From Carnivals to Royalty by Jenny Gardiner

Watching the royal wedding brought back memories from long ago, my one and only brush with royalty…

It was 1990, I was pregnant with my first child. I was working as a photographer in Washington, DC and my husband and I had gone to Florida for a business trip he had to take. A few months earlier, I'd contacted the British Embassy after having read about an upcoming garden party; I figured any self-respecting garden party would need a photographer so I pitched my services.

The charming press person at the time politely told me they had a photographer but would take my name for future events, should they arise. I figured that was the last I would hear from him.

Fast forward a few months later, to a dingy hotel room in Bradenton, Florida. My husband had to attend a carnival trade show because a product his company produced was being knocked off and pawned off as carny prizes. He'd hoped to persuade those power mongers (read with a wink) who operate carnivals to buy the legitimate product, rather than ripping his company off.

Now, if you've ever gone to a carnival, you can probably conjure up images of your average carny type: Seedy-looking men, missing and rotting teeth, grizzled faces. There's usually an all-around feel of felons-freshly-sprung-from-prison about the place, coupled with the aroma of years-old trans-fat sizzling away in deep-frying vats awaiting a plunge from a 2000-calorie corn dog or maybe a fried twinkle, perhaps a grease-sopped funnel cake if you're lucky.

Well, the difference between a carnival and a carnival trade show (at least 20-some years ago) is simply that the grease isn't as old. Same creepy people, same vile food, same crappy products. So we were coming off a most relaxing day amidst the seedier element of society at Carny-ville, and were relaxing at the hotel when I decided to check our voice mail.

Back then we'd only recently acquired an answering machine. I know this sounds crazy, but they were newfangled devices then. Technologically-stunted as I've always been, I'd barely figured out how to check our messages on the thing before we left for our trip. And while gone, one morning before embarking on our carnival trade show expedition, I called home to see if we had any messages. Which was when I heard the voice mail from a Gareth So-and-So from the British Embassy, asking if I was interested in an upcoming event. He needed an answer immediately.

Of course I called back pronto. Remember, there were no cell phones back then. Wait, there were. When I worked on Capitol Hill in the 80's I'd gone to a hair salon near the White House and remember seeing an Important Looking Man lugging a small suitcase in one hand, holding a phone receiver attached to the suitcase by a long coiled cord, with the other. This was back when offices had rooms devoted to housing gargantuan "mainframes" to operate computers. How far we've come in so short a time…) But making long-distance calls from anywhere other than home was a cumbersome process back then: using a calling card, you had to dial about 70 numbers without screwing up the number sequence and then get connected to some remote operator or bell tones, enter in another 20 digits and maybe then you'd be connected to your number. Amazingly I dialed through successfully, and got hold of Gareth before he'd found another photographer.

"Hallo," he said to me in a gorgeous clipped British accent. I don't care what one looks like, when you speak with that accent it erases all flaws instantly. I swooned over the phone. In a professional manner, of course.

"I have a job you might be interested in," Gareth told me. I figured maybe another garden party, one of those things where women wear silly hats (Princes Beatrice, anyone?)

"His Royal Highness will be coming to Washington and there are several events for which we need a photographer."

I tried hard to maintain my composure and not choke. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Needed me. Prince Charles, then the celebrated man of the hour, considered studly despite his jug ears (and yes, they are quite juggy). The embassy needed me, to shoot the man (with a camera of course).

I tried to remain cool, as if often I was invited to be the official photographer of the world's most famous royal (next to his then-wife Princess Diana).

I told Gareth I needed to check my schedule, and pretended to leaf through my sad-sack calendar, the dinky 4" x 4" one like you used to get for free at the Hallmark store (yep, electronic calendars were years away). And of course I instantly leapt at the chance, no doubt appearing pathetically excited and simpering about the prospect of this brush with British royalty.

I was, as I said, pregnant. At that time speculation abounded that Diana and Charles were going for a girl, and rumors were running amok that she was indeed pregnant. I pondered drumming up some small talk with Chuck about his pregnant wife (a presumptuous leap on my part), what with us having so much in common, I knew we were bound to be BFFs and all. Fortunately I opted out of that tack. Because it wasn't long after that that we all learned that Charles had been clandestinely telling his extramarital fling Camilla he yearned to be her tampon or maxi pad or something equally abhorrent. Clearly he wouldn't have been keen dishing on Di with me when he was fantasizing about being inside Camilla's knickers (literally).

