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Ask Me Anything
Here’s a confession. The hardest part of my job is deciding what I should write about every day. Every single day, I wake up and scour the news, trying to decide what’s most important. I take this responsibility (and myself) so seriously you’d think I was compiling the President’s Daily Brief. I worry non-stop that I’m going to fail to bring the most important news or the critically important argument to your attention, and that as a consequence of my negligence, the Free World shall perish.
I caught myself doing this today and decided this was seriously neurotic.
So today’s ask me anything day. Within the bounds of the CoC, I’m here today to answer any question you have. I’ll try to do that to the best of my abilities, which are in truth very limited and modest.
Go for it.
Published in General
I’m used to it and it’s second nature for almost all day-to-day exchanges, but if I get tired or upset, or if the vocabulary is more technical, I can get frustrated. For example, after my Pop had heart surgery and was in the ICU, the doctors told us to go home, rather than wait at the hospital, and call them in the morning for an update. Meanwhile, there was a massive terrorist attack in my neighborhood.
So while my French is certainly good enough — usually — to understand to have a conversation about medicine, I really wished I could call the nurses station and speak English. Just to be absolutely sure I was understanding everything and not to have to devote any mental energy trying to remember the French phrase for, e.g., “ICU,” and “vital signs.”
It’s also erroneous below the very senior flag rank and MoD level. The blitzkrieg that overran France and caused the government to give up so quickly in WWII was not because the soldiers and leadership at the Division and below were running away–they fought with determination and élan, and in a couple of battles came within an Ace of stopping the German advance in its tracks. It was the disjointed and uncoordinated response of that senior leadership and the lack of strategic thought and lack of real time responsiveness in the MoD that let those soldiers, and the nation, down so badly and that did as much damage as the blitzkrieg itself.
Eric Hines
Wow, good question. Yeah, after a decade living in Turkey, you come to realize that the reason everyone there is a conspiracy theorist is because so many seem entirely plausible. For example, if you think of the United States as the country so advanced and competent that it can put a spacecraft on Mars, there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable way to account for how stupidly we behave in our foreign policy except to posit a conspiracy.
So, for example, most Turks believe that it is simply impossible that the US government has no intelligence relationship with Fethullah Gülen. I find it highly likely that we do, because I otherwise have to posit that we’re terrifyingly stupid. But I can’t rule out the “terrifyingly stupid” theory, either: There’s unfortunately very good evidence for that, too. (And even if I accept the idea that we’re harboring him for some purpose, I can’t fathom what it is, or why it’s not a terrifyingly stupid idea to do it.)
Another good question. The first one I wrote for fun, with very little expectation it would be published. The main character was based on an idea for a totally different novel that I’d already mostly written, loosely based on my experience of working for the UNDP in Laos. But there’s a reason spy novels are a whole literary genre and UNDP novels aren’t. No one’s interested in the UNDP. So that book never really came together, plot-wise.
The plot of Loose Lips was based on a story I heard over dinner with a guy with whom I went on couple of dates in Washington, where my grandparents lived at the time. A friend set us up. He was sure we were perfect for each other, and I get why he thought that, because we certainly did find it easy to talk for hours. But it didn’t go anywhere romantically, because I didn’t trust him. I was really interested in what he was saying, but I also found it really weird that he was telling me this stuff. I wasn’t sure whether he was making it up to impress me, and whether he should be telling me things like this if they were true.
But it was a great story, with a lot of really interesting details — and very funny — and I think at some point I mentioned that I was working on a novel, and he kept saying, “You should write a novel about my life.” (Lots of people say that to me, by the way — everyone thinks their lives have a novel in them, and it’s true. But in this case, it was the missing piece of the novel I’d already been trying to write, because if you add “CIA” to a good story, it’s a lot more commercially viable.)
Later, I found myself adding the Selena Keller character to that story in my head, and plotting out the chapters in the book, so I figured — why not do it? Change the UNDP to the CIA, change the setting, and suddenly this is story I could sell. I was intrigued by the bureaucratic, petty, backstabbing environment he described and how much more it sounded like a typical big government bureaucracy (and the UNDP) than the CIA we usually read about in spy novels and see in the movies. And I was persuaded by it, too: After all, why wouldn’t it be like other federal bureaucracies? And maybe even more so, because it can cloak any kind of waste or stupidity under the words “Top Secret?”
Anyway, I managed to interview other people who were able to confirm what the atmosphere was like, and by that point I was sure this would be a really unusual spy novel — one unlike any other in the genre. I won’t say more in case there are people here who haven’t read it. One review called it “Gidget meets James Bond,” or something like that, which really offended me because it missed the point: “A small-government conservative meets James Bond” would be more like it. I was also really annoyed that my publisher tried to market it as chick-lit, because I thought that underneath it I’d written something with a serious point, but whatever: It sold well.
The problem with the second one was that I was under contract to write a sequel, not a completely different novel. (I wanted to write a completely different novel, but Random House didn’t want me to — they wanted more of what had worked the first time.) But if you’ve read Loose Lips, you know why it’s not so easy to write a sequel. (I won’t say more — plot spoiler.)
So I spent a year procrastinating and hating myself and growing more and more depressed and afraid that I’d have to return the advance, because I couldn’t figure out what the novel could be about.
My brother really helped me with that. He walked me through my work schedule day by day — in the morning he’d tell me, “Here’s the thing you have to do today,” and he did this for about three months. He was almost my co-author. He told me to forget about the plot and start by writing about the characters. Any characters. (And yes, they’re all loosely based on people I know, although some are composites and I’ve changed their genders and race and other identifying details.)
Then he told me to start writing about the cities. That was easy.
