WRITERS' GROUPS AND CRITIQUES

I joined a writers group some months ago. Four women, including me, and one man. We had one other woman in the group briefly but she needed to drop out because of a job conflict. I'd love for her to return because she's had over twenty years of writing as a newspaper reporter. The one short story she submitted to the group for review and critique was so good everyone thought she should submit it for publication to some magazine.

I've been searching for a writers group - needing one actually - for years. It's difficult to write alone without feedback. Even reading all the guidelines that are available, taking writing courses, joining writers organizations and attending writers conferences are simply not enough. A writer, especially one who is not yet published and does not have an agent or editor to turn to, needs other skilled writers to read ones work and provide feedback.

Sometimes I get so involved with telling the story or getting to what I think is THE STORY I forget to bring the reader into the story by showing it.

I also have to admit that after going back, over and over and over, to re-write a section or chapter or some component, either to make a point more clear or to shorten a narrative or to sharpen an impact - I get tired and impatient. (Patience has never been a strong point in any of my siblings and I'm no role model either.) Sometimes I have to get up and walk away from the computer. Sitting and being frustrated when something isn't working doesn't work for me. That's when I try, actually need to force myself, to go outdoors. Weather permitting, I try to get into one of my many gardens to pull weeds or plant something. That's when I can usually work out a storyline "problem."

Of course, I have worked out some of the best dialogue problems in the shower. Unfortunately, I can not write down those gems under water. So I try to repeat the key lines over and over in the hopes I will retain them once I am out of the water and inside a towel at least.

So, back to the writers group. This is the place where I submit one section at a time and then one week later, patiently, listen to the review and critique from the others about what they think works, what they don't understand (and sometimes I want them to not understand something at that point in the story IF it keeps them looking for the answer - not if it makes them turn aside and lose interest - because I do write mysteries, thrillers, police procedurals) and their suggestions as to what I could do to improve the writing. Better yet, my fellow writers remind me of the "show the story - don't tell the story" rule. Which, for me, means - slow down and exercise Patience.

WRITING UNDERCOVER

I'm working on a novel right now, the first one in a series. I've actually written two in the series but, having joined a writers' group, I wanted to go back to the first one and apply some of what the group is teaching me.

I have to admit it's not always easy to go back and re-work the same story over and over, especially when you think it's as good as you can get it. Except, sometimes after time has passed and batteries have re-charged, you can make it better - make it tighter. And yet, this morning as I was working on a particular chapter involving the dialogue exchange between my protagonist (main character who evolves throughout the story and is the central character throughout the series) and several patrol units, I found my heart racing probably as much as when it was back when I was in that position myself years ago. I can still hear the sirens, feel the way they intensify everything inside a squad car enroute to a high adrenalin call never knowing how it will turn out and always hoping for the best. I don't know if my reaction was the result of my writing or my memories or maybe a combination of the two. I'd like to think it was my writing since that part of my experiences happened a long time ago.

I love my stories. I write for many reasons, but, while the process can be exhausting and often frustrating, I write mostly because I care about the stories I have to tell. And the people who lived and died for them.

PAROLEE SUPERVISION AND CASELOADS

The national news media is fully involved with the kidnapping and long-term hostage and abuse or Jaycee Dugan in California. There are so many fingers pointing in so many directions regarding who is to blame for this atrocity. It is commendable that the county sheriff is taking some responsibility for not following through more thoroughly on a 911 call two years ago, but the problem goes much deeper. The issue goes all the way back to why the perpetrator was released far shorter than his original sentence - money. Money is also why there are not enough parole agents at either the federal or state level to supervise high risk parolees regardless of whether or not they are wearing GPS monitors.

Any citizen outside the correctional system will be unable to find out accurate (translate that: truthful) information as to how many parole agents there are in his/her state-county who specifically (translate that: exclusively) supervise high-risk parolees (translate that: violent sex offenders, serial violent offenders who can be domestic violence offenders and child molesters). Even in California's current "wrestling match" with the courts as to how the state will reduce the number of inmates in its over-populated prisons, the state is promising to reduce parole agent caseloads from 75 (parolees per agent) to 40. In truth, that promise was made back in 2001. It never happened. Caseloads increased. And it won't happen now either considering the state's financial position. Positions cost money. And parole agents are required to have more education and experience because they have more authority and work more independently (translate that: usually without a partner or caged vehicle - translate that: it's dangerous work!)

In truth, an agent cannot supervise 75 parolees. It will be challenging to supervise 40 - especially if the parolee is considered high-risk in any category.

To adequately supervise a parolee, an agent needs to be vigilant - and irregular. Irregluar means showing up at the parolee's residence and employment at all times of the night and day - weekends, too. An agent needs to know the parolee's regular associates as well as his (or her) family members - if only to be able to identify someone who's "new" - someone who doesn't belong in his company, around his residence.