My husband never once wanted to come along on my photo shoots (particularly the dull ones, like the American Institute of CPAs; can't blame him, though those CPAs were a lovely bunch). Even my Liz Taylor shoot he shunned. But he jumped at the chance to be my assistant for the royal visit.

Prior to undertaking the job, we got a mini-lesson on dealing with the Prince--i.e. avoid dealing with the Prince. No handshaking, speak to him only when spoken to, that sort of thing.

I was told the Prince always had a group photo taken with his equerry staff (the cadre of helpers who travel with him everywhere to be sure someone puts the toothpaste on his toothbrush, that sort of thing). So we assembled the group amidst the splendor of the British Embassy, an elegant building filled with a vast collection of priceless artwork. I directed the men to line up in two rows, some seated, some standing.

"I need all of the men seated to place hands in laps," I instructed them.

"Your own laps," my able-bodied spouse interjected, to the horror of the embassy staff.

Silence hung in the air as I awaited the big man himself firing me from the job. But then instead, Charles placed his hand over his mouth and…snickered. It was a very royal sounding laugh, a ha-ha-ha rather than an all-out guffaw. But enough so that I knew the job hadn't slipped through my fingers, and for my husband to this day to be able to stake his claim on having gotten Charles to chuckle.

Shame Charles and Di never did end up being our BFFs, no double-dating was in the cards, no naming each other our kids' godparents. But we'll always have Charles' chuckle.

Responsible Reading? A Few Humble Suggestions by Paul Elwork

The Girlfriends' Book Club welcomes Paul Elwork who offers illuminating opinions on reader reviews from an author's perspective. We are a blog about women's fiction but since Paul has the word "girl" in his title of his novel, how could we resist having him as a guest blogger?


Writers aren’t supposed to talk about critics, I know—especially reader critics mostly found at web sites like Goodreads. After all, these are communities of readers who care enough about books to share their thoughts in a potentially global forum. And further, writers put their books out there; they certainly can’t expect the world to stand up and cheer at every turn, or for readers to feel anything less than welcome to judge something thrown into the commons. And I accept these things, of course, even if not always joyfully. Some people aren’t going to be so wild about my books, sure; some people are really not going to like my books at all, fine; some people are going to hate my books, okay (gulp), if they must. All’s fair.
Maybe I’m just asking for trouble in approaching this subject at all. Maybe even raising the questionable notion of responsible reading is a mistake. Responsible by whose standards? At what point does someone’s individual opinion on a book become irresponsible? And what the hell business is it of yours how people read anything at all?

I raise these reasonable questions as disclaimers. I cannot answer them in any complete, satisfactory way and won’t pretend I can. Still, I keep coming back to what is, for better or worse, my personal notion of responsible reading. Because despite the fact that my novel got a bunch of lovely blurbs out of other writers and strong endorsements from outlets like Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, it still stings when readers on Goodreads, Amazon, or LibraryThing, dismiss the book.



In conversations I’ve had with other writers during the weeks since my novel The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead (Amy Einhorn Books) got released, I’ve discovered a similar sense of dismay at the way books get torn apart in reader social media. Everyone seems to agree that if a reader thinks a book is boring, doesn’t care for or actively dislikes the writing style, feels that plot and/or resolution are executed poorly, etc., than it’s as I say above—all fair. Something works for people or it doesn’t. The dismay comes when readers say things about books that are simply untrue and/or uninformed. The dismay also comes when it seems readers bring a rigid set of expectations to the act of reading and, when these expectations aren’t flattered outright, throw the book on the trash heap.

And the kicker is when someone accuses a book rashly or ignorantly out in the open, in a way intended to influence other readers. Maybe this is the only safe place to even suggest an idea of responsible reading—for reviewers, of all kinds and in all places. I’m saying maybe it isn’t too much to consider a few things when readers choose to read publicly, when they sit down to read with every intention of making their judgments on a book a matter of social media record.

1. Go into a book with an open mind. We all bring our biases and particular filters to books as we bring them to anything, of course—this is why humans excel at subjectivity and struggle with objectivity. It’s not even a bad thing, necessarily. What makes us more human than our quirky individual personalities? Would it be better to have the Microsoft Word spellcheck, say, “read” our books and judge them from some supposed place of 0-and-1 objectivity? Of course not.

