Meet Susan McCormick, Author of 'The Fog Ladies'
Susan
McCormick writes cozy murder mysteries. She is also the author of Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted
picture book about Alzheimer’s disease. She is a doctor who lives in Seattle.
She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of
Medicine, with additional medical training in Washington, DC and San Francisco,
where she lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in the book.
She served nine years in the military before settling in the Pacific Northwest.
She is married and has two boys, plus a giant Newfoundland dog. Visit her website at https://susanmccormickbooks.com.
Connect with Susan on the web:
Find out more about THE FOG LADIES:
Congratulations on the
release of your latest book, The Fog
Ladies. When did you start writing and what got you into cozy murder
mysteries?
When I was very young, I wanted to be a
ballerina, a doctor and a writer. All together, all at once. My ballet days
ended before they began at age four when my first performance’s curtsy took out
the backdrop and crashed it to the floor. I tried more ballet lessons in high
school, but I was far too old. So all that was left was being a doctor and a
writer. The latter took me a while. Being a doctor was a straight shot, four
years of medical school, three years of residency, then fellowship, then
payback the military with a nine year stint in the Army because they paid for
medical school. Being a writer took longer, though I've been plotting my stories
since those ballerina days. The first “book” I ever wrote was at age nine, Death in the Cemetery. I loved mysteries
as a kid, mysteries as an adult, mysteries my whole life, especially cozies,
with Agatha Christie being my all time hero.
What is your book about?
The Fog
Ladies is about a group of spunky older
women and one overworked, overtired, overstressed medical intern who all live
in an elegant apartment building in San Francisco where old ladies start to die.
What was your
inspiration for it?
I lived in an apartment building much like the
one in The Fog Ladies when I did
medical training in San Francisco. The idea for the story and setting came to
me then, a natural offshoot of reading cozy mysteries and thinking about murder
and motivation. Elegant apartment buildings are found throughout San Francisco,
especially in Pacific Heights, where the story is set. Tenants of all ages live
together for years, providing the perfect cast of characters and cozy-type
enclosed setting for a series of murders. The name of the book and the
idea for the group of women came instantly, before anything else about the
story. They call themselves the Fog Ladies because you can count on them like
you can count on San Francisco early morning fog burning off by midday. I had
my characters and my setting, and then I concocted the murders around them.
What type of challenges
did you face while writing this book?
I fell hard for my Fog Lady characters and I
wanted each to have their own voice. My first draft had so many points of view,
it was confusing for readers. Though I still have voices for my main Fog Ladies,
I did cut out many other points of view, including the killer voice. The killer
now speaks at the end instead of having his thoughts sprinkled
throughout.
Did your book require a
lot of research?
I set my first book in the neighborhood I lived
in for years, but things have changed, so I needed to be up-to-date. The
medical issues in the book required no research, thank goodness, as I stole
them from my day job.
What do you do when your
muse refuses to collaborate?
Some
of most troublesome writing times have come when characters take over and get
themselves into awkward situations and expect me to get them out. One muse
wrote herself onto life support and then expected me to miraculously revive
her. But this is also the joy of writing. In The Fog Ladies, Chantrelle and Big Owen, the ne’er do well teen
parents of Baby Owen, wrote their own scenes. When I started the story, they
did not exist and they came to life of their own accord and the story is richer
because of them.
Many writers experience
a vague anxiety before they sit down to right. Can you relate to this?
I actually feel excited when I sit down to
write, maybe because I work in chunks when I have large periods of
uninterrupted time. Ideas have been building up and then tumble out when I sit
down to write.
Do you have a writing
schedule? Are you disciplined?
My writing schedule is dictated by my life. I feel
I can only write when I have a long period of uninterrupted time. With a
family, husband, two boys and enormous dog, plus the doctor job, when those
times come, I cannot squander them and I write no matter what. That time is
often in the early morning hours when my family is still asleep. I creep
downstairs in the dark and write in the dark and write while the sun comes up
and finish when my family wakes up. Our big, slobbery, furry Newfoundland dog follows
me dutifully with me in the morning and is my constant writing companion.
What was your publishing
process like?
These days, authors often cannot choose their
method of publishing. We write, we pitch, we query, we hope, we see what
happens. The Fog Ladies found a home
with a small press and I couldn’t be more delighted. They are wonderfully
responsive to my suggestions and I feel I had a hand in the many steps along
the way. They come with a community of authors that feels like a family, solid
and supportive.
How do you celebrate the
completion of a book?
It's hard to tell when a book is complete since
there are so many drafts and so much revision and re-creating. I think I would
be happier if I celebrated each individual step, like the completion of the
first draft, and then the completion of the first revision, etc. Sadly, I
don't. The one big celebration for me came when I got the acceptance from the
publishing company.
How do you define
success?
I enjoy the writing process and I was happy to
have a manuscript complete. And even happier to have it published. I will be
even happier when readers connect with my characters and enjoy the book.
What do you love most
about the writer’s life?
My favorite part of writing is when characters I created do
unexpected things and get themselves into trouble. One of my characters, Enid
Carmichael, discovers Starbucks lattes at the ripe old age of eighty. She loves
the bitterness, the froth. I wrote that. Then she craved more, and the next
thing I knew, she was stealing Starbucks coupons from her neighbor’s newspaper
to feed her addiction. She did that. Not me.
What is your advice for
aspiring authors?
Plotting is smart, or you will end up with too
few suspects, as I did with my first draft of The Fog Ladies. Then lovely, innocent characters have to be turned
into potential murderers. However, though I try to plot and plan, along the
way, with fingers flying on keyboard keys, writing magic happens, like my latte
loving senior or Baby Owen. Give your characters a little space to be
themselves, because the surprises they bring will delight you and your readers.
George Orwell once
wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting
struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake
such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither
resist nor understand.” Thoughts?
I wouldn't write if it wasn't enjoyable. But
there's no question, after the joy of the first draft, when you realize your
plot has holes and the characters need fleshing out, your brain grinds to a
halt. Revision, re-writing, and re-creating whole portions of the story are not
enjoyable, but just plain hard work.
What’s on the horizon for you?
The Fog Ladies will appear in another cozy caper
involving a possible serial killer, putting Sarah's friend Helen and her new
little family in peril. I also envision a companion book to my picture book about
Alzheimer’s disease, this one for adults.
Anything else you’d like
to tell my readers?
Persevere, persevere, persevere, like my Fog Ladies,
most of whom survived the evil in their building and look forward to their next
adventure.
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