by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
If you look around the internet, you can find a variety of definitions for 'antihero' or 'antiheroine,' some of which are rather involved. For simplicity's sake, I'll go with the one from Webster's Eleventh: "a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities." There. That sounds like a good person to hang out with, doesn't it?
Hanging out with characters in books - for some readers, that's what it's all about. You'll hear certain readers say, upon occasion, "I couldn't stand X book because I hated the main character." Just like some readers don't like books written in first person or don't like books written in present tense - or the opposites of those things, or any number of variables - there are readers for whom, unless the protagonist is someone they can cozy up to, someone they'd want to be friends with or even emulate, all is lost. It's valid. Hey, it's important for people to know what they want in books and there are times when the lack of likability in a main character is problematic for even those of us who don't mind or even embrace unheroic characters; some stories, after all, depend on reader sympathy to work.
Of course, if we made likability the sole criteria for protagonists and their books' worth, some pretty notable characters would need to be thrown out, Scarlett O'Hara and Ebenezer Scrooge among them - the former is a self-absorbed witch-with-a-B, while the latter is the Grinch in a top hat.
But for those of us who like variety, in our reading and our writing, thankfully there are those who embrace the antiheroic.
I've written more than my share of problematic characters in my time and none more so than Jane Taylor from my debut novel, THE THIN PINK LINE. At the beginning of the novel, Jane thinks she's pregnant. When she experiences positive reinforcement for this from others, and when her live-in boyfriend doesn't seem too bothered, she's thrilled. So when it turns out she's not pregnant, not wanting to lose the feelings she's found, she figures she'll just get pregnant...quickly. And when that doesn't happen in time, and for one reason and another, she decides to, oh, you know, fake an entire pregnancy.
OK, I admit it: Jane is spectacularly antiheroic. In fact, she's the most self-absorbed, misguided, borderline-sociopathic character I've ever created.
And yet, for some - by no means all! - readers, she works. Yes, for those who insist on likability, she's never going to work, despite some authorial sleight of hand: 1) shifting the mirrors, so that her family's even worse than she is and her coworkers aren't much better; 2) investing her with a best friend who readers do love and who loves Jane unconditionally, despite that he's the only one who sees all her warts clearly, knowing her better than she even knows herself.
I didn't create Jane Taylor so that people would want her to move next door to them. I didn't create her so she'd give readers a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. And I certainly didn't create her so that anyone would try to emulate her by trying on a fake pregnancy of their own. I created Jane Taylor because I thought she was interesting, also because I thought it would be fascinating for me to see just how she manages to pull off - if she manages to pull off! - the insane task she's set herself.
Because that's the thing, isn't it? For those of us who don't mind problematic protagonists? Sure, it's nice if some protagonists are heroic. But not everyone has to be a role model. In the end, as a reader, I simply want characters who are interesting. I simply don't want to be bored.
If you want to check out just how crazy Jane is, so you can judge for yourself, for the next 24-hours-ish, THE THIN PINK LINE is just 99 cents!
So, how about you? Who's your favorite antihero/heroine?
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 30 books for adults, teens and children. Visit her at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
Showing posts with label Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Cats v. Dogs; or How's a Person Supposed to Make Money at This?
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
I've discussed this in my own fiction more than once, the difference between cats and dogs as I see it. Leave a cat home alone for a week with sufficient food and water, the cat will gauge what is in the bowls and then spread it out, knowing it's got to last until you walk through that door again. When you come home, there will still be some food and water remaining. But try the same thing with a dog? (Not that I have, so this is pure hypothesis, although I think you'll agree.) The dog will eat the week's worth of food immediately, throw up, and then starve.
There's a point in all this, of course. In order to survive as a writer, unless you're one of the very lucky few, you need to be more like a cat. You need to be able to look at an advance check, however large some of them may seem at first, and say: OK, this has got to last me until some more money walks through that door.
Some writers, and sometimes through no fault of their own, never do sell a second book. Or if they do, it takes a long time. I once knew a writer who received a $500K advance for Book 1. You'd think that would set anyone up for a while but this writer did not listen to the wisdom of T. Coraghessan Boyle, which states: When you make that first sale, don't go out and buy the big house. But the writer did buy the big house. And then the bad thing happened. The publisher, having been so excited when they acquired the book - hey, they paid $500K for it! - found a shiny new object, a book that excited them more, a book they paid more money for. So the writer got zero marketing attention, the book predictably underperformed, and it was years before a second book could be sold. So what could the writer have done differently? Been more of a cat, less of a dog.
In terms of my own career, the way I've made it last since 2003 is two ways:
1) Diversification. On only a few of my individual books have I received anything close to what might constitute a year's salary. So I diversify. I write for different age groups. I write in different genres. This way, rather than needing to adhere to the publishing rule of just one book per year, because otherwise you'll saturate your market, I'm able to have multiple books come out per year. (I realize that these days, with ebooks, for some people some of this is moot. There are many authors releasing several ebooks per year in a single genre and some are even making good money that way. But truthfully, while I've released some ebooks, I have failed to take off in that field.)
2) Supplementing my income with other work I love. I'm fortunate enough to have strong grammar skills and a good editorial eye. This means that during lean times, I take in freelance editing work to help keep the bills paid. It's no great hardship. In fact, there's little that I find more satisfying than looking at a manuscript, seeing the potential there, advising the author on how to take it to the next level...and then seeing that happen. Sometimes I think that if I'd realized at a younger age just how much I love editing, I'd have been riding that train to New York all this time instead of trying to sell to New York.
No one should ever feel sorry for me. For a decade now, I've made a living - with a little help from my editing mind - doing what I love to do: writing. And it's been no hardship writing in multiple genres, because I love taking on new writing challenges and letting my creativity range free. But the thing that's helped me stay financially alive in this crazy business, some years just barely? I'm a cat.
So how about you? What do you so to keep it all going?
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 32 books for adults, teens and children. Visit her at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
I've discussed this in my own fiction more than once, the difference between cats and dogs as I see it. Leave a cat home alone for a week with sufficient food and water, the cat will gauge what is in the bowls and then spread it out, knowing it's got to last until you walk through that door again. When you come home, there will still be some food and water remaining. But try the same thing with a dog? (Not that I have, so this is pure hypothesis, although I think you'll agree.) The dog will eat the week's worth of food immediately, throw up, and then starve.
There's a point in all this, of course. In order to survive as a writer, unless you're one of the very lucky few, you need to be more like a cat. You need to be able to look at an advance check, however large some of them may seem at first, and say: OK, this has got to last me until some more money walks through that door.
Some writers, and sometimes through no fault of their own, never do sell a second book. Or if they do, it takes a long time. I once knew a writer who received a $500K advance for Book 1. You'd think that would set anyone up for a while but this writer did not listen to the wisdom of T. Coraghessan Boyle, which states: When you make that first sale, don't go out and buy the big house. But the writer did buy the big house. And then the bad thing happened. The publisher, having been so excited when they acquired the book - hey, they paid $500K for it! - found a shiny new object, a book that excited them more, a book they paid more money for. So the writer got zero marketing attention, the book predictably underperformed, and it was years before a second book could be sold. So what could the writer have done differently? Been more of a cat, less of a dog.
In terms of my own career, the way I've made it last since 2003 is two ways:
1) Diversification. On only a few of my individual books have I received anything close to what might constitute a year's salary. So I diversify. I write for different age groups. I write in different genres. This way, rather than needing to adhere to the publishing rule of just one book per year, because otherwise you'll saturate your market, I'm able to have multiple books come out per year. (I realize that these days, with ebooks, for some people some of this is moot. There are many authors releasing several ebooks per year in a single genre and some are even making good money that way. But truthfully, while I've released some ebooks, I have failed to take off in that field.)
2) Supplementing my income with other work I love. I'm fortunate enough to have strong grammar skills and a good editorial eye. This means that during lean times, I take in freelance editing work to help keep the bills paid. It's no great hardship. In fact, there's little that I find more satisfying than looking at a manuscript, seeing the potential there, advising the author on how to take it to the next level...and then seeing that happen. Sometimes I think that if I'd realized at a younger age just how much I love editing, I'd have been riding that train to New York all this time instead of trying to sell to New York.
No one should ever feel sorry for me. For a decade now, I've made a living - with a little help from my editing mind - doing what I love to do: writing. And it's been no hardship writing in multiple genres, because I love taking on new writing challenges and letting my creativity range free. But the thing that's helped me stay financially alive in this crazy business, some years just barely? I'm a cat.
So how about you? What do you so to keep it all going?
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 32 books for adults, teens and children. Visit her at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
Monday, June 17, 2013
REINVENTING LAUREN
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
The theme at GBC this cycle is reinvention.
My debut novel, The Thin Pink Line, came out a decade ago next month. Since it was published by Red Dress Ink, it was immediately categorized as Chick Lit, as were the next few books I had published.
In September of 2006, a different book was published by a different publisher, Vertigo, a dark Victorian suspense novel. It had only a few arch moments in it, nothing like the madcap comedies that I was in the process of completing five of for RDI, and the overall tone could best be characterized as one of impending doom.
Later in 2006, Simon and Scuster published an earnest novel of mine called Angel's Choice, about a teen who becomes pregnant in her final year of high school. I hadn't set out to write a YA novel when I first got the idea, but it turned out that's what I'd created, and so I broke into the YA market. More YA books would follow over the next several years, no two alike: a revisioning of a classic fairy tale, a comedic mystery, a slender comedy-drama about a Victorian girl who wants a decent education, a Victorian murder mystery and, oh yes, a time travel story.
In march of 2008, my first middle grade novel was published by S&S, Me In Between, about a generously endowed girl who's conflicted about her physical attributes. At the end of that year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published the first two of the nine books that comprise The Sisters 8, a series for young readers that I created with my husband and daughter.
Oh, and in 2011, I started going the ebook route with several new books for adults, no two of them sharing anything in common save for The Bro-Magnet and its sequel, Isn't it Bromantic?
