The Writing Life with Mystery Author Leslie Karst
The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. An ex-lawyer like Sally Solari, her sleuth, Leslie also has degrees in English literature and the culinary arts. Leslie and her wife, Robin, divide their time between Santa Cruz, California and Hilo, Hawaii. Leslie Karst is also the author of Dying for a Taste, which was released to rave reviews in 2016.
Connect with Leslie Karst on the Web:
What’s inside the mind of
a mystery author?
Why, new and creative ways to
kill people off, of course!
But also, the never-ending
questions of how many clues and red herrings do I need, and where can I best
place them to make the mystery neither too difficult (i.e., unfair) nor too
easy to solve? That’s the hardest part of writing good crime fiction, to my
mind.
What is so great about
being an author?
One of the best things by far
about being a mystery author is getting to hang out and schmooze with all the
other mystery writers at conferences and conventions. They are some of the
warmest, most generous, and fun-to-hang-out-with folks I’ve ever met.
When do you hate it?
When I’m trying to plot out
my next book and my mind is a blank. That’s scary, especially when you have a
deadline looming. But it only rarely happens, thank goodness.
What is a regular writing
day like for you?
After reading the newspaper
and checking my email and social media pages, I settle down at my desk with a
strong cup of coffee and spend the morning writing. I take a break for lunch
and to walk Ziggy, my Jack Russell mix, and then put in another couple hours if
my brain is still working straight. If not, I putter around the garden to recharge
my creative engines.
Do you think authors have
big egos? Do you?
I believe that the people
with the strongest egos tend to be the ones who don’t come across as
egotistical, because they’re confident in themselves. It’s folks with little
self esteem who need the constant stroking and feedback.
In any case, the mystery
authors I’ve met have (with only a few exceptions) been kind, sweet, helpful,
and unfailingly generous with their time and advice. And I certainly hope I
come across as the same.
How do you handle negative
reviews?
Any author who claims to
ignore them is probably lying (unless they truly don’t ever read their
reviews). But I do my best to not let them get me down. After all, at least the
person read the book. And I think having a few bad reviews—as long as there
aren’t too many—shows that it’s not just your friends who are writing
them.
How do you handle positive
reviews?
Quite well, thank you!
Because it can be terrifying putting your creative self out there, and it’s
wonderful to hear that your work isn’t the garbage that the devil on your
shoulder tells you it might be.
What is the usual response
when you tell a new acquaintance that you’re an author?
Surprise. “Oh, really?”
they’ll say. And then the next thing they’ll often ask is how I found my agent
or got published. Because let’s face it: most everyone we know has a
manuscript, or at least an idea for one, squirreled away somewhere.
What do you do on those
days you don’t feel like writing? Do you force it or take a break?
I call those
“publicity/marketing days.” If I truly don’t feel like writing, there’s always
other work to be done. As a writer friend recently said to me, the time spent
by an author on any given book is one third writing, one third editing and revising,
and one third publicizing and marketing.
Any writing quirks?
The advice you always hear
about writing is to completely finish your first draft before you start
editing, but I simply can’t work that way. Every day when I sit down to write,
I reread what I did the day before—partly to remember where I left off, but
also to revise and refine the previous day’s work. This system seems to work
for me, so I’m going to keep on as I am.
What would you do if
people around you didn’t take your writing seriously, or if they saw it merely
as a hobby?
Before I found my agent and
subsequently was taken on by my publisher, Crooked Lane Books, that’s pretty
much the situation I was in. But it didn’t keep me from persevering and
finishing my first Sally Solari mystery, Dying for a Taste. You have to
believe in yourself before anyone else will do so.
Some authors seem to have
a love-hate relationship to writing. Can you relate?
Absolutely. My father, a
constitutional law professor who wrote a slew of law review articles and books,
once said, “There are only two times when I’m miserable: when I’m writing and
when I’m not writing.” And I have to agree. Because when you’re in the middle
of a writing project, you’re nervous about getting it right and doing it well,
and you’re angsting that you should be working on it whenever you’re not. But
when you’re not in the middle of a project, you feel as if there’s
something deeply missing from your life.
Do you think success as an
author must be linked to money?
Not at all. Many of the most
talented and successful mystery authors I know couldn’t possibly support
themselves with their writing. If you’re in it for the money, I advise you to
seek other work. That said, being paid an advance—even a small one—is a wonderful
thing for one’s self-esteem, and goes a long way toward showing that others
believe in you.
What has writing taught
you?
That even when a task seems
terribly daunting—such as writing an eighty thousand-word manuscript—if you
simply keep at it, following through with the process step by step (or page by
page), before long you will have finished. Simply completing the first draft of
the manuscript that became my first Sally Solari novel was an incredibly
powerful confidence builder, both for my writing career and for my life in
general.
Leave us with some words
of wisdom.
If you’re hosting a dinner
party and something has gone awry with one of the dishes you’ve prepared, do
not mention it to your guests. If you act as if everything is perfect,
they will likely never notice the problem (especially if you’re serving
cocktails and/or wine, as well). And even if they do notice, your mentioning it
will only serve to make everyone uncomfortable.
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Title: A Measure of Murder
Genre: culinary mystery (I call it a “snarky cozy”)
Author: Leslie Karst
Website: lesliekarstauthor.com
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
About the Book:
Sally Solari is busy juggling
work at her family’s Italian restaurant, Solari’s, and helping plan the autumn
menu for the restaurant she’s just inherited, Gauguin. Complicating this
already hectic schedule, Sally joins her ex-boyfriend Eric’s chorus, which is
performing a newly discovered version of her favorite composition: the Mozart Requiem. But then, at the first
rehearsal, a tenor falls to his death on the church courtyard—and his soprano
girlfriend is sure it wasn’t an accident.
Now Sally's back on another murder case seasoned with
a dash of revenge, a pinch of peril, and a suspicious stack of sheet music. And
while tensions in the chorus heat up, so does the kitchen at Gauguin—set aflame
right as Sally starts getting too close to the truth. Can Sally catch the
killer before she’s burnt to a crisp, or will the case grow as cold as
yesterday’s leftovers?
In a stew of suspects and
restaurateurs, trouble boils over in the second in Leslie Karst’s tasty and
tantalizing Sally Solari mystery series, A Measure of Murder.
“Engaging characters,
terrific writing, and a savory blend of musical and culinary
erudition...polymath Karst sauces her plot without masking its flavor. And
she’s a dab hand with the red herrings.” Publishers
Weekly starred review
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