Reading in The Dark

I don't know any writers who aren't also voracious readers and that means I read a lot of books. That hasn't changed at all. What has changed is HOW I read.

I've had an iPhone for a while and I assumed for far too long that it was too small to read on. WRONG! As I discovered a couple or three years ago. It was a slippery slope, my friends. Stanza reader, Kindle App, iBookstore.... suddenly I could never be out of reading material because if, for some reason, I'd read all the books in the apps, give me 2-3 clicks and I had a brand new book.



Then I bought an iPad. I'd told my son we'd get one, but an unexpected expense came up that required a different use for the money. A few months later some writing money came in and off we went to the Apple Store. I LOVE reading on the iPad. LOVE it. Since I'm in the process of self-pubbing my reverted backlist and need to view my files in the various readers, I also have a Nook and a Kindle-Fire. I really like the K-Fire's smaller footprint. The Nook is pretty nice, too. I primarily read on the iPad (because the iPad also has Quordy, a word search game I'm addicted to -- because of the sound effects. Lame, but that's how I roll apparently.)


I have a few more confessions before I get around to talking about books I've enjoyed recently. Here's one: I LOVE LOVE LOVE high fantasy. George R.R. Martin? Hook me up to the IV, baby. Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks? Same thing. There is, however, a downside and I can express that in a number: 900. Nine hundred effing pages. Now, I want my high fantasy to be long and involved and you can't do that in a paltry 300 pages. 600 pages? Pshaw! To steal from Romance author Candice Hern, my dears, 600 pages is barely a note in the world of High Fantasy. (Do NOT click on her website if you are a history buff because otherwise you will spend HOURS drooling over pictures of her collection of Regency-era artifacts. Let me just say that she is a serious collector. OMG. Don't click!!!! At least finish my post first okay?)


So, there I was reading a 900 page hardback fantasy ... and I got annoyed. Reading while on the treadmill? Impossible unless I wanted to be under 3mph. Reading in bed? A limited number of positions available. At one point in my reading, my hands started getting numb, I kid you not. Carrying the book around with me to read during breaks, waiting time etc? No. I vowed I would never again buy a 900 page behemoth. And guess what? I don't have to. All those annoyances go away with an eReader. I can fit 100 900 page monsters in my purse.

Promise Not To Laugh?

I read in bed just about every night and 99% of the time it's with the iPad or K-Fire. Recently, a series of unfortunate events forced me to buy a book in paper (more on that in a bit.)

That night, I got into bed with my book, and . . . .


. . . . I turned out the light.

And I lay there for at least 5 seconds, I kid you not, wondering why I couldn't see my book.


Oh. My. Lord.

The iPad and K-Fire are backlit you see. You can read in the dark.

Stop laughing.

In Which Carolyn Is REALLY Annoyed

Judith Ivory is a Romance author whose prose is stunning. Story, plot and characters, complex and full of details that make the characters real. It's hard to believe they weren't going to call on me for tea later in the day. (Ivory, alas, is not currently writing.) Since I'm on deadline, I was desperate to procrastinate and someone blogged about her book Black Silk which is 1) one I hadn't read and 2) one I'd been hearing people lavishly praise for years. Perfect timing, right? I know! The eBook was $9.99. What the Fudge?

The trade paper was marked down to $5.49 from $20 so I bought that. And when that trade paper came, the cover was crooked, front and back. I measured the type to make sure I wasn't wrong. I wasn't. Not only that, the paper was newsprint. I kid you not. A consumer who feels she's been ripped off .... not pretty. I returned the book for a refund and bought a used Mass Market Paperback (MMP) for 5 bucks. I was peeved at not being able to read it as a digital book, which was shocking to me because the MMP is physically convenient. It won't kill your hands and I can be on the treadmill at 3.5 mph or more and still read. But the type was so small and well, basically, it made me realize that E is now my preferred format.

Books

As you might imagine, Ivory's Black Silk is one of my recent recommended reads. For a Romance, it's not particularly romantic, but my Lord, what she does with her words.

