What's in a Name? Just Ask J.K. Rowling

No it's not You Know Who. It's Robert Galbraith

by Saralee Rosenberg

Will the real Robert Galbraith, please stand up? He could. Just not in a men’s room. For as we all now know, he is a she. A pseudonym for the master of reinvention, J.K. Rowling. 

 

Why did the most famous female author on the planet decide to publish a detective novel and then hide behind a fictitious, Scottish man’s name? One with fake credentials as a civilian security expert?

She claims to have needed liberation from the tyranny of unfathomable success. Technically I put those words in her mouth but you get the gist. It would be like if Julia Robert’s character in Pretty Woman got bored being Richard Gere’s designer-shopper girlfriend and decided to return to the streets because she missed being a hooker.

Totally understandable. It’s rough out there for the King Arthur of novelists. Before penning a mystery novel, I bet she was wiling away her days in her castle/condo singing, “What do the simple writers do? To help them escape when they’re blue? However do they manage to shed their weary lot? Oh whattttt do the simple writers do? To forget… when their Visa bills come… and the rejection letters are piling high… and their agents don’t return their calls…

Actually what she said was this. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and the pure pleasure of getting feedback under a different name."

Frankly I’ve been surprised by the outrage that she duped readers and booksellers alike. Let’s not forget that she began her novel writing career by using initials rather than her name, Joanne. She did so because she was convinced that men authors got bigger, better deals than women authors, and earned far greater respect from readers and editors.

Duh. Can you think of any male authors who have used a woman’s name as a pseudonym?

And let’s also not forget that Ms. Rowling has been the mother of reinvention in terms of appearances, too. Check out her evolution since her early Harry Potter Days. She went from Muggle to Magnificent!

Not that I judge her for having work done. She looks stunning, even with her Anna Wintour-Botox pout.

I guess what bothers me most is the idea that she has no finish line. It’s not that she should ever stop growing as a writer. It’s just disheartening that beneath the cosmetic surgery and billions in assets must still be the insecure waitress at London pubs who scribbled story ideas on soggy napkins. So maybe we should let her know that it's okay if she stops reinventing herself. We love her. Admire her. Wish we were her.

But just in case she decides it's too risky to write under the name J.K. Rowling anymore, I’ll be all too happy to borrow it.

A Reinvention Rant by Leslie Lehr

A Reinvention Rant

With What A Mother Knows in the bookstores, people ask what I’m working on now. I’m tempted to say: answering this question!

The truth is, I have a lot of ideas, but I’m not sure which one is worth a few more years of my life. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer last August and realized might be my last book, I couldn’t help but smile. If you read between the lines of this novel you’ll find a message about what really matters. For me, it’s a love story about mothers and daughters.

A woman who recovers from a fatal car accident only to be accused of murder must risk everything to find her missing daughter, the only one who might know the what happened that day.

But you won’t find it under love or romance. At Barnes & Noble, What A Mother Knows is in Fiction & Literature; at Target, it’s in Women’s Fiction; in a bookstore in Delaware, it was spotted in Thrills and Chills; and in the airport bookstores, it’s a Mystery. It’s all of these things…and more. It’s the culmination of all of my work about the challenges of contemporary women.

I often wonder if I should reinvent myself by writing a series or sticking to one bookstore shelf. Some say genre is merely marketing, but marketing is important when determining our “brand.” I wish I could find a formula and stick to it, but for me, the story determines the form.

When my New York Times "Modern Love" column came out on June 23, I got an email from a childhood friend. We hadn’t spoken in years, but she knew I’d written it before she read my byline. She said it sounded as if I was there telling her the story in person. I was thrilled – not only because she called, but also why she did. The hard part of writing that piece wasn’t shaping the story or exposing a personal experience, but finding the right words through the chemo fog. Having a voice, a distinctive cry amid the chorus, is why I write.

Yesterday, the manager of my favorite yogurt shop commented on how I used to be “all sporty” with a ponytail and sweat pants, but now I’m “so elegant” with a half inch of hair and coordinated clothing. Maybe she didn’t recognize me during all those months of chemo when I only ventured out with a wig or a scarf. But if she thinks I reinvented myself, she’s wrong. I am still in treatment and I am still me. I may choose chocolate or vanilla, but I will always put sprinkles on top.

