Cat Robson

I was honored to be invited by the inimitable Martin Turnbull, devotee of Old Hollywood history and author of the Garden of Allah novels, to join in The Great Literary Blog Hop. After I've answered the Hop's questions about my work and process, I'll share some other writer's blog links. Hope you'll enjoy the Hop!

1. What are you working on / writing?

I'm working on finishing up interviews, research, and final edits, before I present The Mocambo Affair to the agents who have asked to see it. There are still many people alive who lived through the blacklist and who have fascinating, albeit harrowing, stories to tell. Although I have bookshelves full of books I've used to research The Mocambo Affair - histories of Hollywood, the studio system, the Hollywood Ten and the House Un-American Activities Committee - I've had little chance to meet in person those whose lives were affected, and that's my project this fall.

I've also begun two new novels. The Salamandrine Fires is a dystopian novel set on another planet sometime in the future. Very out of my comfort zone, genre-wise, which is liberating and terrifying. It deals with themes of imperialism and the nature of intimacy and illusion. Nothing much. Why can't I be drawn to write about bunnies in suits? I don't know, but I'm persistently diving into dark and deep waters not knowing what's waiting there for me.

The other novel is Keeping Mum, about a highly sensitive woman with ESP who lives in contemporary Los Angeles. She sees the dead, and also hears the voices of the damned, living or not. It deals with themes of speciesism,  and how we as a culture treat those who are vulnerable, gifted, highly sensitive, or outliers.

2. How does your work / writing differ from others in its genre?

This is a harder question for me to answer, because I'm abominably ill-read when it comes to contemporaary fiction. My undergraduate degree is heavily weighted toward Victorian literature, and my influences from American literature are all over the map, from Hammet, Cain, Woolrich and Chandler, to Keillor and Nicholson Baker.

Also, although The Mocambo Affair has elements of mystery and suspense, I think of it as outside those genres, perhaps more historical fiction. I call it a 'MemNoir.' It' is, I hope, the character of my narrator, Maxine, that makes the novel unique. Her voice is an amalgam of hardboiled detectives, femme fatales, and heroines from literature and cinema who have inspired me with their tenacity and vulnerability. 

3. Why do you write what you do? 

I might ask, "Why do characters form themselves from my memory and my subconscious and demand to be heard?" I often, in fact usually, begin writing a novel or short story with a scene in my head, not having the slightest idea why it's there. I discover, once a story starts to take form, why I'm drawn to it. The Hollywood Blacklist, for instance, which I write about in The Mocambo Affair and its sequel Chamber of Liars, concerns issues of injustice, the fundamentalism of conservatism and the damage it wreaks on those who refuse to bow to conformity, and the very personal and difficult sacrifices love calls on us to make - whether for our own circle of friends and family, or for people we've never met. These are issues that touch us all, whether we have the interest or capacity to reflect on them. But I didn't start out to write about that. I started out with a writing prompt drawn from a box during a writers group I was leading. The prompt was 'venetian blind.' That's a term to conjure with for me, so off I went into a mid-century world full of music, hazy afternoons, and cocktails in smoky restaurants.

Books have made it possible for me to survive life. I suppose I want to write books that move others as I've been moved

4. How does your writing process work?

I'm hoping someone will tell me. I'm so distractable, undisciplined and easily lured away from writing by other pursuits and life stresses that I'm always amazed I've managed to produce finished writing projects at all. Yet, I've written quite a bit over many decades and have published short stories and poetry. I manage somehow by taking advantage of elusive and intermittent gifts of energy and inspiration and getting as much done as I can before the next wave of existential depression or migraines sap me of my courage or energy.  It's the not uncommon ebb and flow of the creative personality. I admire those who have a writing habit, who write daily and don't let anything get in the way. Alas, I'll gladly leave the blank page with all its demands for the odd BBC costume drama or the local estate sale. The past, in all its forms, is my drug of choice - not my own past, but the fascinating and oft-romanticised past of our collective experience.

I have a difficult time getting very far into a chapter before I begin revising and editing. Some say this is anathema, but I believe the dance we do with our own creativity has as many forms as there are writers. The satisfaction of repairing a poorly written sentence until it has given up its treasure gives me the courage to write another, and another.

And now on to my fellow writers...

I hope you'll visit the blogs of a few of my writer friends, treasures all, with whom I have worked on writing, or been inspired by, and who I've enjoyed immensely.

Martin Turnbull, author of The Garden of Allah, The Trouble with Scarlett, and Citizen Hollywood.

Jack Eidt, founder and publisher at WilderUtopia.com, is an award-winning novelist, urban planner, and environmental advocate. Jack is the author of the literary novel Nowhere Beckons. His latest, Monkey Charm, is based on his time living with the Miskitu of the Northeast Caribbean Coast of Honduras. The piece won Best Fiction awards at the Santa Barbara and Southern California Writers Conferences, as well as support from the Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. His Literary Blog Hop post will be up shortly.

Trey Dowell received his BS degree (insert joke here) from Washington University in St. Louis.  Despite a strong love for the written word, he artfully managed to avoid all English classes beyond E-Comp 101.  For the next decade, Trey's only creative pursuits revolved around "basic verbal storytelling," which was often referred to as "lying."  Luckily, at the age of 32, he began channeling his energy into a more socially-acceptable form of fiction: writing.  At a friend's urging, Trey entered Writer's Weekly.com's 24-hour short story contest, and to his utter shock...took first prize.  A writing career followed. Trey's short stories have garnered numerous awards, and the first chapter from his debut novel "The Protectors" won the fiction prize at the prestigious Santa Barbara Writer's Conference in 2012.