Adventures in Writing

Hoping Doesn't Make it Possible

2011-05-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

The book I'm reading at the moment assumes some questionable scenarios, like the fact that a third world country has jumped ahead of the everyone in a particular type of technology, and nobody else knew about it. Now they are teaming up with a rogue general of the US in a military coup to take over the US government. Yeah, not likely.

It turns out that this technology isn't really key to the story, so I don't know why the author went through the trouble of concocting the thread in the first place. The other parts of the story are actually pretty good.

The thread seems to more than anything else, detract from the real story. Unless he was trying to make a political statement of some sort, I don't see the point.

The end result is a story that doesn't hold together. Hoping that a thing could be true, doesn't necessarily make it true and in this case doesn't help the story.

Have you read any books where the author made a leap that was just a little too far? Or maybe way too far?

Wish I could have met him

2011-05-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read a biography and mumbled to yourself "I sure wish I could have met him". (or her)

It just happened to me.

I am almost done with "Fighter Pilot, The memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds", and loving the book. What a great look inside the life of someone who I consider to be larger than life.

I had never heard of Robin Olds before the book, but I am into a kind of history kick right now and thought it might be interesting to check it out. I wasn't disappointed.

I haven't read a lot of autobiographies, and I did have a little trepidation about reading this one, mainly because my first impression is that they might be self-serving. This one is definitely not. I'm sure he left out some bad decisions, some bad behavior, but he didn't leave out all of it, and what came through seemed to be an honest portrayal of a guy I'd like to hang out with. The kind of guy that didn't give a rat's ass about political agendas, or covering up the truth to prevent putting some idiot in a bad light. He spoke his mind no matter what happened because he felt he had to.

I was captured by his ability to "do the right thing, no matter what", and using commonsense instead of relying on stupid rules and regulations that may have been well intentioned, but at the end of the day had nothing to do with commonsense.

There are a lot of flying stories, so if you are into that it's a great book. I had never heard of some of the crazy flying stuff that happened in Vietnam. It was incredible.

But even if you don't like flying the book shows the human side of World War II, Korea, and a bitter description of the Vietnam era.

For me this book is going to have a bittersweet ending. I actually don't want it to end, but I'm going to finish it very soon. And unfortunately there won't be more to the story because Robin Olds passed away in 2007. To me that's really sad. I would have loved the chance to meet the man behind the legend.

Slammed

2011-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

I've been absent from the blog recently because I am raising money for a new startup. I came up with a fantastic idea, built a prototype, and filed a provisional patent. It was a lot of work, but so far it has been worth it because when I talk to potential investors, they love it. No one has written a check yet, but I feel that it is only a matter of time.

What is funny is that there are some interesting parallels to publishing. Just like in publishing a good intro goes a long way. Just like in publishing people have to fall in love with your work. In publishing they have to love it enough to push it through through the arduous process, in fund raising, they have to believe in it enough that they are willing to invest some of their precious resources in it. In both cases there is a limited amount of time and money.

Where it is different is that in publishing there is a chance, though small, that you can gain an agent's attention by the query process. In fund raising, that almost never happens. If you don't know someone, it's almost impossible unless your product targets a market with a specialized fund.

I've had some great meetings, but I'm far from done. My writing has effectively been put on the back burner until I get this done, but hopefully soon I'll be back with a vengeance.

Writing is a solitary process and this makes it hard to network. Make sure you take time to expand your contacts, you never know when one of them will turn into the key to getting your work published.

Coffee Shop Roundup, Part III, Now with Random Snorts

2011-04-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

This economy blows.

The writing refuge has undergone the slow dance of change. The owners of the coffee shop let go over half the baristas. The evening baristas are out—instead, the owners, brother and sister, work the afternoon and early evening away.

They did not have this in mind when they bought the business I am sure. Some people invest in small businesses as a means to diversify their steady income streams. Don’t stick all the eggs in one basket, and all of that. Hire a good manager and let her sweat the details. Good plan, until everybody starts cutting their spending in half. Suddenly the manager is too expensive. Suddenly the shop needs you not as an investor, but to work.

The coffee tastes the same.

Nubile pretty, Allan is not.

I am sure he wants to go back to playing golf.

Epic Fantasy Book Reading Dude still comes into the shop. Yesterday he was actually reading a smaller trade paperback, obviously borrowed. Indeed, he looked like he was reader twenty-five or something—such was the wear on the book. I wonder if Epic Fantasy Book Reading Dude bought it used. It didn’t have a used sticker on it. The writer in me holds on to the small thread that this is a book passed down from friend to friend.

Work is consuming and too much of it occurs here, not because the economy blows, but because it’s so damn fascinating. Would a less intellectually stimulating job leave room for the fiction that needs to bathe in creative juices?

I wonder.

There are more people here working on… something… in the coffee shop. Handsomely Dressed Expensive Laptop Business Man hasn’t made an appearance in over three months, replaced by three other peoples of various persuasions: Homeschool Mommy with Two Fine Teenage Sons, New College Girl, and Perpetual Frown Woman.

The morning crew is still the same. Replacing the morning baristas would be a colossal business mistake and the owners aren’t dumb. The customers in the morning are all the same too, either people going off to work or mommies meeting other mommies with their bundle of cuteness in tow. I rarely set up shop in the morning, but I wonder if I did, what changes I would see?

There seems to be more readers, in the coffee shop. I spotted a book on an iPad, in addition to the occasional Kindle.

I’ve drank the cool-aid and Kindle got my business. I love reading books on my phone, and my new Windows 7 phone had a Kindle app. It did not have a Barnes and Nobel app like my old phone. It’s not as if I have a particular devotion of Amazon, it’s just blazingly clear that Amazon loves me (or, specifically my money) but all these other sellers don’t.

I only buy books that I would not lend to other people, because Kindle book lending still sucks rocks, but I devour books, selfishly only for me, on my phone. I’ve bought a book in bed. I’ve bought a book at the coffee shop and started reading a minute later. I bought a book at the office during lunch over my PC and told Amazon to send it to my phone.

And it did.

This is a reader drug. I feel like a teenager just discovering that kissing girls is great and wonder what else I can get that girl to do.

Thinking about teens and girls brings up the wondering about the afternoon baristas, and not in an Uncle Pervy way. Those girls loved their jobs. Did they find other afterschool jobs? What are they doing now? The coffee taste the sane, but Allan is no flirt. Maybe I should switch my hours, work in afternoons, and do some writing in the mornings.

Bah. Mornings are too noisy.

This economy blows.

Are Your Characters Real?

2011-03-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

To a writer, this seems like an obvious question... Duh, no, they are characters, they are not real.

Well that's not what I am talking about. What I am asking is could your character exists in real life?

The answer to this question may not be as obvious. Some writers do use characters from real life, but unless it is a biography, there is some peril in doing so. I think we've all heard the stories about writers who asked permission to use a friend as a character, yet when the character showed up on the page, and the description wasn't as glowing as the friend thought it would be, it was a source of extreme irritation.

I try not to do that.

Though I may have borrowed an interesting characteristic from a friend once in a while, (without them knowing), I don't use enough so that they would recognize themselves. I blend them together.

So if your characters are not borrowed from real people, that means they are made up. They are inventions, and that's OK.

My question is, could they be real people?

If the answer is yes, then I think you probably have a believable character, but there is a flip side to that. Do you have an interesting character?

If you model your character after a person that you might meet everyday, that could have a chilling effect on your novel. There has to be something unique about that character that makes them interesting. But unless you are writing science fiction or fantasy, it cannot be so unique that the person literally could not exist.

It's like trying to come up with a new flavor of ice cream. You can add strawberry, to mango, or chocolate to vanilla, but adding roast beef to strawberry is probably not going to work out so well. Don't try to make them so unique that it doesn't work.

For instance I think it's highly unlikely that you could have a Geisha character that was also a heavyweight body builder. The two don't mix.

Keep your characters interesting. Don't make them too bland, but don't stretch the boundaries so far that they become impossible either. It's not easy, but it is a key attribute of great writers.

How about you? How do you stretch your characters but keep them real? Do you have any examples of ones that didn't work for you?

Plot Threads

2011-03-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

I could get really technical and describe the interaction of the characters in your plot to be like the threads of execution that occur in a computer operating system, but I'm afraid that unless you are a software engineer, that doesn't really help.

I consider the adventures of each character to be a single stream, or thread of the story. Most of the literary descriptions call them subplots. The character starts at one place, travels through the story, and ends at another location. I guess they could come back to the same place, but the character would have to go through some kind of change, or what's the point?

Every scene in which the character appears is another length of the thread for that character, and for the story to flow, the different pieces of thread had better connect. If they don't, the story can break down.

It's a tricky business to make sure not only does the thread connect along the way, but doesn't seem to come from a different direction other than the one already traveled. There had better be a logical flow or the story won't work.

If the story is only about one character, that process may not be that hard, though I'm not sure I would find the story all that interesting. Most of the truly interesting stories are those with heavy interactions between different characters.

OK, so if the story has multiple threads converging and diverging, how do you manage those interactions so that at the end of the day every thread maintains a logical flow?

It's not easy.

What works for me is to write each thread of the story separately. Keeping in mind what I think is going to happen in other threads of the story I write the current thread.

Of course along the way, I discover that a character doesn't want to behave as I expected, and things have to change. Usually I make a note of the change that needs to happen in the other thread and keep going, though sometimes it is a big enough change that I feel I have to go revisit the other thread right away to keep things consistent.

FYI, this is also the reason that I have found tools like Scrivener to be so useful for managing individual plot threads.

When I have all the threads done, I integrate them together. Unfortunately I don't think you can write each plot thread separately, then simply squish them together and call it good. That's what rewriting is for.

What I do is write the different threads, then start the process of weaving them together. I connect in the dangling pieces, reign in the threads from the wrong direction, until, at the end of the day, I have something that resembles a rope.

Even then I usually have a few revisions to go through, but at least for me, it's easier than writing separate pieces of multiple threads.

How about you? Do you write complete threads? or do you write each piece at a time?

Balancing Your Writing Time

2011-03-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

How do you balance your writing time, with your other time? Whether it be personal time, family time, work time, game time, grandkid time, heck any time... How do you do it?

The only way that I can do it, is to pick a particular time to day to write, budget myself a specified amount of writing time, and hide from everyone else. That's the only way I can make it work.

My writing time, is lunchtime. There are days when my lunches get taken up with meetings with other co-workers, friends, or my spouse, but otherwise, it's pen to notebook or fingers on the keyboard.

I know there are some people that wake up at 0-dark-hundred, fall out of bed, and immediately start typing. I can't do that. I at least have to have my coffee first. I would also need a shower to get the brain cells warmed up before I can start flogging them.

There are other people that wait until the kids and spouse are asleep and write in the middle of the night. I can't do that either. Once it gets past 9 pm or so, my brain has already packed his bag and is headed for the door.

So that leaves me no choice. I have to carve out time during the day, and by carve I mean with the same finesse as I have when I use a chainsaw.

How about you? When are you the most efficient writer? When are you the least efficient? How do you balance your writing time?

Am I a Dinosaur?

2011-03-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

I still write on paper, not longhand, but I print. I know to some of you that sounds like a laborious process, but it actually works well for me.

I cannot do longhand, my longhand looks like a cockroach ran through a pool of spilled ink, then dragged his belly across the page. It's pretty much unreadable.

But for some reason, when I print, it's readable, and I can do it very fast. Much faster than I can type. When I try to type, it's almost as if I have invisible constraints on my brain. It's as though I'm worried about draining the laptop battery rather than getting the words typed in. I'm just not as creative. The words don't flow.

I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I am a programmer. When I write software, I have to be very precise about every character. Even one character out of place can make the program fail to compile, or worse yet, fail to work.

I wonder if that is the issue that holds me back from typing my manuscript directly into the computer.

I am getting better. I used to write this blog the same way, on paper first, then type it in. But that's changing. I typed this one in directly.

There are definitely disadvantages to writing on paper. It's a lot harder to do a search for something. It's a lot harder to completely erase something that isn't working and start fresh. Then again, maybe that's a good thing. Sometimes that can bring back old ideas in a fresh way.

But from what I can tell, the only really good thing about writing on paper is that it works for me. I hope I can make the transition. I'm afraid if I don't, I might just become extinct.

How about you? What works for you?

E-book Reader

2011-02-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Do you have one yet? Are you going to get one soon?

In my case the answers to these are yes, and no.

As I have mentioned before I have both an iPad and a Kindle. For just the pure reading experience, you're going to have to pry the Kindle out of my hands with a crowbar. The iPad works well, as long as you are indoors.

I actually "prefer" reading books on a Kindle, versus one of those things made out of dead trees, and it's for a very simple reason. Because I read a lot in bed on my side, I hate fighting to keep the dead tree thing open to the right page, and having to shift my hands about while trying to go to the next page. On my Kindle I simply push the button and I'm on the next page. It seems trivial, but for me it lets me read longer without getting tired.

The Kindle is also light enough that I don't necessarily have to hold it on my lap, when reading sitting up. That's not true of the iPad. It weighs enough that it has to be lap mounted or very quickly your arms feel like there is a elephant hanging off the end.

Books on the Kindle are more expensive than in paperback, but a lot less than hardback. I justified the price of my original Kindle based on the savings due to hardback book costs, and it has already paid for itself.

For an author that might seem sacrilegious, I mean we should be supporting our industry, right? But here's the deal. No matter how much we may or may not want to see the industry moving toward the e-book, it's going to happen. It just a matter of time.

For me, the Kindle has also been quite a boon to my sales. I self published a book a couple years back and it did "OK" in the dead tree version, but the sales of my Kindle version are easily 10X and continuing to climb.

Yes, I am a techno-geek and always one of the first with new gadgets, but the Kindle is one of the ones that I truly use every day.

How about you? Have you made the plunge? When are you going to? because I can tell you, it's not if.

Can Dialog Be Too Fast?

2011-02-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a book right now and the first two chapters are basically a Prologue for what is going to happen later. Books from 50 years ago might have had a huge information dump to give all the back story details. Remember, some of those authors were paid by the word.

That doesn't fly with today's readers. In the age of the Internet, you start as close to the end of the story and work your way back, at least that's what we're told.

Seems like good advice. Get the story rocking, get the reader involved and then give them the information dump.

Up until now, I've agreed with this approach, but this latest book has me scratching my head a little. It almost seems too fast.

It could be the author's style, short sentences tend to make the action seem faster. Long ones tend to slow things down. But it seems more than that. The exchanges are so lightning fast between characters that I almost feel like I'm sitting at the center of a tennis match watching the ball go back and forth between players.

Is there such a thing as dialog that's too fast?

Tension

2011-02-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

If you read writing blogs, you hear over and over about how you need to have tension in your writing. If you attend one of Donald Maas's fabulous seminars, he says the same thing. In fact Donald even goes further and talks about having tension on every page.

I agree a hundred percent.

Tension is what keeps you reading. Tension can help bring out emotion, or in most cases make a situation emotionally stronger.

So how do you do that exactly?

Well you could put a bomb in your protagonists back pocket with a timer set to the end of the book, but that's not really very realistic, is it?

The thing is, the tension doesn't have to be life or death, although that's of course one of the strongest ways to do it. It could be simply that two siblings don't get along and it creates tension because you the reader, care about the fact that they are not getting along.

It could be that your character wants something that they cannot have, a lover, monetary status, social status, it doesn't matter as long as it's something that they don't have, but they want.

I'm reading a book right now, where the author has done it a little differently, and it's working very well. It's a variation of the bomb in the back pocket.

One of the main characters is someone you don't want to see hurt, a true patriot, always willing to put it all on the line, someone that we would all like to be, but probably never will. That's not to say that he's perfect, no one is, but he's one of those characters that a lot of us can relate to.

OK, so he's attacked by a group of mercenaries, but they don't kill him, instead, they place what looks like a normal credit card in his wallet. Only this credit card has the ability to transmit his position to the bad guys that attacked him. They are trying to use him to find another person, because our main character thinks like the other person, and will likely anticipate his moves.

It seems pretty easy, and contrived, but I have to say that the author has done a great job of making the reader believe that it could be done, and that the main character has no idea. At least not yet.

The result is that every time I pick up the book, and this character appears, I can picture that card in his wallet, and I can feel the tension for him to find and remove it. It has helped the story immensely.

Of course this technique won't work with most stories, but the idea is not to stick a bomb in every character's pocket, it's to add tension in a way that fits with your story.

Have you read any books lately that used this effectively? How do you add tension?

Sucking Face Killed the Stilted Puppies

2011-02-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

Been working on a Secret Squirrel Contemporary YA novel for some time now, and today, I am puppy killer.

The main character in the novel is recovering from [redacted]. I researched recovery and the support one receives when Something Bad Happens.

One thing that helps people not feel so helpless is taking care of a pet. So, my main character got a puppy. Two, actually. Boston Terrier puppies. Who can resist the cute face of a Boston? I sure can’t. I get all gooey when my adult Boston looks at me, imagine TWO puppies and a teen girl.

This morning while I was working out trying to tame my writer’s butt (if you don’t know what writer’s butt is, start working out now!), I realized the puppies were not doing it for me because they weren’t doing it for the main character. Her puppy interaction, as she is coming to grips with her new life, was, God forbid, stilted.

How can I have stilted puppies? They are PUPPIES.

What was my main character trying to tell me? What did I miss?

She is pretty. She is vain. She isn’t exactly smart… anymore. She’s punchy, literally. She’s somewhat obsessed with boys. Her boyfriend in particular.

That’s when it hit me. Her boyfriend. He’s part of the experience of how she got to where she is. He’s more than just your run-of-the-mill boyfriend--he’s the personification of strength. Granted, he’s strength with a large side order of hormone, but still. A young man. She loves him.

She loves him… and he’s a fox. Somewhat of a studmuffin, actually.

Um, so what would a girl do with puppies when she has Mr. Charming Fox at her disposal?

Not a damn thing.

This morning, I selected all of the puppy text and deleted it.

I killed the puppies.

I am a puppy killer.

But I did add a great make-out session, so there is that.

Lone Survivor

2011-01-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

There have been few books lately that have really had an impact on me, but this one by Marcus Luttrell hit me hard. Over the years I have had uncles in the military, a brother-in-law in Iraq, and most recently one of my son's best friends went to Iraq as well.

The brother-in-law that went to Iraq was tough, because it was during the height of the conflict (second time around) and he was in bomb disposal. So yes, the movie the Hurt Locker was something that also touched me pretty hard. Dave is no longer my brother-in-law, but he did make it back from the war in one piece, though not his entire unit.

When my son's best friend went over, it wasn't quite as close, but I still wondered if he was going to make it back. Luckily by the time he got there, most of the fighting was already behind us.

This book, brings back a lot of those thoughts, but at a much higher level, because Marcus tells it from his own experience. Rather than simply getting the broad brush description from those I know, Marcus described what is was really like to become a Navy SEAL (a major accomplishment in itself), and then what it was like to be sent on missions in the Hindu Kush, where the locals traveled the terrain like mountain goats, hundreds of them ready to open up their AK-47s at you without notice.

There was a surprising turn of events in the story, that really humanized the Afghan people, but I'll let you read the book to find out about that.

You may not have the same connections to the military that I do, but even so, if you are an American that values your freedom, I think you will enjoy this book.

Love Affair

2011-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

I love writing.

I love it when my main character kisses someone for the first time. The soft lips, the visceral feel of intimacy, the scent of closeness. Does this mean that I'm a hopeless mush? Too much flirting with the baristas?

I love it when my characters make choices. Not choices born of necessity, but choices from the heart. From beyond the gut. A choice so deep that the result, good or bad, is everything. Sometimes it's a choice between very bad and really, really bad with a side of badness. But she made it, and it was real and THINGS HAPPENED because of it.

I love it when I can make the setting come alive. How many words are too many? Too few? If the setting seems like another character in the novel, I love that. That's how many words, that and no more.

I love plotting, I really do. I'm not a pantser, but I keep the outline only in my head. If it can't live there clearly and with distinction, the story isn't speaking to me.