Was there ever any intent, in all this industriousness, to reinvent myself? No, nor am I sure I ever have. I've only ever suceeded in following the ideas that have excited me, trying my hardest to produce the best individual book I can for readers. There's no one area I've ever stuck with to the exclusion of all else. I am something of a publishing nightmare, the opposite of a brandable author. In fact, the only brand I have is my improbable name.
I think, sometimes, that the only way I could truly revinvent myself would be if I were to change that name. More than a few author friends, tired of the tyranny of sales track records, have done that, some to great success.
So, what do you think? Do I need a reinvention? And if I ever change my name, what should it be to?
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 30 books for adults, teens and children. You can read more about her life and work at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
The theme at GBC this cycle is reinvention.
My debut novel, The Thin Pink Line, came out a decade ago next month. Since it was published by Red Dress Ink, it was immediately categorized as Chick Lit, as were the next few books I had published.
In September of 2006, a different book was published by a different publisher, Vertigo, a dark Victorian suspense novel. It had only a few arch moments in it, nothing like the madcap comedies that I was in the process of completing five of for RDI, and the overall tone could best be characterized as one of impending doom.
Later in 2006, Simon and Scuster published an earnest novel of mine called Angel's Choice, about a teen who becomes pregnant in her final year of high school. I hadn't set out to write a YA novel when I first got the idea, but it turned out that's what I'd created, and so I broke into the YA market. More YA books would follow over the next several years, no two alike: a revisioning of a classic fairy tale, a comedic mystery, a slender comedy-drama about a Victorian girl who wants a decent education, a Victorian murder mystery and, oh yes, a time travel story.
In march of 2008, my first middle grade novel was published by S&S, Me In Between, about a generously endowed girl who's conflicted about her physical attributes. At the end of that year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published the first two of the nine books that comprise The Sisters 8, a series for young readers that I created with my husband and daughter.
Oh, and in 2011, I started going the ebook route with several new books for adults, no two of them sharing anything in common save for The Bro-Magnet and its sequel, Isn't it Bromantic?
Was there ever any intent, in all this industriousness, to reinvent myself? No, nor am I sure I ever have. I've only ever suceeded in following the ideas that have excited me, trying my hardest to produce the best individual book I can for readers. There's no one area I've ever stuck with to the exclusion of all else. I am something of a publishing nightmare, the opposite of a brandable author. In fact, the only brand I have is my improbable name.
I think, sometimes, that the only way I could truly revinvent myself would be if I were to change that name. More than a few author friends, tired of the tyranny of sales track records, have done that, some to great success.
So, what do you think? Do I need a reinvention? And if I ever change my name, what should it be to?
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 30 books for adults, teens and children. You can read more about her life and work at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
Sunday, April 28, 2013
The Right Words at the Right Time
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
This cycle's theme at GBC is in the title of this post. For my entry, I'm going to focus on the right words I said, because I'm lazy and it's easy.
Any time I get asked in an interview to give advice to other writers, I always say the same thing. First, I say that you must read, read, read everything you can get your hands on, because you can't be a good writer if you're not a great reader. And then I say to always remember:
The only person who can ever really take you out of the game is you.
I've said it countless times. It's one of the truest things I know.
Sometimes I'll hear from writers who will say those words spoke to them. The most memorable instance was at a writing conference. A woman came up to me and said she'd been writing book after book, trying to get published for 20 years. Let me say that again: 20 years. "In my darkest hours, I'd remember what you said and, somehow, I'd keep going. And now my book is going to be published by a New York publishing company."
In a career with many great joys - and many agonies! - that stands as one of my proudest moments.
And the thing is: those words are true. Most writing careers are peppered with other people saying some version of "no." Agents reject you, or maybe you get an agent but they drop you; publishers reject your book, or you sell one book but can't seem to sell another - there are myriad ways others say "No." But no one can tell you: No, you can't do this anymore; you have to stop trying; you have to stop writing. People can say, "You can't play with me," but no one else can say you can't play. Only you can do that.
So, you want to write? Then write. Maybe people will say no to you. Maybe they'll say no for 20 years. But no matter what anyone else says, if you want to write, then just keep writing. Because it's true today and it'll be true tomorrow, because it's always been true:
The only person who can ever really take you out of the game is you.
I'm sure my GBC sisters will be reluctant to post their own "right words" in the comments - they'll likely want to save those for their own posting days! - but feel free to do so if you'd like or tell me about anything else good and inspiring, even share good news if you have it.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 32 books. Her most recent pet project is THE DISRESPECTFUL INTERVIEWER: THIRTEEN INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHORS. Check her out at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter at @LaurenBaratzL
This cycle's theme at GBC is in the title of this post. For my entry, I'm going to focus on the right words I said, because I'm lazy and it's easy.
Any time I get asked in an interview to give advice to other writers, I always say the same thing. First, I say that you must read, read, read everything you can get your hands on, because you can't be a good writer if you're not a great reader. And then I say to always remember:
The only person who can ever really take you out of the game is you.
I've said it countless times. It's one of the truest things I know.
Sometimes I'll hear from writers who will say those words spoke to them. The most memorable instance was at a writing conference. A woman came up to me and said she'd been writing book after book, trying to get published for 20 years. Let me say that again: 20 years. "In my darkest hours, I'd remember what you said and, somehow, I'd keep going. And now my book is going to be published by a New York publishing company."
In a career with many great joys - and many agonies! - that stands as one of my proudest moments.
And the thing is: those words are true. Most writing careers are peppered with other people saying some version of "no." Agents reject you, or maybe you get an agent but they drop you; publishers reject your book, or you sell one book but can't seem to sell another - there are myriad ways others say "No." But no one can tell you: No, you can't do this anymore; you have to stop trying; you have to stop writing. People can say, "You can't play with me," but no one else can say you can't play. Only you can do that.
So, you want to write? Then write. Maybe people will say no to you. Maybe they'll say no for 20 years. But no matter what anyone else says, if you want to write, then just keep writing. Because it's true today and it'll be true tomorrow, because it's always been true:
The only person who can ever really take you out of the game is you.
I'm sure my GBC sisters will be reluctant to post their own "right words" in the comments - they'll likely want to save those for their own posting days! - but feel free to do so if you'd like or tell me about anything else good and inspiring, even share good news if you have it.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 32 books. Her most recent pet project is THE DISRESPECTFUL INTERVIEWER: THIRTEEN INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHORS. Check her out at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter at @LaurenBaratzL
Monday, March 11, 2013
Spring Fling: March Madness
By Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Some writers make an annual rite of doing NaNo in November. Some make New Year's Eve resolutions to start a new book the next day, much like others resolve to lose that last 10 pounds. Me, I get a little crazy in March.
The first time I engaged in my own version of March Madness was in 2004. I got an idea for a novel about a writer who, after living out in L.A. for 10-ish years, returns to Danbury, CT, to care for her ailing father. Once home, she meets a charismatic window washer who may or may not be Zorro. The book was to be a seriocomic contemporary re-visioning of The Great Gatsby. I was so in love with my own creation - the Zorro character, at least - that I whipped through the first draft in 24 days. March wasn't even over and already I had a book - the fastest in my life that I'd ever completed my stupid pet trick of writing a novel. Of course, I didn't sell or publish it right away. Instead, it remained on my hard drive for years as I went through several rounds of revisions on it. Finally, I released that book last year as Z: A Novel.
In succeeding years, March became my go-to month for manic productivity. Last year during that month, I wrote the first draft of a middle grade novel about a Dennis the Menace type character who misundestands a conversation his family has about him, leading to disastrous - and hopefully funny - results. That book was Robbie Knightley.
I'm not much given to introspection about this quirky spring habit of mine. I mean, really, when you think about it, it makes no sense. January and February are more traditionally cold months where I live in CT. Common semse dictates that's when I should hole up and ignore the world. But March? March is when I should be outside enjoying the early warm days, the later sunsets, and cracking open the first bottles of the season of Prosecco. OK, I still do that last part, no matter what, meaning as soon as I hit Publish on this piece, well, you know where I'll be. But mostly this month will find me shackled to my computer, trying to squeeze as much creative work as I can out of my brain and my heart.
I think now, as I write this, that it isn't March at all that prompts this in me. Rather, it's the impending advent of summer. Before too many days pass - days that speed by more quickly with each year I spend on this swiftly tilting planet - summer will start rushing at me with alarming speed. Summer means my daughter being off from school. One of the nice things about having kids later is that you appreciate how little time you actually get with them living under your roof; how, before you can blink, they'll be off living on their own. So I guess I write faster in March so that maybe, maybe, when summer comes, I can work just a little less.
So how about you: Is there any month that seems to be your most productive? Or, whether writing or something else, got any March Madness indulgences to confess?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 31 books for adults, teens and children. You can read more about her life and books at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
Some writers make an annual rite of doing NaNo in November. Some make New Year's Eve resolutions to start a new book the next day, much like others resolve to lose that last 10 pounds. Me, I get a little crazy in March.
The first time I engaged in my own version of March Madness was in 2004. I got an idea for a novel about a writer who, after living out in L.A. for 10-ish years, returns to Danbury, CT, to care for her ailing father. Once home, she meets a charismatic window washer who may or may not be Zorro. The book was to be a seriocomic contemporary re-visioning of The Great Gatsby. I was so in love with my own creation - the Zorro character, at least - that I whipped through the first draft in 24 days. March wasn't even over and already I had a book - the fastest in my life that I'd ever completed my stupid pet trick of writing a novel. Of course, I didn't sell or publish it right away. Instead, it remained on my hard drive for years as I went through several rounds of revisions on it. Finally, I released that book last year as Z: A Novel.
In succeeding years, March became my go-to month for manic productivity. Last year during that month, I wrote the first draft of a middle grade novel about a Dennis the Menace type character who misundestands a conversation his family has about him, leading to disastrous - and hopefully funny - results. That book was Robbie Knightley.
