Girlfriends Book Club

Navigating the Bumps

2012-01-26T20:22:00.002-05:00

A friend gave me a copy of Tina Fey’s Bossypants. It wasn’t something that would have attracted my attention otherwise – I don’t watch her TV show or Saturday Night Live, did see a few clips of her as Sara Palin, but really, though I was sure it was good for a few laughs, I didn’t think I’d find the book very relatable to me. The book is about her struggles as a woman in a male-dominated industry. I’ve already been there done that and fled the corporate tower. It is also about learning to be an effective boss. Again, the advice comes a bit late for me. She covers balancing work and motherhood, one game I left and the other I never entered. And of course the book is about the rarefied air of a comedienne’s life. Probably some interesting anecdotes and jokes, but trust me, I won’t be needing advice on that career choice. I’m not funny except sometimes in a punny, wry way. Really.

I have a theory that it takes two talents to tell a good joke: Comedic timing and the ability to remember the joke and the punchline. Blessed are they that have both. Woe to them (and everyone around them) who has one of these talents but not the other – don't we all have the uncle or person on our cocktail circuit who fits this category. I, too, am blessed. I have neither talent. I don’t even have a cocktail circuit.

Then I was stuck in bed and figured a few laughs wouldn’t hurt (actually they did- try not to laugh if your ribs are sore. Or breathe.) and picked up Tina’s (yes, we’re on first name basis now, though I haven’t accepted her facebook friend request) book. It really is a good read. Even removed from every aspect of her life, I found some of the things she says applicable to anyone’s anylife. And yes, it is funny.

Her chapter on how to deal with assholes particularly jumped out at me. We all have those in our lives or can apply her advice to situational assholery. Which is what I did. I was reading that section at a time when I had been beating my head against a brick wall that wasn’t going to move out of my way. Tina’s advice: harken (she probably didn’t say “harken” but you get the idea) back to your Sesame Street days. The show had a song to teach kids about prepositions, filmed with toddlers crawling around a construction site (always safe, clean fun) going under, over, around and through various pieces of equipment and pieces of building. Sometimes you are going to find an asshole (or brick wall) blocking your path. You’re not likely going to change the person or knock down the wall, so Tina says to figure out a way to get past the asshole and move on. For some reason, this tidbit has stuck with me. I’ve chanted it to myself on several occasions – we did just have holiday time with families after all. Tense situation: Can’t change it. Go over, under, around or through. Drunk or handsy relative: Slapping the crap out of him would be quite satisfying but will cause an uproar, so just go over, under, around or through.

So now here comes the writing part – you knew I’d get here eventually. When I finally crawled out of bed and back to the computer, my brain was still peanut butter. I was trying to write but kept bumping up against scenes or words (seriously, who forgets the word “bench”?) And lo and behold, the chant managed to slog through the peanut butter – it makes the acronym “AUTO” if your own brain can’t even remember the chant. Instead of stopping and beating my head against a particular metaphorical brick wall, I just moved on. To another scene, another word. Forget the excuse of writer’s block; just keep circumnavigating those bumps. I mark my bumps with [brackets], sometimes empty, sometimes with a clue (that of course I later will not be able to decipher) about what I was working toward, because they are easy to search for in a Word document. You can use whatever works for you, just keep going under around, over or through. And read Tina’s book. It really is quite entertaining.

Amy Bourret is the author of Mothers and Other Liars, a Target stores Breakout Book. She is still slogging through the peanut butter of her next novel and laughing at other people's jokes.

Looking for Bad Writing Habits? Have a Baby by Lori L. Tharps

2012-01-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Hi Girlfriends,

It's been awhile, but I have a really good excuse. I was busy having a baby and I'm just now crawling back to the land of the living. When did my little bundle of joy arrive, you ask? Last month? Over the winter holidays? No, I admit, babygirl arrived in the heat of summer, but it still feels like yesterday. And I don't mean that nostalgically. I mean that I still can't quite figure out how to manage a newborn, two older kids, a job and all the other stuff that comes with the aforementioned trappings of this woman's life and find time to start my next book.

I find it absolutely hilarious, however, that the main character in my novel, Substitute Me, didn't have such problems. She transitioned from new mom to working mom with ease and grace. She found the perfect nanny and breezed right back into her whirlwind life as a corporate PR exec. How is it possible that I could create such a character, yet can't imitate her ways? I guess I didn't realize I was writing fantasy fiction. Then again, my character's nanny kind of destroys her life so I guess, I'm not totally jealous.

So, without further ado, here are five things you should never, ever, do, if you want to cultivate a productive writing life:

1. Have Children. At all. They are a major time suck. Even when they're sleeping you might, like me, have to stay in their room and watch them breathe to make sure they are actually asleep and not in a coma.

2. Get Cable. Like children, cable television will absolutely steal all of your time. Marathon episodes of A Baby Story are particularly addictive and may even lead to you accidentally getting knocked up which would mean you'd have children. (See #1 above).

3. Have Access to the Internet. The Internet is like that boy who always used to pull your hair in second grade. It is a major distraction and you won't be able to ignore it. Email, texting, tweeting, will always demand your immediate attention. The Internet is almost worse than children. But at least, you can unplug it for days at a time. There's no off button on your kids (sigh)

4. Think About All of the Money and Fame You Will Achieve From Your As Yet Unwritten Book. I don't think this really requires any explanation, but for those of you who still think you're going to pen the next Harry Potter or Twilight Series, it's probably not going to happen. Instead, you must write for the sheer joy of writing so that when you do publish your beautiful work of art and only make modest amounts for your effort, you feel overjoyed not betrayed.

5. Have an Attractive, Loving Husband/Boyfriend. He may mean well, but he will never understand why he has to shut up while you agonize in front of your computer for hours, sometimes days on end. He will pout and groan and complain that you are ignoring him. And to make him feel better (and perhaps it will make you feel better too) you will appease him with mercy sex. This in turn could lead to you getting knocked up (see #1 as to why this isn't a good idea).

So, there you have it girlfriends. Heed my warnings and you'll be on the right track to being very productive writers this year. Good luck!

Lori L. Tharps is actually in love with all three of her children and writes about them a lot on her blog at My American Meltingpot.com

Good Writing Habits by Megan Crane

2012-01-25T05:53:00.000-05:00

I spend so much of my time writing that it can be easy to fall into some bad habits without really noticing, like anything else. And one of my resolutions this year is to really cultivate good writing habits, the better to support myself as I try to write at least five books between now and next New Year’s Eve.

But what are good writing habits?

Good writing habits grow over time, according to each writer’s individual needs. There is no prescription. There’s no one way. The only way to tell that your writing habits are “good” are the pages you produce. If you aren’t producing anything, chances are, you have some bad habits. If you’re doing things that others may think are crazy but you’re writing a lot and you’re proud of it? That’s probably good. When I talk about “good,” I’m talking about being productive—but when I’m talking about being productive, I don’t mean at the expense of your sanity, your life, your relationships, or your health. As we know, that can be a pretty fine line sometimes!

Some authors sit in their chairs every day from 9-5 (at least) and treat their writing like a very serious day job. Other authors write a line here, a line there, as the mood strikes. Still other authors squeeze their writing in around the other things that demand their attention—a day job, their kids, the complexities of their particular respnsibilties.

We all have to do what we can do, and try to make space in our lives for our writing as best we can. We have to honor our deadlines and our commitments, no matter who is waiting for us to deliver that book—ourselves or our publisher. Because the easiest thing in the world is to talk about writing. The hardest thing in the world is to do it.

We can do it. It just takes those good habits I mentioned.

Here are my thoughts on how to cultivate good writing habits:

The best thing you can do for your writing is to read. Read widely. Read everything you can get your hands on in your favorite genre, and then read beyond it. Read for pleasure, for escape, for inspiration. It’s often more useful to read a book you hate and fume about it, react to it, write something to counter it, than it is to read a book you love and just want to sigh happily about. Pay attention to your passions, your obsessions, as you read and as you live. All of these things inform your writing.
At certain points you should indulge the muse. Make self-indulgent mixes of songs that speak to your characters’ issues. Lounge around and day dream. Take long walks. Think. Dream. Wait for that shimmering almost-idea to crystallize into something clear: a line, a thought, a character. Think some more. Dream some more. Let your mind go wherever it likes. Observe. Imagine.
At other points you should be a disciplinarian. You have to force yourself to sit down in your chair and write. Set goals for yourself, like a certain amount of words or hours of writing per day. Don’t get up until you finish. Hold yourself to your own promises. Be a fierce advocate for your own dreams.
The best writing habit for you is your personal mixture of all of the above. Learn how to trust yourself and your instincts, about words, about stories, about how your time is best spent, and you will grow as a writer. (And possibly also as a person! Win/win!)

The more you write, the more you read, the more you will find your way. I promise.

I’m hoping that my way this year involves more balance, more books, and more overall satisfaction. Your way will probably be different, and that’s okay. I can’t wait to read what you write!

Megan Crane is the author of more than twenty novels, most of which she managed to write while wallowing in what can only be described as truly terrible if not embarrassing habits. She has great dreams of changing this, becoming self-actualized and serene, capable of writing whole books while garbed in flowing white caftans, etc. Hope springs eternal. She also teaches writing in places like UCLA Extension's Writers' Program. You can find out more about her at www.megancrane.com.

Guest post: Alexandra Sokoloff by Brenda Janowitz

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've invited the fabulous Alexandra Sokoloff here today to chat. You may know her as the author of such thrillers as The Space Between or Book of Shadows. Or you may know her as the structure guru responsible for Screenwriting Tricks for Authors or Writing Love.

Today, we're lucky enough to have her here talking to us about the elements of a love story. I've learned so much from Alex, be it in her workshop or through her blog. And the best part is: this afternoon, she'll be back to answer any questions you leave in the comments section. See? I told you were we lucky.

Take it away, Alex!

I met Brenda on line in a writing workshop and learned a ton from her during it and since about romance writing. So I was extra happy to guest on Girlfriends, because I figure I’m going to learn even more about it from all the rest of you, today!

I thought today I’d talk about Love Story Elements, because it’s fun, but also you all are already experts on it and I can’t pass up the opportunity to make YOU work for ME. ;)

The whole basis of what I teach in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors books and workshops is that we learn the most when we look at the stories that have had the greatest impact on us, personally—look at them in-depth to really figure out what those storytellers are doing to create that impact. And I teach writing through looking at movies because movies are such a stripped-down form of storytelling that it’s often easier to see structure patterns by analyzing movies than it is to analyze books. Plus, since we’ve seen so many of the same movies, it’s just an easier focus for discussion.

What I am always pushing to my classes and readers is the idea making a list of ten movies and books (at least five movies) that are structurally similar to the book (or script) that you’re writing.

One of the most illuminating AND most fun discoveries you make when you do this list is that you immediately see patterns and key elements of stories in your genre (or cross-genres). And this is invaluable when you’re writing a book, even more when you’re editing a book, because these are the elements your readers unconsciously EXPECT to be in a story like yours; even elements they actually crave, and you can get all kinds of great ideas about what you might be missing in your story.

When I was writing the second book in my Screenwriting Tricks series, Writing Love I quickly discovered these recurring scenes and setups that are very typical in romance and romantic comedy. The following are just a partial list. I’ve tried to focus mostly on plot points or premises instead of just gags or bits – that is, these are actual story elements that can help you build a story, if you use them wisely. And these elements will often overlap with the key story elements that I’m also always writing about:

Story Elements Checklist

Expanded Story Elements Checklist

that is, the CALL TO ADVENTURE in a love story might be a case of FATE INTERVENES; THE PLAN might be to PRETEND WE’RE MARRIED; THE HERO/INE’S GHOST might show up at the MIDPOINT and radically shift the dynamics of the story, and so on.

Now, any of these love story elements can be done badly and devolve into the worst kind of cliché. Part of the point of knowing the common elements is to be aware they’ve been done before and find your own unique ways of using them, if you’re going to use them.

I’m not going to waste time on the clichés for which there probably is no hope, ever, but just for example of those clunkers, here’s my own partial list, which I’m sure you can add to:

- The hardboiled career woman who needs thawing

- The heroine working as a book or magazine editor (Really? Another one?)

- The heroine loosening up in a drunk scene (and recently, promptly vomiting on the - hero’s shoes. I’m sorry, this is comedy?)

- The hero/ine meeting the love interest by spilling something on them (truly vomit-inducing, usually a pathetic version of Meet Cute)

- The African-American or gay best friend who has no other purpose in life but to support the hero/ine (and of course, show how wonderfully open-minded they are)

- The climactic race to the airport to stop the loved one from leaving

Okay, I’m already nauseous just making that much of a list, but you get the point. Let’s go on to some common elements that are much used, but still useful, used wisely.

MEET CUTE

Okay, I lied. There’s nothing useful about this one. Please, please don’t do it. Instead, why not try thinking about what it really is to meet the One – to see someone for the first time who might just change your entire destiny. Go into your own life, and the lives of everyone around you, and really ask yourself what that moment is. You can dress it up with comedy, that’s totally fine, but find something real and meaningful about it. Otherwise, why even bother?

THE INCITING INCIDENT/CALL TO ADVENTURE

In a love story, while the INCITING INCIDENT that starts off the story action may be a job offer, a wedding invitation, a misbooked hotel room, or any other inciting incident common to any genre, the actual CALL TO ADVENTURE in a love story is very, very often that first look at the beloved. This is why so often that first look seems on the surface to be HATE AT FIRST SIGHT – it’s a variation on the RELUCTANT HERO/INE (or REFUSAL OF THE CALL). When we meet that true love, there’s often as much or more fear and panic involved as joy and relief. Life is never going to be the same.

LOVE INTEREST INTRODUCED AS COMPLETE IDIOT

An example of MISAPPREHENSION, which is a form of MISTAKEN IDENTITY. Bridget Jones’ Diary, New In Town.

THE HERO/INE’S GHOST

In a love story, the Ghost or Wound is most often related to love and attachment, obviously: the heroine’s parents died when she was a child (The Proposal), the hero’s father has had a succession of failed marriages (Made Of Honor, You’ve Got Mail), the heroine’s father was always chasing rainbows, impoverishing the family (Leap Year).

The ghost often comes out deep into the story, in a confessional scene in which the hero/ine reveals to the love interest WHY I’M LIKE THIS (often at the MIDPOINT), but it’s generally better storytelling to dramatize it: In You’ve Got Mail, when Tom Hanks’ father leaves his much younger wife and moves in with Tom in his temporary crash pad (boat) Tom realizes he doesn’t want to be like his father and that he loves Meg (which in this story is THE ACT TWO CLIMAX/REVELATION into the FINAL BATTLE).

HANDCUFF THE COUPLE TOGETHER

In Romancing The Stone, Joan needs Jack to take her out of the jungle and back to Cartagena; Jack needs Joan’s money because he’s just lost all the rare birds he was smuggling. In The Proposal, Margaret needs Andrew to pretend he’s married to her so she won’t be deported and she threatens him with career annihilation if he refuses; Andrew agrees to do it if Margaret promotes him and publishes a book he loves.
In Leap Year, Anna needs Declan to take her to Dublin, Declan needs Anna’s money to save his pub from foreclosure. In What Happens In Vegas, a judge orders Cameron Diaz and Aston Kutcher to remain married for six months if they want to split the three million dollar casino payoff they won together. (This story beat is also often an OFFER S/HE CAN’T REFUSE.)

A common variation on Handcuffing The Couple Together is:

FATE (OR THE WEATHER) INTERVENES

It’s amazing how often romantic comedy uses this device. Fate, very often in the form of the weather, prevents the heroine from leaving town (New In Town, Groundhog Day), or deposits them on the opposite side of the country from where they are supposed to be (Leap Year), so that the hero/ine can meet his or her true love.

This is especially well done in Groundhog Day.

THE OFFER S/HE CAN’T REFUSE

A plot point that usually comes early in the first act: the hero/ine is locked into a situation because their boss or family or a judge gives them an ultimatum – eg. in The Proposal, if Margaret does not fake a marriage with Andrew, she will be deported. See New In Town, Leap Year, What Happens In Vegas.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY OR FALSE IDENTITY

False identity was a staple for Shakespeare’s comedies, and is still widely used in romantic comedy, sometimes as a scene or sequence (pretending to be a sister or a fiancée), sometimes as the whole premise of the story: While You Were Sleeping, Tootsie, Mulan).

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

I don’t have to explain this one, do I? It’s the first time the hero and heroine let down their respective guards and start to spill personal information. It’s very often done very badly, as an information dump.

COUPLE FORCED TO PRETEND THEY’RE MARRIED

A staple of romantic comedy; it can be a scene, as in Leap Year where Anna and Declan must pretend to be married in order to get a room for the night at a B & B owned by religiously conservative proprietors, or it can be the whole premise of the story: whether it’s to get an inheritance or some other large chunk of money (What Happens in Vegas) or get a green card (The Proposal, Green Card).

LET’S PRETEND WE’RE MARRIED

A different kind of scene, more spontaneous – in which the couple find themselves digging in a garden or working well together in a kitchen (Leap Year) or one of them talks the other off an emotional ledge (Sally gently calming Harry down after he explodes in front of their best friends in When Harry Met Sally), and we get a glimpse of the well-matched couple they would be.

TICKING CLOCK

A staple of all genres, often used very unconvincingly, so be careful. Some good examples: In Leap Year, Anna needs to get to Dublin by Leap Day to propose to her reluctant boyfriend. In The Proposal, Margaret and Andrew have four days to get to know each other well enough to convincingly pass themselves off as married to a suspicious INS agent. At the climax of When Harry Met Sally, Harry is desperate to get to a New Year’s Eve party in time to kiss Sally at the stroke of midnight, something he utterly failed to do the year before.

THE BET

Can be a scene, or a whole premise, in which the hero/ine bets friends that s/he – usually he – can bed or dump a lover in a certain timeframe. Or some other bet that leads to a romantic entanglement. (My Fair Lady)

EX-SEX

Sometimes the second time is the charm. Or not. Sweet Home Alabama, It’s Complicated.

THE MAGICAL DAY (YEAR, PLACE, HOUR)

The idea that there is a magical day, or hour, or place, that will lead magically to true love and/or marriage. Leap Year has a heroine racing across Ireland in order to propose to her reluctant boyfriend on Leap Day, when traditionally men are obliged to accept any proposal they receive. Four Weddings and A Funeral plays with the idea that a wedding is a magical moment in time in which not only the bridal couple but anyone in attendance can find true love. Groundhog Day – well, it isn’t pretty, but it’s that day, repeated over and over, that changes surly Phil Connor’s life.

WHY THEM?

This is appallingly lacking in most love stories: some indicator of why we’re supposed to want this couple to get together to begin with. I know, love is a hard thing to define, but please, give us something! Some common explanations here:

- Opposites attract (Leap Year, Groundhog Day)

- A shared passion (New In Town)

- In a class by themselves (Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story)

- They bring out each other’s best selves (Sense And Sensibility)

- They make each other laugh

- They understand and support each other’s most cherished dreams (While You Were Sleeping, Sense And Sensibility)

I’m sure you can think of lots of others – I’d love to hear them!

THE DANCE

One of the most crucial scenes in any romance or romantic subplot, and one that goes a long way toward explaining WHY THEM? The Dance is a scene in which we see that two people are perfect for each other: they have the same rhythm, they work around each other’s flaws, they have the same passion, they complete each other. One of my favorites is the beautiful scene in Sense And Sensibility in which Edward and Elinor coax Elinor’s younger sister Margaret out from where she has been hiding under the library table by pretending ignorance of the source of the Nile. We see that Edward and Elinor are perfectly matched: both intelligent, witty, sensitive, kind, and off-the-wall. They are at their most charming when they’re together, and we are totally committed to the relationship by the end of the short scene. So much more meaningful than “Meet Cute”!

FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE FAMILY

It’s very common to have a scene or sequence where we see the hero/ine falling in love with the loved one’s entire family (While You Were Sleeping, The Proposal). A variation of this is FALLING IN LOVE
WITH THE HERO/INE’S FRIENDS (Notting Hill).

OOPS, WRONG BROTHER! (or WRONG SISTER!)

You know this one: the hero/ine thinks s/he’s happily engaged until – uh oh – s/he meets the loved one’s brother or sister (While You Were Sleeping, Holiday).

WRONG MAN/WRONG WOMAN

Not to be confused with Hitchcock’s “Wrong Man” story, about an innocent falsely accused (or set up). What I mean here is, in a story where the hero/ine is dating or engaged to the wrong person, there are going to be scenes that demonstrate clearly that this is the WRONG MAN, or WRONG WOMAN. I would venture to say these scenes are going to happen in virtually every love story in which there is a rival for the hero/ine’s love interest’s love.

GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS/BOYFRIENDS PAST

Obviously, having an old flame around makes for conflict and sometimes dramatic suspense in a love story, but it also often makes for good comedy. Four Weddings And A Funeral has not just one, but two great examples of this scene: at one wedding dinner Hugh Grant is seated at a table with four of his exes, comically dramatizing his problem of chronic serial monogamy. Then later his love interest Andie McDowell has a great monologue about her exes, all 33 of them.

THE AWFUL TRUTH

The hero or love interest scathes the heroine, or vice-versa, and knowingly or unknowingly hits the nail squarely on the head about what the hero/ine’s problem is. (While You Were Sleeping, and there are several good zingers in Leap Year.)

PRATFALLS

This is of course a visual, but I’m including it for the screenwriters (and some authors do it wonderfully on the page – Helen Fielding being a good example). Since the early screwball comedies, romantic comedy heroines have been falling over. This can be tiresome, but good physical comedians/comediennes can make it sublime – Lucille Ball, Katharine Hepburn, and Meg Ryan perfected the art.

THE REVOLVING DOOR

Another staple of physical comedy, but it’s one you can use on the page. The wrong person shows up at the wrong time and the hero/ine is forced to hide someone in the closet, under the bed, on the windowsill, etc. Another component of this is more people keep showing up to complicate the deception. This is a variation on:

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME

Another staple of comedy. In Four Weddings And A Funeral: Charlie gets caught in the bridal suite just as the bridal couple decide to consummate their new marriage.

THE CATCHPHRASE or TAGLINE

While real-life lovers often play word games, the catchphrase is a dangerous thing, not often pulled off. “You had me at hello” from Jerry Maguire is one of the best. The Proposal doesn’t do too badly with “We’re just two people who weren’t supposed to fall in love, but did.” Try a making a Top Ten list for inspiration!

THE RIDDLE

Sometimes the love interest asks a thematic question that the hero/ine finally comes to understand, usually at the climax of the story – an interesting fairy tale touch (Leap Year).

GOSH, S/HE’D MAKE A GREAT PARENT! (or THE YEARNING FOR A FAMILY)

It’s very typical to show the hero/ine looking longingly after children or show the hero/ine noticing how good the hero/ine is with kids: Ashton Kutcher coaching Little League in What Happens In Vegas, Meg Ryan reading aloud to preschoolers in You’ve Got Mail. A much funnier scene – Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy being run ragged by Jessica Lange’s baby daughter in Tootsie.

THE MAKEOVER

This can be a terrible cliché, so be careful. For an example of how to do this right, look at Romancing The Stone, which has wonderful fun taking Joan Wilder’s expensive but mousy wardrobe and shredding it until she’s dressed in a good approximation of her romantic alter-ego Angelina’s buckskins and bodices. New in Town and The Proposal realistically depict their heroines’ wardrobes changing from executive stiffness to a more practical and appealing softness.

COUPLE FORCED TO KISS

It’s kind of amazing to me how often a romantic comedy will have a scene like this. Forced to kiss? How do writers come up with these things?

COUPLE FORCED TO SHARE A BED

Look at that! This hotel room has only one bed!

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

The couple is forced to stay overnight in an isolated place. There a nice variation on this one in Romancing The Stone, where the “cabin” is the wreck of an airplane that crashed in the jungle – carrying a cargo of marijuana. Which Jack promptly uses to build a fire…

SEX AT SIXTY

All of the above often leads to this – that’s sex at 60 minutes in a movie, or the Midpoint, meaning it’s around page 200 in a 400-page book. This is common to find in all genres, even more common in romantic comedy. Yes, it can be almost sex at sixty. If there is actual sex at sixty, it usually crashes the relationship immediately.

THE CONFESSION SCENE

This is different from the DECLARATION below. The confession is where the hero or heroine or both open up about their childhood, ghosts, fears, hopes – their INNER DESIRES opposed to their OUTER DESIRES. It often occurs at the MIDPOINT.

YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS

Often during the confession scene, the hero and heroine will express a long-held, secret dream (Jack’s is to own a boat in Romancing The Stone. In While You Were Sleeping another Jack’s is to start his own business. In Sense And Sensibility Edward’s is to be the vicar of a small parsonage) and the loved one totally gets it and supports it, when no one else (usually the hero’s family) ever has. I don’t think it’s accidental that I’ve listed a bunch of male secret dreams that the heroines support; women have a long history of being better supporters that way.

This beat is separate from:

ONLY YOU

The scene where the hero and heroine bond over some song or piece of poetry or dog or combination of foods that only the loved one could ever understand. (This kind of improbably works in The Proposal.)

GET THE COUPLE TO SOMEONE ELSE’S WEDDING

Many romances have a scene or whole sequence at someone else’s wedding – throwing the hero and/or heroine right into that crucible to show their reactions to the whole idea in general. Not just romantic comedies, but romantic suspense will do this; see Sea Of Love.

CINDERELLA GOES TO THE BALL

Another version of going to a wedding, and usually involves a MAKEOVER. The original Arthur does this well, with John Gielgud as the world’s most charming (in a deadpan way) fairy godmother.

INTERRUPTING THE WEDDING

This is usually done by mistake, for comic effect (and it’s often not funny at all, be careful). But sometimes it’s a deliberate act, as in:

I’M GOING TO BREAK UP THAT WEDDING IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO

Can be one scene, but it can also be the whole premise of the story, as in Philadelphia Story and My Best Friend’s Wedding, or Made Of Honor.

“IF ANYONE KNOWS OF ANY REASON…”

Speaking of interrupting weddings - very often once the couple is at someone else’s wedding, some kind of disturbance will occur just at this critical juncture in the ceremony. Often it turns into a plot point (in the climax of Four Weddings And A Funeral).

THE PROMISE or DEATHBED PROMISE scene, or DYING WORDS scene.

In Four Weddings And A Funeral – one of the last things Gareth says to his circle of friends before he dies of a heart attack is: “I want to see you all married. Go forth and find husbands and wives.” Of course Hugh Grant takes that to heart…

THE LOVER MAKES A STAND

This scene seems almost always to come in the very last part of Act II:2, but sometimes in Act III. Basically, it’s the crux of Sequence Six or Sequence Seven. In this scene the Lover, the one who loves most deeply, says to the Loved One, “I’m not going to take your bullshit any more. Make up your mind. Either commit to me or don’t, but if you don’t, I’m out of here.” It’s often the ALL IS LOST MOMENT.

It’s Complicated: Steve Martin tells Meryl Streep that she’s not done with Alec yet, and he doesn’t want to see her while she’s still emotionally involved with him. Notting Hill: Hugh Grant tells Julia Roberts in the bookstore that between her “foul temper” and his far more inexperienced heart, he doesn’t think he would recover from being discarded again, and turns down her offer to date. When Harry Met Sally: Sally refuses Harry’s offer to go to the New Year’s party as a friendly date because “I’m not your consolation prize, Harry.”

In all of the above scenes, the Lover’s Stand forces the Loved One to step up and commit just as deeply as the Lover is committed. But it seems that very, very, very often, it’s one character, the Lover, who has to force the issue. And that finally leads to another scene:

THE DECLARATION

Yes, it’s essential to have a well-written declaration of love, it’s one of the biggest payoffs of the genre. I suggest you make a Top Ten List of your favorites for inspiration: try Julia Roberts’ “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy” in Notting Hill, Hugh Grant stammering through “I think I love you” in Four Weddings And A Funeral, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie: “I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man;” Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally: “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start right now;” Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.”

In a love story, the declaration very often is the FINAL BATTLE. And, oh, right – it’s very often a PROPOSAL.

It is also often a public declaration, in front of as many people can be crowded into the scene. But that’s become so much of a cliché I would really suggest avoiding it, if at all possible.

And remember, if the lover has behaved particularly badly, the audience or reader probably wants to see a little GROVELING.

THE KISS

I don’t really need to explain this one, do I? Well, let me just say: in love stories there are usually two key kisses: one someplace around the MIDPOINT, or at the Midpoint, where the couple have a first kiss and both suddenly realize, usually separately, that they’re in deep trouble. This is often the COUPLE FORCED TO KISS scene.

Then the very end of the movie or book, or the Act III climax, is the prolonged, never coming up for air, make the audience or reader really feel it kiss. Unfortunately in lesser stories this often substitutes for a real ending.

And then of course there’s the INTERRUPTED KISS, a way of building sexual tension before that first real kiss.

NEW WAY OF LIFE

This is truly an essential beat to get right in a romance, and nothing beats Romancing The Stone for this moment – wouldn’t anyone want the life Joan and Jack are sailing off to? And somehow it’s much more delicious because the yacht is not on the ocean, but parked on that Manhattan street. It’s the ultimate romantic gesture by a bad boy with a wicked sense of humor.

I also love seeing Hugh Grant shyly hitting the red carpet in Notting Hill, and the flip side of their life, the payoff of the two sprawled on that inscribed garden bench.

But yes, sometimes a kiss will do it, too, especially if it’s Colin Firth doing the kissing, as in Bridget Jones’ Diary.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you may have guessed, I’ve made up a lot of those names for the above elements. You can call those scenes, moments and setups something else entirely, and hopefully you’ll be adding lots of observations of your own to an ever-growing list.

So what have I left out? And/or what are examples of movies and books that do some of these elements particularly well?

***

Thanks so much for stopping by, Alex! Doesn't this post just inspire you to go and write?! But before you do that, leave your questions and comments below for Alex. She's teaching a workshop this morning, but will be back in the afternoon to answer all of your questions!

I’m the author of Scot on the Rocks and Jack with a Twist. My work’s also appeared in the New York Post and Publisher’s Weekly. You can find me at brendajanowitz.com.

Help! I'm writing and I can't sit still...by Christa Allan

2012-01-23T00:15:00.018-05:00

If I'd been more serious about writing novels years ago, I'd have a much cleaner house. No, not because I would have sold millions and been able to afford a full-time housekeeper (though I’m still nurturing that dream).

The good news/bad news is that I could have accomplished the turbo-clean without publication.

It seems that all I have to do is sit at my computer, lift my hands to the keyboard a la concert pianist, and dust bunnies start multiplying before my eyes. I notice the coffee cup rings on my desk, the cat hair floating lyrically through the air and gliding to a stop on chairs, the sun glistening on the polished wood floors which are almost now evenly covered with their protective layer of microscopic crud, the open-mouthed toilets--not even in view--are taunting me. Yesterday, after 30.6 seconds in front of the monitor, I pounced up to (gasp) vacuum. And (double gasp) re-organized my closet. Well, no, let’s say organized because the “re” would suggest it was organized in the first place.

Writing is lonely. Not counting the three cats, two of which are mildly neurotic (save me the animals reflect their owners psychobabble, but you're doing it anyway, aren't you?), it's just me, my lukewarm cup of coffee, and my laptop.

Not that I'd want an audience. Might make for a quirky SNL skit though. Massive desk, state of the art computer, spotlight on the keyboard, writer dressed in tuxedo slowly walks on stage, gently slides back ergonomically designed chair, flips on the monitor and starts his/her fingers dancing on the keyboard. The audience follows his/her progress on the large screen projected to the right and back of the writer. Chapter ends. Applause.

But, seriously, what I did not understand until I came to the keyboard in pursuit of writing with the intent to actually produce something publishable, is that while I may be surrounded by external silence, my head is crammed with uninvited guests.

In one corner, the petulant children whine about all the places they'd rather be, asking why we're spending so much time sitting in this boring room when it's really such a pretty day outside and we could being doing something like pulling weeds.

In another corner, the brats who are causing all sorts of trouble with house cleaning distractions, playing with the telephone reminding me of calls I should be making, telling me I need to compulsively check my email because the editor whose name I added an extra "s" to might be knocked off his chair by my agent’s query, completely overlook my written lisp, and be attaching a contract AT THIS VERY NANOSECOND (brats scream...yeesh).

And somewhere, roaming around aimlessly, is the worrywart aunt, wearing mismatched ankle socks with her orthopedic shoes, wondering about the physical and mental healths of my immediate family, genoicide, taxes, and world peace.

The worst of the pack is the sneering and arrogant bullies, rocking back on their chairs asking me who I think I am that I could be on a bookshelf with the likes of ___________(insert almost any author's name here), don't I know that I'm justateacher. Just when I quiet everyone else, one of the bullies yawns and stretches to his/her nine feet tall self, looks at me, and laughs.

It's then I realize that the only way to shut them up is to drown them in words and sentences and paragraphs and pages and chapters. And when I'm finally there, I'm going to throw my book at them.

P.S. I've reached the sad conclusion that some days I spend more time writing about the fact that I'm not writing than I do writing the writing that I am writing about not writing.

Here's the cover of my February release as evidence that the battle continues:

Christa Allan is the author of Walking on Broken Glass, The Edge of Grace, and Love Finds You in New Orleans. You can find her at www.christaallan.com, Facebook, andTwitter. When she's not frantically meeting deadlines, watching dust bunnies, and emptying boxes, she teaches high school English. Christa and her husband recently moved to New Orleans to live in a home older than their combined ages. Their three neurotic cats are adjusting.

So You Say You Want to Publish Your Own Book… by Jenny Gardiner

2012-01-19T23:12:00.010-05:00

It's been nearing two years now since I decided to self-publish a novel. Back then it was in the early days of indie publishing, and I made the decision based on instinct, purely because I'd gotten a Kindle for my birthday that previous December and was so hooked on the convenience of it, the ability to acquire new books within a minute's time, the elimination of tons and tons of paper waste that was endemic with the publishing industry, etc. I just knew if I loved this cool, new (and then overpriced) gadget, then others would too. And I knew once the price came down on it lots of people would be on board. I'd decided the time was upon us when I heard that Apple would be launching this new product called an iPad soon. That was the magic bullet to bring the price down on e-readers so that people would buy them.

It was slow-going in the early days. That first year I hardly sold any books. Hardly anyone owned e-readers. Plus it was hard to determine the proper pricing--it made sense for an e-book to be cheaper than a book that is printed, but how much cheaper? Hard to know. And it seemed that those who owned Kindles were looking for free content. Maybe to save money after shelling out $350 for a Kindle? hehehe

Have I learned a lot in the past two years? Oh, if only you knew…

There was a time when I wanted to stay parked firmly in the camp of publishing with New York houses. That's the way it was supposed to be. But something happened along the way: times changed. New York houses changed (well, actually more like they failed to adapt, which led to their becoming much more irrelevant). It went from a reasonable proposition to an unrealistic one. More and more houses were putting all the demands on authors with little-to-no risk on their part. If a book didn't sell gangbusters, it was automatically because the author somehow failed. Which we all knew was baloney. But it was easiest to blame the most vulnerable in the trail: the writers. Advances became so small as to be almost insulting: once upon a time an advance would enable an author to write from book to book without quite starving to death. But advances were becoming so small that it was the equivalent of working a minimum wage job for about a week: clearly not enough to sustain someone. Authors were busily working their tails off, building a healthy mountain of debt and not ever seeing much money for their efforts (while readers falsely believed writers were living it up like the Kardashians!).

But then Amazon decided to offer authors what no one else had truly done: respect. In the form of a legitimate level of royalty payment. Enough to help pay for groceries! Imagine! Granted, it was part of their multi-pronged attack against the industry-slash-attempt-to-curry-favor-with-a-susceptible-population. But hey, I admit, I was completely vulnerable! Throw the possibility of actual wage-earning my way and I'll foam at the mouth! I have no pride!

But what I hadn't expected that I love about publishing myself is that I have control over my career again. No longer am I at the mercy of vagaries over which I have no control. No editors who leave in the middle of a book, leaving you essentially unrepresented for your book's publication and floundering in no-man's land. No houses who lose interest in the novel and neglect to promote it. No IOUs on royalties stuck in this mysterious accounting category known as "reserves", which means you'll never see a penny of it. Basically no one to blame but me if it doesn't do well. But now I have an artist's palette of options to try to fix that if it doesn't sell: change the cover. Change the descriptive jacket copy. Try various promotions both within Amazon and without. If the book doesn't sell, it's not dead in the water as it once was with a New York house. It just calls for some refining. Tweaking. This was a new concept: rather than sit passively by while my home was engulfed in weeds, with indie publishing I was able to take proactive measures to spruce up the curb appeal and ensure that people were interested. This is a great gift that Amazon has given authors. And one that benefits readers. For far too long authors were shut down with terrific books simply because they didn't fit within the narrowly prescripted terms of their genres and those of bricks-and-mortar stores: i.e. if it couldn't be easily categorized on a shelf, it wasn't going to find a home. But now if you write a book that transcends genre descriptions, one that might be part suspense, part women's fiction, and part sports narrative, well guess what? Somewhere on Amazon, you'll find your readership. Chick lit, once considered the graveyard for all eternity for writers, has returned with indie publishing: we knew the readers existed. It's just that publishing houses refused to take a chance to publish that type of novel after they'd killed the genre. It's a whole new world in publishing, and I'm so happy to be in the frontier of it, taking charge, owning my career again.

Over the past two years I've become a scholar of sorts, learning the ins and outs of independent publishing, trying to discern what works and what doesn't. There's a lot of trial and error, and there isn't always a simple answer. Plus it's true, rather than devote all of my time to writing, I'm having to divide it in order to focus also on trying to succeed in this New Publishing World Order. But hell, even if publishing through "legacy" New York publishers I was spending much of my time with marketing and publicity, sucking away time I'd otherwise spent creating worlds as a writer. At least now I'm doing it while earning an actual living, which is a good thing, if nothing else because it enables me to continue to be a writer. And that's a good thing.

So if you're interested in checking out my indie-published books, here they are!

and others I have with other publishing houses:

and coming very soon:

and please come visit me on twitter and Facebook here and here

Book Junkie On The Loose

2012-01-18T19:24:00.003-05:00

Reader beware! I am a confessed book junkie. I’ve been known to spend part of my grocery money on a book instead of a pot roast. Who needs to eat? So choosing just one book to yak about is nearly impossible. I picked two. I began 2012 by reading Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch and Tuesday Night Miracles by Kris Radish. One memoir, one novel.