I love creating individual voices for minor characters that are familiar yet not cliched. And this is so very hard. Hard enough that when it happens, I feel like doing a dance.

I love editing. I love taking three pages and making it a single paragraph that actually has more meaning and backstory.

I love how writing makes the day fade. My word processor doesn't care if I got stuck in traffic. The story demands my very best and my very best is what I give it. The novel is like a mistress or a lover that is never really satisfied. More, more, more give me more says the story until it's finally finished. Then it sits over in a corner pouting because I've moved on to someone new. Better looking. Younger, certainly.

I love writing. It's addictive. It's heady and delicious. It's a fulfillment of a craving that only grows the more you feed it.

What do you love about writing?

Get Delirious

2011-01-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

Yes today is the day that you can get your very own copy of Daniel Palmer's new thriller Delirious. I had a chance to finish it on the plane back from the Philippines, and I have to say that it definitely kept me not only awake, but turning the pages at a furious pace. There is one particular scene involving water that was actually so creepy that I had to take a break for a few seconds.

Go and get your copy today. You won't be disappointed.

NY Times Best Selling Author?

2011-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

I've said in the past that it doesn't bother me when celebrities get million dollar book deals, because as long as the book earns out the advance, and the publisher makes money, it's good for everyone. But a couple of books lately have made me question my thinking.

The first is from the Jersey Shore, umm, "star", uhh, Snooki. Now I have never watched even 30 seconds of the show, or seen any interviews of Snooki, so I'm kind of going by my basic impressions, but a NY Times Best Selling author??? Really?? That just seems to cheapen the list for me somehow. It feels like a sellout by the publisher.

Now, I'd be happy if the publishers make money on the book, because again, money that flows into publishing is good for all writers, but this one feels like the proverbial fingernails on the chalkboard.

The second was written by someone I met at Thrillerfest this year. The author is not a well known celebrity, but it was clear that their status is what allowed them to get a book deal.

So again, as long as the publisher makes money, everybody's happy, right? Not so fast. In this case because the book was less than perfect, in fact it pretty much sucked, I don't think that anybody is going to make money. Well, other than the author, which again, isn't such a bad thing for us authors, but here's the problem. Because the publisher is going to lose money on this book, there is one less slot open for us budding authors to get our book published. Because the publisher took on this book, they won't take on another book, even if they wanted to because they don't have the money. And that's a shame. It just makes it that much harder for one of us to get our work published.

What do you think about celebrity books? Or books that are published purely because the author is well known?

Random wi-fi

2011-01-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

I have been in the Philippines for the last two weeks and not able to get WiFi access. I have been unable to post any updates, but now that I am back, I will try to provide some interesting accounts of my travels. I hope you find them interesting.

The Philippines is a diverse country, and the places that I went were fun and exciting to see. Hopefully I can turn it into an interesting setting for my next novel.

eBook Thoughts and a Random Bit of Linking

2011-01-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

So, um where did 2010 go?

But I digress.

Choices

Nathan Brandsford did a holiday repeat of a post he made in 2007, which was a year before I started following blogs about writing. And boy-howdy (boy-howdy being a technical term), did I love it. Let me link it to you, my friends:

Holiday Repeat: Writing Advice From Some Old Guys At My Gym

Oh, my gosh. If ever there was a point about fiction writing, that is it. Choices. It's all about the choices.

Speculative Goodness

My latest book review is up on my blog, DarkShip Thieves by Sarah A. Hoyt. For the classic science fiction fan in you, check it out. It was fantastical and quite lovely, and any writer dabbling in speculative fiction would find this book worthy of study.

eBooks

Blah blah blah, ebooks blah blah blah, 2011 ebooks blah blah blah.

Just wanted to get the obligatory stuffs out there. All the other kids are doing it!

Anyway, little family get together showed ebooks inroads in a major way. Here's how the reading went down over the family visit:

Nana: Reads from new Kindle
Papa: Reads from old Kindle
Sister in Law: Reads from new Kindle
Me: Reads from paperback and Windows Phone
Wife Unit: Reads from trade paperback
Son: Reads from trade paperback
Brother in Law: Hasn't read or seen a Harry Potter movie or book. Totally discounted as a family heretic
Niece: Chewed on her electronic book that goes "moo" when you press a button.

Both my son, wife and I are really interested in the Kindle, but none of us are very happy with the current book lending restrictions. For example, a book publisher has to grant you permission to lend the book.

Then, that publisher sets the terns like "lend this book once for 14 days."

Well, Mr. Publisher, that doesn't cut it over here at Chez Pacheco. There are three of us, soon to be four, that could read the same book in our house. We are not going to buy four copies of the same book. EVER. Not even if the hardcover is $18 and the electronic version is $4, for a savings of $2 between the four of us.

What I read on my phone is very limited. Basically, if there is a chance someone else in the house, or one of my friends, will want to read the book... I don't buy an electronic copy of it even though I love reading from my phone.

I can see the future of electronic books from my house. And that future for us is four DRM-free book readers loaded with DRM-free books. There is no other way for my book reading family. And that goes back to choices. Remove my choices, we remove our spending dollars.

God, I love capitalism.

Photo by Orin Zebest

Taking The Plunge

2010-12-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

I've been threatening to do this for a while now, but I finally pulled the trigger, stepped off the cliff, lit the fuse, yanked out the pin, and a hundred other cliches for it. I hired a professional editor for my latest WIP.

She came highly recommended from a couple of my favorite authors. She does work for them all of the time, so I felt confident she would be able to help me.

I sent her the first 50 pages, physically wincing when I hit the send button on my email. You see for me, it was kind of like waiting for the doctor to stick me in the rear with a needle. Yes he needs to do it, but that doesn't mean it's still not going to hurt.

I know that my manuscript is going to come back with more holes in it than Bonnie and Clyde and I'll probably spend the next couple of months trying to come up with fixes for divots that would put the Grand Canyon to shame, but it needs to be done.

So it was with this attitude that I patiently waited for a response on my first 50 pages.

And I was shocked.

She actually liked it, well at least to the point that she was willing to take me on as a customer. In fact the changes that she suggested weren't that bad at all. They were mainly to tighten my manuscript up a little, OK a lot, but it wasn't like I had to rewrite the whole darn thing.

So she's supposed to get me the completed change list early this week so that I can make the changes. I'm excited but I am worried about one thing.

I hope that the modified manuscript will still fit in my inbox.

Happy writing everyone. Hopefully next week I'll be able to write about the result of the carnage.

Have a Merry Book Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

One year, someone close to me gave me the book Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

I had been feeling moody and blue, and probably a bit sorry for myself as teens are wont to do.

I loved that book. I read it in one sitting. Then, a few days later, I read it again. But more so, I loved the fact that someone gave me the book. It seemed to me it was the perfect book. I wasn't twelve, like the main character of the book.

But for just a little bit, from this gift of a book, I felt twelve, I really did, and the next day, I smiled.

This is why we write.

Merry Christmas everyone, from the intrepid staff of Adventures in Writing!

Delirious Contest

2010-12-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last week, I will be sending a lucky someone the ARC for Daniel Palmer's latest thriller Delirious. All you have to do is be the first to correctly answer a question in the comments for this post.

Are you ready?

Daniel works with a sports team to help raise money for vets suffering from PTSD. What is the name of that program?

First correct answer will receive Daniel's book.

I'm still Delirious

2010-12-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about Daniel Palmer's upcoming new book Delirious.

I finally got a few minutes to start reading the ARC and nearly choked on my Cheerios. It seems that great minds think alike.

The setting for his first scene is one of my favorite places, and a place that is bigger than life in my current book as well. He set it at the center of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I have posted about this before, but it really is an amazing place. Perched almost three hundred feet above the water you have a magnificent view of San Francisco, or as most locals call it, "the city" to your right.

Straight ahead is Alcatraz, or as also commonly known as "the rock". To your left is Angel Island, one of my favorite places to hike. Behind you to the left is the Marin Headlands and in the distance Mt Tamalpais or as it's known "Mt Tam".

Continuing around behind you is the entrance to the Pacific Ocean also known as "the Pacific Ocean".

On a clear day about 30 miles out to sea you can just make out the Farallon Islands, a few seal covered rocks that are home to some of the best Ling Cod fishing in the area ( as long as you don't mind getting seasick from the swells).

It is truly a magical place and the reason that I picked it. I am sure that factored into Daniel's decision as well.

If you ever make it out to the Bay Area make sure you walk to the center of the bridge, you won't regret it. Who knows, you might see me there.

Don't forget that Daniel's contest is still running over at Daniel's website.

When a New Cppy of The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby

2010-12-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

I posted a review of The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby on my blog. If you want a chance to win a new hardback copy of the book (complete with fancy The Pericles Commission bookmark!), simply head on over and leave a comment on the review post.

A Contest That Will Leave You Delirious

2010-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

This summer at ThrillerFest I made friends with new author Daniel Palmer. Turns out we had a lot in common, we were both aspiring authors and we both worked in the high tech area. At the time, Daniel was unpublished, but now I am happy to announce that Daniel's debut high-tech thriller Delirious will come out in February of 2011.

Way to go Daniel!

Because Daniel is a high tech kind of guy, he plans to use a high tech approach to the promotion and launch of the book. His plan is to use Twitter, Facebook, and blogs like this one to get the word out. But he hasn't stopped there. Oh no, he's also come up with some fun and interesting new ways to let readers know about the book.

One of those is a blog from one of the main characters (Charlie) that gives readers a taste of the book before purchase. This blog will provide back story about a number of the characters to whet your interest before you get to read the book. What's interesting is that each blog post also includes a piece of embedded technology. Your job (if you choose to accept it) is to assemble the pieces and solve the puzzle. In fact, the assembled pieces form the prologue of the book, so as a benefit, you get to read it before you get the book. But wait, there's more.... (sorry, couldn't resist)... The first 10 people that successfully complete the puzzle will also receive a free, yes you heard that right, a free copy of the book.

So if you want a free copy of the book, watch the posts on the Invision blog over the next few weeks. The first 10 people to correctly figure out the prologue and send a copy to Daniel' email will receive a free copy of the book.

Here's the back cover teaser:

Delirious is a techno-thriller that follows Charlie Giles, an electronics superstar who just sold his start-up company, InVision, Inc. to a large Boston firm. Charlie is at the top of his game in the digital world, until it all begins to spiral out of control. His job and inventions are pulled out of his possession, his family is targeted, and his former employees are being murdered. All signs point to Charlie as the killer. Soon, Charlie doubts whether he’s the cause of his own destruction, or whether he really is the victim of a diabolical attack. In the race to save his own life, Charlie realizes that nothing, not even his own mind, can be trusted.

Oooh, sounds good Daniel, can't wait to read it.

I'm going to have a contest of my own for an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of Delirious next week. So stay tuned for details.

Editorial Letter

2010-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

This summer I got to meet author John Gilstrap of No Mercy, and Hostage Zero fame. He writes a blog over at The Kill Zone. This week's entry was quite interesting to me, because I've always been curious about the content of an editorial letter. John's description is quite interesting.

I like how he describes the letter as a balancing act. I can definitely see how that would be the case. I can't yet imagine how it must feel to have an editor say in basic terms, "well this part is OK, this part sucks, and this part needs lots of work". My poor ego would be shattered. The editor would have to walk a fine line, or I'd be tempted to crumple my manuscript into a ball and put it in the fireplace.

John's letter seems to focus on picking up the pace. My beta readers sometime criticize me for that, but most of the time I get hit for not explaining enough.

I thought it was funny that the editor thought that John's names were a little weird, given my post a couple of weeks ago, about names. I've read a couple of John's books, and I don't remember the names being that strange or different. Maybe the editor was having a bad day.

Like John, I try not to use adverbs either, but I'm sure if the editor made me pay a nickel for every one I used, she'd probably be able to pay for a nice steak dinner.

The editor also complained about language. Again, I don't remember John overusing any particular swear word, so I'm not sure where that came from. I also try to limit the use of swear words mainly because the overuse of them lessens the impact. I try to use them only where absolutely needed.

I like the fact that John says none of the changes will cause the manuscript to be rejected, but he will do them anyway. I would probably do the same. An editor reads way more books than I do, and knows what works and what doesn't. Especially as a first time author I'd probably do every one of them without question.

Thanks for the helpful insight John, and I look forward to your next post.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

For the Americans out there, Happy Thanksgiving from the 3.5 bloggers of Adventures in Writing!

The Expression of Self

2010-11-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

Some say writing is the ultimate form of self-expression. Language is the means in which we communicate. Thought, feeling, description, mood--all of these described with the written word. Indeed, a writer could describe other artwork in her writing.

Picture, if you will, a modern symphony hall, where acoustically there is not a bad seat in the house. Off to the left in the upper balcony is a woman. The seat next to her is empty, empty as she feels.

The beginning of the day brought her divorce. Her already shaky marriage did not survive the stress of her miscarriage. This morning, instead of holding her one-year-old daughter to her breast, she holds divorce papers.

Her forced expression betrays her inner turmoil. Her long black dress hugging her elegant and young frame is as dark as her thoughts.

Until, that is, the symphony starts and the music surrounds her. She closes her eyes. Her mind empties of melancholy. Her face relaxes, her hands go slack. No longer does she feel the non-weight of the missing wedding ring.

She does not cry throughout the entire performance.

In the third row, right in the middle, is a man in an Italian suit, looking all the world as if he was born to dress up and attend the symphony.

The seat beside him is empty. This man is a widower. Today was his wife's birthday. She always loved the symphony and dreamed of season tickets to sit in the best seats for each performance. He always thought the overpriced symphony was not worth the hard-earned money, the audience composed of snobs and elitists, the music not that great, everything a bore, really.

Oh, how he wishes he could take those feelings back. How he would trade anything, anything at all, to have his wife at his side, finally listening to the music in the seat she always wanted to sit.

She was young, and the breast cancer surprised them in its sudden viciousness. It spread throughout her petite body unchecked. She fought, but in the end, it consumed her. She died in the man's arms, her last breath a slow moan of pain and anguish.

He has been alone for an entire year. He closes his eyes and can picture his wife sitting next to him, smiling, leaning into him. Perhaps holding his hand. She was always mushy like that.

The man does not move during the intermission. He does not open his eyes. By the time the music starts again, he is crying silent tears. No one notices in the darkness of the hall.

After the performance, the woman walks down the street to clear her head. The music is gone, and she realizes that going to the symphony was a mistake. The sheer beauty of the sound simply highlighted her despair.

In the divorce, the woman insisted on keeping half her husband's guns. The husband, the judge and the two lawyers thought she was being spiteful. If they only knew the real reason. If they only knew. She doesn't know a lot about guns.

But she knows enough.

Her all-consuming thoughts betray her, literally, as the heel from her left shoe catches in a missed break in the sidewalk. She falls. Her shoe stays put. Her ankle twists away with her body. Sharp pain lances from her leg as she hits the ground.

She has landed in muck; dirt and mud from a recent rainfall that collected around the break in the sidewalk.

The woman sits up, wincing at the pain. Her dress now torn, dirty and ruined. How she loved that dress. Then she feels monumentally stupid for bemoaning a dress when in a mere hour she would not even be breathing. The utter loneliness of it all washes over her, and the damnable tears start. In seconds she is sobbing into her hands.

But in a moment she is not on the sidewalk, bur rather above it. Her addled thoughts catch up to her surroundings. Someone has picked her up. Right up off the sidewalk. A man. A man in an expensive suit and red, puffy eyes. He carries her halfway down the block to a bench at an empty bus stop. Her arms go around his neck instinctively.

The man goes to put the woman on the bench but she doesn't let go of his neck. The unexpected awkwardness throws him off-balance. Before he also falls on the sidewalk, he sits on the bench with the woman on his lap.

"Are you all right, Miss?" he asks.

The woman looks him in the eyes. Her eyes are also red and puffy, her makeup smeared, her hair a mess.

"I... I've gotten your suit dirty," the woman says, then she is crying again, her face buried in the man's neck, and soon the sobs consume her once more.

No. She isn't alright. She is not alright at all.

Someone needs me, someone needs me, someone needs me; the man's thoughts are circular and overpowering. He is crying into the woman's hair, but he doesn't realize he is. He pulls her closer to him, and the man and the woman are no longer alone. They will never be alone again.

Some say writing is the ultimate form of self-expression, but that is wrong.

Writing, true writing, is a story. It's not even the writer's story, but the readers'. Writing isn't really about the self, isn't it? It's about the others. The people in the story. The readers. Writing not for self, but for them.

Bad Writing or Bad Acting?

2010-11-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

To improve your craft you not only have to study what works, but also what doesn't work. The best way to see examples of what works is of course to read good novels and analyze what's good about them. It seems reasonable then that to see what doesn't work, you need to read bad novels and see why it doesn't work.

Yes, that does seem like a good plan, but what seems reasonable, and what I can force myself to do, are two different things. I have no problem reading good novels, but I can't force myself to read bad ones. Depending on how bad they are I may put them down after 5 pages, or maybe 10. The only reason I would finish one was if I had another motive, like it being an important work or something like that.

So to find out what doesn't work, and why, I will from time to time watch a bad movie.

I think this works for me because reading a book and watching a movie are two different things. When I read a book, I can't do anything but read. When I watch a movie, however, I can do something else to keep me entertained while the movie sucks.

What makes a movie suck? Bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, bad story? The list is long and sometimes it is difficult to put your finger on the exact cause. Since there was nothing on TV last night I decided to watch an old B movie called Desperate Hours.

I had no expectations going in, and I wasn't disappointed. I thought maybe because it starred Anthony Hopkins and that it was directed by Michael Cimino that it might at least be entertaining, but one character and a few scenes were so bad, they were laughable.

In one of the climactic scenes near the end, a house is surrounded by a bunch of SWAT types with long guns equipped with electronic sights, lasers, and probably night vision. The antagonist bursts from the house with a hostage and the SWAT guys let off bullets as if it was a scene in the trenches of WWII. The unbelievable thing was that they didn't seem to hit anything but the bushes around the two characters. The antagonist then runs back inside the house and the SWAT team peppers the door as if now that they can't see him anymore they have a better chance of hitting him. Really stupid. I'm not a great shot and even I can can hit a 1 inch circle at 50 yards with a rifle.

The other thing about this movie that was so bad was one of the secondary characters. She was supposedly the team leader of a special FBI task force. I tried hard to understand whether it was the writing or the acting that made this character so bad, and I guess I'd have to say, it was both.

She was supposed to be a tough as nails, take no prisoners, hard ass team leader, but between the stupid dialog and bad acting, I could barely keep from giggling every time she appeared on the screen. In the previously mentioned scene she gets shot in the calf. One of the team members comments that she's bleeding and she responds "It's nothing, I got shot in the ego." Huh?

Watching a bad movie is probably not as good as analyzing a bad novel because it can be difficult sometimes to separate bad acting, from bad writing, from lousy screen work, but if you analyze what doesn't work about a particular scene, it can be quite helpful to show you what not to do.

How about you? Do you watch bad movies and analyze what doesn't work?

Cheap and Easy

2010-11-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

It's cheap! It's easy! It's...

Anthony's Writer-Centric Blog Roundup!

A smattering of some of the blogs I read.

Tonya R. Moore
Writer Tonya R. Moore kicks some major blogging ass. She is also a very good speculative fiction writer. Check out her stuff. Don't add her beautiful site to your RSS reader. Go there. Now.

Larry Correia
From POD to the New York Time Bestseller's List, Larry Correia not only writes charter-driven, pulse pounding action-centric urban fantasies, he has a mega platform. Remember how I said several times don't post political crap on your blog? Well, Larry's political rants (libertarian centric) are epic in nature, and that's partly how he attracted his initial following. A professional gun nut, Larry is a good study in platform. Everyone else is a piker.

Miss Snark
Oh, Miss Snark, how I love thee! How to learn to write and sell novels:

1. Read the entire Miss Snark Archives from start to finish
2. Don't be a dork
3. Keep. Writing. And. Never. Stop.

Pub Rants
Agent Kristin Nelson not only runs what I consider one of the best agent blogs of all time, but also has a killer newsletter you can subscribe to and look forward to every month.

