Endpaper Notes

Love and Magic: Bell, Book and Candle

2012-03-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

I’ve started bringing pages from the book I’m working on, The Descent, to my critique group and the presence of a couple witches (in the book, not the group) prompted someone to mention the movie Bell, Book and Candle.

If you like all things magical, but especially witches, this is a movie you shouldn’t miss. It’s probably available on Netflix or some place similar and I’d bet more than one library has a copy on DVD. It’s the story of a young woman who happens to be a witch who decides to steal the fiancee of her old nemesis in college. But then she falls in love with the fiancée and loses her witchly powers and well, you can probably guess the rest.

Besides having a stellar cast—Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Agnes Morehead, and Jimmy Stewart as the love interest, if you can believe it—it has great ambiance. This coven of witches live in New York City, you see, and the brother (Lemmon) likes to go to jazz clubs. (It was made in 1958, when beatniks were still a curiosity to middle Americans.) I swear the movie must’ve been the inspiration for the television series ‘Bewitched’ because the premise is the same, right down to the fiancée/husband being in advertising (or maybe everyone was in advertising in America in the late 1950s/early 1960s) and having Agnes Morehead in the cast.

The movie definitely had some magic all its own, though, for all its campiness and predictability on the romance front. Otherwise, how do you explain its staying power in the minds of so many women who grew up then? Two women in the group had even named their first cat Pyewacket, after the Siamese in the movie. After being reminded of Bell, Book and Candle, I realized that I undoubtedly drew from the movie in shaping my view of how the world of the magical should work. Which is why I’m mentioning it here in this post. Go watch it.

Glamour! The Italian Book Launch: the full report

2012-02-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

Pardon my delay in posting a more detailed report on the Italian book launch. To be honest, I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of it: on one hand, I figure some folks will be interested because you want to know what it’s like to be published, and going abroad for a book launch is part of the dream. You want the details, and I’d like to oblige.

On the other hand, however, some of the people who read my blog are fellow writers, and I have to admit, I feel a bit bad writing about the trip. Even though I know none of them begrudge another writer the good times one bit, I also know that it’s hard not to feel a tiny twinge of jealousy when you hear of an outrageous piece of good fortune that happens to someone else—and not you.

Believe me, the trip to Italy was completely unexpected. And the experience I had was even more so: as I wrote in a previous post, it was like one of those Hollywood press junkets you hear about. A car picked up me and my husband at the airport and whisked us to the hotel in downtown Milan, where we were met by the head of Longanesi’s publicity department. After an hour’s rest, I went to the lobby to meet Tommaso, also from the publicity department, who was to manage all the interviews for the next three days. I also met my interpreter, Paolo, who would be my alter ego for the duration.

As it turned out, I had been put up in the hotel that my publisher (and others, I think) used for all their visiting authors, and all interviews were conducted on site, so at any given time there were two or three camps of interviews going on. The first two days I shared the lobby with an Argentinean author whose name I didn’t catch; she had the tables in the back half of the lobby while I had the low couches in the front, right by the windows looking out on the street. I would glance over from time to time to see how she was doing, if she was as nervous as me.

There were interviews with newspapers and magazines, with radio stations and television, all from the hotel lobby. There were three photo shoots, too. We did mostly face-to-face interviews, but some were done over the phone, and most required translation, because while everyone I met had some fluency in English, to my shame I have none in Italian. Having a wonderful translator is half the battle, I think, in keeping the interviews alive and enthusiastic and entertaining.

So, an aside about the photographers. Two of them came from photography agencies. Media outlets go to these agencies when they need a photograph of a particular subject. Maybe this happens everywhere but it was new to me. Anyway, these were the photographers who take pictures of all the authors who come to town. One, Leonardo Cendamo, showed me some of the pictures he kept on his digital camera: Joyce Carol Oates, John Banville, Paul Auster, Isabel Allende. It was a little funny to think he was taking a picture of me.

One night, Longanesi hosted a dinner party with Milanese booksellers. It was in a delightful restaurant lined with bookshelves and work of local artists, and there was a big stack of my book in the window behind me. We had wonderful food and wine, and I got to meet some interesting folks, like the gentleman whose bookstore has been in his family for 150 years. He’s the last of the line, and is childless, and anticipates his family’s great tradition will come to an end on his watch. But he just got married a month ago, so perhaps there is hope. We talked about ebooks and the changing book market, comparing what’s happening in the US to Italy, and it seems there is concern all over.

I didn’t feel tired until the very last interview. Somehow I made through, and said goodbye to Tommaso and Paolo (feeling a little lost without them, like being separated from a twin). I went up to the hotel room where my husband was waiting. We hadn’t seen much of each other since the plane had touched down in Italy. It was his first trip to Europe and I’d left him to wander around town on his own, but he said he’d had a good time. From there, we headed on to Florence, but not after visiting that evening with my editor, Fabrizio Cocco, and his wife, Elizabetta, to check out Fabrizio’s guitar collection. All in all, it was a wonderful trip, much more special than I’d ever imagined.