There's another book that's a recent read, EL James's Fifty Shades of Gray but it's BDSM (ADULTS ONLY) except I will hasten to say it's absolutely not what you're thinking. Whatever you're thinking? No. You're wrong. The book isn't about that and that doesn't happen. This book surprised me at nearly every turn. I am not a fan of present tense, but in this book it works. There is a paper edition available but it's so outrageously priced ($30.00) they can't possibly be selling many copies in print. It is, however, very reasonably priced as a digital book.

I also read Barry Eisler's The Detachment because I love spy books with killers and lots of fighting and hot Black Ops dudes. Check.

Rachel Herron's My Life In Stitches was a wonderful, wonderful memoir, framed through stories about her knitting. Rush out and buy it.

So, what have you read lately that you liked, loved, hated, or were meh about?

Do you read eBooks? Do you prefer paper? Spill in the comments.

Carolyn Jewel is an award winning writer of historical romance and paranormal romance. Catch Not Wicked Enough, a Regency-set historical romance from Berkley Books, coming February 7, 2012.

All Work and No Play* Makes A Dull Writer by Karin Gillespie

 Have you ever read the work of a young, uncorrupted writer? It’s like venturing into a jungle: Fresh. Green. Wild. Monkeys beating their furry chests. Parrots shrieking. Anacondas curling around trees. A chaos of creativity.

Such a writer is ruled almost entirely by her subconscious. The subconscious—let’s call her Crazy Daisy -- doesn’t know the difference between a gerund and a dangling participle; she only cares about expressing herself. Writing is play not work.

Unfortunately Crazy Daisy, charming as she is, has a problem: Her work meanders like a toddler strewing petals at a wedding: she needs to be reigned in.

Enter Ms. Grind.

 Ms. Grind cares about the rules.

She’ll tell Crazy Daisy that a sentence can’t run on for three pages or that exclamation points shouldn’t be showered over a page like pepper. She’s so bossy and judgmental she frightens away Crazy Daisy. Ms. Grind doesn’t care; she doesn’t needs that wild little girl hanging around anyway. Yet when she tries to have fun with her prose, it’s scary like having Dick Cheney ask you to pull his finger. Most of her writing comes out freeze-dried and soulless.  

Fact is, all writers are slightly schizophrenic, their mind divided between Crazy Daisy and Ms. Grind. We usually start out dominated by Crazy Daisy but once we immerse ourselves into  the sea of endless writing rules, Ms. Grind tends to take over.  

Can Crazy Daisy and Ms. Grim live harmoniously in a writer’s head? In other words, is it possible to create prose that’s technically proficient but also has passion, wonder, and playfulness? Yes, but only if you allow Crazy Daisy and Ms Grim to play to their strengths.

New ideas usually come from Crazy Daisy.

You’re talking a walk or daydreaming and suddenly… BAM! You get a great idea. Crazy Daisy, impetuous minx, wants to start writing immediately. It’s like she has a case of diarrhea. You’ll be tempted to run with her. Don’t do it. Stop and take a moment to diaper the little imp.

Believe it or not, it’s time to bring Ms. Grind into the equation—not to shoot down the idea--but to structure it. Ms. Grinds loves outlines and plans and she’s good at them. After a little structure work, she might find that the idea isn’t workable after all. Sadly not all of Crazy Daisy’s ideas are golden. She likes to take risks and some don’t pay off.   

In fact, it’s wise to begin with every writing session with Ms. Grind and structure your thoughts when you sit down to write, whether to compose a short scene or a brief essay. You’ll satisfy Ms. Grind and give Crazy Daisy some perimeters. T.S. Elliot summarized this process:

When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its upmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.

Keep Ms. Grind Out of Your First Drafts  

Once structure’s in place, time to let Crazy Daisy loose. Allow her to scribble on walls, turn somersaults or eat paste. Sometimes she might break down structural walls and that’s okay too. Ms. Grind, however, isn’t allowed in.  Why? Because she’ll keep up a steady stream of inner dialogue that sounds something like this:

That sentence was abysmal. It must be fixed immediately. Can’t you do anything right? Who do you think you are, passing yourself as a writer?