Who Said Pixies Are Rational Creatures?
Rachael de Vienne, author of Pixie Warrior, is a top-notch researcher and an author of lovely pixie prose. Anybody with a fine appreciation for a look backwards via pictures, artwork and thoughtful posts will like this blog.

The Graveyard Shift
"Lee Lofland is a veteran police investigator who began his law-enforcement career working as an officer in Virginia's prison system. He later became a sheriff's deputy, a patrol officer, and finally, he achieved the highly-prized gold shield of detective. Along the way, he gained a breadth of experience that's unusual to find in the career of a single officer."

If you write modern murder mysteries, his blog is required reading. Every week I learn new things on modern police procedure by reading his blog. Priceless.

The Blood-Red Pencil
Best. Editing. Blog. Ever.

Writer Beware
Not only will Victoria Strauss keep you informed of current shenanigans, she also has her finger on the pulse of both the writing and publishing community.

YouTube
What did I do before YouTube? Oh, that's right. I watched stupid crap on cable.

While there is an enormous pile of crap on YouTube, it takes all of a half-hour, if that, to learn how to expertly surf its golden electronic goodness bits.

I Want To Quit

2010-11-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

I just received the rejection from hell.

It wasn't a bad rejection, in fact it was very informative, but it was the fact that I got a rejection.

I met the agent this summer and we hit it off at Thrillerfest. We developed a great email and forum dialog, and I knew she was going to be the agent for me.

We were both raised in the midwest and seemed to have similar tastes in books. When we were talking at the conference we were both reading a very popular book that neither of us liked, and for the same reasons. I felt like I had a connection.

So when I received the rejection it was not only hard, it was the worst possible feeling for my publishing dreams.

I feel like I want to throw in the towel, move on to something else, give it up.

I want to take the four books that I have completed, and self publish them all, not for vengeance, or anything like that, but so that I will be done with them, so I don't have to think about them anymore.

I want to take the one that I'm working on and hit the delete key, not only because I'm having problems with it, but I feel like, what's the point. It will never be published anyway.

I'm pretty down about the whole process right now.

But,

I'm not going to quit.

I can't.

I like the creative process too much. I like coming up with new stories, new twists, new ways to tell them. I like putting the movie I see in my brain down on paper.

And if I examine what the agent said in more detail, it was actually quite positive. She said that I just missed the bullseye. She couldn't quite identify with the first scene and how the main character was put into that situation in first person. It was all positive feedback, feedback that I can use to make it better.

And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make it better so that the next agent can't possibly find a reason to reject it.

If you want to make it in this business you have to keep going. If you quit, you'll never make it.

Yes, I feel like quitting, yes, I'm pretty upset, but when I finally get the plot worked out for my next work and I'm writing down all the scenes that are flying around in my head, I'm going to forget all about rejections. I'll be back to doing what I like to do best, writing stories.

How about you? What's your worst rejection story?

What's in a Name?

2010-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Since I'm working on the next novel, I need to name my characters. In the past I haven't spent much time working on this. I would simply write down whatever name came to me as I was writing.

In my last novel there was one character name that I did put a little effort into. The protagonist was named Daniel Gerard Ross and there was a specific reason that he was named that. It's not obvious and that was sort of my plan for that book. All will be revealed in the next one.

He's a great shot, pretty good with his fists, and an all around capable guy. He can be very dangerous. Therefore I named him... wait for it... Dan G Ross.... Dangerous.

I know, I know it's pretty silly, but I had fun with it, and I like the name anyway.

For my next novel, I am trying to put a little more work into my character names. I think it is partly because I am putting more time into thinking about my characters, but also because I think there are times that names can reflect something about a character.

One of my new characters is a child of the sixties, a modern day hippie who lives in the wilderness outside of Silicon Valley, makes her own clothes, grows her own food, and tries hard to lessen her carbon footprint. Some people are going to love her, others, not as much.

Because of who she is, I thought it would be useful to give her a name that matched her personality. Since she was a product of hippies, I thought it would be apropos if her name was a common name used by the hippie crowd. I searched the internet and found some really strange names and decided that names like Moonjava, Snowphish, and Jazzerus were just a little too far out there. So I picked the name Hope.

I like the name because it really fits her personality. Even though it never really happens, she's always hoping that things will go better than they do. Besides it's not such a bad name for a woman.

How about you? How much time do you spend on character names? Which of your character names were picked so that they matched their personality?

Starting from the Beginning

2010-11-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a new book. I have about 4000 words so far, and loving it.

I thought long and hard about it, but I decided to keep the main character from the last book. I put him in a new situation that is set to happen after the previous book. You don't necessarily have to read the other one first, but it may make the character deeper if you do.

Unlike my previous projects, I don't have the ending yet. In previous projects, I always started with some new technology and asked myself "what if?". From that premise I could see the end of the story. To write the story, I simply had to follow the path to get there. I usually added a couple of significant twists and turns, but knew where I would end up.

This time around, I once again have the technology, but what I don't have is the twisty ending. I have no idea where the story is going to take me.

Should be interesting.

I may plot it out a little, but probably not the entire book. I find that too much plotting limits where I can go as the story evolves.

What I have found though is that if the book is a mystery/thriller, it is necessary to drop the right clues at the right time. That requires careful planning.

I do a little of that up front, but most of the real work happens during the editing process.

After going through Donald Maas's class, there are a couple of techniques that I am going to try to incorporate this time.

I am going to try and include an item that has special meaning to one of the main characters, and a place that one of the main characters finds special. This can add considerable depth to your work.

In my last book I used the center of the Golden Gate Bridge as the special place for the protagonists twin brother. I spent most of the time with the special place, so I didn't really utilize a special item.

In my new book, I plan on having both, but I haven't worked out what they will be yet.

I think they will both come out as the story takes shape.

Any body else working on a new book? How far along are you?

Book Review Do's and Don'ts

2010-11-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

My book reviews are one-third of the traffic on my blog.

Ummmmm…

I guess I am a book reviewer. Or something.

Actually, I love doing book reviews, but before I started out, I made sure to make a few “house rules”. I went out of my way to do reviews for people who like to write fiction. It’s fun. I get to talk about voicing, plotting, thematics, etc., in snobby writer terms.

I encourage everyone to review the occasional book on their blog. There are certain universal rules that make for a good book review:

Don’t internalize your review

The interwebs is rife with reviews that go “me me me me me me me (interesting thing about the book) me me me me me me.”

Don’t do that. Mainly because it’s been done before. A lot.

When you make a conscious effort not to broadcast your internalization of the appreciation or criticism of a book, the review comes across more professional and with deeper meaning.

This is a subtle point: while it seems there is a small gap between expressing why you loved something in terms of your feelings, and why you love something in terms of the art presented—that gap is an ocean. We all have opinions on art, we all feel art, but when we talk less about the artwork itself and more about ourselves, the context of the review changes, and usually not for the better.

Don’t meta the author

This happens all the time, even in reviews in magazines and newspapers. Rather than letting a book stand on its own, the reviewer tries to pick apart the work based on knowledge of the author or an attempt to examine the author’s motives.

This is elitists behavior. The reviewer usually comes across as either an ass or a creepy stalker, either way it’s lazy. Like super-duper-you-are-not-being clever-you-are-being-a-dork lazy.

Picking apart an author is a great academic exercise—only valuable to other readers when the reviewer examines the story on its merits first, and only if it’s done without an agenda.

Do buy the book

A book review carries more weight with readers if they know you purchased the book. More importantly, the book review has more meaning to you.

Do develop some house rules

Are your reviews comprehensive and all-encompassing? Are you going to post negative reviews even while searching for an agent? Will you have a common theme to your book reviews?

Spending a few minutes thinking about simple house rules makes things a lot easier. When I pick up a book to review, it sticks to a common theme (must deliver value to target audience) with a few ground rules (if I don’t like the book, I don’t review it).

Books books books books!

As writers, we love books. The online community is broad and diverse. A well-written book review not only serves my bursting need to talk about the cool stuff I read, but at the end of the day, serves other people who hop on the Internet tubes to read other’s thoughts.

Awesome.

Why Are We Obsessed With the Young Adult Genre?

2010-11-02T08:19:00.001-07:00

I've heard many theories on why paranormal stories are so popular these days, but I'm not sure if there is any specific answer on why they are so popular. Most of them, it seems, fall into the Young Adult category. In fact, Young Adult has taken the world by storm. I was riding in the car with my husband a few weeks ago and we started talking about my book, The Breakaway, which I've been trying to decide if I should switch from Adult genre to Young Adult genre. It could go either way depending on how I write it. So that got me asking my husband why on earth Young Adult is so popular amongst adults right now. Why aren't they reading in their own genre?

One of my husband's answers was because adult readers are lazy and most Young Adult novels are simply easier to read. However, he doesn't read much Young Adult, and neither do I (although I have been reading much more lately than I ever have).

So what is the appeal? Is it the subject matter? Do adults really have a fascination with coming-of-age stories? First love? Turning into something we're not (vampires...)? Is it because Young Adult is more straightforward to read because it's written for a younger audience? Because I've read many, many Adult books that are just as straightforward.

Help me out here! Give me your thoughts.

Political Suicide?

2010-11-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

I thought since tomorrow we were going to cast our ballots it would be a good day to talk about politics. Don't worry I'm not going to try to sway you one way or the other. I thought it might be an interesting discussion about whether or not to include politics in your novels.

Personally it is a subject that I cannot stand. I find the TV attack ads disgusting. The sound bites that take quotes completely out of context, the out and out lies, and exaggerations from both sides make me want to throw my remote at the TV.

What really bothers me is that it seems the distance between the views of the left and the right is wider than I can ever remember. The left is so far left that they cannot even see the center, and the right really isn't much better. It's as if each of their political views are on polar opposites of the universe and there is no common ground whatsoever.

I mean we have a bobble head talk show host calling a woman candidate of an opposing view a bitch, and a candidate for governor calling their opposing candidate a whore. What the heck is up with that? The country seems more divided than it's ever been and that bothers me.

OK, so what does that mean to us writers and writing?

What it means to me is that if your writing exudes a political point of view, half of your potential readers may not like it, and that sucks. I think writers should be free to write want they want, regardless, but I think there are certain topics that can affect the market for the book, and not in a good way.

I'm not talking about out and out characterizations of the current administration, what I am talking about is if a character's actions seem to be those of one party or another. If the reader doesn't agree with the political point of view of your character, they may decide to put the book down, or maybe not recommend it to a friend.

I picked up a book from a new author, and that's exactly what happened to me. In a number of scenes I felt the character went way overboard toward a particular political point of view, and one that I don't agree with. It was so blatant that it disgusted me, and I put the book down. I have no idea how the book ended, nor do I really care.

I'm not talking about a situation where a character does something I don't agree with, because it's who they are. In this case there were a number scenes that felt almost forced. I felt they were put in simply to show the character as being from that political point of view and for no other purpose.

It may be important to some authors to have characters show a strong political point of view, but for me, I think it detracts from my stories, and potentially alienates half my readers. I think no matter how hard you try not to, your political leanings are going to come through the story, but I try not to be blatant about it.

What about you? Do your stories reflect your political view?

Peel the Layers

2010-10-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

My co-host, Scott G.F. Bailey over on the Literary Lab is talking about character change today. He makes the point that characters don't really change more than they discover things about themselves. I agree with him. He says:

My current theory is that characters don't actually change. The way they are at the end of the story--the endpoint of the character arc to which we're moving--is actually no more and no less than how the character really is, already. His true self, if you will, is already there, but it is hidden or repressed somehow. The dramatic action, the primary conflict of the story, is created because the protagonist is unable to express that true self. Or, it can only be resolved once the protagonist expresses that true self. (Scott G.F. Bailey)

If you'd like to talk about character change, step over to the Lab and leave a comment. For here I'd like to discuss how we as writers are in our journey. Do we change as writers? Or do we simple discover things about ourselves? Does our writing change?

I'm preparing to rewrite a novel of mine in the next few months, and as I look at previous drafts that I've written over the past 15 years I'm very surprised to see that the writing hasn't change all that much. It's still my writing. It's just that certain things were "hidden or repressed somehow," just as Scott says above. I didn't know how to command my language as well, how to structure as well, how to control my descriptions, how to make certain character mannerisms work for the story, etc. I didn't even know what was missing! But, the basic building blocks were there. It makes me wonder how and what I'll discover in the next 15 years. It's an exciting journey, and I prefer to think that whatever I publish in my life now will not bring me shame in the future. It will still be my writing, my words, my talent. I will have just discovered new things to show in my writing later - like a beautiful package where I keep peeling back the layers of tissue paper. It won't be the gift inside but the experience of opening the package that will make all the difference. Practice and persistence are what get us to peel the layers. So keep at it.

Setting the Pace

2010-10-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing that early writers struggle with, it is paaaaaaacccccciiiing, paCing, yeah, pacing. Keeping the readers interest without either blasting them with a firehose, or boring them to death like a dripping faucet takes skill. It's hard, and there's only one way to learn it, practice.

Early writers are usually in such a rush to get to the "good" part of the story, that important setup details are glossed over at warp speed, and the reader doesn't get a chance to understand their significance. When the "good" part of the story is finally reached, there is no impact. The reader has forgotten those important details and the story falls flat.

Those forgotten details were put in for a reason. They were added to heighten tension, or add in layers of emotion . When they don't work, neither does the story.

On the other hand some writers spend so much time painting the most vivid setting and describing every detail of their characters in such detailed minutiae, that the reader simply falls asleep from boredom. If you finally do manage to get through the setup, the author has most likely followed the same pace through the rest of the book, and the reader spends the next 15 minutes wiping off the drool after passing out on the pages.

The best and most interesting books have a balance of action and details. The author maintains a speed limit as the story unfolds, alternatively speeding some sections, and slowing in others, with the intent of keeping an average speed that the reader can follow, and enjoy.

You might think that in this modern age of video games, television, and sound bites, the speed limit has increased so dramatically that you no longer have to worry about it. It has, but it is still not infinite. Even today's writers have to maintain a reasonable pace.

I tend to be in the first category. My stories include supersonic bullets and speed of light computer bytes, flying in every direction, but I do recognize the need to stop once in a while and let the reader rest. I purposefully stop the action once in a while, to let the reader process the significance of what just happened. I let the reader anticipate what's going to happen before it does.

When the reader anticipates what's going to happen next it builds emotion. Depending on the situation, it might create a feeling of dread, maybe excitement, or if I'm feeling feisty maybe even an amorous anticipation. The point is, it builds an emotional connection, and that boys and girls is what writing good stories is all about.

There are a number of techniques to stop the action, or speed it up. As I said most of the time I need to slow things down, so I try to do this through bits of humor.

Humor works for me for a couple of reasons. First, I'm fairly cynical so I can usually come up with a self deprecating quip, or an ironic observation that releases the tension and slows things down.

Secondly I like the fact that humor contrasts sharply with tense action. The effect of injecting bits of humor is that I can make the following action scenes seem even more tense than they might otherwise feel. The action speeds things along, while the humor slows them up. Using a combination of the two, I can maintain an even pace.

Writing is a balance. You need strong characters, an interesting plot, and a vivid setting, but it has to be delivered at the right pace.

How about you? How do you handle pacing? Do you need to speed or slow? What techniques do you use?

Obsessing Over You

2010-10-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

I had an awful dream last night about getting online and seeing that everyone had posted something they hate about me. It was terrible. It's amazing I didn't wake up crying because...well, I kind of obsess about people liking me. It's a huge flaw. It's something I hate about myself.

What I wish could have been tacked onto the end of this dream was a big sign that said:

AT THE END OF THE DAY ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHAT YOU THINK OF YOURSELF!

Yeah. I need that stapled to my forehead. This obsessing over what others think about me has gotten so bad that it has entered my dreams. It has gotten so bad that as I've tried to work on my novella, THIRDS, I keep stopping every other sentence to ask myself who will hate the line and why. It has gotten so bad that every single post I put up on Twitter or Facebook or my blogs runs through my head all day long as I ask myself, Who will find something offensive in this? Do I sound too selfish? Did I say what I want to say in the most political manner?

It has gotten bad enough that I feel I can't even be myself...that being myself is a bad thing.

It's selfish to obsess over this, and it's got to stop!

Do you have any suggestions for me? I'll go hide in a corner now as I worry about what you think about this post...

Query Submissions

2010-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

I sent out another batch last night so I have a question. Do you hate them as much as I do?

I'd like to say that the entire process feels like a roller coaster ride, but a roller coaster doesn't take a year to ride to the top of the mountain, and there's no flaming heap of rejections at the bottom, or else no one would ride the darn thing.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could send out a query when you had the idea mapped out on paper, but not yet complete, so you could get feedback on whether it's going to be interesting to any agent or not?

Wouldn't it be nice if once you finished the first draft, an agent would take a look and tell you "you need to change this" or "you need to change that"?

Wouldn't it be nice if after finishing the book, and sending out a query, the agent would tell you "I don't represent that type of book, but what's her name does, and why don't I call her for you?"

Of course, and wouldn't it be nice if I could buy one lottery ticket and win 50 million bucks?

First of all, there are way too many books, and not enough publishing slots to hold them all. Secondly, there are way too many bad books that need a lot more work before they are ready to publish. Third, agents do not have the time to babysit every author who wants to get their book published. There are just way too many of us out there.

So what's an author to do?

Write a book that stands out from the crowd. Write the best book that you can possibly write. Don't settle for mediocre on anything you do. Make every word the perfect word. Make every sentence sound as good as it can be. Give your characters life.

Read authors that you like and try to understand what it is that you like about them, and then emulate them.

Yes it would be nice if agents were waiting in line to hand you money, but I'm afraid life doesn't work like that.

I'd like to say that I had the magic idea for how to make things better, but I don't. When there is too much supply and not enough demand, it's the way things work.

What about you? Do you hate queries as much as I do?

GameStop is Kicking Barnes & Noble's Ass

2010-10-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

When I became a researcher and an analyst, no one told me the analytical skills you obtain never rest. They don’t sleep. They are always stuck there, at the top of my mind, like some perverse thinking alien from a bad sci-fi story.

One time, I sat in the parking lot next to a busy intersection and concluded the traffic light would operate at peak efficiency if it took into account the sales patterns of the strip malls that surrounded it. It not only needed to be timed with the rest of the lights of the arterial, but also the businesses who had a vested interest in keeping traffic flowing properly so people could get to their parking lot and shop.

But I digress.

Trends in entertainment fascinate me. I’ve finally done enough self-research to hypothesize about retail bookstores. Here’s what I know:

GameStop is kicking your ass. I’m talking to you, Borders, Barnes & Noble.

GameStop is a chain of video game stores and they sell video games for the video game systems, such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, the Wii and PC. They also have an online presence, with an easy to use website. If you order a popular game, they will ship it to you so it arrives the same day as you can buy it in the store. They also sell video game systems themselves, although most of their money comes from content.

Sound familiar? It should. It sounds like Barnes & Noble.

When I go into GameStop, unless they are super busy, a sales associate will ask me if I need any help. Always, 100% of the time. Never fails.

If I am at the counter, they will always engage me in a conversation about the software I am purchasing. Always. They are very knowable about video games. They will talk about related content I may be interested in purchasing. They will give me an honest assessment if I ask for it, sometimes when I don’t even ask for it. They will always point out any potential problems, such as a family member may be frustrated because the game style is different from their favorite game.

This happens to me, they already know me in the store, and they still provide this level of service. However, more telling, is they bump up the interaction a notch when dealing with moms (and let me tell you, many moms shop there), and even further when talking to teens and tweeners. Far from overselling, their conversational tone with video games is low-key, but always passionate.

All these sales associates are aged 17 to 24. Sometimes younger, rarely older.

And the customers. Eat. It. Up.

GameStop is a large corporate entity. GameStop is a brick and mortar store. They are not independent.

Yet, they operate exactly like an independent bookstore, with some key differences.

One is they have the pre-order cha-cha down to a science. Without getting at their books, I believe GameStop enjoys the vast benefits of a stocking model based off the pre-ordering habits of their customers. They most likely feed this data to the game companies, who also use it to predict, with a fair degree of accuracy, quarterly sales. Combined with the elaborate industry review system, the data available to a channel analyst must be legion.