I'm not much given to introspection about this quirky spring habit of mine. I mean, really, when you think about it, it makes no sense. January and February are more traditionally cold months where I live in CT. Common semse dictates that's when I should hole up and ignore the world. But March? March is when I should be outside enjoying the early warm days, the later sunsets, and cracking open the first bottles of the season of Prosecco. OK, I still do that last part, no matter what, meaning as soon as I hit Publish on this piece, well, you know where I'll be. But mostly this month will find me shackled to my computer, trying to squeeze as much creative work as I can out of my brain and my heart.
I think now, as I write this, that it isn't March at all that prompts this in me. Rather, it's the impending advent of summer. Before too many days pass - days that speed by more quickly with each year I spend on this swiftly tilting planet - summer will start rushing at me with alarming speed. Summer means my daughter being off from school. One of the nice things about having kids later is that you appreciate how little time you actually get with them living under your roof; how, before you can blink, they'll be off living on their own. So I guess I write faster in March so that maybe, maybe, when summer comes, I can work just a little less.
So how about you: Is there any month that seems to be your most productive? Or, whether writing or something else, got any March Madness indulgences to confess?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 31 books for adults, teens and children. You can read more about her life and books at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or follow her on Twitter @LaurenBaratzL
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
PURSUING THE TIMES by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
I'm very excited that I was able to finally figure out how to post a picture here, almost as excited as I am about the release of my most recent ebook, PURSUING THE TIMES. It's a crazy contemporary romantic comedy, loosely based on Pride and Prejudice, about a successful author of Chick Lit, Mercury Lauren, who will do almost anything to get reviewed by the New York Times Book Review.
Delighted Reader called it "laugh out loud shock my socks off," adding, "You really shouldn't read it in public if you are ashamed by the sound of your laugh"; while BookLoons Reviews compared it to I Love Lucy, adding, "This is a book that cannot be missed, especially if you are in need of a smile."
Feeling up to an excerpt?
It is a publishing
truth, universally acknowledged, that anyone professionally involved in the
pursuit of “Lit-e-ra-ture,” must, by definition, despise Chick-Lit.
I first met Frank D’Arcangelo, Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times Book Review, at the annual National Book Awards ceremony and while it was definitely not the best of times for me, it was a close runner-up for the worst.
Of course, being the kind of person I am and writing the kinds of books I do, I didn’t actually receive anything so mundane as a printed invitation to the ceremony. Rather, my agent, perennially dateless, said I could be her guest.
Plus, I begged her.
I first met Frank D’Arcangelo, Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times Book Review, at the annual National Book Awards ceremony and while it was definitely not the best of times for me, it was a close runner-up for the worst.
Of course, being the kind of person I am and writing the kinds of books I do, I didn’t actually receive anything so mundane as a printed invitation to the ceremony. Rather, my agent, perennially dateless, said I could be her guest.
Plus, I begged her.
Yeah, I don't know why blogger screwed up the size of things, so I'm stopping here. I hope you enjoyed what you read. If you'd care to read further, you can access the first 30+ pages for free by clicking on the book cover at this link: here. And of course if you like it, you can even go ahead and buy it.
Thanks for reading!
Question of the Day: So...what do you think of my book, my excerpt, my cover? OR, you can answer this question: What will you be watching on TV tonight? Me, with the new fall season upon us, and being a TV head, and this being Tuesday night, no way I'll get it all in. Tuesday - Raising Hope, New Girl, Ben and Kate, The Mindy Project, The Voice, Go On, The New Normal, Parenthood, Vegas - has become wall-to-wall TV for me. How about you?
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Story of Z
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
I thought about titling this post "The Junk from My Trunk," but that seemed to be too much like putting a sign on my own bottom saying "Kick Me", so.
Like all writers in my acquaintance, I have trunk novels. In my case, some of those are things that pre-date my first publishing deal while others came after. Z: A Novel is one of the latter and here's the story behind it.
I originally came up with the idea in March 2004. My debut novel had come out the previous July, my second was due out that coming July, and I needed something to play with. The Great Gatsby being my favorite novel by a dead author, the thought naturally occurred to me to do my own version. What I came up with was a story about a female writer named Nix Carter (the Nick Carraway character) who returns home to Danbury, CT, after years out in L.A. in order to care for her ailing father. Having lunch while hungover at the mall one day, she's in the company of Tim amd Dahlia Bucket (the Tom and Daisy Buchanan characters), when she sees a man dressed all in black, including a cape. He turns out to be a window washer who goes by the name Zorro. (That's right, in my version, Jay Gatsby is a window washer who may or may not really be Zorro, the hero of legend.)
When I say the book just flew out of me, I'm not exaggerating. In 19 days, I had completed the first draft. It wasn't a long book, being just shy of 67K words, but still, I'd never written something so easily in my life or that made me so happy. It had comedy, drama, romance, adventure, swordplay; it even said something about the tragically xenophobic world we sometimes find ourselves in.
Even though I was happy with it, I knew it wasn't a fit for Red Dress Ink, the publisher I still had three more books contracted to, so I held onto it, content to wait.
A year later, when I switched from Agent 4 to Agent 5, Agent 5 fell in love with Z. But one thing and another happened and Agent 5 never submitted that book anywhere; Agent 5 never submitted any of my books anywhere.
Then came Agent 6, with whom I signed in June 2005. Agent 6 and I got busy selling a bunch of things together - we've actually sold 18 books to publishers to date - and Z was not in the initial mix. By the time we did start submitting it, publishers didn't want to publish anything that could conceivably be labeled Chick Lit; and given that my five comedic novels for adults had been published by Red Dress Ink, any comedy I write - even The Bro-Magnet, which is told entirely in the first-person POV of a man - runs the risk of getting labeled that way. So there were a lot of positive things said about Z by various editors, but no sale.
This March, a full eight years after I initially got the idea for Z, I put it up for sale as an ebook. I'd post the first few paragraphs here, but the truth is, if you follow the link I'll provide at the end of this long sentence, the link will take you to the book's page on Amazon where if you simply click on the image of the book cover, you can read the first 30+ pages of the book for free: link
If you like the sample, you can even buy the whole thing right now for 99 cents - a steal!
Thanks for listening. These are great, exciting times for writers like me. I still have books that are traditionally published and I'm grateful for that - I try to regularly practice gratitude in my life as a writer - but when I've written something that traditional publishing thinks is too quirky or too what-have-you, I can assume all the risk and reward myself.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 24 published books for adults, teens and children. She is currently watching the Mets do really well, yet again, but there are still nearly four innings to go, so. You can read more about her life and work at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or read her stupid tweets at @LaurenBaratzL on Twitter. She can't figure out what her own Facebook link is so don't ask.
I thought about titling this post "The Junk from My Trunk," but that seemed to be too much like putting a sign on my own bottom saying "Kick Me", so.
Like all writers in my acquaintance, I have trunk novels. In my case, some of those are things that pre-date my first publishing deal while others came after. Z: A Novel is one of the latter and here's the story behind it.
I originally came up with the idea in March 2004. My debut novel had come out the previous July, my second was due out that coming July, and I needed something to play with. The Great Gatsby being my favorite novel by a dead author, the thought naturally occurred to me to do my own version. What I came up with was a story about a female writer named Nix Carter (the Nick Carraway character) who returns home to Danbury, CT, after years out in L.A. in order to care for her ailing father. Having lunch while hungover at the mall one day, she's in the company of Tim amd Dahlia Bucket (the Tom and Daisy Buchanan characters), when she sees a man dressed all in black, including a cape. He turns out to be a window washer who goes by the name Zorro. (That's right, in my version, Jay Gatsby is a window washer who may or may not really be Zorro, the hero of legend.)
When I say the book just flew out of me, I'm not exaggerating. In 19 days, I had completed the first draft. It wasn't a long book, being just shy of 67K words, but still, I'd never written something so easily in my life or that made me so happy. It had comedy, drama, romance, adventure, swordplay; it even said something about the tragically xenophobic world we sometimes find ourselves in.
Even though I was happy with it, I knew it wasn't a fit for Red Dress Ink, the publisher I still had three more books contracted to, so I held onto it, content to wait.
A year later, when I switched from Agent 4 to Agent 5, Agent 5 fell in love with Z. But one thing and another happened and Agent 5 never submitted that book anywhere; Agent 5 never submitted any of my books anywhere.
Then came Agent 6, with whom I signed in June 2005. Agent 6 and I got busy selling a bunch of things together - we've actually sold 18 books to publishers to date - and Z was not in the initial mix. By the time we did start submitting it, publishers didn't want to publish anything that could conceivably be labeled Chick Lit; and given that my five comedic novels for adults had been published by Red Dress Ink, any comedy I write - even The Bro-Magnet, which is told entirely in the first-person POV of a man - runs the risk of getting labeled that way. So there were a lot of positive things said about Z by various editors, but no sale.
This March, a full eight years after I initially got the idea for Z, I put it up for sale as an ebook. I'd post the first few paragraphs here, but the truth is, if you follow the link I'll provide at the end of this long sentence, the link will take you to the book's page on Amazon where if you simply click on the image of the book cover, you can read the first 30+ pages of the book for free: link
If you like the sample, you can even buy the whole thing right now for 99 cents - a steal!
Thanks for listening. These are great, exciting times for writers like me. I still have books that are traditionally published and I'm grateful for that - I try to regularly practice gratitude in my life as a writer - but when I've written something that traditional publishing thinks is too quirky or too what-have-you, I can assume all the risk and reward myself.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 24 published books for adults, teens and children. She is currently watching the Mets do really well, yet again, but there are still nearly four innings to go, so. You can read more about her life and work at www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com or read her stupid tweets at @LaurenBaratzL on Twitter. She can't figure out what her own Facebook link is so don't ask.
Monday, April 23, 2012
To Be Blocked or Not to Be Blocked?
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Regarding the title of today's post? That is the question. And it's a good day to ask a question like that since April 23 is the date of William Shakespeare's death and quite possibly his birth.
One of the topics we're discussing this cycle at GBC is writer's block.
