CJ Lyons ~ Author Interview

Award winning medical suspense author CJ Lyons is a physician trained in Pediatric Emergency MedicineShe has assisted police and prosecutors with cases involving child abuse, rape, homicide and Munchausen by Proxy and has worked in several trauma centers, on the Navajo reservation, as a crisis counselor, victim's advocate, as well as a flight physician for Life Flight. She is a member of MWA, International Thriller Writers, RWA, and Sisters in Crime. Her writing has appeared in Romantic Times Book Reviews, CrimeSpree and Spinetingler. Look for her debut novel, LIFELINES, coming from Berkley in March, 2008. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net.

Time to crow: What new book or project do you have coming out?

My debut novel, LIFELINES, was released March 4 (yes, two days ago!). It's the first in a series of medical suspense novels following the women of Pittsburgh's Angels of Mercy Medical Center's ER.

The second novel in the series, CATALYST, is finished (yeah!) and Berkley hopes to publish it January, 2009.

You're a doctor. How many of your experiences show up in your books?

Enough to be realistic but not enough to get me sued! I use real medical scenarios but the patient characters are totally fictional.

For medical procedures I try to give readers the essence without sacrificing entertainment. Honestly, if I outlined step by step everything that went into a resuscitation, readers would be bored to tears. As a writer, my job is to keep it as real as possible and still be entertaining.

Was there a specific 'what if' moment to LIFELINES?

I have a copy of an old LIFE magazine photo that shows an elderly gentleman dressed in a VFW uniform, lots of medals emblazoned across his chest. He's clearly a veteran, someone who has fought for my country, thus earning my respect.

Yet, in his hands he holds a large sign that reads: Freedom includes the right to hate.

That dissonance stuck with me—a man who had fought, perhaps shed blood, in the name of freedom, and yet here he was espousing the right to hate fellow Americans.

When Berkley asked me to create a new medical suspense series for them, I had no idea what the plot would be, but that photo kept surfacing in my memory, so I thought, what if a doctor, pledged to treat all patients equally no matter their beliefs or prejudices, what if she is targeted when the wrong patient dies? Or, even better, when the wrong patient is saved?

Every novelist has a journey. How long was your road to publication? How did you find out and what went through your mind?

My journey was a long and twisted road that I advise no one to follow! I seem to be living my professional life backwards—but then, I never was very good at following the rules.

I actually initially sold way back in 2004—it was a dream debut deal: hard cover, pre-empt with a major NYC house. Over a dozen NYT bestselling authors gave me cover quotes, it got nice reviews in PW, Booklist, etc., and yet it was pulled 100 days prior to publication because of cover art problems.

Something totally out of my control—yet here I was, no book, no career, no future. Or so it seemed.

I'm a firm believer that every "disaster" is actually an opportunity if you have the right attitude.

And that's exactly what happened. Because of that book-that-never-was, I was approached by a fantastic NYC agent who had read it and loved it, believed in my future.

Then, a few weeks after I bought back the rights to that first book, Berkley called me and asked me to create a new sub-genre for them, something new and fresh that hadn't been done before: a hybrid of women's fiction and medical thrillers.

Berkley publishes some major, major talent (Nora Roberts, Robin Cook, etc) so the fact that they came to me--a nobody, technically still unpublished--and entrusted me to create this new series for them was incredibly exciting—and terrifying!

But I swallowed my fears and plunged in. The chance to create a new genre with no rules, to experiment and try something unlike anything out there—that was too tempting to pass up. And writing LIFELINES was just as much fun as I hoped it would be!

Do you ever bang your head against the wall from the dreaded writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?

Don't shoot me, but I don't believe in writer's block as being "dreaded." When I get blocked, it's a good thing because it means I messed up—usually around 10-15 pages back since my own momentum will carry me that far.

To me, a seat of the pants writer who doesn't plot ahead of time, writer's block is a useful tool to keep me on track and make sure I know enough about my characters, especially their conflicts and motivations, to drive the plot forward.

The best way I overcome it is to first take a quick speed read of the manuscript. Often I'll find where I stumbled--usually it's a logic problem like having one character in two places at once. Logic is not my forte!

If it's not obvious, then it's usually a deeper, more organic problem with my knowledge of the characters—would they really do what I've had them do? Do they have strong enough motivations? Is every scene pushing them to face their conflicts?

So I dig in. I don't sweat having a few days or even a week or so of being "blocked" because I know as soon as I intuit the problem, it will all fall into place. It helps that I'm a pretty fast writer—so as soon as I know in my gut where everything is headed, I can trust my instincts to guide me there I like not knowing for certain what's coming next, that way I'm as surprised during the first draft as I hope my readers will be.

Novelists sometimes dig themselves into a hole over implausible plots, flat characters or a host of other problems. What's the most difficult part of writing for you?

Writing descriptions and settings. If I had my way, you be so deep in a character's head that you'd never know what they look like and only the details that they notice in the environment would be mentioned.

I would love to be a lyrical writer who could transport a reader with their long, flowing passages of descriptive prose. I'm not. I'm a down and dirty, grease-monkey of a writer. My words do a good job of painting a character and moving action forward—the nuts and bolts of story-telling—but they're never going to be described as lyrical or evocative.

How do you climb out?

I don't. Instead, I play to my strengths: character and action. If my characters come to life enough, you'll get enough of a feeling of the world around them to make up for my lack of description—I hope!

Where do you write: In a cave, a coffeehouse, or a cozy attic nook?

I live in a small condo (700 sq ft) and am very introverted—it's impossible for me to write in public. So usually I'm in a comfy chair in my living room, listening to my music, the cat sleeping on my lap.

