The Secret to Everything

by Susan McBride

Psst!  Wanna know a secret?  Okay, it's not my secret exactly.  But I just read several articles online about other people's secrets. One piece discussed a study that supposedly found “The Secret to a Long and Happy Life” and the other was something like “The Secret Every Frenchwoman Knows About Love.” Intriguing, yes?

Sadly, neither article exposed any true secrets at all.  The one about French women being smarter than American women about love purportedly comes down to their ability to see things in shades of gray instead of black and white.  As in, love isn’t just a matter of “do I” or “don’t I,” it’s more like, "how do I love thee?  A little?  A lot?  Somewhere in between?"  I have a feeling plenty of American women see those shades of gray when it comes to romance. If there's one thing I do know, it's that Americans often don't share the same views about anything (as becomes all too obvious during an election year). 

The other piece about living a long and happy life implied “the secret” wasn’t just one thing.  It involved being married or in a stable relationship, having fun, and doing things for other people.  Sounds like pretty logical stuff to me.

I was never a fan of that book “The Secret,” the one Oprah so highly touted.  I don’t even remember the author’s name, and I don’t care enough to look it up.  I heard oodles about it while it was sitting atop bestsellers lists to get the general concept:  that we attract both good and bad things to our lives depending on what thoughts we put out to the universe. So if you get sick or a tornado knocks down your house, you clearly are responsible because you must be putting out bad juju.  Um, seriously??? As someone who’s gone through a scary diagnosis—who’s seen family and friends, and even the children of friends, go through horrible health scares—I think that’s a load of horse hockey.

Through the years, I've also seen a host of articles about the key to writing a bestseller, because wouldn’t we all love to learn that trick, too?  Apparently, we need to study markets and anticipate trends, or else just write the book of our heart and make it so engaging that word of mouth spreads like wildfire. Or perhaps we should just put out positive thoughts about whatever we've written and hopefully the universe will deem us worthy enough to make our books sell. Hmm.  

Where bestsellers are concerned, I've decided that it boils down to this:  nobody honestly knows "the secret" to what sells, or else every book would hit the bestsellers lists.  I know an author who was paid a squeal-worthy amount for a first novel that everyone expected to do very well. Instead, it fared modestly, and she never sold her option book. Another author I'm acquainted with wrote a book that took years to catch on; but once it did, wowza!  I have several friends who won awards galore in one genre but never broke out, only to switch genres and make a killing doing different types of books entirely.  My take:  if we're in this biz because we love to write, and we’re writing the kind of books we love to read—and someone out there is buying them—then it’s all good. But such a simplistic view is hardly buzz-worthy or exciting, I know.

I do find it fascinating, the desire to find a single answer or a shortcut to achieving our dreams. I'm not surprised by it though.We live in a society that expects swift results.  Look at how fast technology changes.  One day, your cell phone that does everything but clean your house is the hottest ticket in town, and the next day, there’s a new version that wipes the floor with the one you just got.  It’s frightening in many ways, and it makes me wish we could all just take a breath and slow down. Life isn't a race.  It's a journey, one made all the more worthwhile if we take a moment to stop and smell the roses--and, I mean, real roses, not virtual flowers.

Ultimately, I’ve come to this conclusion:  there isn’t a secret to everything. There's no single answer, as convenient as that would be. How we find love, success, and happiness isn't going to be the same for any two people. Which takes me back to that Billy Crystal movie, City Slickers (which I adore!), and the exchange between Curly and Mitch:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?  [He holds up one finger] This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean s***.
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?" 

Curly: That's what you have to find out.

 

Amen to that.

***

Susan McBride is the author of Little Black Dress (a Target Recommended Read) and The Cougar Club (a Target Bookmarked Breakout Title).  Despite suffering from a severe case of pregnancy brain, she is currently finishing up The Truth About Love and Lightning, which will be out from William Morrow Paperbacks in the spring of 2013.  Visit her web site at http://SusanMcBride.com for more scoop.

Losing My Religion?

by

Sheila Curran

Last week an NPR talk show was asking Catholic listeners to call in and share their thoughts about birth control.  I found myself wondering whether I’d meet the test.   I was certainly steeped in the culture and tradition.  My great-grandmother went to Mass to pray for a husband.  She met a prosperous widower who’d lost his first job for being Catholic.  My grandmother was their eighteenth child.  Her inheritance went to the Jesuits.  I spent my childhood in parochial schools. I’m the sixth of ten, or seventh of eleven, if you count my oldest sister’s twin.

