A Word on Words; 3607; J.T. Ellison

fb was both liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers literature ideas for more than three decades this is word on words johnson and johnson and omar welcome once again for word

on words our guest today is a first time novelist jt of us and she's here to discuss her debut book all the kreeger of jp welcome go around words that somebody had and let's begin with the beginnings of what the age at central that is my real name abbreviated and i my age and decided it would be a good idea for me to use initials in case some of the mail readers would be turned off by woman and it gives a little androgyny to the name and hopefully that will bring its more people say mom in college aged actually duties been a nickname for a long time so that's not true that it is very natural to me all pretty girls all of her heroes of the mystery about a serial killer right valium as we find it a very disturbed and mean spirited first farm where the idea for this small comfort actually have his skin soundbite i had a dream

i woke up in the middle and it up or i had drunk the entire plot start to finish the sisters every day and i got up and i got a reporter's note it would be in question were in the marines yes they were quickly we should tell the audience is a television journalist right when you know i should write one of your own very much out of my animals and quinn her sister is a very nice person among the somali says a socialite to have a lovely lovely life lovely home and talk a little bit about the need to start create day of a female police have that right here on the national police and she's attractive and in love and then you give her an fbi agent hello in poorly come from

taylor is an embodiment of my own hero complex shoes and she says she was not in a dream i had i had her before this particular plot caitlin canty you wrote a book about this about cotton and taylor yes taylor jackson and that was she was the basis for everything and she has very uncompromising morals she sees everything in black and white bear she can only the findings in good and evil and she is truly dedicated to making the city safer for everybody who was on it and seize seemed to be a character that people could identify with which would also be a bit iconic and she wouldn't change so much from book to book because she is very steadfast in her ideas so you go to taylor jackson taylor jackson taylor jackson hopefully taylor jackson jr jackson's doctor john baldwin yes you're her and romantic

interest an fbi consultant in iran and criminologist is he going to these european leaders came again again is in an office on four you know that's one of those decisions make a little further down the right now was the dream that must've been a horrible dream created a serial killer who focuses on burnett's the brown eyed brown on brownie and interesting twist in the cork that identifies the serial killer it as you say the murders began with consensual sex and strangulation mutilation talk about the mutilation say it takes up their hands he transfers he keeps one from self any transfers one to the next crime

scene and leaves it with the body of his next victim it's it's something that's going to raise awareness of the crime make it a little more heinous if it leeds leeds and everybody seems to be very entranced with this kind of horrific crimes right now and it plays right into that was interesting over and latino years many authors been where you're ministry authors have been there someone wrote about the serial killer's eye you introduce this subject about drew baldwin about how to identify a serial killer in an interesting way to mean first or use of an open up with interesting you you there's three cops and the national police department and it's a slow of a plump and us only murder

out west and the county near itchy and counting they should find a team out more within minutes more women somebody else's jurisdiction they rush out their tale as ordinary baldwin comes and when they discover the mutilation it's ballroom to tell and she asks what you do here to listen on that number of occasions says the border in metal measurements account they're designed to restore it was the reason it's interesting he's been they think it's somebody who's been working for the past three or four months and taylor gets quite upset that he hasn't let her know that that there's a serial killer out there that maybe coming to nashville there's no way to predict that of course and he defends himself against her anger but it's one of those situations that that they are faced with a great

deal but theyre faced with a lot that the eye has serial killers there's twenty fifty and sixty active serial killers at any one time they watched them they see what happens they are still intermittent they can't predict sometimes what's going to happen next so that's that's how he defends himself for this when she owned for legitimate but will both have to smuggle happy with the tribe for her friends are her fellow cops wonder gives a clue really all about the relationship between john you know we got everything right with jurisdictional its of its well known at least among mystery writers have not are alive and lots of a religion that

we have the eye and local cops don't always get along they were together when they nature of the way but there is that distance you begin the book you have a share of glasgow and end them and he makes more and welcome them you know the tree as common sentiment solicited for the relationship is as good right baldwin's attitude about that idea is responsible he respects that there are other people that are just as good at this as he says he's never been a very elitist profile or he'd he wants to help people he wants to help solve the crimes he doesn't care who does it is that characteristic of mournful of music i think it is i think it's my personal experience has been there are a lot of cooperate efforts that go on their squabbles there's gonna be squabbles in any jurisdiction but it seems that they really do

work with the fbi worked with the tdi this is hearing a national obviously they worked together to get things done and they have a joint task force they actually are cooperate with and that's i think something that's really across the country that we writers get to play with a little bit and turn it into a little more of a proper or what you just said leave me goes to a natural question what about this research how much research did you do how deeply or you're able and i know a little bit about this piece of a variety of militants and in about how deeply did you immerse yourself in the life of law enforcement as deeply as i could and talk about i started writing the book i realized that my experience was limited to reading other people's books and i had no idea how a real investigation went on what a cop would do what they would say cider a political questions i called down the homicide started asking and that happened again as a detective who was very interested in what i was asking him he says what you come to ride along that turned

