Hope Can Spring from Tragedy

There's something personal I'd like to share with you: Several years ago, my sister killed herself. It was the worst day of my life. But hope can spring from tragedy. Dr. Reef Karim, a Los Angeles psychiatrist on the faculty of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, interviewed me about suicide -- a theme that runs throughout my mystery/suspense novel "Fast Track," drawn, in part, from my sister's suicide.

The interview is now available as a podcast sponsored by The Depression is Real Coalition, a group dedicated to helping people who suffer from depression. Here's the link to our conversation: http://depressionisreal.org/podcast/archive_2008_01.php.

It's program #34. I hope you'll give it a listen.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone else in your life who you feel might be encouraged by the interview.

Thanks!

John DeDakis
CNN Senior Copy Editor
("The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer")

Author, FAST TRACK
(hardcover: ISBN 1-59507-094-X)
(paperback: ISBN 1-59507-102-4)

web site: http://www.johndedakis.com/

You Should Write a Book

Most writers are motivated to write because of things that have happened to them. And the first instinct is to write it as a non-fiction autobiography because the experiences are so vivid and personally profound. Often, well-meaning friends who've heard you recount portions of the story exclaim, "You should write a book!"

But they don't realize just how hard that actually is.

One reason it's harder than most people think is that if you're writing non-fiction, your editor will need to know more of the facts and context of any given story than you - from your narrow and limited point of view - actually know. So, as you try to write FACTUALLY, you'll discover that you don't know nearly as many facts as you thought you did.

Of course you can set out to find those missing details, but, as a journalist, I can tell you that the process is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with all kinds of difficulties. And perhaps the biggest difficulty is that if you're writing things that are unflattering about a person, you could get sued for defamation of character. Even though what you're writing is true, if the person's not a public figure, you could lose a lot of money defending yourself in court.

It ain't worth it.

Not only that, but, publishers are less likely to want to make your story into a book because you're not well known, making it harder for them to sell the story of a nobody to the general public. Publishing is, after all, a business.

So.......?

Here's what I suggest:

Use those personal stories as a way to inspire your imagination. Change some of the details of the events and characters so that the real people won't recognize themselves, then build a story that still conveys the deeper "truth" you want to communicate. If you have a vivid imagination you'd be on firmer ground going in that direction. That's because you get to "dream up" the facts, something an editor of non-fiction won't let you get away with.

That's how I dreamed up my first novel "Fast Track." The book got its start because of two traumatic experiences in my life: a car/train collision I witnessed as a kid, and my sister's suicide. But, instead of recounting what happened in the style of a just-the-facts-ma'am journalist, I made up an entirely different story - a mystery/thriller - that still highlights themes and truths surrounding sudden death and suicide. I used my imagination to create a story that would resonate with people who don't know anything about me personally.

If you're able to camouflage the true events that happened to you and create a compelling story that still conveys a deeper "truth," you may be able to write not just one book, but ten, simply by using what happened to you as your creative muse.

1959 Fatal Crash Leads to Novel

On the night of December 20, 1959 – fifty years ago today -- I was sitting in the left front seat of the Vista-Dome car of the Burlington Zephyr passenger train as it hurtled through northern Illinois on its way from Chicago toward my hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The engineer would later tell a coroner’s jury that he was going 90 miles an hour (legal at the time) as we rounded a gentle curve at the tiny town of Chadwick.

From my vantage point in the darkened dome car near the front of the train, I could see the locomotive’s searchlight slice through the darkness, sweeping the tracks that stretched ahead of us. Suddenly, off to my left, I saw a car speeding toward a crossing we were approaching. The car looked like a 1949 Chevy, distinctive because of its sloped rear end. A split second later, I lost sight of the car as it went in front of the train.

I heard a bang, the train shuddered, and debris rained onto the Plexiglas dome, cracking the window I’d been peering through. I ducked, then scrambled down the narrow stairway to the dome car’s lower level where I told my dad and the conductor what I’d just witnessed.

I was nine years old.

Eventually, the train came to a stop at least a mile down the tracks. My dad got off to investigate, but I didn’t want to see the carnage, so I stayed behind, shivering in a frigid vestibule and looking out the open door as Dad made his way to the front of the train.

An ambulance silently passed by, red lights flashing, a shrouded figure stretched out in back. I would meet the ambulance driver, Bob Helms, years later at a book signing in Chadwick. Tears welled in his eyes as he told me about that night in 1959 when he helped retrieve the mangled bodies of the three people whose lives ended so suddenly and brutally.

The crash killed Eugene Kutzke, 22; his wife Ellen, 17; and her brother, Raymond Stage, 11 – all of Freeport, Illinois. Earlier in the day, they’d been in Dubuque, Iowa and were returning to Freeport in a borrowed car.

I remember being particularly troubled that a boy about my age was among the victims.

The coroner’s jury ruled the crash an accident. The car came from the West and made a sharp left turn just before the grade crossing. Several buildings on the right side of the car would have obscured the driver’s view of the tracks, which crossed the road at a slightly oblique angle. The speeding train was coming from the right. Even if the driver saw the train – which I doubt -- he wouldn’t have had time to react.

After my dad returned from his foray to the front of the train, we went to the club car and sat with several other people who listened as we recounted our stories. A woman told me she lived nearby and would send me a newspaper clipping with details of the crash. Thirty-five years later, it still hadn’t arrived.

Fast forward to about 1994. I was doing a writing exercise recounting a personal experience – the one you’ve just read. As I wrote, I remembered a radio news report about a car-train collision in which an infant survived. I began wondering what if an infant had survived the crash I’d witnessed and grew up wondering about her past. That idea turned into my mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.”