Will my next book redefine my brand? Force me to pick a major? If only it felt that easy.  No matter what I write next, there is only one requirement: it has to be good.

 ________________________

Leslie Lehr is the prize-winning author of six books, including the nonfiction Welcome to Club Mom and the book club hit Wife Goes On. She is a screenwriter and an essayist featured in Mommy Wars. Her new novel, What A Mother Knows, is her favorite.

 For a Book Club guide and more, go to www.leslielehr.com

Summer Writing with Dogs

by Cindy Jones

Evening in the foothills of the Appalachians

 You know you are a novelist when your ideal vacation is solitary confinement in a remote location without phone or internet, where although your itinerary consists of venturing no further than your chair for ten hours, your trek takes you far into the uncharted reaches of your imagination where you entertain yourself by obsessing over fictional progeny, and where, if you don't make some small effort, you could exist entirely on coffee, diet coke, and chardonnay.  Take me away...  

Under cover of driving two dogs to the vacation destination, the old family farm in the foothills of the Appalachians purchased with great great grandfather's mustering out money from the Civil War, I arrived a week ahead of family and won myself six (yes, six!) days of Summer Writing Vacation.  I figured my dogs would frisk in hay fields, track small animals through the woods, or frolic in the stream while I enjoyed prolific solitude.  I was so wrong.

At 6 AM on Day One, after having laid in bed for 30 minutes contemplating revisions to my protagonist's emotional arc, I dressed and set off for my Writing Room.  The dogs followed me outside, but rather than part ways at the hay field, they displayed great enthusiasm for being inside the Writing Room with me.  Noses in the crack where the door would open, they raced ahead and assumed the position they would occupy for the next six days--on my late grandmother's antique Jenny Lind daybed.  Although I was skeptical, the dogs turned out to be perfect writing companions.  The tapping of the keyboard lulled them to sleep and their repose calmed me.

Mornings were the best part of our writing day.  Never did my prose sound so brilliant, never did the sun warm the daybed's cushions so perfectly.  Although it probably looked as if we spent a lot of time gazing out the windows, me plotting characters, Eva and Sophie tracking a hummingbird, our industry tempted us to skip lunch.  Diet Coke for me and a chew for them, we dug back into the heart of the project, blissful hours stretching into the afternoon.


By late afternoon each day, my story would arrive at a fork in the road--or a ditch--and the three of us would set off to hike in the woods.  Although good for what ails stories as well as necessary exercise for those who sit on chairs or daybeds all day long, hiking sapped precious writing energy, and by the time we got back to work, the sun would have abandoned the day bed, birds would have called it a day, and my writing would begin to sound awful and hopeless.  Rather than cutting without mercy, I looked into the eyes of my writing companions and saw two things:  1.  tomorrow would be another Brilliant Writing Day, and, 2.  it was time to feed the dogs.

Indeed, family arrived, ending our Writing Vacation, calling us back to reality, which, after six days unleashed, was probably a good thing.  The dogs became dogs again, sniffing crotches and barking at relatives, and I resumed being wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, and cousin, catching up on news, and helping feed the masses gathered for our family celebration.      

Even though the dogs and I never returned to the Writing Room, we did share one last Writing Event around the back of my car.  Days of rain, flooding, and high winds had knocked out the electricity, disabling, among other things, my printer.  Although it looked as if I would not have a hard copy of my manuscript to revise during the very long drive home, my husband suggested plugging my gear into the car's electrical outlet, and, as you can see from the picture below, we enjoyed an Appalachian Printing Party with Dogs.  

My car office.  Sitting near the exhaust pipe is not recommended.

Cindy Jones is the author of My Jane Austen Summer.  

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"Throws Like a Girl, Writes Like a Boy" by Jess Riley

Hey look, a box-o-books!

“Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex, and work. Especially work. People love to read about work. God knows why, but they do.” –Stephen King, On Writing

I once read in a writing guidebook that you should avoid writing about certain settings, because they’re a turn-off to readers.  Guess where they said you should never set a story? A prison.

