LEVEL BEST BOOKS
  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
    • HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • NEW ARC BOOKS
  • AUTHORS
  • BLOG
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ORDERS
  • CONNECT
  • THE DAMES' DOCKET
  • MYSTERY PATRONS
  • IMPRINTS
    • LEVEL SHORT
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • LEVEL HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ZEST
    • LEVEL TRU
  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
    • HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • NEW ARC BOOKS
  • AUTHORS
  • BLOG
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ORDERS
  • CONNECT
  • THE DAMES' DOCKET
  • MYSTERY PATRONS
  • IMPRINTS
    • LEVEL SHORT
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • LEVEL HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ZEST
    • LEVEL TRU
Search
Picture

Bestie's Blog

Write What You Know

9/29/2023

0 Comments

 
By Erica Miner
When it comes to old adages, “Write what you know” ranks right up there with, “Practice makes perfect” and, “Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” 
 
In a recent webinar, Level Best Books author James L’Etoile discussed how our writers’ life experiences influence what we write. His background of many years working in the criminal justice system infuses his murder mysteries with compelling authenticity. I am able to relate to that concept, as my own life experiences have proved to be a goldmine of material for my fiction.
 
My 21 years as a violinist with New York’s Metropolitan Opera have provided a sharp-edged realism to my Julia Kogan “Opera Mystery” series. The first in the series, Aria for Murder, takes place at the Met. My protagonist, Julia Kogan, is a direct clone of myself when I first started out at the company: a gifted young violinist debuting with the Met Opera Orchestra, trying to make her way in a difficult, demanding profession that is in many ways still dominated by men.
 
The people Julia encounters—fellow musicians, conductors, chorus members, stagehands, stage managers and the like—populate this story as reflections of my own relationships with company members. The real-world personality traits of people who were an integral part of my daily life at this home-away-from-home that was the Met Opera formed the basis of many of the characters I created in Aria for Murder.
 
But I also witnessed actual situations that initially inspired me to write this series: a number of nefarious goings-on that sparked my imagination and caused me to embroider and escalate the possibilities of these circumstances into behind-the-scenes murder and intrigue at this venerable institution. Writing this story also gave me a unique opportunity to kill off the people who made my life miserable! (Not all of them…I had to save a few for the sequels, which will thrust Julia into heaps of trouble at different opera houses across the country.)
 
The Met Opera is a unique world: the most prestigious opera company on the planet, where superstars like Caruso, Pavarotti and Domingo have been entertaining the cream-of-the-crop of opera aficionados for centuries. Standards are the highest on the planet; so are the stakes.
 
These elite audiences, however, have no idea what goes on behind all the glamour and glitz. Ultimately, revealing the dark side of the opera world is my rationale for creating these operatic whodunits. Under those crystal chandeliers, behind that “Golden Curtain,” hundreds of people are working in different jobs simultaneously, and always at odds with each other: opera superstars, comprimarios (lesser solo singers), directors, conductors, orchestra, chorus, ballet, stagehands, wardrobe, make up, wigmakers and more. Egos clash, tempers flare. There’s no love lost between any of them.
 
Take the orchestra, for example: 100 neurotic musicians thrown together in a hole in the ground with no air and no light, 7 days a week, days, nights, weekends. You see more of these people than your own families. Sooner or later, someone’s going to want to kill somebody.
 
Aria for Murder.
 
In Julia, however, I have created a protagonist who, unlike myself, is capable of rising above her fears to plunge herself into a murder investigation. I could never be that brave. That is where the beauty of writing fiction can transform “Write what you know” into “Create a character who is the kind of person you’d like to be.”
 
And what could be better than that?
 
###
 
 
Former Metropolitan Opera violinist Erica Miner is an award-wining author, screenwriter, arts journalist, and lecturer. Her debut novel, Travels with my Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards, and her screenplays have won awards in the WinFemme, Santa Fe and Writers Digest competitions. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Erica continues to balance her reviews and interviews of real-world musical artists with her fanciful plot fabrications that reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera. Aria for Murder, published by Level Best in Oct. 2022, is the first in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series. Prelude to Murder, the sequel set at the Sante Fe Opera, was released September 2023.  Book three,taking place at the San Francisco Opera is due for release in 2024.   https://www.ericaminer.com
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Level Best Authors

    Musings from our Amazing Group of Authors

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Author Interview
    Awards
    Cozy
    Diversity
    Genre
    History
    Humor
    Inspiration
    Marketing
    Movies
    NaNoWriMo
    Paranormal
    Publishing
    Readers
    Reading
    Research
    Reviews
    Series
    Setting
    Social Media
    True Crime
    Work Life Balance
    Writer Groups
    Writers Life
    Writing
    Writing Tips

    RSS Feed

Level Best Books

18100 Windsor Hill Rd
Olney MD 20832
Tweets by levelbestbooks
  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
    • HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • NEW ARC BOOKS
  • AUTHORS
  • BLOG
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ORDERS
  • CONNECT
  • THE DAMES' DOCKET
  • MYSTERY PATRONS
  • IMPRINTS
    • LEVEL SHORT
    • LEVEL ELEVATE
    • LEVEL HISTORIA
    • LEVEL ZEST
    • LEVEL TRU