The Diabolical Plotting of a December Date

By Laura Spinella

Don’t you love it when your name turns up on the GBC December calendar? For as much as we ALL love the GBC, I bet you cringed a little if you saw your name on this month’s weekly reminders. Are they kidding? I’ve barely started my shopping.  There are 47 various school and social functions to attend, not to mention kids coming home from college. Holiday cards are compounded by holiday food, and don’t even start with the house that needs to be scoured before Aunt Clarabel visits. And, sweet Jesus, DO NOT let me forget to put the cushy toilet paper in the guest bathroom. Did it sound something like that in your head?

Me too.  And I send out the GBC reminders.

I could have easily rigged the calendar with a replacement name. I confess; I thought about it. I could have slipped Maria Geraci’s name in instead. Maria’s so helpful and smart. But then I remembered that in addition to being a fabulous author, she also works fulltime as a labor and delivery nurse. And suddenly it seemed, well… unfair. Barbara Claypole White crossed my mind too. Barbara’s handy with a sticky widget. Is that British? Because Barbara is… British. She once told me I could use an ARC of hers to “balance a wonky table leg.” I still laugh at that.Then I realized Barbara is 11 days out from the pub date of her stunning new novel, THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR. I know this is a fact because I was privy to an early read. Privy.  Privy’s an English word, right?   Anyway, I figured Barbara has enough on her mind between her pub date and trying to get rural North Carolina to buy into Boxing Day, December 26th. According to Barbara, most Americans think Boxing Day is England’s homage to fisticuffs via a boxing ring. Made sense to me. But she assures me this is not the case. It’s the traditional day that house servants received “boxed” gifts from their, uh… masters?  Heaven knows, with the success of Downton Abbey, all North Carolinians may catch onto Boxing Day by the end of season four. 

Desperate and short on clever, I considered a hot-potato pass to Karin Gillespie. Karin is probably one of the nicest people I know and I’m, well… not. Surely, she would have graciously picked up my slack.  Then, yesterday, I read Karin’s brilliant GBC post and realized I was in twice as much trouble as I previously thought. I couldn’t be that insightful if I was sentenced to six months in solitary with nothing but a copy of THE GOLDFINCH, legal pad, and an entire Rosetta Stone series on How to Be a Better Writer.

 I even considered getting sneaky and inviting Susan McBride over to guest blog. Of course you all remember Susan, a card-carrying GBC member for a long time. With the birth of her sweet Emily and busy days, Susan moved on from the GBC, though we’d all love to hear from her. (See us waving from the GBC, Susan!) Then I remembered what it was like to have an 18-month old around during the holidays. Okay, so I don’t exactly remember, but there is video from that era that involves me and a spirited New Year’s Eve celebration. On occasion, my kids still threaten to hand it over to child welfare.

So here you are, stuck with me.

Originally, I had an elaborate post worked out in my mind. It had something to do with envisioning yourself as a writer in another time period. Do you see yourself as a Jane Austen imprint, Harriet Beecher Stowe wannabe, Flannery O’Connor, S.E. Hinton, Alice Walker, or Sylvia Plath? Well, maybe not Sylvia Plath. We all know how that ended.  But instead of an inspired piece about authors from other generations, I succumbed. I fell victim to the calendar and Christmas cookies and one of those college kids who turned up just in time to make my upstairs look like a ratings-sweeps episode of Hoarders.

In the end, I almost opted for the default blog. I do have a new book out. It’s a credible platform from which I could drone on about PERFECT TIMING and the incredible PERFECT TIMING giveaways going on right now. But since this is a season of merriment and giving, I’ll only direct you to my Events page and the above discreetly mentioned giveaways. So from here in New England, this is my December 20^th blog. I wish you all a joyous holiday season and a Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas… That’s British, right?

  

  Laura Spinella is the award-winning author of BEAUTIUFL DISASTER and the author of PERFECT TIMING, a love story about friendship, honor and a rock star. Visit her at lauraspinella.net. 