So it’s just my luck that: a) I taught part-time in a prison in college and stumbled over so many story threads on a daily basis that b) I had to write a novel loosely inspired by my experiences, which finally releases today.

Mandatory Release. And yes, it is one, fourteen years in the making. I’m banking more on Mr. King’s insight than on that espoused in that long-ago guidebook, and we’ll see where the dust settles in the weeks to come.  (This doesn’t even get into the fact that I wrote half of the novel from a first-person male perspective, oh and did I mention I gave this poor guy a spinal cord injury?) 

Here's the scoop: Lad lit meets chick lit in this dark comedy about broken people who work in a dangerous place, finding hope where they least expect it. Because no matter what you lock up—a person, secrets, or your heart—sooner or later, everything must be released.

People have asked some fun questions about this one, and here are a few tidbits:

1) Yes, my parents did meet in prison. My mom was a secretary, my dad a unit sergeant. They continued to work there together for years, which made dinner table conversation interesting, to say the least.

2) My dad is also a writer, and his desk is a gorgeous behemoth that was actually made by inmates registered in a carpentry program. I only have a set of decorative wooden reindeer made by inmates, and I display them every Christmas.

3) Most people who work in an institutional setting have a terrific sense of humor, because you’re exposed to the infinite capacity of humanity for weirdness, evil, good, and even hope in the face of incredible loss.

4) When my father worked as a DOC social worker, I remember him bringing home a prop he used during staff training events: a suitcase like one a traveling salesman might use, filled with confiscated shanks and shivs.

5) I did have to remove my underwire bra when I passed through the metal detector for my interview, and a few of the interesting inmate anecdotes in the novel are real, but beyond that? Everything’s fiction. Sadly, Joe, Drew, and Graham don’t exist anywhere but on the page. Or in the pixel, whatever the case may be.

A Thank You card signed by the inmate students I worked with.

So what happens if you’re compelled to write a story that bends your typical genre? If you’re passionate about the characters and their journey, if sitting in front of the blank page every day feels more like a trip to an amusement park than a chore, you’re in great shape. Write a book that YOU would want to read.  Write it honestly, from the heart, breathe life into even your secondary characters, and then either put it in a drawer or release it into the world.

This one’s been with me so long it’s starting to feel like an adult child living in my basement, so it’s time to push it out of the nest and hope it flies.

