The A-MAZE-ment of Writing

 by Barbara Claypole White

Our new topic at the Girlfriends Book Club is writing through the corn maze and how we handle stories that start in one place but end up somewhere else. For me, unexpected discovery—which includes wrong turns, false starts, and dead ends—is the true joy of writing fiction. It’s how I unearth the real story, often hiding outside my carefully constructed comfort zone. The story I end up writing is never the story I started.

My debut, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, began life with a different hero…until I imagined a guy called James Nealy speeding through Chicago at night in a convertible Alfa Romeo, trying to outrun his obsessive-compulsive disorder. I never used that scene, but it led me to James. Once I found him, I finally understood the story I had been working on for years.  

Next up? THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, which came to me as a ghost story—with historical and contemporary timelines. It hit the bookstores as a novel about two broken families healing each other in a quiet corner of rural North Carolina. Not a ghost in sight. Between the first and the second drafts, I dumped 90% of the story and my original heroine.

Were all those earlier versions and ideas wasted? No, because this appears to be part of my process. Do I wish I could sit down and write a clean story from point A to point B?  Of course—think of the money I’d save on gin and plant retail therapy. But my multi-layered, damaged characters don’t come to me overnight. I have a process; it’s messy; it seems to work.

Take my current manuscript…

Fifteen months ago, sitting at a traffic light listening to church bells, I had an epiphany: Novel three would be about a marriage in crisis. I flushed out my hero—a barefooted, ripped jeans musician who owned a recording studio on the outskirts of Chapel Hill—and felt rather smug. I soooo had this thing nailed. A novel a year? Piff! Easy-peasy.

Two weeks tomorrow I will hand in the manuscript that evolved out of that idea: a father/son story. My hero, an upper class Brit, is an emotionally repressed bond trader who has an ambivalent relationship to music and would die rather than wear anything ripped. He and his family live in the heart of historic Durham, in a hidden house on the edge of Duke Forest.

Nothing has stayed the same: not the setting; not the characters; not the plot. Looking back, I can’t see the path that led from the first version of chapter one to the latest version of the epilogue. It’s buried beneath rewrites, gut instinct, ideas spawned of research, a spiffy, color-coded scene-by-scene outline that I abandoned months ago…and the most important element of all—reader feedback. I’m blessed to have trusted early readers and a kick-ass editor, all of whom help guide my stories in directions I haven’t even glimpsed.

For me, writing a novel is like nurturing a community garden: I do the back-breaking planting, but it takes a village to water and weed and get that thing into shape. You never have control with a garden, either. Plants die or self-seed in unexpected places as the garden develops its own character—no matter what you do. (Here's my main garden, which started life as an English rose bed. That still cracks me up. What was I thinking?!)

Yesterday one of my non-writer friends said, “You’re nearly done with novel three. How exciting!”  My response? “No, I’m just beginning, because the real magic happens when my editor gets her hands on the story.” She’ll see new themes and layers, and the story will shift even further from its starting point—and become richer.

What do you think about revision, rewrites, false starts, and U-turns? Love them? Hate them?

 _______________________________________________________

Barbara Claypole White is the author of THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, a love story about grief, OCD, and dirt, which won the 2013 Golden Quill for Best First Book. THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, which was chosen by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) as a Winter 2014 Okra Pick, is the story of two broken families coming together to heal in rural North Carolina. 

Visit her at barbaraclaypolewhite.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

GUEST BLOG: The Honeymoon Trap – Get your game on! by Kelly Hunter

Two decades ago, computer gaming was a fairly solitary endeavor. These days, gamers often congregate online to quest together in groups and the results can be very social indeed. There’s teasing, lots of teasing, and a new vocabulary to master. A smart mouth is a huge advantage. Friendships form between people who’ve never met. Alliances are built and broken. Flirting can happen too.