Occasionally Crazy Daisy interjects, bringing flashes of brilliance, but mostly it’s Ms. Grind who stands over the writer, wielding her ruler.  

Not surprisingly Ms. Grind doesn’t give up her authority easily. How can you keep her out of your head when you're drafting?

Learn How to Break the Judgment Habit

Most people aren’t aware of the stream of criticism flowing in their mind while they’re writing. Thinking is so fast and transitory; it can be hard to catch Ms. Grind’s endless digs. That why it’s helpful to develop a habit of sitting quietly and meditating for fifteen minutes each day. Ms Grind will no do doubt object saying, “What a ridiculous idea.  Do you realize we’re wasting valuable writing time sitting around doing nothing?”

She’s no dummy. Ms. Grind knows that meditation is the best way to access all of Crazy Daisy’s wild brilliance.  Meditation helps you to recognize Ms. Grind’s judgmental thoughts, and to ignore them when you’re drafting a piece.

When Crazy Daisy takes over the draft, watch out, because diamonds and gold nuggets will start shooting out of your computer. BEWARE. Don’t pat yourself on the back because that, too, is a judgment and any time you make a judgment, you’re issuing an invitation to Ms. Grind. The time for judgment, positive or negative, is in the re-write. Not now.

Writing will suddenly be fun again and as effortless as letting out a whoop of joy. You’ll find yourself falling in love all over again.

One caveat: Crazy Daisy is very messy.

When you go back to revise, you might be horrified at the results. Yes, the writing was intoxicating but the hangover’s a killer.  Ms. Grind will say, “I told you so.”  Don’t listen to her. Simply ask her to help you clean it up. She’ll balk at first, saying, “If you left things to me there wouldn’t so much clutter.”

True but neither would there be so much fresh, wild writing. Give it a try and see. It can be a little disorienting. You might not even recognize your own prose. By the way, there’s an easy way to tell which personality dominates your writing. If you love the drafting phase and hate structure and rewriting, Crazy Daisy probably dominates your writing. If you like outlines, loathe the drafting phase and love to polish your prose, you need a T-shirt that says “Team Ms. Grind.”    

  

*If you resisted reading this article, thank Ms.Grind. She’s not interested in articles about making writing fun. It threatens her authority. She much prefers list articles like “Ten Ways To Punch Up Your Dialogue.” They’re useful; this article is a waste of time. Crazy Daisy, indeed.  

Karin Gillespie is novelist. Follow her @gillespiekarin.  

A Bloodbath at Bedtime by Sarah Pekkanen

I love a bit of murder at night, when I’m tucked under my cozy quilt with a cup of tea by my side and my dog sprawled across my feet. Don’t get me wrong – it isn’t my husband’s inability to remember to turn out his fluorescent closet light (which shines, annoyingly, right into my eyes as I sit in bed reading) that prompts this desire for homicide within me.

No, I’m talking about the kinds of books I love to read: Thrillers.

There’s an old axiom: write what you know. And another, often contradictory one: write what you love to read.

So in theory, I should be bumping people off and then creating books about it from my prison cell.

But I’m ignoring both of those rules, because I think one of the best things I can do for my own novels is to simply study the structure of a good thriller. 

I write women’s commercial fiction and although each of my books is a stand-alone with fresh characters and plots, they are all linked, because they examine different facets of the important relationships in women’s lives. My first book was about sisters, my second about a marriage, and my third, which will be out in April, is about female friendships.

Sounds so organized and well-thought out, doesn’t it? I’m glad I have you fooled. Because when I turned in the very first draft of my first novel to my agent, she telephoned me. And my fast-talking, New York-bred agent seemed, for the first time in her life, at a loss for words. “Um… I mean, I guess I could send it out as a character-based book,” she said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself.

“It needs more plot?” I asked, stating the screamingly obvious.