The novel isn’t about the accident. If anything, it’s an example of how a personal experience can be the seed of an idea that can blossom into something else – something redeeming.

The book begins with my 25-year-old heroine vexed because she doesn’t know what to do with her life. She discovers the body of the aunt who raised her from infancy – a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. (This is an echo of my sister’s suicide in 1980 – but that’s another story for another time.) That trauma begins a quest to unlock secrets kept hidden for a quarter century when her parents died in a mysterious car-train collision.

The manuscript went through 14 major revisions over 10 years before I found my current agent, Barbara Casey, (the 39^th agent I queried). During that process, I drew on other personal experiences to add texture to a story that includes politics, journalism, and mentoring relationships.

But it all started 50 years ago today in Chadwick, Illinois. So, I suppose it’s fitting that I named my heroine Lark Chadwick.

***

John DeDakis is a Senior Copy Editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” and the author of the mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.”

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159507094X/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

Overcoming the Fear of Rejection

I got an email recently from a young woman who told me she’s written a novel, but hasn’t shown it to anyone else because she’s afraid of having to deal with rejection.

Her instincts are correct -- she will experience rejection. And it’ll hurt. But it will also make the elation that comes with acceptance all the sweeter.

So, this is for all of you who have a book inside you somewhere. Maybe it’s just the nub of an idea that won’t go away; maybe all or part of it sits mouldering and neglected on your computer’s hard drive. But whatever the case, the fact that you’ve even thought about writing for publication should be a signal to pay attention to that inner nudge.

If the fear of rejection is holding you back, here are some suggestions on how to overcome it:

Expect to be Rejected: This, of course, is why you’re not letting anyone see your writing. But if you expect rejection, then you won’t be surprised when it happens. Every published author can tell you horror stories about having been rejected. In my case, 38 agents rejected the manuscript for “Fast Track,” my first novel, before I found Barbara Casey, my current agent – and she rejected the manuscript for “Bluff,” my second novel, twice before she deemed it publisher-ready. You know this instinctively and from experience: Rejection is part of life.

Identify What You’re Afraid of: Chances are you have in your mind a terrifying scenario in which someone will read your stuff and then dump on you mercilessly. Either they’ll puke and run away or they’ll be insulting. But let’s be realistic: How often has that ever happened to you? It’s more likely that you’ll experience polite indifference, which still hurts, but when you consider the range of possibilities, actual rejection could be much worse than it probably will be.

Cultivate Courage: It’s okay to be afraid. It’s a natural emotion we all experience. The question is what are you going to do with the fear? I’m always inspired by the guys who stormed the beaches of Normandy during World War II. Were they afraid? Of course, but they went forward anyway. Going forward is what differentiates cowardice from courage. Cowardice is letting fear paralyze you into inaction, but courage is fear in action. So, recognize your fear, embrace it, then move forward anyway. It produces confidence.

Learn From Rejection: Submitting your writing to someone else probably feels as daunting as facing enemy gunfire, but the good news is no one will be shooting bullets at you. Instead, if you’re lucky, you’ll get feedback that’s invaluable. Why invaluable? Because your goal as a writer is to connect with someone. Critical feedback is what you need in order to connect more effectively.

It’s Not About You: When you’re afraid of rejection, the focus is, understandably, on you. You have to start with yourself, but the goal is to get beyond this. Here’s why: Think of your writing as a gift that you’re giving to someone else. But tastes vary and your writing won’t resonate with everyone. People have the freedom to accept or reject your offering. Fine. The payoff comes when you realize that what you’ve written has touched someone else. That makes all the rejection worth it.

Here’s the saddest thing about rejection: If you give in to the paralyzing fear of being rejected, you will have succeeded in one major way – you will have succeeded in rejecting yourself.

John DeDakis is a Senior Copy Editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” and the author of the mystery-suspense novel “Fast Track.” Visit his Web site at www.johndedakis.com

Plan a Little; Write a Little

Writing a novel is a little like journaling. At least it is for me because my novels are written in the first person -- and so are my journal entries.

For the past few weeks, I've been plotting book three in my Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense series. I know what I want to happen at all the main pivot points and I know how it will end; I've given a lot of thought to the sequence of events and the characters; I've met the killer, the red herrings, and the love interest(s).

But there's so much about the story I still don't know. Again, it's just like journaling: I have desires and plans for the future, but life can only be lived one day at a time.

Yesterday, I couldn't wait any longer for all the details of the novel to take shape in my mind -- I felt compelled to begin the first draft. I've written two chapters so far. To be honest, they suck. But that's okay. I can loop back and touch things up later. Right now, I NEED to get something concrete written down.

The interesting thing I've discovered is that the act of writing helped crystallize my thinking -- just like when I tackle a vexing problem in my journal. The idea for how to end each chapter came to my conscious mind mere seconds before I wrote it, just as the answer to a vexing problem in life sometimes comes to me during the act of writing down the details.

Perhaps this happens because when we merely ruminate on things, our minds flit willy-nilly, but the act of writing takes all those amorphous thoughts and laser-focuses them to the tip of the ballpoint as it glides across the paper or the tips of our fingers as they tap (or, in my case, pound) the keyboard keys. Writing forces the mind to slow down and zoom in for a close-up. Writing allows thoughts that had been lurking just below the surface of our consciousness to materialize.

So, maybe writing is like living: Plan a little; write a little -- plan a little; LIVE a little. Maybe. We shall see.

Your thoughts?