Worth Waiting For

. It starts with a sort of peculiar looseness, a sort of lightness, across my chest and shoulders. My hands become restless, tighten and grasp, then shake loose again.

My dreams become more vivid, and when I’m awake, I become more absent. I slip into a dream world more easily, when walking, when watching TV, even when working. Characters and scenes and dialogues slip into my mind for brief moments, before slipping away again, still unfinished, still unclear, still only hints of what they will become.

My energy levels rise. I can’t get enough physical exercise. I crave workouts at the gym, and yet still, after a full hour’s workout, and an intensive dance class, I need to run to wear myself out enough to sit still.

By now, I know what’s coming. Time to sharpen the pencils, stock up paper, make sure all writing supplies are in easy reach.

This is when it could all slip away, just at the slightest wrong touch. A constant chill in the air, no break from the rain, an upsetting day, a bad cold, and it’ll all slip away.

This all takes about a week. If it all goes right, though, my hands will tingle, and I’ll start to breath a bit faster. My eyes will glisten, and I will need to find space, and time, and quiet. And then, then I’ll feel it running through me, a unique electricity. What was vague and nebulous starts to firm up, become clear and strong. I pick up the pencil, and smile, knowing what’s about to come. And then there it is.

That first line.

The very perfect beginning.

The start to a whole new story.

The right collection of words to pull me in, catch me, and keep me.

It’s worth the wait.

Long time no see

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted and it’s great to be back.  Karen Fainges very kindly agreed to step in for me while I underwent a few surgeries.    Thank you Karen for doing a wonderful job. For everyone following her posts, please don’t despair – I’m sure she will make guest appearances.

So, with the surgeries behind me it’s time to get back to business. 

In the last week or so I’ve sent out some queries on Child’s Play – the nanny guide book.  I immediately received the generic “truth be told” rejection from Andrea Somberg at Harvey Klinger (funny!).  The next day, I received a proposal request from Amberly Finarelli at Andrea Hurst (thank you Amberly).  

While Amberly ended up passing on the project, she did give me some valuable feedback.  She said, It sounds like a good premise, but I’m afraid that, with the existing literature in this genre out there already, I don’t see how this stands out enough from them–particularly in this belt-tightened publishing economy.  And she’s right.  From the very beginning I was toying with a somewhat risky idea in relation to the tone of the book.  I decided to be cautious and go with a fairly conventional approach.  I don’t think that’s going to be enough in this market.  Amberly’s feedback has given me the shot in the arm I need to go back to the manuscript and give it a make-over…this time I’m throwing caution to the wind.  Absolutely nothing to lose.

I ask you all, do you have a project that hasn’t been picked up (who doesn’t, right??).   Maybe your work needs a make-over.  How could you rev it up?  What could you do to make it stand out?  I challenge you to go back and take a risk.

Can Promo Really Help? by Christine Duncan

I saw a post on Facebook the other week from a publicist responding to an author. I never really saw the author’s original post but I gather from the answer that he/she was lamenting because his* book was coming out this fall in the middle of a recession.
No one would buy it.
The publicist’s response was somewhere along the line of with the right advertising, books will still do well.
Maybe. In the best of all possible worlds.
Frankly, I’m thinking twice before I buy a .35 chocolate covered cherry when I stop by the 7-11 to pick up the newspaper on Sundays. (I have to buy the Sunday paper–the TV guide is in it and my husband and son are addicted to that thing. The candy–eh, I don’t need the calories anyway.) Advertising is NOT affecting my buying habits right now. If I can’t find a book at the library or in the rare really-gotta-have-it mode, at the used bookstore, I’m not buying right now. It doesn’t matter if you are throwing in freebies; it doesn’t matter if it is something I’ve been lusting after for years. I did go to see Harry Potter at the theater though it had NADA to do with advertising–at least, this year.
So here’s my question, what are you doing to get your book sold and do you really think it’s helping? Sending your book off to Oprah? Selling the book out of your cubby at work or maybe on some downtown street corner? How is it different than what you did before for promo?
Do you think publicists help?

*Okay, enough of this PC pronoun stuff I’m going with the Trad male pronoun. You feminists in the crowd can keep in mind that I am a woman myself. A lazy woman, but definitely female.

