A Word on Words; 2636; Doris Mortman

so you know once again welcomes the world works seven bestsellers that's what you don't do or seven success to the us so that begonia know now now i'm still i'm still begging and pleading that's doris mortal only adults live well a new book is i don't know where it's going somewhere that's going somewhere i you know when you're done the soloist well it's good to have you to talk about this latest now says the witness protection a program is certain point a vital crucial aspect of the book only begin a boy you know young women intro yes women in peril let's write in trouble getting inherent sounds like it sounds like the fifties that doesn't like us i've lived in the light of old grade white mayor and all the pregnant girl i

looked or it sounds like my mother a ha ha ha ha ah felt like three phrase that like that protect women in parliament in barrow you have put these two women in peril from as we say in the south the get go from the get go yes my heroine it's nine years old when she went into that program and her mother was not a crook mr crooker well that was at a whistle blow your eyes i one of the vessels or a whistleblower know one of things that fascinate me about the program is the ten percent of people who go into the program because they have to use today's big expression they've done right thing they took a moral stance and suddenly their lives are in danger and i sort of was interested as to what happens the main thing you literally become imprisoned within the program where is the other ninety percent of the people who go in a sort of small time or big time crooks so the government gets a chance of a

second life in they're usually very happy about that are my my heroines mom did the right thing and still like mustard and felt years later she did the right thing but did she do the right thing for her daughter will cynthia of the multnomah comes bath in and eric and ricky become for because max amanda maxwell car at a photographer with the new york police department of forensic part which also has an ascetic side too yes i am quote normally when i pick the professions for my heroines had picked things in which i'm interested i do love photography i am sort of a gadget person bag to a fine photography and there is a lot of it out there it's being done by women these days and it's artful photography and then cindy sherman is a very well known and i did it did sort of steal from her a little bit of oral a lot actually within

hours yes because she did some incredible things that as she would dress herself up into makeup and costume and vice has said that she looked like historical figures but they were never exact was always scream as she looks for many years so and so and so she was never making fun of the portraits of these real people that they were very i'm so ubiquitous everybody and stood what they were and they were standing and now she's gone on to do some rather gruesome type things which as a forensic photographer mei heron wouldn't touche the season of gruesome staff during her day job that she does do that and she does what i nicknamed weeks gates which yeah and that to me i thought that if i were a man the maxwell and i had grown up in that program i would recognize the alienated person where i saw them

and i think she identified with those people the people the one person we see on the street who lives in a cardboard house or that one person who's sitting at a coffee shop or buy he himself or herself and she would take photos of them and she did them in black and white because it was they're alienated they're not part of society they're outsiders and that's how she felt so i think those were her way of doing self portraits without taking her own picture yeah and i'm not having her own picture taken was terribly important or i mean it's one thing to me an intellectual the nypd forensic photographer and go around shooting pictures of crime it's another thing to be bleached gate to do aesthetic arch through photography and then your names of saws huge couldn't do that that would expose their own

of course from the time mom takes little ricky become commander boulder their lives are cheney carroll oh they are because real jeopardy i picked out a situation i thought was realistic i i realized that fiction is an alternate reality but i'd like to make it sort of like you can believe it in the late seventies early eighties in miami which is where they were living at the time and her mother was a bank officer at all the money laundering was going on for the drug cartels her mother found out that they were laundering hundreds of thousands of promised millions of dollars to these banks in florida i'm in the nineteen eighty there was an actual program called operation greenback i mean i changed it to operation laundry day and i don't regret that essentially was the same thing and they used people like cynthia baird and ask them to come forward and she did and she testified against the cartel drug cartel in florida and the

mob in new york which meant that twenty years later there are still people who are real emily harris family so maybe re enroll or am all inside yeah and then you got in and you got the colombians yes you heard that you have the espinosa clan which you know was sort of i mean that is the way those drug cartels we're also in the day and then we look and then use those worlds so you know yeah there's not an ounce of young yes but that's you know it's interesting to me is why i was writing this i did story of make the gray like john gotti you know david donahue who is in jail and i start to read all the stuff that his son little way and i was simply writing this whole description of him and it was coming from the new york area and seeing you know just the bodies so you guys are writing sort of what was my impression of him which was not favorable and two days after i penned this whole thing it was an article in the post about how john junior had been picked up i'm a divorce and ma had this thing about it which i

don't honestly because i did use it in the book i thought if this was at the new york post of all papers is good news no i love you then you do create a major character of max's father ryan oh yeah well as a lull as the area is being rich operator a first ball i like the idea that said he was going to a whistleblower and they like the ideas the borrowers going to go away on course you take is gone away or rather unique in an unique style i mean you think she did you oppose all of that formal twenty years singing he lost his ex wife and his daughter well sometimes i mean i got into my research for the program they did say that if a couple is to forest and that was the way a similar situation up they can do visitations but the