     

How Long Should it Take to Write a Novel? The Answer Might Surprise You

By Karin Gillespie

How long should it take to write a novel? A couple of years? One year? A few months?

 I’m reading Donna Tartt's latest novel The Goldfinch, and I’m determined to savor it, because she always takes ten years to write a novel. At that rate I won’t be enjoying another Donna Tartt novel until 2023.

A decade is a very long time. Long enough to age single malt scotch and serve a prison term for armed robbery. Long enough for James Patterson to write 100 novels. So long that I can't but wonder:
Why the hell does Donna Tartt take ten years to write her novels?

In her defense, The Goldfinch is 748 pages. That’s a hefty book; in fact it was so heavy my wrists got tired holding it up. But let’s 
do the math. Seven-hundred and forty eight pages is approximately 187,000 words.  To write a novel that length in ten years, you would need to eke out only 51 words per day.   

Now I realize Donna Tartt is considered a very accomplished writer; her words are like precious diamonds. Compared to how long it takes the Earth to make real diamonds, (a few billion years) Donna Tartt is a speed demon.

Still it’s hard to justify ten years particularly since Donna claims she isn’t on Twitter and rarely uses the Internet. Additionally  she has never been married and works exclusively as a writer, thus family and work concerns are not getting in the way of her output.

In a recent profile piece, Donna tries to explain why it takes her so long to write her novels.  She compares her journey to an astronaut or a polar expedition. She also says she writes in longhand and claims “she can happily move around a comma ‘for hours.’”

 Fine… But ten years? Seriously. How much comma moving can one person do?

 But then I discovered an older interview with her, and she quoted John Gardner saying, “Write as if you have all eternity.”

Suddenly it all made sense to me. She wasn’t talking about daily work count or the laborious chore of handwriting 750 pages; she was talking about a mindset, one that is a vital part of the writing process, especially if we want to produce quality work.

Nowadays so many writers feel the need to rush, rush, rush. If they are published, the pressure comes from agents, editors and readers. If they are unpublished, they feel the need to catch up, to prove themselves, to justify all the time they spend at the keyboard.

But the longer a person writes, the more they understand that a well-told tale sometimes takes a while to reveal itself. We’ve all heard of instances where an entire novel comes to an author in a glorious rush over the span of a few days, but that’s the exception instead of the rule. Typically it takes a much longer period of time for a story’s nuances to be revealed, nuances that can’t be uprooted in one abrupt swipe of a steam shovel. Instead they must be unearthed teaspoon by teaspoon.

Anyone who has ever written a novel knows that it is frequently a mystical process. Insights into character and structure usually come in small, unexpected flashes, typically when we are far away from our desk. The insights also tend to build on one another, and there is no hurrying the process. When we encounter the inevitable snags, we must resist the temptation to force a solution. A better strategy is to take a long aimless walk or fold laundry or watch a cardinal pull a worm from the ground, all the while having faith that the knots we’ve created will eventually loosen.

Brenda Ureland understood the process well. She says, “… the imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling, and puttering. The people who are always briskly doing something may have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: “I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget.” But they have no slow, big ideas.”

Donna Tartt may have spent many hours rearranging commas and writing in longhand, but it’s my guess she also spent a good portion of those ten years moodling. In The Goldfinch one of the characters restores antique furniture. His methods are described in such painstaking detail I suspect the author has restored a piece or two herself and has also spent hours in dusty and dimly lit antique shops, inspecting old secretaries and chifferobes, and well… moodling.    

It’s crucial to allow ample time for moodling, even when writing something as short and simple as a blog post because sometimes it takes a while to figure out what we really want to say.

For instance, two days ago I intended to write a cute fluffy piece about Donna Tartt’ and her feet-dragging ways. I thought, “I’m pressed for time because its Christmas and everyone’s going to be too busy swilling eggnog to read my post. A funny little post will be just fine.”