Still—attendant biases notwithstanding, I think aspiring to open-mindedness when you sit down to read is a worthy goal. Instead of going in with a list of expectations of what we’ll find, we should try to let the work wash over us and see what the author going after. Every book, every piece of art you can name, has some internal logic that holds it together, and I agree with the notion that any open-minded approach to criticism should try to appreciate the cohesion particular to the work, then judge the execution. I’ve seen reader reviews—of my work and other writers—that praise a book for being well-written, full of interesting characters, even absorbing, and then undercut it all with the assertion that the book wasn’t what the reader expected.

Along these lines, I’ve seen fans of particular genres trash books essentially for not being in a given genre. If anything but supernatural romance—as one example—leaves you cold, why read a novel that really makes no claim to be neatly placed in that genre, to begin with, and why further bother to flog a book in public for not being supernatural romance as you understand it? (More on this whole business of genres below.)

2. Consider the terms you use in criticism. Though the larger issue of open-mindedness is my first concern (which is why I’ve given it so much play here), I think the clearest cases of reader/reviewer irresponsibility come in assertions that simply aren’t fair or true. In my own case, I’ve seen a few reviews that accuse my novel of having no dramatic climax. Without resorting to spoilers, I’ll simply state here—and short of reading the book, I realize I’m asking you to take my word for it—that the book has a dramatic climax followed by a denouement so clear that my worry, if anything, is that it’s too textbook a case of such an arrangement. Now, if a reader dislikes my execution of said dramatic-climax-to-denouement, well, that falls in the fair category and a matter of opinion he or she has as much right to as anyone else.

Another quick example: One book blogger characterized my book as throwing the writing guideline of “show, don’t tell” out the window because, on a few occasions in the book, I have characters tell each other stories. This depiction disregards the fact that most of the book, including most of the family backstory in the novel, plays out dramatically—that is, in character action, on stage, before the reader’s eyes. It’s fun, I guess, to pick up an honored literary/writing term and wield it like a blunt instrument, but before we do, a second thought would be nice.

3. Ask yourself who the intended audience is for a book, and whether or not you think this audience is served. Let’s turn this around and look at me as the reader. I have no interest whatsoever in what gets called romance fiction—it’s just not my thing. My biases would set up expectations of formulaic stuff, simplistic characterizations, and so on. If such a book revealed itself to be other than that, to feature fully human characters with interesting psychology, I would be surprised and revise my thinking on it. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t go out on the web and attack it for being just what it appeared to be and exactly what I don’t want to spend time reading. And if for some reason I found myself compelled to write a review, I’d make myself do the extra work of considering who the intended audience of the book is and what kind of job—by my lights—I think the author does in writing for this audience. It’s still going to be my opinion and I’m not going to pretend to like something I don’t, but at least I would try to apply some of the open-minded thinking above in regard to the book’s internal logic and author goals. I would try to understand the book’s parts on its own terms before venturing to take it apart.

So, a few suggestions—take ‘em or leave ‘em. It’s exciting that so many people want to talk about books even to the point of writing about them. It’s a big-picture good thing, one not to lose sight of that. And happy reading.

Bio

Paul Elwork lives in Philadelphia and is the father of two sons. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Philadelphia Stories, Short Story America, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Word Riot. His novel The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead (Amy Einhorn Books/Penguin Group) is available online and in bookstores everywhere. For more information and links to short fiction and other content, please visit www.paulelwork.com

Kate Noble's Follow My Lead by Megan Crane

There's nothing I love more than telling other readers about a good book I've just read. Unless it's putting that book directly into another reader's hands. I can't count the number of books I've read, and authors new-to-me who soon became favorites, thanks to another reader doing the same for me.

So consider this a good book, from my hand to yours:

Here's what you know about a Kate Noble book before you pick it up: It will be rich and satisfying. It will lure you in and it won't let you go. Her books are brimming with rich, multi-layered characters who feel so real, you may find yourself "remembering" someone you know long after you've finished the book only to realize you're thinking of her people, not yours.

Here's what I know about Follow My Lead, Kate's latest book: I liked it so much that I thought only an interview with the author herself would do! So here are five questions with Kate Noble, just for you:

1. How did Jason (the hero) turn from the annoying and immature character he was in your last book into the mature, confident and intriguing hero he is in this book? Did you always know you were going to write Jason's story? Was it a rough road from his appearance in The Summer of You to here?