The Honeymoon Trap starts with a computer gaming scene between three brothers and a young woman (whose gaming name is Fuzzy). Cutter is the eldest brother. Caleb comes next. Eli is the youngest. Within the game, Eli’s character marries our lovely heroine’s character for a boost (more power, better recovery time etc.). Eli’s brothers can’t help but have some fun.

‘We should get this wedding underway. I love a good wedding. All rise.’ Cutter had suddenly developed a lisp worthy of a television cardinal. ‘Dearly Beloved. We are gathered here today to witness the blessed union of this man, and this woman, and… who’s got the rings?’

‘There’s really only one ring,’ Caleb intoned. ‘And I don’t think it’s available.’

‘We don’t need rings,’ Fuzzy said. ‘We don’t even need a ceremony.’

‘No ceremony?’ Cutter sounded deeply offended. ‘At all? What kind of wedding is this?’

‘Healer, how old are these brothers of yours? Have they hit puberty yet?’

‘We’re his older brothers,’ injected Caleb helpfully.

‘So how old are you?’ Fuzzy didn’t wait for his reply. ‘Good grief, I’m marrying a two-year-old.’

‘He’s twenty-six.’ This from Cutter. ‘Are we ready? Because, seriously, our boy here’s so shy with women that this could well be his only chance at heavenly matrimony. All rise—'

‘Be right back.’ Eli pushed away from the console with undue haste. He wasn’t panicking, much, he just… beer. He needed another beer, never mind the recently opened bottle sitting right there on the table. He needed pretzels and more beer. Possibly new brothers. Preferably no brothers, except that they were going to help him put a wall full of windows in this place this weekend so maybe he could disown them after that. He plucked a beer from the fridge and a bag of pretzels from the cupboard and took his sweet time returning to the game. He put on his headset, took a deep breath and reminded himself that it was only a game. ‘Am I married yet?’

‘Yes!’ Fuzzy sounded a little desperate. ‘It’s done. There was cake. Is anyone beside me ready to play the game?’

The Honeymoon Trap is the 4^th and final story in Tule Publishing’s Honeymoon series. Check them out at http://tuleholidaybooks.com

As for gaming, do you? Would you? Is there not enough time in a day? Does the learning curve keep you away? Me, I worry about falling down the online gaming rabbit hole and never coming back out.

Accidentally educated in the sciences, Kelly Hunter didn’t think to start writing romances until she was surrounded by the jungles of Malaysia for a year and didn’t have anything to read. Eventually she decided that writing romance suited her far better than throwing sterile screw-worm flies out of airplane windows, and changed careers. Kelly is a USA Today bestselling author, a three-time Romance Writers of America RITA finalist and loves writing to the short contemporary romance form.

Chef!

by Maria Geraci

Movies have always inspired my writing. Good movies, that is. And this summer's inspiration comes in the form of a quirky little film called CHEF. If you haven't seen it yet, then you're in for a treat. If you have seen it, then you probably know what I'm talking about.

The premise is simple: Chef Carl (played by the film's star, writer, and director Jon Favreau) is one of LA's most famous chefs. He works in a fancy restaurant (owned by Dustin Hoffman) and has control of his kitchen and his band of rowdy kitchen staff.  When a famous LA food critic comes to review the restaurant, Chef Carl is ready to wow him with a new and eclectic menu he's been chopping up. But the restaurant's owner demands he stick to the true and tried (and tired) menu he's been doing for years. Chef Carl caves in and the result is a scathing review that Chef Carl takes personally.

Way too personally.

The two of them (Chef Carl and the restaurant critic) begin to attack each other on Twitter (okay, these scenes were just hysterically funny) and Chef Carl ends up losing his job, along with his self-esteem. With nothing left to lose, he ends up back in Miami (the city where he first became famous as a chef) and buys a run down food truck. Along with his young son and his best friend, they begin a road trip across the country, selling food wherever they stop, and of course, learning life lessons that make him not just a better chef, but a better father, friend and potential love interest.