Another key difference from the independent bookstore to GameStop is the promotional activities exclusive to GameStop. Like Target with some of their books they purchase, there are games and promotions available to the customer only obtained at GameStop. In Mass Effect 2, the GameStop purchased game came with a weapon that pretty much caused me to giggle every time I used it. Like a little girl. Just ask my wife.

But I digress.

There are differences between the content, obviously. A book is not a video game and a video game is not a book. That is orthogonal to my observations.

My kids love books, and they love video games. Not once, not a single time since I have been taking my kids to a bookstore, has someone working for the bookstore engaged them in conversation. Nor have they attempted to engage a sales associate on their own.

However, in GameStop, this is a regular occurrence.

As a writer, I frequent bookstores. They only time I am engaged in an intellectual conversation about books is when I am talking to other customers. The. Only. Time.

Things are better in the independent bookstore, but only if the person helping you is familiar with the genre you are interested in.

My little analyst brain is making theories now, about bookstores, large chain models in specific.

Amazon isn’t killing bookstores.

eBooks are not killing bookstores.

The glut of content isn’t killing bookstores.

The recession isn’t killing bookstores.

Brick and mortars are not doing well because they don’t understand their modern customers.

At all.

SPOILERS! Do They Really Spoil ANYthing?

2010-10-12T05:56:00.000-07:00

I think movies have ruined us all for writing novels. Is the point of a novel really to surprise the reader with hidden twists and turns and gasps and shrieks at what was unexpected? Or are books - and stories in general, I might argue - really about the beauty of how they are written and told?

More than once I've talked with other writers about their stories where at one point they refuse to give something away. But I'll read it anyway, I tell them. I'm trying to to help you out here since you're asking for my advice. I can't help if you don't tell me what happens.

But it's a secret! You won't be surprised if I tell it to you now.

Really? Because as far as I understand it, millions of people keep reading Harry Potter over and over even though they know what happens. The last Harry Potter movie will be a huge box office seller - even though a huge percentage of people who go see it will already know what happens...

Imagine that.

When I read Lord of the Rings for the first time I had no idea how Gollum got the ring from Frodo in the end. Someone spoiled it for me a few chapters before I was finished by whispering the end into my ear. I was pretty upset, but looking back I realize that the end wasn't really spoiled for me at all. I still enjoyed reading the rest of the book just as much as I would have otherwise because the book wasn't all about that ending moment. It was about a myriad other things all layered together.

I think we storytellers often overlook one critical thing when it comes to telling a story: CRAFT. It isn't necessarily about keeping secrets. It's about telling the story. We all know how Cinderella ends, but we keep telling the story in a million different ways. We all know Hamlet dies at the end of the play...along with almost everyone else, but it is one of the most beloved tragedies of all time.

Especially keep this in mind when you write queries. I've written one query in my lifetime and I was so blasted scared to give away the end of the book that I think it ruined my entire query.

How do you write a synopsis?

2010-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Of the 15 agents that wanted to see more from my pitch at Thrillerfest this summer, nearly all of them wanted a synopsis to go with the first few chapters. In the past I have sort of "winged it". I flipped pages like a speedreader, waiting for interesting points to reach out and grab me.

That sort of worked, but I thought I would try to be a little more organized this time.

There are a couple of reasons for the change. First, the length of the synopsis the agents wanted, varies from agent to agent. Some agents wanted 1 page, another 3 pages, and another wanted 5 pages. Clearly one size wasn't going to fit all.

Secondly, using my unorganized approach, I tended to forget important points, or include points that weren't necessarily relevant to the main plot. They were points that just happened to reach out from the page and grab me on a read-through.

This time around, I've taken a different approach. I am reading each chapter, and writing down the salient actions that happened in that chapter in a notebook organized by chapter. For each chapter I classify whether it is character development, moving the plot forward, or backstory, and then write down notes about what happened.

I am writing these notes out by hand for the moment, but when I get even more organized, I will use the corkboard feature of Scrivener. (FYI, this has the added benefit that I am giving the manuscript yet another read, and finding little things that need to be corrected).

Once I have all of the notes, I will pick and choose interesting actions, or summarize a set of actions, to create the synopsis length that I want.

Sounds easy, but it's not.

I once tweeted that writing a synopsis is like trying to crush a car into a shoebox, and I don't think it's that far off. It takes a significant amount of time to get it right, but in the big picture, it can be very important.

How about you? How do you write your synopsis?

Are You Really Putting That Love Scene In?

2010-10-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

I'm doing edits on my novel, Monarch, right now, and I've been thinking a lot about things I really want out there...forever. You know? If you publish something, it's out there. It lands in people's hands, on their shelves. It will get boxed up and sent to a donation center when the person gets rid of books, or it will get boxed up and sent across the country when they move to a new house. It will be picked up by their children in later years.

It will be read. With your name attached to it.

You know, that's a scary thought to me. Of course, I already have a book out right now - Cinders. At the moment 235 people have a copy of the book. 235 people....either on their e-readers or physical copies. 140 of those are physical copies that can't just disappear into an e-reader or computer file system. At least some of those physical copies are going to be around for a long time.

This made me stop and think as I was editing Monarch. It made me wonder what I'm really putting into my work. Do I want that love scene in there? Is it necessary? Do I need all those details? Really? No. I got rid of them weeks and weeks ago when I realized this. Do I need all those swear words in there? Really? What does everything I put into my novel say about me? Should I care what people think of me later on down the road?

To an extent, yes, I think I should.

Do you?

I certainly have my own set of morals and values and sometimes my characters, although they have completely different morals and values from me, are portrayed through my lens. I'm not some objective observer just relating their story. If physical intimacy happens in my novels, that's fine, but physical intimacy is a private thing to me that I don't personally feel comfortable showing in extreme detail of the pages of my book. Some writers and readers are okay with showing lots of detail. It's different for everyone. I do show some detail to get points across and tell a story, but how we handle things says a lot about us, for good or bad, and I do think every reader will interpret those things differently. I suppose the most we can do is stay true to ourselves.

Sometimes, I'm finding out, that is easier said than done.

The Rookie and Writing

2010-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

While watching the movie "The Rookie" last night, which by the way I love, I stopped and asked myself why. Why was it so popular, and what about that movie was so powerful?

In case you haven't seen it, it's about a baseball coach in a small town in Texas. His team has some talent, but they lose most of their games. The coach determines that it's because they don't want it enough.

In a pivotal moment he chastises his team for not following their dreams, for not wanting success enough. They fire back with the fact that he has done the same thing. He has a latent talent that would allow him to pitch in the major leagues, but here he is in podunk Texas, coaching a lousy team.

They go on to challenge him. If the team wins the district championship, then he has to go to a major league tryout and pitch. After some soul searching, he agrees.

(Spoiler Alert)

Of course the team goes on to success, he goes to the tryout, he ends up being hired as a pitcher for the minor leagues, and later ends up in the majors.

Overall it is a feel good movie about "the power of the human spirit".

Why are are these movies so popular?

This isn't the only movie of this type with this theme. Off the top of my head I can think of "The Karate Kid", "The Mighty Ducks", and many others.

What is it about this theme that so captivates the audience? And how realistic is it?

To me the theme is that "if you want it bad enough, you only need to give it your best and you'll get there".

Is that true in every case?

I would say no.

Can every kid who throws a ball become a major league pitcher? No.

Can every person who wants to become president get there? No.

I believe that to truly excel at most things you need to have some latent talent, or as in sports, you need to have the right size, strength, etc. Not everyone can dunk a basketball for instance.

There are activities where you can learn to be the best, though I think writing is not one of them. I believe that it takes a special kind of personality and creativity to be an exceptional writer. Lots of people can learn how to be a good writer, but the truly great ones have a gift.

Do you have that gift?

Do I?

I don't know? But does it really matter?

Do you think that every one of us has a great novel in us? Probably not, but like that coach, if we settle for what's easy, and not follow our dreams, we'll never know, will we? If we don't strive to be the best, stretch ourselves to the limit, push ourselves farther than we ever thought possible, we'll never reach the potential to be great, will we?

What about you? Are you following your dream? Are you writing the best book can possibly write?

Gee, no kidding...

2010-10-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you've just gotta state the obvious.

To Kill a Mockingbird, doesn't mention the Ming dynasty because...well...it isn't relevant. Gee, no kidding. Well, that fact escapes many a fantasist who thinks that in order to create a believable world, you've gotta show all of your cards.

Which leads me to my second point: You can always tell when someone is lying, because they'll give you way too much information.

Why? The simple "truth" doesn't sound convincing to them because they know it's a lie. Therefore, they add detail to make it more believable.

Fantasy authors are without doubt the biggest bunch of liars around. We're not just lying about the story itself--the characters, the plot, the relationships--we're lying to you about EVERYTHING.

The grass. The trees. The water. Everything-freaking-thing.

So, how much is too much?

Good question. I think it's important for the author to know all of the ins and outs. But, pick only what's relevant to the story. Ask yourself if it were any other genre, would it be necessary. If not, scratch it.

In my humble opinion anyway.

OK, I kid, my opining is never humble. But, you get the gist here. This issue is one of the reasons that genre fiction gets the short end of the stick sometimes when compared to literary fiction. They know we're all full of crap.

We've just gotta become better liars...

And another place...

2010-09-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, I will post book reviews of novels I believe other writers should read. I write these reviews for writers, and you can find them here: HW Reviews.

My next review is Kiersten White's Paranormalcy. Right now, I'm trying to describe how useful it is to a writer without sounding like a stalker. White's book is interesting coming down the line after I've reviewed a self-published book, a small press book (well, semi-small press) and now a release from Harperteen. While I review each work on its merits and not some faux analysis of publishers and other irrelevant industry factoids, I'm digging the diversity of fiction that makes its way to my nightstand.

For a fiction reader, I am almost paralyzed with the superb offerings out there. Every time I hear that the industry is going to hell, the fiction reader in me thinks that statement is full of shit in terms of relevance.

De-centralization of the reading culture will cause people to lose jobs, companies to go splat and dirty laundry to wind up in the street. That's the nature of the beast, and at no time in history has being a reader been so fundamentally awesome as it is today.

Wow. I had no idea my little pointer to my reviews would generate a rant. I guess I'm feeling punchy.

I Hate Your Ending.

2010-09-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

It's interesting when you write exactly what you want and tell yourself you don't give a care in the world to what people will think of it or YOU for writing it. Of course, it's one thing if you decide to stick that project in the drawer at the end of the day...quite another thing if you decide to publish the thing.

Let's face it. Writing fiction is not only difficult in all the technical aspects, but it is difficult emotionally as well. You really DO care about what people think. You're putting your creativity out there to be scrutinized and critiqued, ignored and praised. Most of the time conflicting emotions abound.

When I published my novella, Cinders, I expected many readers to dislike the ending, and they do. I received two extremely honest reviews this morning. Both reviewers disliked parts of the book and on average gave it 3 stars. Still, they praised the writing and other things about the book they liked.

Like I said, I expected this kind of reaction, but it hurts anyway - no matter what you expect - when someone you like and respect doesn't fawn over your book like you envisioned them doing. I've had this happen again and again and again with my writing, published and not published. I've also had some readers love my work when I thought they'd hate it. Go figure!

All this is just to say, once again, that you should write what is closest and most real for you and no one else. You should also keep a very open mind about feedback, critiques, and reviews. I have learned to embrace every opinion and celebrate the fact that people read my work in the first place!

What is hardest for you to embrace about sharing your work?

Writing Tools

2010-09-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Do you have any special tools that you use for your writing work? Do you use any special editors, or software just for writers?

Over the past few years, I haven't. My toolbox included only Pilot Gel Pens, 5 subject lined notebooks, and Microsoft Word.

With the Gel Pens and notebooks, I write the first draft. I don't write longhand, or I'd need the NSA cryptographic computers to decipher what I've written. I actually print the first draft. Turns out that I can print very quickly, so I can write 5-10 pages an hour pretty easily. And I can actually read my printing when I get done.

I think the reason that printing by hand works for me, is that I don't have to think about creating the words, they flow off the pen. Although I'm getting better, what I have found it that it's more difficult for me to type the words directly.

When I am editing however, I will rewrite complete paragraphs from the keyboard. It's just easier for me to create the first draft by hand.

Lately I have been exploring some other tools for writing. I have been playing with Scrivener, and frankly I like it. I can see that having a tool that lets you organize all your research in the same area as your writing files, could be very useful. Plus having a corkboard like utility to let you move story elements around at will, seems like a great benefit. I'm thinking about trying it on the next project.

I recently bought a 5 dollar app for my iPad called iaWriter. I haven't used it a lot yet, but I love it's simplicity. I find that Microsoft Word has a number of characteristics that get in my way while trying to complete a manuscript. The auto-correct, grammar checking, and a bunch of other things don't help me, but get in the way more than anything. This new app lets you focus on the words, and you format it later.

What about you? Have you found any writing software that enhances your writing?

Reading Sequels, Writing Sequels

2010-09-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

"It's usually not a good idea to write a sequel to a book you haven't sold."

I've heard this advice countless times over the last two years, and one agent summed it up quite well: sequels are addicting. If you keep world-building and book writing without selling the first novel, it's easy to waste your time and creative talent instead of working on a story that sells.

Natalie Whipple (I love her blog posts, especially when she organizes her subjects in a list format, I wish more non-fiction writing was like that) lists a series of questions to ask yourself before embarking on a sequel.

Natalie is spot on.

With that said, I've read over and over and over (and over) how sequels are hard. How the second book was more difficult than the first, how the pressure to write a book already sold clashed with the creative energy needed to produce the novel.

I have also read many published sequels that did not measure up to the original book. Indeed, I can think of only the exceptions, like David Weber (The Honor of the Queen was arguably better than its predecessor).

Practical advice was telling me one thing, my over-stuffed bookshelves were telling me something else.

One day, I discounted the advice not to write a sequel to an unsold book, and wrote one.

It was difficult and a huge eye-opener. It took me twice as long to self-edit the second novel than it did the first. I found continuity errors that required much thought to fix and constantly waged war with my self-imposed word count limit.

It took me four months to complete the novel, and I would not trade that experience for anything. I learned so much about writing and my creative process that it changed the way I write novels for the better.

Was that worth four months of my writing time, even if the first book never sells?

For me, yes.

I can easily see how genre world-builders can get sucked into a idea that will not sell. I learn by doing, however, and for me writing a sequel was a vast educational opportunity. If you can separate the fact that writing a sequel and selling a sequel are two different things, a genre novelist could benefit from the opportunity to learn.

Still gives me nightmares (Stephen King may be working on a sequel)

Uhhh...Go Here

2010-09-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

I am burned out, sorry. If you'd like to read one of my posts I put up today as part of my Cinders Blog Book Tour, go to Jamie DeBree's blog - The Variety Pages.

A preview:

I think, oftentimes, we writers don't give ourselves permission to write exactly what we want to write. Don't get me wrong - you're writing still has to meet the standards of quality that publishing a novel requires, but you should never compromise what you want to write just because you want to get published so badly you'd cut off your right toe.

Yeah, go read and comment because I don't seem to be getting a huge, huge turnout for my blog tour like I was hoping. I'm very grateful to those who are participating, though!

Selecting Characters

2010-09-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

I've written about this topic before, but I am starting a new novel and I need to develop some new characters. As I have previously mentioned, character development has always been the part of my writing where I have to work the hardest.

I haven't come up with the list of characters that I need yet, and I may or may not need to borrow a character from my last novel. I'll know a little more when I develop the plot further.

On previous novels I usually developed a premise, came up with the expected ending, then put in a twist or two. I sort of developed the characters as I went, and therefore my creations may not have been as developed as they should have been. On my next novel, I want to change that. I am going to spend the first month or so, just developing characters. I want to the chance to live with my creations for a while before I write the story. I want them to become my friends, well, except for the really bad guys.

I probably won't do like some writers I have heard of, and create scrapbooks with pictures, pages full of relatives, or physical descriptions that would rival the files of the CIA, but I plan to create at least a couple of pages of information. I haven't given it a lot of thought yet, but I will probably include name, sex, hair color, height, weight, shoe size, and a hundred other useless pieces of information. Whether or not I use many of these details is irrelevant. What they do is help define the character in my mind. They help solidify who the character is, so that when I put them into a situation, I won't have to think how they will react, I will already know.

I know that my characterizations will not remain static throughout the story, in fact I fully expect that they are going to change as the plot changes. Just like my plot, my characters will morph as the story evolves, but that's not a problem, that's all part of the process. As I come up with different parts of the plot that need to fit together, the characters will have to change to match the rest of the story.

In fact, in the best stories, you will find that the characters and the plot are intertwined, they really are inseparable. You cannot develop the characters without the plot, or the plot without the characters. Changes in the plot will necessitate changes in the characters. The change may be slight, but it is a change nonetheless.

Not everyone uses the same process to come up with their characters, we all do things that work the best for us. How about you? How do you come up with characters?

Something More Solid

2010-09-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

I was recently in a small bookstore with a couple friends, and as we prowled around the aisles, I kept looking for books I had read. My friends and I strolled into the YA/Children's section of the store and they immediately started pointing to books they had read. They said what they liked and asked if I had read them. No, no, no, yes, no. First, I don't have a ton of time to read, and second, YA isn't my preferred genre. Still, there are several on that shelf I'd like to read now because of what my friends said about them.

I then said, okay, you guys, let's go to the section of the store where I like to read. So we wandered and wandered and wandered until finally we found the literary adult section. You know, where the classics are. One of my friends turned to me and asked me for recommendations in this section since she'd like to read more literary works. I started pointing to different books.

"I loved that one."

"Oh, you might like this one. It's one of my favorites."

"I LOVE the writing in this one."

And I thought, you know, what a lame excuse to recommend a book. It's not lame to love a book, but I think we sometimes forget to base our recommendations on something more solid. I know my friend Davin has often recommended books he didn't necessarily enjoy, but that he knows another person might like for various reasons.

"Here, Mom, read this Pulitzer Prize-Winning book, The Road, because I really enjoyed it. Forget the fact that it's ultra-boring and you'll put it down halfway through. I liked it. You will, too."

I guess it was worth a shot.

Readers, what annoys you the most?

2010-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Reading fiction is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, right? What if it isn't?

The funny thing is that as authors, we read differently than the average reader. At least I do. Before I started writing, other than what was forced on me in English class, I read either science fiction, or commercial fiction. As a kid I read Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and authors like that. Later I went on to Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, etc.

I still don't read a lot of literary works, sorry, I find most of them too tedious and some of them extraordinarily pretentious.

I still enjoy a good mystery, thriller, science fiction, and other types of commercial fiction. (No, not romance)

When I'm reading these works, there is one thing that bugs the heck out of me when I see it, technical inaccuracy.

I don't expect every author to be an expert on physical processes, but I also don't expect them to be lazy. Lazy authors gloss over how an event happens because it's not important to them how it happens, just that it does, so they can get on with the part of the story that they find interesting. When I read a story with a technical inaccuracy it sets off an alarm in my head and depending on how loud that alarm is, I may or may not be able to keep reading.

Let me give you an example. I was reading a thriller about a badass assassin type guy who's trying to save a family from the clutches of an evil corporation. (Really original plot huh?) Anyway, he meets up with an old friend in Europe who helps him escape from pursuers. The author needed the friend to stop the pursuers from catching the assassin dude, so what did he do? He blew everyone up.

OK, that's fine, but it was the way that he did it. I feel he took the lazy way out. He had the friend leave the gas on, and the shotgun blast from one of the pursuers set it off, killing everyone in the process. Of course our dashing hero has already left the building, so he's fine, but everyone else is not.

Given the recent gas explosion out here in California, this might sound reasonable, but there is a problem. By the time the natural gas reaches the consumer, it has had a really smelly agent added to it, so that if the consumer has a gas leak, they will know about it. The gas leak out here in California, was in a transmission line where the smelly stuff hadn't yet been added, but in your home, you will know if the gas is leaking. It REALLY stinks.