Tolystoy and the Purple Chair is the first book I have read on my new Kindle Fire. Matter of a fact I was coaxed into using the Kindle because this book was downloaded on it as part of my Christmas gift from hubby. Ultimately he pushed me into the future. Nina Sankovitch’s book is about reading. Now, being a hardcore book junkie, I thought this had to be for me. I began with the expectation that I would gain a list of new books to feed my addiction. Ms. Sankovitch did not disappoint me. While there were plenty of books she read that I love, she provided me with many to search out. A treasure indeed. But inside the cover is more than a list of books. She writes about how she came to her personal goal of reading a book a day for a year, three-hundred-and-sixty-five books. Now, that’s hard enough when you have tons of free time, but this woman has four boys and a household to run. What I love is her determination to give herself this year of recovery, of honesty. A job of reading. And next to writing this is the best job in the world. Why read a book a day for a year? What kind of healing was she searching out? Nina Sankovitch had lost her sister to a rare aggressive cancer. The loss was immense and she needed to allow herself time to work through the grief. She’d been there for her family during this devastation but somehow let her own needs fall to the side. And now it was time for her. This memoir is touching, sensitive, inspiring, and enlightening. Through her reading and reviewing, what does Ms. Sankovitch find?

Choosing Tuesday Night Miracles and settling in for a serious read is like taking a long, brisk walk on a crisp, cold day. This novel revived me and pulled me into the lives of characters with problems many of us can relate to. Not since How To Make An American Quilt by Whitney Otto have I been so interested in a group of women and their stories. This is a novel about anger and the miracle of empowerment after finding one’s true voice. There is a fine line between anger and bad choices, and all of Radish’s characters cross it.

Instead of traditional anger-management meetings, these women are given assignments that defy all reason. As a result, they all face the ultimate choice: should they change and move forward or remain in the past? I fell in love with the author’s intricately layered characters and storytelling. Her ability to capture problems so prevalent in women’s lives today is uncanny. This book is so much more than just another story about women’s issues. The readers will go on a journey and discover a lot about in the process. Miracles still manifest in the most outstanding ways.

And because I am a book junkie I’m adding a list of my favorite books from 2011 in no particular order.

Witches On The Road Tonight by Sheri Holman

Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew

The Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

The Orphan Sister by Gwendolen Gross

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

Coming Up For Air by Patti Callahan Henry

I Gave My Heart To Know This by Ellen Baker

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavett

And dear readers I could go on and on.

Ann Hite has written short stories, personal essays, and book reviews for numerous publications and anthologies. Ghost on Black Mountain, her first novel, was released by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in September 2011. Ann lives Smyrna just north of Atlanta.

www.annhite.com

Looking for Ms. Vadino by Jess Riley

2012-01-17T23:52:00.042-05:00

I didn’t really make any year-end lists beyond Things I Need at Festival Foods for a Cozy Buzz while the Ball Drops, but if threatened with a two-day Kardashian marathon with my eyelids propped open with toothpicks, I’d say my five favorite books read in 2011 were as follows:

The Passage by Justin Cronin, which I resisted for a full year until I heard an interview on public radio. Read this one at the salon with my hair in foils, in front of the stove while stirring risotto, even while driving. Okay, not while driving, but I thought about it while driving. I am completely prepared to pay full price for the sequel the minute it’s released. (On my Kindle. It was a bitch trying to read the first and final pages of the 750+ page hardcover while lying in bed.)

The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta. Again, I had this one for more than a year until I plucked it from my shelf on a whim this summer. Devoured it in a matter of days. If you or anyone you know has ever tried to make it in a band, you will recognize nearly every character within.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott. Dear LORD did this one suck me in…disturbing subject matter, but handled so elegantly and honestly. Another red-eyed book bender until I hit the final page.

Ready, Player One by Ernest Cline, which mildly piqued my interest until yet another interview on public radio pushed me over the edge. Anyone who enjoyed Family Ties, War Games, Pong, and Pac-Man in the eighties will enjoy this one.

Throw Like a Girl by Jean Thompson—I had this one on my shelf for over a year. Inspired by a glowing blurb from David Sedaris (oh, the holy grail of blurbs!!!), I picked it up on an end cap at Target and promptly forgot about it until this summer. Jean Thompson is one of those writers who can take seemingly mundane scenes and characters and infuse them with life until you can see, smell, and touch them. She effortlessly captures people you know (yes! you truly know them!) with a few select gestures or descriptive phrases and for this you love her deeply, but if you’re a writer and prone to mild peer envy like me, you also secretly hope that she pees just a little whenever she sneezes.

Then there are the authors I stalk, constantly wondering if they’ll have a new book out—Shannon Olson, Jill A. Davis, Diane Vadino, Jennifer Belle---they aren't necessarily active self-promoters, and it’s becoming a little Searching for Debra Winger, although instead of a documentary about the pressures actresses face in youth-obsessed Hollywood, it’s just my impatience for new books by my favorite female authors. Authoresses, if you will.

Speaking of which, isn’t that a demeaning word? Authoress. We’re lucky nobody really uses that term anymore. But hearing some yahoo on American Restoration refer to a veterinarian as a “lady doctor” got me kind of fired up last night. Stewardess, waitress, and even secretary have mostly disappeared from the general lexicon, but actress probably won’t go away until The Academy dumps the category, which will happen when someone with a vagina is elected President and The New York Times reviews more books written by women than by men and my five favorite books in a given year are written mainly by women. *sigh*