In case you think I'm spoiling the movie for you, everything I've told you is found in the movie's trailer. What makes Chef so special isn't the story, it's the way its told. It's the movie's voice (yes, directors, like authors have a distinct voice). It's warm, funny, and makes you feel good. I left the movie theater dancing (because the sound track is just so good!) and despite the fact I'd eaten before the movie, I left hungry (for both food and for more of the movie!).

You don't have to be a foodie to enjoy Chef. You just have to like a good story.



Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women's fiction. You can connect with her by visiting her website.

What's Your Damage?

I am a damaged person.

My characters are damaged...

It takes one to know one.

In Dec. 2009, Publisher’s Weekly said of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, “Damaged people inhabit this debut novel: people who have been struck by lightning as well as those who have lost loved ones from death, divorce, drinking, or duplicity. Young-Stone tells parallel stories that hurdle storm after storm headlong into one another... [She] is a very fine writer who has created a host of endearing losers—young, old, literate, and simple, all full of longing. What she does best is portray the incredulousness of the unlucky.”

"I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth…”  As a matter of fact, I used to skip class in elementary school, hiding in the school’s library or staying at home (latch-key kid) to write stories.  In high school, I was a Goth girl, punk rocker, skipping school to hang out in the city, to go see bands like Gwar and The Butthole Surfers: drums on fire and topless dancers.  I experienced a lot of craziness from a very young age.  With the craziness, a lot of scary things, damaging things, happened to me. 

I think you have to own it: the damage and the madness.  I think you gotta take hold of it so that it doesn’t take hold of you.  I think you have to use it.  I put it down on paper and count myself a survivor.  I’m like my characters.  I came out all right in the end.  Better than all right, really.   

I write what I know.  I know crazy.  As the Hatter said, “All the Best People Are Mad.”

I have no regrets.  Because of the madness, I have a lot to share.  Because of the darkness, I can find goodness and tenderness in the most desperate people. 

Sometimes what I write is “too dark,” and I have to revise.  Just the same, I need to write it down.  I need to put my experiences on paper.  Then, it’s all right to scrape away the raw things.  I also need to write fiction and NOT non-fiction because for me, it’s too scary to “tell all.”  I like to infuse my characters with my own emotions and experiences.  I like to inhabit and bring them to life, but not me.  Not all of me.  It’s too scary to put that on the page. 

With my next book, Above Us Only Sky, I drew from a myriad of experiences, but one

Release Day, April 13, 2010 (my sweet boy)

of the driving forces was my love for my son, and my fear of what the world might do with him.  When I was pregnant with him, I started sponsoring a little girl in Ecuador.  I couldn't "change the channel" anymore.  I couldn't imagine a parent watching her child go hungry.  All of the sudden, it was too close to home.  Now, I sponsor two children.  Having taught The Diary of Anne Frank to middle-schoolers for four years, I was haunted by Anne's plight, by the Holocaust.  I pray that my son never knows starvation or war.  I wish that no one knew hunger or war.  But so many people have, and so many still do.  These are some of the many things that compel me and drive my storytelling.  

Above Us Only Sky is a novel about two girls born with wings, but at the simplest level, it’s about survival.  “Without a survivor, there’s no one to tell the story.”  In my upcoming novel, I’m one of the survivors.  I’m telling the story for two WWII survivors, for the Baltic countries, for oppressed regions around the world, and for the children, our children, AND with the hope that one day the wars will stop, and no one will have to know fear, hunger and pain.  Thank you for reading!   

Michele Young-Stone is the author of the debut THE HANDBOOK FOR LIGHTNING STRIKE SURVIVORS (Crown, 2010).

Her next novel, ABOVE US ONLY SKY (Simon & Schuster), will be released in early 2015.  She has a third novel, PERFECT BIRDS, under contract with Simon & Schuster.  Michele is currently at work on a fourth novel, as yet untitled. 

When Michele isn’t writing, she is spending time with her family, crafting, painting, or doing Zumba.  She’s not a good sleeper.  