I'll confess something right up front and can only hope no one will hate me for it: I've never had writer's block. I've felt sluggish about projects from time to time. I've become bored (rarely) or otherwise disenchanted (occasionally) and I've wondered what the point of it all is (once in a blue moon). But I've never been blocked, which for our purposes here we'll define as an inability to put words on the page for an extended period of time.
I'm a writer. It's who I am. It's how I make my living, meager as that may be some years. For me, not to write is the same as if, when I was an independent bookseller, I said: "I can't sell books today"; or when I was a window washer, "Nope, I'm afraid those windows must remain spotty today because I just can't do it." When it's your job, you may not always feel like doing it, but still you show up and do the job.
Those times when I do feel sluggish or go stale on a project, I have two - for me - sure-fire ways of dealing with it: 1) spend the day working on some other writing entirely - a nonfiction essay, a blog post, even a really well-crafted email - so I maintain confidence in my ability to put words, good and well-chosen words, on the page in an effective manner; or 2) jump ahead in the story and write a scene I am excited about writing, one I've been dying to write, while vowing to come back later to the problem scene. Whichever way I choose, I always feel refreshed the next day. The trick is to always be moving forward, in some way and however small the step, toward your goal.
Over at Grub Street Daily, there's a terrific interview with Alexander Chee, which you can find here. One of the things I love about it is what Alexander has to say about needing stamina to go along with talent, because without the stamina, your talent won't get you where you want to go. After being led to the interview by a link on Twitter, I tweeted to GSD and Alexander that I would add to that the need for a writer to have resilience (of course, I managed to do it using typos galore, compromising the otherwise brilliance of my obvious resilience).
Resilience is a big deal to me. It's the ability to show up as a writer, sometimes under spectacularly adverse circumstances, and do the work.
One last thing before I go: Over the years I've been doing this, I've come across the occasional person - OK, more than occasional, but I know none of you are Those People! - who has bought into the idea and convinced themselves that writers are artists (which is true) and if a writer is a true artist, that writer must be tortured, a tortured artiste (which is false). Those People work themselves into states about all manner of things and before you know it, they've got a block to go along with it.
Well, the truth is, no one has to be a tortured artist. You can choose to be a happy one - or at least a resilient one! - and you can choose to reject and push aside that block.
And that's all I've got!
Now it's your turn: Have you ever been blocked? How do you deal with writing stumbles or blocks? And finally, am I getting on your nerves yet with my disgusting happy-pappy-sappy resilient talk?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 24 books for adults, teens and childrens. Her most recent novels for adults are The Bro-Magnet and Z: A Novel and she'd be estatic if you bought one, or both even ($2.99 each; a steal!), but she'll never know if you don't and thus won't be able to hold it against you.
Regarding the title of today's post? That is the question. And it's a good day to ask a question like that since April 23 is the date of William Shakespeare's death and quite possibly his birth.
One of the topics we're discussing this cycle at GBC is writer's block.
I'll confess something right up front and can only hope no one will hate me for it: I've never had writer's block. I've felt sluggish about projects from time to time. I've become bored (rarely) or otherwise disenchanted (occasionally) and I've wondered what the point of it all is (once in a blue moon). But I've never been blocked, which for our purposes here we'll define as an inability to put words on the page for an extended period of time.
I'm a writer. It's who I am. It's how I make my living, meager as that may be some years. For me, not to write is the same as if, when I was an independent bookseller, I said: "I can't sell books today"; or when I was a window washer, "Nope, I'm afraid those windows must remain spotty today because I just can't do it." When it's your job, you may not always feel like doing it, but still you show up and do the job.
Those times when I do feel sluggish or go stale on a project, I have two - for me - sure-fire ways of dealing with it: 1) spend the day working on some other writing entirely - a nonfiction essay, a blog post, even a really well-crafted email - so I maintain confidence in my ability to put words, good and well-chosen words, on the page in an effective manner; or 2) jump ahead in the story and write a scene I am excited about writing, one I've been dying to write, while vowing to come back later to the problem scene. Whichever way I choose, I always feel refreshed the next day. The trick is to always be moving forward, in some way and however small the step, toward your goal.
Over at Grub Street Daily, there's a terrific interview with Alexander Chee, which you can find here. One of the things I love about it is what Alexander has to say about needing stamina to go along with talent, because without the stamina, your talent won't get you where you want to go. After being led to the interview by a link on Twitter, I tweeted to GSD and Alexander that I would add to that the need for a writer to have resilience (of course, I managed to do it using typos galore, compromising the otherwise brilliance of my obvious resilience).
Resilience is a big deal to me. It's the ability to show up as a writer, sometimes under spectacularly adverse circumstances, and do the work.
One last thing before I go: Over the years I've been doing this, I've come across the occasional person - OK, more than occasional, but I know none of you are Those People! - who has bought into the idea and convinced themselves that writers are artists (which is true) and if a writer is a true artist, that writer must be tortured, a tortured artiste (which is false). Those People work themselves into states about all manner of things and before you know it, they've got a block to go along with it.
Well, the truth is, no one has to be a tortured artist. You can choose to be a happy one - or at least a resilient one! - and you can choose to reject and push aside that block.
And that's all I've got!
Now it's your turn: Have you ever been blocked? How do you deal with writing stumbles or blocks? And finally, am I getting on your nerves yet with my disgusting happy-pappy-sappy resilient talk?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 24 books for adults, teens and childrens. Her most recent novels for adults are The Bro-Magnet and Z: A Novel and she'd be estatic if you bought one, or both even ($2.99 each; a steal!), but she'll never know if you don't and thus won't be able to hold it against you.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Premise and Publish
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
This cycle at GBC, we're talking about where our premises come from and the changes in the publishing climate. Being the Type A personality I am, I figured I'd tackle both.
"Where do your ideas come from?" is one of the most frequent questions writers get asked. My typical answer is: The Idea Fairy. Seriously, though, my ideas come from everywhere: from things that happen to and around me, from the news, from things that happen to other people. Something happens and lightning strikes in the form of: "I think there's a whole novel in that!"
A few examples:
- My debut adult novel, The Thin Pink Line, 22 books ago. Finding myself pregnant after 10 married years in which I never thought I'd be pregnant, rather than writing the predictable story that you'd think would result - married woman finding herself pregnant after 10 years and what ensues, told in an earnest fashion - my crazy mind said: "I know! I'll write a dark comedy about a sociopath who fakes an entire pregancy!"
- My most recent YA novel, Little Women and Me. My daughter and her best friend had just read the original Louisa May Alcott novel and we were discussing what they thought of it. What they thought lined up with my own memories of the book: that is was great but that That Thing That Happens To Beth was upsetting and that The Boy Next Door winding up with the wrong March sister was annoying. So I decided to write a novel about a contemporary teen who time travels into the classic novel only to discover that in order to get back out again she'll need to change one of those things.
- The Sisters 8 series for young readers, which I created with my husband and daughter. We came up with the idea for this when we were snowbound in Crested Butte, Colorado, back in December 2006. Well, if you were snowbound for 10 days with no TV, what would you do? You'd probably brainstorm a nine-book series about octuplets whose parents go missing one New Year's Eve!
- Finally, there's The Bro-Magnet, the ebook I released back in December about an ultimate man's man who's been Best Man eight times when what he secretly longs to be is a groom. Here's how that one came about: My husband, Greg Logsted, is a novelist by night and a window washer by day. One day he told me about washing some guy's windows with his crew and how every time he goes to this guy's house, the guy says, "Let's go skiing sometime"; "Let's do this"; "Let's do that." It occurred to me that this was not the first time in the 28 years I've known him that I'd heard something like this: some guy, barely even knowing my husband, wanting to bond and become buddies. This particular instance happened right around the time the word "bromance" entered the lexicon strongly - you'd hear people applying it to TV shows like "House" or films like the Sherlock Holmes version Robert Downey Jr starred in. Suddenly my brain went poof! like it always does when I have an idea for a new book. Those ideas always begin with "What if...?" In this case, it was "What if there was an ultimate man's man, a guy that other guys actually fight over to get him to be Best Man at their weddings, but he secretly longs to be a groom?" And of course the hero of this book would be THE BRO-MAGNET.
So that's where the premises for a few of my books have come from.
As for the current publishing climate, the other day Joe Konrath let me take over the megaphone at his popular blog so I could talk about my experiences with e-publishing and you can find that post here.
So how about you all? Where do your premises come from and what do you think of the new publishing climate?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
This cycle at GBC, we're talking about where our premises come from and the changes in the publishing climate. Being the Type A personality I am, I figured I'd tackle both.
"Where do your ideas come from?" is one of the most frequent questions writers get asked. My typical answer is: The Idea Fairy. Seriously, though, my ideas come from everywhere: from things that happen to and around me, from the news, from things that happen to other people. Something happens and lightning strikes in the form of: "I think there's a whole novel in that!"
A few examples:
- My debut adult novel, The Thin Pink Line, 22 books ago. Finding myself pregnant after 10 married years in which I never thought I'd be pregnant, rather than writing the predictable story that you'd think would result - married woman finding herself pregnant after 10 years and what ensues, told in an earnest fashion - my crazy mind said: "I know! I'll write a dark comedy about a sociopath who fakes an entire pregancy!"
- My most recent YA novel, Little Women and Me. My daughter and her best friend had just read the original Louisa May Alcott novel and we were discussing what they thought of it. What they thought lined up with my own memories of the book: that is was great but that That Thing That Happens To Beth was upsetting and that The Boy Next Door winding up with the wrong March sister was annoying. So I decided to write a novel about a contemporary teen who time travels into the classic novel only to discover that in order to get back out again she'll need to change one of those things.
- The Sisters 8 series for young readers, which I created with my husband and daughter. We came up with the idea for this when we were snowbound in Crested Butte, Colorado, back in December 2006. Well, if you were snowbound for 10 days with no TV, what would you do? You'd probably brainstorm a nine-book series about octuplets whose parents go missing one New Year's Eve!