An agent needs to know what does (and doesn't) belong in a parolee's closet, his car, his refrigerator, his medicine cabinet, needs to know everything that's "normal" in order to spot something that's not normal. An agent can't do that with a once-a-month visit that lasts a couple of hours or less. But that's all an agent has time for with a caseload of 40 parolees. Why?

Because you have to factor in driving time to and from the various locations the agent has to go to find the parolee (and it takes longer in high metropolitan/high traffic or remote areas), observe from a distance sometimes, prepare all the paperwork the agent has to write and sometimes submit for every visit/observation/neighbor or employer contact. And then there are unit meetings and mandatory training and briefings regarding new parolees. Add in mandatory office hours for each of your parolees to report each month and give some form of a drug or alcohol test in the form of a urinalysis. Each agent is usually assigned one or more days a month to be the "Unit Agent on Call" which can mean handling whatever walks through the door or whoever calls on the phone for anything (from police agencies requesting information to mothers complaining that their sex offender registrant sons are being harassed by neighbors).

As a former state parole agent, I can verify that there are few weeks that went by that I wasn't the recipient of a telephone call in the wee hours from a uniformed officer on the streets requesting some form of information regarding a parolee who had just been the recipient of a vehicle stop. These, too, require attention and, sometimes, additional paperwork if not an immediate get-up-and-meet-the-officer-at-the-scene(or local jail). This is just the "normal" workload. Nowhere here have I provided an example of a parolee who has created a false fenced backyard to hide the kind of buildings and environment we are learning about that has been existing in Antioch, Calif.

I feel for everyone... except the perpetrators. And I'm so glad I wasn't one of those people who are now wondering "Did I miss something?"; "Should I have seen something?" That kind of guilt is suicide-making and there's nothing for it. Except smaller caseloads and more agents and a prison system that doesn't let that kind of an individual out early - EVER. It requires a more effective supervisory system with better priorities for who should be going to prison and who should be staying there and how we fund justice system components in the first place.

Of course, this requires an educated public. Which is why I write.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

I have been derelict from my blogging duties. I know. Not that I haven't been thinking about that duty. The issue, for me, has been what to say and the purpose of saying it. There's been a lot going on lately in my writing life, including joining a writers' group. And I have another blog which is more in line with my community political life.

But this is a writer's blog. And while it is also a chronicle, or sorts, of my journey from the personal and professional "me" to the writer, it's also important to share some perspective of the line I feel writers have to walk when writing crime-based fiction. That's what I write.

In the writing world, it's sometimes it's a police procedural (something like the "Law and Order" or "CSI" type of novel), sometimes it's more of a thriller or suspense (which definitely involved "bad guys and gals" but not necessarily one with a court-room resolution). From my real world experiences I have seen what the Hollywood or television education has done to jury pools. It isn't good. Nor is the excessive media coverage of local crime activities. Therefore, for time to time, this blog will be discussing those issues because it's the writer's responsibility to write credibly - to show how evidence is found and used in a manner the reader can believe. I will never forget the case where a single juror prevented a Guilty verdict because she believed the prosecution should have been able to present evidence showing the fingerprint of the accused on the bullet that had been extracted from the victim "because she had seen it on one of the CSI episodes." Unbelievable. In more ways than one.

So, even though my career was extensive and I worked in street law enforcement (county sheriff's department and welfare fraud and then with local law enforcement while employed with the state attorney general's office) and then at the state level in corrections (in maximum security men's prisons and as a parole agent) and had some responsibilities with certain federal agencies, I still use numerous resources to be sure my writing "situations" are valid and technically correct. The last place I look for information is Hollywood or a television crime series.

PERMISSION TO BE

Once the family and I landed in our final destination on the west coast I knew the marriage was on rocks as big as those at Acadia National Park's Thunder Hole, a favorite tourist location near Bar Harbor, Maine. For viewers on the west coast, think Point Dume in Southern California.

So I knew it was essential to get back to college, get a degree - a couple as a matter of fact - and get a job that would enable me to support the two children I was mother to at that point. The problem was I didn't know if the local university would allow a girl to enroll with a Police Science major. (You picked up on the word girl there, didn't you.) I went so far as to ask if the university would allow a girl to..... How times (and I) have changed. :-) BTW, Police Science is now known as Criminal Justice and that small department is now an entire Division at that university.

Even though there were female students in that particular department, there weren't many so it was easy to stand out. Carrying as many as 24 units a semester, when 15 is considered a full load, I worked as hard and as fast as I could toward that Bachelor's degree. Studying, still being a mom and a sort-of wife, active in certain special events within the university's academic world - LIFE was a push at full-speed ahead.

Thanks to the east coast college credits I'd been able to transfer, graduation came within two years. That was immediately followed by a full-time position within local law enforcement, the desired Divorce Decree and enrollment in the university's Master's Program. (And on-going "mom" duties with two children who missed their dad.)