 

My mother, a convert, followed the Church’s teaching on birth control, despite her severe morning sickness.  Somehow she made it through those nine years of nausea without losing her sense of humor, or humility.  She’s the archtypal Madonna figure.  Self-sacrificing, self-effacing, a calm Lady Madonna.  

When I ask her about the rhythm method, she shrugs and says, “We were so stupid!” 

According to polls, 98% of Catholic women seem to agree.  I remember in high school, in a Family and Marriage class, the priest saying God had special reverence for women.  I wonder now, though, how much you can revere someone while at the same time telling them they’re incapable of deciding when and how they’d like to have children?  In some ways, it’s as if the little red hen says, “Who will help me plant this wheat?” and the priest says, “Not I.  Agriculture is artificial interference with God’s plan.”

I presume that argument didn’t get extended to grains because even the pope likes his bread and beer.  Oddly, Viagra is also perfectly acceptable at most Catholic hospitals.  I guess gravity is one law of nature you’re encouraged to defy.  Go figure. 

It used to be that religion, politics and sex were not to be discusssed in public.  Now, the three subjects, like drunk uncles at a family reunion, have wrapped themselves so tightly around one another that its hard to know where one ends and the other begins.  Right wing politicians whip their congregations into a frenzy over sex. You have to wonder why this unseemly emphasis on our lady parts?  What’s missing?   Or as the French like to say, “Cherchez La Femme.” 

She’s notably absent from the pulpit, or the college of cardinals, conference of bishops or halls of the Vatican.  Apparently, she’s not smart enough to think for herself, which is, I’m afraid, the real reason I feel I’m losing my religion.  Not because I don’t believe in a beautiful, all loving God.  

I do. 

I just think she’s been silenced in our Holy Mother Church, along with all those female parishoners who appear to be using their God-given conscience to separate the wheat from the chaff, or in this case, the ridiculous from the sublime. 

For two provocative essays on being/not being Catholic, I recommend the thoughts of two of my favorite Catholic writers,

Julianna Baggott and Mary Gordon    

What to Read Next? Some New and Upcoming Women’s Fiction Titles and Book Giveaway!

Now that all the weighty books of fall and winter have landed on the shelves, it’s time for the yearly crop of women’s fiction releases. Here are some new releases to consider.  What new release are you looking forward to reading? Leave a comment with email address for a chance to win A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty. Winner announced after 10 p.m. on Feb. 17 


The winner is Sharn3960!

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson 

What’s it about?

Short version: Baby bones found in the backyard. What the hell?  

 Long version: Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard, and determined to figure out why it's there. Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Jenny, Mosey's strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love braids together the strands of the women's shared past--and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.

Sample prose:  “I never would have known about the other Mosey Slocumb if Tyler Baines hadn’t brought his mullet head and a chain saw over to murder my mom’s willow tree. I wouldn’t have bet someone else’s dollar that Tyler Baines, of all people, would be the one to discover her.”

Why you should read it: The cover’s so pretty you’ll want be tempted to lick it but besides that A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is like gumbo for the mind, simmering with Southern flavor and meaty characters. Also Joshilyn's a former girlfriend so, of course, we love her.

Julia’s Child by Sarah Pinneo

What’s it about:

Short Version:   Crunchy mom makes organic food for her kids.

Julia Bailey is a mompreneur with too many principles and too little time.  Her fledgling company, Julia's Child, makes organic toddler meals with names like Gentle Lentil and Give Peas a Chance. But before she can realize her dream of seeing them on the shelves of Whole Foods, she will have to make peace between her professional aspirations and her toughest food critics: the two little boys waiting at home.

Sample prose: “In Park Slope even the playdough is whole grain.”

Why you should read it: Cute title and Kirkus reviews calls it a foodie take on I Don't Know How She Does It.  Sounds fun.

Friends Like Us by Lauren Fox

What’s it about:

Short version:   A dude comes between two girlfriends.

Long version: Willa and Jane share an apartment, clothing, and groceries, eking out rent with part-time jobs. Willa writes advertising copy, dreaming up inspirational messages for tea bags (“The path to enlightenment is steep” and “Oolong! Farewell!”), while Jane cleans houses and writes poetry about it, rhyming “dust” with “lust,” and “clog of hair” with “fog of despair.” Together Willa and Jane are a fortress of private jokes and shared opinions, with a friendship so close there’s hardly room for anyone else. But when Ben, Willa’s oldest friend, reappears and falls in love with Jane, Willa wonders: Can she let her two best friends find happiness with each other if it means leaving her behind?

