouble, earn full college scholarships, and live happily ever after. I'm not saying one parenting style is better than another. But stories in which nothing goes wrong don't sound like crime fiction.)

My use of free-range parenting

 

I've made use of easygoing parents in several of my stories. In "Wishful Thinking," I have tweens explore a haunted house. They needed parents who didn't micromanage them for that plot to work. Similarly, when I was writing my newest short story, "Real Courage," I needed certain things to happen for the plot to work (including an unsupervised party), things that wouldn't be believable if the teens weren't given freedom to screw up, so I created a neighborhood of free-range parents. I also made use of free-range parents in my story coming out next, "Teenage Dirtbag." That story I set in the 1980s, when (it at least feels to me) teens could often get away with a lot more than they can today.

 

So if you're considering writing a crime story involving children/teenagers, keep in mind that what the kids do can largely be influenced by the kind of parenting style at work in the minor's home. Parents can make just as many mistakes as children can. We crime writers should take advantage of it.

 

I'll write more about "Teenage Dirtbag" when it comes out. For now, if you'd like to read "Real Courage," you can buy issue 14 of Black Cat Mystery Magazine or, for a limited time, you can read "Real Courage" on my website. Just click here.

 

As this is my final post of 2023, I wish you all happy holidays.

The Sheer Pleasure of Writing

What is the moment of greatest satisfaction for a writer? What's the carrot, the prize, the gold at the end of the rainbow? I’m not talking about the lottery win that most of us never get, like an Edgar or the New York Times bestseller list. Some will say it’s the moment when they get an acceptance letter or when they see their work in print. For others, it’s the magic of holding in their hands a book or a prestigious journal with their name on the cover. But I’m talking about a moment long before that, when we're actually plying our craft.

For me, the rush comes at the end of a session when the writing is going well. When I lift my hands from the keyboard after an intense few hours working on a piece of fiction, a poem, or even an inspired blog post, I feel suffused with satisfaction. It’s a physical feeling of delight that runs along my arms from my fingers to my shoulders and down my legs all the way to my toes. It’s a marvelous feeling. Often, it comes as a surprise. And it reminds me why I go on writing.

I’ve heard many times about the athlete’s high. Although I ran for many years and still walk every day, no sport or exercise has ever left me flooded with endorphins. I used to call myself the slowest runner in New York, and I wasn't kidding. No, it's writing until the wave subsides that leaves me tingling all over and ready for a nap with a big smile on my face.

Most of us know we'd be idiots to claim we do this for the money or the fame. So tell me, writers, what is it about our métier that turns you on?

Peace and Order

At a dinner party I was once told by an American, that while Americans strive for 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’, Canadians get the very unsexy ‘Peace, Order and Good Government’.

At the risk of sounding dull as dishwater, I’m a big fan of peace, order and good government. It’s reassuring. Although peace and order in the Constitution Act of 1867 refers to large issues, most of us understand it as it’s exemplified in everyday life. The quiet way we line up to take our turn or stop our cars at a crosswalk to let children cross. The peace of quiet walks and stopping at a favourite store and getting some food. The way all my neighbours wave and chat.

Since the October 7^th Hamas attack against Israel, we are hearing more and more about Canadians being shouted at on the subway by mobs, shootings at schools and defaced places of worship. The places we shop owned by Jews and Muslims are being targeted by mobs and vandalized. Many Canadians are frightened by how the peace and order of everyday life has been shattered by violence and disorder.

People are saying that they simply aren’t safe anymore and where is the legal punishment for this? 

There are three separate hatred-related offences in Canada: advocating genocide, publicly inciting hatred, and willfully promoting hatred.

For all three offences, there is no minimum punishment. Imprisonment, probation, or fines are possible. 

However, a provision in the Criminal Code addresses crimes motivated by hatred and allows increased penalties when an offender is sentenced for any criminal offence “if there is evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.” So theoretically, these crimes should carry harsher punishments. 