Some of the interviews/reviews that have been published so far: Matteo Sacchi in Il Giornale, a daily; Urban Fantasy, an Italian website for all things horror; Corpi Freddi, a noir website; a very fun one by Sabrina Minetti at Shocking Pink; the cover of Il Giallista (Thriller) magazine; and an interview at Alessia Clapis at Book Lovers. More on the way!

Moments of Bliss, Italian Edition

2012-02-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

Our time in Milan wrapped up, we're now in Florence so I can research medieval and Rennaissance life in Italy (not to give anything away for book three). Just like in Milan, there are bookstores every two blocks and I make my husband stop in each one we come across to see if we can find the book. I figure out quicklythat I shouldn't expect it; this is Florence, after all, and the books are mostly about art, with small selections of wildly popular books (think "The Kite Runner") and lots of vampire novels, for some reason.

So when we run into Edison a huge bookstore on the Plaza of the Republic, I completely miss the giant poster of my book perched right by the door. My husband points it out to me. We found copies with the rest of the novels. In every store it's been piled next to Lauren Kate's just released collection of short stories, "Fallen in Love", because we follow each other alphabetically. A good sign, given her spectacular popularity, I think.

IMMORTAL launch in Milan

2012-02-17T08:03:00.000-08:00

Television host Marta Perego interviewing me for Class and Iris programs

I had intended to blog every day while in Milan for the launch of Immortal (as The Taker is called here) but here it is, the end of the three days and I’m writing my first post, so you see how that went. It has been an absolute whirlwind, just as you imagine it will be.

First of all, I never thought this would happen to me and certainly not for my debut novel. When Longanesi, the publisher in Italy, asked if I would like to come to Milan for the launch, I said yes (of course!) but thought that it would certainly be light duty. After all, I’m completely unknown. Who would want to talk to me?

I vastly underestimated Longanesi’s ability in this regard. (Thanks to Valentina Fortichiari, a dynamo and one of the most gracious women you’d ever meet.)

It was just like a press junket for a movie: you’re put up at a lovely hotel and have interview after interview interrupted by the occasional photo shoot. In the span of 48 hours, there were 19 scheduled interviews, newspapers and magazines, television and radio, websites and book bloggers. We camped out in the lobby—me, Paolo Scopacasa (the interpreter), and Tommaso Gobbi, from Longanesi’s publicity department, who ran everything onsite for three days. The most charm handler you could hope for, a crazy mad multitasker who worked like mad every minute.

Among the journalists I got to meet:

Matteo Sacchi of Il Gironale, one of the Italian daily papers

And if you read Italian, here is the review

Antonella Fiori, who writes for Metro, a daily newspaper

More Italian adventures upcoming.

My Big Fat Italian Book Launch: Prep Work

2012-02-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, in a couple days I’m going to Milan for the launch of my book, The Taker. Or Immortal, as it’s being called in Italy.

Don’t worry, this won’t be the last you hear of it. I figure half of the people who read this blog are friends who want to see what I’m up to and the other half are aspiring writers who might be interested in what it’s like to go to a foreign country to introduce your book! As many people have said, I’m living the dream and believe me, I know this doesn’t happen to everyone. I am grateful every minute of the day for the chance.

The countdown started a few weeks back when the Italian publisher, Longanesi, gave me the okay to publish the cover. Haunting, isn’t it? Then a week or so ago, I received copies of their press kit. It’s the first professional one I’ve ever seen and it blew me away. For anyone who loves paper products, a press kit of your own book is like porn. A pocket folder with your cover on it, silken to the touch! The first chapter in booklet format! Press releases extolling the virtues of your book, all with gorgeous artwork. The entire package is lush and beautifully put together.

The book pubs on February 16^th, but so far it’s been mentioned in a few Italian book blogs and I’ve gotten several requests for Q&As from bloggers (yay!!) and I’m looking forward to doing more. The publisher has set up three days of interviews. I think they take their books very seriously in Italy.

This is what I’ve done so far to get ready:

Bought a larger suitcase. The hubs is coming with me, after all.
Started coming down with a cold. (Of course!)
Stocked up on peanut M&Ms, almond Hershey’s kisses and pretzels for the flight over.
Tried every possible combination of the Eileen Fisher clothing I own and actually found one outfit that looks really good on me. The rest will have to do.

What I have yet to do:

Everything else.

In less than 48 hours and coming down with a cold.

Book clubs and The Taker

2012-01-31T04:02:00.000-08:00

I've had the good luck to talk to a few book clubs about The Taker, a few by Skype but mostly in person. For the author it's been a wonderful experience, to meet people who've read your book and to hear the interesting things they've taken away from it. I was a little afraid that given the book's dark nature, people might be shy about discussing it in a group, but that hasn't been the case. On the contrary, the characters do so many controversial things that people seem to want to talk it over with others who have read the book.