I knew about halfway through writing The Summer of You that I wanted Jason to have his own story. But he was terribly irresponsible in that book, so I had to let him mature (like cheese) a little bit before he was ready to meet his own heroine. Thus, Follow My Lead is set 5 years after the events of The Summer of You. In that span of time, Jason has inherited his title, and all the responsibilities therein – responsibilities he feels he must try to live up to. There was a learning curve, but he’s got it pretty much down now. Not only that, but in the intervening years, he’s watched all of his rapscallion friends settle down and get married. So he feels like that’s “what’s next” for him.

2. I loved that the book was a road trip novel, but written as a historical romance. I loved that it gave the characters a chance to really get to know each other, and to see each other in so many different roles and scenarios. Where did this idea come from?

The ‘getting to know each other’ stage of a relationship is always my favorite – I often felt cheated when it is skipped over or truncated in a book I’m reading. And a road trip is the perfect place to get to know someone. Taking someone out of their comfort zone will reveal their character very quickly. A duke that is used to fine carriages and multi-coursed meals learns he can improvise if he has to – and a woman who has never been outside of her hometown shows that bargaining is a universal language.

Besides, I love a good road trip story, especially a road trip romance. One of my all time favorite movies is It Happened One Night. I also had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in southern Germany and Austria over the past few years, and it’s jammed with so much history from the early 1800s that I knew I wanted to set a story there.

3. I feel that your books are not only so very good--so deep and so layered-- but often do things I haven't seen very much of across my years of reading in this genre. For example, in this book, Jason and Winn meet and... do not immediately fall head over heels in love. Or even lust! Instead, you drew out their interest in each other, letting it slowly simmer. What made you choose this approach to the central relationship?

For Jason and Winn, they had to take the time to get to know each other, because their focuses are so divergent: Jason is intent on marrying the proper society miss, and Winn is intent on being recognized as a historian. Neither of them are primed to fall for each other, so it takes them a little time to realize that they are.

But when they open up their eyes…

4. What happens to Sarah?! I liked her--and though I knew Jason was going to end up with Winn, part of me was so upset that Sarah's hopes and dreams were going to be dashed!

Never fear – Sarah is getting her own story next! I felt so bad crushing her, but it was sadly necessary. But don’t worry. She’ll rally.

5. I just loved Winn. Smart, focused, and not at all afraid to make her own way in the world if she had to. This is hard enough to do and be in 2011. What was it like to write a character like Winn in 1822, with so fewer options and so many more limitations? (And feel free to discuss that awful almost-fiance of hers. I loathed him.)

The education Winn had was nearly impossible for a woman back in the early 1800s. She only managed it because she was taught at the knee of her father, an Oxford professor. She was raised very much in a man’s world. The reason she is so determined, so headstrong, is because the only way to achieve what she dreams of is to put her head down and barrel through. Men, matrimony – hell, needlepoint – would be a distraction from that goal.

George, her awful almost-fiancé, as you put it, is just counting on the fact that as a woman, she will not have the respect necessary to pursue her career. He sees himself as her best option. At least with him, she’ll get to stay in Oxford, near what she knows and loves, and assist him in his work, the way she assisted her father, doing what she loves. It’s a scenario that grates Winn to the core but one that someone less focused and sure might not be willing to pass up.

Thanks, Kate! If you want to know more about Kate, you can visit her here.

Or if you just want to buy the book (and I don't blame you), you can go right here.

And while you're waiting for your delivery, you can watch this lovely book trailer:

In the Beginning Were the Words

By Susan McBride

Here I sit, desperate to talk about beginnings and wondering how to start, when I think, “Eureka! I’ll share the first graphs from some of my books, and we can see if I’ve gotten any better at it.” Okay, yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. But it might be amusing; and, with all the rain we’ve had in St. Louis lately—not to mention the tornadoes—I figured amusing would be very good indeed.

Just for clarity’s sake, I’ll italicize what I cut and paste from the books. The rest is just running commentary (aka, Susan Babble).

We’ll begin with BLUE BLOOD, the first of my Debutante Dropout Mysteries for Avon (circa 2004), where I needed to set the scene for murder:

Unlucky.

That’s what she was.

Molly O’Brien pulled her T-shirt down over her head, not bothering to tuck the hem into her jeans. She squinted at her watch, barely illuminated by the faint stream of light flowing in from the hall, and she groaned when she realized it was well past midnight. God, how she wished she’d weaseled out of helping Bud Hartman close the place! He was creepy enough in broad daylight. If that didn’t bite, now she also owed the babysitter overtime.