Like me on Facebook.  Follow me on Twitter.  (If you want...)  

www.micheleyoungstone.com

COMING 2015 Above Us Only Sky; Early reviews from fellow novelists: Lydia Netzer, Heidi Durrow, and Tracy Guzeman.

"Above Us Only Sky is a raw, beautiful, unforgettable book that folds unfathomable horrors and

unfathomable love into a story of incredible power. Young-Stone is a master writer, and her deft control of this novel's many moving pieces puts her in the highest echelon of our craft. Yet at the center, literal and figurative, of this novel is a story so brilliantly simple and deeply moving, you'll forget you are reading a book. This story shook me to my core, and I can't wait for the rest of the world to experience it." -Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine, one of the NYT Book Review's list of 100 Notable Books of 2012.

"Rich with themes of love and loss, Young-Stone has spun a beautiful tale on the cusp of magical realism, but with 100% pure magical prose. …Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down." Heidi Durrow, New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books)

“The beautiful prose in Michele Young-Stone’s Above Us Only Sky flies off the page. A stirring meditation on resilience, the ties that bind us to our past, and what it means to have wings.”—Tracy Guzeman, author of The Gravity of Birds

The Dorothy Parker Question

by Ellen Meister

When I wrote Farewell, Dorothy Parker, people often asked me why I was inspired to bring the famous wit back to life as a character in a novel. And now that I have a second Dorothy Parker novel coming out, I'm sure I'll be asked again.

I have lots of answers for that question: She was one of the most audacious and outspoken wits of the 20th century. With just a few words, she could cut so close to the bone of heartache with so much humor that her poems are as relevant today as they were almost a hundred years ago. Her reviews are still as fresh and as clever as anything ever written, even if you never heard of the play or book she was critiquing. She never gave a damn about political correctness. And she has a lot to teach us about finding the humor in pain.

But the best person to answer the question is Dorothy Parker herself. I think a few of her poems and quotes will do the trick ...

Comment
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

Two-Volume Novel
The sun's gone dim, and
The moon's turned black;
For I loved him, and
He didn't love back.

Indian Summer
In youth, it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change, with every passing lad,
To suit his theories.
 But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!

• Regarding an educated female acquaintance with a liberal attitude toward sex, Dorothy Parker said: “That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.”

• Along similar lines, she said, “If all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.”

• When Parker found herself pregnant from a cad who wanted nothing more to do with her, she terminated the pregnancy and remarked, "It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard."

• When asked to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence, she said, “You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”

• When an editor interrupted her honeymoon to ask why she had missed a deadline, Parker said to her husband, “Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”

• Regarding her love life in general she said: “Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”

• As a young staff writer for Vogue, she was charged with providing a caption for a skimpy negligee and offered Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

• On being asked the most beautiful words in the English language, she said, "My favorites are 'cheque' and 'enclosed.'"

• When shopping for a Manhattan apartment, Parker remarked, “All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.”

• Regarding an early stage performance by a young Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Parker said, “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

• She also observed, “You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.”

• Regarding her profession she said, “I hate writing, I love having written.”

• And also: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

After reading this, I hope you'll agree that the question isn't why I chose to resurrect Dorothy Parker as a character in my novels, but what took me so long?

_______________________________________________
Ellen Meister has written five novels--including Farewell, Dorothy Parker (Putnam 2013) and The Other Life (Putnam 2011)—as well as numerous short stories and essays. She teaches creative writing at Hofstra University Continuing Education, and does public speaking about her books and other writing-related issues. Ellen's next book, Dorothy Parker Drank Here, will be published in February. More more information, visit her website at ellenmeister.com. To follow Dorothy Parker on Facebook, click here.

How I Got Published in the New York Times On My First Try (And What Happened Next)

By Karin Gillespie

(This piece originally appeared on the Writer Unboxed Blog)

             One of my favorite movies is Julie and Julia. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the true story of a young woman named Julie Powell who cooks Julia Child’s recipes and blogs about her experiences. Powell is eventually featured in the New York Times and after the paper comes out, she’s deluged with calls from agents and editors.  And later, of course, Amy Adams plays her in a Nora Ephron movie.        What more could a writer ask for?