So I felt that there was no way that the pursuers wouldn't have noticed the gas smell, and got the heck out of there, rather than release a shotgun blast, and blow themselves up. I suppose there are scenarios that the author could have used to do that, but the point is, he didn't. He simply tried to suspend disbelief, and at least for me, it didn't work.

I don't expect that every action in a book that I am reading be 100% technically accurate, but if it isn't, the story better be compelling enough that I'm willing to let it slide.

What about you? As a reader, what kinds of things annoy you?

The Zone

2010-09-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing frustrates me more than the inability to articulate what I mean, either verbally or, especially, with written words.

Actually, my metronome frustrates me more, since its entire function is to prove to me my rhythm for a particular piece sucks.

But I digress.

I'm not referring to the mistakes we make in conveying information by bad communication, assumptions, being argumentative, etc. I'm talking specifically about higher, more abstract concepts. Taking the abstract concept and distilling it into understanding nirvana is my job. It's what I do.

Yet, a writer yesterday asked me to explain how I dropped into my Zone, and I couldn't do it.

As writers, we all have The Zone, and The Zone is not the absence of writer's block. It's that extra special oomph of story telling goodness. That mental state we drop into where words flow from the brain to the fingers to the blinking cursor to the page. I've blogged about The Zone before (somewhere in the 350+ posts on this blog), and I believe other bloggers here also have talked about it.

The Zone is the apex of creative process. It is not getting published. It is not landing an agent. It is the visceral creation of the story in the swirl of literary talent. Everything pales besides it. I could have five dancing naked baristas in front of me and I would, if still in The Zone, keep writing.

Okay, maybe four. Five and I might pause and ask for another espresso.

But I digress.

Why do I drop into The Zone?

I don't know. There is an aspect of "butt in the chair" and the wondrous serendipity of reading great books, but what if it's mainly something else? Like, eating sharp cheddar cheese before bedtime (not recommended, by the way). Or exercising? Would a good back scratch put me in The Zone more often?

Now there's a good idea, must experiment!

But I digress.

What about you? Do you have a Zone? Are you a Zone chaser? Or have you obtained the zen top-shelf of writing, and can slip into literary harmony at will?

Gross

2010-09-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

I hate yogurt. It's my #1 most-hated food EVER. If you put it in front of me I might just puke. I don't even buy it for my daughter at the store because I don't want to touch the containers. Sometimes I'll gulp down my disgust and put some in the cart. Grossssss....

Yes, I'm odd and unique. Most people are. I sat down with my father-in-law yesterday afternoon to discuss my novella, Cinders, that I released 6 weeks ago. He read the book and sent me a very honest email with his review. In the review he said some very nice things, but also said more in the email than he put up on his public review, and some of what he had to say seemed really harsh when I first read it. Then I read it again and again. I talked to my husband about it. I pondered and worried and read it again, then finally had the chance to sit down with my father-in-law and talk about what he had to say.

It seems everyone has their pet peeves. Some of the things that bothered my father-in-law about the book no one else would even think about or notice. Most people like yogurt. I'm not in any way bothered about what my father-in-law said now. In fact, it helps me see, once again, that you cannot completely please everyone 100%. Nor can you please 100% of readers 100% of the time. It's an impossible standard, so write what you write and love what you write and rest assured that readers who love your work as much as you do will come.

As an example, my friend Olivia shared with me how her father once pointed out she should count how many times people say the word "um" over the church pulpit. Now she says she can't listen to church speakers without counting their "ums" and it drives her nuts. It has even spread into her everyday life. There is no way I can never say "um" around her, though. It just happens.

Are there any quirks you have that keep you from fully enjoying a book? I personally can't stand list descriptions. They used to be a huge problem for me. Sometimes they still are, so I tend to notice them in books I'm reading, and they make me grit my teeth every time.

The Call of a Lifetime

2010-09-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

It happened yesterday. I had just put in a 12 hour day doing construction work at our latest elder care facility, when I got an email. It told me that someone had left a new comment on one of the posts of my personal blog. I checked the text of the comment, and nearly dropped my phone. It was from an honest-to-god Hollywood producer who wanted me to call right away and talk about my book.

After I finished peeling my jaw off the ground, I jumped off the couch, started yelling and screaming, and fist pumping into the sky. After a few moments and when the hyperventilation had somewhat subsided, I thought I'd better compose myself before I called him. I didn't want to sound like a slobbering idiot, even thought at the time, that probably would have been a good description.

After thinking for a minute, I dialed his number, and here's kind of how the conversation went.

He answered

"Hold a minute"

I said "OK", and waited patiently.

"OK, I had to put in my bluetooth headset" he said.

"This is Doug Perry calling as you requested." I responded.

"Wow, that was fast."

"I am very connected. I got your message on my iPhone."

"That's great. Well the reason that I am calling you is that I just love the feeling and environment that I got from your book The Girls of Murder City. You seem to have captured an interesting...."

Wait, that's not my book....

He went on talking more about the book using a lot of what I can only describe as movie speak, though I wasn't listening that close because I was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. He was really getting a head of steam going, but I decided I better tell him I didn't have a clue what he was talking about so that he didn't figure me for a complete idiot when I finally told him.

"Let me interrupt for a second."

"Uh, OK, sorry I got carried away."

"That's not my book you're talking about."

Silence for a second.

"This is Doug Perry, right?"

"Douglas L. Perry, yes."

Another short silence.

"Oh, I think I must have the wrong person."

"I think there is another author up in Oregon with the same name."

"Well, sorry about that. So what kind of books do you write?"

Oh my gosh, I was actually going to get to pitch to a real live Hollywood producer, but for some reason, my brain was still focusing on the fact that he had the wrong person, and my brain literally locked up.

"Uh, I write thrillers."

"What's your book about?"

I could hear my brain going OMG, OMG, OMG, and I have written posts in the past about how you should always have your elevator pitch at the ready, but did I? Heck no...

"Uhhh, It's about a guy on a plane going the wrong way."

Silence. Complete and utter silence.

What an idiot... was all that I could think. I tried to rescue the situation by thinking about the back cover blurb, but it wasn't coming. The problem was that I haven't thought about that book for a while, because I wrote it a few years back and unfortunately I wasn't ready to pitch it. I have been so busy marketing my latest WIP to agents, that I could hardly remember what that book was about.

I fumbled through a little better explanation, but if I was going to give my performance a gymnastic rating, my combined scores would probably average a 2.1 out of 6.

The producer listened patiently and got my email address, so he could send a mailing address where I could send a book. I found that to be a really classy move, and overall the guy was extremely nice. He sent me an email right away, and I will send him a book, but if I have to be honest, I'm not expecting to hear anything. I say that for a couple of reasons. First, I looked at the movies he's done, and while they seemed like interesting movies, they are not thrillers. Secondly, I think my performance wasn't up to the level I think I would need to garner interest. But hey, you never know. Maybe he's got a friend that does like thrillers and will pass my book along. A guy can always hope, can't he?

Overall I was disappointed with my performance, but you learn with every experience. Now that I have that one behind me, I hope I'll do better next time.

Are you ready with your elevator pitch? Are you confident you could have handled the same situation?

Truly, Madly, Deeply

2010-09-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

“Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in reverie.” ~Henry David Thoreau

I’ve always been this way. I’ve tried not being myself, by way of medication or force or both, but it never takes. I suppose it’s my soul’s way of adjusting for all the anxiety and fear I feel at moments like this one: I’m up at 4:27 am feeling excited and scared and everything in-between.

I’ve waited for this moment since I was 8 years old. When asked by a panel of judges for The Young Georgia Writers' Association, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I stated that “I don’t want to be anything. I'm a writer.” As if it were a state of being and not a profession and for the record, I recall being quite offended that they would even ask such a ridiculous question.

Perhaps it is.

Maybe I understood better then, in my childhood innocence, to providently place that niggling feeling in my gut somewhere nice and secure—say, the identity portion of my psyche. That way, it is a fixed, immovable thing. I think it explains an awful lot about me.

As authors, we have to know what it’s like to be in other people’s shoes. This means that we are always, at any given moment, apt to consider the very worst possibility in all scenarios. Not only is this the case, we are also forced to contemplate how it would feel to be in those circumstances, nevermind that most of what we imagine will never come to pass. This can naturally leave some of us feeling positively out of our minds at times. Or is it that unlike the vast majority of anxious individuals, we’re actually more in our right minds at that moment than we’ve ever been? This reminds me of something a dear writing friend said in response to a statement made by me with regard to fearing failure more now that I’ve been given a book deal, than before: “What if what feels like fear of failure is really a cover for the fear of success, for the fear of manifesting who you truly, deeply, madly know you are?” ~Ien Nivens.

And aren’t all good authors a little mad at the end of the day? He’s right really, perhaps more than even he realizes. It all centers around exposure and being found unworthy or led to feel less than. There is always the average fear of receiving bad reviews and so forth, but this goes a little deeper than that. It isn’t so much a pride issue as it is a personal one.

I fear being found out...

I need to access that inner 8 year old, that brave little soul that marched into a room full of adults and told them exactly how the world would run once I’d taken over.

So today, when the sun finally rises, I’m going to make it a point to do what I’ve done all along, what has always given birth to my stories and characters—I’m going to sit in a doorway with the sun on my face from daybreak till noon, rapt in reverie, getting to know who I must truly, madly, deeply be

Long or Short

2010-08-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

What do you think about reader's attention spans these days? I honestly believe Young Adult fiction is so popular right now because of its length and readability. You have Twitter, which is just insane, and I've even noticed commercials and ads on the radio getting shorter and shorter. It makes me wonder why so many writers don't like short stories. They're, well, SHORT. Flash fiction should be the most popular thing ever, but I don't think it is. I'm guessing readers - even the new short-attention-spanned generation - still like their stories complex and they don't even realize it. Then again, I think much of what is out there these days is fluff, but we can keep that for another post (and if you're thinking, oh my goodness, does she mean my book? no, I don't, because chances are that if we know each other you probably don't write fluff, but there can be exceptions because sometimes fluff is good and needed, trust me).

I had a blast writing my novella, and I'm itching to write another one, but first I have to work on my current novel and it's driving me nuts how long it takes to get through. It's only 74k, but it feels like forever after working on a sweet little 36k novella. I almost wonder if I've cheated myself out of being able to write longer works. I wonder if it's easier to write shorter things. Even though my novella was short, it was almost harder to keep it short than let it go long, if that makes sense.

Do you write long or short? Have you tried both? What are your thoughts on this?

Found a New Author

2010-08-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of thrillers and most of them are from authors that I know. Every once in a while, I come upon a new author with a book good enough that I want to read more.

It happened last week. I found a book called "Lion's Game" by Nelson DeMille. It's a story about an ex-cop chasing a terrorist. If terrorist themes are not something you enjoy reading about, this book is probably not for you.

What I liked about this book is the protagonist. His name is John Corey, and he's a total smartass. I know there are some people that would think him juvenile, anti-authority, and a total pain, but what I like about him, is that he cuts through the all the procedural bull and gets the job done. Nelson really highlights how difficult a joint operation between different types of law enforcement can be. The story is the combination of a joint law enforcement operation, and an ex-cop that cuts through all the bureaucracy. It's the perfect scenario for this type of character.

I think that's half the battle sometimes, coming up with the right character, but also putting them in a situation that lets them show their true makeup.

Do you put your characters in situations that allow them to go beyond the words written on the page? If not, you're holding your characters and your story, back.

Literary WMD

2010-08-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

Michelle's post got me thinking of an incident in one of my high school senior classes. I believe it was the last Creative Writing Course you could take, CW IV, I think.

The class was tweleve students,. me and eleven girls.

You know, I hate to say it now, but I think I loved that class and not for the subject mattter. I think pink fuzzy sweaters might have had something to do with it.

But I digress.

During the poetry writing section of the course, I vividly remember being dejected. Moody, even. Morose.

"Anthony, why the sad face," asked Mrs. Reid, the English teacher asked me while I was at her desk.

"My poetry sucks. All of it."

"Just yesterday the entire class loved your last poem."

"Oh yeah, look at what my girlfriend sent me in the nail." I handed her the poem.

Mrs. Reid read the poem and sighed.

"Look, some people are just naturally talented."

Another student snatched the poem from me as Mrs. Reid was handing it back.

She read it. "Oh geeze, excuse me while I go burn all my poetry in shame. Thanks, Anthony."

The rest of the class was very interested in the scene unfolding in front of the room. Mrs. Reid, in charge of the a dozen teenage angst-y writers, thought pretty quickly. "Class dismissed, we're done for the day."

I learned two things: In creative writing, no matter how good you think you are, you can, and will, run into someone better at it.

Also, some writing is just so damn good, it's a weapon of mass destruction. Use sparingly.

Never, Ever, Ever Enough

2010-08-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

No matter what I do, I know I will always run across a comment or post or conversation where something makes me feel inferior. If I know someone just bought my book and then see a comment on their blog about how they're reading something that else that is just BLOWING them away, I think to myself, "Shouldn't they be reading MY book and being blown away by THAT one? How dare they read something else and think it's awesome."

Oh, wait, did I just admit that?

*looks around*

I did. Yes, I did.

We writers have mighty little egos, don't we? I often wonder if it's a good thing. I often wonder how mighty my little ego actually is. I really hate it when I get the feeling that a debut author is full of themselves as they promote their book left and right. I'll roll my eyes when I've seen it advertised somewhere for the 500th time. Then I published my own book and I knew that advertising everywhere was the only way to get the word out there so people heard about it and talked about it. Spread the word. Spread the love. Right? Is there a better way to do this without being annoying? I'm often wondering if I've been annoying with my own marketing, if I overestimate how good my book is, if I'll cry the first time a complete stranger marks it 1 out 5 stars and says publicly on an Amazon review how much they hate the book.

Then again, if these things truly bothered me I would never have published in the first place, and neither should you. Along with those mighty little egos, I think there's also a very fragile, frightened being inside of us. It doesn't take much for anyone to make me feel inferior, but one of my favorite quotes is Eleanor Roosevelt's, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

In the end, I think we need our mighty little egos. We can set the ego aside when it is inappropriate to have a huge head, but in the end, it gives us that little bit of courage we need...

Lost Idea

2010-08-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'll bet you're thinking this is a post about writing an episode of Lost. Well, that would be cool, but no, what I'm talking about is something that happened the other day.

I was talking to my wife and an idea for a scene hit me. It was a brilliantly poignant scene, funny, yet emotionally charged, sure to garner sympathy for the character, and render a clear description of their true behavior.

I was hurrying to get ready, so that I could go to the job that puts ink in my pens, and I didn't have time to write it down. Can you guess what happened? Yep, I lost it. I can't remember the scene, what it was about, how it would have benefited the character, ..... I got nothing.

You would think that if it was such a good scene that I would be able to remember at least some of the details. You would think. But for some reason, it's just gone. (Getting old much?)

I probably would have been able to remember it, if the scene had been attached to one of my new characters, but that was part of the problem, it wasn't. I don't have all the characters for the new WIP yet, so I had no one to attach it to. But it was such a great moment. Darn....

I've been wracking my brain for the last couple of days, and I'm still not able to recall anything. There's nothing up there but cobwebs. I may even have to employ desperate measures. Yep, as bad as it sounds, I may have to break down and ask the wife.

How about you? Have you ever thought of a great scene, or idea, and lost it because you forgot to write it down? Were you able to get it back later?

Obsidian

2010-08-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

Today is a pretty good day if I don't say so myself. Today, I was offered another book deal with Rhemalda (for a total of five: The Guardians trilogy, with two stand alone works in-between). The art you see to the right is a piece done by Eve Ventrue titled "once" and if everything goes as planned, it'll be the cover of Obsidian (with a couple minor alterations). Since it's the image that sparked the muse to begin with, I figured it was fitting...

The world where the story takes place is a dystopia, and unlike most cyberpunk novels I've read (or dystopic ones for that matter) the high-tech, low-society world, isn't our own. I know that technically breaks the rules for what can rightly be called cyberpunk, but when have I ever followed the rules? Pssssh. Never. I just broke one by not writing in complete sentences.

I have a deadline of November 1st. Can I complete it by then? Sure (don't ask how far along I am on this---I won't tell you). Like a good many second-book deals, this one was signed on spec. Kind of makes me feel official in a strange way. In fact, the moment that Rhemalda asked me about possible manuscript placement between the books in Guardians was the moment I felt like I'd accomplished everything I'd ever wanted to accomplish as an author. Honestly.

No, really. Remember, I rarely do things for the same reasons as 99% of the population. I don't care that Rhemalda isn't Random House or Tor. I love that they're small. It's never been about big advances or notoriety for me. It's always been about the writing...and it always will be. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I may do a lot of really vain, stupid stuff in my life, but I will never sell out.

Back to where I was going with this post...this deadline has brought up a topic that I've read about in other writing blogs and though I would like to think we steer away from the hashed over stuff here at Adventures in Writing, this one needs to be addressed again.

Writers and a career in writing, isn't unlike most other professions. Yes, there are some incredibly talented authors who made their living by doing other things and wrote in their spare time until they were established enough to do otherwise. But, they wrote in all of their spare time. Not just an hour a day. Maybe there are a few who managed to write one or two powerful books before hitting it big and then wrote nothing else. Those aren't career authors. That isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about John Grisham who held a full-time job as a lawyer and wrote feverishly until he was able to leave his job and write full-time. And you know what he did then?

I can tell you what he didn't do. He didn't wait on inspiration or the muse or a change in the winds.

I'm not as talented as Grisham---never will be. But, we have at least one thing in common: We both write full-time. I don't have children yet, and I don't have any other responsibilities that require attention like a 9-5 would. So, when I show up at the desk everyday, it's to work. My job is to write books--to be an author. You don't realize how long 40 hours really is until you have it, week after week at your disposal. Believe me, you'd write out of sheer boredom if nothing else.

There have been days when I might as well have typed my own name 5,000 times. We've all had them. But professionals push on through as many of those days as it takes in order to make it to where the good stuff comes creeping back in. And you know what? That's not talent. That's perseverance. This isn't an issue of ability, but of reliability.

Are you a reliable writer? Can the story count on you to show up? Or are you phoning it in?

When I had a regular job, there were days when I'd show up and, frankly, not do shit. Any author who tells you they don't occasionally do the same is lying through their teeth. But, if you keep your job there are consequences for those actions and those days are had with the outcome in mind. If I screwed around on Facebook all day at my old stomping ground, I'd be in that office after hours at least two days the next week making up for lost time. And you know what? Sometimes it was worth it.

Bottom line, don't sell yourself short because of your circumstances. Writing a novel is an intensely personal experience. Each novel is as unique as its author. There is no "right" time frame in which to complete a novel. But, don't impose your expectations on other people. If you write like my husband plays golf---infrequently and with lamented passion, don't sell your abilities, or anyone else's, short by assuming that you'd be exactly the same author if your circumstances were different. They may very well change one day. Your current concept of how long it takes you on average to finish a work is based on your environment and assumed limitations.

And limitations are as manifold as the words we use to describe them. No two are exactly the same.

So, with that, I'm leaving you to go back to work on Obsidian.

Work in Progress, First Paragraph!

2010-08-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

We haven't done this in awhile: everyone reply and post your first paragraph to your work in progress!

I'll go first. Contemporary YA:

When she started kissing, Sarah calculated it had been an entire year, to the day, of avoiding chocolate in order to regulate her stupid blood sugar problem. French kissing a boy for the first time, unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, she couldn’t decide which—was chocolate. Sweet, warm chocolate. Over French vanilla ice cream. Sprinkled with pine nuts.

When Your Writing Sucks

2010-08-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

When your writing sucks, you'll know it. You get this rock-like feeling in the pit of your stomach. You get thoughts that border on suicidal, even if it's just emotional suicide, and you pretty much want to yell at everyone who crosses your path. Right? That's how I get. I'm trying to work on a novel I've been hammering out for over two years, and although it's technically finished, it just sucks. At least I think it does. I've got that rock-feeling and all the little thoughts in my head keep screaming, "Spend your valuable time on something better!!!"