 But, as usual, I was not satisfied. I kept telling myself, “There’s more to this. Dig a little deeper.”

Wednesday I was skipping around the internet, hoping for inspiration, and that’s when I found  Donna quoting John Gardner. Finally I knew what I wanted to say. And instead of merely making fun of Donna’s pokey methods, I found I could learn something important from her--something I’d want to pass on to others.

We’re all different in the way we approach our work. Unlike Donna, I don’t think I’ll ever take ten years to write a novel, but she has inspired me to be more respectful of the process and not become impatient, constantly prodding my work forward like a reluctant mule.

 It’s so tempting to settle for a facile manuscript, one that goes down easily and amuses the reader for a few hours, but often the work is swiftly forgotten. At the time, it may seem good enough. We say to ourselves, “Haven’t I put in enough time already?” or “I just want to be done.”

When we start thinking along those lines, it pays to remember we might be only one revision, one month or even one year away from something far more meaningful. And the extra time we put in is almost always worth it.

Just ask Donna Tartt.

A Hollywood Hit

by Maggie Marr

Today is a Pub Day!  Which for me, means a number of things, but first, and best of all, Pub Day means that I have a new book out.  Today, Hollywood Hit, the third book in The Hollywood Girls Club Series publishes.

This last year, the ladies of the Hollywood Girls Club were back in my head with a new story to tell.  A story that involved Cici Solange's niece, Nikki Solange, a murdered D-lister, and hot bad-boy boy-toy name Rush Nelson.  Who am I to refuse to write such a lush tale?  So here is Hollywood Hit:

  

 

Super charged, full of mystery, foul play, and sex--(yes--there is lots of sex)--Hollywood Hit has everything I love about the Hollywood Girls Club Series


I have such a special place in my heart for this series.  Hollywood Girls Club was my first published book.

I wrote HGC late at night, while I was still a motion picture agent, when I couldn't sleep because the characters wouldn't leave me alone.  Those ladies were relentless: Cici Solange, Lydia Albright, Jessica Caulfield-Fox, Mary Anne Meyers.  They drug me straight out of dreamland nearly every night and told me their tales of their fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) lives in the Industry.  An Industry, in which I am still lucky enough to work.

Next in the series came Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club, because in Hollywood who doesn't love a sequel? 

 

Cici and Lydia and Mary Anne and Jessica were once again in a horrible mess--a mess that only good friends can help you clean up.  Secrets involved sex tapes and blackmail--your typical day in Hollywood.  

Hollywood Hit is the latest Hollywood Girls Club Series.  The book has Nikki Solange and Rush Nelson, trying to sort out who, if anyone, is trying to kill Nikki.  

The second great thing Pub Day means is CELEBRATION!  Over the next week, a number of fabulous bloggers are helping me celebrate the release of Hollywood Hit with a raffle.  We are giving away an Amazon gift card!  Please visit their sites and enter to win.

Anny Books

Reading My Escape

The Hedonistic Minimalist

Late Night Reader

A Tale of Many Book Reviews

Books Books Books

Rolo Polo Book Blog

In Between The Pages

My Favorite Things

Hot Romance Novel

Storey Book Reviews

Jodie's WINE List

Cruising Susan Book Reviews

Pink Fluffy Hearts: Diary of A Coffee Addict

There Will Be Another Sunrise

Reading, Writing, and Book Reviews

Tiffany Talks Books

Finally, as part of the celebration, Hollywood Girls Club, the book that started the entire Hollywood Girls Club Series is on SALE!  From December 17th until January 6th you can get your digital copy of Hollywood Girls Club for .99 cents! 

Thank you to all my readers!  I hope you enjoy reading Hollywood Hit as much as I enjoyed writing the book.  Please get your copy of Hollywood Hit!

Happy Reading!  xoMaggie

Maggie Marr is an author, attorney, and independent film producer.  Hollywood Hit is the third book in her much loved Hollywood Girls Club Series.  As with any Hollywood Girls Club book, all names have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty, but if you read closely enough, you can sort out who you are...  Maggie lives and works in Los Angeles. 