Sample prose:

“I’m plotting my escape (Is it 8:05 already?), when suddenly a cluster of women in little black dresses swoops down on us, arms waving, fabric flapping—­a colony of pretty bats. They emit a strong, collective odor of fruity perfumes with names, I imagine, like Delicious and Happy and Adorable. (Mine, if I were wearing any, would be called Wary or Irritable.)

Why you should read: Not only did  of the New York Times read Fox's  first effort the famously cranky reviewer Michiko Kakutani LOVED it and said “a delightful new voice in American fiction, a voice that instantly recalls the wry, knowing prose of Lorrie Moore”

Other releases:

Four of a Kind by Valerie Frankel (another former girlfriend) Four very different Brooklyn moms play poker. The stakes? Their most private secrets.

Bond Girl by Erin Duffy is Devil Wears Prada on Wall Street.

Spin by Catherine McKenzie is about a music writer who is offered a position at a popular music magazine if she follows a big star to rehab and gets the story.

Winners of Not Wicked Enough

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway!

Here's the winners. I've emailed those who left an email, so if you're one of the winners and you don't have an email from me, please email me at carolyn AT carolynjewel DOT com with your full name and mailing address or your preferred eBook vendor with the email address you use with them.

Kath
Marybelle
Chrisbails
nylnestill
Thecrazygranny



Carolyn Jewel

Selling Yourself With A Sound Bite by Deborah Blumenthal

           You’ve sold your book and pub date is approaching. What do your friends and fans want to know?

What’s it about?

Can you answer in a sound bite?

If not, you’re selling yourself short, some marketers say.

With the March 1 pub date of my latest young adult novel, THE LIFEGUARD, approaching, I Googled sound bites and bingo, Susan Harrow, a sound bite guru. 

(And no, I’m not connected to her financially, and we’ve never met.)  An edited version of her article is below. Then comes our online exchange, because how could I resist picking her brain to help boost my marketing savvy?  

Sound Bites for Authors
By Susan Harrow

If you think sound bites are just for the sleazy and slick, you’re missing out.
In today’s world, where people’s attention spans are the size of a tweet, sound bites can make or break a deal, a sale, or even a casual encounter. Authors need to be at the sound bite ready in every situation—because you can make a connection anywhere with anyone at any time that could result in a life-changing shift.

I was reminded of the importance of sound bites on a recent call with an author who became a client. She nattered on and on in her emails writing me several detailed pages before we even set up an appointment to see if we were a match. Not a good strategy. I took her on because she really has something to say to the world—she just takes way too long to say it. That’s why she hired me.

On our initial call I had to corral her over and over again in order to discover what her book was about. It wasn’t easy or fun. This is something that I should have been able to discover in 20 seconds. She was about to embark on a book tour so we had much work to be done before her book published.

Your audience wants to have a good time with you. It’s your job to deliver only the information they need to know at that instant—and deliver it in a concise, entertaining and elegant way.

Being able to get to the essentials of who you are, why you do what you do, and what your book is about, is critical. To whittle your words into sound bites takes practice. Lots of it. But once you master this kind of messaging you can use it across all mediums from your social networks, to a media interview, to a chat in line to get the latest iPhone.

The problem isn’t that authors don’t have plenty to say—it’s that they have too much—and they have no idea how to organize their thoughts or content into tightly crafted meaningful messages that leaves their audiences begging for more. It’s like taking Tolstoy’s War and Peace and turning it into Haiku. It’s a huge task and one that is best done with a sound bite buddy or media coach.

To get into the habit of speaking in sound bites before your book tour—or before you talk to a literary agent about taking you on as a client, I suggest that you create at least six sound bites using the following formulas (each of which is accompanied by an example).

Story of Origin: Kristen Scheurlein left a multi-million-dollar business as a graphic designer to become what she calls The Blanket Lady.
“I didn’t want to become an entrepreneur, but it’s in my blood. My grandfather was a shoemaker. In the Depression, he saw that many people couldn’t afford shoes. He traded chickens for shoes to make sure that none of the children in the village went shoeless. I didn’t realize that I was following in his footsteps when I began my business, which will become a complete non-profit in five years, but I am. We give away blankets to churches, charities, homeless. In essence, I’m trading chickens for shoes.”