The Hook by Meg Benjamin

I’ve just started reading Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan series, at least in part because of Bones (and if you’re a fan of the show, you might be interested in how different the book version of Temperance is). Now there are times in Reichs’ books where I find myself thinking, “Do I really need to know all this stuff about blood spatters?” Which is to say that Reichs, a real-life forensic anthropologist, sometimes goes into more technical detail than a casual reader like me might want to find out. But I always keep reading, and in fact I have a very tough time putting a Reichs novel down. Why? Because Reichs is an absolute master at the chapter hook.

Here’s a typical one from Reichs’ Grave Secrets; it’s the end of Chapter 3:

I stood.

“Seven A.M.?”

“Seven A.M.”

It was to be one of the worst days of my life.

Now imagine you’re reading this book at bedtime, using it to sort of get your brain ready for sleep. You figure you’ll put the book down when you get to the next stopping place—the end of a chapter, for example. Could you really do that after reading the chapter end I just quoted? I guess it depends on how tired you are, but chances are you’d keep reading for just a few more paragraphs into the next chapter, hoping Reichs would put you out of your misery and tell you what she’s referring to. She doesn’t, of course. Usually, you have to read several more pages (and sometimes an entire chapter or two) to find out what she’s talking about—and by then you’ll probably have encountered yet another hook or two.

That’s the whole idea behind a hook. Like a trout, you’re caught on the author’s line. There’s no way you can just turn around and swim away. Unless, of course, the hook is too weak or non-existent. No trout will stick around if all you’ve got on the line is a rubber band (one writing expert once advised never ending a chapter with a character going to sleep, even though that’s what would logically happen at that point in the story—classic rubber band).

But I’d argue you can also go too far in the other direction. A nineteenth century author can get by with saying, “Had I but known Snideley’s true character, I might have avoided all the horrible things that happened to me in the ensuing days.” But those of us writing in the present really can’t do that. It’s too much elbow in the ribs, and it’s more likely to make me roll my eyes than to keep me reading. The hook has to give readers enough foreshadowing to intrigue them, but not so much as to annoy them.

You can also have hooks within chapters, of course, particularly if you have different sections in different points of view. You drop a hook at the end of one character’s section, then move on to a different character. With any luck the reader will stick around to see what happened to character one after going through character two’s experiences. I did this in Venus in Blue Jeans when my heroine was attacked in her bookstore and I immediately switched to the point of view of the hero, who had no idea what was going on but was concerned about how preoccupied the heroine had been at breakfast. Your hope is always that the reader will be willing to stick with Cal, waiting to see if and when he’ll find out what’s happened to Docia, rather than paging ahead to see the rest of the Docia scenes. As a reader, I’ll usually go with it unless I’m really worried that a character has been killed off. Then I may page forward to see if he/she shows up again later (and “paging forward” takes on a whole new meaning on my e-book reader).

Hooks are tough to do, and they sometimes deserve a whole separate revision read, so that you can see how well they’re working in each chapter. I’d also argue that you don’t need or want a hook at the end of every chapter—that smacks a little too much of manipulation. But few authors can get by with no hooks at all. Without them, those readers may just flutter away upstream to a more attractive pond.

So what do you think? What authors are really good at keeping you hooked from one chapter to the next? And how do they do it?

Meg Benjamin writes contemporary romances set in the Texas hill country.   Wedding Bell Blues, the second book in my Konigsburg series, will be released by Samhain Publishing on July 21.

A Mulberry Tree

. Virgina Woolf said that for a woman to be a successful writer she needed £500 a year, and a room of her own.

A friend of mine, also a struggling writer, and I had a discussion, and we’d like to add a few things to that.

First of all, a mulberry tree. We’ve noticed that a lot of the homes of creative people we’ve visited recently either had, or once had, a mulberry tree (Shakespeare, Hogarth, Darwin, possibly Keats). It seems to be a very inspirational tree – so we would like one. And a garden to put it in please.

A helpmeet would be useful. Someone to do all those little time-consuming chores, that insist on dragging us away from the page. Someone to do the ironing and washing up, and answer the door, and place cups of tea discreetly at my elbow and prepare wonderful meals for me to dig into after a hard day’s writing.

A room of my own I have. However, I only have four rooms, each of which already has a specific purpose. What I really need is a room with a desk and a few reference books and nothing else to distract me. No TV, no mound of washing to be ironed, no unmade bed – in other words, a proper study.