into several ride alongs ride alongs with midnight shaft he and i still get together they don't do right alliance for people on in the police academy anymore the citizens police academy but we still get together and talk and be humorous as me in everything that he deals with and it gives me an air of credibility to taylor i think that she is very much like what everybody is actually doing years ago as a police reporter young journalist find cover the police beat for a couple years and most interesting trip every day to the other side of the world it's it's a totally a different environment is those men and women no women in those days of men and women experience had to come out of that changed changed i had no idea what these

people do what they see how they have to adapt and deal with things that for you and i would actually floats that it would take us weeks to recover from the things that they say and just being out on a couple of revlon's we were i went out on the midnight shift with the patrol officer and the very first call was astounding and it was in the projects and it was not a good guy to town and we got there and had to elbow our way through to the victim and he was bleeding out everywhere and it it was hacked just us more about that scene is really where you open this book yes that very city that's so mr milloy yes it has or how much us are from the real life and this is a stunning beautiful and it gets all its it's inevitable but the headlines are going to influence his plot and it has an and subplots but that everything

in this book is a figment of my imagination it's it's something that you know i've taken maybe a grain of truth in blown it into a field of corn just to make it into something that it's not too exaggerated that the end it like on the moment when whitney the television and both report an anchor right and whitney was fewer want to both berg and get the big cut right to say then does she's interested in you get involved in this big crime story and she gets in london where this both rice and through email turns out that there is a simple agreeable i mean that night and that's the english major in macon ga we'll talk about talk about the poetry

because the sheer will argue what year it was about that i thought it would be it a horribly creepy to take what are traditionally love poems that the young men have written to women to wear them and had that as a kid how he was identifying himself how he was leaving clues he's leaving a poem in each of the of the victim's the facts and that obviously is a huge clue and leads them where they need to go right it's it's a perversion again of a lot of which is what this killer but ultimately is about to talk about whitney and how he discovered that what she makes of that whitney is she's a smart car keys being manipulated and falling for her quite get sicker an open and rushes off event to just half cocked of office tries to get more information about but hollande she's she's

being held the politics she doesn't know why she doesn't know what's happening and when she starts putting together at the same time the police are putting it together she sees as that's as an opportunity this is it this is how she's going to blow this bird and then make the big time and she's being manipulative though the whole topic she is really being manipulated and so why they've baldwin says to her and maybe to fix the world cup so distillers trying trying to send as magicians he really wants this is not that he's just being provocative really wants to get caught that true due to zero tolerance leave those clues blood on the walls message is the same you know we read about it not only in fiction but in real life they show they love to show off they're so smart

they are so intelligent they're so much smarter than any provincial cop could ever be and this is their way of throwing it in the cops think it's an end this killer in particular certainly is doing that i think it is a trend that they say you know out on the street all the target for those of you just and then i'm talking with jd austin about about her new book her first book all of rigor of in all pretty girls another pretty we discover who his serial killer is now i should say to our audience i know some of the serial killer's when i go to tell you because i don't give away draghi's marvelous sequence but if you drink it you knew from the outset there was nobody did you know how you would get you

know that's one of those issues that comes along as you're writing the book you what's going to give you the biggest bang for the buck at the end of the book hundreds of big bang bang i tried to figure out as we were long ago when he would drop includes us who it was tom you can give me to give me many along the way you believe me downs may grow compress it we just didn't do that you're always tempted to throw in the red herring in and send the plays off on different trails the book only takes place in the course of a week there's only so much realistically that's going to happen in the course of that week to send them off on false trails so i did try to keep it a little less complicated as far as that's concerned but they fear this killer's is moving from state to state to state to state state pickett eight states in seven days and that's

i felt probably enough for them to be dealing with just trying to figure out where he could possibly be going next and a long list of the most talked about about quinn the sister that socialite that attractive intelligent person are you in your mind as a writer was her role in this book she saw the catalyst right she had no idea how close she was to death my own look when she's an interesting personality she and sea and when they are identical twins and very much so identical twins but they're the kind that when they hit their teens they started diverting and going into different path a lot of twins you know end up together the whole lives they they

took different paths and she is she's the perfect juxtaposition of whitney's ambition and desire to be in front of the camera and be important and be somebody's quinn's perfectly happy to sit back to be a mother to be a nurturer tim to do the good things that she does in the community to work all the charity organizations in and have a life with her husband and her family of course that's not exactly what's happening but it's what she would like to have happen is a bit and outright it's an exact meaning it then what about what about the all about whitney they are identical twins and they identify with each other parent the same affection there but they did did they live in two different to live different worlds until until the emails the poetry crying so to bring together on