So. Paging Shannon Olson….Are there any authors you love who seem to have evaporated? Who do you wish would release another book tomorrow?

~~~~~~~~~

Jess Riley has a book out on submission right now and is trying not to obsess about it. She's here or here when she's not here. And the rest of the time she's searching for Debra Winger.

When Truth Meets Fiction… or Is it The Other Way Around?

2012-01-17T00:00:00.005-05:00

by Saralee Rosenberg

It is the greatest joy to catch someone in the act of reading one of my novels (especially if they are not related). Unfortunately, reader-stalking is not the best way for a novelist to endear herself...

Too bad. I'd love to ask them to answer a short survey when they finished.

Did the story resonate with them? Were they fully engaged in the outcome of the characters? Most important, did they believe the story?

As an emerging author, I didn't expect that it would be such an enormous challenge to carry readers over the I-believe-you threshold. How hard could it be when every day, the most improbable, crazy, and inexplicable stories made the news? When our first reaction was to ask ourselves, did that actually happen?

Of course it is only human to adore the stories that make us laugh or at least thank God that it didn't happen to us! But what about the stories that trigger deep sadness and instill fear?

Heartbreak alert: Take the recent Christmas-day fire in Connecticut that took the lives of three beautiful, young girls and their grandparents. This was an unfathomable tragedy and it continues to haunt me as I'm sure it does many others.

Question is, with all its tragic implications, wouldn't this story have all of the elements of a riveting novel? It could explore pain, guilt and love, and also hopefully redemption.

And yet, the more improbable the story, the more likely that readers, reviewers and editors would revolt. There is nothing they seem to hate more than a contrived or preposterous premise.

So ironic. Thanks to 24-hour news cycles, we are subjected to the most surreal and mind blowing stories. What about the sordid and bizarre tales involving politicians, athletes and Hollywood stars? In fact, where would all the late night comics be without Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian?

Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. I've never heard of a character in a novel that almost ran for President in order to help boost the ratings of his reality show. Or one that got paid millions for marrying on network television and then filed for divorce seventy-two days later.

But why should novels be excluded from the crazy parade? Other than science fiction and vampire-inspired fantasies, there seems to be this unspoken rule that in order for a novel to succeed, the premise cannot suspend believability.

Hollywood, of course, has no such restrictions. Anything goes and actually, the more insane and contrived the plot, the better. Bridesmaids comes to mind. But were I to write a scene in one of my novels in which the bridal party got group diarrhea and had to defecate into ladies room sinks, I’m pretty sure I would get my own ass kicked.

So why are novelists held to a different standard?

I think it has much to do with the fact that as children, our first sense of connectedness with the world came from storybooks. They kept us company when we were lonely, entertained us when we needed cheering up, kept us guessing when we wanted to escape our surroundings, and mostly, they assured us when we yearned for faithful companionship.

Our favorite books traveled with us, got tucked by our bedsides, and didn’t need to be "on the schedule" like a movie or TV show. They became familiar and beloved, like friends and family. But they also shared an inherent truth.

Though the stories were make-believe, the feelings and emotions were not. We could experience fear and hurt, but also joy and love. We could learn about relationships, trust, honor and devotion. We could witness the outcome of not giving up in spite off insurmountable odds. We could root for the good guys and be delighted over the demise of the bad guys.

In fact, that happy ending was the most satisfying element of all. We needed our heroes to be victorious, for it gave us hope that we too could enjoy happy endings.

As a novelist, I have never lost sight of this emotional connection between the reader and the characters. This sense that beneath all the antics and surprises, a character's fears and feelings must resonate. In other words, it is not only the final destination that matters to readers, it is the journey.

That is why if I am lucky enough to encounter someone reading one of my novels, I only need to see a smile or hear a laugh to know that I did my job. And if they ask for an autograph, I am forever indebted.

Saralee Rosenberg is the author of four novels from Avon including, DEAR NEIGHBOR, DROP DEAD; FATE AND MS. FORTUNE; CLAIRE VOYANT; and A LITTLE HELP FROM ABOVE. She is at work on her first novel for middle-grade girls, HOTLINE TO HEAVEN.

Visit her website. www.saraleerosenberg.com

Writerly New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-16T06:10:00.001-05:00

by Malena Lott

Be as smart as Seth Godin? Get the bod of Lindsey Vonn? Cook like the Pioneer Woman? Pfft. My only New Year’s Resolution is to go easier on myself and enjoy the ride. But if you twisted my arm, I could probably come up with a few writerly New Year’s Resolutions that might make those “soft goals” a little more doable.

1. Don’t check your Amazon ranking every half hour. Okay, I’ve never been that bad, but if you add up how many times you do an innocent check in to see how your book is stacking up against the Jack and the Beanstalk rankings, you’re killing time and your presh ego all at once. You’re only up against Nora Roberts and Stephen King’s latest behemoths as well as their backlist plus the thousands of new books going up each week, so, umm, wouldn’t that time be better spent writing? Or, in my case, doing the dishes, which nearly reach Jack and the Beanstalk heights.

2. Connect more, spam less. You know how much I adore tweeting, if my 17 thousand plus tweets tell you anything, but back in the early days, Twitter was a bastion of quips and intelligence and new friends and conversation. Nowadays, it smells like New Orleans after Mardi Gras. Sure, tossing links to your latest helpful blog post is a given, but remember the 3 to 1 etiquette ratio I read somewhere – talk and tweet about others more than you do yourself. And maybe make some of those entertaining and not just more links. As a reader, I want to get to know the author, not just the author's books. Key difference. Remember, a baby bird falls from the nest and dies every time you use the word “buy” in your tweet. RIP, birdies I’ve killed.

3. Get real. If I’ve been told correctly, each human is a unique creation, kind of like snowflakes, yet somehow our online presence can look like my instant mashed potatoes – bland and unappealing. Do you want to be writerly mush? Do you want to write mush? I don’t. When I catch myself saying something that sounds like something someone else would say, I force myself to hit delete and try again. I can do better. We can do better. We can go deeper, be more authentic, push ourselves to write better stories and to live the life we uniquely were meant to live. If that last part sounds like Martha Beck and Oprah, then you know where I’m spending my time instead of cooking real mashed potatoes. You get my drift. We were one-of-kind snowflakes when we came down to earth, were we not? Yet we landed on the snowdrift and got stuck. Time to get back to being ourselves.

Malena Lott is the author of Life’s a Beach, Dating da Vinci and Fixer Upper. Her story, “Snowflakes and Stones” was featured in Sleigh Ride: A Winter Anthology and she'scurrently updating her first novel, The Stork Reality, to release as an ebook in 2012, and writing young adult fiction under the pen name Lena Brown. www.twitter.com/malenalott and www.facebook.com/malenalott

Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Gayle Brandeis talk ebooks

2012-01-14T13:21:00.001-05:00

Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Gayle Brandeis met close to 10 years ago on the dearly-departed forum Readerville.com, right around the time their first novels were coming out. Now, several books later, they each recently decided to release novels as ebooks. Lauren’s, THE BRO-MAGNET, tells the story of Johnny Smith, who has been "Always a Best Man, never a groom". It is a rollicking comedic novel about what one man is willing to give up for the sake of love. Romantic Times calls it “an absolutely charming, feel-good read.” Gayle’s, THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES, is the eagerly awaited sequel to her Bellwether Prize-winning novel, THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS, and is an electrifying novel about identity, love, and family secrets. NY Times bestselling author Peter Nichols calls it “A dark, funny novel of singular and heartfelt characters, in a story that moves as swiftly and true as the flight of a hawk.” Lauren and Gayle came together to discuss the process of bringing their ebooks out into the world.

GAYLE: You have had great success in the traditional print world, publishing numerous books for children, teens and adults. What made you decide to release THE BRO-MAGNET as an ebook?

LAUREN: By the end of the last decade, authors of Chick Lit - which is how many of my adult novels were published - had become persona non grata in publishing, even though readers still wanted books that would make them laugh, because it was believed that the market had become saturated. Add to that the fact that my career had become focused on teen and children's books, when I came up with the idea for THE BRO-MAGNET and just had to write it - because I needed to know how it turned out - I didn't really consider going the traditional route. Doing it as an ebook made sense to me and I'm glad I did. Your turn! What made you decide to do THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES as an ebook?

GAYLE: I wrote THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES back in 2002, during National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo helped me get back into my own writing flow after the discombobulation of being published and winning Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for my first novel, THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS. It was such an exciting time for me as a writer, but I found myself dealing with writers' block for the first time in my life--I was suddenly feeling the weight of external expectation, and internalized it to the point that I couldn't write at all. Writing THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES was very healing and cathartic for me, but I never thought I'd share the novel with readers--it was almost like my little secret, although I did mention its presence at some of my book events and it always raised a lot of interest. When I realized the 10th anniversary of the Bellwether Prize was coming up (the latest winner is my friend, Naomi Benaron--her novel Running the Rift is brilliant; a must-read!) I thought it could be a good time to give THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES some air. I released it as an ebook because I wanted to bring something fresh to the current Bellwether conversation, and ebooks are the best way to get something out quickly, plus I wanted to experiment with digital publishing, since it seems to be where we're headed as a culture (as much as I continue to adore physical books and hope there will always be a place for them in our world.) What have you done to promote THE BRO-MAGNET and how has the process been different from promoting your other books?

LAUREN: I've let everyone in my contact list that I think might be interested know about it, because unlike a book with New York publisher support, if I don't start the horn blowing, who else will do it? But other than that, it's very similar: guest blogs, interviews, etc. One thing that is different: When I score something and see a direct result in sales, it's very satisfying to know I created that bump through my own efforts. Your turn! How has the promotion process been different for you? (Hey, this is easy being me! You have to do the work of coming up with the questions and I just have to parrot them back at you! Will you forgive me for that if I mention here how much I've always admired THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS?)

GAYLE: Promotion does not come naturally to me, I'm afraid, but I know how important it is for authors to spread the word about our own work, especially when we are publishing it ourselves! I released the book in the fall, but feel as if I am really just now starting to kick my promotional butt into gear--doing more guest blogs, sending out emails, etc. I hired a wonderful publicist to help out, since I knew she could get more muscle behind the book than I could on my own; she usually publicizes traditionally published books and has found that the outlets she regularly approaches just aren't that receptive to self-published ebooks, even by an established, award-winning author--we are learning together how to get the word out in this new digital world.

Thank you so much, by the way, for your kind words about THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS. I hope you'll enjoy THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES! I should let readers know that you don't have to have read DEAD BIRDS to enjoy LIVE WIRES. Even though I'm calling it a sequel, it's a very different book, narrated by Darryl, who had been Ava Sing Lo's love interest in DEAD BIRDS. It's interesting to me that both of us took on the male perspective in our ebooks--I'd love to hear how it felt to you to write a guy's story. Any challenges getting under his skin?

LAUREN: You know what's really weird, Gayle? I'm beginning to think I may be better at writing male POV than female! My most successful YA novel to date was CRAZY BEAUTIFUL which is a he-said/she-said story told in alternating male/female POV. Readers by far preferred the male POV there. And so far, readers of THE BRO-MAGNET seem to be really just purely enjoying Johnny, whereas the female main characters of my previous books weren't always easy to like. Maybe I'm a guy at heart? Maybe it comes from having an older brother and growing up in a neighborhood with mostly guys? Maybe it's from my years shooting pool against mostly guys? I'll tell you one thing, I just have so much fun channeling a guy when I write...even the sex scenes! How about you - any challenges writing from a male POV?

GAYLE: I am definitely not a guy at heart, but I really enjoyed letting Darryl's voice carry me along. When I wrote THE BOOK OF DEAD BIRDS, I struggled with my right to tell Ava's story, since her ethnicity is so different from my own (but ultimately the experience reminded me that fiction is such a beautiful way to approach the experience of "the other"--and, in the process, realize there is more that connects us than divides us.) Men are definitely "the other" in many ways, but somehow when I was writing Darryl, he didn't feel "other" to me, and I don't think it's just because we share a similar Jewish Russian heritage. Getting under his skin felt very natural. Perhaps I had stretched myself so much with DEAD BIRDS, I felt limber enough to bend myself into a new point of view (I had written in guys' voices in short stories before, but never at such a sustained length.)

It's been such a pleasure to talk with you about our ebook adventures, Lauren. Is there anything we haven't touched upon that you would like to share with readers?

LAUREN: Just two things. 1) I didn't know you were of Jewish Russian heritage - me too! (And I'm not just making that up in order to suck up to you because you did all the heavy lifting here.) 2) I hope everyone buys THE BOOK OF LIVE WIRES! Aaaaaand...your turn! Any last words?

GAYLE: Maybe we’re distant cousins! I hope everyone will buy THE BRO-MAGNET, too. :)

Three of the best books I read in 2011 by April Henry

2012-01-13T08:42:00.000-05:00

The older I get and the more I’ve written, the harder it is for me to get engrossed in a book. Instead, I find myself editing the book as I read it, or even delivering an imaginary lecture to the author (“Show, don’t tell!”) For most of my life, my favorite thing has been getting lost in a book, so this a huge loss.

However, I still occasionally find books that enthrall me from start to finish. Here are three of my favorites from 2011. They’re all fiction, but that’s about all they have in common. That, and for some reason they all start with the letter A.

A Visit from the Goon Squad

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a marvel, written not only in first and third, but also in second person. It also bounces back and forth in time a lot - characters might be 40 in one chapter and 14 on the next. Part of it is even set in the future. A chapter is even presented in Power Point.

The publisher’s description does a better job of describing it than I could: “Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.”

If you ever get a chance to see the author in person, go! Jennifer Egan is an articulate and interesting speaker. She also gives good interview, and she’s been interviewed plenty about this book. And I understand that she used to date Steve Jobs in college. Even then, Steve had good taste.

After I finished the book, I wrote Jennifer a note. I told her that each time I started a chapter, I would try to orient myself and ask “Which now is it?” because each of the nows was equally valid, whether a chapter was set in the 1980s or even twenty years from our current now. I found that concept comforting, because my friend [Lisa Madigan] was dying, and it was reassuring, somehow, to think that all the various times of her life, including so many when she was healthy and happy, were equally valid.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

About the only thing Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick has in common with A Visit from the Goon Squad is that they both start with the letter A. This is a funny, fast-paced, and high-concept young adult novel. I loved the concept so much that when I first saw the deal in Publisher's Lunch I found a way to send a note to author, Joe Schreiber, telling him what a great idea it was.

When Perry’s parents host a foreign-exchange student for a year, he pictures a sexy French girl. What he gets is Gobi, a shy, glasses-wearing Lithuanian girl who wears shapeless clothes and covers her greasy hair with a scarf. Then Perry’s mom insists he take Gobi to the prom - even though it’s the same night that his band had a real live gig in Manhattan.

Gobi turns out to have been hiding a number of secrets. For one, there’s a beautiful girl underneath all those acres of fabric. And for another, she’s a trained assassin. She needs Perry to help her complete a deadly mission the night of the prom - and she’s won’t take no for an answer.

You’d think a book this good would have sold to the first editor who saw it. But take heart: the book actually got rejected by eight publishers before it found a home - and a two-book deal - at Houghton Mifflin. The movie rights were auctioned off a week later, and it got starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

Each chapter begins with a question from an actual college admissions form, which serves as a sort of sardonic commentary about what’s coming up.

Ashes

Hm, is there a pattern here? My third favorite book of 2011 also begins with an A: Ashes, by Ilsa Bick. It is dark book that combines a post apocalyptic world with zombies. I picked it up after a week of slogging through and/or abandoning many so-so books. It was a Friday night and I intended to read for only an hour.

Four hours later, I was still reading. And on Saturday, instead of writing, I just gave in and finished the book. And then I feel sad and empty, because the next one (it’s a trilogy) isn’t due out until September of 2012. I am not joking: I was honestly depressed that it was over!

Ashes begins when an electromagnetic pulse wipes out all electronic devices and also kills most adults. Only a few people under the age of 25 and over the age of 65 are left, and most of the younger ones have been turned into flesh-eating monsters (like zombies, only the bite of one doesn't create a new monster). The main character is 17-year-old Alex, who was hiking when the pulse hit. She had just met an eight year old named Ellie as well as her grandfather. The grandfather drops dead during the pulse, and Alex and Ellie reluctantly team up. Later they meet Tom, a young solider on leave, and the three of them are left to figure out if it’s possible to stay alive in this new world.

One of the best things the author does is fantastic cliff-hanger chapter endings, ie:

- No, she thought. No, please, Go, I’m not seeing this.

- Much later, she would think all that talk of food was to blame for what happened next.

- Something slammed against her back as a bright orange flash erupted out of the dark, and a shotgun boomed.

- “Promise me that if I change,” Tom said, “you’ll kill me.”

- The woman was sallow and pinched with a frizz of gray hair. Maybe in another life and before this nightmare, she’d baked chocolate chip cookies for the grandkids, but not now.

She sighted her rifle on Alex’s chest. “Don’t.”

So that's it. Three great books I read in 2011. What did you read that you loved? I need more great books.

The One Book Everyone But Me Has Read

2012-01-11T18:39:00.000-05:00

I have a confession: I’m afraid of The Help.

I bought a copy months ago (joining 10 million other people in this purchasing choice). It perches expectantly on my bookshelf, with its bright cover and fetching little birds that seem to watch me as I move across the room. I even cracked the cover once and read the first line. Then I put it back down.

So many people I respect adore The Help. Many have told me they cried while reading it. I know I’ll love it too; it’s exactly my kind of book. So why am I putting off reading it?

Part of it, I think, is that I’ll only be able to read it for the first time once. There’s so much hype surrounding this novel (which, by the way, was turned down by dozens of literary agents) that I suspect I like the anticipation of knowing I can read it any time I want as much as I’ll actually enjoy reading it.

But I’m also a little scared. I think I’ve built it up a bit too much in my mind. What if it disappoints me? What if I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t get The Help? (I haven't seen the movie either, by the way).

But here are some fantastic books I’ve devoured lately, when I haven’t been reading The Help:

The Drop by Michael Connelly. If you haven’t read Connelly yet, you’re in for a treat. He’s a master at underwriting, building tension and creating memorable characters. And he’s one of those authors who just gets better and better with time.

The Violets of March by Sarah Jio. I’ve never met Sarah, but we connected on another group author’s blog a while back, and immediately discovered we’re living similar lives: We both have three boys and both write for magazines. When she asked me to read her debut manuscript a few months before publication. I loved it so much, I offered up a blurb, calling it a “gem of a novel, perfect for reading at the beach or under a cozy quilt.”

The Silver Linings Playbook/A Pinch of Love. I paired these books because they were written by my favorite husband/wife writing duo. Matthew Quick authored The Silver Linings Playbook, and Alicia Bessette wrote A Pinch of Love. Both novels are quirky, passionate, and compulsively readable. Bonus: Look for The Silver Linings Playbook to hit movie theaters within the next year!

Sarah Pekkanen is the internationally-bestselling author of Skipping A Beat, The Opposite of Me, and the upcoming These Girls. Visit her website at www.sarahpekkanen.com

My Worst Writing Habit; Imaginary Playmates, Real Writers I can recommend

2012-01-11T07:36:00.000-05:00

My niece's daughter reading EVERYONE SHE LOVED

Sheila Curran

Graham Greene said all good writers have bad memories. I tell you this as an excuse for why I cannot remember whether it was Annie Proulx or Margaret Atwood who told Terri Gross, “In storytelling, there must be wolves.” As in, danger. To illustrate, she offered the example of someone who comes back from vacation and cannot stop saying how fabulous it was. Counter that with a story of my friend. Her family got held up at gunpoint on their first day in Aix En Provence. Then, in an unrelated catastrophe, they were robbed of everyone’s computers, gameboys, phones, and Ipods on the second afternoon of their glorious summer in a small French village.

Is it Schadenfruede that makes us gravitate to what went wrong, rather than the Kodak moments of our friend’s vacations? Or is it just more the element of surprise? Whatever, Ms. Proulx-Wood was right: there must be wolves.

Which leads me to my worst writing habit, my profound unwillingness to put my beloved imaginary playmates (aka characters) into situations where they might possibly suffer. Which leads me to pronounce that in the Decade of Dystopia, I have a sinking feeling I’ve written a Utopian novel.

It started with my sister’s family moving to a neighborhood in Atlanta, a hidden gem of urban beauty, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead’s sons to extend the meandering beauty of their father’s Piedmont Park past its gated borders

Built at the turn of the nineteenth century, the treelined streets and elegant brick houses make you feel like you’ve landed on a perfect planet. A walkable, bikable community close to chic restaurants, bars, museums, cafes.

So that’s pleasant scenery (ie Kodak moment) number one.

Fantasy number two is standard issue with me, a group of close friends who live in walking distance of each other. They’re funny, smart, forgiving and just a bit eccentric. There is one bad apple, maybe two, in their midst, but for the most part, my Ansley Park neighbors are dolphins, not sharks. They are puppies not wolves.

To make all of this worse, one day, in this novel’s infancy, an imaginary Catholic convent and church sprang into being.

Here, you would think I could find some problems. Nurse Ratchets of the nun variety. Maybe an abusive priest to go with the headlines. But no.

This is the grooviest convent in the world. More like an English country inn or yoga retreat, full of enlightened older women serving the poor. They, too, are funny, smart, irreverent and just exactly how I wish the real Church could operate in my oh-so-lapsed Catholic mind.

In my book of the same name, Our Lady of the Snows was spared during the civil war, when Sherman was burning Atlanta. A very small but effective rectangle of snow hovered above the church and motherhouse, keeping the buildings (and the slaves hidden inside) from incineration. It is a charmed place, full of charming sisters. They are are organic gardeners, great cooks, prolific vintners and die-hard football fans.

Our Lady of the Snows in my parents' and grandmother's New Hampshire village of Dublin

To say I’ve been searching for something like this since I let go of my regular attendance at Mass, well, it goes without saying. Call me crazy but if I’m making things up, why the hell can’t I make a place that is exactly like where I’d want to go?

Into this perfect vacation of the mind, thank God or Ms. Proulxwood, other things have crept. Things like greed, envy, piety and hubris. They are my wolves, both real and fictional, driving my antagonists to topple the kingdom of Heaven, so to speak, with strategies fueled by fear, insecurity and a midlife crisis or two. (Maybe Lucifer thought it was just too dull to have everything go so perfectly all the time? Perhaps he wasn’t so much evil as felled by profound boredom.)

Bringing out the wolves, as figurative as they might be, has taken a very long time. Like, oh, five years now. While the cancer thing might account for some of that, I think the rest has been my disinclination to put on my big-girl-pants and just let my people go!

If yoga is the path of love over fear (my new mantra) then this process has been a similar journey except inside out. Starting with the love and equanimity, what happens when fear -- whether of bankruptcy, betrayal or bullets – begins to chip away at the better angels of our nature?

When I think of my novel’s conflict this way, I find some comfort. This is certainly a question that drives much of what I’ve been most entertained by this year. In HBO’s Game of Thrones or SHOWTIME’s Homeland, the main characters might be warriors, but they’re undone less by weapons and more by avarice, deception and/or their own compulsions, the inner wolves that drive us all. In City of Thieves, a gorgeous novel by David Benioff set in Nazi-invaded Leningrad, the heroes’ fates are still cast in the character flaws of their enemies, as well as in certain quirks and foibles of their own. Similarly, in Pure, by Julianna Baggott, set for release on February 8^th, the riveting plot may take place against an epic backdrop of monstrous beauty and perfect horror, (every bit as fantastic as Game of Thrones, every bit as apocalyptic as World War II). Still, the real action pivots on the internal struggles of our protagonists. Pressia and Partridge are dogged as much by the demons of memory and loss as the harrowing creatures that pursue them.

Getting back to that perfect vacation, the one your friend bored you to death telling you about, perhaps what’s deadly dull isn’t the beauty of those sunsets but the glossing over of the negative in pursuit of what I see as false cheer. I mean, really, who has had a perfect vacation? Ten to one, they’re victims of their own internal PR campaign or they’ve found a drug I’d very much like to try.

Even the best of trips are replete with small problems, those lizards on the ceiling of your picturesque Mexican resort, the squatting toilet in that amazing Venetian restaurant, or just the itchy first day of getting accustomed to sudden leisure. Maybe what’s compelling – whether in dystopia or utopia – is honesty, the acknowledgement that perfection exists only in magazines and Mommy Dearest’s wardrobe. We may inhale those stylist’s dreams of the day no one mussed up the couch by sitting on it, but the real payoff comes when we strive towards the immaculate, only to find the devil (and the drama) lies in the details (and those dratted wire hangers.)

Speaking of drama, I am also looking forward to reading our former girlfriend, Joshilyn Jackson’s newest, due out next week. A Grown UpKind of Pretty, like Gods in Alabama, Backseat Saints and Between, Georgia, will, I can lay a bet on it, take ‘pretty’ out for a ride in a fast car on a back road till the word takes on a Flannery O’Connoresque meaning.

Starred review, everyone! You go, Joshilyn!

Lastly, I'm looking forward to reading Jefferson Bass's latest, The Bone Yard, which is set right near Tallahassee, at a horrific place called The Dozier School for Boys.

Wolves abound, in the form of sadistic guards and callous generations of overseers. Jon Jefferson, the writer part of the team authoring the hugely successful Bones mystery series, got up close and personal with this story, recruiting former boys who'd been abused to talk publicly about their incarceration in an institution that looked like a gorgeous prep school on the outside and within its meandering pastures, hides a graveyard (true story) of dead bodies, children beaten to death and never accounted for. Perhaps it was just coincidence, but after the publicity surrounding this brave account, the state finally decided to close the school once and for all. How's that for heroic endeavors?

Happy Reading! Who says January is the cruelest month? (T.S. Eliot is turning in his grave, Mr. Greene, not so much.)

Sheila Curran's second novel, Everyone She Loved, debuted at #34 on Amazon's rankings. Diana Lively is Falling Down, published in 2005, got a starred review from Booklist, and won praise from Jodi Picoult for its "characters who make you laugh out loud, even as they break your heart." Her third novel, Our Lady of the Snows, is in its fifth draft and is expected to go out to her beloved agent any day now.

How To Wait for Your Agent To Call

2012-01-09T23:55:00.001-05:00

I did not care how noisy it was in the ski lodge.

By Cindy Jones

I spent the holidays finalizing revisions on my novel while my family skied. Yesterday I sent the third draft to my agent, with the expectation that we are almost there. But, I don’t know this for certain, and now I am waiting to hear from her. Waiting.

As a writer, I have spent a lot of time waiting, and instead of worrying about sitting still while the industry evolves, books become obsolete, and publishing, as we know it, ceases to exist, I’ve developed a strategy for dealing with the tension. Rather than obsessing over how long it is taking, I try to distract myself. Here are a few of my strategies for coping:

I did not care how small my work space was

1. Avoid electronics. Obsessively checking email in places like carpool line—where it is illegal to operate a cell phone--in theatres—where your screen should be dark--and during serious spousal conversations--where full attention is required, will make you crazy. As will imagining what your agent is doing from the moment you hit ‘send’. She will respond when the time is right, probably while you are in carpool line, in the theatre, or having a serious spousal conversation. Or going to bed. Melatonin, anyone?

2. Check for friends. Surely you can find an old friend who will put up with your ‘there/not there’ relationship style. Rekindle human relationships with the people who value you for your ability to zone in and out during the same sentence. Schedule lunch dates and listen. Repress the urge to cannibalize your friends’ lives, take notes on vocal tics, or memorize conversation topics for future use. Avoid the temptation to create back stories for people at other tables.

3. Join husband’s White Paint Patrol. During intense creative periods, I defer household maintenance. In fact, dirt is not visible to my reality-challenged vision and my concentration cannot be spared for finding cleaning supplies. (Sock matching is a semi-annual event in my laundry room). When writing at capacity I am unable to help my husband patrol baseboards no matter how cute he makes the white paint sound. But now that I’m in the waiting mode, I’m resolved to fix something that is visible to the human eye.

It was a beautiful day for writing inside.

4. Get under the radar with Teenagers. Remove their ear buds and ask questions. Boy teenagers are my only constituent to support Total Immersion Novel Writing without reserve.

5. Keep the momentum going. To be quite honest there is only one fully guaranteed method to speed minutes into hours and to burn through days as if they were pages in a compelling novel. And that is to engage in the challenge, exertion, and fulfillment of writing. Start another novel. Plunge back into the world of imagination where to sit down at 8 am means losing touch with time, traffic, and all rules of civilization until forced to provide dinner.

I'm resolved to devote my current waiting time to matching socks and performing feats of household maintenance, but the truth is that I cannot walk to the laundry room without forsaking reality. And there is no more fertile daydream launcher than the mindless swamp of the sock hamper. Even as I write this, I am wondering what page my agent is on.

Will my agent go full speed ahead into editorial submission or discover a profound defect in my work and send me back to the drawing board? For the answer to these and other questions, follow me:

Cindy Jones is the author of the debut novel, My Jane Austen Summer. HarperCollins Publishers holds an option on her next book.

How to Write a Better Book

2012-01-08T23:09:00.012-05:00

by Maria Geraci

No writer wants to be a one book wonder. But maybe worse than being a one book wonder is the writer who peaks with their first book. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to be the M. Night Shyamalan of literature. (I don’t think you’d find too many film buffs who would disagree with me when I say that he hit the ball out of the park with his first film, The Sixth Sense, and has yet to direct a better movie).

But how do we do write a book that's better than the one we've just written? How do we continue to grow as writers and improve our craft? Just like the protagonists we write about, growth occurs through conflict and struggle.

First, let's talk about the struggle.

It's no secret to anyone who writes that writing is hard work. If you're familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, then you know what I'm getting at. In his best-selling book, Outliers, Gladwell theorizes that natural talent has less to do with success than the power of sheer hard work. The rule is that it takes about 10,000 hours for an artist to hone their craft. In other words, if you do something long enough, you're going to get better at it. So the first key to writing a better book is to simply write consistently. The old adage practice makes perfect has been around a long time because it's true.

Then, there's the conflict.

Again, unless you happen to hit one out of the park (and do so consistently with each book) your writing career will be filled with ups and downs. It's those "downs" and how we react to them that teach us the things we need to learn to be better writers.

"Downs" come in many forms- rejections, bad reviews, etc... I know there are a number of people out there who will disagree with me on this, but I happen to believe that reviews can be a writer's best friend. I read every single review written about my books. Yes, every single one I can get my hands on--this includes reviews from Amazon and Goodreads.

Now, lest you think I'm a sadist (trust me, I'm not) I can tell you that I've learned a lot from reviews. I also read and study reviews for books I've read not written by me (I've found this to be one of the best teaching tools out there.)

Most of the time, I discount 5 and 1 star reviews. Loving (or hating) a book is usually a visceral reaction. It's the 3 star reviews that interest me most. Many times, those reviews hold a tiny nugget of something that reverberates with me. That teaches me something I don't get from the reader who loves my work (or hates my protagonist). The hard part about this isn't reading that someone thinks your work sucks (because believe me, someone will always think that), it's knowing what to take away from those reviews. Over time, however, I'm come to trust my instincts and to know what criticisms feels right and what feels wrong and I think my work has become better as a result.

Conflict and struggle. It works for our characters, and it will work for us as writers.

Maria Geraci writes contemporary romance and women’s fiction with a happy ending. The Portland Book Review called her novel, The Boyfriend of the Month Club, “immensely sexy, immensely satisfying and humorous.” Her fourth novel, A Girl Like You, will be released August, 2012 by Berkley, Penguin USA. You can visit her website here.

Falling Uphill by Kelly Sweetwood - E-book Giveaway!

2012-01-05T21:46:00.000-05:00

I’m dipping my big toe into the deep end of the e-book pool with a chick lit novel (with a little bit of mystery thrown in) called Falling Uphill, written under the pen name Kelly Sweetwood. And I’m giving away three free copies!

Here’s the scoop on the book:

“Ruth Fenton is dead, but what does that have to do with me?”

That’s what Candace Grey, 29, wants to know after receiving a puzzling phone message from San Francisco. A bright, but slightly absent-minded anthropology teacher at a small Michigan college, Candace is all set to leave for Los Angeles to conduct research on 1960s TV star Pamela Parrish—America’s Sitcom Sweetheart—for her Master’s thesis on television and female gender roles. But after discovering that Ruth Fenton is a long lost relative, she’s first off to San Francisco for her memorial service where she meets a crazy(?) old lady who claims Pamela Parrish didn’t commit suicide like everybody says—she was murdered.

Now Candace has to get to the bottom of it, all while fighting the nagging feeling that her long-time professor boyfriend back home is getting a little too close to one of his students, and at the same time wondering if new-found friend Brandon, a newspaper reporter and budding painter who lives on a hidden stairway street in the hills of San Francisco, is really the guy for her.

It’s a funny, but moving, uphill climb for Candace who finds that things are rarely what they seem in the ups and downs of love or in discovering a surprising secret about her not-so-perfect mother, or unearthing the truth behind the death of America’s Sitcom Sweetheart.

And here’s the scoop on the giveaway:

Just write a comment below about your favorite sitcom star—past and/or present— before midnight, Saturday, January 7, Pacific Time. We’ll draw three random winners. Falling Uphill is available on either the Kindle or Nook platforms—winners can take their choice. And don’t forget to include your email address in your comment so we can contact you if your name is drawn.

As for me, my favorite sitcom star of the past is Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy. And currently I’m madly in love with Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory.

Let us know your favorites and you may win a free copy of Falling Uphill!

~~~~~~~~

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga is the author of the novels “Love in Translation” and “Midori by Moonlight,” published by St. Martin’s Press, and the novel, “Falling Uphill,” written under the pen name Kelly Sweetwood. She’s also the author of the non-fiction book, “Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband.” Her essay will appear in the upcoming anthology “Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop” (Soft Skull Press, March 2012), and her YA short story is to be published in “Tomo: An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories” (Stone Bridge Press, March 2012). She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of San Francisco and works as a writing teacher and manuscript consultant. Visit her at: www.WendyTokunaga.com

This Year, I Will Be Brave...