I might listen. I might not. I have some plans for this novel that I'd like to see come to fruition, but I have other ideas that seem more exciting.

I think when our excitement on a work dies away, it's time to shelve the dang thing.

What do you do? Do you have to be completely passionate about your work, or is it more like a job to you and you just fight to get it done and out there, even if the passion dies away? (I'm not talking about the "first-draft lust" type of passion - just that deep love for a work that drives you forward).

Maybe I'm only being distracted by shininess elsewhere. That's entirely possible. Ugh.

The Blue Car and The Dinosaur

2010-08-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

You're probably thinking this is a story about Barney and cringing, aren't you? Well relax, he's not blue, he's purple. No, what I am talking about is the Pterodactyl that crapped on my car last week. You see, I don't just love my little blue sports car, I'm pretty much obsessed with it.

Growing up in South Dakota, I got my driver's license at 14. I got my first car about 8 hours later, mainly because I had to wait for the DMV office to open the next morning. It was a 1966 Dodge Charger and while it was pretty cool for the time, I traded it soon after for my first blue sports car, an Opel GT.

The Opel looked like a miniature Corvette and after I had spiffed it up with some chrome wheels, it was pretty much the coolest thing on campus. Unfortunately, it was also a rolling piece of junk. It soon became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to afford the repairs of keeping on the road while still in school and working part time. I sold it and bought the perfect project car, a 1969 Chevy Camaro.

While the Opel was a piece of junk, at least it was mobile. The Camaro needed everything. I overhauled the engine, installed a new transmission, stripped the disgusting faded green paint off, and repainted it, yep, you guessed it, blue. You may wonder why I went through all that work, but I loved doing that kind of thing, and besides, I got the car for $500.

Fast forward about 20 years and I'm at the car dealer with my wife. At this point I had gone through minivans for the kid, small trucks for 4 wheeling, and a couple of sedans for people haulers. I was ready to get back to my blue sports car. It wasn't a middle age thing, at least that's what I told myself.

I picked out the Infiniti G35 Coupe, in Caribbean Blue. It was very fast, it was cool looking, and I wanted it. My wife on the other hand, decided that I couldn't have that. No, no, that car didn't project the right image or something, so I had to get the 4 door sedan version. To this day, I still don't know the real reason, but in the interest of a stable marriage, I consented and drove my brand spanking new "Dad car" home.

It was pretty fast, and it was blue, but it wasn't really a blue sports car. Unlike a sports car, the sedan didn't want to go out on the weekend and drive to the beach, it wanted stay at home and go to the office. So after the wife and I divorced, (no relationship to the car thing, really.. No, I mean it... sort of), I finally got my new dream sports car. A 2009 Nissan 370Z in "write me a ticket now" blue.

It's the best blue sports car I've ever had, bar none, and I treat it like a hangar queen. If there is a parking spot near the door to where I am going, but the spot isn't at least three cars wide, then I'll park in a lonely space over in the north fourty and walk. The last thing I want is to have door rash on that beautiful blue paint job.

With this in mind, I went to lunch with a friend last week and parallel parked a couple of blocks away. Thinking nothing of it, I parked next to a large Oleander bush, and hiked my way to the restaurant. The next morning I was about to load my backpack in my car, when I stared down at the passenger door in disbelief. There in the middle of the door was a ball of crap about the size of a softball, and about a quarter inch thick. Judging by the size of it, I knew that a bird couldn't have done it. It had to have come either from a flying cow, or a Pterodactyl. Since cows don't fly, my guess is that it was a Pterodactyl.

After throwing a banging hands and feet tantrum on the garage floor, and screaming at the car gods for at least ten minutes, I got to work. I soaked the mess with my garden hose, applied plenty of soap, and finally got the Pterodactyl crap to come off. It took a half an hour of careful scrubbing, but it finally dropped on to the floor. The paint still has a stain where the ball of crap was located, but my son is good at fixing this type of thing, and I'm going to let him do his magic.

I'm still pissed off at that dinosaur, but I did realize that there is a moral to this story, sort of. Never park your new car next to an Oleander bush. You never know if a Pterodactyl is hiding inside.

Inception

2010-08-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

Inception: origin, an event that is a beginning; a first part or stage of subsequent events.

You thought I was going to talk about the movie didn't you?

Where does it begin for you---the journey? For me, it's always a single scene, and that single scene almost always comes to me while I am sleeping. For the Guardians trilogy, I saw the raid on Palingard---Moriors flying in a black mass over the horizon.

For Nightshade, it was the Fae masquerade scene in the Winter Court of Avalar---a girl dressed in a gorgeous gown, from our world, dancing with a man in white who didn't know who she was. Two polar emotions; he was elated, enjoying himself, while she grieved, the very act of his touch excruciating. I woke up with a sob stuck in my throat because I could feel her pain---her panic---because that man was her husband.

For Beggar King, it was a rare moment of weakness for Sedellion princess Callista, now mute, as she clung to life in an Ashorite prison, tortured and condemned to death by her lover for a crime she couldn't have committed---her own murder (that of her altar ego).

Funny how things like that work out. I won't know everything about the story while I am in the midst of it, but once consciousness comes, I'll know without a doubt who the players are and exactly what they were doing there. But that feeling of, not fully knowing, lingers and is usually what spurs me on. It's almost as if I have been allowed, for one brief moment, a glimpse into what it truly feels like in my characters' shoes.

It's a dirty window, where I've glimpsed a fraction of what exists beyond. As I clean the glass, it all becomes clear, but it has never felt like creation to me. These things are already in place, just beyond the grime or the pervasive film of sleep, and my job is to clear all the excess away, till nothing but the story remains.

So, what is your process? Where does it all come from for you?

Music

2010-08-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

I didn't listen to music while writing.

Lately, however, I've been tuning out the outside world and listening to moody music. Odd. Normally, that would drive me nuts, distract me, cause me to go off on tangents, divert my brain, etc.

If I'm in the coffee shop, I certainly don't plug the earphones in. But at home, when everyone else is doing their thing, I fire up the MP3 library and pick an appropriate play list.

I'm curious: who listens to music while writing? If you do, what's on your play list?

Here: It's been Stacey Kent 24/7. Gotta get those love scenes down!

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for your amorous state after listening to the following:

Genre...Whatever.

2010-08-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

I think one of the most-asked questions we writers get is, "What genre do you write?" It has always been frustrating for me to answer that question. Every time I'll pause and run through all the major things I've written. Hmmm. There's poetry, extremely literary, literary/suspense, contemporary drama, young adult bordering on adult, fantasy, and even more literary. Literary. I always come back to literary. I love that completely vague term, don't you? If I try hard enough, I can explain all my work as fitting into this lovely little category. That doesn't mean that's what I write, though.

Sticking our work into a genre is limiting. Many people say it must be done, however, because there's agents who will need to know, publishers who have to know, and marketing. You can't market without a set genre and your intended audience who reads that specific genre. Heaven forbid.

And sadly, I think putting our work into genre categories is like labeling ourselves with those personality tests. You know, those color ones, or the letter ones...I happen to be a ESFJ. I am now labeled. Aren't you happy you know more about me?

In general, ESFJs are helpful people who place a high value on harmony. Paying close attention to people's needs and wants, they work well with others to complete tasks in a timely and accurate way.

When I was a kid and in school friends of mine would tell me my daily horoscope and I remember going through the day with my horoscope in mind and I'd purposefully do things to make it stay on its target. I didn't want to prove it wrong. Horoscopes are always right! Right? Genres pin our work down. They get the job done. Right? Right.

My point today is that many times I feel I'm catering to a genre instead of letting my work breathe on its own, and it can limit what I'm writing. But like any good story, no matter how you plan it and write it, it will contain specific elements that all good stories own, and undoubtedly it will naturally fit into one of the genres out there. So don't worry about genre so much. My author business card says that I write contemporary, literary, and fantasy fiction. I think that's broad enough for some breathing room, don't you?

What genre do you write. (That might be a trick question...)

However Slight

2010-08-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

All this talk of simplicity reminds me of the ever-changing list of literary fads. Just like anything else, there are trends and influences that sometimes seem to become absolutes for a time and the very thought of acting against them smacks of pretensiousness. Take modern voice for example. Loved ones, and not-so-loved ones, have become titles in contemporary voice; The Husband, The Boss, The-Furry Children (okay, I'm guilty here), The Boyfriend....etc. The word "snark" rocketed to fame after a well-known literary agent named her blog using the word as though it were any other fashion accessory. And the masses flocked. It's trendy to dislike urban fantasy, in some circles, particularly vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters...just as it's popular to dislike pop-fiction (Dean Koontz, Janet Evano-what's-her-face) in others. Women's literature, also known these days as "chic-lit" has also had a bold new introduction to the world. Bitter is the new black (I think there's a book with this title). Everything is cute with a distinct sense of "bitchiness" about it.

They may never say it aloud, but our readers (even if we write fantasy) will view our work through whatever cultural lens they've been given, whether we like it or not. This will always be the case and it doesn't change how our work will be seen once it has passed out of our hands, as a generation, and on to the next. We have no control over that. But, the sheer fact that these trends are in existence means that they influence our career. Agents and publishers are forever aware of these things and bank on half of them.

So, what does this mean for us as authors? Well, that depends. For me, because I'm sensitive to some of these trends, I have to be careful with what I write and I have to look for it. I hate to admit that, and God help the reviewer should one ever bring this post against me, but I have to purposely listen a little closer to what my characters are telling me because I'm apt to hear first the cultural chatter that pervades the airways.

How do you know when what you've heard is true or not? These trends slip into critiques and reviews and the comments of editors and how do we know as authors when to take the advice and when to leave it? I don't recall who said it or when, but someone once made the wise observation that if it sounds like something that an older, wiser you would have thought of...then it's true to your vision as an artist. When I read back over my own work, I know it--those insidious influences--by the way they make me feel. After I've read narrative, or a character description, I'll start to feel as though someone has just told me that I've just been selected as a winner of publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes! In other words, it will feel like nothing more than a false promise. A character may do something that rings untrue, despite how adamant the editor has suggested that it "fits" her personality, because it won't actually fit her...it will only fit who the cultural bias says she should be.

Allow me this brief analogy: I remember walking into a bookstore in Auburn, AL a few years ago and stopping just inside of the entryway because I'd spied a wall'o Jesus to my immediate right. There were bracelets with various letters of the alphabet, all arranged to spell out some catchy slogan. There were t-shirts made to mimic pop culture icons. There were pens and pencils and book-bags and hats and bumper stickers. It made me wonder when James Patterson had high-jacked fundamentalism and how I had missed the subsequent carnage. There wasn't any missing it now...

I'm not saying that we'll do anything quite so tacky in our writing as that wall was to the Christian faith. But, there are people who thought that was a fantastic idea, just like there are readers and agents and editors and publishers who think a good many things are a fantastic idea in relation to your work and those things may be detrimental to your story.

However slight.

Where Books and Caffeine Collide

2010-08-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

This barista is cuter than cute, but does she ever love her annoying music CD. She has a CD that she plays on the coffee shop's sound system. She filled it with one-half thoughtful romantic tunes, one-half trendy overproduced crap.

I have a personal policy of not listening to music through an iPod in public places (or, in my case, my fancy phone with more memory on it than the first laptop I bought). I might just break if she doesn't change the CD.

She is tall, busty and has that young-woman-summer-healthy-tan thing going. We'll come back to the barista later.

The coffee shop has a large bookshelf. One day, one of the owners and his brother dragged it in and left it there. Bit by bit, people have been filling it with books. Now it overflows. People come in and grab a book, read it, take it home. Other people come in and grab several books. Even others drop books off. One lady came in with an entire box of books. She filled all the empty spaces, and took five others home.

Isn't that amazing? People, left to their own devices and an empty bookshelf, simply started a book exchange without any prompting or direction. Is it the inherent beauty of sharing a book, or does this speak to something else, something deeper? That people left to their own devices in a legitimate business (the owners of the shop aren't providing coffee for free) simply do the right thing because it's the best thing to do?

I love that bookshelf. I love it very much.

There is an older man here who has been coming in as often as I, or even more. He is some type of engineering consultant. I believe he reviews technical plans and makes recommendations. He is reading constantly, either on his netbook or from one of those notepads engineers always seem to have with them.

Older Engineering Man is a coffee drinker. He likes drip coffee, straight up.

I can dig it.

One of the owners is here. She is convinced that there is an untapped tea market, so she stuffed the shop with loose-leaf tea and tea accessories. I don't know if her tea plan is viable or not, but she has stocked the place with tea not easily found. The place smells wonderful, the tang of bitter espresso with a thousand scents of tea.

I have arrived in writing nirvana.

Sitting in the sunniest spot are two homeschooling sisters. They are very intent when they study. I do not know if they are unschoolers (popular in my area) or curriculum based homeschoolers. One is studying geometry and the other flips through a book from the bookshelf, comes to a page she likes and then draws what she read.

They drink fruit smoothies. For them, school never ends because they are not in school. They are simply learners, and when they are done, they stuff their books and pads and netbooks into a backpack and zoom off. I have yet to see their parents in here.

Awesome.

The barista takes a call on her cell phone. She starts speaking in Russian, rapidly and with an accent. Older Engineering Man and I actually exchange a glance. He grins.

The eighteen-year-old barista speaks flawless Russian. That's so random--it's also awesome.

A young man comes in and flirts with the barista. He's friendly. He orders a simple latte. When he gets his drink, he comes to one of the open lounge chairs and sits. I smile to myself. His flirting was on autopilot. He might not even know he does it.

He sips his latte. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, smelling the tea. When he is done he leaves, and I get that this was a brief refuge from whatever busy life a cute teen boy in the summer leads.

I can't see the barista but I'm momentarily bittersweet. I almost wish he had picked up his flirting again. They would make beautiful children together, and no one in the coffee shop is more alive than she.

As he leaves, he does not take a book from the bookshelf. Doing so would have been perfect.

To me, the writer, the near-perfect day is so much better than the perfect one. There are a thousand thousand stories I can make, pretending he did stop and grab a book, a supernova of possibilites. I pick one that seems the most alive:

It's an old book. Inside is a thin piece of paper, yellow with age. A girl's writing from another time. She is sad and lonely, obviously stuffing the paper in the book to put in her diary later. The paper is odd, it's dated June 23rd, 2286.

The boy finds this strange. He comes back into the coffee shop, talks the barista who is trying to control her heart from going pitter-pat every time the boy blinks with his impossibly long eyelashes.

Does she know who left this book? She does not.

I do, says Old Engineering Guy. The crazy lady with the box of books comes in every Tuesday at exactly 2:34pm.

Yeah, I've seen her, says the Fast Typing Guy. She likes to talk to herself. She grabs new books and replaces them with old books.

The barista and the boy try to solve the Future Diary Entry Mystery Together. Maybe they fall in love. Maybe he breaks her heart for the girl in the odd note. They certainty kiss.

The bookshelf waits.

So, Uh, Yes, I'm Michelle...

2010-08-03T06:29:00.000-07:00

Good morning, everyone!

I'm new here, so I'm not quite sure where to begin. I know that I'm honored to have been invited to join this great site and the writers who post here. I guess I'll copy J.S. Chancellor and just introduce myself for today instead of trying to impress you with some deep, profound post. That might come later. Maybe...

I'll be posting here every Tuesday. I post over at The Literary Lab every Thursday, and once in a great while I post on my blog, The Innocent Flower, although that blog is no longer a place where I post anything besides updates. I save all the creative stuff for other places! You can also find me at my author site, Michelle Davidson Argyle. Yes, I like to blog. Can you tell?

I'm first and foremost a writer. I've been writing seriously for 14 years, and recently published my first book, a fantasy/literary novella titled Cinders. I also write short fiction, contemporary novels (um, spy thriller, anyone?), and I've currently got a YA novel in my files since I first started writing. It might take flight one day. It's starting to look like I don't know WHAT genre I should write in...kind of embarrassing!

I've also been a serious photographer for 6 years, and I have a 4-year-old daughter who sometimes drives me crazy. Okay, she always drives me crazy, but she's cute.

And that, I suppose, is it in a nutshell. Maybe most of you knew all of that already. If you did, I'll leave you with a little something that might inspire you for the day:

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. ~Vita Sackville-West

Waiting

2010-08-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you are waiting to hear back from agents? Chew your fingernails off? Set a chair by your mailbox and stare at it? Check your email every 30 seconds?

Not me.

I'm waiting to hear back on a a couple of queries that I sent out after Thrillerfest, but while I wait, I'm working on a synopsis, so that I can send out more queries, making a list of agents that I didn't meet at Thrillerfest to query, and working on the next novel.

All I have for the next novel is the premise, but I'm working on characters, and thinking about the setting.

You can't write a single novel, send out three queries, and expect to get three responses, unless those responses are rejections. It doesn't work that way.

There have been some special cases, but the typical story is that it took a writer 4 novels, and 85 rejections, or 8 novels and 110 rejections, or 2 novels and 50 rejections. It's not a simple process.

So after you've finished your novel, and sent out a few queries, make sure you're working on the next set of queries, or the next novel. You're going to need it.

What do you do while waiting for agents to get back to you?

We're All Mad Here

2010-07-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

The first post by a new author is always a little awkward isn't it? No one really knows where to put their hands.

So I'll make this quick and painless...

I'm honored to be joining the team here at Adventures in Writing. So honored in fact, I thought I'd bore you with a few things about myself:

In March of this year I was offered a book deal on my epic fantasy trilogy, Guardians of Legend (http://www.guardiansoflegend.com) which will debut in November 2010. The website for it is still sort of 'in construction' so...

I run a blog, also dedicated to the craft of fiction, at http://www.welcometotheasylum.net. I tend to get a little feisty there so it isn't for those who offend easily.

I've never met a hot sauce or a horror movie that I didn't like (OK, that's not totally true---Killer Clowns From Outer Space was a bust...)

Though I don't write it in the purest sense of the genre, I LOVE reading a good horror novel.

I'm a purest when it comes to writing. The story and the art of creation are everything.

So...yeah...that's about it for today. Nothing terribly insightful. Maybe next time I'll tell you about the time I ran into Chuck Norris...and how that translated into the longest writing stint in my career to date...maybe.

Best,
J.S.

I Am Not a Philandering Womanizer

2010-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

There is a minor, but crucial, character in a novel I’m working on that has little redeeming qualities other than his admittedly warped sense of justice and honor. When it comes to the fairer sex, women are snacks. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate their intellectual capabilities or their feelings as people, it’s that they provide such physical pleasure, he just can’t see beyond getting his rocks off and looking for more.

He’s a character, this character.

And he’s not me.

But I wonder, sometimes, with this literary creation I’ve breathed life into, readers will think I’m either a) talking about myself or b) living out a male fantasy of moving from one beautiful woman to the next.

Neither which is true. I’m trying to tell an entertaining story.

How about you: do you sometimes write the rogue and rake, and then wonder if readers can’t separate the author from the character?

Purses and Shoes

2010-07-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'll bet you're wondering why I'm writing about purses and shoes this week, aren't you. Given how little I know about the subject, I can imagine you don't expect much content. Well, hang in there, I do have a point.

I'm curious as to how many times you read your manuscript before you wave the rubber chicken over it and bless it as ready to publish.

I was at a Thrillerfest session when Steve Berry was talking about point-of-view and dialog. He recounted a story about his method for making sure that his manuscript was ready to go.

It was called the "Purses and Shoes" approach. His most critical editor would receive purses and shoes for every major faux pas she found in his final manuscript. The level of error was a little subjective, but they were at least at the level of embarrassing.

The interesting point was that these purses and shoes were not your garden variety items from your local JC Penny, or Walmart, these were designer items from Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and the like. Needless to say the stakes were high not only for the editor, who happens to be his wife, but also for Steve. If his wife finds even a couple of critical mistakes, he could be looking at a big bill at the designer store.

Therefore Steve reads his manuscript a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot, typically at least 75 times according to his answer to my question.

I thought at first that seemed like overkill, but then my editor doesn't have one eye on a $5000 purse in the window of the LV store.