She grabbed her purse from its hook, slammed her locker, and turned around.

Bud stood in the doorway, watching.

In all five of those mysteries, I started with a Prologue, written in the third person, while the rest of each book is in first person (seen through the eyes of my protagonist, deb ball refugee Andrea Kendricks). It was great fun getting into the head of either the murder victim—before the murder, of course—or, in this case, the prime suspect, Andy’s old friend, Molly, now a single mom working at a Hooter’s type restaurant called Jugs. Fun fact: BLUE BLOOD was originally called STABBED IN THE BACK, which was changed to DEATH AND THE DEBUTANTE DROPOUT before it sold to Avon then ended up as BLUE BLOOD, which suits it perfectly.

Let’s move ahead a few years, to my first “Debs” book with Delacorte, released in 2008:

Laura Delacroix Bell grabbed the arm-rests of her seat in a death-grip as the Southwest Airlines jet touched down at Houston’s Hobby Airport, the wheels bumping hard against the tarmac before rolling to a stop. The kid behind her let out a wail loud enough to split her eardrums, and she gritted her teeth, willing the Flight from Hell to be over with ASAP.

Ten more minutes, and I’ll be off this cattle car, she told herself, thinking that nothing would feel better than stretching to her full 5’ 9” after her cramped ride from Austin. Besides her neck getting a major crick, she’d been stuck smack in front of the crying child who’d kicked the back of her seat for nearly an hour. As if that wasn’t torture enough, all they’d fed her were two tiny bags of peanuts.

Confession: I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote the first draft of THE DEBS, my first-ever young adult novel. The story features four privileged prep school girls in Houston, and I wasn’t quite sure how to utilize all the different points of view. In the initial draft, I started with another character entirely, but I realized with the revision that the real starting point was Laura returning from "fat camp" where she’d been exiled for the summer by her teeny-tiny über-socialite mother. Laura probably has the juiciest external conflict in the book, and by the end of Chapter One, you can’t help but know she’s bought a ticket on a train wreck. So THE DEBS was definitely a case where my original beginning was not the beginning I ended up with.

Finally, let’s skip to this year and LITTLE BLACK DRESS, my second women’s fiction book (out August 23, 2011), which starts like this:

I never meant to resurrect the dress. I had intended for it to remain out of reach so there would be no more meddling. But I awoke before dawn with tears in my eyes after another strange dream about Anna, and I knew that I had to find it.

A bruised-looking sky bled between half-drawn curtains as I dragged myself from bed and padded down the hallway in my nightgown and bare feet. I switched on the attic light and grabbed the banister to climb, my knees creaking as sharply as the wood beneath my heels. At the top of the stairs, I paused to catch my breath and loudly sneezed.

I’d forgotten how dusty it was up there and how full of things forgotten: discarded furniture, a steamer trunk stuffed with my parents’ belongings, and more boxes than I could count. It could take me days to dig through all the detritus. I wished I had listened to Bridget about getting my life sorted out months ago so there would be far less clutter. The house was full of it now. Like so much of the past, I found it harder to face than to ignore.

This beginning was the beginning I had in my head from the start, going back to when I wrote the proposal a year ago. Once I knew what the book was about—two sisters, Evie and Anna, who could not be more different, and a magical black dress that shows each her fate and changes the course of their lives forever—I saw this scene of Evie at 71, alone in the Victorian house she’d grown up in, awakening at dawn after a recurring dream and realizing she had to unearth the dress from the attic. The story shifts between two points of view: that of Evie and that of her daughter, Toni. Evie’s voice is more immediate (first person) and Toni’s is third person limited. Somehow, the combination worked, with Evie kick-starting the tale and Toni capping it off.

It’s rare when I have that clarity from the get-go. Usually, I rewrite my beginnings over and over again as I go along. Sometimes as I figure out the pieces of the puzzle—and understand better all the nuances of each character—I see a different starting point. What I’ve learned through the years is to trust my gut and to just get the freaking first draft done. I always feel like, once I know the whole story from start to finish, the fun truly begins (aka, revisions!). But—as you’ve heard me say before—the first draft is pretty much verbal vomit.

Hopefully, I’ll start vomiting copious words very soon since I’ve got a new book to write (like, now). I wonder if Office Depot sells writers’ barf bags?