- Finally, there's The Bro-Magnet, the ebook I released back in December about an ultimate man's man who's been Best Man eight times when what he secretly longs to be is a groom. Here's how that one came about: My husband, Greg Logsted, is a novelist by night and a window washer by day. One day he told me about washing some guy's windows with his crew and how every time he goes to this guy's house, the guy says, "Let's go skiing sometime"; "Let's do this"; "Let's do that." It occurred to me that this was not the first time in the 28 years I've known him that I'd heard something like this: some guy, barely even knowing my husband, wanting to bond and become buddies. This particular instance happened right around the time the word "bromance" entered the lexicon strongly - you'd hear people applying it to TV shows like "House" or films like the Sherlock Holmes version Robert Downey Jr starred in. Suddenly my brain went poof! like it always does when I have an idea for a new book. Those ideas always begin with "What if...?" In this case, it was "What if there was an ultimate man's man, a guy that other guys actually fight over to get him to be Best Man at their weddings, but he secretly longs to be a groom?" And of course the hero of this book would be THE BRO-MAGNET.
So that's where the premises for a few of my books have come from.
As for the current publishing climate, the other day Joe Konrath let me take over the megaphone at his popular blog so I could talk about my experiences with e-publishing and you can find that post here.
So how about you all? Where do your premises come from and what do you think of the new publishing climate?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
HOW I GOT HERE by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
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!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
I Am a Cheater
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Intrigued by my topic heading, no? Let me explain how I'm cheating on you this very minute. I'll even tell you why.
Today I'm supposed to blog here at GBC about genre. There's just one problem. Monday, my husband woke to problems on his computer. So we called an expert in. As of this writing, Thursday evening, the computer expert is still working on the problem - making this the computer-problem equivalent of the "Gilligan's Island" three-hour tour - only now it's become my problem. Two nights ago, a minor tweak was made to my computer that was supposed to make things run smoother...and now I have no computer at all - or at least not the one I'm used to, the one that has 17 years of books and stories and essays stored on it. (I'm typing on someone else's computer right now.) So since I still don't know if that will all be recovered, and I'm badly in need of a glass of wine, I'm going to cheat on you, and here's how.
Rather than write a fresh piece on genre, I'm going to direct you to something I wrote on the subject about a year ago for the wonderful online literary magazine Bibliobuffet. It got a lot of online buzz when it originally ran and I hope you'll take the time to go read it and then come back here with your comments so I won't feel like you hate me for being the slacker that I am. It's called The Book Pyramid.
I hope you enjoy it, I hope you never go through the computer agita I've been experiencing this week, and now for that wine.
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Intrigued by my topic heading, no? Let me explain how I'm cheating on you this very minute. I'll even tell you why.
Today I'm supposed to blog here at GBC about genre. There's just one problem. Monday, my husband woke to problems on his computer. So we called an expert in. As of this writing, Thursday evening, the computer expert is still working on the problem - making this the computer-problem equivalent of the "Gilligan's Island" three-hour tour - only now it's become my problem. Two nights ago, a minor tweak was made to my computer that was supposed to make things run smoother...and now I have no computer at all - or at least not the one I'm used to, the one that has 17 years of books and stories and essays stored on it. (I'm typing on someone else's computer right now.) So since I still don't know if that will all be recovered, and I'm badly in need of a glass of wine, I'm going to cheat on you, and here's how.
Rather than write a fresh piece on genre, I'm going to direct you to something I wrote on the subject about a year ago for the wonderful online literary magazine Bibliobuffet. It got a lot of online buzz when it originally ran and I hope you'll take the time to go read it and then come back here with your comments so I won't feel like you hate me for being the slacker that I am. It's called The Book Pyramid.
I hope you enjoy it, I hope you never go through the computer agita I've been experiencing this week, and now for that wine.
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Free Advice
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
I'm going to veer from the current monthly topic of Process here at GBC to talk about something else that's been on my mind tonight.
On a writing forum I participate in, a relatively new member posted today about some of the writing/publishing advice she'd been receiving from nonwriting friends. The writer was upset because she felt the advice was misinformed and misguided. "Why don't you just self-publish your manuscript as an ebook?" people kept telling her. "That's where all the money is these days!" I'm not going to weigh in on that, on the self-published ebook v traditional publishing debate - at least not in this post! - but I will weigh in about the advisability of getting upset about stuff like this.
Cliff Notes version of my advice? Don't do it!
Longer version: There are so many things a writer can and sometimes should get upset about, it's wise to eliminate as many as possible and this is one of them. Having people in your life who are interested enough in what you do to offer advice - even if that advice is misguided! - is a grace. So many writers, over the years, have told me that their significant others, children or friends are dismissive of what they do. For some reason, I've never had that problem. From the beginning, even total strangers grew interested once they found out that I'm a writer. One time, I was on the table having a procedure to determine if I had breast cancer when the doctor, having been told what I do for a living by the nurse, began pumping me for information. I was sorely tempted to say, "Thank you for your interest, but can we wait to have this conversation until after you've removed that hollow tube thingy from the side of my breast???" For the record, I didn't have cancer.
And back to my topic.
For most things in life, there's more than one right answer. But when anyone offers you writing advice, the only right response is gratitude. It's not rage. It's not the stance of being offended. It's not hurt. It's not defensiveness. It is gratitude. Even if you think what you're being told is the most riduculous thing you've ever heard, even if the person offering the advice is the biggest asshat you've ever met, the only thing you need to say is, "Thank you. You've given me something to think about."
For those of you reading this who are in earlier stages of your writing life than my GBC sisters, internalizing this now will serve you well when you later are a published author and you receive a revision letter from your editor.
Believe me, when I first started writing seriously 17 years ago, I wanted what all writers want in the beginning: I wanted people to love my writing unreservedly. But over time, I learned that my best readers are not those who feel that way; my best readers are those who can say, "I love what you're doing here but this is what I think you can do to make it even better." Those kinds of readers are, again, a grace. And you don't get those kinds of readers if you're constantly being defensive and arguing with people who try to help you. I'm not saying you should heed every bit of advice you ever receive - far from it! You need to learn how to turn on your own inner editor so you can filter the useful advice from its opposite. But I am saying that writers need to learn how to take advice so that people will keep offering it. The truth is, if someone asks me for advice and then they make the whole experience unpleasant, I soon learn to stop helping. The thing is, the person can think all they want to that I'm all wet, but what they should be saying is, "Thank you."
One last thing to think about: The person whose advice you spurn today could turn out to be the person who could help you tomorrow...if only you hadn't turned them off.
Thank you for listening. I hope I've given you something to think about because you give me something to think about every day.
I'm going to veer from the current monthly topic of Process here at GBC to talk about something else that's been on my mind tonight.
On a writing forum I participate in, a relatively new member posted today about some of the writing/publishing advice she'd been receiving from nonwriting friends. The writer was upset because she felt the advice was misinformed and misguided. "Why don't you just self-publish your manuscript as an ebook?" people kept telling her. "That's where all the money is these days!" I'm not going to weigh in on that, on the self-published ebook v traditional publishing debate - at least not in this post! - but I will weigh in about the advisability of getting upset about stuff like this.
Cliff Notes version of my advice? Don't do it!
Longer version: There are so many things a writer can and sometimes should get upset about, it's wise to eliminate as many as possible and this is one of them. Having people in your life who are interested enough in what you do to offer advice - even if that advice is misguided! - is a grace. So many writers, over the years, have told me that their significant others, children or friends are dismissive of what they do. For some reason, I've never had that problem. From the beginning, even total strangers grew interested once they found out that I'm a writer. One time, I was on the table having a procedure to determine if I had breast cancer when the doctor, having been told what I do for a living by the nurse, began pumping me for information. I was sorely tempted to say, "Thank you for your interest, but can we wait to have this conversation until after you've removed that hollow tube thingy from the side of my breast???" For the record, I didn't have cancer.
And back to my topic.
For most things in life, there's more than one right answer. But when anyone offers you writing advice, the only right response is gratitude. It's not rage. It's not the stance of being offended. It's not hurt. It's not defensiveness. It is gratitude. Even if you think what you're being told is the most riduculous thing you've ever heard, even if the person offering the advice is the biggest asshat you've ever met, the only thing you need to say is, "Thank you. You've given me something to think about."
For those of you reading this who are in earlier stages of your writing life than my GBC sisters, internalizing this now will serve you well when you later are a published author and you receive a revision letter from your editor.
Believe me, when I first started writing seriously 17 years ago, I wanted what all writers want in the beginning: I wanted people to love my writing unreservedly. But over time, I learned that my best readers are not those who feel that way; my best readers are those who can say, "I love what you're doing here but this is what I think you can do to make it even better." Those kinds of readers are, again, a grace. And you don't get those kinds of readers if you're constantly being defensive and arguing with people who try to help you. I'm not saying you should heed every bit of advice you ever receive - far from it! You need to learn how to turn on your own inner editor so you can filter the useful advice from its opposite. But I am saying that writers need to learn how to take advice so that people will keep offering it. The truth is, if someone asks me for advice and then they make the whole experience unpleasant, I soon learn to stop helping. The thing is, the person can think all they want to that I'm all wet, but what they should be saying is, "Thank you."
One last thing to think about: The person whose advice you spurn today could turn out to be the person who could help you tomorrow...if only you hadn't turned them off.
Thank you for listening. I hope I've given you something to think about because you give me something to think about every day.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Story Creation: The Sisters 8
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
I wish I could say how I create a story, that it's the same pattern each time, but it's not. With each book, it's like I'm inventing my own wheel all over again. The one exception to this is The Sisters 8, the series for readers ages six to ten that I created with my husband and daughter.
The Sisters 8 is a nine-book series about octuplets whose parents disappear one New Year's Eve leaving the girls to solve the mystery of that disappearance while keeping the household running without adult supervision. In Book 1 Annie's Adventures, a note informs them that before discovering what happened to their parents, each girl must find her power and gift. There are nine books in the series because there needs to be one for each sister and a ninth book to explain all the mysteries that develop along the way.