“Yeah,” she said. I thought it was charitable of her not to say, “More? How about just aiming for some?”

That phone call made me realize something: I was frightened of plot. I’m a middle child – a classic people-pleaser. I hate arguments and fights and drama. And so I’d just kind of … left them out of my book.

I knew my agent was right, so I studied a number of books on plotting techniques – my favorites are Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas – and then I began reading thrillers. I haven’t put them down since.

Thrillers have taught me so much about things like micro-tension and foreshadowing and putting your characters into peril, then not giving them a chance to catch their breath before tossing them into a whole new kind of mess. These books, with their jagged-lettered titles and ominously slashed covers, serve as a kind of blueprint for me, laying out techniques that I can adapt into my own novels.

Don’t get me wrong – I love reading women’s fiction, too. And I’m a huge new fan of YA. Memoirs are neat, too.

But the books that have become my equivalent of a little black dress are thrillers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a fluorescent bulb to unscrew out of my husband’s closet.

Sarah Pekkanen is the internationally-bestselling author of Skipping a Beat, The Opposite of Me, and the upcoming These Girls. Please visit her website at www.sarahpekkanen.com

It's All About the Characters by Lucy Burdette

I've always been a huge reader. I tore through the Nancy Drew mysteries, then moved on to my brother's Hardy boys mysteries, gobbling lots of teenage romances in between. I'll give you an example of the kind of detail I remember best. There was a less well known mystery series featuring a nurse named Cherry Ames. Okay, we're talking forty-something years ago and my memory isn't as sharp as it once was, but I remember so clearly the book's title: Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. Cherry was working on a hospital ward and one of her patients reported a fever and chills. She did just what she was supposed to: got a blanket for the sick person and reported the symptoms to the supervisor. Now here's where the facts get fuzzy: I think the supervisor on duty had it in for her and didn't write down what Cherry told her. And later, she got in big, big trouble for failing to report those important symptoms. And now Cherry had a dilemma: Did she rat out the other woman, or take the rap? Isn't it funny how clearly I remember the character's emotional dilemma even though most of the other details about the book have faded?

    And I also remember a romantic series about twin teenaged sisters. I'm certain one of them was named Joby. They both liked the same boy of course and in the end he could only marry one of them. When the single sister went to visit the married twin for the first time, they had a happy evening joking about "their" husband. but that night, the pull-out couch was made into a bed and the newlyweds retreated to their bedroom and shut the door. Oh ouch--i can still feel the pain of the sister who was no longer the center of her twin's universe. (Does this sound familiar--I'd love to know the name?)

    Anyway, I'm just saying, what stays with me after fifty years of reading are the characters and their conflicts.

   As we speak, I am working on my Key West food critic series. These books are mysteries so I understand I need a body. And suspects. And clues. And theories about the murder. But most of all, I'm hoping readers will fall in love with my new character Hayley Snow. I hope they'll feel the shock she does when she sees her ex-boyfriend out at dinner with his new girlfriend. And feel her heart sink when she thinks the job of a lifetime has slipped away. And then want to read the next book in the series and recommend the books to friends. And maybe even remember Hayley in fifty years--now that's what I'd call success!

AN APPETITE FOR MURDER by Lucy Burdette will be published in January 2012 by NAL/Obsidian.  Please follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyburdette or join her on facebook  or read the first chapter on her website. And best of all, you can certainly pre-order!

Setting intentions

by Carleen Brice, author of the novels Orange Mint and Honey and Children of the Waters 

A good friend of mine says she sets New Year's intentions instead of making New Year's resolutions. She says resolutions seem too goal-oriented. According to this great online article on "The Power of Intention" intentions are a way “'to have in mind a purpose or plan, to direct the mind, to aim'....
By setting an intention, you make it clear to yourself and others, just what you plan to do. Set an intention to redefine what it means to be serious about your dreams."

*I like this idea. With the new year coming up and being in hardcore revision mode I'm thinking again of my writing intentions.