Interestingly, and applicable to today’s crises, “In 2009, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was established by major federal political parties to investigate and combat antisemitism - particularly what is referred to as the new antisemitism. It is argued that this form of hate targets Israel, consisting of and fed by allegations of Israeli "war crimes" and similar claims. Anti-Israel actions that led to the formation of a Parliamentary Coalition included boycott campaigns on university campuses and in some churches, spilling over into attacks on synagogues, Jewish institutions and individuals.”

So, how is this playing out? Police forces are asking people to come forward and report, and many are increasing the officers dedicated to hate crimes. In Toronto, Chief Myron Demkiw said there has been a "staggering" increase in hate crimes since the Hamas October seventh attack,  most of the hate crimes - 40% of them - are antisemitic hate crimes and “the force's hate crime unit has been expanded from a team of six to 32. And that since Oct. 7^th, the unit has made 22 arrests and laid 58 charges.” This type of communication with the public, encouraging reporting as well as communicating that arrests and charges have occurred, goes a long way to making people feel safer and it needs to be communicated more. 

Perhaps part of the problem is that many hate crimes are shared on social media but without follow-up, so there appears to be no accountability. A widely shared video showed an Indigo store with posters and red paint, the posters depicting an image of the company’s Jewish CEO Heather Reisman and accusing her of “Funding Genocide.” There were, however, consequences for those involved. So far, eleven people have been arrested, charged and the investigation remains open. We have yet to hear what their punishment will be and if there will be jail time.

This dramatic rise in hate motivated crime is testing our laws, our police response, legal system and things may have to change to meet the challenge. We haven’t seen this level of hate crimes before and just like police forces are adding officers trained to deal with hate crimes, perhaps we need to finally ask if our legal system can properly charge those involved? Will the punishment serve as a deterrent to others who might want to embark on similar hate crimes? Will the police response to arrest people be swift enough to make people feel safe or are more tools needed?  Do we need strict minimum sentences to serve as a future deterrent? 

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions – just a fan of peace, order and good government who is very worried.

Character Tests and Conference Rooms

Last summer, I did a Killer Nashville panel on character contrasts, and I got stumped on a question. Now, and this is important, I knew the question was coming. It was there in the panel leader's planned topics emailed around beforehand. I'd read those questions and agreed that these were great ideas. And I think a lot about characters and how to characterize. A whole lot. But these are the sorts of thoughts writers often think alone in our lairs. Suddenly, I had to verbalize my inner conjuring in front of a conference. With examples from my own stuff.

The question was how character interactions reveal each other's psyche and values. It's a sharp question. It frames a simple fact: No protagonist or antagonist or supporting cast shines alone. Other characters must test them, vex them, find common cause with them, and ultimately shape them. These characters need not be human. Places, weather, a monster brought to life by lightning. A proper story tests mettles and motives and echoes the tests throughout.

Most in that crowd were seeking tips to polish their novel manuscripts. My lens worth sharing is short fiction. If anything, though, a short story's hyper-compression presents this character interplay in teachable chunks. And what are good stories if not echo chambers for their compressed worlds? Extraneous character interactions in a story stick out worse than, I don't know, say a writer mulling over examples in front of a conference room crowd.

I think I stalled well enough while finding my answer. By panel rules, the examples were to come from recent work. The recent work in reach was my "Spirits Along the One North Road," in AHMM this last summer. "Spirits" has a train ride scene where the main character, a corporate embezzler guy hiding in Quebec, meets the other primary character, a middle-aged woman who becomes the embodiment of the new Canadian life he seeks. Their first scene together is all brief exchanges and awkward silences. What small talk the guy elicits cuts to their parallel core: family relationships and belonging.

That scene also shapes their very different takes on those things. He is newly divorced after his wife can't take being with a crook. He's in a lousy headspace of suppressed guilt and sees Quebec as an overromanticized sanctuary. The local lady already has a normal family life and a peaceful Canadian existence. To her, it's humdrum, too boring even for chitchat. He treasures his every-other-weekends with his kids. She's a good mom but despises her older kid's life choices.