I can't say life or times were easy at that point. Nor can I say I'd recommend any of it for anyone else. What I can say is that was the beginning of the phase in my life when I stopped asking if I could be accepted. I just made up my mind I was going to be the best at whatever I set out to be, do the best at whatever was in front of me, and move forward with My Life.

So, why this blog? Because now that I have completed a rather long and sometimes challenging career in law enforcement - criminal justice, (the legal system as one detective called it when we were waiting to testify in the same courtroom regarding the same individual) and am retired, I've started being a Writer of Fiction Novels. But I can't write the stories I have to tell under my real name for some pretty good reasons, per the advice I received from a successful woman writer.

Seems the stories I write tend to generate "pen pal" letters from prison inmates who, she said, will want me to tell Their Story. I've been in some pretty big and dangerous prisons and worked with some rather large inmates already. I've heard and seen enough of their stories. I'd just as soon not have to deal up close and personal with that mail if it can be avoided.

It also seems, writing under my "given name" is just asking to be stalked. Been there. I'd just as soon avoid repeating that experience.

So a nom de plume (pen name) is what was needed. But how does one pick such a name? It's not like opening a Baby Name book or picking up the name of some flamboyant former actress. I needed a name I could personally identify with. Bring in the family!

There was quite a bit of discussion over the topic of my "writer name." The children, now grown with children of their own wanted me to stick with my name. "You've worked hard for acceptance of that name," said one. "Heck, it's where all your experience and credentials are," said the other.

But then I pointed out the problems I could expect - maybe they could expect - IF I ever get published. And they already know some of the "stories" I want to tell. "Better find another name," they agreed.

Came forth a sibling with a suggestion. Seems in the family's way-back-when history, about the time and place of Paul Revere, a rather "sporting" member of the family lineage was somewhat of a horse thief. Apparently he wasn't a very good horse thief because he got caught. Lucky he didn't get hanged. Must have had that experience more than once because he got himself "exported" as it turned out. Kicked right out of these bedding colonies.

Being the crafty devil that he was (or maybe determined to be an American), he snuck right back in by way of Canada. (Seems we've had a problem with leaky borders for some time.) And this distant relative's last name was Fairbanks.

I liked it. Seems appropriate to have a retired cop-type person take on the name of a rather nefarious but loyal kinfolk. Now, there was just the problem of a first name.

My dad's name was Glenn, and I have some fond memories of him from times when I was a small child. So, Glenna was the choice.

Now "I" can go undercover to write the stories of characters and exploits, both heroic, shameful and down right funny in only the way life-and-death situations sometimes turn out to be funny. Perhaps, if I tell the stories right, readers will ask themselves how justice is issued when the truth is harder to find than fingerprints in a dust storm. But most of all, I want to take my readers behind the walls of their local police or sheriff's offices, inside the cells of maximum-security prisons, and inside the hearts and minds of people who know what it is to stand between life and death because it's their job.

GOING UNDERCOVER - PART 1

So who is "Glenna Fairbanks" and why is she going undercover? Good questions for inquiring minds, especially if they are into mysteries. A mild-mannered girl (shy as a child, masquerading as bossy) from a small New England town is hardly someone you'd expect to find in the middle of an evolution - revolution of sorts, back in the 1960s & 70s, challenging an American system that expected women to be "girls." Back then, all females were "girls", no matter what their age or profession and there were lots of professions where girls definitely didn't belong. In truth, they belonged, but they were not welcome.

In fact, there were about only two professions where women were wanted, and even there they were still called "girls", although not always for the same reason. The first group were the girlfriends, wives and mothers. Lots of promotions in that group, but not much income, financial security or independence.

Promotions were few and far between for the girls in the second group - unless you want to call battered and dead promotions. There were (and still are) different names for the "girls" in the second group, mistresses, prostitutes, whores, etc., but "girls" is still the generic name they're given, regardless of their age. Later on in my life I got to know quite a few of them. I never thought of them as girls.

But first I had to break out of a lot of shells and expectations (my parents' daughter, the granddaughter of another generation, somebody else's something). There was a long list and everyone had expectations - of me. Then I had to figure out who and what I wanted for myself (a much more complicated task). And then came challenging the different systems within what the general public thinks of as "The Criminal Justice System." That was this writer's first exposure to reality. Just moving beyond the cloistered environment of home and public school in a town of less than 5,000 people, many of whom fought change and progress tooth and nail, would have been terrifying if I'd really known what I was doing - where I was going or how I was going to get there.

But I was young, naive, determined to have a life that was my life, and to break away from all those who seemed to be telling me in so many ways that I could not do, or could not be, could not think, or become the person I wanted to be.

So I got married. And then I got pregnant. And then I got out (husband and child in tow). Well, let's face it. Some things are a mystery and some things are just common sense.