By the time I’d invented the characters and worked out where they lived, I had an idea for part of the plot. That was based on my own experience of being totally suckered by an e-mail correspondence with someone whose prose style was a lot more attractive than he was. (Now everyone knows about that phenomenon, so the plot’s out of date, but at the time, I figured I was on to a major insight that no one had ever written a novel about — and I was really excited: “This will be the first e-epistolary novel in literary history!” By the way, don’t by the audio book. An e-epistolary novel doesn’t work as an audio book.)
Then all I had to do was throw an espionage plot around the characters, the cities, and the love story, and somehow make it a sequel. That was the hardest part. If you’ve read it, you probably think that’s the weakest part, too — because it is. It’s artificial.
But again my brother had the insight that made it possible: I kept getting reviews and e-mails from people who were sure that the character in Loose Lips was really me. And I did nothing to dispel that idea, because I figured it was good for sales. So I based the plot on the idea that the author of the first novel — that’s to say, me — had so convinced people that she was a spy that … well, I don’t want to spoil the plot if anyone wants to read it.
(Later I came to regret having written either of them, because the last thing you want if you’re a journalist working in a paranoid country is for people to think you’re a spy. They’ll think it, anyway, but I wished I hadn’t given anyone any good reason to think it.)
But anyway, after that my confidence was boosted and I really wanted to write a another sequel — I had the plot worked out, and I was raring to go. But as every author will tell you, you’re only as good as the sales track of your last b0ok. That’s the only thing publishers care about, and you’re better off being completely unpublished than one whose last book didn’t sell. I don’t know why it didn’t sell — it got great reviews — but it didn’t.
Actually, I do know why it didn’t sell. It was almost certainly because during the time I was writing it, my editor at Random House, who was a really a high-powered, big-shot editor, resigned and took an even better job somewhere else. In the book trade that’s called “being orphaned,” and it’s a disaster. Your book is given to a junior editor who has nothing personal vested in its success — if the book tanks, that’s the old editor’s fault.
My new editor kept promising me that I shouldn’t worry, she was just as committed to me as Jonathan, totally behind me and my book, but that’s what they always say when you’re orphaned. So I was doomed. (Exactly the same thing happened with There is No Alternative, which is about as unlucky as a professional writer gets: it’s like being struck by lightning twice. But I’ve otherwise had the luckiest life in the world, so I’m not complaining.)
To a large extent, book sales are determined by the publishers: They decide which ones to promote heavily, and above all, which ones get bookstore co-op. (Did you know that the books you see in the airport bookstore, in the windows of bookstores, on the tables closest to the front door of the stores and the ones closest to the cashier aren’t there at random? The publishers are paying for them to be there.)
This is changing now because the old publishing model is dying, but it’s still true that independent publishing is a very long shot for most writers. (My efforts have been a flop, although I didn’t try it with a book — I just wanted to see if I could sell a few stories and articles that way. Answer: no.) Most writers don’t have the time both to write the books and be their own sales force and be their own publicists — and you have to be independently wealthy to write a book without an advance.
Anyway, point is, Lion Eyes didn’t earn out its advance, which means the end of my fiction-writing career until I earn enough money to retire and write whatever I feel like.
And if I do, it will probably be non-fiction — because the real world, at this point, is weirder than anything I could make up.
Thanks for asking!
I read Loose Lips about six years ago and I consider it to be one of the best novels I have ever read. And I say that as someone who reads a lot of novels. Moreover, the story helped bring closure to a bitter disappointment I went through years earlier. Thanks for writing it, Claire.
That’s such a kind thing to say.
I don’t know what your story was, but I can promise you’re not alone in it — the inspiration was someone else who had “a story like that.” And after I published it, I had a small cult following among people who wrote to tell me they also had “a story like that.” I wish they’d all come forward to explain that no, they’re not “sick and tired of hearing about Hillary’s damn e-mails.” Unfortunately, many can’t — because they would go to jail if they explained how they know why she should.
What do you miss about being in the United States and what do you like more about living in France (vs the US)?
(sorry if this has been asked before)
I loved your books too – that is quite the story of how they came to be – for anyone who has not read the novels, there are great – and the humor is really too much – you have a gift for painting the funniest pictures! Look forward to reading the story about your time in LAOS – goodness! PS – the last line of your “explanation” above will be a book at some point written by someone….. a cloaked novel is in there – you can change the characters but we’ll know who it is – what a story, and its still unfolding!
What I miss is too long to list in a quick reply. So I’ll just say that what I generally miss most is speaking my own language. Whenever I come home, it always takes me a few days to get used to how easy it is — it’s as if everyone can read my mind. Communication is effortless.
What I’m most missing today is the chance to go to Oregon and learn more about wildlife refuge standoff. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so it would be such an easy story for me to write about. (Everyone involved speaks English!) I really want to know how I’d cover that story if I were there.
I keep seeing video clips of interviews with the people involved that end exactly where I’d want to ask a follow-up question. And I want to speak to people away from the press gaggle — just sit down and talk with them, off the record, for a while. Get to know them.
I haven’t read a single article or seen a single video clip that tells me everything I want to know about all the people involved. I want to interview the Bundy guys, and the Pacific Patriot guys, but also local law enforcement, local people. I don’t want to be told what I should think of any of them: I want to hear what they have to say. So that’s what I’m missing today.
My father’s here, and it’s wonderful to live so close to him. And Paris is an ancient city; it has layers and layers of history that you could spend your whole life learning about. The US does too, actually — we’ve got Anasazi ruins! — but most American cities feel very new. Because they are. (And that’s a feature, not a bug — it’s the new world, after all.) But I love very old cities. The older they are, the more I want to learn about what’s underneath the surface.