Susan Oleksiw

For several years I've worked on the program committee of the New England Crime Bake mystery conference, held every year on Veterans Day weekend. A group of us rack our brains to come up with a mix of old and new writers, a variety of topics and formats, and maybe a surprise or two in something new. We send out the invitations, and then wait. This week we're waiting to hear from the writers we've invited, and once again I'm in the position many writers would like to be in.

I know what it's like to hope to get onto a panel during a particular conference, and not make it. It's a disappointment, but I still appreciate the efforts of the organizers to accommodate so many writers. There are a lot of us in this genre, and fortunately a growing number of conferences, in all sizes. The New England Crime Bake conference usually tops out at three hundred, so it's not exactly an intimate crowd, but I'm often surprised at how quickly we all become pals if not friends. This is the place to find like-minded souls living not too far away ready to talk about writing, the terrific book they're reading, or the one they're about to write.

The first responses to our invitations have come in, and they're surprisingly refreshing. One writer commented that this would be her first time on a panel and she was thrilled to have been asked. Someone else said much the same thing, but was quieter about it. One of the more successful writers in our genre responded with enthusiasm, which also gave me a boost.

As one of the editors of Crime Spell Books, I hope we will find stories that represent the writer's first effort to be published. It is a thrill to launch a writer, and we seem to do this if not regularly then often enough to remain ever hopeful that "this year," we'll find a "first" story. I remember my first story, in the 1960s in my college literary magazine, and much much later my first panel. 

Maybe waiting for the approval of others isn't a good way to go through life, but in the arts it's inevitable. No matter which side of the desk we're on, we're waiting for that email that opens a door, beckons us into the future, promises a step forward no matter how modest. So if you've been invited to participate in something, never think it's a small thing. And if you do the inviting, think of all the people you're helping in their careers. 

During the spring much of my focus is on reading stories for the next Crime Spell Books anthology. This is our fifth year (and the third anthology/literary journal I've started and spent years working on), and we're considering offering more than our usual twenty or so stories—a form of celebration for our readers.
 
But I'm also writing a story, and have been using a key to each individual character. It begins with a name. Characters have to match their names in some ineffable manner. Use the wrong name, and the character falls flat, and is flat. But get the name right, and the character breathes and fills out. Once a character is named and starts appearing on the page, the writer can't and shouldn't change it. I tried that once, and the rest of the book never felt right, so I had to go back to the beginning and correct my errors. This is a beginning writer's error, and I was indeed a newbie, struggling with my first novel. (It won. I was defeated, but I learned a lot.)
 
Sometimes I use a dictionary of names, and for this story I've made a list that are keys to the characters. Names give me ideas, but also delimit what the person can do. For one figure in particular I chose the name Miriam because I did want her to be disappointed, bitter, which is the definition of Miriam. But when I came to describe her conduct in a key scene I found out exactly what she was bitter about, and it wasn't at all what I expected. It also wasn't in my plan for the story. The question here is, What do I do about it? And the answer is, Nothing.
 
When a character takes off and emerges from my pen (or typing fingers), I've learned to give in and not try to correct it. I did try that once and got nowhere. I operate under the illusion that I control my typing, my thoughts and plans for my fiction. But sometimes I don't. I can't cross my unconscious. If it has decided this or that character will behave in a certain way, I have to go along with it, or the writing stops. If I want to go on writing, I have to open a new blank page and pick another topic.
 
Lots of people will think this is an exaggeration, an overly dramatic expression of how hard it is to write, and on and on and on. But when you are fully in tune with your creative unconscious, a part that arrives unbidden, first you are grateful for it, and second you are wary to break the spell. It's like ignoring your conscience. You can do it, but it won't go well.
 
Miriam brought a new thread into my story, so my job now is to trace it along and find out where it leads, what it means and what to do with it. This can be the best part of writing, as exciting for the writer as it is for the reader—the experience of discovery, of not knowing what's going to happen when I turn the page, of the delicious pleasure of surprise.
 
That's where I am now. You can read the final result in the upcoming anthology, Snakeberry: Best New England Crime Stories 2025, available in November.