this on this one issue has to be a little frightening for quinn the city on the periphery she's been very sheltered desert expect mean there's there's things that have happened to these girls that that have shaped and they've become and i think that's a direct action for him they end up being at the end of the book no i don't know about i don't know about the poetry it is quite good are you the poet as well as the writer pearl oh no no i i read some requisite horrible puppetry a couple it's just a terrible state that should be burned that i used my favorites tennis and die in coal rich all of the people there when i read i am i'm getting something out of it it's evoking emotion in me and i was hoping that it would do the same for their for the reader and and for

the reader and also the whitney and quinn is very special meaning especially frequent not you think this is you know not in public but was it in your mind that this surreal political woes going to play this game just because of his closeness to the two twins no i didn't really know exactly when i first started out doing it strangely enough to you have to go back and find the motivation and why this is happening and why he's done this and it's it turned into something that he and tulips and that's where that's where we find out he's really really is about prison usually that particular is one one when you finally find out about jake ios and villains i you know i know just how bad he is let's talk about me the way you write that it

won't be considered a job or is it done is it just forty fives a full time job absolutely i get up in the morning i were the some of the business angle i do my email read newspapers go through the things that i need to do and then i sit down and i write as long as i can twelve before is usually you know good for our honor and a uninterrupted chunk of time to get stuff down on paper issued for at least a thousand words a day that that minimum three of authority you have to be true in jamal i do a first draft i had a critique group which i'm able to go every other natives of acknowledgement yesterday you really were fabulous i would never have gotten this book to this level without their input day i bring in ten pages they say this works that doesn't work you can't fix that apostrophe they're wonderful with all aspects of it and they

didn't interact with them i'm at a delta in slate and a sister's and crime sponsored event the john connolly when he came to read in nashville into thousand five and i met her on that night and she said you know you're a writer you're not and sisters in crime you're not in mystery writers of america what do you need to join all these things and learn she ended up being the head of this critique or an invited me and about six or seven months later and it was it was a huge some little moment for me to suddenly be able to share what i've been doing by myself in a vacuum with other writers and that's obviously just opens every you know it it's a different it's a different job of running but there is a great national commission on the original fugitive poet great writers what

is the measure of patients all of whom we the students and teachers at vanderbilt and the twenties used to meet at home mom with one avenue where they would tear the shreds each other's work pretty good unsure praises well i bought the fugitive traditions of state as it has been reborn with with those groups are you take ten pages and weapons take ten pages we sell out which obviously is a wonderful exercise to yale and then everybody goes around and end the mark what they've got a prom when they discuss it in and you've you've got the wrong entrance to bell meat issues you need to fix that streak it and think you know even the little bitty details as well as the big picture and over the course of the year while working you know i'll be able to bring in about half of my book none of them have ever read member of any of my

box at a selective you've expressed surprise for them when they finally get to it and how much advice you tip from i take a lot of it is there's a lot of advice that i decided no this is the way i want it is this is my writing style have a much more spare kind of stalin little staccato with what i do and that has a tendency to bother people who want to have commas in a hands in and things like that so it i take what i know is going to make a difference for the story ends smile and nod for the rest it an economist and then you get a splitting absolutely were absolutely ari woman i know there's one girl in particular that i really am pushing because i think she's got the talent is not published yet nine i really think she can bait and i've been pushing pretty hard you'll hear it will be sitting there for hours and the image of what comes naturally

i think writers block is the story telling you that it's not going in the right direction that there's something wrong if you're sitting there and you can't come up with anything to say then and you've taken your story in the wrong direction and it's a way to find your way back so it i don't necessarily believe in a i also do a little bit of non fiction writing to the outbreak set up for me if i am getting stuck on that night and i really and i think that's not a fallacy but it something that can be worked around we have just a minute left and i know there is a notable coming years in the game and what its called fourteen it's gonna be out in september of two thousand eight it's another taylor involved a look and in this book there's a serial killer called the snow white killer who work nashville twenty years ago inmates any killed ten girls and disappeared they've never

caught him and he has re emerge twenty years later and they are trying to find out who he is and why he's come back and those a book that there is more about what local and that's called judas kiss and it's the first book where taylor has to explore some shades of grey which has been a lot of fun to write and that'll be out two thousand i heard of or it is difficult for her she's a very black and white person well we've run out of time i want to thank you very much for being with us today thanking is going on to thank all of you for watching we've been talking to jp olsen about her new book the first full of pretty girls and guns illegal for word on words fb