What do you think? Are there settings or subjects to avoid if you’re aiming for commercial success? CAN commercial books get away with handling “literary” subjects?  Or do you write the story that demands attention and let the chips fall where they may (and get eaten by the dog)?
 ~~~~~

Jess Riley is the author of Driving Sideways, All the Lonely People, and Mandatory Release. Now available on all platforms: amazon, BN, iTunes, and Kobo. She lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin with her husband and crazy terrier. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, or her own blog, where she'll be featuring some awesome authors in the weeks to come.

If you live in the Oshkosh area, help Jess celebrate her book launch at Becket's Restaurant on Tuesday, July 16 at 5 pm. There will be snacks, drinks, and a photo op involving fake jail bars. Wear your favorite jumpsuit and ankle bracelets!

A Helluva Authorial Reinvention by Christa Allan

My husband thinks I should try writing erotica. For someone whose books have been published by Christian publishing houses, that’s one hell of an authorial reinvention.

I tried to explain to him that the problem isn’t the genre. It’s my aptitude for writing it.  Just working out the logistics of two people kissing when I write can be a challenge. Erotica? I’d have body parts flying all over the place.  Not to mention the paradigm shift in our personal sex life. Making love with writer’s brain (this goes there, he does this, she does that, oops…that didn’t work), and thinking one of those speech recognition software programs would be useful at the time.

I have given serious thought to introducing erotica in Christian fiction. Rumor has it that there are Christians who are actually having married-to-one-another sex and enjoying it. And, have you read “Song of Solomon” in the Bible lately?  Clearly, a study in metaphoric sex: “his abdomen is carved in ivory” and her “orchard” blossoms, and he’s attracted to her “garden”?  Then there’s this illustration of the Song of Solomon, which serves to demonstrate some of the inherent problems with literal interpretations.

Song of Solomon illustrated

Even J.K. Rowling is reinventing herself as evidenced by the outing of her as Robert Galbraith, author of The Cuckoo's Calling, a crime novel released in April "praised by critics," according to NBC News. She called the pseudonym a "liberating experience," because of not having to endure the hype or pressure of being always Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling. Not many seemed to mind that she published the Harry Potter series using the gender-neutal J.K. as opposed to her first name, Joanne. 

But some think she may have pushed the boundaries of fabrication by claiming to be a married father-of-two and a former undercover police investigator.  The author bio on Amazon states, "After several years with the Royal Military Police, Robert Galbraith was attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plain-clothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world."

Does that mean there are boundaries to reinvention? You can assume a false name, but you can't assume a false history related to your new identity? But, if fiction is, as Merriam-Webster defines it, "something invented by our imaginations," are we going to restrict our reinventions? So, people are upset that she wasn't honest about her alias? Seems rather oxymoronic or, at the very least, headache-inducing.

Female writers have hidden themselves under gender neutral or male names for centuries, even as recently as our own with Nora Roberts reinventing herself as J.D. Robb. Mary Ann Evans used George Eliot so that her work would be taken more seriously, Amantine Lucile Dupin published as George Sand, and even Harper Lee dropped her first name, Nellie. The author of The Outsiders, Susan Eliose Hinton, preceded Rowling as an author using only her initials, S.E.  Publisher's Weekly wrote an article about male writers using women's or gender-neutral names when writing romance.

It seems writers reinvent themselves because of reader perceptions, pre-conceived notions of males writing erotica or females writing grisly crime and detective stories. Or, as in centuries ago, readers not embracing women as writers. Sometimes its self-preseveration with publishing houses or even careers. When I taught high school, I don't think parent conferences would have gone well if my name had been on the cover of Fifty Shades of Gray. Then again, if it had been, I wouldn't need to be sitting in parent conferences...

I wonder, though, what our perceptions as writers are of readers that cause us to want to reinvent ourselves. 

What happens when I decide to write outside of the genre that's defined me for the five novels I've already written?

I'll let you know.

In the meantime, do you feel duped by author pseudonyms? Would you follow a favorite author into any genre?

Christa Allan's newest novel, under her very own real name, A Test of Faith, will release in March of 2014. You can track her down atwww.christaallan.com, Facebook, and Twitter. She and her husband recently moved to New Orleans with their three neurotic cats. You can find her other novels here.

Mistakes . . . I Mad(k)e a Few by Ariella Papa

I am not a perfect person.

And I write characters who aren’t perfect.

Also all of my books, both traditionally and independently published, have had typos.

There.

I almost want to stop with that admission, but I can’t. The last book Momfriends that I independently published contained a number of typos. In spite of the fact that I had a copy editor and that a couple of people proofed the book a bunch of times, typos are a fact of life. There is no longer a team of people working to make my book perfect. And if there were, I would probably have to charge more than $5 for the digital copy.

I get bummed out when I read reviews by people who claim to love the story, but then go on to discuss the typos and remove stars. These are all people who paid $2.99 for my book, but have a bone to pick. Everyone is entitled to her opinion, but it reminds me of people who like to shout out in the middle of a theater (or quiet living room) while watching a movie about all the geographical inconsistencies they see. Is it relevant?