Ever since I saw Julie and Julia I wanted to be in the New York Times.  “Wanted” is the key word here; I didn’t lift a finger to make it happen. Instead, I filed it away with other impossible dreams like wanting to be a supermodel (I’m five foot two, middle-aged and a size eight) or winning the lottery. (Even though I never buy tickets.)

                  Meanwhile I’d written my sixth novel, and my literary agent was submitting it to editors. I’m a multi-published author with respectable sales, and I thought this new novel was my best ever. I was cautiously hoping for an auction, and if not an auction definitely a pre-empt. If not a pre-empt, a six-figure deal. Okay. I’d take five figures but that’s as low as I’d go. I have my standards.      

            Days passed… nothing. Weeks passed… a few rejections trickled in. Months passed… nada. It was as if my manuscript had been sucked into a black hole of indifference.         

Was it my lack of platform? I’d taken a break from publishing and gone back to graduate school to improve my writing chops.  Likely the publishing world considered me a has-been, which meant I probably needed to increase my profile. But where to start?

                I googled “author platform” and found an interview with a literary agent. She said one of the best ways to get the attention of editors was to be published in the New York Times. There it was again. But which section? (If you’ve ever seen my wardrobe and hairstyle you’d know “Style” wasn’t an option.)

             I kept an eye out for timely topics and noticed MFA programs were trending. Lucky me! I’d recently graduated from an MFA program.  Unfortunately so had thousands of other writers; I needed a unique approach. My published novels were Southern chick lit. Maybe that was my angle: Bridget Jones Meets Breadloaf.

            I wrote the essay, crafted a pitch, and submitted it to the Op-Ed section.  The guidelines say that if you don’t hear back from the editor for three days, you can assume they’ve passed on your work. Guess what? Three days went by and no news.

But on the fourth day, there it was: An acceptance from the New York Times. At first I thought it had to be a hallucination.  I’m used to experiencing extreme suffering before something positive happens to me, and my suffering for this piece had been minimal. (I’d gotten a small paper cut after reading through my final draft.) 

             I immediately emailed my agent and said, “Can we leverage this publicity?” What I really meant was, “Let the auction begin!” Meanwhile I was trying to think about who might play me in the movie of my life. (Amy Adams was too young. Maybe Nicole Kidman?)

              “Masters in Chick Lit”  appeared in the Sunday Times, taking up an entire page. Sadly it did not immediately generate dozens of calls from editors and film producers.  Instead it entered the world with the fanfare of a newly hatched mealworm.   On Monday I couldn’t even find it on the web site, and I assumed it was such failure that the Times had buried it and kicked dirt over it, hoping that no one would ever mention it again.

On Tuesday morning my fortunes changed; my husband woke me up and said, “They’re featuring your piece on the front page of the web site.”

            That’s when things finally started to take off. I got oodles of comments, including one from Writers Unboxed’s own Donald Maas. The book editor at the Washington Post asked me if I’d do a review for him. Then author Anne Rice tweeted about it. (Yes! Maybe there’d be a movie after all.) I became obsessed with my computer, following the tweets, comments, and email. At some point in the day, Elizabeth Gilbert tweeted, blogged and Facebooked my piece saying, “I think this is just freaking great. Made me want to stand up and cheer.”

This is only the beginning, I thought.  Elizabeth Gilbert today… tomorrow the world.            

              As it turned out, the Elizabeth Gilbert shout-out was not the beginning, but the end of my five minutes of fame. The next day my piece disappeared from the front page of the web site. The tweets, emails, comments and Facebook posts slowed and eventually stopped completely. That’s okay, I thought.  I’d console myself with the super-duper book deal that was obviously in my future.

             A few days passed and no excited phone calls from my agent. A couple more rejections came in, and then it was black hole time again.  Karin Gillespie who?