    

Hungry for Good Eats, Great Reads and Girlfriends? Come to the First Annual Girlfriends Holiday Dinner By Ariella Papa

It’s hard for any of us to believe, but the girlfriends have never all been in one room. In fact, I have only met two of the girlfriends in person. Yet in the few years since I’ve become a “girlfriend”, I’ve relied on their advice and support immensely. Whenever I have a question on just about anything in the publishing industry I know one of them will have the answer.

We’ve all been talking and writing about what we are grateful for and which of our amazing books we are celebrating this year. I thought it would be nice for us all to have a virtual holiday potluck with food (and drink!) based on our work.

Everyone’s invited to come and everyone’s invited to follow the links within this post and try these books out for your own holiday treat.

We start our bash in the mid afternoon. We relax over some tea sandwiches that Ms. Cindy Jones brought. They are inspired by her novel My Jane Austen Summer and the manor house where scenes from Mansfeild Park are reenacted.

Beside that we serve blueberry scones. There’s plenty of booze and sex in Margaret Marr’s Hollywood Hit, but not a lot of food. Luckily the protagonist, Nikki Solange loves a good scone and so do we.

Every girlfriend is all a buzz from the excitement of meeting in person and from the lattes that Hank Phillippi Ryan is whipping up for everyone. Most of us are as grateful for caffeine as Jane Ryland, the investigative reporter in her novel The Wrong Girl. She needs to be awake to get those bad guys just like we need to be awake for deadlines.

Many of us are working writing mothers so you know there is a kids’ table. Thankfully Lauren Baratz-Logsted brought the favorite foods of the Sisters 8 series pink frosting in a can, juice boxes and homemade French fries. (She also brought copies of the books, so those kids can keep themselves occupied while we eat and DRINK!)

And there are quite a few cocktails to be had. Thanks to Brenda Janowitz we have sparkling rose. Hannah’s grandmother tells her in Recipe for a Happy Life, sparkling rose is very Hamptons. We girlfriends love things that sparkle AND give us a buzz.

There’s also hooch that Jess Riley brings to get us beyond buzzed. We balance that with seg, this weird oatmeal meatloaf thing that the inmates eat in her novel, Mandatory Release. She promises there are cupcakes with hacksaws baked in for dessert.

And now dinner is on. We start with Chili from Serendipity in New York just like they eat on the first day it snows in Malena Lott’s BRAND NEW holiday novella Sterling & Sloane.

Thank goodness Marilyn Brant reminds us that carbs don’t count during the holidays because everyone loves her cheeseburgers, fries and Coca-Cola. It’s just like the Rt. 66 diners the hero and heroine stop at in The Road To You as they fall in love and solve a mystery.

There has to be turkey for the holidays. Leslie Langtry makes it deep-fried in honor of her Bombay Assassin Series. It’s crispy and fun to make in the (very assasiny!) boiling oil. Usually people want a nice nap after this, but we are too busy talking about reading and writing.

There are a ton of great sides, but by far the best is Jenny Gardiner’s rice croquettes. These are served in her novel Slim to None and come from an old family recipe passed down from JG’s great great grand-mother. The recipe is in the comments. Jenny also pops some champers. We toast the craft… among other things.

Girlfriends are never satisfied. Believe it or not there are a few more things we’re craving for dinner, but luckily Laura Spinella brought a personal chef inspired by the filthy rich Aidan in her novel Perfect Timing. Anything we can think of he can make. It’s not easy being the only man around these parts. He holds his own.

And now for dessert. So much dessert. No one wants to be the first one to cut into the beautiful cake Sheila Curran makes, but thankfully she slices it for us.  The cake is just like the one served by Lucy to her departed best friend’s daughter to help pull her back to the land of the living in Everyone She Loved.

We also have array of ice cream (ten flavors!) from Samantha Wilde. There is a great deal of ice cream consumption from the mothers and daughters in her novel I’ll Take What She Has and there’s quite a bit here too.