Just in case that sounds too cozy, I probably should tell folks that the music is often head-banging rock 'n roll: Puddle of Mud, Buckcherry, Godsmack, Mettalica, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, etc….yeah, I may be an adult, but I've never quite grown up.

Are you still a practicing physician? If so, how do you work in time for writing? What does a typical day look like for you?

I was practicing until last year when I decided to take the huge leap of faith to see if I could make this life-long dream of mine, to become a published writer, come true. I had practiced medicine for 17 years and up until then I was working 40 hours a week—considered part time for a pediatrician--with every third night call, week-end call (54 hours without sleep), and 12 hour days.

This forced me to become a "blitz" writer. I'd think about my book subconsciously all week and then write like crazy on my days off.

Now that I have all the time in the world (or so it seems!) to write, my productivity is still the same. I'm a very undisciplined, unstructured writer. When I know a scene well enough to write it, I write it---I also tend to write out of order, writing the high-intensity turning point scenes first and then filling in the transitions.

Did I mention that I'm not one for rules? No, I don't write everyday (although I do think about the book, try things out in my head constantly), I don't have a word count or planned schedule. After so many years of being on a rigid and demanding schedule because of my medical practice, it's nice to rebel.

Some authors report writing 5-10 thousand words a day. Do scenes flow freely from your veins or do you have to tweeze each word out?

When they're ready to be written, they flow. I think the max I've ever written in one day is 40 pages. When a story is fresh and sparkling and I "know" almost everything about it, it's not unusual for me to write 10-20 pages a day.

But I also have plenty of days when I write nothing in the actual manuscript. I call these my "fermenting" days when I doodle around with characters, getting to know them better, or do research to see if I can come up with any creative and surprising plot-twists.

It's still writing, though—just not the kind you can quantify with a word count. And I've learned that those fermenting days are just as important as my blitz days when I churn out the pages Just like every job, you need a touch of variety to keep it enjoyable.

Briefly take us through your process of writing a novel—from conception to revision.

For me it always starts with the character and the idea/theme. The two are so closely intertwined that sometimes it's hard to separate them.

I write a very fast rough draft—hit all the major turning points and emotional conflicts necessary to ensure a complete character arc.

For the Berkley series, I write four main characters with continuity stories that over-arc several books, so this can be harder than it sounds! I try to give each character an emotional arc/subplot that either mirrors or conflicts with the main character and their plot. Often I'll only be able to juggle three of the four in my mind during the rough draft and come back and flesh out the last subplot during revision.

I think of this first draft as my "discovery" draft—when I'm discovering the story and things I never knew before about my characters. I give myself utter permission to write crap during this draft and no one sees it except me. It's a totally selfish thing where I'm telling the story just for me!

Then my second draft is where I divorce my ego from the project and focus on what the reader needs. More setting and description, always. Layering of emotions, using the theme to focus the scenes, often. Finishing out those transitional scenes, ensuring the plot doesn't have huge logic holes, tightening and fleshing out to keep the pace compelling….all this is for the reader's enjoyment.

In my mind, this is what I really get paid for, keeping readers entertained, so I work my butt off during this draft.

Usually the second draft is the one I'll show to my agent, editor, and first readers. Then with their comments and revisions in mind, I'll polish the ms during the final draft.

What are a few of your favorite books (not written by you) and why are they favorites?

Mark Helprin's Winter Tale, Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine, anything by Alice Hoffman (I think River King is my favorite of hers so far)….all those lyrical, evocative authors who do what I can't!

What’s the best writing advice you’ve heard?

I've heard it so often, I'm not even sure who first said it to me, but the best advice I've heard is: writers write.

I used to feel guilty about this because I thought it meant you had to write everyday and with my schedule I just couldn't. But then I realized it meant that real writers don't whine and moan and groan and talk about "buts" or "if only" or market trends—instead they sit down and write the damn book!

Doesn't matter if it doesn't get published or not—an informal survey of multi-published friends revealed that they had written an average of half a million words before making their first sale. But they're writers and they kept on writing.

So, writers write!

What do you wish you’d known early in your career that might have saved you some time and/or frustration in writing? In publishing?

I wish I had understood just how much of this "business" makes no sense. Seriously, I have friends who are professors with MBA's and PhD's in business and they asked me to present my experiences in the publishing world to their grad students as a case study. According to them, the publishing world is an "eighteenth century paradigm" and they simply can't fathom how it can keep on running. But it does.

Which means that we as authors are mere cogs in the wheels of a system that follows no logic and uses little common sense. Guess that's part of what makes it so exciting!

All I can control is my work and my attitude, so that's what I focus on.

How much marketing do you do? What have you found that particularly works well for you?

I know nothing about marketing except that I think I finally do understand the concept of branding, thanks to a wonderful book called Primal Branding. One of the things it mentioned was that if your marketing doesn't reflect your brand (which is a reflection of your personality) then it probably won't be effective.

As a pediatrician, I spent everyday teaching: parents, patients, colleagues, nurses, EMS, firefighters, even police officers. So that was part of me that I also brought to my writing, teaching classes and workshops both online and in person.

I've been fortunate that my reputation as a teacher has grown to the point where I'm being invited to give keynote speeches and workshops all across the country—at the same time as the release of LIFELINES. Talk about happy synchronicity!

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Honestly, the best advice I can give anyone is that attitude is everything.

It would have been so easy for me to give up on my dream so many times—I had a successful medical career, there was no need for me to continue to spend so much time pursuing publication after that first contracted book died an untimely death due to forces I had no control over.

But I couldn't see that as a failure, rather as an opportunity. And I knew I had to write—I'd need a 12 step program to stop!

So I guess that would be my advice: Dare to Dream, realizing that Attitude is Everything.