P.S. As you read this, I am trying hard to keep my nose to the grindstone, sweating over the beginning of a young adult thriller, DEAD ADDRESS, for Random House/Delacorte. No doubt, I will mess with said beginning endlessly before this draft is done. Feel free to drop by my web site any time or find me on Facebook!

One Writer's Journey: A Tale of Many Beginnings by Marilyn Brant

Most everyone is familiar with Lao-tzu's famous saying: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." I've muttered it to myself a time or twenty, especially when starting a new book. And I've thought about it often enough when I tried to understand the novel-writing profession as a whole. Each stage, I figured, was another stride on the long climb up the publishing mountain.

But, more than a decade into this journey, I now realize that it's not exactly a straight-line continuum for me. I haven't been scaling the side of Everest, using ropes and climbing gear (and, thank God, because I'm scared of heights); it's more like walking on a curving, ever-rising path that starts at the base of the mountain and slowly spirals upward. Every new stage -- each circuit around those bends in the mountain, up to a slightly higher elevation -- is like being a newbie all over again. Novels may have distinct beginnings, middles and endings, but I think writers just a have long string of often terrifying beginnings.

At first, the path seemed to be all about learning to believe in the dream. That is, gaining enough experience writing, studying craft and building the skills to recognize when the story was working (or not). Knowing when I was being true to my voice, when I should accept or ignore feedback, when the elements of structure and characterization were coming together vs. just flitting in and out of the manuscript randomly and with no sense of authorial control. To put it in courtship terms, I was flirting, dating, falling in love with writing fiction as I walked along that part of the path -- coming to appreciate it for what it was, and for who I was when I was with it.

But, then, this stage merged into another. I had to stop and catch my breath when I realized I'd circled the mountain once and was now beginning a new rotation -- one I wasn't prepared for in the least. One that required a brand new skill set. This circuit was all about working to make the dream I finally believed in a reality. Committing to it with the exclusively of a soulmate, and attempting to understand what made the publishing industry surrounding it tick. (Rather like a dysfunctional family, I discovered, but that's a post for another time... ;)

I began to research agents and editors, learn more about branding, marketing, publicity/promotion and what was involved once a sale actually happened (contracts, copy-edits and royalty statements, oh, my!), so I'd know what to do when I finally got "the call." I imagined that moment would be similar to a fairy-tale marriage proposal, with the time between contract and publication like the engagement. The release day would be akin to a royal wedding and then, of course, there would be the happily ever after.

Only, I've been married for eighteen years, and I know better, LOL. Weddings -- royal or otherwise -- are lovely, but then the marriage starts...and, as many of us know, it marks a whole new stage in the relationship. Likewise, despite all of my attempts at being prepared for publication, I was, again, left breathless by this new level in my career when it finally came. Two books (well, three in November) down the road/up the mountain, and I'm still trying to get a few good lungfuls of air, stay sort of on that walking path and keep slogging forward without keeling over from exertion and fatigue.

I'm still very much a beginner in this stage, which seems to be all about dealing with the daily reality of the dream. Juggling growing responsibilities, having more writing-related commitments and/or presentations, handling reviews (positive and negative), getting awards and hitting bestsellers lists (or, um, not...), being in the swirl of other professional authors -- online and off, having opportunities to experience the incredible generosity of my peers, especially those who've trekked further up the the mountain than I have and are willing to talk about their struggles and joys and, sometimes, having to face disappointment when either the vagaries of the industry or the insecurities of other people let me down.

It's scary here. As with every beginning, I'm wondering if I know enough to handle this particular leg of the journey...or if I can learn what I need to know very quickly... I'm unsure of what's ahead and can only hope I'll have the strength and faith to continue on, even amidst all of the uncertainty.

Yet, I need to look no further than my current manuscript to understand why I don't know. Why I can't know. I'm on page 92 of the draft -- still, by my account, the beginning of this new project. I need to somehow make it through another 300 or so pages of wobbly narrative and half-expressed dialogue before I get to what I consider to be the middle of the book, which is the revising/layering stage after my first draft. (The end is when I get to tweak and polish -- and that's light-years away at this point.)

Of course, in life we know there's no revising, no copy-editing. It's ALL first draft: one long unpolished beginning. But, I have to be honest with you. I never would have become a writer if revisions and tweaks were all I did. Despite how frightening and perplexing those beginning stages are, despite the self-doubt that arises during them, I also know they can be the most thrilling of the whole book. It is, after all, in the beginning where the magic of the story is born. Where the drive to journey forward originates. And where we get the inspiration and the courage to take that very first step.