              It took me a couple of days to put my experience in perspective. As I said, my initial motivation for writing the piece was to increase my platform and thus become cat nip for Big-Five editors.  That didn’t happen. What did happen was I heard from dozens of readers who passionately connected with my words.

And, of course, that’s ultimately why I write. Not just to get a platform, but to reach people and possibly make them laugh, recognize themselves or slightly change their world view, even if it’s only for a day or two. So I didn’t get a Big-Five publishing deal, (what do you people want from me, my own reality show?) but I connected with thousands of readers, and in that regard, my Times piece was a wild success.                     

             P.S. A couple of weeks later I signed a book deal but it had nothing to do with my essay. I was at a book festival and hooked up with an editor of Henery Press, a small but up-and-coming publisher. She read my novel in two days and offered on it.    

  Bio:

Karin Gillespie is the author of four novels. She has her rights back to all of them and plans to re-release three of them with Henery Press starting in the fall. Her latest novel Girl Meet Class will be released in September 2015.

Taking Time to Celebrate Our Dreams & Goals

By Marilyn Brant

#143071198 / gettyimages.com

Call it an occupational hazard of having spent so many years as a teacher but, to me, the "New Year" never really started on January 1st. Instead, I always liked to ring it in on July 1st -- yes, today -- when the old school year had officially ended and the new school calendar was set to begin. (So, hey, let's bring out the noisemakers and pop some champagne, shall we?!)

For my family, the winter holidays are routinely a frantic time of trying to meet up with relatives and friends -- often amid snowstorms, hail, and freezing temps, given that most of us live in the American Midwest. But mid-summer? Busy, to be sure, but my husband is a high school teacher and our son is a teen...so, we all still think of early July as vacation time with a range of more laid-back family events, fun outdoor activities, and evenings when we can stay up late and watch DVDs together without needing to get up the next morning at the crack of dawn.

An eight-novel romantic comedy boxed set -- LOVE, LAUGHTER & HAPPILY
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Because of the lighter workload for us all, we tend to finally have time to review the highlights of the prior July-through-June year, reflect on the most meaningful accomplishments for each of us, and look ahead to our goals for the next year. There always seems to be some challenge we're especially proud of having mastered (for me, it was hitting the USA Today Bestseller List for the first time back in September), and at least a handful of new ones that we're still striving to meet. (I'm definitely still waiting for that Hollywood movie deal...LOL.)

I appreciate the time the three of us get to spend sharing these achievements and goals with each other, though. It's become a family tradition. My husband and I have collected two decades' worth of them since we got married, and it's an intriguing thing to look back on what we'd hoped to accomplish five or ten or fifteen years ago. To see which dreams we succeeded in reaching, which ones we've still got our fingers crossed about, and which ones we dropped because they proved to no longer be as important to us as they once were.

PRIDE, PREJUDICE & THE PERFECT BET
(the sequel to Pride, Prejudice &the Perfect Match),
coming in JULY!!

In my writing career in particular, where it can be a long time between major achievements, I've found I needed both the encouragement that comes from reminding myself of goals I've met -- even tiny ones -- and taking the time to daydream about those I still wish to plan for and pursue...

It takes a lot of courage to keep working toward a big goal (it's a long game, this novel-writing thing) so, in my opinion, it's necessary to applaud the small steps along the way. We ought to pause at least once every year and acknowledge the hard work we've done in the prior 12 months. For me, that day is today. For some of you, it may be January 1st. For others, another time. But, whenever it is, I really do hope you'll celebrate. You deserve it!!

Do you have any goals you're especially proud of having accomplished in the past year and/or some big goals you're still hoping to achieve? I'd love to hear about them! :)

___

Marilyn Brant is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary women’s fiction, romantic comedy & mystery. She was named the Author of the Year (2013) by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She loves all things Jane Austen, has a passion for Sherlock Holmes, is a travel addict and a music junkie, and lives on chocolate and gelato. Visit her website: www.marilynbrant.com .