Tammy Kaehler--What're Your Anthems?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've just finished Tammy Kaehler's third Kate Reilly car racing mystery, AVOIDABLE CONTACT.  Publishers Weekly says,"Snappy dialogue, a smart and affable heroine, and pacing reminiscent of 24 combine to make this entry as exciting as a spin around the speedway."

I say Tammy Kaehler's Kate Reilly books are the car racing answer to Dick and Felix Francis's horse racing books, with the bonus of a great female character, race car driver Kate Reilly!  I love books that immerse you in the setting so deeply that it's a shock to put down the book, and when I read Tammy Kaehler I can hear the racetrack, smell the hot oil and rubber, and feel the vibration of Kate's Corvette. So I was fascinated by Tammy's description of one of the ways she brings the books to life. (I was also glad to  hear that someone else has to clean out their office before they start a new book...)

TAMMY KAEHLER: I was cleaning out my office the other day—yes, that necessary prelude to starting to write a new book—and I opened iTunes on my computer, setting it to shuffle everything in the folder of music I’d purchased through iTunes in

the last 15 years.

With the first song, boom! I was struck by a vivid memory of place and time. John Mayer, “Bigger Than My Body,” a song I used to listen to while driving home from my very first writing group a decade ago. I remember being in the car, at a particular spot on a Northern California freeway, thinking “I’m going to finish this book about a racecar driver and get published.” Listening to the song the other day, I felt that ten-year-old upswelling of determination again.

Then the second song played: “Blue Moon on Monday,” by Duran Duran, which, for a reason I can’t explain, saved my life a couple times in the last couple years. My day job has been busy and stressful, as was the third book I wrote during the same timeframe. This song on repeat smoothed out some rough edges once in a while.

Third song: “Raise Your Glass” by P!nk, which I listened to in 2010 and 2011 as I was preparing for

the release of my first book and trying to figure out how to write my second—more, trying to figure out how to “be an author.” Something about the lyrics—“So raise your glass if you are wrong/In all the right ways, all my underdogs/We will never be, never be anything but loud”—helped me believe I could find my voice and write another book.

Fourth song: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas,” which I listened to on repeat for three hours last December when I finished the first draft of my third book. I didn’t listen to the whole song this August, but I was immediately transported back to the joy, pride, and sense of accomplishment I felt last December.

That’s when I realized: I was listening to the personal anthems of my thirties and forties.

Most of us probably know what researchers have spent numerous studies proving: music and rhyme help us remember things. Even patients with advanced Alzheimer’s dementia will sometimes sing along to a familiar song. Memory experts can remember huge lists of information by setting them to rhymes or music.

Some neuroscientists even think that our brains developed the ability to respond to music before the ability to respond to language; further, many of them believe we developed music and dance to aid in retrieving information. Bottom line: music stays with us. For proof, consider the dreaded “earworm,” that snippit of song that gets irritatingly stuck in your head.

All of which means it’s no wonder memory is highly coded to music. It’s no wonder we vividly remember sensation and emotion associated with a particular song. And I figure I can use this.

Why not use a particular song to change or bolster my emotional state? Sure, that was the next song in my playlist: Colbie Caillat’s “Try,” about not trying to be or look like something you’re not. Being happy with who you are. (I highly recommend the video, if you haven’t seen it; it has a wonderful message for all of us.)

I’m particularly susceptible to anthems these days, because I’m desperately externalizing my struggle to get started on my next book—starting a new book is hard enough to do at any time, but during a book release, it’s even harder! I find that every time I gather myself to launch into writing a book, I want inspirational quotes, I want jewelry with “you can do it”—or “bigger than my body”—messages. I want empowering anthems.

So what I’m listening to now is the Cobie Caillat song, Katy Perry’s “Roar” (“You hear my voice, you hear that sound/Like thunder gonna shake the ground” and “'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar”), and “Let It Go” from “Frozen” (that one’s due to some more day job stress), as well as a bunch of current bubblegum pop that makes me cheerful enough to bounce in my chair. I swear, I’m going to start writing soon!

I know many authors talk about a soundtrack for their books, but I always think that’s music particularly associated with the content or the theme of the book. For example, another recent favorite of mine, “Girl in a Country Song,” (hilarious video, check it out!) won’t have anything to do with my next book, but its theme of women thumbing their noses at male stereotypes is making me laugh and reminding me of what Kate has to deal with in the racing world. Now that I think about it … maybe that is a soundtrack.

So here are my questions for Reds and readers. Do you have anthems? What do you use to pump yourself up—for writing, for cleaning the house, or for any tough task? And if you have a personal soundtrack, what songs are on it? What are your anthems?