So, I wish you, too, the gift of many beginnings on your long and winding journey, no matter what mountain you're trying to climb. May it be filled with life-long passions, wonderful companions and stunning vistas...and may you get to the thousand-mile mark and realize you've only just begun.

Marilyn Brant did a lot of traveling in her pre-novelist days, which meant a bunch of long journeys, seemingly endless roads and a few mountain hikes (often wearing inappropriate footwear, which wasn't wise). She started writing women's fiction in 2000 and wrote for almost eight years before selling her first book. She's the author of According to Jane, Friday Mornings at Nine, and the upcoming novel A Summer in Europe.

Is there something in your life -- a hobby, a career, a relationship, etc. -- that you're in the process of beginning...or beginning again?

BEGIN AGAIN

I'm writing this on Monday evening, approximately fifteen hours before bookstores will unlock their doors and my second novel, Reunion, will go on sale for the second time.

Its first appearance came a little over two years ago. It was a hardcover book with a different jacket; now it's a Random House Readers Circle trade paperback with this lush new look, along with an author Q&A, a discussion guide, and an excerpt from the other book pictured here, Exposure. Soon you'll see it in your neighborhood bookstore, and at Costco, and as a Target Emerging Authors pick.

One very cool thing I didn't know before I got published is that books can have multiple lives. A new beginning means a chance to reach readers who missed the previous go-'round. For example, my friend Meg Waite Clayton's debut novel The Language of Light came out in '03 and will be reborn this June. Other examples include The Lovely Bones and Water for Elephants, for their film adaptation tie-ins. They got new cover art featuring the film stars; they got new lives. WFE, which was published in hardcover in 2006, has sold and sold and sold and sold, until you'd think every possible reader who might want to read it has already done so--but you'd be wrong: there it was last Sunday at #1 on the New York Times trade paperback list, making its 116th appearance. There are lots of readers out there--who apparently are all reading WFE, too bad for the rest of us.

I'm kidding.

Mostly.

So, in fifteen hours, Reunion gets a new beginning, and then a week from Tuesday Exposure debuts, and with this I get a new beginning of sorts. I'm someone I've never been before: Therese Fowler, author of three novels. That feels new and strange, something I'll have to get used to quickly.

I have to tell you, it's a nerve-wracking time. But it's an exciting one, too. Early indications are encouraging, not the least of which was a chat I had this morning with a journalist from USA Today, who called Exposure a great read and said it's an exceptionally "talkable" book. I would tell you that even my dog loves it, except that I don't have a dog--and even if I did, that dog might not share the favorable views, in which case I would have to get a new dog.

The fact is, I'm as excited and anxious and exhausted as a pregnant woman who's been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for months and whose baby is due now. But I'm as grateful, too.

Thank you for being here, for being a part of my new beginning. To show my gratitude, I'm offering up two copies of Reunion and two copies of Exposure. Just leave a comment here, and the four winners will be chosen randomly tomorrow evening at 8pm (eastern). If your profile doesn't link to someplace with an email address, make sure to check back here tomorrow night, or you can include your email address in your comment. BONUS: anyone who tweets the link or shares this post on Facebook gets an extra entry in the drawing--because as the teens in my house like to say, "sharing is caring." Just tag me, @ThereseFowler on Twitter, or Therese Fowler Author on FB. Good luck!

Six Great New Reads For Spring

After a long winter, the weather is finally heating up. Ready to get in a little pre-beach reading? Here are some women’s fiction releases coming out in May and June

My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster—May 3

A couple endures renovation hell after buying a house in the Chicago suburbs. Jen Lancaster is the author of five nonfiction books. This is her debut novel.


The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls—May 10


Would you marry a guy who’s had eight previous wives? Is nine the charm?


The Story of a Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon—May 6

Unlikely Romance between an intellectually disabled woman and deaf African-American man

Mistress’s Revenge by Tamar Cohen

Updated version of “Fatal Attraction—June 7


Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook—June 7
A professional house-stager faces family troubles.

The Wedding Writer by Susan Schneider-June 7


Four female staffers at a glossy wedding magazine struggle with issues of ambition. Schneider, the author, is a real-life bride magazine editor.



Do you have an upcoming women’s fiction reads you’re looking forward to? We’d love to hear about it.