They engage each other differently, too. He's expansive and carrying the conversation. She answers tersely, in clear signals to shut him down. His bad mojo vibe creeps her out a little. This initial meeting sets up their end-of-story parting moment, where it comes out that they ultimately share not just desires and disillusionments but also self-destructive greed. At core, they both think that somewhere else in this world life offers a release. He tried it and struck out. He'll circle home or die alone. Her shot at escape is just starting.

One strategy on character contrast I've picked up magpie-like goes like this:

Forgive me a Venn Diagram and also any missed credit for the construct. I've found this triad to be a great baseline for character inner selves, and there are endless ways to riff off it. "It" might be a McGuffin or a place or an emotional state. Maybe Character D doesn't want this thematic thing at all. The point is the connecting echoes among the characters. It's the third perspective that for me brings magic. Two characters arguing simply shows an argument.

But characters should argue. They should want to argue. Characters should raise old grudges and talk around each other and misunderstand because of their personal filters and motives. Character values come alive in the ground they hold, the ground they cede, when they get angry, when they deflect, when they go silent. Especially when they go silent. In that silence is deep truth.

Which is way better articulated than I managed in that conference room. Months later, that panel question still has me thinking about these nested character interactions and how to get better at it as I grow. And any question that leads to wonder is a gift.

About books

 Reading Chris Knopf's December 4th SleuthSayer's Column "Book, books, books. And more books." took me back to how I became a prolific reader.

In 1960, my army father was assigned to the Southern European Task Force (SETAF) in Verona, Italy, which began a three-year adventure for me in Italy. I was ten and wish I had been older to better appreciate the experience of living in Europe. I've so many vivid memories of the red tile roofs of Verona, the Bolla vineyards, the castles, the heart-wrenching battlefields of San Martino and Solferino, the art in nearby Florence, the canals of Venice, the magnificence of Rome and the Vatican, the narrow streets of Naples.

 Camp Passalaqua, Verona, Italy 1960s

Verona, Italy

L'Arena, Verona, Italy

Beyond those wonders came an everlasting wonder for me. Books. Coming from TV America, there was no TV for us in Italy. There was Italian television shows but we didn't even have a TV. I went to see a lot of moves at the post theater (went into that in my SleuthSayer's July 26, 2019 post "Movies 1960-1963)

However, it was the libraries which drew me. The post library and especially the school library.

I attended a wonderful school in 5th, 6th and 7th grade – Verona American Junior High & Elememtary School. We called it Borgo Milano School as it was on the street Borgo Milano. The teachers were first rate and the classes inspiring.

My fifth grade class in 1960. I'm first row. Fifth from the left. Teacher was Mr. Gamberoni.

The playground in 1960s

The librarian was a New Zealander or maybe Australian, with a cool accent. She guided me to so many great books for youngsters and I fell into the spell of reading and reading and reading. When school was closed for the summer, the post library at Camp Passalaqua had great books, more adult books and I kept on reading. It became a life-long love. Reading.

Juliet's balcony, Verona, Italy

Nice short film about Verona:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8342267643627569800/7341328071451990743

That's all for now,

  www.oneildenoux.com 

It Seems There Was This Irish Policeman...

 Foil Arms and Hog are three very funny Irish sketch comedians.  They have dozens of videos available on the web but the first one I spotted happens to relate to our favorite genre.  Enjoy.

Courting the B Muse

Last month I took a deep dive into linguistics.  I'm back in the same waters today.

Back in 2013 I wrote a novella about a beat poet detective named Delgardo.  After it appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine I put up an e-version on Amazon, courtesy of James Lincoln Warren who was kind enough to prepare the text for me, and create the cover.

Last year AHMM published the sequel and I have been thinking about creating a similar e-text.  I was reading it over and I came across this sentence:

The poet shook his head, looking bemused.  

And it occurred to me to ask: what exactly does bemused mean? 

I wasn't sure and that bugged me.  Here I quote a different story I wrote, about mystery writer Shanks:

Discovering he was using a word he couldn’t define annoyed him, like a carpenter opening his tool box and finding a gadget he didn’t recognize.  

And I had not only used the word, but had it published.  

I thought it meant: mildly amused and surprised.  But what did the dictionary say?  Glad you asked.  