The technique his wife used was every time a particular character was described, or did something, or felt something she would write it down. Then she would go back through and look for inconsistencies, such as a character having blonde hair in one scene, and black in the next, or a character that was afraid of spiders at one point, but had a pet tarantula the next. These are extreme examples, but they do happen.

I read my manuscript all the way through at least 5 times, and through different sections at least 10 or 15 times. I also read the entire manuscript aloud. I find a lot of errors in syntax and timing by using that approach. To a point, I feel that every read is good for finding something that isn't quite right. I'm not sure 75 is the number for me, but it does make me feel that I should probably do a few more.

So tell me, how many times do you read your manuscript?

P. S. I was going to make a comment about wanting an editor like that, but my wife reads this blog, and besides, I'm not sure Jessica Simpson knows much about editing.

Gender

2010-07-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was writing a book several years ago when I realized I needed to get inside the head of the female main character, in a girly way, and I just sat there looking at the blinking cursor.

What did I really know about women? Really? I’m married to one, but she is a singular person, and besides, who wants to read about my perfect wife? There is no conflict about her at all; indeed, her mere presence in a room will smooth out conflict. She eats conflict for breakfast.

Sure, I could observe the feminine critter in her natural habitat, but that didn’t tell me the why. Why does a woman say, “I’m sorry” when what happened was not her fault?

Actually, I figured out that girl-speak on my own: “I’m sorry” translates (this is for all you guys out there) to “I’m sorry that happened to you” or “I’m sorry you are feeling bad.” To a guy, however, “I’m sorry,” means “I'm sorry I did this bad thing. It was my fault.”

The noticeable gender differences are so vast, even the simple act of nodding is different. When talking to another man (in the United States, nodding can vary per culture), if he starts nodding, he’s saying “yeah, I get that, move on to the other good parts,” but when a woman starts nodding she’s saying, “This is interesting, tell me more.”

So now, we have two people nodding at each other, the first going, “This woman will not shut up! I GET IT ALREADY!” and the second going, “This guy is about as dumb as a box of rocks!”

Thus, when faced with touching the deep well of femininity that I do not have (and trust me, I don’t), when the going got tough, the tough did research.

There were many books out there on gender differences, but most of them were full of crap. Really full of crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, (crap).

Nevertheless, I found some gems. The door opener was Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women. That book was a huge revelation and led me in many different directions, all of them tied with evolutionary theory and chemical neuroscience.

Observation is a writer’s tool, but so is experience. Could Stephen King have written Under the Dome right after Carrie? King is a great observer of human nature (and of course, fear and terror), but his latest novel is obviously a mature effort. He gets things.

How about you? Do you find yourself wondering if you’ve portrayed the opposite gender correctly and more importantly, did justice to the character you created? Alternatively, do you worry that you’re just telling based on gender behavior portrayed in movies, TV and books?

I must confess I’ve read some recent books lately where I could swear the female author had an honorary penis. There wasn’t a single simplistic male in her book, yet the men were men and they did manly things.

I eventually overcame that blinking cursor. It wasn’t easy. Some days, as a writer, I'm very fascinated by the opposite sex. Other days, girls have cooties.

Start with Action

2010-07-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading blogs about writing, you always hear the need to start with action. Suck the reader in right away, get them involved. That's definitely true, but like anything, there is always a balance. If you start with action, make sure the reader cares about the characters in the action.

Some writers start their book with a bunch of back story, using tell instead of show. That's probably not going to get published. Today's readers don't have a lot of patience for this type of writing, are probably going to get bored, and end up putting the book down. However, the same can be said of action, action, action, if the reader doesn't care about the characters. If it is just page after page of bullets whizzing past some character's head, after a while, who cares?

So how do you get the reader to care about the characters? Use backstory to describe the characters so that the reader can relate to their motivation. But wait, you just told me not to use backstory. That I did.

The trick, is to weave the back story into the action so that the reader doesn't even know that it is there. Balance the back story with the action. If you look at any successful author, they are masters at this.

At Thrillerfest Ken Follet made a presentation on just this subject. He talked about the importance of having action, but written so that the reader cares about the action. Readers care because they worry about what is happening to their beloved characters.

Let's say you write a scene with a bloody shootout on page one. You start by giving each character a name, a hair color, what color clothes they are wearing, describe how tall they are, and let them kill each other. Do you really care? Bob is shooting at Fred, who is running away from Bill who's coming around the corner to ..... Boring.

It's like watching a shootout from a moving car. You may find it interesting for a little while, but you don't know who the players are and what they care about, other than not getting shot. Now, can you imagine the same scene if the shootout was happening on your front lawn, and it was your close neighbors doing the shooting. The impact is much more intimate and real.

That's exactly what you need to do with your story. You need action to get the reader interested, but make sure there is enough about the characters so that the reader can relate to their predicament, and have the chance to care.

How do you make your readers care about your characters?

Thrillerfest Redux

2010-07-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last year I went to Thrillerfest, and it was awesome. I went again this year, and it was even better. Last year I met a bunch of famous authors, got to pitch to lots of interested agents, and even got to spend a bunch of time with a bunch of fun writers.

This year, I got to do all of that and more.

On Thursday afternoon I pitched my latest novel (see last week's post) to 15 NY agents. Twelve, count'em, twelve loved it and want to see more. The only problem is that it varies as to what they want to see, so I do have a little work ahead of me.

The best part though happened a day earlier. I saw that one of the prime agents that I wanted to talk with (the lovely Barbara Poelle), happened to be one of three ladies putting on a session on crafting a great setting.

A day before the conference Barbara had blogged about her vacation and that she had found this wonderful new drink, called buffalo milk. So before the session began, I approached Barbara to compliment her on her blog, which truthfully, I really do love. (Honest, I'm really not sucking up) (very much). I went on to tell her that I was really sorry, but I didn't bring her any buffalo milk. She loved the comment and we seemed to hit it off well.

She had me pitch my book right there, and loved the pitch. She asked if I participated in social media, had a blog, and I said all of the above. She told me that I didn't have to pitch her at the agent session, she would simply give me her card.

I brought my iPad to the sessions so that I could (play games during boring sessions) take interesting notes, check my email, and browse websites. As it turned out this worked out really well because I brought up this blog on the iPad, and showed it to Barbara after the session was over. She got to read the first page of the new novel, and said it was good.

I was so excited I didn't need coffee the rest of the day.

Amazing how my new novel just happened to be on the blog hug? What great planning. If only it had really happened that way.

There were a number of interesting sessions that I will try to post highlights from over the next few weeks.

I thought I would leave you with a picture of me with a famous author. Unfortunately this blog doesn't have the budget for a real prize, so I'll just reward the first one with the correct answer with the fame and fortune of being first.

Anyone have a guess? (The color of the ceiling plus the lack of ambient light made for some weird flesh tones)

My Next Novel

2010-07-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week I thought I would give you all a preview into my next novel. It is a thriller about an ex-cop who's been recruited into a clandestine arm of the FBI, called the Omega Division. Their job is to take care of business, when the justice system fails.

Now before you think they are a simple vigilante spinoff, you need to understand that they have a secret weapon that the courts do not, they have the truth.

When a suspect is brought in to Omega headquarters, they are strapped into a special type of MRI machine, called a Functional MRI. With this instrument operators can read the activation levels of different areas of the brain. When the suspect is interrogated, the operator can see what parts of the brain are activated and determine whether they are either lying, or telling the truth. (FYI, this technology is real, but not yet available in courts today)

If the suspects did the crime, Omega operators like my lead character Dan G. Ross (get it? if not say it fast a couple of times) take care of business. If they didn't, they are set free.

Everything goes fine for Dan until his twin brother Jimmy is accused of a crime that Dan knows he did not commit, and the machine says he is guilty. Dan now questions not only the technology, but the agency, and the guilt or innocence of all of his victims. He leaves a lot of mayhem in his quest to find out the truth, which of course he does, at the end of the book.

Just for fun, here is the first page. Let me know what you think

Imperfect Justice

Silicon Valley California

“Oh God.”

I stood for a moment in shock not only from the horrific scene, but from the fact that I had verbally reacted. I never express my thoughts in words, but what I saw would crack the resolve of even the strongest individual.

My usual response is to smile and say nothing, or more likely, release a torrent of smartass comments. I guess I use humor to release the pressure of stressful of situations, but in this situation, I couldn’t think of anything even the slightest bit ironic, or remotely funny.

I felt the bile rising in my throat, and grit my teeth to maintain some measure of composure. I knew I should call for help, but when I pressed the transmit button on my shoulder mounted microphone, the words wouldn’t come out. It was as if I couldn’t force air through my vocal cords. I swallowed hard and shoved my emotions as far as I could below the surface, but it didn’t help and my vision blurred as mist began to form in the corners of my eyes.

I hadn’t actually expected a body to be here. The last few calls like this had been mistaken identity. Some moron saw a pile of clothes next to a dumpster and assumed it was a dead body. I had no reason to think that this situation would be any different, but when I turned the corner to the address given to me by the police dispatcher, I saw the bloody mess. Instead of seeing a homeless person sipping on a bottle of cheap wine, I saw a body with an ear to ear gash across her throat.

Along the edge of the cut, a stain of blood traveled down the front and left dark streaks on her once tan blouse. On the ground, the twin headlight beams of my cruiser sparkled off the surface of pools of blood on both sides. Since the blood hadn’t yet dried, that meant one thing, this had just happened.

Literary SQUEE

2010-07-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

I placed 3rd in Michelle Davidson Argyle’s short story contest. You can find my story, "The Woman" over at her blog.

*squee*

My Sister Went to Haiti

2010-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

My sister sent me a write up of her recent visit to Haiti, and I felt like I should share it with all of you. To really understand the context, my sister was adopted as a few week old infant from Brazil, from a house for unwed mothers. She is an incredibly caring person.

The story of how she got to the US is truly amazing, considering all the red tape that my mother had to go through. At one point my mother had to leave my sister with a woman that she didn't know, so that my mother could fly back to the US for more paperwork. In the end, she had to go to the palace and blackmail an official for my sister to leave the country.

Here is her write up of her recent trip.

My trip to Haiti, in a word...unforgettabl e.

I was there for two full weeks which was the longest I've ever been, but it felt not nearly long enough. I never knew what day or what time it was and I literally felt as though I were there for about 2 days.

The average temp was about 99, the days were VERY HOT, but I was lucky enough to have stayed at a home which had a window air conditioner and fans running at night ( very rare for Haiti ). The power was hit and miss , so in order to run the air or the fan we had to run a generator so I decided I would only use the fan.

There are currently about 80 kids at the orphanage ( about 20 pre - earthquake and the rest new arrivals. The staff told me there have been severe behavior problems with the 20 kids that were not issued the humanitarian parole after the earthquake because all of their friends are now gone. The kids speak a little English but mostly what they said to me and the other American workers was "you adoption me", meaning they were asking for us to adopt them.

The damage is unbelievable and it is not hard to understand why nearly 200,000 people were killed. The buildings literally collapsed and where they once were are now huge piles of rubble. I asked if the bodies were retrieved, but there really is no way of knowing until the rubble is removed, which will be many years from now, if ever. Even though Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haitians rarely voice a concern about anything. They seem to accept the life they have, living on an average of $2 a day, but understandably this earthquake has shaken them to the core. Each Haitian I spoke with is deathly afraid of the quake happening again and nearly everyone has lost someone. I don't think any of us could ever imagine what it would be like to try and stumble knee deep through piles of bodies searching for someone we know.

I spent each afternoon at the orphanage helping prepare lunch, holding babies, and assisting as much as I could with the play therapy that a couple of doctors were doing with the older kids. I also spent a couple of days helping clean up the home of one of the orphanage directors which was badly torn apart by the earthquake.

The common scene driving home from the orphanage was piles of rubble, "tent cities" everywhere, and kids tapping on the car windows begging for money.

Having said all of that, I really did have a wonderful time and we had a lot of fun. I went to my first ever restaurant in Haiti where I tried goat for lunch and it was actually pretty good ( tasted like roast beef ). On my second to the last day there, we drove a couple of hours to a beach resort and spent the day relaxing.

I could have stayed forever and I could go on and on with sad, funny, and unbelievable stories, but you get the idea and I have lots of pics! Thanks everyone for your gifts of money, it really did help a lot!!

Thanks a lot sis.

A Foundation of Fear

2010-06-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

One of the foundations of fear is a poor image of self.

Fear and poor self-image and writing are a frightful ménage à trois. “Master your fear” is a pithy phrase for this kind of fear. Self-image issues do not need mastery--they need elimination. There is no bargaining with a poor self-image. Like a terrorist, it only deserves ire and elimination. Stomp on it first, and then address the causes.

The causes of poor self-esteem are legion, as are the effects of fear on writing. Nevertheless, with a little bit of knowledge comes a lot of understanding. Take the query process, for example.

Fear of rejection is an honest fear having biological roots. We are genetically pre-disposed to fear rejection because rejection, not too long ago, meant death. Literally. On the evolutionary scale, rejection was starvation. Hyperthermia. Hypothermia. Being eaten.

But ah, the query process! How can one fear agent forty sending out a rejection, when one was rejected by the prior thirty-nine? After a while, it becomes an intellectual challenge and a test of tenacity (hopefully not stubbornness with a side of whoops).

Repetition is a great fear killer. Writing is a creative endeavor. Eliminating a poor image of self is difficult as the writer rallies against subversive forces both within and without, but creativity flourishes in the absence of fear. Even writing about fear is easier, as once can see it for what it is.

Thus one of the answers to fear, fear of rejection, fear of snide comments, fear of hurt feelings, fear of not getting there, is perspective.

A ferociously yucky animal did not eat you today. And that makes today wonderful!

Writerly Distractions

2010-06-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

The World Cup has seriously cut into my writing lately. I have been a fan for a number of years, but this is the first year that I have watched this many games. I have a son that loves to play soccer, and it's great spending time watching the games with him. He gives me an insight into the games that I cannot get by just watching. When there is a questionable call, or something that I don't understand, he provides a unique insight about why the call was a good or bad one. He provides background information about the players that give me a unique insight into why they act the way they do.

So what does this have to do with writing. Well, that's the problem, I'm not getting much writing done. There aren't enough hours in the day to watch the games, and still have a chance to write.

Luckily the tournament only lasts until mid July, and the games get less frequent as time goes on, so hopefully in a week or so, I'll be back on schedule. Who knows, maybe I'll use a soccer star as a character in a future novel.

What distracts you from your writing?

The Other Word for Networking Is

2010-06-16T23:50:00.000-07:00

Persistence.

I went online with my blog in August 2008. I joined Twitter and then sometime later I joined Facebook. Between the three and today, I have:

Found a half dozen non-local critique partners
Made online friends with two writers who later went into the writing industry
Shared personal email with six published writers
Talked to three separate literary agents about things other than book projects
Found my political soul mate who was also a writer
Had many online discussions with writers both non-published and published
Found the writer I adored when growing up, online, and filled my library with her backlist. We exchanged electronic letters, leaving me one very happy reader
Learned so many wonderful things I can even begin to describe them all
Had an editor out of the blue email me to submit a short story because he liked my blog posts

I could go on.

All I did was go online and try to be honest. I’ve made some mistakes. I tend to babble. Sometimes I’ve bit my tongue so hard I almost had a brain aneurism.

All I did was go online and try to be friendly.

All I did was reach out without asking for things in return.

And I never stopped.

It really is that simple.

In Between Projects

2010-06-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have two books that I am querying, but both of them need work. The previous work needs a new beginning. As I have said before, the beginning definitely is very important to grab the readers interest, and set the tone to keep your readers captivated to the end.

The beginning of Blind Power, is not good enough. It's almost as if I tacked a scene onto the start that doesn't really fit with how the book gets going. It feels like a prologue, and not necessarily a good one. So it's kind of back to the drawing board on the beginning of that one. I don't think it would take more than a couple of weeks to fix it, but that would take away from working on the current one.

My latest WIP is also suffering from the same problem. It's not nearly as bad, because I learned from that last novel, but it also needs work.

So my problem is I don't know which one to work on. I am going back to ThrillerFest in New York in early July, and I want to pitch the best one. I suspect that my latest one will be the best, but the previous one with a new start, would probably be good as well.

Do you ever go back to previous works, and try to fix them? I have heard that in most cases it probably won't work because there is so much else wrong with the book. It might be better to sell the latest one, and rewrite the previous one for your next novel. I have heard of other writers that have been successful with that approach, so I think that is probably what I am going to do, but the previous one is still tapping me on the shoulder, asking "Hey, what about me?".

Tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people

2010-06-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes following a post from Douglas is like being the loud fart in church after the choir has belted out some superb vocals. I mean, how do I follow up from CJ West who came here with a great post and actively responded to comments?

Douglas likes kicking puppies. Of this I am sure.

But I digress. Every now and then you come across a blog post so spectacularly awesome, it's like an epic sandwich that comes with extra bacon (for all epic sandwiches has at least some bacon, right? Right?).

Author Maureen Johnson, in Manifesto, lays out the organic nature of the interwebs, and how it is better to give, than to receive.

Check it out.

Print it out and sleep with it under your pillow.

Incorporate it into your genetic code.

The End of Marking Time Event

2010-06-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

We here at Adventures in Writing are always glad to help out a fellow writer, especially if it's something cool. This week week's guest post is from CJ West, author of The End of Marking Time which launches on June 10th. Make sure you follow the links at the bottom to get your copy.

Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?

I don’t usually guest blog on sites aimed at writers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to give advice if I think it is helpful, but until I’m a NYT #1 bestseller, I’m not sure I’ll feel comfortable doling out writing

advice on a grand scale. I’m about to launch my latest thriller, The End of Marking Time, and I want to share how my experience writing this book was different from my four previous novels.

About two years ago I wrote a series of articles on Hub Pages that outlined my writing process. I did this because new writers kept asking me about my method and I felt I could do a better job describing it in a series of articles than I could retyping the same information into emails over and over again. When I did this, I was positive that my process was refined to the point it wouldn’t change. I was a plotter and that was the way it would always be.

Until last year that was true. My approach to writing a novel had been fairly consistent. I spent three months researching characters and significant story elements and at the same time I created an outline for the novel including the key ingredients for every chapter. Before I started writing, I knew just about everything that would happen in the book. I say “just about everything” because there are always good ideas that crop up along the way and I have always been flexible enough to include them. I have invested quite a bit of time developing tools for outlining and creating character biographies and those tools really work for me.

About two years ago I listened to Lee Child talk about his writing process. He is a pantser, meaning he has a basic idea for the story and then jumps off and writes. His planning is limited to three or four key scenes. He plans the opening, the transition to act II, the transition to act III and the ending. (If you are unfamiliar with three act structure, these transitions are critical turning points in the story.) From there, he sits down and starts writing. The idea that he could do this and come up with an intricately-plotted thriller astounded me. Pantsing was a scary concept and I dismissed it until I was drawn to an idea that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

I began my research for The End of Marking Time the same way I approached my other novels. I toured a local prison and I held an interview with someone from the corrections department. I had interviewed court officers and police officers months earlier while I was working on another book. I was ready to go into “planning mode” and spend the next two and a half months planning my story, but a strange thing happened. I was flooded with compelling ideas. One of these was an opening scene. I wrote it, promising myself it would be the only thing I wrote before I went back to laying out my plot.

Six weeks later, the first draft was done. I never wrote my outline. Instead I jotted chapter names for the next four chapters I would write, staying that much ahead of where I was in the draft with just a fuzzy idea what would happen. I completed my character biographies on the fly. In less time than it usually takes me to come up with an outline, I had a first draft and that draft was tighter and better than any first draft I’ve written.

Now I’m not so sure if I’m a plotter or a pantser. On my best day as a pantser I wrote 9,500 words. I’ve never come close to that level of productivity with a completed outline. It seems logical that I’d write faster with a completed outline, not slower. When I think about being this productive, pantsing is a very attractive method, scary as it may be. I’m writing a new book, which I plotted using my traditional process even though my beta readers declared my flirtation with pantsing a success. Maybe it was the story and the characters that gripped me and made pantsing possible. Or maybe I’ll evolve into a pantser as I mature as a writer. Only time will tell.