On a blog about writing, it’s easy to focus on the craft of writing: Characters, plot, setting, storytelling. It’s sometimes easy to focus on the business of writing: Do I need an agent? Should I self-publish or not? How do I build my platform? These things are important, and I know I speak for all of us Girlfriends here when I say that we hope we can help you improve your books and your writing careers.


Today, however, I'm hoping to get you to think about what writing means to you, what purpose you want your work to serve for you and for your readers. Being an author offers an amazing opportunity to express ourselves. We have a deep responsibility to get it right, to honor this opportunity, to not waste it or treat it frivolously.

As far as my intentions go, I've been thinking about what deeper things I want from writing and what I hope to give through it. As I finish up this revision on my third novel here are the intentions I'm (again) setting:

I want my writing to be entertaining and interesting. I hope that readers might laugh and cry when they read my books. But I want my writing to mean something more than that too. I want my writing to touch people, to make them feel known and understood, if only for the short time they spend with my characters. I want to make them think, to maybe see things a little differently or at least understand how others might see things a little differently. And maybe I, too, can learn something from all this, can see things a little differently, understand something a little more.

Those are my intentions. What are yours? (Try Flying Wish Paper for a fun way to set your intentions.)

Happy Holidays and happy writing!

*This blog post was inspired by a former post I did on my personal blog.

Writing Around the Distractions by Deborah Blumenthal

       Wisteria is discounting seasonal goodies by fifty percent, Groupon is offering 82 percent off Crunch membership, there’s an amazing French restaurant in the Village where - get this - you can eat for 30 percent off the check on Bloomspot, and wow, there’s a studio apartment that’s having an open house and my daughter's now apartment searching, and on and on and on and exactly how do you stay focused on writing your book when you’re being bombarded by e-mails and distractions, never mind the latest daily offerings on Gilt and  One King’s Lane, and omigod, there’s that holiday party coming up and J. Crew has the totally cutest stuff so I'll just take like five minutes and go check out what they have and then, ugh, the laundry is piling up and it’s almost time to take out the dog and my stomach’s starting to growl, so maybe I’ll just get up and have a yogurt, but oh God, I haven’t even glanced at the Times this morning and like what if something major happened and I don’t even have a clue???

      It’s harder than ever to stay focused on writing, especially at this time of year, so what do you do?

1. Close your e-mail, at least for a couple of hours.
2. Don’t answer the phone. That’s what answering machines are for.
3. Don’t shop online. I’ll say it again. Don’t shop online. Establish a rule about online shopping, like not between the hours of nine and one and stick to it.

        How do you stay focused? Share your secrets! 

Deborah's latest young adult novel, THE LIFEGUARD, will be published by Albert Whitman & Co., on March 1.

Verklempt*

By Ellen Meister

When a new book comes out, we celebrate. It was, after all, a long hard labor and the proud author wants everyone to know about her bouncing baby book.

But what about the paperback release of a book that originally came out in hardcover? It's not a new baby, and not exactly a rebirth. It's more of a transformation, like puberty. And that's not something we celebrate ... or is it?

If you're Jewish, this passage to adulthood is marked with a celebration that can be the biggest one of your life. And so my dear friends and family, I invite you to celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of THE OTHER LIFE ...

I'm very proud of this young lady. She's accomplished so much. Just this past year she was featured on NPR,  made several best fiction of the year lists, was selected by the American Booksellers Association for the prestigious Indie Next List and even landed an option with HBO for a TV series.

I hope you'll join the celebration by visiting my website and reading more about my darling girl. Also, I hope you'll sign this party's guestbook by leaving a comment below, because one lucky guest will receive the door prize: a signed copy of THE OTHER LIFE. Just a leave a comment and you're entered in the drawing.

*Verklempt: Yiddish term meaning choked with emotion

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Ellen Meister is the author of three novels, including THE OTHER LIFE. For more information visit her website at ellenmeister.com. You can connect online at facebook.com/EllenMeister.author and twitter.com/EllenMeister.