Interview with P J Tracy
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PJ Tracy’s upcoming thriller, The Deepest Cut, marks the return of the Twin Cities Monkeewrench team after four novels featuring Los Angeles Detective Margaret Nolan. PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of Minnesota writer Traci Lambrecht.
We asked Traci to share her beginnings as an author, the challenges she’s faced, insights into her writing process, and how her characters begin to tell their own stories as she writes.
Describe your first recognized success as a writer.
My first big moment was winning a national poetry contest when I was eighteen. The second was actually making a living writing Harlequin romances and short stories with my beloved mother, PJ. In fact, the first time we used the PJ Tracy pseudonym was for a Christmas short titled “Lights of the Season” for Woman’s World magazine in the early ‘90s. But Monkeewrench, published in 2003, was our big mainstream break-through. It was a New York Times and international bestseller and all ten books in the series are still in print. I recently finished the eleventh, The Deepest Cut, which will be released on September 9th of this year. It’s such a blessing to have created a series with PJ that has endured for two decades. I still pinch myself.
Aside from the obvious distance in location where you and your mom were writing, describe the challenges with the Monkeewrench series.
As for the writing, there were no challenges, even though she was in Minnesota and I was in Los Angeles for most of the series. We had a bond and a unified voice that defied distance. We spent hours on the phone and I traveled back every couple of months. The hardest part was the intense pressure of producing a book a year while keeping a grueling book tour schedule. We weren’t remotely prepared for that, but we sure had a blast. When we were together, nothing was insurmountable.
The Monkeewrench novels are rather sophisticated computer-related mysteries. Who or what were your inspirations or sources?
PJ and I loved computer games and murder mysteries and we wished there was a game that combined them. So we created a fictional one and decided it would be really creepy if somebody started duplicating the murders in real life. That was how Monkeewrench was born.
My father was a computer scientist and worked for Sperry UNIVAC his entire career. He was an invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration. We would come up with a crazy idea and ask him if it was plausible. He always told us: “If it’s not possible now, it will be before the book is on the shelf.” How right he was.
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Your mother, Patricia, was an accomplished and talented writer. How were you able to make the transition to writing solo?
It was a strange time. After she passed, I wondered if I could write another Monkeewrench book or if I even wanted to. I floundered for weeks in grief and uncertainty, staring at my computer screen. Then on a magical January night, I started writing and couldn’t stop. I finished the first draft of The Guilty Dead in five months (that will never happen again.) PJ was vividly alive in me, laughing and cracking wise. Honestly, I feel like she wrote that book. Writing is our enduring tether. I’m never closer to her than when I’m writing.
How did you decide to write the Detective Margaret Nolan series?
I lived in Los Angeles for ten years and had a treasure trove of experiences and observations that were clamoring to get onto the page. That’s when I knew it was time to take a break from Monkee World to keep myself fresh. I loved writing the Nolan series—it recharged my batteries and multiplied a thousand-fold the joy of reuniting with the Monkeewrench gang in The Deepest Cut.
What do you think makes a good story?
Equal attention to characters, plot, and setting. This is the holy trinity. If a writer skimps on any of these, it’s a disappointment. Also, there’s a great saying in the screenwriting biz: At the end of every page, give the reader a reason to turn it.
When you start to write do you have an idea of the ending?
Never. Even if I did, my characters would do something unpredictable and ruin it. For me, the excitement of writing is finding out what happens next. And I figure if I don’t know how it ends, the reader won’t either!
Do your characters speak to you as you create them?
Constantly, even when I’m not writing. They are annoying chatterboxes.
Who are your favorite authors to follow?
I read everything—all genres of fiction and equal amounts of nonfiction. I couldn’t even begin to make a list. I know this is a cop-out, but I’m afraid I might forget somebody important.
Describe a typical day in your writing process—when, where, time of day, how often.
I’m an early riser these days, so I settle in at my desk with a banana and coffee often before the sun is up. (At least in the winter.) I play word games to wake up my brain and when I’m sufficiently coherent, I dive in. I’m at it all day, either writing, researching, or just thinking. When I’m on a roll, I can write for hours. Other times, inspiration comes in fits and spurts or not at all. It’s definitely not an exact science, but the one immutable constant is that I write 365 days a year. Not because I have to, but because I love it.
Are any of your characters based on real people? Any autobiographical?
They’re my little Frankenstein’s monsters—an amalgamation of real people and my imagination. And I believe all authors put pieces of themselves in characters—it’s impossible not to. But I stay far away from anything autobiographical so I don’t incriminate myself. Some of the statues of limitations haven’t expired yet.
How much research do you do for your books?
I love research and do a ton of it. I’m very fortunate to have so many wonderful sources who possess a wide range of expertise and generously share their knowledge. But I think reading is still the best research. Cold, hard facts provide unexpected fodder for creativity and often set me off in entirely new directions.
What would you say is the most difficult part of writing?
For me, it’s getting to the place where an abstraction finally comes to life on the page and the characters begin to tell their own stories. When I get to that point, I’m just a typist. It’s like trying to catch fog with your fingers, but when it happens, there is no greater adrenaline rush. It’s the writer’s version of BASE jumping or free diving.
PJ Tracy will be the keynote speaker at the March 15 Rosemount Writers Festival and Book Fair, followed by twelve writing workshops and a Book Fair with 65 authors, publishers, editors, and other publishing professionals.
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