We write each book in pretty much the same fashion. We brainstorm the general concept for the book and then I sit down to write. After I finish a chapter, I read it to Greg and Jackie, and then we discuss what works, what doesn't work and what needs to happen next.
The Sisters 8 can be tricky. I know from experience reading to Jackie when she was younger, that most series for that age group are the same formula repeated from book to book. But The Sisters 8 is different. It's one long cycle of stories, over 1000 pages of continuing story. Yes, there are elements that are constants - in each book, the sister who is the star at the moment, has to find her power and her gift - but we like to change things up to avoid predictability. For example, in the first two books, Annie and Durinda find their powers somewhere around the middle of the story and their gifts at the very end. So what did we do with Georgia in the third book? Now that readers thought they knew what to expect, we had Georgia receive her gift in the very first chapter; of course, Georgia, being the difficult girl that she is, tells the carrier pigeon that brought her gift that it's the wrong time to be receiving it and to take it away - an impulse she later regrets.
Young readers love things like that: reversal of expectations that are still wholly fitting to the character who's doing the surprising thing.
Even though before I start writing a book in the series there's already a sheet giving me a loose idea of what will happen in each chapter, there's always room for inspiration, room to come up with things that surprise myself and the reader. Book 7 Rebecca's Rashness was published just last week. Rebecca, if you don't know, can be the most unpleasant of the Huit octuplets. Curiously, when readers take the "Which Eight Are You?" quiz at the official website, they seem to rig things so it'll turn out that they're Rebecca! If there's one thing readers can be sure of it's that when Rebecca gets her power, it will corrupt her and that it will corrupt her absolutely. So there I was, writing Book 7, trying to think of something impossibly nutty for Rebecca to do that would delight readers, and then I remembered...
Finnish Wife-Carrying!
Years ago, I was fascinated to learn from one of the morning shows about a Scandinavian sport that had previously been unknown to me: Finnish Wife-Carrying. It's basically exactly what it sounds like. Finns have these competitions where the men race through obstacle courses while carrying their wives. A fun detail: If your wife is on the heavy side or if you don't have a wife, you can borrow a neighbor's wife and carry her so long as her husband is agreeable.
Anyway, Finnish Wife-Carrying seemed to me to be exactly the kind of thing that if Rebecca had somehow learned about, she would want to try, and of course the "wife" she would choose to carry would be her sister Petal, the most fearful of the Huits. So I wrote a chapter into the story in which Rebecca sets up an obstacle course in their yard and...well, let's just say it really is nutty.
Rebecca's Rashness came out on May 2. Three days later we received our first letter about it from a fan who wrote in part: "I totally love The Sisters 8 books. My favorite one is Rebecca’s Rashness with her plans to take over the world and the Finnish Wife-Carrying races with Petal."
It's immensely gratifying to think that something that was never part of the original plan, something that just occurred to me on a whim should bring delight to readers in exactly the way I hoped it would.
Because that's the other thing about The Sisters 8. Unlike most series for young readers, which can best be described as providing an experience over and over again that is the same but different - not that there's anything wrong with that! - with The Sisters 8 we seek to constantly build on the series, build on the excitement, with each book being even *more* in some way than the books that have gone before. I hope readers will always find that to be the case.
So how about you: Do you find that when you write, even if you start with a detailed plan, some of the best ideas are those that occur to you organically?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Beginnings: Opening Lines
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
(Please note: That picture has absolutely *nothing* to do with what I'm about to write, but why *not* add a handsome man's picture to my post if I've got one lying around the old computer? If you find him handsome enough, you won't care if what follows fails to entertain or makes no sense!)
"Have you become a fuckwit, Jane?"
Pretty acerbic, I know, but that's the line that launched my career as a novelist, the first line of my debut novel, The Thin Pink Line. And it does suit the story that follows. How else to begin a contemporary novel about a sociopathic Londoner who decides to fake an entire pregnancy?
When people ask me about my - I can't believe I'm going to use this pretentious word that I hate, but OK, here goes - process, I say that I typically begin a new book with three things: 1) an idea (e.g. woman fakes entire pregnancy); 2) a character (e.g. sociopathic Londoner Jane Taylor, who stitches together her own crazy story; 3) an opening line (e.g. "Have you become a fuckwit, Jane?") I often also know the final line as well, even though I rarely know how I'm going to get from first to last, but there's no point in giving away last lines just in case you were all going to immediately rush out and buy all my books - I don't want to spoil the endings for you!
But first lines...ah, first lines...I can talk about them all day. First lines set the tone for everything that follows.
Take the opening from Vertigo, a book which is about as far from The Thin Pink Line as it's possible for a book to be. Actually, it's the first two lines, which encompass the entire prologue, Vertigo being a dark novel set in Victorian England involving murder. "For nearly seventeen years, I was a good, some might say exemplary, wife. As I put pen to paper for the first time to record my tale, it is important you know this about me from the start." You know what this line says to me? It says, "Uh-oh. Things are not going to go well for this woman, are they?"
Writing for young adults, as I also do, presents its own set of challenges. The YA market is so exciting to write for these days, the story possibilities endless because the audience is so intensely imaginative, but due to the competing-for-attention items such as advanced technology, that same audience has pretty much the shortest attention span in recorded history. So you have to grab that attention fast. Here's Lucius, opening his part of the two-voice he-said/she-said novel Crazy Beautiful: "My arm rises toward my face and the pincer touch of cold steel rubs against my jaw. I chose hooks because they were cheaper. I chose hooks because I wouldn't outgrow them so quickly. I chose hooks so that everyone would know I was different, so I would scare even myself."
And then there's the challenge of writing for even younger kids, like the nine-book The Sisters 8 series for kids approximately six to ten years old. Chapter One of Book 1 opens: "It was New Year's Eve 2007, approximately ten o'clock, and we were just getting ready to celebrate Christmas." There are a few important things in that first sentence: 1) why are they celebrating Christmas on New Year's Eve?; 2) the line sounds so innocent and yet before the 12-page chapter is through, the octuplet stars of the series will realize their parents have disappeared and it's up to them to solve the mystery of those twin disappearances while keeping the rest of the world from realizing they're home alone; 3) the most important thing of all, we - "we were just getting ready to celebrate Christmas. The entire series, with the exception of the prologues, is written in the rare first person plural. It sets the quirky tone for all the quirkiness to follow.
Anyway, that's just a sampling from the 19 openings I've had published in my career thus far. This coming November, I'll have a new YA novel out, Little Women and Me, the prologue of which begins: " 'There's no such thing as a perfect book,' Mr. Ochocinco says." Not long after that, my teen heroine gets sucked out of her contemporary world and into the world of the classic novel Little Women, where she must choose to right one of that novel's chief wrongs: the death of Beth or the fact that Laurie winds up with Amy instead of Jo. I hope it will turn out that my first line serves the novel well.
So how about you? What are some of your favorite opening lines from your own writing? Come on - don't be shy!
Be well. Don't forget to write.
(Please note: That picture has absolutely *nothing* to do with what I'm about to write, but why *not* add a handsome man's picture to my post if I've got one lying around the old computer? If you find him handsome enough, you won't care if what follows fails to entertain or makes no sense!)
"Have you become a fuckwit, Jane?"
Pretty acerbic, I know, but that's the line that launched my career as a novelist, the first line of my debut novel, The Thin Pink Line. And it does suit the story that follows. How else to begin a contemporary novel about a sociopathic Londoner who decides to fake an entire pregnancy?
When people ask me about my - I can't believe I'm going to use this pretentious word that I hate, but OK, here goes - process, I say that I typically begin a new book with three things: 1) an idea (e.g. woman fakes entire pregnancy); 2) a character (e.g. sociopathic Londoner Jane Taylor, who stitches together her own crazy story; 3) an opening line (e.g. "Have you become a fuckwit, Jane?") I often also know the final line as well, even though I rarely know how I'm going to get from first to last, but there's no point in giving away last lines just in case you were all going to immediately rush out and buy all my books - I don't want to spoil the endings for you!
But first lines...ah, first lines...I can talk about them all day. First lines set the tone for everything that follows.
Take the opening from Vertigo, a book which is about as far from The Thin Pink Line as it's possible for a book to be. Actually, it's the first two lines, which encompass the entire prologue, Vertigo being a dark novel set in Victorian England involving murder. "For nearly seventeen years, I was a good, some might say exemplary, wife. As I put pen to paper for the first time to record my tale, it is important you know this about me from the start." You know what this line says to me? It says, "Uh-oh. Things are not going to go well for this woman, are they?"
Writing for young adults, as I also do, presents its own set of challenges. The YA market is so exciting to write for these days, the story possibilities endless because the audience is so intensely imaginative, but due to the competing-for-attention items such as advanced technology, that same audience has pretty much the shortest attention span in recorded history. So you have to grab that attention fast. Here's Lucius, opening his part of the two-voice he-said/she-said novel Crazy Beautiful: "My arm rises toward my face and the pincer touch of cold steel rubs against my jaw. I chose hooks because they were cheaper. I chose hooks because I wouldn't outgrow them so quickly. I chose hooks so that everyone would know I was different, so I would scare even myself."
And then there's the challenge of writing for even younger kids, like the nine-book The Sisters 8 series for kids approximately six to ten years old. Chapter One of Book 1 opens: "It was New Year's Eve 2007, approximately ten o'clock, and we were just getting ready to celebrate Christmas." There are a few important things in that first sentence: 1) why are they celebrating Christmas on New Year's Eve?; 2) the line sounds so innocent and yet before the 12-page chapter is through, the octuplet stars of the series will realize their parents have disappeared and it's up to them to solve the mystery of those twin disappearances while keeping the rest of the world from realizing they're home alone; 3) the most important thing of all, we - "we were just getting ready to celebrate Christmas. The entire series, with the exception of the prologues, is written in the rare first person plural. It sets the quirky tone for all the quirkiness to follow.