Merriam-Webster gives three meanings: 

1. marked by confusion or bewilderment

2. lost in thought or reverie

3. having or showing feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing

(Ahem... Is from the word they want in definition 3?  I would have used because of.) 

Clearly, #3 is what was in my head. I checked my 1961 copy of Webster's Third International Dictionary (the one Nero Wolfe so despised he burned it in his fireplace). #3 is completely missing, so apparently the lexicographers only acknowledged it in the last half century.

Jumping back to the Merriam-Webster website I found something interesting by looking up bemuse (without the d).    It provided this helpful note:

Many people link bemused with amused, believing that the former word carries the meaning “amused, with a touch of something else.” While this was not its original sense, bemused has been used in such a fashion for long enough, and by enough people, that the meaning “having feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing" has become established. You may use bemuse in this fashion if you wish, but bear in mind that some people find it objectionable, insisting that bemused and amused are entirely distinct and that bemused properly means “marked by confusion or bewilderment.”

I went to the Oxford English Dictionary and discovered that they only list two meanings (under bemuse):

1. To make utterly confused or muddled, as with intoxicating liquor; to put into a stupid stare, to stupefy.

2.  Humorously, To devote entirely to the Muses.

So the OED doesn't even recognize "lost in thought." 

 Intrigued, I went to Facebook and asked people to define bemused without checking any sources.  I promptly received 30  responses. Their definitions fell into three main categories:

CONFUSED: confused, puzzled, bewildered, quizzical.

AMUSED: Amused, entertained by an odd event, gently amusingly surprised.

BOTH: Confused and slightly intrigued, pleasantly puzzled, taken aback and amused by it.

My friend Peter Rozovsky, who is a copy editor (and excellent photographer... that picture of me above is his work) is firmly in the "confused" camp and he wrote: 

That so many people get this wrong is an interesting sociolinguistic phenomenon. An error repeated often and widely enough becomes correct, with the intermediate step of usage notes in dictionaries that the word in question "is regarded by many as substandard, but..." The elimination of copy editing by newspapers (and, from what I hear, its downgrading by book publishers) only accelerates "language change." And if you find this troubling, go have a lie- down on your chaise longue.

I would suggest that Peter was surprised and mildly amused by the comments.  Too bad we don't have a word for that.

 

Narc Types?

    The current novel on my bedside table involves a cop who possesses superhuman thinking abilities. He never forgets anything. He has a sidekick who stands in awe of his mental agility. The protagonist is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes minus the cocaine and violin. 

    Although I've met many genuinely gifted police officers in my career, I've never met anyone like this. 

    Other books present the cops as corrupt or grossly inept. Some novels portray an officer so weighed down by personal baggage and the burdens she bears that she transforms into a drug-abusing alcoholic, barely a step above the criminals she pursues. 

    Each trope has some basis in fact. For the most part, however, these big issues don't reflect the officers I've seen and dealt with during my time in the courthouse. Their humanity is revealed, not in a single character bombshell, but rather because they sometimes run late, spill coffee, let an f-bomb drop in church, or drop the occasional typo into a report. 

    Anyway, that's my stated reason for the following compilation of typos gleaned from recent police reports. I hope they help you think about subtle ways to reveal character in your writing, better equip you to properly view the humans working as law enforcement professionals, or perhaps bring a smile to your day.

    "He angeled his head away."

    I assume that the arrestee bent his neck and moved his head to one side. But in the spirit of the yuletide season, he might have been adjusting his halo or emphasizing his pure white wings. The alleged offense, however, was not creating peace on earth.

    "The cocaine seized from the arrestee was gold ball sized."

    My assumption was that the packaged drugs collected by the officer were roughly the size of a Titleist. But given the fluctuating nature of narcotic prices, the baggie might have been worth its weight in precious metal.

    "She was found intoxicated in public lace."

    This one might unintentionally be accurate. Alcohol may sometimes lead to bad fashion choices. At least, that's what I've been told.

    "It was seized after passing the Heroine Test." 

    What are the elements of a good heroine test? Mental toughness. An unwillingness to allow her social status to defend who she becomes. A protagonist who is prepared to put her life on hold until the presenting problem resolves. Or perhaps a desire to sleep after consuming jerry-built pharmaceuticals.