How about you?

OK, here is where you will be able to get it on Amazon

The End of Marking Time on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/End-Marking-Time-CJ-West/dp/097677884X/

If you want to join in the Launch Party on June 10th, here's your link

http://www.facebook.com/cjwestfans

Here's an event page

http://www.facebook.com/cjwestfans?v=app_2344061033#!/event.php?eid=121950241154473&index=1

and a fun Facebook page. Facebook Group I pressed the Red/Green button

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117868931570905

CJ West
The End of Marking Time - 2010

Sleep

2010-06-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

My body requires seven hours of sleep for me to function creatively.

When I get less than seven hours, I can do things like go to work and be a productive member of society, but that’s about it.

I think of all the things I gave up, hobby and entertainment wise, to write--but did I really? If I really think about it, I gave up those things to sleep and write.

Work clients pay me to produce a pile of work, not show up at a certain time and place. This is a wonderful job. If I do three days of work in two, nobody cares if I drag my butt into work late on day three. Nobody cares if I skip lunch and work through that so on Friday I can spend some alone time with my work-in-progress at the coffee shop.

I’m constantly in awe of the writer mommies out there; those who write in-between baby naps and such, or plow into a work-in-progress after everyone has gone to bed. They are continuing the sleepless cycle of taking care of baby, almost like prolonging the torture. I could not do it. In fact, I would not do it because I physically can’t. I chose to sleep, and vow to get more writing time later. Otherwise, my writing turns to crap.

One thing is for certain, supporting yourself with your writing is sure a big lure. Think of all the writing you could do if you didn’t have to go to work (or raise kids, or milk the cows, etc.)!

How about you? Can you sacrifice sleep for writing?

Beta Readers

2010-05-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

How do you pick your beta readers? Do you have any besides friends and family?

My brother is 18 months younger than I am, and loves to read. He doesn't always have time to read as much as he likes, but he will always take the time to read one of my books. I have heard advice saying that friends and family are not the best reviewers, because they tend to be biased. However in my brothers case, he takes that into account and always seems to come up with what I consider, useful feedback.

He read my latest novel, and really liked it, except for the ending. He felt that one of my characters, whom I killed off, needed to come back. I actually agree with him. I had the similar idea when I was writing the book, but then I went to see a superagent Donald Maass seminar. He said that most novels don't push the edge, don't tug at the heart strings hard enough, so I thought that maybe if this character remained dead, it would cause a much greater emotional reaction. However, it made the story much too tragic, instead of emotionally satisfying.

I have since changed the ending so that this character makes a surprise return, and I do like it a lot.

I have a couple more readers slogging through that version of the book, and we'll see what they come up with. I'm feeling pretty good about it now, but I'd like to hear from the new readers.

These two are people that I see at the gym 5 times a week. They are both heavy readers of popular fiction, so I respect their opinion about what's good and what's not. That's not to say that I will listen to everything they say without filtering it through what I like, but I would consider them more objective than friends and family.

That's all that I use right now. I'd like to get a couple more good beta readers, but it's tough to get readers that like your genre, and style of writing.

How do you pick your beta readers? How many do you have?

The reading we do

2010-05-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

For today's offering, I'd like to cheat a little bit and direct our readers over to a post on another blog, which does not deal with writing so much as with reading, and how the different types of reading we do nowadays (online and offline, fiction and nonfiction, linear and non-linear, and social-networking style reading) might be conditioning us in different ways.

Feedback

2010-05-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I sent my latest work to a fellow writer for some feedback. She gave me her honest opinions, some good, some not so good. So now the question is, what do I do about it?

She didn't like the beginning, in fact made a comment that if she was reading for fun, she would have stopped already. Hmmm, I think the beginning needs more work.

However, the comment was related to the fact that she didn't like my out of sequence start. She felt it was confusing. The reason that I did it that way was so that I could get the story going with some action, I didn't have to do a huge info dump.

I read one of her stories (which was great) and she tended to set things up more linearly than I do, so I'm thinking it could be a taste thing. But what if it's not? What if the beginning really is confusing to most readers?

I'm trying to take that into account, while I try to process the rest of the comments.

The good news was that once she got to page 60, she really got into it, and couldn't put it down until she had finished it a day later. The comments at the end were that it was a great story.

So what do I do with the comments? I think I need more feedback. I have a couple of other readers that are making their way through it, but their progress has been really slow. Does that mean something? I don't know. It could be as they tell me, that they have been extremely busy. It is getting near summer after all.

So I have received some pretty good feedback, but I'm struggling a little as to what to do with it.

I'll wait for the other two readers before I make any changes, but right now feedback seems to be one of those things that is like "be careful what you wish for".

How about you? Have you ever received feedback that you didn't know what to do with?

My notebooks

2010-05-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

I have developed a dependence on notebooks.

The hand-written notes I produce as part of writing are messy. At various times my notes fill spiral notebooks, duo-tang folders or three-ring binders. My notes are written sometimes to generate ideas, sometimes to record ideas, and sometimes to outline them. My notes are produced quickly and in great quantities, normally in ink, and with lots repetition, lots and lots of scribbles and occasional doodles. They are made of some complete sentences, many phrases, and oftentimes, individual words or even abbreviations. My notes include diagrams, circles, lines, arrows, and sometimes crudely drawn tables. They make no sense to anyone but me, and if I allow them to sit long enough without incorporating them into a story, they age to the point where they make no sense to me either. In this case, I tear them up (always tear, never crumble) and throw them out.

I cannot say for certain that this kind of activity is always helpful. Sometimes, for sure, it is. But other times, I suspect it is merely a good way to put off the real work of writing for another hour or another day.

So how many other notebook junkies are here? What are your notes like? And do they help you write, or merely procrastinate?

The Importance of a Good Beginning

2010-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a literary agent? What if the next time to walked up to your computer and opened your email, you had 200 new messages staring back at you, all saying "read me".

What if that happened every day of the week? including weekends. How would you go about finding the 1 or 2 gems in the mountain of rocks?

How much time could you afford to spend on each item before you ran out of hours in the day?

OK, now think about the fact that you have to read all these after you have spent a full day at the office? and... it happens every day.

Do you think you might get a little jaded? Do you think you might feel like every message is the same?

Are you understanding why it is so hard to get an agent's attention? The biggest problem is that you have to stand out from the crowd.

I sometimes go to West Coast Hot Rod shows to check out the cool cars. If you like rolling art, these shows have some fantastic examples of what can happen when creativity meets old cars. There are numerous examples of cars that have been modified and customized specifically to stand out from the pack. And when you see one of these cars by themselves on a city street, they definitely do.

However, when you go to a show and see a few hundred of them side by side, they all start looking the same. The same is true of our stories. As the agent reads through literally thousands of queries in a year, they all start sounding the same.

So what do we do? Give up?

Not a chance.

The best strategy is to work on your beginnings.

Work on the first sentence of your query until you absolutely cannot make it any better. As the agent is skimming by your query, you need to grab their attention and not let them loose. That all starts with a great beginning.

Once you have the first sentence, work on the first paragraph. After the first paragraph, work on the second. Spend as much time crafting the beginning so that the agent keeps going.

Now work on the included pages. Whatever the submission guidelines suggested, make sure they are as good as you can possibly make them. Start with your first sentence, then the first paragraph, then the first page. Every one of them has to be as good as you can possibly write them.

If I were the agent, I know that I am going to skim the work. Even though I know that there are a couple of rubies hiding in the pile of shale, I am going to race through them so that I can quit reading them and get onto something a little more fun. Make sure you have spent enough time on your beginnings, that you stop the skimming.

What about you? Are you spending enough time on your beginnings?

Do the Write Thing for Nashville

2010-05-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

While it is heartening to see the rest of the news media waking up to the fact that Nashville was overrun by water, the magnitude of the destruction breaks my heart.

There is a charity auction going on called "Do the Write Thing for Nashville." It's still going, and there are still some wonderful prizes with more being offered every day. Check it out if you haven't already!

Nashville is one of America's vibrant and best cities. If there is something in the auction that interests you, please consider bidding.

Kindle or iPad?

2010-05-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

I really hate the names of both of these products, I really do. When the Kindle first came out, I wondered who in their marketing department had partied a little too much the night before, and hadn't come prepared to the planning meeting. When the iPad came out, I wondered what they had been smoking.

I usually like product names that reflect the usage of the device, but I guess it's not always possible to get them, or the ones they can use, are just as bad or worse than names that have no hint of the what the product does.

Since I am a gadget geek, I have one of each device. So the burning question is, which do I like better?

It depends.

I absolutely love the Kindle for the pure reading experience. It's light, the screen is fairly sharp, and it truly is visible, even in direct sunlight. For the beach reading experience, the Kindle wins hands down.

Where it doesn't work as well, is for the total book experience. For some of readers, the cover is a big part of the appeal, and it's really hard to get a decent looking cover with only shades of gray. That doesn't really bother me too much, but I do sometimes feel I am missing a little something with my Kindle books.

Where the iPad excels, is for the reading indoors experience. The high resolution screen, the page turning animation, the great color saturation, all make for a nice reading experience. In low light, it can't be beat. It's true you can get a book light for the Kindle and read that way, but I haven't yet found a light that works all that well with the Kindle screen material. I always get a glare.

Where the iPad sucks, is reading outside in the sun. That for me, is not a big deal, since I'm not really a sun worshipper (I don't tan, I turn red and then burst into flames). The other bad thing about the iPad, at least for the moment, is that the prices of the books are definitely higher. I think that this is going to change going forward, but for now, I can still get books cheaper on my Kindle.

So which one do I read on?

Both.

The great thing about the iPad is that it can run the Kindle app. So at lunchtime at work, I read my book using the Kindle app on the iPad, and before I go to sleep, I read the same book on the Kindle. The Amazon whispersync technology let's me keep track of the last place I've read from either device, and I can start there the next time I open the book. It's like having your cake and eating it too. I get the best of both worlds.

If I had to pick one, just for reading..........

I would pick the Kindle. But the versatility of the iPad for email, web browsing, mapping, etc. cannot be touched by the Kindle, so if you need that capability too, the iPad would be a good choice.

What about you? Which device do you prefer?

When FAIL Meets Research, Bad Book Decisions Get Made

2010-05-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

“Men don’t read.”

How often have I heard that in the past five years? A lot. Also: “Boy’s don’t read.”

I’ve been challenging this statement, not because I believe it’s false, but because it makes no sense. Who says men don’t read?

So within the last year, I’ve gone on a hole-poking expedition.

Me: “Who says men don’t read?”

Answer: “Uh, don’t know.”

Me: “I think your conclusion is based on a lack of evidence.”

Answer: "Asshole."

Online, it goes like this:

“Men don’t read.”

Me: “I assert there is a lack of evidence to support your conclusion. Prove it.”

Answer: “Here’s a NEA poll/paper. Here’s a Gallup Poll.”

Me: “I assert the NEA is a flawed research body prone to inaccuracies because scientific research is not their major function. And that Gallup Poll was from 1994. Do you have any recent, cross-referenced, non-politically biased data to support your conclusion?”

Answer: “Here’s a more recent AP-Ipsos poll!”

Me: “Of only 1000 adults, over the phone.”

Answer: “So?”

Me: “Do you answer a caller ID that you don’t recognize?”

Answer: “No. So what? There is an error sample rate.”

Me: "What’s the difference between the reading habits of people who don’t answer blind phone calls or only have a cell phone and do not receive poll calls, and the reading habits of people who talk to strangers over the phone?"

Answer: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Nobody knows. Oh, and that poll doesn't back up that statement, it only says more women than men who took part in the survey read on a regular basis. And the poll is about book reading, not reading in general. Oh and...”

Answer: "Asshole."

Now, I have anecdotal evidence from multiple sources that say men aren’t buying books. Several bookstore employees have personally told me, from multiple bookstores, that over the years they are losing male buyers and gaining female buyers.

And I believe them.

But that’s buying, not reading.

Here’s some other anecdotal evidence:

Every single one of my male friends read books
All these adult men purchase books
All these adult men, including myself, purchase books online from either Amazon or B&N
SINCE 1999. Every. Single. Male. Friend. For over a decade.

Now, if someone would point to me data revealing the sex of most of Amazon’s or B&N’s book buyers, I would really love to see that data.

I do buy books at a bookstore. But, like my adult male friends, this is a very small percentage of my book purchasing dollars.

But again, we’re talking about buying, not reading.

Anecdotal means “based on anecdotes or hearsay: consisting of or based on secondhand accounts rather than firsthand knowledge or experience or scientific investigation.”

Here’s my assertions:

I believe publishing industry people when they say men aren’t buying their books
I believe my male friends buy many books through Amazon and B&N
I believe the NEA is not a trustworthy source of scientific based research
I believe phone polling of reading habits is fundamentally flawed
I believe correlation does not imply causation
I do not believe people who tell me men/boy’s don’t read

What do you believe about men and reading habits?

And if you have any real data, I would love to see it!

I have seen the future of reading

2010-05-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have seen the future of reading, and it's awesome. I am a total gadget geek and I had to have the new iPad. WiFi only connection wasn't good enough for me, so I pre-ordered the 3G model and it arrived yesterday. One word. AWESOME

Yes, I know, it doesn't do everything a netbook does, but I don't care, I have a laptop for those tasks. What it does do well is surf the web, run cool apps, show stunning slideshows, amazing videos, and lots of other things.

One of those other things, is display books. It's large color screen makes it great for displaying very detailed renderings of the text of the book, but it can also display crisp images. If you think about the printing costs of sharp color images in a typical book, the costs are prohibitive, while including them in an ebook only costs a few megabytes.

I'm not saying that every book needs, or even wants to have high resolution color images, but I can imagine that even including a few as needed, could be an incredible advantage over a printed book. For instance wouldn't it be great if you could include a detailed map of your world? How about one that's interactive so that users could explore it as they are reading the story?

I realize that like any new technology, it can be taken too far. Remember when word processors first came out and you could suddenly use a 100 different fonts? (Yes, I am dating myself) Some people did use all the fonts with the disastrous results that the document was unreadable. I see the same thing happening with some of the interactive technology possible in eReaders, but I also see that at some point designers will settle on a style that feels right, one that makes sense, much like happened with documents in Word. Yes, you can use multiple fonts, yes, you can use underlining, bold, and italics, but with a judicious tasteful application, I feel that documents now, are much better than they were 30 years ago, and that's the future of reading. I don't know about you, but I can't wait.

Just for fun, I've thrown in an example of just how far the technology can go. I personally think this is too far, but as with the documents with too many fonts and colors, at some point, the industry will settle on something great.

Cut me a story : Mr. Stephen Parrish visits the blog!

2010-04-30T04:29:00.000-07:00

Dear all:

My good friend Stephen Parrish has his debut releasing on the 1st of May. So I've invited him to take over my blog post today, as he's super-full (one might even say LONG WINDED) of great stories and advice.

And, if you're interested, go check out his contest (you could win your very own Tavernier Stone!) or just go buy the book. I'm here to vouch for it. I mean, just check out the cover!

And without further ado:

Cut Me a Story

The first novel I queried was 180,000 words long. I got nothing but form rejections in response.

Go figure.

I've always had confidence in my writing, in my ability to place one word after another. But cutting is an art that has taken me a long time to master. In fact, my learning curve is still pretty steep. I'm past the hard part, though, the denial phase, the self-delusional insistence that all 180,000 words in a 180,000 word manuscript are critical to the story.

The ability to erase words is every bit as important as the ability to compose them. I think writing programs ought to have at least one course in cutting. Rather than give students a blank piece of paper and say, "Write me something," give them a page full of text and say, "Cut me something." Otherwise it's like a driving instructor teaching use of the accelerator but not the brake.

Of course the main reason cutting is hard is because we fall in love with our words. Like parents with 180,000 children, we hypnotize ourselves into believing they're all equal, and should be enrolled in the best schools. My rude awakening came when veteran author Mark Terry offered to look at the first chapter of The Tavernier Stones. I happily emailed it to him; I was particularly proud of how my story opened, even though beta readers were telling me it opened too slowly (what the hell did they know?). Mark took scissors to the chapter and returned it to me 40% of its former length.

The gall. The impertinence! As I read the shortened version I thought of visiting a church, not to light a candle for Mr. Terry, rather to blow one out. That'll show him! But when I'd finished reading I realized the chapter was better, a lot better. Less was more. Later, when an editor asked me to make cuts throughout the manuscript, he said, "Do it like you did it in chapter one. You did it right in chapter one." The hell I did.

The question writers must ask themselves, as they go over each scene, is this: Is it absolutely necessary to the story? Absolutely? Although thankfully I didn't open my story with the weather, I did include a paragraph about it:

"Somewhere in the sky overhead the sun was broiling. But at Hamburg's latitude, fully a month before the end of spring, it's rays failed to get any leverage on the fog and sleet obscuring the city. The city's residents didn't bother complaining about their plight. They just ducked their heads against the stinging ice and patiently reminded themselves the sun would eventually reappear for an ecstatic seventy-two hour period known as summer."

The Tavernier Stones was first pitched at 145,000 words. It was published at about 90,000. Fifty-five thousand of my little darlings, including those describing the weather, gave their lives so that others might carry on. I hope to sacrifice fewer victims in the future, and one day I might write efficiently enough to avoid bloodshed altogether. Until then, every scene, every paragraph, every word is subject to Steve the Inquisitor paying them an unwelcome visit in the dark of night.

Now go cut yourself a story.

My Love for You Was Cattywampus

2010-04-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

My favorite word, the word I try to work into every novel I write, is cattywampus.

I just love the way it sounds. Kind of like “platypus,” only with more flavor. Plus, it’s harder to work the word platypus into a novel. Don’t ask me how I know, trust me on that one, folks.

Anyway, one day, when I was a young man in high school, my girlfriend, Victoria, picked me up. We were going to go make out in some darkened movie theater in a preplanned suck-face marathon at some bad movie that should had been yanked weeks earlier.

To know Victoria is to know that she was a very smart girl. She had this amazing intellect, a love of books, was the definition of the word feminine. Her hobbies, much to my delight, seemed to consist of playing the clarinet and making out with her boyfriend.

Which was me.

But I digress. We were bee-bopping along, and I noticed that during the last torrential rainstorm, a car had hit a chain link fence, and the fence was leaning over.

“Wow, that fence is all cattywampus,” I said.

At this point Victoria spits Pepsi (yes, Victoria was a Pepsi Girl) all over her blouse and skirt.

“Are you okay?” It was an honest question.

“Catty-what?”

“Cattywampus.”

“Cattywampus is not a word!”

Now, I had a moment of doubt. Victoria came from a long line of spelling bee winners. But I was sure cattywampus was a word, one I heard other people use and used before myself. I wasn’t the kind of writer or speaker to make up such a fine, outstanding word, as cattywampus.

“It is a word.”

“Is not.”

“It is!”

“It is not a word!”

“You don’t make up words like cattywampus!” I declare in a huff.

“How is it spelled, then?”

“Cattywampus. C-A-T-T-Y-W-A-M-P-U-S. Cattywampus.”

“How is it used in a sentence?”

“I told you! The fence was all cattywampus!”

“So it means leaning?”

“Kinda of. It means askew, or it could also mean not exactly adjacent to something.”

“Like kitty-corner?”

“No, like between adjacent and kitty-corner.”

“You’re making all this up, Anthony.”

“Am not!”

(Let me tell you, I was really good at adult conversation back then)

Victoria tilted her head at me, and then goes back to looking at the road. She has the biggest grin on her face.

“What?” I had recently learned Victoria had an evil grin.

“You are the cutest boyfriend, ever.”

“The word you are looking for is handsome.”

“No, I believe cute will do.”

“Stud-ly?” I asked, opening up negotiations.

“Stud-muffin?” she countered.

“Okay, cute it is.”

“I love you,” she said suddenly.

“I love you, too. So you love me because I used the word cattywampus?”

Now the grin threatens to split her face.

“Someday you’ll get it.” She even patted my leg.

At this point, as near as I can recall, I was confused.

But wow, was she a great kisser.

And cattywampus is a word.