More maternalism. This time it’s chocolate chip cookies thanks to Judith Arnold.  These are baked perfectly and just like the ones the heroine of the upcoming mystery release Still Kicking makes for her young adult sons. You’re never too old to love homemade cookies from mom or from Judith.

And more cookies from Sara Rosset. These sugar cookies are served in Mistletoe Merriment and Murder at the Chrismas cookie exchange. Sara made these with her mom and now with her own kids. She always makes too many. No one ever complains about that.

Hershey’s kisses magically appear on the table from Leslie Lehr. Like most writers in the group the protagonist of What A Mother Knows loves chocolate and these little treats lead to a special first kiss.

I brought some hard cantucci cookies to be dippied in sweet vin santo wine.  I first had this in Siena, Italy which is the setting for my latest coming of age novel A Semester Abroad. I like my endings a little bittersweet.

But it’s not the end!

 No one wants to stop talking, so we hang late into the night and make it a sleepover. The best part about it that Saralee Rosenberg brought breakfast stuff. We eat the breakfast that the president of the Skinny Mom Society devours at her enemy neighbors house in Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead. It includes eggs, hash browns, buttered toast and a slice of chocolate cream pie on the side. Now this is a way to wake up.

Happy Holidays everyone and may there be good books for all in 2014! 

Stick to what you know

(OR What I learned about writing and just about anything else in life from watching NBC's recent live production of The Sound of Music)

by Maria Geraci


I apologize to anyone in advance who's sick and tired of hearing about The Sound of Music, but I just can't help myself.

So here goes.

First let me begin by saying I adore The Sound of Music. The movie, that is. I admit to never having seen a live production of it on stage. Most likely because it's an older play and not done very much anymore. I love musical theater and never miss a chance to see a local production of almost anything. My best days visiting New York are the days when we have tickets to a Broadway musical. When I first heard that NBC was doing a live production of The Sound of Music, I was ecstatic and immediately programmed my DVR to capture every second of the 180 minute show.

The night the show aired I was scheduled to work at the hospital (besides being a writer, I'm also a labor and delivery nurse. And yes, I know, I have the 2 best jobs in the whole wide world!).   So off I went to work feeling very bummed that the show couldn't have been scheduled for a night I wasn't working. The next morning I came home and immediately went to my computer (habit!) and was dismayed to find literally dozens of snarky FB posts criticizing the show. Or rather, dogging on Carrie Underwood, who had been chosen to play the lead role of Maria. I won't go into specifics. If you watched the show, you know what I'm talking about.

Now, I sort of get why the producers would think casting Carrie as the lead might be a good idea. She's popular, she's beautiful, and the girl can sing. Plus, there's that whole audience out there that might not watch the show that would now watch it because of her. How sadly wrong the producers were. The demographic who watched the show really could care less who played Maria. They just wanted good theater.

While Carrie is indeed beautiful and can certainly sing, she can't act. At least not on live television, which I imagine is really hard to do. What this called for was a BROADWAY actress. You know, like Sutton Foster? Or even any of the dozens or hundreds of hungry actresses who beat the Broadway path daily waiting for their big break who have the chops and know how to pull off what was certainly one of the bravest things any network has done lately. And for that I certainly commend NBC.

The moral of this whole thing? Stick to what you know. Or at least, what you know you can do well. Will this hurt Carrie Underwood? Absolutely not. Her demographic doesn't care if she bombed played Maria on TSOM. They only care about her next country music album. Will it hurt the credibility of network TV when (and if ) they try to do another live musical theater production? Sad to say, it probably will.

On a high note. While Carrie wasn't the best Maria, there were some really stand out performances. The best being multiple Tony and Grammy winner, Audra McDonald, who played the Mother Superior. Wow. This girl can SING. And ACT. And just WOW. Her rendition of Climb Every Mountain brought tears to my eyes. It's worth seeing the show just to see her. Well done, NBC for casting a real pro there.




Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women's fiction. You can visit her website at www.mariageraci.com.

"I look incredible... [I'm shopping at] that thrift shop down the road..."

by Michele Young-Stone, author of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.  "Young-Stone has written an exceptionally rich and sure-handed debut, full of complex characters, brilliantly described."  --The Boston Globe  (Wow!  This book sounds like it would make a great Christmas present!)  Michele's next novel, Where I Am Born, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster (publication date pending).    

I volunteer at a thrift store, Hotline.  Our mission is to provide a safe haven for battered women and

Festival of Trees Hotline Fundraiser

children.  We have a Hotline number that women can call for help.  We offer counseling, court fees, and again, a safe place to say.

The wonderfully unique thing about our thrift store is that we have a voracious reader and volunteer named Terry who is in charge of our book room.  She has organized the books into categories identical to what you'd find at your local book store.  Hardbacks are 75 cents or two for a dollar and paperbacks are 50 cents each or three for a dollar.  Terry meticulously places these books for the ease of the shopper.

Because reading is fundamental and we all want to build lifelong readers, I either give away children's books or sell them for 10 cents each.  There's nothing better than seeing a child

ravenous for a good read.

You might think that there's no payday here for us writers, but I don't think that's the case.  We have four used copies of The Poisonwood Bible, multiple Harry Potters and we're never without certain classics like The Catcher in the Rye.  These beloved books are passed on and shared.  I am always looking for my fellow girlfriends' books and my own on the shelves.  I think that when your novel is plucked from the thrift store shelf, you know you've really arrived!

bug yard art

Michele Young-Stone is the author of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors and the forthcoming Where I Am Born, publication date pending.  Her recent passion is making bugs from recycled jars and vases-yard art and soup.

I Hate Signing, I Love Having Signed

By Ellen Meister

Every copy has been signed by the author

That paraphrase of Dorothy Parker's famous quote, "I hate writing, I love having written," seems particularly appropriate for this blog post.

FAREWELL, DOROTHY PARKER came out in hardcover in February, and when my publisher told me it would come out in paperback in early December, I asked if there was any way I could sign each copy of the first printing. I insisted that the logistics wouldn't be a problem. They could simply send me cartons of unbound pages, which I would sign and send back to them to be bound into the finished book.

To be honest, the idea wasn't original. I got it from author John Green, via my daughter, who went apoplectic when she found out he was signing the entire first printing of the exquisite, brave, heartbreaking THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. 

 So, my publisher agreed, and a few weeks later the cartons started showing up at my door, and each one contained thousands and thousands of blank pages. Can you say writer's cramp?

But it's okay, because I'm all done, and the feeling is starting to return to my fingertips.

If you haven't yet read FAREWELL, DOROTHY PARKER, I hope you're eager to see what all the fuss is about. This book was a true labor of love—almost a lifetime in the making—and I'm excited to share it with you. I also hope you'll want to own an autographed copy. You can get one at almost any bookstore. You can also order it online. As long as you buy it in paperback, you're guaranteed to receive a signed book. 

Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Books-A-Million • IndieBound • Walmart

For my writer friends and friends of writers, I leave you with this quote ...
“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.”  — Dorothy Parker

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Praise for Farewell, Dorothy Parker ...

  "Meister skillfully translates the rapier-like wit of the Algonquin Round Table to modern-day New York ... [with] pathos, nuanced characters, plenty of rapid-fire one-liners, and a heart-rending denouement."  
—Publishers Weekly

"Hooray for Ellen Meister! In a miracle of fine writing with Farewell, Dorothy Parker, a novel of infinite charm, she has brought the inimitable, witty and acerbic Dorothy Parker back to gin swilling life." 
 —BookTrib 
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Ellen Meister is the author of four novels and teaches creative writing at Hofstra University Continuing Education. She is also the administrator of a popular Dorothy Parker page on Facebook. For more information visit ellenmeister.com.