    "The arrestee reviled to Officer Jones his name." 

    Another example of a sentence that might unintentionally be true. Not every citizen goes quietly into custody. Sometimes, hard feelings and genuine dislike develop between the opposing parties.

    Finally, in police work, as in fiction writing, the words matter. Consider the following typographical example. 

    During the argument, the arrestee hit his girlfriend.
    During the argument, the arrestee bit his girlfriend.

    The remainder of the report did not make clear whether "bit" was a typo or whether that was the actual physical conduct in which he engaged. It didn't matter for my purposes; the charged offense was the same regardless of the manner and means. However, I drew a very different mental picture of the two defendants. I found myself reacting much more strongly to the carnivore. What's your reaction? Was your image shaped dramatically by the single substitution of a consonant? 

    May all your holiday feasting be non-arrestable. 

    Until necks time. 

Books, books, books. And more books.

        I guess I was a pretty privileged kid growing up, though it often didn’t feel that way.  There were plenty of challenges, that I won’t go into here, though it’s safe to say we had financial security and little danger of physical harm, despite our devotion to risky behavior and thwarting our parents’ best laid plans to keep us safe.

         One unalloyed benefit to my upbringing was we were a family of readers.  My mother, older brother, aunts and grandmothers all read like crazy.  Books were all over the houses, and easily accessible.  Many were popular fictions – detective novels and door-stop bestsellers, but there was plenty of more erudite fare, and all I had to do was reach out my hand and grab anything open on a coffee table or nightstand.

        When we were young children, we were read to every night.  I will go out on a limb and declare there’s no better way to instill a love of the written word on tender young minds.  We did it with our own son, and I think it helped form his life in the best possible way. 

         I wasn’t a very good student.  I never liked just sitting there listening to someone in the front of a room talk at me.  But because I read so much, I could make up for it in odd ways that bailed me out.  And I could always write well enough, since I’d been trained at home on the subtleties, ebb and flow, the nuances of language. 

          

         I read virtually everything my older brother read, since he’d pass the books and articles to me when he was finished.  Because I did everything he did, this was standard practice.  He was an omnivorous, if idiosyncratic, reader, so this also served me well.  My mother and I discussed these books, so there was instruction along the way. I developed some friendships with older kids who would also pass along their favorite books, which I would introduce into the family literary ecosystem. 

          

         One particularly precocious kid I knew turned me on to physics, which totally befuddled my family members, though he gifted me with a lifelong interest in the subject, little of which I’ve ever understood.  I still like reading about it, even if the comprehension is fleetingly transitory.

        

         In the same way, I love archeology, paleontology, geography (maps!), architecture, auto mechanics, Buddhism, European history and military strategy, by knowing just enough to keep reading, even if only a tiny bit sticks. 

         

        I owe it all to our mother and grandmothers reading us A. A Milne and Dr. Seuss, while I followed along, deciphering the words as she spoke.  It was magical, this transformation of thought into symbols that you could then retain, and reproduce yourself.  What a marvel, what a gift. 

          

        If this be privilege, then I’m among the most blessed who ever lived.  I didn’t know to seek it out, it was just delivered to me, tucked into bed and hanging on every word. 

         

       Not all readers write, but all writers read.  It’s essential.  The first thing a writing coach will say is, “Read.”   You need to swim in that ocean of words to be facile in conjuring them yourself.  However, just to heighten the challenge of writing, you also have to find your own voice.  I stopped reading fiction for several years so I could clean all the chattering voices out of my head, and with luck, find my own.  Though I didn’t stop reading nonfiction, focusing on the best writers I could find (Winston Churchill, Freud, Stephen Jay Gould, Lewis Thomas, Machiavelli, Kant, Malcom Goldstein, Bill Bryson, etc.)  And along the way, I learned a few things. 

          

        So I’ll repeat what I’ve already written.  If you want to write, read.  And then write all the time.  Write anything, just don’t stop.  After a few million words, you’ll begin to know what you sound like, and that’s the beginning.  You can take it from there.