Fiction Comes Home to Roost: Making up with the Neighbors by Ellyn Oaksmith

Setting: my cul-de-sac

For me setting is the bird’s next outside my house. Inside the bird warms her eggs, waits to hatch a living thing and watches the world go by. What came first, the setting or the plot? 

Coming from a screenwriting background, plot is king. Screenwriters live and die by the 30 second pitch: “Snakes on a plane!” “Husband and wife assasins!” Laugh all you want but those screenwriters are working today.

My current title, Divine Moves takes place in my own neighborhood, something I've never done. The plot involves infidelity, drug use, snotty teens, a kid possibly setting something very expensive on fire (rhymes with Hercedes) and yes, a stripping grandmother who teaches a grandchild to pole dance. Luckily I have neighbors with a good sense of humor who enjoy my books. 

What I wanted to write was a compilation of every quirky suburban family drama that interested me. But I couldn’t see any other way than to stick it in my own cul-de-sac. In reality we are incredibly supportive, adore each others’ children and celebrate with wine at the drop of a hat. What I found interesting was to throw a grenade into my fictional world (inspired by reality in tone only) and see where the pieces fell.

Did it work? Most people, including my neighbors have found the book to be engaging because the characters felt real and their problems — the tension between public and private and how we deal with failure, is real. At the same time I worked very hard to keep it light. Laughter isn’t the best medicine, it is the only medicine.

And it’s the only way I know how to write.

Thanks for stopping by. This is my first post so I’d like to say thank you to my fellow writers for inviting me. I’m so excited to be part of The Girlfriends Book Club!

A native of Seattle and graduate of Smith College, Ellyn financed her MFA at The American Film Institute by working as a cook on fishing boats in Alaska. After several years as a screenwriter, Ellyn came to her senses and returned to Seattle, where she wrote her first novel, Adventures with Max and Louise, which was pubished in 2012. Her second novel, Divine Moves, was published the following year. She's polishing her third novel, Fifty Acts of Kindness and outlining her first YA novel, Finding Nirvana.

When she can find the right mix of humor, depression and hysteria, she'll write about her years in Los Angeles.

She lives near Seattle with her family and a shelter dog.

For writing news, sneak peeks at new projects and her blog, visit www.EllynOaksmith.com

Wanted: Tall, Dark & Handsome Man to Sell My Book by Lori L. Tharps

Hi Girlfriends,

I don't have trunk novel. But I have a good story about a story of mine that never sold. Well, it wasn't really a story as much as it was an idea and that's why it never sold. Here's what happened.

I was young and idealistic when my first book, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America came out in 2001. I co-wrote the book with a friend and we were so proud of ourselves. Hair Story is a cultural history of Black people's hair in the United States. Slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, Reganomics. We re-visit them all through the lens of Black hair. The book got rave reviews and even though I was six months pregnant when the book hit store shelves, my co-author and I hit the road to promote it, hitting at least 10 cities before my son was born.

Considering our publisher only prepared for a modest first print run, we sold out of our first printing rather quickly, but that didn't mean we hit any bestseller lists. We knew our book was good. And important. But it wasn't sexy. No, sexy books at the time were being written by a lot of men. I was working at Entertainment Weekly magazine at the time, and I even wrote an article about this trend of men being able to write even the crappiest pieces of fiction and women would buy it. It was infuriating. At one book event my co-author and I attended, we were seated at a table next to a famous male author who had just come out with yet another one of his bestselling books. Another sexy romantic thriller. Yawn! Six people came over to our booth to inquire about Hair Story. Six hundred women lined up to see Sexy Author Man. And that's when we hatched our plan.

My co-author and I decided we could probably write something at the same level as these upstart male romance writers. We figured we could probably do even better. But we knew that even if the writing was just as good, we wouldn't get the same play as a hunky dude. So, rather than sit down and plot out our story line, we went through our contact lists to see which one of our guy friends could we convince to pose as the author of the book we were going to write. We planned the photo shoot for his author photo (We decided on bare-chested with a beach background), how we'd prep him for the book tour, and of course we calculated just how much we'd have to pay him to be us. That was the tricky part. But my co-author was friends with a wanna-be actor who also happened to be ridiculously good-looking and we thought he might just do it for the experience. And maybe a nice dinner.

We were giddy with the idea. So sure that it would work. And we consoled ourselves by saying that we were only doing this for the money. It was a necessary evil. Then we could then write the important books we really wanted to be working on instead. Plus, we would be proving that the literary industry was just as sexist as the rest of the world. Did I mention that both me and my co-author went to women's colleges?

Anyway, my dear girlfriends, here's what happened. Nothing. After we found our fake hunky author, my co-author and I realized we really had nothing we wanted to write about. Every time we tried to sit down and spit out this easy, breezy novel, we came up blank. Eventually, the idea fizzled, and our fake author moved to Switzerland and got married. Moral of the story? Writing for money will never get you through to the finish line? Cheaters never win? No, I think the moral of that story is just that we should have tried harder and we'd probably be rich today. After all, it worked for Richard Castle. Yes, a fictional character from an ABC TV show is writing New York Times Bestselling books. What's the secret to his success?

Decent story + Good looking guy pretending to be the author = Multi-book Deal.

Live and learn. Live and learn.

Lori L. Tharps is the author of the novel, Substitute Me. She blogs regularly about parenting and pop culture at myamericanmeltingpot.com