There's a reading group guide available on the website, but I thought I'd list some of the topics we've talked about below--and yes, this is a shameless attempt to get you to consider having me speak to your book club. Just drop me an email at alma @ almakatsu.com to set up a date. The trade paperback version of the book is coming out the end of March, the format preferred by book clubs, I hear.

Jonathan: He is perfect book club fodder. Readers either love him or hate him. People love to discuss whether he's to blame for Lanny's troubles--did he lead her on?--or whether he was the victim, in a sense. For those who can't see his appeal, I ask if they've ever been in the presence of a man who oozes sex appeal, because if you have, you realize it's not an easy thing to ignore. At one book club, this discussion prompted one woman to confess that she'd once met Jim Morrison of the Doors!
How much of the history in The Taker is real? We've had some interesting discussions about Colonial-era history, how novelists do their research, and how much fact is sufficient in fiction. Fact that may surprise you: Jude Van de Meer, the charismatic preacher in The Taker, was based on a real person.
The path to publication: There's a long tale behind how The Taker made it into print, including how it started as a short story thirty years ago and how a near-death mysterious illness got me to return to writing fiction. But on top of that story, I'm happy to talk about the writing process and my experiences in the book business.
The nature of evil: Many readers have said they feel real evil in Adair, the story's villain, and it's for good reason: I spent years in my career as an intelligent analyst studying genocides and war crimes and the people who commit them. We've had some great discussions about the difference between a "believable" villain and one that really makes your skin crawl.

Happy reading!

The Vampire Diaries: Klaus vs. Adair

2012-01-26T06:55:00.000-08:00

A reader told me recently that she thought Klaus, the villain in the hit TV show THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, was a lot like Adair, the villain in The Taker. She sent me a link to an interview with the actor, Joseph Morgan, and after watching it and hearing him talk about his character, I have to admit to seeing similarities between the two.

I don't watch--and haven't read--The Vampire Diaries. I haven't seen it because I don't watch much TV. It sounds like lots of fun and, from skimming photos and such, seems to have a lot in common with my book and other books in this genre: the clash of wills between oversized personalities, very attractive people having sex, flashbacks to other periods in time, immortal love: you know, the things that make having an active imagination fun. I'm sure any similarities are pure coincidence; as you'll hear in the video, if you care to watch it, a good villain is not all-evil-all-the-time, so all good villains whether it's Klaus or Adair will share that dimensionality. Whether the similarities go deeper than that, I guess I'll have to watch a few episodes to know. For the record, I'll say that I started writing The Taker in 2000 and have never read TVD books. Adair has started garnering his own fans, and more than one reviewer has said he might be the Best. Villain. Ever. (I'm so proud.) So please, consider challenging your TVD-loving friends to read The Taker, and let me know what they think.

In other news: getting ready to head to Milan in February for the launch of the Italian version of The Taker. Very excited. Longanesi, the publisher, has put out a version of the UK book trailer with Italian subtitles, and you can see it here. Bella!

Inspirations Behind The RECKONING

2012-01-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

The second book in The Taker Trilogy, THE RECKONING, doesn't come out until June, but I thought I'd give some hints about what you'll find in the book through this Inspiration Board up at Pinterest. Each photo is captioned to give you an idea of its significance to the story. I'd love to hear what you think...

I just joined Pinterest. I was warned that it's addictive, and it is. In addition to making your own collections of images that interest you, you can spy on other people's collections. Cupcakes continue to be of huge interest in this country, that's all I can say.

It's not really about knitting. It's about life.

2012-01-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

I'm knitting this cowl for a friend (Jennifer Hillier, another author at Gallery Books). Before you think this is some kind of act of kindness, let me assure you that Jennifer is being the kind one by agreeing to give this little project a home. No one wants something knitted by a beginner. You can't pay someone to take this stuff off your hands. Jennifer is doing me a favor by giving me someone to knit for.

I just took up knitting and I'm teaching myself using YouTube videos. My niece walked me through how to read a knitting pattern and introduced me to some knitting websites, like Ravelry and Knitty. A few years ago I took up quilting, and it was an eye-opening experience. When I was younger, I wasn't a big fan of precision. You cannot be imprecise and be a quilter. You have to cut and sew within specific allowances. I found out that I liked being creative within those boundaries. I eventually got into art quilting. But with the writing business taking off, I haven't had the time to quilt for nearly a year.

I like to learn something new every 4-5 years or so to keep my brain nimble. If I were really serious about this, I would try to learn a foreign language, but for now I'll settle for textile arts. So recently, I took up knitting.