Statistics Connected to Your Book or What You Do: Self-employed people, whose numbers continue to grow, have almost doubled since 1980 to over 17 million. One of the biggest challenges of the self-employed is the lack of structure and accountability to follow through on important tasks. Many complain that they feel like they are “all alone” in their business lives. Extreme Success gives self-employed people ways to develop the support they need and proven strategies to stay focused and effective on their most important goals.

Fact: 100 percent of the shots you don’t take don’t go in.~Wayne Gretzky
Vignette: Baby shoes for sale. Never been worn. ~Ernest Hemingway
Anecdote: I am walking down the street in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue in the lower sixties, women with shopping bags on all sides. I realize with some horror that for the last fifteen blocks I have been counting how many women have better and how many women have worse figures than I do. Did I say fifteen blocks? I meant fifteen years.~Pam Houston

Analogy: Driving down Hollywood Boulevard is like riding through a sewer in a glass-bottom boat. ~Author unknown
Aphorism: A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses. ~Chinese Proverb.
Acronym: F.A.S.T. Fix American Schools Today.
Through training and practice you move these key phrases into the conversations you have at networking events, with potential clients, buyers of your book, the media, and anyone who you want to give an experience of who you are and what your book is about. It’s important to be prepared for any personal and professional opportunity that comes your way, which can happen at any time.

Me picking Susan’s brain:

In blog interviews I've been answering the question, "Tell us a little about your book?" this way:  

The Lifeguard  is my new young adult novel about 16-year-old Sirena Shane who is sent off to spend the summer at the Rhode Island shore with her Aunt Ellie, because her parents, at home in Texas, are going through a difficult divorce.

It’s a summer that will transform her life – forever. 

She moves into a beach house filled with ghosts, falls hard for a mysterious lifeguard with extraordinary looks and mysterious healing powers, and meets an 80-year old Brazilian artist and shaman who bequeaths her an unusual gift

How am I doing? Any suggestions for adding more sizzle to my answer?

Susan: Let's work on a different question. One that 99% of interviewers ask. Why did you write your book?

I remember growing up and always eyeing the good looking lifeguards at the local beaches, so I thought it would be interesting to add a girl who was in a very vulnerable state – because her parents were getting divorced  -- and then taking the life-saving abilities of my lifeguard one step further and into another dimension by giving him magical healing powers.   (Too long winded?)

Susan: No, actually it needs more depth and description.  Can you be more concrete, enticing and compelling. Can you develop it more? Make it more personal? Why was this important to you? Are you sharing any lessons for girls? This first sound bite is your foundational sound bite that sets the tone for the whole interview and hooks the audience and makes them want to hear more.

My rewrite: I remember being a tall, skinny, unpopular 16-year-old eyeing the ripped, blond gods on the beaches during summer vacation, so half a lifetime later I thought it would be  interesting to explore what happened when a young, girl in a vulnerable state - because her parents were getting divorced - meets a lifeguard who not only pulls people out of the ocean, but also has magical healing powers. How would she react to him? How would he change her life?    (Better?)

Susan: Yes. And. Why would your audience want to read it? What are you going to give them that no one else can? How have you transformed? Can you tell of one time when you saw the ripped blond gods had a big impact on you? Some kind of wish or aha moment?

Why would your audience want to read it?

The Lifeguard is a summer book that transports readers into a new world of  infatuation, first love, and the mysteries of shamanic healing, with some ghosts and mysteries along the way.   

What are you going to give them that no one else can?

 I’ve always been fascinated by stories of the healing powers of shamanic figures from different parts of the world and I think this book combines some of that power and mystery along with romance.

How have you transformed?

The book is about both the transformative powers of art and the mysterious powers of healing.

Can you tell of one time when you saw the ripped blond gods had a big impact on you? Some kind of wish or aha moment?

I wish I could say that some blond god swooned over me, but alas, that isn’t the case. One time my friend and I approached two lifeguards after she cut her foot on the beach.  They were totally unsympathetic. “Sand will help coagulate the blood,” one of them said.

So much for fantasy.

Susan Harrow is an influential media coach, marketing strategist and author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul (HarperCollins). You can learn to speak in sound bites to get what you want in business and in life from her self-paced online course here: http://prsecrets.com/soundbites_course.html

SEX on Valentine's Day

by Ariella Papa

Did I get your attention? Good.
I'm something of a cynic when it comes to love stories and something of a prude when it comes to writing about sex. I'm all for the fading to black before anything big happens. But sex and love are integral to the stories we all write. So I decided to enlist the help of my pal, Lynn Messina, for a guest post on this, the most romantic of days. She is a chick-lit veteran like myself. Lynn has a brand new book out The Girls' Guide to Dating Zombies. It's a love story with a little bite.