Anyway, that's just a sampling from the 19 openings I've had published in my career thus far. This coming November, I'll have a new YA novel out, Little Women and Me, the prologue of which begins: " 'There's no such thing as a perfect book,' Mr. Ochocinco says." Not long after that, my teen heroine gets sucked out of her contemporary world and into the world of the classic novel Little Women, where she must choose to right one of that novel's chief wrongs: the death of Beth or the fact that Laurie winds up with Amy instead of Jo. I hope it will turn out that my first line serves the novel well.
So how about you? What are some of your favorite opening lines from your own writing? Come on - don't be shy!
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
High, Low and a Resolution
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Crazy Beautiful came out in paperback earlier this month. Please go out and buy it! Tell all your friends! But that's not what this is about.
Last summer a good thing happened, something I consider a high point. The phone rang while I was working. It's a testament to how often I'm disrupted by telemarketers that it took a while for it to register on me that the person on the other end of the line was telling me that Crazy Beautiful was a finalist for a state book award. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. With nearly 20 books published, no book of mine has ever been a finalist for any award.
From the beginning, I mostly was just happy to be nominated, as the saying goes. Since the state award lumps YA and all children's books together, and the other four finalists were all books for much younger children, it seemed just as likely that being Odd Girl Out could work against me as it could work for me.
The day of the award ceremony came and I went with my husband and 10-year-old daughter. I had a pretty new dress and my gold high heels on, feeling pretty spiffy. In advance, I explained to my daughter that if I didn't win, it would not be an occasion for sadness. This was just supposed to be a cool day all around.
When my category came up, the presenter used such glowing words about my book, you should have seen the smile on my daughter's face. Our eyes met and for a moment I know we both believed that I had actually won.
Except I hadn't.
Another name got called and another writer got to have a moment in the sun.
But that was OK! This was no low point for me. There was still the reception to go to! There was going to be wine at the reception!
The wine was fine, as were the hors d'oeuvres. I was still a pretty happy camper. Then I ran into an acquaintance, who'd had a relative who was nominated and failed to win in another category, and the acquaintance said, "The losers are all hanging out over here."
That was the beginning of the low point. As I looked at "the losers" and so many other people in the room, as I signed books later on next to a very unhappy poet, it occurred to me how often we writers are disappointed; how rarely we are capable of saying "This is great!" without following it with "But it's not enough."
The truth of the matter is, there's almost no writing or publishing experience for which the joy isn't tempered by disappointment. We dream so big. We fall so hard. And only one person gets to be J.K. Rowling.
The writer who is always disappointed by something - that's not who I want to be, ever. We, all of us who fight the good fight of writing book after book until we are published, are winners. Yesterday, after many years and many books and three agents, a friend of mine sold a book to a Big Cheese Publisher. The years that she didn't sell, the disappointments that may crop up after the fairy dust blows away - none of that negates the tremendous nature of her accomplishment.
So that's my resolution for 2011: I will not be defined by my disappointments - although I will do my best to learn from them! - and I will be defined by my triumphs, which for the most part involves writing one word after the other until the book is done.
Now it's your turn: What are your resolutions for 2011?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Last summer a good thing happened, something I consider a high point. The phone rang while I was working. It's a testament to how often I'm disrupted by telemarketers that it took a while for it to register on me that the person on the other end of the line was telling me that Crazy Beautiful was a finalist for a state book award. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. With nearly 20 books published, no book of mine has ever been a finalist for any award.
From the beginning, I mostly was just happy to be nominated, as the saying goes. Since the state award lumps YA and all children's books together, and the other four finalists were all books for much younger children, it seemed just as likely that being Odd Girl Out could work against me as it could work for me.
The day of the award ceremony came and I went with my husband and 10-year-old daughter. I had a pretty new dress and my gold high heels on, feeling pretty spiffy. In advance, I explained to my daughter that if I didn't win, it would not be an occasion for sadness. This was just supposed to be a cool day all around.
When my category came up, the presenter used such glowing words about my book, you should have seen the smile on my daughter's face. Our eyes met and for a moment I know we both believed that I had actually won.
Except I hadn't.
Another name got called and another writer got to have a moment in the sun.
But that was OK! This was no low point for me. There was still the reception to go to! There was going to be wine at the reception!
The wine was fine, as were the hors d'oeuvres. I was still a pretty happy camper. Then I ran into an acquaintance, who'd had a relative who was nominated and failed to win in another category, and the acquaintance said, "The losers are all hanging out over here."
That was the beginning of the low point. As I looked at "the losers" and so many other people in the room, as I signed books later on next to a very unhappy poet, it occurred to me how often we writers are disappointed; how rarely we are capable of saying "This is great!" without following it with "But it's not enough."
The truth of the matter is, there's almost no writing or publishing experience for which the joy isn't tempered by disappointment. We dream so big. We fall so hard. And only one person gets to be J.K. Rowling.
The writer who is always disappointed by something - that's not who I want to be, ever. We, all of us who fight the good fight of writing book after book until we are published, are winners. Yesterday, after many years and many books and three agents, a friend of mine sold a book to a Big Cheese Publisher. The years that she didn't sell, the disappointments that may crop up after the fairy dust blows away - none of that negates the tremendous nature of her accomplishment.
So that's my resolution for 2011: I will not be defined by my disappointments - although I will do my best to learn from them! - and I will be defined by my triumphs, which for the most part involves writing one word after the other until the book is done.
Now it's your turn: What are your resolutions for 2011?
Be well. Don't forget to write.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
LAUREN BARATZ-LOGSTED: THE CAREER THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED
Sixteen years ago I walked out on my 11-year job as an independent bookseller. The position came with a good salary and full medical benefits plus four weeks of paid vacation a year. It was a lot to walk away from but I’d always wanted to write a novel and I’d come to realize that that was never going to happen if I kept working a job that took 55 hours a week door-to-door out of my life. It was finally time to take a chance on myself and my dream.
Book 1, Waiting for Dead Men’s Shoes, was a typical first novel, a wish-fulfillment comedic mystery about an independent bookseller who believes the bookstore would be a better place if only she were in charge. She gets her wish, and a chance to play amateur detective, when the owner is murdered. For a while I had an agent, Agent 1, but she was nuts. She said the book would be better if the murder – originally taking place around page 40 – happened earlier. So I moved it up, and kept moving it up at her urging, until finally the dead body was on page 1. Agent 1 said it was great, now if only I’d…and she proceeded to describe the book exactly as it had been before I made any changes. We parted company.
I did try to submit it on my own to publishers, and I got glowing rejections. One publishing director called to say she was laughing on every page and would be taking it to sales conference that weekend. I was sure I was in; you know, like Flynn. Two weeks later, she called and in an entirely different tone of voice, said she couldn’t buy it. Eventually, someone else in publishing explained that since one of the villains was the CEO for a made-up chain bookstore, and that I’d portrayed that pretend CEO as no better than a Mafia lapdog, no publisher would ever touch it for fear of upsetting the real-life chains. I set the book aside.
Book 2, Falling for Prince Charles, was an alternate-universe romantic comedy wherein an underachieving Jewish cleaning lady from Danbury meets and falls in love with Prince Charles. Having grown tired of agent searches, and having learned that I had a knack for phoning editors directly and getting them to agree to read, I submitted it myself. In August of 1997, arguably the most popular woman of the previous century, Princess Di, died. In September, a vice president of one of the biggest publishing companies in the country called me on the phone. In pre-Internet days, wisdom used to dictate “no comes in a letter, yes comes in a phone call.” But she wasn’t calling to say yes. She was calling because she wanted to tell me personally how much she loved my crazy book but that she couldn’t buy it and nobody would be able to.
Having written one book that was offensive to chain bookstore CEOs and another that was offensive to certain lovers of the Royal Family, I decided to go for broke on Book 3 and offend everyone, or at least everyone in publishing. Book 3, The Reviewer, was a dark comedy about a frustrated reviewer/would-be novelist who kidnaps an editor, an agent, and a reviewer with a higher profile, and holds them hostage in increasingly larger basements. No one wanted anything to do with that book.
Book 4, Plain Sight, was a bizarre mystery ala Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians but with a twist: told from 10 viewpoints, no two of the main characters are ever seen in the same place – meaning there’s nothing to tie them together – until the very end.
Book 5, If You Should Die Before I Wake, represented a departure. It was a serious book about an undereducated septuagenarian who learns that her editor daughter will predecease her. For Book 5, I managed to secure Agent 2, who proved to be just as nuts as Agent 1, only in a different way. Agent 2 called one day to ask if I’d mind if she sold the book as a movie first because she’d received a fax from Viacom/Paramount saying they were looking for Terms of Endearment types of properties and she’d always thought of the book that way. I knew all about John Grisham and The Firm, and told her I did not mind at all. A few months went by and I finally got up the nerve to ask how things were going with the movie people. That’s when she explained that her partner handled all the Hollywood deals but he had to be in the mood to submit something, and he just hadn’t been in the mood lately. The book had never been sent, even though a film company was looking for something just like it. We parted ways.
And then came Book 6, The Thin Pink Line, a dark comedy about a British sociopath who fakes an entire pregnancy. I probably would have tried harder to submit it, but I kept getting glowing letters that would end in rejections, saying bizarre things like, “Americans don’t like to laugh.” Chick Lit hadn’t hit yet, certainly not as big as it would. So I wrote a seventh book, Vertigo, a suspense novel set in Victorian England about a woman who ultimately decides that the only way to get what she wants is for her husband to die.
Vertigo got me Agent 3 and I was working on revisions when, in late fall of 2001, I began seeing reviews for books from a publisher I’d never heard of: Red Dress Ink. I was sure that the editorial sensibility behind this new line would be a match for my fake-pregnancy book and asked Agent 3 if he’d read it with a view toward submitting it. He read it and said he liked it very much but that he couldn’t see it selling; there were too many books like it already. I asked if he’d send it to just this one publisher and he said no, that he knew for a fact they weren’t interested in any books with London settings. So I submitted it myself.