2012-01-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

This is the cover of my next book. I'm hoping to get it up as an ebook by the end of the month and as a CreateSpace paperback shortly after. I'm really excited because, even though I released an enovella this fall, this is my first full book.

I wrote Adulterer's Guide years ago - it was the book I finished just before I sold my first book, 'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy to a publisher. I loved this book. And there were agents and editors who loved it too, but decided to pass on it. Why? It didn't "fit" or "wasn't marketable" or would "frighten children and woodland creatures" and then there was the little thing about Adultery in the title.

So, this book went away and I thought I'd never do anything with it. But then, the epub revolution started. For the past year, I've sold my backlist of published books through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. I added a novella to the Bombay Series (my publisher said the series was "over" but my fans begged for more). And I realized that I would be an idiot not to take this book, dust it off, polish it up and update it to give it another chance. I also realized that this might be crazy and I might lose a lot of sleep over it, but that's beside the point.

Like the other books, it is contemporary, humorous romance. Unlike the other books, it isn't a mystery and the love scenes are (blushes) kinda steamy. Like, a LOT.

The story is about two people, both forty (another death sentence for the book - I was told, even though I'm 45 and I read books), who after being ditched by their spouses for the big family vacation - find themselves next door to each other. Oh, and they were high school sweethearts. Their marriages are beyond repair when they meet but I wanted to make sure it wouldn't offend my readers.

I found a fan who'd been through divorce ala-adultery and asked her to be a beta-reader. Then I held my breath. If she didn't like it - that was it - back under the bed. I'm somewhat brave - but not THAT brave.

She loved it. I was stunned. So I sent it to my friend, Gemma Halliday for a blurb. She read it and she loved it.

And that's when it occurred to me that the epub revolution is all about this kind of thing. For years we've been told by NY that a book is great, but won't sell/fill out a price point/will resort to arson - if released to the public.

This was my chance to take a book that I loved writing, that a couple of fans loved reading, but was completely doomed according to the publishing industry. But if it found a few readers who loved it, that was enough. I don't have to appeal to the whole market. It's just not necessary anymore.

It took a loooooong time for this lightbulb to come on.

So, I'm taking a chance and doing it myself. I'm resolving to be braver in the new year. It's scary, and it's intimidating. But I'm going to do it.

And if I can do it - you can do it. Right? Right!

Leslie Langtry

A Clean Sweep

2012-01-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

by Judy Merrill Larsen

Happy 2012! I spent New Year's Day decluttering aka putting away the Christmas decorations that I love when I pull them out in early December, but by Dec. 27 or so (and, um, sometimes earlier) it all strikes me as clutter.

So, I boxed everything up, threw out the rest of the Christmas cookies (which meant I had to totally rethink my breakfast plans), and cleaned out the fridge of the last dregs of holiday leftovers. I made a clean sweep. And I loved it.

I mean, December was really great. Both my boys plus one girlfriend and two dogs were here for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and all three stepkids were here for dinner on the 26th, the first time they've all been together in more than three years. Most everything fit. The new recipes I tried were fantastic. Neither of the dogs dug out of the yard and all the plane trips were uneventful. The Packers won on Christmas night. And I started a new knitting project all by myself.

But, I'm ready for some discipline. A little structure. Routine.

I don't know about you, but the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas become a blur for me. The gym? Who has time? Writing? Everyone knows the publishing world practically shuts down at the holidays, right? Dieting? Oh, yeah, right . . . when there are cookies around? Sleep? Seriously?

But yesterday morning when I came downstairs, I loved how clean everything looked. I'd even folded the afghan before I went to bed Sunday night rather than leaving it strewn across the sofa where I'd been snuggled under it. And today, I opened up my MS on my laptop (which I'd last opened on Nov. 23. Sheesh.) and picked away at the last 35 pages.

January always allows for this. The cold. The bright sun. The barren trees. I'll be sick of it soon enough and craving the lushness of spring and a St. Louis summer, but right now, I like the spareness of it all. It reminds me of what I need to do, what I want to do. Get in shape. Not just physically (all those cookies landed somewhere, that's for damn sure.), but in my work, too. I want the freedom of a snow white page which gives me room to write. I need the clarity of blinding sunlight in a clear blue sky. I need room in my fridge.

The whole year lies before me . . . lots of blank squares on my calendar. I know they'll start filling up soon, but I want to be mindful of how I fill them. The days ahead can be full of opportunity and if there's anything I learned in 2011, it's not to squander the days and weeks and months.

So far, here's what's on my list to do EVERYDAY:

~read for pleasure
~knit
~be consciously active for at least an hour. That means, work up a sweat.
~write fearlessly and hopefully
~appreciate the people who bring me joy and don't waste time stewing about those who don't

What's on your list?

I live in St. Louis, MO with my husband, am the mom/stepmom to five kids (ages 18-26), and taught high school English for 15 years. I'm over on Facebook and Twitter . My first novel, ALL THE NUMBERS was published in 2006.

Only in Key West by Lucy Burdette

2012-01-02T18:00:00.004-05:00

Happy new year to all the Girlfriends and to our valued and adored readers too! We'd be nothing without you!

I'm lucky enough to be starting off 2012 with a new book: AN APPETITE FOR MURDER, the first in the Key West food critic mystery series.

So many people have asked me "why Key West?" that I thought it would be fun to have a pop quiz about the island. This should give you a good idea about why this island is the perfect setting for a quirky mystery! I will list the answers at the bottom, but no cheating--don't look until you've answered! And then tell us how many you got right--all comments will be entered into a random drawing for a copy of APPETITE. Good luck!

1. The local residents on Key West are called:

a. Islanders b. Parrotheads c. Corals D. Conchs

2. What's the name of the major east-west thoroughfare, known for its shops and bars?

a. Duval St.

b. Whitehead St.

c. Simonton St.

d. Hemingway Blvd.

3. How many miles from Cuba is Key West?

a. 500

b. 30

c. 90

d. 200

4. Name a famous current or former writer who calls/called Key West home:

a. Ernest Hemingway

b. Judy Blume

c. Meg Cabot

d. Annie Dillard

e. Tennessee Williams

f. all of the above

5. What's the biggest holiday celebration on the island?

a. New Year's Eve when a red high heeled shoe drops from the top of Bourbon Street Pub and a conch shell slides down the top of Sloppy Joe's bar

b. Fantasyfest, a nine-day adult Halloween celebration culminating in coronation of a king and queen at the Royal Coronation Ball

c. The Conch Republic Independence Celebration commemorating the city's attempt to secede from the United Staes on April 23, 1982 in response to US Border Patrol roadblocks

d. the nightly Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square

6. A dog up for adoption at the pound in Key West might be assessed for:

a. his reaction to iguanas

b. his relationship to roosters

c. a fondness for polydactyl cats

d. willingness to wear a costume in the Fantasy Fest parade

e. all of the above

7. If you were going to poison someone in a murder mystery set in Key West, you might use this as a vehicle:

a. conch chowder

b. key lime pie

c. margarita

d. conch fritters

You can buy the book at any bookstore or here: http://lucyburdette.com/buy-the-books/ And please follow Lucy on Twitter or join her on Facebook. And she blogs weekly with the fabulous crime fiction writers at Jungle Red Writers.

Answers: 1. d--Conchs! 2. a--Duval Street of course! 3. c--90 miles to Cuba! 4. f--all of the above--the island is crawling with artists and writers! 5. trick question--how could you possibly choose? 6. e--only in Key West! 7. I could tell you, but it would spoil the story in AN APPETITE FOR MURDER!

"What fun! Lucy Burdette writes evocatively about Key West and food -- a winning combination. I can't wait for the next entry in this charming series." Diane Mott Davidson

Intentions for 2012

2011-12-29T22:19:00.009-05:00

by Maggie Marr

There is a certain weight attached to being the 'final' something. The final score, page, sentence, word, second. With the word 'final' a breath-holding heart-stopping moment happens where I wait for those final seconds to tick off the clock--so that I actually remember whatever final I am experiencing. I've had a number of 'final' moments in 2011 and they are all seared into my brain, but I have one more final before I finish out this year.

I am the final Girlfriends Book Club blogger for 2011.

For me, the end of year always includes hints of melancholy, but it also brings rejuvenation--hope--excitement for the newness that is the beginning of the adventure that is the new year. I am a soulful believer and participant in The New Year's Resolution. I even write them down and some years when I can actually remember where I put my resolutions--you know so I wouldn't forget where they were--they serve as fabulous entertainment around mid-July (okay sometimes as early as March) of all that I'd hoped to accomplish on January 1.

There is always the requisite 10 pounds (post childbirth it's 20). The new exercise regime (my muscles already ache just thinking about Sunday). The writing regime, housekeeping regime, cooking regime, and of course the being a better parent, wife, daughter, friend, volunteer...human.

But this year I am not making any resolutions. None. Not one. I guess in some sense the act of deciding not to make a resolution could actually be considered a resolution in itself--you know not making one is actually making one--suddenly I feel as if I am staring into a funhouse mirror.

I digress.

This year instead of resolutions--I am making New Year's Intentions.

What's the difference, you ask? Tomaytoe, Tomahtoe, you say. Oh, no, no, no, harbinger of doubt--there is a difference. If not convincing for you, loyal reader, at least let me try to convince myself.

An intention is an aim or a plan whereas a resolution is a firm decision to do or not do something. Now--I decide to do a whole lot of things but it is when I actually make a plan--set a goal--that these things actually get done.

What about all those Mid-July funnies (okay fine March) that were former resolutions, you ask--weren't those plans--goals--intentions in disguise?? Hmm??

Well--no. For some reason the term resolution has a negative connotation for me (and not because it always causes my muscles to ache for at least 2 days) but because a resolution seems as if it is barring some action even when it is a resolution to do something. Whereas the word intention--well it seems so light and carefree in comparison--filled with good will and hope. While Resolute is a stern-faced older man with a disapproving glare.

This year I am going with intentions and while I won't bore you with my entire list, I will share a few.

1. I intend to try and be the most magnificent me that I can be. (This one encompasses the whole better Mom/Wife/Daughter/Volunteer/Author/Human Being resolution.)

2. I intend to be grateful for all that I have and all that I am given.

3. I intend for Can't Buy Me Love to be the very best contemporary romance that I can write right now.

(Publishing E-Book March 2012!--read an excerpt here).

4. I intend to be healthy. Which means continuing my yoga (yes--I've finally found an exercise I like and I do nearly every day) and eating healthy most the time. (I can eat unhealthy when I really really want to.)

5. I intend to try and embrace all the moments that race by--not just the final ones--because all these moments make up my life and I am blessed to get them.

So what about you, brave reader? What resolutions, intentions, plans, goals--whatever you want to name them will you be making in the final moments of 2011. Share them in the comments section--there is a free e-book of Can't Buy Me Love available for one lucky winner--of course you'll have to wait until March for the e-book but hey, it might be good companion reading for all those funny intentions you make right now!

Maggie Marr is a reformed resolution maker who lives in Los Angeles. She is married and attempts to be an excellent mother of two. She has a law degree she no longer uses--much. She also was a motion picture literary agent. Now she writes books and screenplays and produces films. Can't Buy Me Love her latest book and first contemporary romance publishes March 2012 and will be available on e-book. You can follow her at www.maggiemarr.com

Bad Habits? P-lease.

2011-12-28T18:48:00.009-05:00

By Sandra Novack

I don’t know about you, but I spent Christmas and the pre-holiday season drinking red wine and eating spoonful after spoonful of cookie dough. This has left me with the serious problem that is my ass. Pounds, Girlfriends. I have put them on! I am excessive. An all-or-nothing girl. And this ass situation, it has also left me wondering why I even signed on for that gym membership that I haven’t once used the entire month of December. Did I mention it was expensive? I am wasteful. I am wasteful, fat, and boozy. We’re not swimming in dough over here (well, cookie dough, maybe).

This isn’t even half of it. I am a pretty neurotic person. Rest assured: Once you go down that road of dwelling on your bad traits, you just get heavier. Soon you’re feeling like you have more bad habits than anyone else you know. You start to get nervous, even fidgety. You start deflecting, using the more removed ‘you’, when what you really mean is ‘I’.

So since this blog post was starting to depress me, I decided to talk about how bad habits can sometimes also be good ones. Focus on the positive!

1) Fussing! So I fuss. So what. In my early drafting stage, I am the queen of writing the crap out of a sentence. I try and find just the right words, just the right rhythms. I can go at one line ten times over, then ten times more. This is not the best habit. Whole paragraphs, entire scenes might be cut. I have lost many good words. While part of me thinks, What a waste!, the process slows me down and often makes me more methodical. As I read over a draft, I fall into the rhythm and language and both become part of the story landscape. Plus, I am a writer prone to some serious bouts of discouragement. When I read too many bad sentences, I fall into that even deeper problem of despair, thinking, I can’t write to save my life! At least when my sentences feel smooth, I can stay invested. Does this make my process slower? Yes. But it takes what it takes (to keep going).

2) I don’t write in any linear way. For years I considered this an annoying habit. All that extra time to organize! I’ve often wondered why I couldn’t have a more disciplined mind. A logical one. You know the kind, where one thought follows the next, orderly? That’s not me. From one paragraph to the next, I can write things that seem unrelated, things I know will end up in different chapters. The good aspect of this, though, is that it allows me to work through juxtaposition, which usually leads me to see the ‘big picture’ in more complex, associative ways. I can layer a lot. I can build structure.

3) On the subject of red wine: I never write (as in actually write for my publisher) under the influence. Oh sure, I might e-mail or call friends under the influence at 6 p.m., but they’re usually under it, too, by then, so all is right with the world. I will admit that some of the best lines in my novel came after two (uh-hum) glasses of wine. Many writers know that liminal place, where we are in this world but flirting with another (liken it to peyote). To be fair, I’ve also jotted down some lines that were terrible, too, and frankly some lines that were just illegible. Still, occasionally there is a gem!

4) Given how long this post is already, I should fess up to overwriting. I will always be more of a ‘full’ writer. Just like my ass situation, my sentences also want to expand. I wish I could be leaner from the start, but it just never works out that way. Call my writing a robust 8 and not a skinny 3, and let’s just embrace it and move on.

5) I love animals. Find me on Facebook and know I am nuts over all things with fur. How, you might ask, is this a bad writing habit? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that ‘animals are automatically sentimental’. In early writing classes, my teacher would say, “Sandy, geesh, another dog?” So I love my dog. Most people love their dogs. Maybe someday I will just get this out of my system and write an entire book about a big white dog, who will happen to be just like my giant white dog , Chloe (who sadly we had to put to sleep last week, at age 13). Sniff, sniff. If you didn’t get a holiday card or even, in the case of my husband, a present (well, okay, he got ONE present), that is why. I’ve been weeping. Yes, and it was over a pet. Is there no place for this in literary fiction?

Anyway, no one says just because a dog or cat appears in a novel or story means the scene is sentimental. It can be more interesting, like:

“Do you love me, Jane?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t. You never loved anything but the toy poodle.”

Okay, that was just off the top of my head (and not the best). Still, this year I am concentrating on making my bad habits just work better for me. Why all this New Year’s guilt? Celebrate those bad habits! Have red wine! Eat cookie dough! Embrace your size 8 ass! Friends, we live in a tough world. I say: Hey, whatever keeps you going.

I will leave you with a picture of Chloe, who was not a poodle but a Great Pyrenees. To her I say: Until we meet again, my dearest friend, know that my love travels with you.

Sandra Novack has a fat ass, loves all furry creatures, and drinks red wine. She also writes novels. You can follow her on Facebook. When you friend her, please tell her you met her here!

2011 Favorite Books Round-Up by Sara Rosett

2011-12-27T20:00:00.049-05:00

I absolutely love the last week of the year.

I love the lull between Christmas and New Years Day, the slower pace, the weird out-of-sink quality of those days. They almost feel like vacation days, even if they’re not. You may have to go into the office, but you know nothing much is going to get done during that week.

It’s a perfect time for the year-end round-ups of everything from news to fashion to movies. Here's a sample from pop culture...

Most Viewed YouTube Ad:

Classic is hot again, thanks to Kate Middleton.

And Harry Potter ruled at the box office, according to BoxOffice Mojo.com.

I won't delve into the top news stories of the year...there are too many to choose from and hard news isn't really our forte here.

What is perfectly appropriate is a round-up of some of my favorite reads of 2011.

If you like women’s fiction…

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan. Funny and sweet story of a Pasadena socialite finding her way after her husband’s unexpected death.

A Vintage Affair by Isobell Wolff. Vintage clothes with vintage mystery circa WWII.

If you like historicals…

The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig. Love the mix of contemporary romance plotline with the historical one, this one set in Regency Paris where spies and intrigue abound.

Crimson Warning by Tasha Alexander. I always enjoy Lady Emily’s adventures. In England, she acquaints herself with the early women’s rights movement and hunts a vandal.

Naughty in Nice by Rhy Bowen. 1930’s French Riviera intrigue with the delightful Lady Georgina, who is once again on assignment for the Queen.

If you like traditional mysteries…

Death on Tour by Janice Hammrick. A contemporary Death on the Nile.

Murder Most Persuasive by Tracey Kiley. A modern who-dun-it with a Jane Austen twist.

A House to Die For by Vicki Doudera. Great debut about a realtor in Maine.

If you like suspense…

Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry. Compelling from the first line.

Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron. Creative take on our digital lives.

If you like thrillers…

Rip Tide by Stella Rimington. Smart spy thriller set in England about a female MI5 agent.

What were your favorite reads of the year? What books are you looking forward to in 2012?

Sara Rosett is the author of the Ellie Avery mystery series, an adult “whodunit” mystery series in the tradition of Agatha Christie. Publishers Weekly has called Sara’s books, “satisfying,” “well-executed,” and “sparkling.”Library Journal says, “...Rosett’s Ellie Avery titles are among the best, using timely topics to move her plots and good old-fashioned motives to make everything believable.”

Visit http://www.SaraRosett.com for more information or connect with Sara on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads.

Don't Blink, There Goes the Year!

2011-12-26T21:00:00.003-05:00

By Laura Spinella

Given the post-holiday, pre-New Year date, not to mention the one-year anniversary of my debut novel, it seems a foregone conclusion that I write a retrospective blog. I saw a really good year-in-review on the Christmas Day CBS Morning Show. Of course, that one was dedicated to well-known personalities who’d passed, the montage segueing beautifully from Elizabeth Taylor to Steve Jobs to the guy who invented the teleprompter—sometimes, it’s the invention we recall, not the inventor. Thankfully, sadly, the major loss at my house was the cat. While I’d tear up over a photo-filled post devoted to Ted’s memory, I assumed you might not feel the same. Aside from the dead, the other thing we regale over this time of year is lists: Best Of, Biggest Blunders, Most Popular, 2011 Trends. So in keeping with our GBC writing theme, and sparing you my personal life’s little inventory list, I chose to focus on a Top Ten Retrospect for the Newly Published, aka, As the Debut Light Dims.

1) Authors are accessible. Some of the smartest people I’ve met this year are writers working to become published authors. While waiting to get their ticket punched, or book bound, they’ve made great contacts and friends with published authors. From what I can gather, it puts them miles ahead of the curve. I’m impressed by their networking and appalled by my own lack of foresight.