But before I turn this post over to her let me wish a you a very happy Valentine's Day and the hope that you get a lot of the title.

It’s Valentine’s Day, so naturally a writer’s fancy turns to love—and sex. More than one author I know can tackle the latter with aplomb. The romance heats up, the couple moves to the bedroom (or the couch or the kitchen table), and members start to throb. The sex scene, florid but fluid, culminates grandly in an eloquent description of satisfied lovers replete in each other’s embrace.

            I can’t do that.

            Over the years, I’ve tried writing many sex scenes, and they always come out stilted and vaguely silly. Part of the problem is procedural; I find it hard to break down such an encompassing whole into components. But the bigger impediment is my own overwhelming self-consciousness. My mom died more than a decade ago, and yet every time I try to write about a throbbing member, I turn watermelon pink at the thought of her reading it. What would she think?

            It was unfortunate, then, that I decided to write a book called The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies. The preimise was simple: A plague turns 99.9999 percent of men into zombies, and women, making the best of a bad situation, begin dating zombies. But the human-zombie relationship turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected. The romance heated up, the couple moved to the bedroom and I called after them, “Wait, hold on, guys, where are you going?”

            This amorous turn probably seems obvious to you. Not only is sex central to the dating enterprise, but zombie sex is the giant elephant in the room. Even if I never mentioned the Sword, everyone who read the book would be trying to figure out the mechanics.

            But I routinely missed the obvious—it’s my special talent as a writer. Every story has its own internal engine, its own inevitability that drives it, and I typically spend two thirds of the first draft fighting the inexorable end. When the epiphany finally strikes, I change course midstream and continue from there. Years ago, I’d start over and revise, but I have since learned that the best way to never reach the end of a manuscript is to go back to the beginning.

            When I realized there was no escaping zombie sex, I resolved to be brave and wrote a nice little scene in which Hattie and her zombie boyfriend have a mutually satisfying experience. The passage was tasteful and vague and full ellipses rife with suggestion. I thought it was good, but when I reread it a few days later, the lack of details annoyed me. As a reader, I have my own obsession with mechanics. I always want to know the hows and whys of a situation, and I hate it when writers elide over the specifics with an inadequate explanation or typographical euphemism.

            The only solution, I realized, was to throw myself into the muck. Rather than skirt the ickiness, I would submerge myself in it. It was the least I could do for the book.

            To my amazement, complete submersion was remarkably easy. I reminded myself of the story’s central conceit—that women like Hattie Cross, with no alternative, are determined to make the best of a bad situation by dating zombies. So naturally, Hattie would find something romantic about the act of physical zombie love, something that would redeem the only reality she’s ever known.

            The descriptions of sex, then, became a game: How could I juxtapose the gross reality of the act with Hattie’s romantic perception of it? When her zombie boyfriend’s worryingly squidgy chest presses against hers without caving in from the pressure, she finds the weight reassuring. She uses the classic language of love scenes, but her meaning is literal: She’s actually reassured that his chest won’t collapse under the weight of his own body. No decomposing corpses in bed tonight!

            In the end, I felt very good about the zombie sex scene. Despite my blushing and squirming and worrying that people would find me completely depraved, I’d managed to add something necessary to the narrative. To my surprise, the real problem was not adding toomuch. Sentences like “A piece of his soft, fleshy lip fell off in my mouth and dissolved on my tongue” might make me giggle but they were just a little too much muck.

What do you have trouble writing about? Sex, death or something else? How are you able to get yourself over these hurdles?

Check out Lynn's book here

Love Love Love

Hi everyone...Alison Pace here.  Happy 2012 since I haven't seen you since then.

Valentine's Day is just 'round the corner so I thought I'd blog about some things I love.  As anyone who has read any of my books (purchases encouraged!) knows, I do love me a dog.  And I'm pretty keen on listicles these days, so here: a list of the Things I Love About My Dog.

Second verse: pretty closely related to the first. I also love books...better yet, books about my dog.  Here's the cover of my upcoming collection of essays about my life with dogs.  It's out November 2012 and (almost for the cover alone) I. Can't. Wait:

And, really unrelated to everything else (because some things should be unrelated to everything else), I really love this video of Drew Droege as Chloe Sevigny discussing Valentine's Day:

Happy Valentine's Day,

Alison
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