Lisa Lutz~Author Interview

Lisa spent most of the 1990s hopping from a string of low-paying odd jobs while writing and reviewing a mob comedy called Plan B. She began working on The Spellman Files in January of 2004. In the fall of that year, she drove across the country and moved into a 200-year-old house in the tow of Westernville, New york (pop. 300). It was there Lisa shoveled snow and wrote the bulk of her first novel.

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

My second novel – Curse of the Spellmans (Simon & Schuster) – the sequel to The Spellman Files just came out in hardcover.

How did you come up with this story? Was there a specific 'what if' moment?

My novels are about a family of private investigators and how the nature of the business affects their family life. Quite some time ago I worked for a family-run private investigative firm in the Bay Area. While none of the employees at the firm bear any resemblance to the Spellmans, it was the contrast between genuine affection present in the office and the natural suspicion that goes along with detective work that provided the germ of the idea.

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 long. Let me reduce fifteen years to a few sentences. I wrote screenplays for over a decade. One in particular, Plan B, a mob comedy, I wrote and rewrote for about ten years. I’ve estimated there are least twenty-five drafts of that script. When the film was finally made and went straight to video, it became clear that no one was interested in my writing anymore. Because I had no real job skills and I felt that writing comedy was the only thing I had learned how to do, I wasn’t ready to give up. However, I knew that writing another screenplay was a dead end. The Spellman Files was my last screenplay and when I could barely get anyone to read it, that’s when I decided to write a novel. From that point on, everything just fell into place.

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

I’m banging my head right now. I’ll have to get back to you on the solution.

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 (or was when you first started on your novel journey)?

I don’t think I’ll ever write a book with an implausible plot. I like my characters to be grounded in some kind of reality, so sometimes it’s hard to keep all the threads together, but I like to believe what I’m writing.

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

I write from home or hotels (if I’m on the road), but mostly in private. A cave would work for me as well, as long as there were no other tenants.



What does a typical day look like for you?

The sun rises and it sets. That’s pretty much the only thing that stays the same. Mostly I try to write in the morning when my mind is fresh. But whenever I can is really the better answer.

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?

Who are they? And if you could give me a full name and address that would be great.

I say they’re ruining this gig for the rest of us.

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

I have the premise, usually a few scenes mapped out, often involving snippets of dialogue, and I have a vague sense of the arc of the story. Then I think about how I want to introduce the characters. For the Spellman books, I like to begin with a crisis, something that puts a question into the readers’ minds that hopefully keeps them curious.

I finish a draft, I revise. I finish another draft or two and then I send the manuscript to some people I know whom I’ve learned are good at offering notes and not just saying, “it’s good.” Then when it’s presentable, I send the manuscript to my agent, who will offer notes and then decide when it’s okay to give it to my editor. When my editor gets the manuscript, we go through a few months of revisions, then the copyeditor has it for another few months, and I make more changes. Then it’s in the publishers hands and, in theory, I should be starting on the next book.


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

These are some of my all-time favorite books, but I doubt I could really come up with a solid answer for why. There was probably something funny in each of them, something moving, and something that I couldn’t explain, but kept me reading.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

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

Find your own voice. Don’t copy anyone.

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 could say that I wish I had thought about writing a novel earlier, but frankly, I think I needed all those years writing screenplays to find my own voice. For me, I don’t think there was any way I could have expedited the process. Making a living as writer is hard. For most people it will not pan out or take a long time and be a struggle. If you succeed, however, it’s worth it.

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

I think for any author interested in selling books, a web presence is key. I haven’t been doing this long enough to know what works exactly. If you’re sent on a book tour, the best advice I’ve heard is “Don’t count heads and take Airborn.” I have a cold right now, so I clearly didn’t listen to the second part.

Do you have any parting words of advice?

There’s nothing wrong with writing for yourself, but if your goal is to get published, never forget that you have an audience.