I choose to believe that my readers are well-intentioned and that they don’t realize that those kind of comments are not a critique of a giant publishing house, but me. Maybe I should be flattered that they don’t know that it’s just me, but it still stings.

And yes, I should be beyond caring about reviews after over a decade of being a published author, but I direct you back to the first line.

It’s one thing to take issue with my writing or any writing. We all shoot for a certain level of professionalism, but even books that cost much much more and that are published by the BIG 6 (5?) contain typos. I started composing a list of those books, but then I stopped. I’ve had long conversations over cocktails with friends about this very thing. They jokingly point out typos of major books in the paperback edition and I just get angry that no one calls those out. But, I decided not to put my list into this post because then I become one of them.

What matters to me is the story. That should be what a book is judged on. Then maybe the cover. (I know, I know)

Does one listen to indie music or watch indie film expecting Beatles level production or Michael Bay style CGI? I don’t think so. But all of the sudden because this is “literature”, there is an expectation that I have a team of proofreaders, stylists and royal tasters.

I’m starting to sound bitter and I don’t want to be. With every post I like to work from a place of gratitude, so I will say that, annoying as it is, reviews like those that point out typos remind me to be more mindful and vigilant about my work. I guarantee that my latest independently published novel A Semester Abroad has at least one typo, but I also guarantee it has many less than past novels. And isn’t the cover so pretty? The story is almost as good.

Anyway, what mistakes have you made? Or what bothers you about reviews? Do you have tips for being better about reading reviews with a grain of salt?

And finally, apologies for any typos in this post.

Ariella Papa's latest novel A Semester Abroad is the way to get away this summer. 

Confessions of a Lazy Ass Writer - by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga

“All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”— George Orwell

They say admitting that you have a problem is half the battle, right? So here goes: my name is Wendy Tokunaga and I am a lazy ass writer. I haven’t always been a lazy ass writer. In fact, I have always been rather proud of my work ethic when it comes to writing. You could always count on me to be the one to cheerily encourage fellow writers to be productive, to tell them to find any bit of free time to write and, yes, to finish-finish-finish. And, heck, I’ve written a good five or six novels and an MFA dissertation. After all, it’s not like I haven’t taken my own advice.

But the truth is that I’ve been neglecting my latest WIP, having undergone a serious bout of stuckness over the past couple of years that I’ve been working on it off and on. I honestly like the book and I don’t want to work on something new (not that I have ANY ideas for another novel, mind you). I have a good 46,000 words but I’m not sure how the story should end nor how things will wrap up. And I know there are still things to add. This is kind of scary. So I procrastinate.

I have several people who are willing to read the draft and I promised them that it would be ready to go sometime in early July. My thinking was that if I gave myself a deadline, then I would finish. Usually this would work, but it’s not working at all right now. And lo and behold, it’s already early July and I haven’t even looked at the thing for probably two weeks. Maybe three. I’ve been busy with other stuff—editing clients, a student manuscript tutorial, songwriting with my husband, tweeting, Facebooking, cleaning out the litter box. But this is no excuse.

I even felt lazy about writing this blog post. But when I did research about “lazy writers” I found that most of the hits I received weren’t about my predicament, but about writers who employ lazy “writing skills.” Things like not proofreading or doing minimal research, not staying on top of current trends, telling instead of showing, relying on clichés, employing hackneyed plots, utilizing poor grammar, misspelling words, constantly using pet phrases, etc., etc. And I realized, well, at least I’m not THAT kind of lazy writer. Something to be proud of. I think.

So maybe I should just stop feeling guilty. I’ll get to this novel when the time is right. Yes, I’ll finish it—eventually. In the meantime I’ll just go with the flow. I’ll embrace all the girlfriends here and elsewhere who are in prolific phases right now (and that seems to be just about everyone!) and know that I’ll be there again someday.

But now I think I’ll loll in the hammock and sip some lemonade. Or maybe a mojito. Or perhaps a chilled glass of Viognier, and simply get back to writing when the time is right.

So will you girlfriends give me permission to be a little lazy?

Thanking you in advance,

---The Lazy Ass Writer

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga is the author of the novels, "Midori by Moonlight" and "Love in Translation" (both published by St. Martin's Press), and the e-book novels, "Falling Uphill" and "His Wife and Daughters," and e-book short story, “The Girl in the Tapestry.” She's also the author of the nonfiction e-book, "Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband." Her short story "Love Right on the Yesterday" appears in the anthology "Tomo," published by Stone Bridge Press, and her essay "Burning Up" is included in "Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop." Wendy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of San Francisco and teaches for Stanford University's Online Writer's Studio Novel Certificate Program. She also does private manuscript consulting for novels and memoirs. Follow her on Twitter at @Wendy_Tokunaga, friend her on Facebook and visit her website at: www.WendyTokunaga.com