(Credit for Tammy's great photo to S James Photography)

SMOKE-FREE FICTION

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Whenever I go to England, I realize I live a very insulated, smoke-free life at home in Texas. I am a non-smoker. No one smokes in my family (my husband quit a year ago, thank goodness, and even when he smoked, he never smoked in the house, in the car, or in public places.) No one is ever allowed, on pain of death, to smoke in my car, and when I go out it's usually to smoke-free shops and restaurants.

So it's always a bit of shock to be thrown into the midst of very public London, where people smoke on the streets, and there is a whole new culture of pavement-smoking outside restaurants, pubs, and clubs. Suddenly I have to remind myself that at least some characters in my books should smoke. This is not so much a matter of approval or disapproval, but simply that as a non-smoker, smoking doesn't occur to me.

While certainly bad for one's health, smoking has always provided a nice "bit of business", both on the page and screen. It's something for your characters to do while they have a conversation (other than drink endless cups of tea.) It can convey an emotional state such as agitation or nonchalance, or give subtle insights into character (I've loved Sergeant Hathaway's attempts to give up smoking in the recent episodes of Lewis), class, or background. (Think James Bond here...) Camel or Silk Cut? Does the smoker carelessly put out the stubs in old cups of coffee, or tamp them out and tuck them away in a plastic baggie?

And with many of the popular retro shows like Mad Men, or The Hour (I've yet to see if they will smoke on Pan Am, but am horrified to remember that people actually used to smoke on airplanes!) smoking is once again being shown in a glamorous light (excuse the pun.)

As a reader, I like to play a little guessing game about whether or not the writer is a smoker--if almost every character in a novel smokes, I'm inclined to think the writer (I could name a few) does, too. But at the moment, I'm halfway through Felix Francis's new novel, Gamble, and I've just realized that not a single character has been seen smoking. I'd be willing to bet (excuse another pun) that Felix Francis does not.

So what about you, Jungle Reds? Do your characters indulge? And should they?


JAN BROGAN: I think the characters should smoke if you think that's part of who they are. I had a teenager in Teaser smoking because I thought that's what she'd be doing and I wanted my reporter Hallie Ahern to show she had good getting-people-to-talk skills by allowing the young girl to smoke in her car even though it was driving her out of her mind.

I'm thinking of setting my next novel in southern France, where at least half the French characters must smoke.

DEBS: Yes, the French and the Italians are all big smokers, but the red wine and olive oil probably keep them from getting cancer . . .

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm writing a novel in which the main character's dysfunctional alcoholic mother smokes. As Jan says, it's essential to the character.

It's pretty astounding how much public has changed about smoking. My husband brought home a "Rugged Men" magazine from the 50s. It's a real period piece, soft porn and enlightening article, like "Let's Get Rid of the Girls Who Shake Their Cans" by Dunwoodie Hall. In it there's an article that dismisses the "health scares" of smoking and concludes, "Thus, it can literally be said, 'Smoke--And live longer!'"

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I've had a few characters smoke, but no main characters. If they're going to die, I'd rather kill them off in my own way.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Huh!Not to give anything way, but you've made me realize that the people in my books who smoke--are the bad guys!

(I tried smoking in college. Once. ONCE! My best friend Hallie (a different Hallie!) and I shopped for the coolest package. Montclair, navy blue with a gold crest. I took one puff at age 17, choked, tipped over the ashtray onto my bedspread, burned a hole in the blanket and that was the end of that.)

The good part about people smoking in books--it give them something to do, you know? And it can be very dramatic, a la Bette Davis.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I've just realized that I've had exactly one smoker in my books - and that was because it was necessary for the plot. I'm like you, Deb, never smoked, no one in my family or circle of friends smoke, so it rarely crosses my mind. Since smokers tend to fall into a few distinct groups nowadays, I think having a cigarette-user makes more of a statement about the character than it once might have. We have the 80-year-old Dan Drapers and Joan Holloways who haven't died off yet. Young people still light up for the same reasons they always did - smoking is way down in high schools but on the upswing on college campuses. And increasingly cigarette smoking is a class marker, with a sharp divide in smoking rates between socioeconomic and education levels.

This has definitely given me food for thought! I'm going to go back over my current work-in-progress and see who might profitably be made a nicotine fiend.

DEBS: Interesting, Julia. Yes, there are beginning to be class issues associated with smoking, but one can't make blanket assumptions. My husband fought a forty-year battle with nicotine addiction--and I do mean BATTLE. We learned some very interesting things when he was finally able to quit (we certainly hope for good.) One is that there are take-it-or-leave-it smokers. I was one. I smoked in my teens and gave it up at twenty without a bit of bother. And there are some for whom nicotine addiction is worse, and harder to kick, than heroin. It apparently has to do with the difference in the chemical receptors in people's brains. The same seems to be true for alcohol addiction, except that the take-it-or-leave-it percentage is much greater for alcohol than for nicotine. It's much, much easier to be a social or occasional drinker than an occasional smoker.

So all food for thought, and for creating interesting characters.