way they do it is like a code on alternate saying a witness protection to investigate the markets are run by the us marshals series has an idea that i gave that as an option and that the truth i always try to deal from character the truth of the character was that lionel barrett was this egomaniac this powerful head of the new york brokerage house and the marshals service basically said to say it you know he's going to think and he can protect you and he can protect your daughter and guess what he can't sell the marshall service basically blows up their house and florida so that everyone including lionel things that these two people are dead it's the only way to keep lose those waiting yes they think the marshals have been killed in that in the explosion they make it as realistic as possible and what really i mean i realize i wrote this this that made me sad to think of a nine year old girl watching her house blow up a

car and it's just it's sad that there are people with this happens to them that i guess that's why it affects me low <unk> not begin halal an attorney gets away from us it almost vote little affection for examine the effect of dhaka the with only the movie uses of this sermon and when they do highlight a lady the casing will be when i'm in the gulf while it is prayer as eileen you reach out to those words came off debate grabbed me and pulled me in there and then that goes really as it is i'm only will you reexamined to me it was i mean i you know i had a great relationship with my father who's said passed away and i think i i tried to imagine what it would be like growing up without that influence in

my life and it was devastating i could not imagine something like path alternatively knowing how my father felt that in the full princess your i tried to imagine what it would've been like for him not to have had me in life and and believing i was dead and his equally morning for me this whole time and have me show up and say you know why i'm here and of course he would have to back off and not be sure because what a cruel joke you would pay you know there are there are surprises in this book a long long way and i don't you know i want a one our viewers throughout my out of nowhere and then get surprised on on their own and it's not just an o henry ending in the new guinea or hindering chapters and has a surprise there are frequent surprises but carlos prize is our park created it seems to me as diversions you have to

make me think i know something that i don't really know make me i think i've got the villain played it didn't and i didn't have very much right and i went all the way through looking at one character waiting for him to come out tomorrow which kid with a gun is then and i just they just didn't happen but somebody else summary of one of me and one of the one of the surprises on directly relates to amanda's love interest will you give her a double barrel of life and bold about the losses were fired a lot talk about these two characters these two competitors and bowls

are of attracted to her and she's attracted one time alone will one is the fellow character follows voice and she knew him years ago when you had had a relationship with a new vigor at a fine with him years ago but he alan he's a very buttoned up wall street guy that the two men have something in common with her which i can't say all three of these people have lost their fathers when they were young i usually do have some sort of human there and so she was able to relate to both of those men because she understood that loss even though as a woman coming out of that program she couldn't explain that to them she could relate to at one of them and jake who was a private investigator his lawyer who that lawyer former investigative reporter abbie like suits like they didn't like since he likes a leather jacket he likes it said really very laid back my clan a guy like not all i like many insects to that i guess both sides admit you know

you get one side of a given site is tyler and lionel a greater tax system inside the subway well ok back to back to amanda so she also gets enough tyler years ago in italy and then she suddenly had an art opening in he comes into a life again and she's she likes em she finds him very attractive but he is has hit and she is and they can't really they can't relate really they're quite fascinated me about her and what relates to these men is how when you grow up to see young woman and you are living by the credo of better safe than sorry how do you have a relationship or anyone how you fall in love when you can't trust and how do you trust when you can't

be intimate you can't be intellectually or emotionally intimate because it's if unit trusts someone you recently you would trust them with very basic thing of what your real name is and that is the worst thing she can tell anyone so for me the fascination was how how she would have me furman says with these two very different men one of them is has closed up the shias and so even though they were able to be physical with each other the emotional the emotional barrier was not pretending each one of those where less absolutely there are mass and analysts so the real shocker when you unless our man the idea i am only that the other thing you did to me was that i thought i really believed budget was on the trail of the viewers papa write a new double cross me again then it i'm glad that i was

so sorry a night i must be honest i love writing this book because i've written a lot of other books and i've usually out one time and in the past couple of years past two books i guess yellen to really in my head this book i absolutely i thought i thought i had my antagonist and i started to write the book and as i'm writing the book i'm developing the characters and sort of watching as this is going along and i said now he wouldn't do it and tell it and turn it as i was in the middle of this book the person that i thought was going to be the antagonist turned out that no i didn't i didn't believe it i didn't think i was too i thought that everyone else would believe their jewelry tyler those who return and really turned out to be a little bit of a jacket worn i mean i you know you raised my hackles now i'm

unhappy about if you know in the bomb well because he had every reason to be the bomb here except that when i looked into his soul i said this guy would not me that mean and i just i knew that his he was as he was as devastated as she was by his was and then maybe i can get the men that yet the only a cover the book put up on the screen for us now as he would think that this girl out of nowhere what do you think i love the photograph i loved the photograph because the mother's face is cut off and the crisis is a little girl who's standing she looks like she's slightly away from her mother and it's like she's slightly away from everything i liked it very much like the idea to photograph and it obviously amanda's a photographer but the other thing that i loved about it was as a person in the witness protection program she wouldn't be lapped know that one of the front end and so

