Bring on the Buffalo
By Kate White Some things just seem to go together naturally: good books and rainy afternoons; popcorn and movies; cold steak in a salad with a tart vinaigrette (that's an old Rex Stout recipe, by the way).
And then there are the combos that fall completely flat or seem to make no sense whatsoever -- like the two things I do for a living: run Cosmopolitan magazine and write murder mysteries. On weekdays I stay busy composing cover lines like "Mattress Moves So Hot His Thighs Will Burst Into Flames" or hosting dinners for the cast of Grey's Anatomy. On weekends I research subjects like how you can burn a corpse in a bathtub without setting the entire house on fire or how to poison someone with the root of a foxglove flower. I've been at this crazy combo for the past nine years.
When people discover I do both, they tend to pepper me with a bunch of comments and questions -- such as "Really?" "Why in the world would you do that?" and "How in God's name do you find the time?"
I don't blame them for being baffled. There are moments when it seems insane to me, too, and I wonder if I might just have to chuck one of the two (since the Cosmo job pays a lot better, it probably would have to be the mystery writing). But I love doing both. And here's the funny thing: Not only do I pick up great ideas for my books on the job, but being the editor in chief of Cosmo has taught me a ton about writing books.
Just a little background. I never planned to make my life this nutty. It just kind of evolved in a freaky way. Like many people I grew up with a coupe of passions. I had this fantasy about becoming the editor of a magazine -- I put out my own corny little neighborhood and schools magazines -- but I also had a secret fascination with the macabre and use to walk around my hometown at 13 in a trench coat with a fake revolver in my pocket, pretending to be a private eye. Once I was out of college and working in New York City as an editorial assistant, I found a short item in Esquire magazine titled "The Ten Best Mysteries Ever Written." It listed books like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and The Franchise Affair. Inspired, I read them all in a month and became hooked. Not only was I a mystery junkie, though. I decided that some day I would have to write my own.
When I was the editor of Redbook and my kids were sleeping a little later on weekend mornings, I finally decided to try my hand at it. I had completed four chapters of If Looks Could Kill, about a dead nanny and a crime writer named Bailey Weggins, when I was called in on a Sunday and told I was the next editor of Cosmo. As thrilling as that was, a little part of me groaned: with such a monumental job, there'd be no time for finishing my mystery. I had no choice but to stuff the chapters in a drawer.
But a funny thing happened. About six months later, over the Christmas holidays, I pulled out the four chapters just to reread them, and I was startled by a particular passage I'd composed. When Bailey Weggins discovers the body of the nanny, the girl is lying on a copy of Cosmopolitan. I had no recollection of having added the Cosmo reference. I took it as a sign I had to write the book while I was at Cosmo.
Since If Looks Could Kill, I've written five more Bailey Weggins books. Here are a few of the lessons my Cosmo job has taught me along the way.
Go Big or Go Home: I overheard one of my young staffers use this expression one day several years ago, and when I asked her what it meant, she explained that it was the mantra of a party animal friend of hers. The idea is that if you're going out at night and expend a certain amount of time in trying to have a good time, you ought to expend the energy as well -- to guarantee just how good the evening will be.
I fell in love with that phrase and thought it would be a great mantra for me at Cosmo. We're a bold, gutsy magazine and though my instinct on the job is to go for the burn, sometimes it pays to remind myself of the necessity of doing that. Case in point: once when my executive editor and I were crafting cover lines, we came up with the following: "Heinous Breakups: You'll Want to Slap These Jerks." Not too bad. But then I considered my mantra and we kept pushing. We ended up with one of my favorite cover lines of all time: "The Most Heinous Breakups in Cosmo History: You'll Want to Bitch Slap These Jerks."
The mantra has been a godsend for my writing too. I have a tendency to hold back with my writing, be a little tentative about going big and bold (I doubt I'm the only one) and this mantra always encourages me to ask myself: Is this first sentence or chapter ending or character as exciting or scintillating or compelling as possible? Lately I've become addicted to the Inspector Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd. It's set in the period right after World War I. Nothing so special about a period mystery. But this Scotland Yard detective is haunted by the ghost of someone he executed during the war. That's going big.
The Best Ideas Often Come from the Outside In: I think many of us have a romantic notion of a writer's life: It means be tucked away in a snug, comfy home office, sipping coffee, listening to classical music, and not venturing out into the world unless absolutely necessary. After all, that's the kind of nurturing environment that encourages ideas to burst forth.
I don't have much of that in my life. As the editor of Cosmo I'm so often in cars and trains and planes, at meetings, conferences, galleries and fashion shows. And interestingly, what I've learned is that the best ideas -- for both my job and my fiction -- often arrive when I'm in those places, not on the limited occasions when I'm ensconced in my home office with a legal pad and number two pencil. My ideas are sparked by things going on around me.
A fashion editor once put it very poetically to me. I asked her how she chose her career, half expecting her to say she'd always loved clothes, etc. But she told me she hadn't known what she wanted to do after college and followed a boyfriend to Africa. While they were traveling by bus through Egypt they spotted a European magazine conducting a fashion shoot. Watching the editors work, she decided that's what she wanted to do. "I guess there's a moral to that story," she told me. "Sometimes you have to be on a bus to Cairo to figure out what you want." Buy a bus ticket, get out, experience the new and the different.
Just Do It: When I first started dabbling in fiction years ago, I was cursed with frequent writer's block. Not any more. Because at Cosmo -- or at any magazine -- writer's block is not an option. The issue has to close. You need to write the headline, the cover line, the caption, the darn article. You just put something down on your computer and when you have the opportunity to tweak it later, your fresh state of mind helps you make it better. And if you really feel stuck, it generally means you need more info or inspiration. Maybe, if I'm rewriting a title for an editor, I just need to reread the piece. If I can't come up with the words for a presentation, I just need to do more research.
It Almost Always Pays to Bring on the Buffalo: After I'd been at Cosmo a few months, I wandered down to the new photo editor's office to see how things were going with a fashion shoot we'd planned in South Dakota. We were going to be focusing on clothes with a Native American influence. The photo director, Dennis, assured me that everything was going brilliantly.
"The location is fabulous," he said. "Lots of big sky and buttes."
"Well, maybe if we're lucky, some buffalo will run by as the photographer is shooting," I said.
Dennis regarded me with surprise.
"Well, I rented a herd," he exclaimed.
My jaw nearly dropped. He'd rented a herd of buffalo -- without even asking my permission. I should have been annoyed, but instead I loved what he'd dared to do.
I've always respected that rule breaking is important, and that day my photo director gave me the perfect analogy: Rent a herd of buffalo.
Sometimes it's not enough to just go big. Sometimes you have to break or bend the rules. I just read a gorgeous thriller called HeartSick by Chelsea Cain. It's about a drop dead (so to speak) beautiful female serial killer. Who ever heard of that before? When Charlize Theron played a serial killer, she had to be butt ugly.
Ask yourself: how can you totally shake things up? Flip everything over? Do what's never been done before? Turn the beautiful into the ugly or the ugly into the beautiful.
Just for the record. As it turned out, those buffalo weren't any old herd. Dennis explained they were the same herd used in Dances with Wolves. So they even had their green cards!
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