2) Not everybody is going to love your book—soon-to-be-authors, take note! There’s no avoiding it or the sting. Suck it up. And the sting is equal whether it’s a place like Publishers Weekly or a live-wire on Goodreads. I believe the ego-annihilating phrase was, “Just halfway through and it is nauseating…” Well, if you felt compelled to post that, and my book made you physically ill, I guess we’re even (-;

3) Signings are fun, but they come with a level of tension that’s difficult to corral—at least this was the case for me. Note to self: gray long-sleeved blouse, pretty as it is, will show pit stains every time. I know; I have the pictures to prove it.

4) Promotion can be all consuming. Our very own Maria Geraci gave me some of the best advice early on: Figure out what you’re comfortable doing and do that. Every time I find myself overwhelmed, I check in with those words of wisdom.

5) In the same vein, find the dividing line between what you wrote and what you’ve yet to write. Promoting a book and writing one are polar opposites. One requires you to be a social butterfly. The other is a cocoon. You have to figure out how to transition fluidly from one to the other.

6) If your book happens to get nominated for a nice award, go to the party. This is my big book blunder from 2011. I gave myself the, “It’s a thrill to be nominated,” speech and stayed home. In retrospect, it would have been really cool to have accepted the invite and the award personally.

7) Book clubs are God’s gift to writers. Again, this goes to my last-off-the-turnip-truck naiveté, but what an unexpected bonus! Where else can you make eight to ten instant friends by showing up? And even if they don’t love your book, they will congratulate you on the achievement of being published. Well, except for that one woman. I’m still considering having her comment tattooed to my ass. About Flynn, my protagonist: “He was just so… so dirty.” Silly me. I thought it was part of his charm.

8) “So, how much of your book is autobiographical?” Say what? For a lot of reasons, this question bothered me a great deal. I should have had the sense to let it go early on and just be glad they were reading.

9) Regarding BEAUTIFUL DISASTER and the college-age boys who emailed me: Glad you enjoyed it… So happy you learned something… These things take practice… And it’s probably best we’re not Facebook friends.

Me writing...

10) And my number one newly published author conclusion: I am happiest writing a book. It gives me a sense of self, peace, if you will, that tends to escape me in everyday life. Honestly? I’d probably be happier writing in the name of self-satisfaction. But for some reason, that mindset never seems to be the proper path. I am muddling my way through the rest, making it up as I go. And, well, there you have it, life imitating art. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and my best to you all in the New Year.

Are You Good at Christmas?

2011-12-22T23:35:00.005-05:00

I don't know about all the other writers on this blog, but I'm rather fond of attributing many of my worst qualities to "being a writer." It's the perfect excuse for being scatterbrained, insensitive, overly sensitive, self-conscious, self-involved, melodramatic, too forthcoming, and nosy.

And at no other time of the year are my worst qualities more painfully on display than Christmas. Frankly, I'm just not good at Christmas. I'm not a grinch or anything. I love the festive holiday spirit, the decorations, the lights, the eggnog -- especially if it's spiked. It's just that I'm horrible at making Christmas happen.

This year we only have a gorgeous Christmas tree (pictured) is because I'm married to a wonderful man who procured it from a car commercial, for which he did the lighting design. He's also the one who made sure that all the ornaments from Christmas trees past were neatly stored in one place. And long after my attention span for the project had petered out, he kept on hanging and stringing various things until the Christmas tree was "done."

If you are one of the very few people who received a Christmas gift from me this year, it's probably because my husband picked it, bought it, and even mailed or delivered it -- though I was kind enough to take care of wrapping the gift and writing the card. At the very last minute before saying, "Honey, can you do me the biggest favor?", but still...

He also bought (and spiked) the eggnog, strung the lights, and streamed the ridiculous amounts of Christmas music he's downloaded throughout the years through our television. You see, he's great at Christmas. I'm just terrible at it. I blame this on being a writer.

Being good at Christmas requires a lot of forethought and organizational skills. However, I tend to keep those skills in reserve for things like story and plot mechanics. While other people rush around trying to find the perfect gift for their loved ones, I'm rushing through a draft, trying to get to a good stopping point on my project before I'm forced to stop writing and you know, actually spend a large amount of time with my loved ones as opposed to the characters I've made up in my head.

Other people love making Christmas happen. I just love writing about it. I rarely buy gifts, but adore writing gift guides for FierceAndNerdy.com. And my main excuse for being even worse at Christmas this year than in years past (I didn't even send out cards -- the one thing writers kind of excel at) is that I'm hard at work on my third novel, which rather ironically, takes place during the holidays.

But now I'm wondering if being terrible at Christmas is actually one bad quality I really can't blame on "being a writer." Show of hands (in the comments). Who's great a Christmas? And who else is just terrible at it like me?

In any case, have a fantastic new year. Like most writers, I'm actually awesome at New Year's. Written resolutions and copious amounts of drinking -- now that's a great writer's holiday.

With a little help from my girlfriends

2011-12-21T23:15:00.000-05:00

by Samantha Wilde

I am a terrible blogger. I don't like to read things on the computer. Sometimes I don't like to write things on the computer. I fit the dictionary definition of "Luddite" snugly. I'm not on facebook. I have never twittered. I act like an appalled old lady when someone reads an e-book. No call-waiting, GPS, voicemail...the list goes on! I tend to get inspiration from books (paper), nature, long talks with friends, and, of course, chocolate. But every time, every time, I tune in and read this Girlfriend's blog, I feel uplifted, connected, part of a bigger circle of writers. It's one of the best things on the internet.

Let me tell you why.

My year in review doesn't include book sales, big deals, great press coverage or Oprah (alas). However, I had one great triumph.

Sometime in the beginning of 2011 I got a call from my agent informing me that the second editor for my second novel (in the midst of revisions), had left. I would have a new editor, a third editor, who would take a look at the book.

Well, she took a look. She took a good, long, hard look. I got a 13 page revision letter that terrified me. This book had already been through three major revisions for two editors. The original thought was that it would be published in summer of 2010. It was winter 2011 and the thing had not even been accepted.

I had a long talk with my agents then sent out an email to the members of this blog explaining the situation. The flood of email replies, support, encouragement and wisdom met and exceeded my every need in the situation. In fact, I took it to heart. I rewrote the book--with all my soul.

About two months later, I heard word that the book was accepted! With no revisions! I couldn't believe it, and I could believe it--I really tackled what I thought was impossible. I had been, in fact, ready to give up and return the advance.

It's a bit like Judith Arnold's message to have faith in yourself. It's also a big shout of praise to the members of this blog, the women who write honestly and helpfully and spiritedly about the trials and joys of writing and publishing. Writing can be isolating--connection is a saving grace.

On a humorous note, that editor? The one who, in the end, through her excellent comments, helped bring the book together? She's left too. I'm on to my fourth editor now. And I laughed when I heard the news. Sometimes good things come in packages we don't know we need.

Any unexpected blessings for you in 2011?

Sam Wilde lives in Western Massachusetts where her main occupation involves three small children, lots of diapers, and the occasional novel writing. Her first novel THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME came out in 2009. Her next books will be published by Bantam in December 2012! Visit her at samanthawilde.com.

HOW I GOT HERE by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

2011-12-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

Back in 1999 when I was first trying to sell The Thin Pink Line, I used to get the most glowing rejections from editors - sometimes running to several pages - saying how much they loved the book but that humorous fiction was too hard to sell. One editor even told me that Americans don't like to laugh when they read (!!!). Then Bridget Jones hit, followed by the awful events of 9/11, and suddenly there was a boom of demand in a new subgenre that came to be known as Chick Lit because it turned out that Americans did want and need to laugh. But then publishers did what they always do and overpublished, glutting the market, and then the economy began to tank. By 2008, publishers were basically telling their Chick Lit authors to go away, that no one wanted to hear from Chick Lit anymore. It's true that consumers rarely wanted to pay $15 for paperbacks and $25 for hardcover Chick Lit books in tough economic times, but did the publishing industry really think Americans no longer needed and wanted to laugh?

My last Chick Lit novel - and my last book for adults, period - was published in 2008. It was called Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes. Don't feel bad if you missed it. It was published just as RDI was rolling back their red carpet and I suspect that pretty much everyone in the world missed it! In the three years since, I've mostly devoted my time to writing Young Adult and children's books, because that's what the publishers have been buying from me. Two of my YA books did start out as adult novels - The Twin's Daughter and Little Women and Me - but I ended up revising both into YA, again because that's where the market was for my work.

But it wasn't as if I'd stopped having ideas for adult novels. I'd just stopped trying to get them published.

Then, sometime last year, I got the idea for a new book, one that was clearly a comedy for adults. Based on the story matter, one other thing was clear: Whatever else happened with this book, there'd be no re-tooling of it into YA.

What was that idea? It was for THE BRO-MAGNET, which is officially described thusly:

Women have been known to lament, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride." For Johnny Smith, the problem is, "Always a Best Man, never a groom." At age 33, housepainter Johnny has been Best Man eight times. The ultimate man's man, Johnny loves the Mets, the Jets, his weekly poker game, and the hula girl lamp that hangs over his basement pool table. Johnny has the instant affection of nearly every man he meets, but one thing he doesn't have is a woman to share his life with, and he wants that desperately. When Johnny meets District Attorney Helen Troy, he decides to renounce his bro-magnet ways in order to impress her. With the aid and advice of his friends and family, soon he's transforming his wardrobe, buying throw pillows, ditching the hula girl lamp, getting a cat and even changing his name to the more mature-sounding John. And through it all, he's pretending to have no interest in sports, which Helen claims to abhor. As things heat up with Helen, the questions arise: Will Johnny finally get the girl? And, if he's successful in that pursuit, who will he be now that he's no longer really himself? THE BRO-MAGNET is a rollicking comedic novel about what one man is willing to give up for the sake of love.

But once I'd written it, just what was I going to do with it?

Enter 2011, and the surge of the ebook. Many former Chick Lit authors, including myself, have turned to putting our books in that format, at reasonable prices. And guess what? The readers are still there. You can even see the resurgence of chick-friendly comedies in the film industry with the huge success of The Bridesmaids etc.

Probably the greatest thing about publishing in ebook is all the freedom, the greatest of which is the freedom to change: change the cover if I decide it's not working, change the cover copy, change almost anything. If the book takes off, I can even change the size on the cover of my own ridiculously long and unwieldy name and make it as large as Stephen King has his on his books. (Kidding. Kidding! [But only because it would never fit.])

So there you have it: How I Got Here, which could probably be subtitled And How Many Of You Got Here Too.

Now am I going to turn into one of these people who says, "Traditional publishing sucks; DIY ebooks rule"? Hardly. I'm rarely an absolutist in my opinions, unless they involve wine or General Hospital. Believe me, if any commercial publisher out there wants to offer me a contract for my next adult comedy, I'm happy to listen. But right now I'm just happy to have something to offer the people who do still regularly write and say, "I enjoy your YA stuff...but when will you do another adult novel???" And I hope they'll be happy too.

Your turn: If you've epubbed, how have you enjoyed your experience so far? And if you're a writer who hasn't or if you're just a reader - as if there's ever anything meagerly just about being a reader! - what's been your experience reading ebooks?

Be well. Don't forget to write. Oh, and Happy Hanukkah too!

LOOKING BACKWARD, LOOKING FORWARD

2011-12-19T20:23:00.000-05:00

by Judith Arnold

Janus is the ancient Roman god of beginnings, so it’s appropriate that January—the beginning of a new year—is named after him. However, Janus has two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. The arrival of a new year is an occasion for looking forward, but it’s also an occasion for looking back and assessing the year that has reached its end.

As I was living through the past year, I worried that I wasn’t accomplishing much. Yet when I look back, I realize I accomplished three major things with my writing. Thank you, backward-looking Janus face, for allowing me to see this!

My first accomplishment: I sold my novel, Good-Bye to All That. This sale has a story attached to it. I’d written the book a couple of years ago. My then-agent read about forty pages of it and told me she hated it so much she could not bear to read further. She and I agreed to part ways. I met another agent who asked to read the manuscript. He read it and fell passionately in love with it. He shared it with everyone in his office, and they all loved it, too. I signed with him. He didn’t sell the book. So, early in 2011, I parted ways with his agency, as well.

Within a month, I’d sold Good-Bye to All That on my own. My new publisher is thrilled with the book, which they’ve scheduled for a March 2012 release.

Lesson learned: have faith in yourself.

My second accomplishment: I established myself as an indie-publisher, issuing e-book editions of some of my out-of-print novels. I re-edited each book, struggled with formatting, commissioned new covers, learned how to upload the books to various sales venues, decided the covers weren’t working and commissioned a second set of covers, promoted the books, experimented with marketing strategies and swapped information with other indie-publishers.

There’s a story attached to this project, too. It’s the story of a technophobe who used to fantasize about living in a remote cabin somewhere, pounding out novels on a manual typewriter, mailing them to a publisher and never thinking about them again. Yes, I’ve traded my old cast-iron Remington for a computer, but I still curl into fetal position and whimper whenever it suffers a glitch. Even uploading (or is it downloading?) my blog posts to the Girlfriends Book Club is a challenge for me.

Yet I somehow figured out how to publish my books electronically. After months of crazy-hard work and a learning curve as steep as Mt. Everest, I have managed to make these old books of mine available to a new generation of readers, and I have plans to make more of my out-of-print books available in the new year. Woo-hoo! The Queen of the Technophobes can do this!

Lesson learned: have faith in yourself.

My third accomplishment: I finished writing a book that has been burning inside me since I was—no kidding—twelve years old. I started writing it then, but moved on to other things. I gave it another shot in my twenties, abandoned it and focused on writing plays, then romance novels, then women’s fiction. A few years ago, I tried to start it again, but quit after about thirty pages.

In 2011, I decided the time had come to liberate this book from its cage inside my soul. It’s a story unlike anything I’ve ever written. It’s deep and dark and big, and it fought me every day, every page, every word.

I have no idea if it’s commercially viable or if it will ever mean anything to anyone besides me. I’m not yet ready to show it to an editor or even a friend. But I wrote it, and—to recycle that Mt. Everest metaphor—I climbed to the top of the world and here I now stand, cold, tired, gasping for oxygen but relieved and pretty damned proud.

Lesson learned: have faith in yourself.

My advice to all of you as you step across the threshold into 2012, as you shift from Janus’s backward-looking face to his forward-looking face: Try something new. Don’t be afraid to climb the mountain looming in front of you. If professionals and experts tell you what you’re doing is no good, trust your own judgment, not theirs. Keep going.

Have faith in yourself.

And have a Happy New Year!

Judith Arnold has published more than 85 novels. Her new novel, Good-Bye To All That, is scheduled for March 2012 release, and her indie-published e-books are available at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords, through Backlist eBooks (http://backlistebooks.com) or at her web site (www.juditharnold.com).

The Best Christmas Gift Ever

2011-12-18T21:00:00.012-05:00

by Susan McBride

Christmas tree hand-picked by Mom.

My family moved around a lot when I was growing up (my dad worked for IBM, aka I’ve Been Moved). So every few years, we celebrated the holidays in a different place. My mom was good about keeping up traditions so that Christmas was Christmas, no matter where we lived. Sometime after Thanksgiving, she’d pillage packing boxes marked “Xmas Stuff;” and once she got going, there was no stopping her. The scent of evergreen permeated the house as she wrapped boughs of it tied with red bows up and down the banisters. Other decorations crowded table-tops, bookcases, mantles, and the piano. Mom’s mix was eclectic: an elaborate nativity set from Italy, trees made from tuna cans, sculptural metal angels, and paper-mache snowmen with painted faces. No surface remained free of holiday cheer.

But before any counting down of days ‘til Christmas could commence, we had to do two things: (1) Bake my great-grandmother’s shortbread cookies (that had at least 150 ingredients and all had to be iced in appropriate colors), and (2) Get a fresh tree. The cookie part was almost easy compared to the tree trip. Mom had to bundle up three kids in enough layers to nearly render us immobile then we’d pack into the station wagon, bound for the nearest lot. My dad would grab the first tree he saw and say, “This looks good to me!” Only my mother’s idea of “good” was a wee bit different from his. A half hour and two dozen trees later, my mother would nod and say, “This is it!” She always liked the biggest, fattest balsam that took eons for them to tie atop the car. Once home, Dad stuck the tree in a bucket and prayed the water didn’t freeze overnight. The next day, he’d stuff it into the stand and put the lights on, and Mom would spread the skirt beneath. Ta-da! Let the tree-trimming begin!

Hanging the ornaments was a huge honkin’ deal. My mother made sure the whole family was present before she put out eggnog and placed a holiday album on the stereo. While my sibs and I unearthed equal parts hand-made doo-dads and delicate glass baubles from the tissue stuffed cavities of cardboard boxes, Nat King Cole crooned of chestnuts roasting on an open fire. I loved glass birds with clips for claws so I could stick them on the ends of branches, like they’d flown in and were just resting. I adored silver orbs that reflected every color in the rainbow. But one pair of ornaments remained the most special for years: a burlap man and woman my sister and I had named “Speed” and “Trixie,” after the characters in Speed Racer. Every Christmas, their ink faces rubbed off a little more and their yarn hair disappeared, but Molly and I couldn’t wait to place them on the tree next to one another so they could chat about the latest shenanigans of Spanky and Racer X.

Once the ornaments were up, it was tinsel time! We were tinsel-flinging fools back then. Despite Mom’s instructions to put it on one piece at a time—“like a dripping icicle”—we’d toss fistfuls at the higher branches and see what would stick. By the time we’d finished, our tree looked gaudier than the Vegas Strip.

We had our big family dinner on Christmas Eve (still do!). The menu forever seemed to echo our Thanksgiving meal: turkey, spiral ham, green bean casserole, corn casserole, cranberry mold, and fat black olives that my sister plucked off the garnish tray and stuck on each fingertip like a freaky manicure. After dinner, we opened one present from a far-away relative before we put on our coats to attend Christmas Eve service. I loved to warble with the choir on “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and sit in silent awe as the star vocalist belted out “Ave Maria” and “Oh, Holy Night.” Once home and sleepy, we’d set out cookies and milk for Santa, glance at our empty stockings, and head up to bed. Before I nodded off, I’d listen for reindeer on the rooftop (I swear, one night, I heard them!). At the crack of dawn, I’d awaken and fling on my quilted robe as the rest of the house slowly roused. My dad would bark a reminder not to go downstairs until he had his camera ready.

While Dad played Spielberg and Mom sipped coffee, my siblings and I tore through whatever Santa had brought, usually something like Tonka trucks, games, and trains for Jimmy; stilts, a slide-making kit, and a baseball mitt for Molly; a rock tumbler, dolls, and books for me. Always books. My favorite part of Christmas, once the chaos had ended (and it was always over quickly), was curling up somewhere quiet with Nancy Drew, Black Beauty, or Laura Ingalls Wilder. Bliss!

Much about the holidays has changed since my childhood as my husband and I strive to keep life—and Christmas—simple. We don’t go big on the decorations and often opt for a pint-sized tree (less muss, less fuss). I don’t bake shortbread cookies with 150 ingredients, and I’m not much for turkey. But, as long as I have a pulse, two things will never change: the pleasure of being with family (because, yes, my mom’s still big on fresh trees and decorations!) and the joy of un-wrapping a book. Honestly, was there ever a better gift?

I’d love to know if you have a favorite gift you’ve received, long ago or recently. Was it a book, an E-Z-Bake Oven, an e-reader…or something else entirely?

Susan McBride is the author of Little Black Dress, a Target Recommended Read, and The Cougar Club, a Target Breakout Book. Visit her web site at http://susanmcbride.com/.