it is sort of a it's sort of the area and metaphor it is a moral theme of the book of this would have been one of the photographs that would have been put in the box of memories it is until i know exactly and so to me it's very poignant i think i thought was attractive as a cover that i think that when i was really actually writing the book i thought you know i that's in that box that goes to her father after he thinks she's dead you use writing as a storyteller from the time as little girl sometimes i was punished for it because you know there's mom again i've always loved stories i think most novelists would have to say that theyre storytellers and at what point your life did you decide i am going to be a novelist i am going to be a best selling novelist it never decide that decides that you know i mean you know ok

well i was where i was always a professional writer i went to college i majored in english i got out and i went to work for an agency czars copywriter i worked for mademoiselle magazine for eight years as a part time sales promotion writer and after years were unanimous so i hope no one important is listening i have nothing left to say about this magazine nothing and there i was three days to wait and i said well you know i have nothing else to do so i'm going to start to write a book and i did and my husband i was married had two children i was doing this sort of part time though for eight years you see dr doris you have two kids he had knee have a house to have a job and you're trying to do something you've always wanted to do i think you should give something up and obviously he he was hedging his bets he knew that he and the kids were keepers the house was up for grabs but as i left the job and i said to him you know i don't like to do this but i sort of like earning an income he said i

will pay you what you make of mademoiselle write this book is ok and this is isis and now here's npr's i mean i wasn't making a whole lot of money ok so this was a very wet this is one of those times would have to say was the thought that counts the stress may i was not getting rich on what he was playing even as i was in getting rich on one man was healthy but i thought that was that support of today's he wears and which is great and he also told me something which is really it was true he said to me you've always wanted to do this i think he should understand that the success will come by simply writing the end you will have written about which is what you're always wanted to know if it would ever else happens to it after that is gravy and i think he's right because every single day i know its right of his achievement and solace there was it's writing the manuscript finished to me every one of the books that i've

written the achievement is writing the ants knowing that i've gone from the beginning to the end i have a complete story i've created people who live off the page and i like the book and to me that's when i close the gap and i sent it off that's the accomplishment each time to be able to fill that blank page is the accomplishment know you try to the right on schedule and if you try to produce a book the year ah now hyatt i'd be twitching if i did that i did i do treat it it's very much a job so i do work out at five days a week and when i'm up against deadlines it seven days we were all there is a day at that point in the aisles of a close at the end of the book it's easy really what motivated a routine they did a routine on sundays better than others mondays are the worst friday for the best since families although now there were still working coming off a weekend you

sort of have to sharpen the brain again i go over what i've written the day before each time because i was fine that used one word thirty times more i've said things that just don't work and on the days when i have writer's block and you do they're only as i sit there and a terrible news is not a player show whispering in your ear for the seven days that you know a bird flies by my window i said oh my god birds flew by my window that's it i'm done for the day and madden i mean anything but no around till it sounds so silly i get my or and i go for a ride and do errands and pick up cleaning it out with so trapping so you don't tell right through no because i know that if i get away from it something that people submit your answer when you know when the spirit is lonely there is only one way to do it right through well it what happens the truth of the matter is that for me anyway i can sit there and i can produce paragraphs

that in my heart of hearts i know are pure john lee dumas gobbled them anyway and when i get to the point i guess and it's really recently i think after you've written a knife you know that it's junk and you can't get yourself and say our policy in this to the editor and they'll fix it up you can't do that so when i simply do is i figure there's something floating in here and i can't bring it fallen so i'll do something else no what about your relationship with your editor curator from pushing out my relationship with my editors is a good one usually because i don't mind being added i don't mind having i don't mind having a second pair of eyes look what i do because i'm not always you know you think you've got it all together i had my agent also helps made by editing yes i sent him everything before it even goes to the publisher and he's very good you know he'll call me

up and they'll say are you kidding me she would never do this and you know it because she said over here and he's right you know sometimes you go off on tangents and when you're when i'm in my tension road i have an agent who is so disrespectful he has no qualms about calling me up and saying no read to lead and if he's right i read it if his wrong i have my mom of triumph because it's a rarity you a willing to argue with both the agent any unexpected i am a fight if i think they are right i think this is why i have the relationship i do with editors if they all right i'm happy to make the change because i think it makes for better but if i think it they've challenge the integrity of the character or the storyline which to me always comes from a character

i won't allow it to be done i hear so many authors particularly novelist who tell me the publisher doesn't care will promote this book will pay attention to me i go onto or i get to a city the notebooks and bookstores they told me there would be an end in the newspaper ago at the newspaper you wrote an op ed i mean i think that i think it's is a problem i think we have a vast country and we have lots of bookstores and their problems that come up and right now publishing is in the midst of a midlife crisis and they're just all things happening you have distributors where let's say you have thirty distributors one time we're now down to

four so that's a problem which the public would have no reason to know or care about but to those of us whose books around those trucks at something to care about the publishers are playing pac man and gobbling each other up that that becomes problematic are how that's going to shake out down the line i don't really know why but i do know that most authors are nervous about that because you don't know how you're going to be treated you know how who is going to get the most attention and who isn't