Saturday, January 31, 2015

My Name is Kait--by Kait Carson


Hi, my name is Kait. You and I have met before; I’m a writer who kills. You’ve had me as a guest a couple of times in fact, but this is my first meeting, such as it is, as a regular blogger on Writers Who Kill. I can see y’all sipping down your coffee, and a couple of you, tasting something stronger. We don’t have those rules here. You can drink what you like, long as you know who you are and what you do. Heck, you could probably light up a smoke or two. Might even help the atmosphere.

Ok, enough. I need to get down to it, I guess. I mean, you didn’t come here to listen to me wander all over the Southeast and points north. Fine.

Here’s the skinny on me. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen. Nice, simple, stories, you know the kind. The house with the door and four windows in the front, the mommy and daddy, the brother to go with me. One face in every window. The true American Dream. Car in the garage, rose bushes alongside the steps. Regular stuff. I liked it. I liked that other people liked it. I really liked that the teacher liked it, and I got high praise for my efforts.

When you’re a kid like that, you think it’s never gonna change. No one is ever gonna look under the cover, flip the drawing over, see the inside. But that kid. She knows. She knows how many knots you need to tie into the sheet to get out the bedroom window. How Daddy is funny with one drink, a laugh a second with two, and someone you never met with three. All that while Mommy stands back and says, “He’s your father, do what he says.”

That’s when you want that family of four to look just like you, ‘cause if they don’t, there’s no place left for you to go. No place but down, and that’s where you’re going.

By third grade, you stop drawing that family. Those teachers, they’re smart. They figure you know your own house enough now. They don’t need to know what really happens. But they teach you something better. Something way better than drawing circles for Mommy and Daddy faces. They teach you to write. And they teach you about fiction. Pretty soon, you’re bringing home gold stars on your papers. Your teachers praise your creativity. Your parents put them up on the refrigerator. You’re going to be a writer.

For a while, you read every book you can get your hands on. Phyllis Whitney, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott. Everything. Nothing is immune from your reading need. You start to incorporate details from each of your heroes in your books. Suddenly, your teachers aren’t talking about classwork, they’re talking about careers. You and your career. You are a cut above. That’s rich. A cut above. If only they knew.

It’s about this time that some teacher hands you the book that changes your life. Some old guy named Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote something called The Little Prince. It’s a short book, you read it twice before dinner. It was there that I learned to judge by deeds not words. That words are the source of problems and to love something, it must be let go.

That’s when I became a writer who killed. All of my prior stories were stories of my perception. I wrote what I saw. There was always a happy ever after. But after I learned that words were the source of all problems and deeds their resolution, well, I discovered that one must look deeper. Deeper than words. Some characters by their acts need killin’. And so, I’m a writer who kills. I look at the story world, and I listen to my characters, right and wrong, clear-eyed and self-deluded. Then I ask myself. How to help them write their own real stories?

What about you? What’s your criteria for a bad guy? Bad through and through or merely someone who through twists and turns, maybe jealousy and envy, becomes irredeemable?
You can reach Kait Carson at Facebook www.facebook.com/kait.carson.1, @twitter, or at www.kaitcarson.com. Her books are available at bookstores everywhere and at http://amzn.to/1IZvImt

12 comments:

  1. Welcome to the wwk family, Kait. We don't mind a bit of blood splatter or a few bullet holes in the walls, but please don't leave the bodies around. Talk about a bad smell. Whew!

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  2. Welcome, Kait. I loved the beginning of your story and how you developed into a writer. I was a reader,too, but don't remember writing stories or poems until I was a teenager. Of course, I'm much older than you and I don't think writing, except for cursive writing was done. We diagrammed a lot of sentences and filled in ditto papers.The only trouble I got into was when a teacher walked down the aisle and saw the open book on the seat beside me that I was reading.

    Like you, I create murderers with depth and don't make them all bad. Few except psychopaths or sociopaths are. Most of my victims deserved it. :-)

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  3. Thanks Warren, I promise to take out the trash :)

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  4. Hi Gloria - Yep, we wrote cursive too. I remember that we couldn't use pens until we mastered cursive and our pens were green Esterbrooks filled with real ink. I still use a real ink pen when I write letters.

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  5. Kait, welcome to WWK! I think we're going to have to watch you - there's a noir soul behind that cozy facade. Nice to have some shivers with the morning Earl Gray.
    You write real letters! We're members of the same vanishing tribe, though I prefer a Sharpie.

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  6. Hi Shari, yes, every now and again my dark side sees the light of day. I rather like the contrast. Yep, I love the feel of pen on paper. So much more conducive to real communication than fingers on the keyboard or worse 120 characters or less!

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  7. What a delightful telling of how you became a writer! I enjoyed it.

    I have to admit I hadn't thought about the criteria for my "bad guys." When I do, it seems to me that they are callous, selfish people who disregard others in their search for what they want or need.

    Which, interesting enough, does not describe most of the murderers I know.

    Of course, I guess I can put that down to not wanting callous, selfish peoeple, murderers or not, as buddies.

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  8. LOL KM, Glad that you enjoyed it. I'm always interested in how long writers have been writing. I think it's an addiction. But a healthy one.

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  9. Welcome, Kait! I enjoyed hearing about how you became a writer. The Little Prince made an impact on me, too. The wise fox made some insightful observations about human nature.

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  10. Hi Kara, thank you for coming by. It is my favorite book of all time, and the fox. Well, he is always there when I need him. Tell me, have you ever finished the book that you didn't she a tear?

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  11. I apologize for being so late to the part today, but I've been on the road for 14 hours and we just got in to the motel.

    A full-time welcome to you, Kait.

    My bad folks are all over the lot. Some just unlucky and didn’t have the moral compass to solve the problem without digging a deeper hole. Some are believers in a cause, which some will consider perverted. Others found crime to make the most economic sense to them; of those, some are smart and it’s a good financial decision (at least for a while), and others are too dumb to realize how they are being used.

    ~ Jim

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  12. The Little Prince was a factor for me, too. Then I realized the Renaissance wasn't what I thought it to be. The word didn't reflect the reality.

    Real life was interesting, too. But I had to separate myself from it, which took a few years, to come to terms with it and call it for what is was.

    The rose colored glasses of youth got crushed underfoot. I started to kill, too. Your first blog as a Writer Who Kills was very appropriate. Thanks, Kait!

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