And nowadays, rather than £500, I think I’d need £30,000 a year (without having to actually do a ob to get it). That should keep me well supported, as well as pay for those ‘inspirational research trips’ to the South of France that I crave.

A friend in publishing would be very useful. It seems to be even more difficult to be published now than it was in Ms Woolf’s time (unless you happen to be already famous for singing, acting, or being snapped by paparazzi falling out of cabs drunk and flashing your knickers). A nice little contact who can tell me all the inside news, and point me in the right direction and discreetly put my work to the top of the pile would be nice.

But as I have none of those, I guess I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got. And the occasional trip to Hogarth’s House to sit under the mulberry tree.

Too Hot to Handle by Karen Fainges

Another Torchwood fan, I found myself sometimes flinching at the rawness of the latest episodes. I found myself wishing they had toned it down a little.

After the episodes, I had to face the fact that the show would not have been half as good without those confronting moments. It definitely made me want to watch it all over again.

My own books have some confronting thoughts in them and hopefully that makes people think. I do have to acknowledge that some will just put the book down and never pick it up again. Others might send me hate mail (hasn’t happened yet) but I wouldn’t take those bits out for all the book sales in the world. The characters can make statements I can not. Sci-fi has often broached new areas – Star Trek and the first inter-racial kiss showed on TV (Kirk and Uhurah) is a notable one but there are many others. For some reason, when the person is green (or in my case purple), people allow them to break through those barriers a lot more readily.

I wonder why that is?

So what shouldn’t we put in books - death? How about sex? How about disabilities? How about taboos? Rude words? My books hold all of the above, but not for the shock factor, I find that tacky. No, because it is a large part of the characters and plot. And perhaps – that is how we tell when the line should be drawn.

Social Networking–again by Christine Duncan

Again, all of my on-line book discussion groups seem to be filled with talk of where to network. This time, we are all exchanging our Twitter names and the groups are filled with people who can tell you what ap to use to update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the like all at once so you don’t have to take the time to go to all.
It is so very…efficient. And I admit to using aps like Ping.fm and Twaitter when I’m busy so that they will do the work for me. But I miss the interaction this way. I don’t really connect with people if all I’m doing is doing a quick update of my status. I have begun calling the whole deal MYFACE, because it is all so narcississtic. Yet I do it. And there is no doubt in my mind that I’ll get on Twitter again, probably today and tweet: Read My Blog, I got a Great Review on Myshelf, or just–Read My Book.
I really liked June Shaw’s comments about promoting on this blog. I believe we need to promote. I just miss the people part of it. Sigh. Is there a solution?

Marketing Your Book by June Shaw

 

While I was striving for years to sell a novel, I naively believed that if I ever accomplished that goal, my writing career would be set.

            Wrong.

I had no idea how incorrect my thinking was.

Once I finally sold my first novel (although it was not the first one I wrote—those were practice), I discovered I needed to work extra hard for quite some time to promote it. Below are some things I’ve learned, although everyone’s experiences won’t necessarily be the same.

Getting your name out there is particularly important. Coke and Nike and Wal*Mart don’t seem to need advertisement for people to know of their products, yet those powerhouses continue to promote to keep their brands in front of buyers. We authors do the same when we join online groups and contribute to their conversations. Attending conferences, volunteering at them, and giving talks on panels or individually can help. We get to meet people there and learn more about our craft. We also can get to know authors who might help by giving us author quotes for our books or recommending us to their agents.

Some authors spend much more than their advances on giveaways, although many doubt the worth of those items. The two items I like are postcards and bookmarks. I’ve left stacks of bookmarks in libraries and bookstores and given them to anyone I speak to about my books. I’ve dropped them in envelopes with bills and set some down in stores after asking to make sure they won’t just be thrown away. Some writers’ conferences request bookmarks to be placed in goody bags for all attendees, who are also readers. I send them.

I purchase fewer postcards than bookmarks and mail them to everyone I know, including former classmates, for the first book signing of each book. They are also great to send to independent bookstores to let owners know about your newest novel.

The best way to market your book, almost all editors and agents say, is by word of mouth. Write a great book, and get everyone who reads it to convince many others to buy it.

Another word-of-mouth method I use is this: When I call a company for advice on how to use a product I’ve bought or to ask a question about billing or such, the person on the phone always answers me and then asks, “Can I help you with anything else?”

“How good are you at editing?”