** This essay previously appeared elsewhere but was tweaked for its appearance today. I figure recycling is good for the environment, right? Plus, I’m on deadline and WAY behind, which makes it very hard to be clever with fresh blog posts. On top of that, I’ve got pregnancy brain like you wouldn't believe (I’m a little over 12 weeks as of this moment!)—talk about the best Christmas gift ever!

Mistakes Were Made: Authors Confess Their Greatest Career Blunders

2011-12-16T08:07:00.001-05:00

The biggest mistake I've made in my writing career is underestimating the tyranny of marketing.

Christa Allan

The biggest mistake I made was taking my rejections too seriously. I believed if five agents rejected me, there must be a consensus that the book I'd sent them was terrible. I would drop the manuscript and start another. I didn't understand that when you find an agent, and then an editor, it's more like finding a soulmate. They have to fall in LOVE with your work. So what I did in my younger years would have been like having five guys on Match.com not answer my ad, and decide I must need plastic surgery. Silly me. Maybe it was good for my writing, as I do think my first books were weak, but I spent a lot of time feeling unworthy and afraid to call myself a writer, simply because of random people 'passing' on my work.

Sheila Curran

Is this question for everyone or just for me? Oh, everyone. Because I was pretty sure I could max the word-count out all on my own. Biggest mistake? I can only narrow it down to a dead heat of three: 1)Sticking too long with an agent who was as clueless as me. We both needed to move on long before we did. 2) Thinking gusto and a bit of raw talent would get me there. There were some necessary lessons in craft needed in between, which I ended up learning the hard way. 3) I continue to make the mistake of being unable to engage in my own fate. In other words, I really like having a published book. I’m too reluctant to involve myself in things like sales numbers, self-promotion or anything else that might otherwise rock my cushy little world. Those are my biggies. If any girlfriends have advice on the last one, consider me a GBC student today!

Laura Spinella

Biggest mistake? Boy, I’m glad you asked me to narrow it down. Kidding! Hopefully in publishing more goes right than wrong, but these days, I tend to say that thinking a 'two-book contract, at auction' meant more than it did. Let me elaborate: when I got an offer for a two-book deal and was ecstatic that one house wanted not one but two of my works, a person very close to me who knows the business said, "Well, yes, that always sounds good, but if things go wrong, you're stuck in a bad contract, not just for one book but for the other as well." Who wants to hear this, especially as a debut writer? As always, though, my friend offered sage advice. That was in 2007--things were looking fine and dandy then! My first book, PRECIOUS, was published in early 2009, and my second book, EVERYONE BUT YOU, in 2011. Let me tell you, in three-and-a-half years a LOT can happen at any given house. The economy might tank, e-books might cause disruption to traditional publishing models, a house might downsize, an editor might leave or change imprints, people might be fired, et cetera. Generally speaking, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. It's terrible to have a book come out and know that it is already dead in the water. Like so very, very dead in the water. We are not speed writers here, and even the most gallant efforts result in a literary novel once every, what, two years? (Keep your fingers crossed for me on that one!) You want to make sure that each work is getting the maximum benefit in terms of backing. (This still doesn’t guarantee things will go right, but it helps.) I would never let multiple babies go to any one house, editor, and contract anymore unless I felt 200 percent sure they would be taken care of, on all fronts.

--Sandra Novack

There are so many to choose just one! But if you're going to hold a gun to my head, I'll say that I haven't fought enough over certain things. A big example would be book covers. I've had some I've loved and some I liked well enough, but I've also had covers that either didn't serve the book as good as they could have or - even worse - were actually misrepresentations of what's inside the book. It's bad if readers pick up something and expect one kind of read only to discover it's something else entirely. Think about if you went to a restaurant and ordered pizza and you got served lobster instead. You might even love lobster! But it's not what you ordered or wanted or expected on that day. Why haven't I fought harder? There are probably two answers to that: one, I'm cursed with a disposition that wants to "play nice"; two, with more than one book coming out most years, there's never enough time to focus on any one thing for too long. OK, now I'm mad at myself.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The constant self-doubt. We've talked a lot about this on this blog lately, but sometimes the doubt about your writing can be crippling, and lead to long bouts of writer's block. What I'm learning is that it's far better to just keep writing, even if what you write is garbage and needs to be heavily edited later. The thing is to write. I met Jenny Egan at a reading two years ago, and her advice was to keep writing. She said that you have to get out all of the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. I love that advice. It gives you permission to just move forward and keep doing what you love to do. It tells you that the good stuff will come-- you just have to be patient.

-Brenda Janowitz

I made the classic newbie mistake of falling for a scam. I was so eager/frantic/desperate to get an agent, that when one "offered" representation I leapt at it and ignored the red flags. $250.00 later, I had to admit to myself (and friends) that I'd been taken. So, never forget the mantra--reputable agents NEVER ask for money up front.

Judy Larsen

I've always just assumed that making mistakes was an essential part of being a writer. You make mistakes because you've tried something new, you've pushed yourself beyond your limits, you've taken silly chances. How can you grow as a writer if you don't do those things?

That said, I think my biggest mistake was signing a second contract with a publisher when my gut told me not to. I'd completed a three-book contract with them, and I wasn't happy with the way they'd published my books. But they waved a lot of money at me, and my agent urged me to sign another contract with them, so I agreed to a two-book deal. They published those last two books even more incompetently than they had the first three, which threw my career into a tailspin. I love all the five of the novels I wrote for this publisher, but I'll probably never get the rights back to them, which means I'll never see them published the way they should have been.

Judith Arnold

Back in 2003, I had the chance to get my book Learning to Fly featured by Carl Lennertz when he was still running Book Sense. All he needed was buy in - a simple "okay" - from my editor. I sent off a request, and didn't nudge. I should have nudged, because by the time she finally said it was fine with her, Carl had moved on to Harper Collins

April Henry

I'm not sure I can point to my biggest mistake, but I can name my biggest regret: I wish I'd started writing fiction earlier. It's really a tribute to how much I love this job. I spent years as a newspaper reporter, and could have written a novel during my free time (now that I have three young kids and am writing full-time, I know that I actually had a ton of free time back then, despite the fact that I didn't realize it!) So, if I could do things over, I'd have started writing fiction in my twenties instead of my thirties. Of course, sometimes I think that I needed to acquire all of the experiences of my twenties and earlier thirties to begin writing fiction!

Sarah Pekkanen

I could write an entire book on mistakes I’ve made. Certainly there have been several abandoned novels, a few wrong business decisions, but the mistake I’ve made most often is thinking I’m done with a novel when it really needs several more revisions. I get a little too impatient. In between revisions, I need to let a novel cool a while before I touch it again. Also I do a lot more novel planning ahead of time instead of impulsively plunging forward.

Karin Gillespie

Happy Holidays and Scary Writing

2011-12-14T18:10:00.002-05:00

Fa la la la la la la la la! Happy Holidays from NYC!

So, when we started this cycle, it was Halloween. Note: if I'd been scheduled at the start I absolutely would have posted a picture of my dog in her vampire costume; it was from last year when the whole Twilight thing was in full force, though come to think of it, it still might be, but I digress. Back at the start of this cycle, one of the topics was things that scare us about being writers so I was giving that some thought today in advance of my post. At first I was all, I'm brave, I'm adventurous, writing doesn't scare me at all. But then, I thought a little more.

I'm scared of bad reviews. I'm scared of going to goodreads.com and seeing what people are saying about me. I'm scared of the google alert I set up for my name. I'm scared of pissing off everyone at my publishing house when I have cover / cover copy / pub date issues. Because I have those. I'm sacred I'll never think of a next book. I'm scared that people I know (and people I don't know) will read my books and think, wow, she's really weird / off her rocker / a really bad writer. I'm scared it's possible to angst oneself to death.

But then, reading the paragraph I just wrote, and knowing that I still sit down almost every day to write, I'm going to full circle it and say that I (along with every last person in the world who writes) am brave and adventurous, because I think, no, believe, that in order to write, you must be. And also, maybe, a little bit weird / off your rocker, too.

And also, just saying, my books make really great gifts, especially for the dog lover in your life. If you happen to be giving or getting any of my books this holiday season and would like a signed bookplate for it, please just send me an email (alison[at]alisonpace.com) with address and inscription instructions, and into the mail it will go...

Happy Holidays!

Alison

www.alisonpace.com

Reading in The Dark

2011-12-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

I don't know any writers who aren't also voracious readers and that means I read a lot of books. That hasn't changed at all. What has changed is HOW I read.

I've had an iPhone for a while and I assumed for far too long that it was too small to read on. WRONG! As I discovered a couple or three years ago. It was a slippery slope, my friends. Stanza reader, Kindle App, iBookstore.... suddenly I could never be out of reading material because if, for some reason, I'd read all the books in the apps, give me 2-3 clicks and I had a brand new book.

Then I bought an iPad. I'd told my son we'd get one, but an unexpected expense came up that required a different use for the money. A few months later some writing money came in and off we went to the Apple Store. I LOVE reading on the iPad. LOVE it. Since I'm in the process of self-pubbing my reverted backlist and need to view my files in the various readers, I also have a Nook and a Kindle-Fire. I really like the K-Fire's smaller footprint. The Nook is pretty nice, too. I primarily read on the iPad (because the iPad also has Quordy, a word search game I'm addicted to -- because of the sound effects. Lame, but that's how I roll apparently.)

I have a few more confessions before I get around to talking about books I've enjoyed recently. Here's one: I LOVE LOVE LOVE high fantasy. George R.R. Martin? Hook me up to the IV, baby. Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks? Same thing. There is, however, a downside and I can express that in a number: 900. Nine hundred effing pages. Now, I want my high fantasy to be long and involved and you can't do that in a paltry 300 pages. 600 pages? Pshaw! To steal from Romance author Candice Hern, my dears, 600 pages is barely a note in the world of High Fantasy. (Do NOT click on her website if you are a history buff because otherwise you will spend HOURS drooling over pictures of her collection of Regency-era artifacts. Let me just say that she is a serious collector. OMG. Don't click!!!! At least finish my post first okay?)

So, there I was reading a 900 page hardback fantasy ... and I got annoyed. Reading while on the treadmill? Impossible unless I wanted to be under 3mph. Reading in bed? A limited number of positions available. At one point in my reading, my hands started getting numb, I kid you not. Carrying the book around with me to read during breaks, waiting time etc? No. I vowed I would never again buy a 900 page behemoth. And guess what? I don't have to. All those annoyances go away with an eReader. I can fit 100 900 page monsters in my purse.

Promise Not To Laugh?

I read in bed just about every night and 99% of the time it's with the iPad or K-Fire. Recently, a series of unfortunate events forced me to buy a book in paper (more on that in a bit.)

That night, I got into bed with my book, and . . . .

. . . . I turned out the light.

And I lay there for at least 5 seconds, I kid you not, wondering why I couldn't see my book.

Oh. My. Lord.

The iPad and K-Fire are backlit you see. You can read in the dark.

Stop laughing.

In Which Carolyn Is REALLY Annoyed

Judith Ivory is a Romance author whose prose is stunning. Story, plot and characters, complex and full of details that make the characters real. It's hard to believe they weren't going to call on me for tea later in the day. (Ivory, alas, is not currently writing.) Since I'm on deadline, I was desperate to procrastinate and someone blogged about her book Black Silk which is 1) one I hadn't read and 2) one I'd been hearing people lavishly praise for years. Perfect timing, right? I know! The eBook was $9.99. What the Fudge?

The trade paper was marked down to $5.49 from $20 so I bought that. And when that trade paper came, the cover was crooked, front and back. I measured the type to make sure I wasn't wrong. I wasn't. Not only that, the paper was newsprint. I kid you not. A consumer who feels she's been ripped off .... not pretty. I returned the book for a refund and bought a used Mass Market Paperback (MMP) for 5 bucks. I was peeved at not being able to read it as a digital book, which was shocking to me because the MMP is physically convenient. It won't kill your hands and I can be on the treadmill at 3.5 mph or more and still read. But the type was so small and well, basically, it made me realize that E is now my preferred format.

Books

As you might imagine, Ivory's Black Silk is one of my recent recommended reads. For a Romance, it's not particularly romantic, but my Lord, what she does with her words.

There's another book that's a recent read, EL James's Fifty Shades of Gray but it's BDSM (ADULTS ONLY) except I will hasten to say it's absolutely not what you're thinking. Whatever you're thinking? No. You're wrong. The book isn't about that and that doesn't happen. This book surprised me at nearly every turn. I am not a fan of present tense, but in this book it works. There is a paper edition available but it's so outrageously priced ($30.00) they can't possibly be selling many copies in print. It is, however, very reasonably priced as a digital book.

I also read Barry Eisler's The Detachment because I love spy books with killers and lots of fighting and hot Black Ops dudes. Check.

Rachel Herron's My Life In Stitches was a wonderful, wonderful memoir, framed through stories about her knitting. Rush out and buy it.

So, what have you read lately that you liked, loved, hated, or were meh about?

Do you read eBooks? Do you prefer paper? Spill in the comments.

Carolyn Jewel is an award winning writer of historical romance and paranormal romance. Catch Not Wicked Enough, a Regency-set historical romance from Berkley Books, coming February 7, 2012.

All Work and No Play* Makes A Dull Writer by Karin Gillespie

2011-12-13T07:38:00.001-05:00

Have you ever read the work of a young, uncorrupted writer? It’s like venturing into a jungle: Fresh. Green. Wild. Monkeys beating their furry chests. Parrots shrieking. Anacondas curling around trees. A chaos of creativity.

Such a writer is ruled almost entirely by her subconscious. The subconscious—let’s call her Crazy Daisy -- doesn’t know the difference between a gerund and a dangling participle; she only cares about expressing herself. Writing is play not work.

Unfortunately Crazy Daisy, charming as she is, has a problem: Her work meanders like a toddler strewing petals at a wedding: she needs to be reigned in.

Enter Ms. Grind.

Ms. Grind cares about the rules.

She’ll tell Crazy Daisy that a sentence can’t run on for three pages or that exclamation points shouldn’t be showered over a page like pepper. She’s so bossy and judgmental she frightens away Crazy Daisy. Ms. Grind doesn’t care; she doesn’t needs that wild little girl hanging around anyway. Yet when she tries to have fun with her prose, it’s scary like having Dick Cheney ask you to pull his finger. Most of her writing comes out freeze-dried and soulless.

Fact is, all writers are slightly schizophrenic, their mind divided between Crazy Daisy and Ms. Grind. We usually start out dominated by Crazy Daisy but once we immerse ourselves into the sea of endless writing rules, Ms. Grind tends to take over.

Can Crazy Daisy and Ms. Grim live harmoniously in a writer’s head? In other words, is it possible to create prose that’s technically proficient but also has passion, wonder, and playfulness? Yes, but only if you allow Crazy Daisy and Ms Grim to play to their strengths.

New ideas usually come from Crazy Daisy.

You’re talking a walk or daydreaming and suddenly… BAM! You get a great idea. Crazy Daisy, impetuous minx, wants to start writing immediately. It’s like she has a case of diarrhea. You’ll be tempted to run with her. Don’t do it. Stop and take a moment to diaper the little imp.

Believe it or not, it’s time to bring Ms. Grind into the equation—not to shoot down the idea--but to structure it. Ms. Grinds loves outlines and plans and she’s good at them. After a little structure work, she might find that the idea isn’t workable after all. Sadly not all of Crazy Daisy’s ideas are golden. She likes to take risks and some don’t pay off.

In fact, it’s wise to begin with every writing session with Ms. Grind and structure your thoughts when you sit down to write, whether to compose a short scene or a brief essay. You’ll satisfy Ms. Grind and give Crazy Daisy some perimeters. T.S. Elliot summarized this process:

When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its upmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.

Keep Ms. Grind Out of Your First Drafts

Once structure’s in place, time to let Crazy Daisy loose. Allow her to scribble on walls, turn somersaults or eat paste. Sometimes she might break down structural walls and that’s okay too. Ms. Grind, however, isn’t allowed in. Why? Because she’ll keep up a steady stream of inner dialogue that sounds something like this:

That sentence was abysmal. It must be fixed immediately. Can’t you do anything right? Who do you think you are, passing yourself as a writer?

Occasionally Crazy Daisy interjects, bringing flashes of brilliance, but mostly it’s Ms. Grind who stands over the writer, wielding her ruler.

Not surprisingly Ms. Grind doesn’t give up her authority easily. How can you keep her out of your head when you're drafting?

Learn How to Break the Judgment Habit

Most people aren’t aware of the stream of criticism flowing in their mind while they’re writing. Thinking is so fast and transitory; it can be hard to catch Ms. Grind’s endless digs. That why it’s helpful to develop a habit of sitting quietly and meditating for fifteen minutes each day. Ms Grind will no do doubt object saying, “What a ridiculous idea. Do you realize we’re wasting valuable writing time sitting around doing nothing?”

She’s no dummy. Ms. Grind knows that meditation is the best way to access all of Crazy Daisy’s wild brilliance. Meditation helps you to recognize Ms. Grind’s judgmental thoughts, and to ignore them when you’re drafting a piece.

When Crazy Daisy takes over the draft, watch out, because diamonds and gold nuggets will start shooting out of your computer. BEWARE. Don’t pat yourself on the back because that, too, is a judgment and any time you make a judgment, you’re issuing an invitation to Ms. Grind. The time for judgment, positive or negative, is in the re-write. Not now.

Writing will suddenly be fun again and as effortless as letting out a whoop of joy. You’ll find yourself falling in love all over again.

One caveat: Crazy Daisy is very messy.

When you go back to revise, you might be horrified at the results. Yes, the writing was intoxicating but the hangover’s a killer. Ms. Grind will say, “I told you so.” Don’t listen to her. Simply ask her to help you clean it up. She’ll balk at first, saying, “If you left things to me there wouldn’t so much clutter.”

True but neither would there be so much fresh, wild writing. Give it a try and see. It can be a little disorienting. You might not even recognize your own prose. By the way, there’s an easy way to tell which personality dominates your writing. If you love the drafting phase and hate structure and rewriting, Crazy Daisy probably dominates your writing. If you like outlines, loathe the drafting phase and love to polish your prose, you need a T-shirt that says “Team Ms. Grind.”

*If you resisted reading this article, thank Ms.Grind. She’s not interested in articles about making writing fun. It threatens her authority. She much prefers list articles like “Ten Ways To Punch Up Your Dialogue.” They’re useful; this article is a waste of time. Crazy Daisy, indeed.

Karin Gillespie is novelist. Follow her @gillespiekarin.

A Bloodbath at Bedtime by Sarah Pekkanen

2011-12-12T07:44:00.001-05:00

I love a bit of murder at night, when I’m tucked under my cozy quilt with a cup of tea by my side and my dog sprawled across my feet. Don’t get me wrong – it isn’t my husband’s inability to remember to turn out his fluorescent closet light (which shines, annoyingly, right into my eyes as I sit in bed reading) that prompts this desire for homicide within me.

No, I’m talking about the kinds of books I love to read: Thrillers.

There’s an old axiom: write what you know. And another, often contradictory one: write what you love to read.

So in theory, I should be bumping people off and then creating books about it from my prison cell.

But I’m ignoring both of those rules, because I think one of the best things I can do for my own novels is to simply study the structure of a good thriller.

I write women’s commercial fiction and although each of my books is a stand-alone with fresh characters and plots, they are all linked, because they examine different facets of the important relationships in women’s lives. My first book was about sisters, my second about a marriage, and my third, which will be out in April, is about female friendships.