In May of 2002, nearly eight years and seven books after leaving my day job, Red Dress Ink called and offered me a two-book deal. The book was published in 2003 as the line’s first-ever hardcover and was the first book published by any Harlequin imprint ever to receive a starred review from Kirkus. It was published in 10 countries and optioned for a film, never made. Needless to say, somewhere in there, Agent 3 and I parted company. I negotiated the contract myself, having read 700 pages of publishing law while waiting for it to arrive.
Before The Thin Pink Line was even out, the publisher offered me an additional three-book contract. While I felt confident that I could negotiate a contract pretty good on my own – I’d argued, and won, 17 points on the original contract – I knew it should be for more money than was being offered, but how much, I had no idea.
I had no problem securing Agent 4, and Agent 4 did get me substantially more money than was being offered. But Agent 4 didn’t do much else during the next year, and made one huge error, so we parted company.
Then there was Agent 5, who was supposed to sell Vertigo, but never submitted it. And so, in late spring 2005, running the risk of becoming the Elizabeth Taylor of publishing, I moved on to Agent 6.
I have no complaints about Agent 6. To date, Agent 6 has sold 18 books for me and by the end of next year my grand total of published books will be 23. In addition to Red Dress Ink, my books have been published by Random House, Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Bloomsbury, and BenBella. I’ve written for adults, teens, tweens and even young readers (The Sisters 8). Defying the publishing wisdom to brand oneself and avoid “selling meat in your fish store,” I’ve sold just about everything in my store. Both comedy and drama for adults and, in terms of YA alone, I’m all over the place: an earnest novel about teen pregnancy (Angel’s Choice); a seriocomic sort-of mystery about an online predator (Secrets of My Suburban Life); a re-visioning of a classic fairy tale (Crazy Beautiful); a Victorian suspense novel (The Twin’s Daughter); and next, in August 2011, a time-travel story involving a contemporary teen and the classic novel Little Women (Little Women & Me). This is not a way to have a career that makes sense to most people’s definition of a writing career these days and yet it makes perfect sense to me. From the first time I ever called an editor on the phone, Larry Ashmead at HarperCollins, to ask if he’d read my book, I’ve never been about walking the tried-and-true path.
Oh, and during those eight years of unsold books, how did I keep the mortgage paid? I talked Publishers Weekly into giving me a job as a reviewer, eventually reviewing 292 books; talked a publisher into giving me a job as a freelance editor, editing nearly 100 books; the local library created a position for me where I led book discussions and writing groups, and arranged events; and I washed a lot of windows for my husband’s window-washing business. I used to get up and begin writing between 2:30 and 4:30 in the morning, before my one-job-two-jobs-three-jobs-four began and before the fear set in.
Do I wish I’d sold my very first book? No. Because my path would have been different and I would not have learned half so much along the way.
Just because I’ve been lucky enough to have so many books published, does that mean I have it easy? No. Every day, there is some pain or rejection or frustration or worry. But if I am writing, there is always joy too. Because that’s been the thing, the unifying theme of my writing life from the very beginning: I have written, not to be published – although once a book is finished, I want that for the book, very much so – but because I love to write.
Sometimes, interviewers ask me to pick one word to describe my greatest strength as a writer, and that is an easy question to answer: resilience.
Resilience got me through seven books in eight unpublished years and it has seen me through every day since.
When asked to give out writing advice, I always say the same thing: the only person who can ever really take you out of the game is you. That is true of me and it is true of any writer reading this. People can reject you, they can reject you until the cows come home, but no one can stop you from writing if that is what you want to do.
Phew! And, as I say, that’s the Cliff Notes version!
OK, here’s today’s giveaway: One person will get a signed hardcover copy of The Twin’s Daughter and another person will get a signed hardcover copy of Crazy Beautiful (which is due out in paperback on January 3, by the way!). You do need to comment to enter. I will select the winners at random and notify them by email.
Be well. Don’t forget to write.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
BFF Turns 50, BFFship Turns 33
by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
My longest-running BFF turns 50 today. She's in Italy for several weeks, celebrating. I was invited to meet up with her there for at least part of the trip, but when you have a 10-year-old and it's only a month into the new school year, it can be tough to get away. So instead I'm sitting here writing her this blog post.
L and me have been friends for 33 years. We first met at a high school dance where I informed her I felt like a peach. (Don't ask. It was the '70s. 'Nuff said.) You wouldn't think that'd be enough to launch a lifelong friendship, but there you go. I was a peach, in the moment, and we were off and running.
We were unlikely friends from the start. L was a year ahead of me and positively stunning while I was somewhat less than. L had Jennifer Aniston's eyebrows before Jennifer Aniston even dreamt of them while I was, I guess you could say, a DPFF - Designated Pretty Fat Friend; you can interpret that "Pretty" as you like. But somehow it worked, maybe because of my whole peach thing.
We wound up going to the same college and even roomed together for a while. If one of us went home for the weekend, we'd spend Sunday night talking for hours, catching up on every minute detail of what had gone on in the 48 hours spent apart.
Then one and then the other of us graduated. People got married, she moved five hours north, then eight hours north, eventually moving most of the way across the country.
And somehow we stayed friends, through time and space. This is rare for me because I'm a lot like the Elizabeth Bishop poem: I have a talent for losing things, particularly people; give me half a chance, I'm sure I could lose a continent. But I've never lost L. As I'm writing this, I'm wondering why that is.
With books, particularly back when I was a paid book reviewer, it's always been easy for me to articulate why I dislike something, why it doesn't work; far less easy, for me at least, is describing why something does work. But here goes anyway.
For 33 years our friendship has worked because L is smart and challenging and kind and good and funny and fun to drink with and beautiful in the ways that matter most and better adept than I at preserving a guy's finger in a glass mug filled with ice when it's somehow severed in our door - true story. Mostly, though, I think it's that for 33 years, despite the occasional rocky moment, we have managed to love and support one another unconditionally.
Recently, my 19th book was published and over the course of my writing career I've seen certain themes emerge in my work regularly that apply here.
1) When you really love another person, you want what's best for that person, not what's best for that person in relation to you.
2) When you really love another person and you really know that person too, then having them around in a physical way - like living in the same town, state or even general region of the country - is a luxury, not a necessity. It's not a necessity because the other person has already given you the great gift of her voice in your head, talking you through life whenever you need it.
So here's to L in Italy. I hope she's taking in the sights, buying a leather bag at Freon, eating amazing food, drinking Prosecco - which I will do myself as soon as I hit "Publish Post" - and that if she ever needs a free meal she knows to say, "Eek! E un topo en mi zuppa!"***
Happy Birthday, L! Fifty years for you, 33 years for us, and all you've got is this post to show for it! (Well, hopefully a little more than that.) Thanks for everything.
And thank you, Girlfriends Book Club, for inviting me to join you here. I hope to learn more about friendship from hanging with y'all. I'll certainly be taking notes.
***"Eek! There's a rat in my soup!"
My longest-running BFF turns 50 today. She's in Italy for several weeks, celebrating. I was invited to meet up with her there for at least part of the trip, but when you have a 10-year-old and it's only a month into the new school year, it can be tough to get away. So instead I'm sitting here writing her this blog post.
L and me have been friends for 33 years. We first met at a high school dance where I informed her I felt like a peach. (Don't ask. It was the '70s. 'Nuff said.) You wouldn't think that'd be enough to launch a lifelong friendship, but there you go. I was a peach, in the moment, and we were off and running.
We were unlikely friends from the start. L was a year ahead of me and positively stunning while I was somewhat less than. L had Jennifer Aniston's eyebrows before Jennifer Aniston even dreamt of them while I was, I guess you could say, a DPFF - Designated Pretty Fat Friend; you can interpret that "Pretty" as you like. But somehow it worked, maybe because of my whole peach thing.
We wound up going to the same college and even roomed together for a while. If one of us went home for the weekend, we'd spend Sunday night talking for hours, catching up on every minute detail of what had gone on in the 48 hours spent apart.
Then one and then the other of us graduated. People got married, she moved five hours north, then eight hours north, eventually moving most of the way across the country.
And somehow we stayed friends, through time and space. This is rare for me because I'm a lot like the Elizabeth Bishop poem: I have a talent for losing things, particularly people; give me half a chance, I'm sure I could lose a continent. But I've never lost L. As I'm writing this, I'm wondering why that is.
With books, particularly back when I was a paid book reviewer, it's always been easy for me to articulate why I dislike something, why it doesn't work; far less easy, for me at least, is describing why something does work. But here goes anyway.
For 33 years our friendship has worked because L is smart and challenging and kind and good and funny and fun to drink with and beautiful in the ways that matter most and better adept than I at preserving a guy's finger in a glass mug filled with ice when it's somehow severed in our door - true story. Mostly, though, I think it's that for 33 years, despite the occasional rocky moment, we have managed to love and support one another unconditionally.
Recently, my 19th book was published and over the course of my writing career I've seen certain themes emerge in my work regularly that apply here.
1) When you really love another person, you want what's best for that person, not what's best for that person in relation to you.
2) When you really love another person and you really know that person too, then having them around in a physical way - like living in the same town, state or even general region of the country - is a luxury, not a necessity. It's not a necessity because the other person has already given you the great gift of her voice in your head, talking you through life whenever you need it.
So here's to L in Italy. I hope she's taking in the sights, buying a leather bag at Freon, eating amazing food, drinking Prosecco - which I will do myself as soon as I hit "Publish Post" - and that if she ever needs a free meal she knows to say, "Eek! E un topo en mi zuppa!"***
Happy Birthday, L! Fifty years for you, 33 years for us, and all you've got is this post to show for it! (Well, hopefully a little more than that.) Thanks for everything.
And thank you, Girlfriends Book Club, for inviting me to join you here. I hope to learn more about friendship from hanging with y'all. I'll certainly be taking notes.
***"Eek! There's a rat in my soup!"
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