How do you get inspired to write?
I eavesdrop constantly, unashamedly. Luckily, I’m small and folks don’t notice that I’m mentally (hopefully not in a creepy way) jotting down everything they say. Airports and grocery store checkout lines are especially good for gathering inspiring snippets of dialog. Of course, news items are always great fodder for the mystery writer – e.g., remember, a few years ago, the shoes that washed up on Pacific Northwest beaches with feet in them?Actually, body parts found pretty much anywhere can start the story machine churning. Missing persons. Amazing rescues. Sudden, devastating violence. Anything that falls from the sky.
How do you deal with writer’s block?
Usually, if I hand write the start line, “The story I am writing today is about …”it lubes the gears and gets me going, even if it’s all garbage to begin with. I think all writers need to give themselves permission to write total drivel the first time around.
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
Decades ago, I was walking down a street in Portland, Oregon, where I was living at the time. I passed a man, older than me by a few years, who was immediately, viscerally familiar – and yet I knew he wasn’t someone I had met, ever. Not in this lifetime. I stopped for a second and turned to look back. He had turned around too, with the same, quizzical, “I know you but I don’t know you” look. We both kind of shook our heads and I continued on, unsettled. This had never happened to me before, or since. I began thinking - what if, at that small, seemingly unimportant moment, alternate realities had met at this nexus? Or different lifetimes had collided? And what if we had both decided to confront each other, instead of going on to live our current chosen lives? Would this have caused a tear in the fabric of the universe? What would have happened?
What are you currently working on?
I just finished Too Deep to Cross, the sequel to my debut mystery/thriller Cold to the Touch. So, I’m embroiled in pre-publication gyrations, admittedly not my strong suit.When I’m not doing that, I’m mulling over ideas for a possible third mystery in the DeHavilland Beans series. I have a way too long post-apocalyptic Young Adult sci-fi WIP as well that desperately needs an ending.
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
In Too Deep to Cross, I wanted to take my protagonist, an Anchorage Homicide Detective, out of his professional comfort zone. An officer-involved shooting and a grisly discovery on a Yukon River landing bring him back to his hometown Alaskan village. A long-cold missing person case evolves into a murder, and my protagonist becomes an unwilling participant (as well as possible suspect) in its investigation. At the same time his mother, in the San Francisco Bay area cleaning out the family home, makes unsettling discoveries of her own. This book is different from the first one in that it is way less traditionally linear and way more layered, with overlapping timelines and alternating points of view. I obviously wanted to take myself out of my own comfort zone as well! It was a little cumbersome and problematic at first (what was I thinking?) but thankfully, my wonderful editor, Sara J. Henry, set me straight more times than I could count.
What kind of research did you do for this novel?
I was fortunate to have traveled and worked in Alaska, and I have great resources in friends and former colleagues in the Alaskan transportation and maritime industries. Friends at the local aviation museum were valuable sources of information. My sister-in-law is a Nurse Practitioner and a wonderful go-to person for all questions pharmaceutical and medical. I immersed myself as much as possible in the numerous online and published resources available regarding the internment of Alaska Natives and, of course, Japanese Americans during World War II. I enjoy research and have to consciously stop myself from diving down endless rabbit holes and blissfully wasting hours of writing time.
In general, what emotions do you usually wish to elicit with your writing?Best advice on writing you've ever received?
As a mystery writer, I like to challenge the reader with a “whodunnit” and “whydunit” of course, but I think ultimately, I would like the reader to come away knowing a fully-formed protagonist with conflicts, doubts, and backstory. I’d like the reader to have a satisfying and well-grounded sense of place and its relationship to the characters. I also want the reader to enjoy the telling of it – the ebb and flow of tension, the music of the language.
Best writing advice: Even if it’s crap, just get it on the page. It’s printed on a coffee-stained coaster that I keep on my desk. Glib, and not very original, but sound advice nevertheless. Write first without judgment or looking back; edit later.
Years ago,I collaborated on a series of (as yet) unpublished mysteries with a friend and fellow writer. In one of these stories, a body was wrapped in a plastic shower curtain, thrown off a cliff and snagged in a tree. I Googled what kind of insect activity could be expected with the body swaddled in almost airtight plastic, suspended above ground in a temperate Pacific Northwest spring. No surprise, precious little information was available at the time on this weirdly specific topic.
Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?
My dermatologist interrupted the retelling of his miraculous hole-in-one to extract a bloody lump from my numbed forearm, saying, “Ah yes, just a fatty tumor – we see it all the time.” He held the dripping tissue to the light, his sun-bronzed face suddenly blanching, as he stammered, “Except this one is looking back.”
What else would you want readers to know about you? Where can readers find you online?
Although my published works have been mysteries, I enjoy writing in other genres. I’ve got a Young Adult post-apocalyptic novel in progress – the way too long one with no ending I mentioned earlier. I like the freedom that comes with other-world building. On the other end of the spectrum, I also have a research-heavy historical “trunk” novel that has been languishing in rewrite limbo for many years and that I hope to someday send out to see the light of day.
Please visit me at my website: www.kerrihakoda.com, or on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/kerri.hakodaauthor/
https://www.instagram.com/kerrihakoda/
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