“Excuse me,” most will respond, and then I’ll tell them I’m working on my latest novel and sure could use some help editing.

Almost everyone wants to know what kind of novel I write and what are the titles of my books. I suggest that they check my Web site, www.juneshaw.com. All of these strangers sound excited and tell me they will.

The challenge with marketing your book is balancing it with time to write your next one. I’m most creative soon after I wake up, so that’s when I normally write. My mind is duller early in the afternoon and late in the evening, so I spend more time with online groups then.

Since everyone’s situation is different, you need to find what works best for you. I wish you all the best.   June

 

June Shaw’s humorous mysteries RELATIVE DANGER and KILLER COUSINS have received excellent reviews. While promoting them, she is hard at work on their sequel, DEADLY REUNION.

Sometimes, your reader will hate you

. It’s been a bit disturbing lately to be a writer on Twitter.

If you live in the UK, or are a sci-fi fan, you can hardly be unaware that last week saw a unique television event here. Five episodes of Torchwood, over five nights, one story (WARNING if you are a Torchwood fan, and haven’t seen season 3 yet, there are spoilers ahead.)

And it was GOOD. Dark, and bleak, utterly compelling, the kind of thing you remember years later. Even none sci-fi fans – the type that deride all sci-fi as crap merely because it is sci-fi – found themselves fascinated. And one of the writers, James Moran, is a highly visible presence on Twitter. Praise poured on his head from all sides (rightly so, IMHO)

But in episode 4 came the problem. One of the characters, a highly popular and almost universally loved character, died. And after episode 5, it became he wouldn’t be coming back, and what’s more, our daring, devil-may-care hero had become something dark and alien, and had left Earth, and Torchwood – perhaps for ever.

It was utterly devastating. Brilliant, but devastating. And I have to admit, as a writer, I’d would probably have done exactly the same thing.

But not all the viewers saw it that way. And the ones on Twitter started to pour scorn, and vitriol and hatred upon the head of James Moran. He was there, on Twitter, he answered queries, he chatted, and he freely admitted he ‘pulled the Death lever’. And so some people took out their anger and grief over the ending and the death on him, accusing him of betraying the fans, of lying and cheating.

It was horrible to watch. And though many of us supported him, and even joined in a #lovejamesmoran campaign, those horrible, nasty words must have stuck in his head. I’m not talking criticism here, but an actual stream of personal hatred.

If you read my fan fiction, you know I have a fondness for killing people off. In my own fiction, my heroes and heroines tend to suffer and drop dead with alarming frequency. And I’ve had some ‘hate reviews’ because of it. But I can’t help it. It’s just the way the story had to be told – and I’m guessing James Moran and the other writers of Torchwood felt the same way.

When a character is created, and becomes loved and admired, he slips out of our world, and becomes part of the readers/viewers world. And if we do something to that character they don’t like, they can react with such hate. But that shouldn’t let us stop us telling the story the way it should be told, with all the pain and love and death that involves. In the end, what happens is what had to happen.

Motivation by Karen Fainges

Read the first chapter online free

Motivation is a topic close to my heart at the moment. I have 1000 things to get done and things are getting lost in the muddle.

So what do you do when it is getting all too much?  My first reaction is to let the housekeeping slide. This is probably not a “good thing” as I have fairly severe dust allergies, but as my mother says, if there is enough of it, the weight holds it down and away from your nose. Problem solved  until the dust bunnies create a civilization and start communicating with the unwashed dishes.

The main thing is to find what is really important in your life and focus on that. Easier said than done. One way is to list all the areas in your life and then draw two columns. In the first, score them from 10 to 1 on how much you want more of that item. In the next column, how much you want less of that item. For example, at the moment, I wouldn’t say no to more money, but it really isn’t a priority – call it 6. However, I really don’t want much less. We are comfortable where we are – so score it a 9 for a total of 15. On the other hand, I really don’t want any more responsibility right now – score 3, and I would gladly take less – score 9. That gives a score of 12.

The important thing about the two columns is that if I was only ranking things on how important they are to me, money and responsibility doesn’t even rate a mention. They are still a major factor in my decision making.

So once you have your list, then what?

Start pruning. Get rid of those things with low scores, remove some of the clutter from your life. And remember, this is your list. No one is looking over your shoulder. Your conscience might be saying letters to Grandma are important, but really, it’s not a motivator for you. Then concentrate on getting one thing done for your top three each day.