Sounds so organized and well-thought out, doesn’t it? I’m glad I have you fooled. Because when I turned in the very first draft of my first novel to my agent, she telephoned me. And my fast-talking, New York-bred agent seemed, for the first time in her life, at a loss for words. “Um… I mean, I guess I could send it out as a character-based book,” she said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.

“It needs more plot?” I asked, stating the screamingly obvious.

“Yeah,” she said. I thought it was charitable of her not to say, “More? How about just aiming for some?”

That phone call made me realize something: I was frightened of plot. I’m a middle child – a classic people-pleaser. I hate arguments and fights and drama. And so I’d just kind of … left them out of my book.

I knew my agent was right, so I studied a number of books on plotting techniques – my favorites are Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas – and then I began reading thrillers. I haven’t put them down since.

Thrillers have taught me so much about things like micro-tension and foreshadowing and putting your characters into peril, then not giving them a chance to catch their breath before tossing them into a whole new kind of mess. These books, with their jagged-lettered titles and ominously slashed covers, serve as a kind of blueprint for me, laying out techniques that I can adapt into my own novels.

Don’t get me wrong – I love reading women’s fiction, too. And I’m a huge new fan of YA. Memoirs are neat, too.

But the books that have become my equivalent of a little black dress are thrillers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fluorescent bulb to unscrew out of my husband’s closet.

Sarah Pekkanen is the internationally-bestselling author of Skipping a Beat, The Opposite of Me, and the upcoming These Girls. Please visit her website at www.sarahpekkanen.com

It's All About the Characters by Lucy Burdette

2011-12-08T23:00:00.002-05:00

I've always been a huge reader. I tore through the Nancy Drew mysteries, then moved on to my brother's Hardy boys mysteries, gobbling lots of teenage romances in between. I'll give you an example of the kind of detail I remember best. There was a less well known mystery series featuring a nurse named Cherry Ames. Okay, we're talking forty-something years ago and my memory isn't as sharp as it once was, but I remember so clearly the book's title: Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. Cherry was working on a hospital ward and one of her patients reported a fever and chills. She did just what she was supposed to: got a blanket for the sick person and reported the symptoms to the supervisor. Now here's where the facts get fuzzy: I think the supervisor on duty had it in for her and didn't write down what Cherry told her. And later, she got in big, big trouble for failing to report those important symptoms. And now Cherry had a dilemma: Did she rat out the other woman, or take the rap? Isn't it funny how clearly I remember the character's emotional dilemma even though most of the other details about the book have faded?

   And I also remember a romantic series about twin teenaged sisters. I'm certain one of them was named Joby. They both liked the same boy of course and in the end he could only marry one of them. When the single sister went to visit the married twin for the first time, they had a happy evening joking about "their" husband. but that night, the pull-out couch was made into a bed and the newlyweds retreated to their bedroom and shut the door. Oh ouch--i can still feel the pain of the sister who was no longer the center of her twin's universe. (Does this sound familiar--I'd love to know the name?)

   Anyway, I'm just saying, what stays with me after fifty years of reading are the characters and their conflicts.

   As we speak, I am working on my Key West food critic series. These books are mysteries so I understand I need a body. And suspects. And clues. And theories about the murder. But most of all, I'm hoping readers will fall in love with my new character Hayley Snow. I hope they'll feel the shock she does when she sees her ex-boyfriend out at dinner with his new girlfriend. And feel her heart sink when she thinks the job of a lifetime has slipped away. And then want to read the next book in the series and recommend the books to friends. And maybe even remember Hayley in fifty years--now that's what I'd call success!

AN APPETITE FOR MURDER by Lucy Burdette will be published in January 2012 by NAL/Obsidian. Please follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyburdette or join her on facebook or read the first chapter on her website. And best of all, you can certainly pre-order!

Setting intentions

2011-12-08T10:26:00.006-05:00

by Carleen Brice, author of the novels Orange Mint and Honey and Children of the Waters

A good friend of mine says she sets New Year's intentions instead of making New Year's resolutions. She says resolutions seem too goal-oriented. According to this great online article on "The Power of Intention" intentions are a way “'to have in mind a purpose or plan, to direct the mind, to aim'....
By setting an intention, you make it clear to yourself and others, just what you plan to do. Set an intention to redefine what it means to be serious about your dreams."

*I like this idea. With the new year coming up and being in hardcore revision mode I'm thinking again of my writing intentions.

On a blog about writing, it’s easy to focus on the craft of writing: Characters, plot, setting, storytelling. It’s sometimes easy to focus on the business of writing: Do I need an agent? Should I self-publish or not? How do I build my platform? These things are important, and I know I speak for all of us Girlfriends here when I say that we hope we can help you improve your books and your writing careers.

Today, however, I'm hoping to get you to think about what writing means to you, what purpose you want your work to serve for you and for your readers. Being an author offers an amazing opportunity to express ourselves. We have a deep responsibility to get it right, to honor this opportunity, to not waste it or treat it frivolously.

As far as my intentions go, I've been thinking about what deeper things I want from writing and what I hope to give through it. As I finish up this revision on my third novel here are the intentions I'm (again) setting:

I want my writing to be entertaining and interesting. I hope that readers might laugh and cry when they read my books. But I want my writing to mean something more than that too. I want my writing to touch people, to make them feel known and understood, if only for the short time they spend with my characters. I want to make them think, to maybe see things a little differently or at least understand how others might see things a little differently. And maybe I, too, can learn something from all this, can see things a little differently, understand something a little more.

Those are my intentions. What are yours? (Try Flying Wish Paper for a fun way to set your intentions.)

Happy Holidays and happy writing!

*This blog post was inspired by a former post I did on my personal blog.

Writing Around the Distractions by Deborah Blumenthal

2011-12-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

Wisteria is discounting seasonal goodies by fifty percent, Groupon is offering 82 percent off Crunch membership, there’s an amazing French restaurant in the Village where - get this - you can eat for 30 percent off the check on Bloomspot, and wow, there’s a studio apartment that’s having an open house and my daughter's now apartment searching, and on and on and on and exactly how do you stay focused on writing your book when you’re being bombarded by e-mails and distractions, never mind the latest daily offerings on Gilt and One King’s Lane, and omigod, there’s that holiday party coming up and J. Crew has the totally cutest stuff so I'll just take like five minutes and go check out what they have and then, ugh, the laundry is piling up and it’s almost time to take out the dog and my stomach’s starting to growl, so maybe I’ll just get up and have a yogurt, but oh God, I haven’t even glanced at the Times this morning and like what if something major happened and I don’t even have a clue???

It’s harder than ever to stay focused on writing, especially at this time of year, so what do you do?

Close your e-mail, at least for a couple of hours.
Don’t answer the phone. That’s what answering machines are for.
Don’t shop online. I’ll say it again. Don’t shop online. Establish a rule about online shopping, like not between the hours of nine and one and stick to it.

How do you stay focused? Share your secrets!

Deborah's latest young adult novel, THE LIFEGUARD, will be published by Albert Whitman & Co., on March 1.

Verklempt*

2011-12-06T07:37:00.007-05:00

By Ellen Meister

When a new book comes out, we celebrate. It was, after all, a long hard labor and the proud author wants everyone to know about her bouncing baby book.

But what about the paperback release of a book that originally came out in hardcover? It's not a new baby, and not exactly a rebirth. It's more of a transformation, like puberty. And that's not something we celebrate ... or is it?

If you're Jewish, this passage to adulthood is marked with a celebration that can be the biggest one of your life. And so my dear friends and family, I invite you to celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of THE OTHER LIFE ...

I'm very proud of this young lady. She's accomplished so much. Just this past year she was featured on NPR, made several best fiction of the year lists, was selected by the American Booksellers Association for the prestigious Indie Next List and even landed an option with HBO for a TV series.

I hope you'll join the celebration by visiting my website and reading more about my darling girl. Also, I hope you'll sign this party's guestbook by leaving a comment below, because one lucky guest will receive the door prize: a signed copy of THE OTHER LIFE. Just a leave a comment and you're entered in the drawing.

*Verklempt: Yiddish term meaning choked with emotion

-----------------------------------------------

Ellen Meister is the author of three novels, including THE OTHER LIFE. For more information visit her website at ellenmeister.com. You can connect online at facebook.com/EllenMeister.author and twitter.com/EllenMeister.

Reviewing the Situation

2011-12-05T01:00:00.002-05:00

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It's enough to drive you crazy. Admit it, it is.

You know you shouldn't read those Amazon reviews, except, you know, the good ones are SO good, and it's reassuring and heartwarming to see someone you don't even know have such good taste in talking about your book.

So of course, girlfriends, you read 'em.

Then one day, the little number by your book cover says "40" when the day before it said "39." So you know there's a new review.

And, WAAAIT a minit. Your lovely solid five * thing is now edging closer to 4 *. Huh?

My worst, so far, and I'm so sorry if this is someone reading this blog but whatever, was when one review of one of my books said that the bad guy just showed up in last chapter, and no one had heard of him in the rest of the book. That 's just--gasp, it still makes my stomach clench--not true! I mean, its not true in any way, and the bag guy is there front and center from the beginning. So the person could not COULD NOT have read the book. So WHY put up something like that? Don't get me started.

Too late.

Anyway, the good news is I get to introduce you to Catriona McPherson, who is hilarious, brilliant (truly) and a force of nature (pronounce her first name like the force of nature that hit New Orleans). Her new book is...well, hilarious, brilliant and a force of nature.

One starrrrrrrrr, shining in the darkneeeeeeeesssssss . . .

By Catriona McPherson

I know this song. It’s an emetically emotional power ballad. It’s made for So You Think You’ve Got Talent, You Deluded Schmuck. But I can’t remember the title, can’t find it by googling the lyric, so can’t give you a link to a YouTube video. Be grateful.

And besides, I’m not actually blogging about bad songs. I’m blogging about bad reviews. Amazon one stars, you see. This little fella: * . (Wouldn’t Amazon and the One Stars be a great name for a writers’ rock band? Almost as good as Four Hungry Children for a country and western outfit. (I can’t sing or play an instrument, but I can think up band names all day.)

At Bouchercon 2011 in St Louis this year, Colin Cotteril and I got re-acqauainted after meeting once years ago and bonded over the joys and challenges of *, the topic of the panel Colin dreamed up and moderated, to the entertainment of all.

The joy is straightforward enough. Fiction writers are interested in character and the writer of a * usually reveals a lot more about themselves than about the book they’re reviewing.

The challenge is to chart a path from the universe of the special individual who wrote it back to the world where the rest of us live. Endless fun for Colin Cotteril, for me and maybe for you too.

Okay, first off: let’s not talk about * for books that deserve no more. In any merit system, the best books belong at one end and the worst at the other. No one can dispute that. And *'s that start with “I’ve been waiting five weeks and my book hasn’t arrived” are just too sad to contemplate for long. Also, only a churl would take a pop at those poor, beleaguered high-school students being made to write reviews of books their teachers chose. Reading a book is one thing; doing a book isn’t.

No, I want to talk to you about the others; the delicious, moon-howlingly mad *, the * that makes you glad this reviewer doesn’t have a small country to run, the *that makes you hope this reviewer has a curfew or even an ankle-band.

There are some simple algorithms to deal with the most common egregious *s.

1: *from anyone who doesnt know how to use apostrophe’s = three stars.

2: * from anyone who thinks “loser” has two “o”s = four stars

3: *from anyone who thinks “boring” has five “o”s = five stars

And so, just as you can convince yourself that you have a diet so healthy that you make Michael Pollan look like Homer Simpson – because food you eat in the car, in other people’s houses, or standing up in front of the fridge doesn’t count – you can convince yourself that you have never actually had a legitimate *. Or I can anyway.

If you read enough of these things, you start to see other patterns too, more subtle patterns, but they’re there.

There are the Petulant Huffs. They can be paraphrased as: “I ordered a unit of stock from this writer and it was not exactly what I was expecting. This is an outrage. Get back to your computer and read my mind with a bit more attention next time, you provider of inadequate service, you!”

I get that a tube of Pringles should be a tube of Pringles and if you crack one open to find the best peanut brittle of your life you might still be miffed. But novels aren’t extruded product. A * Petulant Huff is a four star to me.

Another favourite type are the Cynical Drawls. They go like this: “McPherson (for instance) is copying a better writer/ Grafton had a deadline looming and phoned it in/Evanovich is tired of the series and can’t be bothered any more/Rowling has made her millions and couldn’t care less now. “

I’ve never met a writer who wasn’t in it up to her (or his) neck, deeply involved with her characters, acutely aware that every time you publish a novel you’re cracking open your ribcage, pinning back the flesh of your chest and letting the world see, and judge, your beating heart.

So a * Cynical Drawl is a four star from where I’m looking.

And then there are the one-offs. The randomly hilarious reviews. They light up my day so brightly, I’d rather have them with their bonkers * than a saner five-star any day. Especially delectable is when you hit a patch of them around one innocent little book. The world’s more fun for knowing that someone reviewed How to Make an American Quilt and complained, apparently without irony, that it seemed fragmented. “Fragmented.” “Quilt.” She read over her review, saw these two words close together in the same sentence and . . . nope, nothing.

And when I went looking for this review again (it’s an old favourite) I found another * of the same book that was even better. And I quote:

“This Book is horrible! If you're thinking of buying it, don't. There's hardly anything in it about Finn, the main character.Plus it has instructions on how to make a quilt! How stupid is that! If I wanted to know how to make a quilt I would buy a book about quilting, not a book about a movie.”

“ A book about a movie.” I’m happy to be alive.

Now, for budding * fans, a couple of pointers about how to find the juicy ones.

Stephen King is one of my favourite writers. His fan-base has, at its far opposite edges, Group A. devotees of his earlier, horribler novels (I think of these readers (unfairly) as Comic Book Guy) who loathe his later, messier stuff and Group B. readers who love his characters and his towns and his big, warm heart and think he’s getting better and better (and kind of wish he’d do one without any BOO!, just to see what happens).

So Comic Book Guy is giving King a lot of * these days. Here’s a good one of Lisey’s Story, with a smidge of Petulant Huff and a pinch of Cynical Drawl too.

“As a trucker I rent a lot of books and generally grab up any Stephen King reads because his books really help me chew up the miles on long hauls.

Like others have said...I too couldn't finish it. In fact after renting it for around $12 (Unabridged) I turned it back in after only getting part way through disk 4 of about a 12 disk set. . . . Some like romance novels, but when I pick up Stephen King I expect to be entertained. This book up to disk 4 was just a rambling mush fest. This has such a strong female flavor of romance to it that I can't help wonder if it wasn't Stephen King's wife who wrote it, and they slapped his name on it for marketing.”

I can’t remember how many times I’ve written a book and given to my husband to put out under his name, can you? Well, it’s the wifely thing to do.

Or you can go straight to the top.

Pride and Prejudice has 55 *s on Amazon.com as I write. Half of them are complaining about the price, the quality of the CDs, the kindle edit or, in one case, the paper quality. And some of them are from poor high school kids being tortured by their teachers. But others are gems indeed. Take this one:

“I am so disappointed. Being a fan of classic literature I was looking forward to reading Pride & Prejudice. But what I got was moderately-well written chick lit. Think of Pride and Prejudice as the Bridgit Jones of the 18th Century.”

And while you’re at it, think of Romeo and Juliet as the West-Side Story of Renaissance Verona. Think of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as the Nutty Professor of Victorian London.

Think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the older brother of The Young Frankenstein, and pause to wonder why she wrote a book about a movie.

*************Catriona McPherson is a recovering academic and the author of six novels set in Scotland in the 1920s, featuring the gently-born but nevertheless pretty kick-ass private detective, Dandy Gilver. (Hank says: It's kind of Upstairs, Downstairs meets Nora Charles.)

St Martin's Press have just launched the series in the US with The Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. A year ago, Catriona left a ramshackle farm in a beautiful valley in southern Scotland, and now lives on a ramshackle farm in a beautiful valley in northern California. Cantaloupe instead of rutabaga - otherwise business as usual.
Twitter @CatrionaMcP.

How to Eat an Elephant

2011-12-02T05:05:00.003-05:00

By Therese Fowler

As we all know, life is filled with adversity and misfortune. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and the number of opportunities for success always seems to be shrinking, and the price for a Starbucks frappuccino is just too damn high (let's not even talk about the calorie count for same).

On the other hand, life never fails to serve up success stories. Bill Gates drops out of Harvard and becomes not a barista (though there's nothing wrong with baristas) but a billionaire philanthropist. Oprah Winfrey is born in poverty and suffers sexual abuse as a young woman, and becomes becomes not a barista (though there's nothing wrong with baristas) but a billionaire philanthropist.

There are endless examples, big and small, of people who overcame obstacles and achieved significant goals of every kind. But when you're the one who's miserable, it can be really difficult to even see your goal, let alone pursue it. When I was a newly single thirty-year-old mother of two little boys, for example, it was all I could do to juggle their needs and schedules with my job and my debts--I was mostly just trying to avoid catastrophic failure.

And yet, three and a half years later, I graduated from NCSU at the top of my class. Five years after that, I completed my master's degree. A year after that, I sold my debut novel at auction and in almost a dozen countries besides. Now, I'm a billionaire philanthropist.

Okay, I'm not a billionaire, and my philanthropy is very modest in comparison to even the poorest billionaire's. Even so, I count myself among those who have overcome obstacles and found success. It's just a matter of scale.

A friend of mine who's forty-one years old and mom to two adorable young children was recently diagnosed with a very ugly, very aggressive cancer, stage IV when it was discovered. In between her first surgery and her most recent one, she endured chemotherapy and ran a half-marathon. She has been publicly scared and publicly brave, often at the same time. If anyone can beat this cancer, she'll be the one to do it.

I hope you never find yourself anyplace so fraught. If you do, though, it might help to remember that even if you're not hungry, you can eat an entire elephant one bite at a time.

(This is, of course, a figurative elephant. Don't hate on me about animal cruelty and such.)

1. Own your misery. That is, identify and accept whatever your circumstances may be. You have to know where you're starting before you can figure out where you want/need to go.

2. Consider your immediate options. My thirty-year-old self didn't aim to be a novelist; I simply wanted to climb out of the hole I was in. Going back to college was the first step towards that end.

3. When it comes to taking the first (and subsequent) step, never ask "why should I...?" but rather ask "why shouldn't I...?" Why shouldn't I earn a college degree? Why shouldn't I become a working writer? Why shouldn't I get on a plane last-minute and go to Miami for a week-long writing retreat? (This last is for me: I'll be doing exactly that in a few hours--so forgive me for not replying to comments until tonight.)

4. Own your mistakes. You will make mistakes, choose poorly, suffer setbacks. These are learning experiences.

5. Reset your goals as needed. (See #4.)

6. Fortify yourself. Read success stories. Eat healthier. Try to exercise a minimum of twenty minutes, twice a week. The journey may be a long, difficult one, so you need to be able to stay the course.

7. Reward yourself often, in small ways. Frappuccinos are delicious, and taken in moderation can actually be good for you--and the baristas who make them are usually lovely, sociable people. Who need money. Tip well.

8. Don't quit.

9. See #8

10. Share the wealth. Once you've made it to your goal, tell your story so that you can help those who are at #1 get to #10. We all need support, we need inspiration, we need to see that although the elephant is eighty times our size, we can eat the whole thing--and not gain weight, which would require us to give up frappuccinos.

__________________________________________

Therese Fowler is the author of three novels: Souvenir; Reunion; and Exposure. She is hoping to see HGTV's David Bromstad in person while in Miami, as his first-ever art exhibit is taking place in her hotel.