I did this for a couple reasons. My mother wouldn't teach me when I was young because I'm a lefty and she thought it would be too hard for me to learn. I always resented this a little, but I'm old enough to stop being resentful and to teach my own damn self if it's that important to me. Secondly, yarn started looking really good. Irresistible, in fact. It seemed silly to buy yarn with absolutely no intention of doing something with it, so I had no excuse not to learn to knit.

And lastly, I had fallen in love with a knitting blog. I've been reading the Mason-Dixon blog for years now. It is literally ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ON THE INTERNET. It is the perfect blend of smart/funny, and reading it was a nice thing to do for myself at the end of a hard day at my soul-crushing job even though I didn't knit and had no idea what they were talking about half the time. It's written by Ann Shayne and Kay Gardiner, authors of the Mason-Dixon knitting books. At first, it was a portal into a world I'd never known. There are a whole bunch of women out there who as crafters, are very serious about craft but also happen to have very smart outlooks on life. I have never had a smart outlook on life. I am a quintessential Washingtonian: dead serious about everything. Reading the Mason-Dixon blog was like eavesdropping (at first) on a group of magical wise women in the forest, envying them their charm, their grace. Eventually I started posting comments, too (mine always started with "I'm the one who's not a knitter...") and lo and behold, I wasn't chased away in a flurry of knitting needles, a non-belonger.

Eventually, I wrote to Ann Shayne about something. Book-related, I'm sure. We've corresponded to the point where I feel like Ann is my friend. I feel very privileged about this. I'm bringing this up because Ann generously mentioned my book on her blog this past week. After reading the blog for years, I cannot tell you how this makes me feel! Like being in Time or Newsweek, I tell you! I feel like I've arrived.

I will post a picture of Jennifer's cowl when it's done. Don't hold your breath: I've had to rip it out and start all over three times now. But I love that it's finally starting to look like the one in the photo. It's so nice to be on the path of discovery, again.

You Tell Me: The Perfect Writer's Bag

2012-01-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

Writing is not the only thing occupying my days lately. I find that I must live several months in advance, thinking ahead to the next release, whether it’s another edition of The Taker, or the next new book. With a release comes the question of promotion: what kind of events are appropriate? Store events, book festivals, an appearance at a writer’s conference? Promotional material must be designed, approved and sent to the printer.

One detail is nagging at me. It’s a subject near and dear to most women’s hearts. I need to find a new tote bag to take with me on the road this year.

Ah, the eternal quest for the perfect bag. As much as we know there is no such thing—any more than there is a perfect haircut—still we persist in the search. We have our criteria. This year, mine are: big enough to carry my laptop in a pinch yet not so big that it visually overpowers a short person; holds items securely yet is not so restrictive that I have to unlock three deadbolts to get to my cell phone; is of a style that can go from an event in Milan to a writer’s conference (where the average ensemble is a polo shirt over jeans.)

In other words, what I want is a bundle of contradictions. No wonder I have yet to find what I want.

Which is why I’m asking for your suggestions. Do you have the perfect writer’s bag? If so, please help a sister out. Send me a picture, or a link, and tell me why you love it.

Next up: finding the perfect pair of shoes.

US Trade Paperback Cover Revealed

2012-01-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Here's the cover for the trade paperback edition of The Taker, which is due out March 27th. What do you think?

Odds and ends:

Ray Garraty is the winner of UNDER THE POPPY. Congratulations, Ray!
The Taker has had the good fortune to be named to eleven book bloggers' Best of 2011 lists, and was mentioned by Melissa Marr (author Wicked Lovely, among others) as one of her favorite books of the year.

January Giveaway: Magpie's Delight

2012-01-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

Is there a better way to welcome the New Year than with prizes? As you may know, I give away a prize each month to someone on my mailing list. For January, I've dipped into the collection of items I've collected during my book tour travels this year, to come up with a wonderful bounty I'm calling Magpie's Delight, sure to delight any book lover.

First, a tee-shirt from West Coast booksellers Mysterious Galaxy! Black, size XL, with the charming Mysterious Galaxy logo on the front, "Will Work For Books" proudly plastered across the back.What book addict would not want this shirt? Second, to carry your precious tomes, the Wonderstruck tote given away by Scholastic Books at BEA this past May. (Written by Brian Selznick, of The Invention of Hugo Cabret fame.)

Lastly--because this is the mailing list for The Taker, after all--I'll include one of these delightfully naughty pins by Caitlin Philips of Rebound Design. These wooden pins featured a risque phrase snipped from an actual book, lacquered on a bar, and ready to wear on the lapel of your favorite jacket or sweater--if you dare!!! I met Caitlin at the Baltimore Book Festival, where she sells her handmade treasures, all book-related.

I'm sure you agree that this is a fabulously fun way to start off 2012. Now, what do you have to do to win? First, you must join my mailing list. If you're already on the list, no worries--you're automatically entered for each monthly contest. (I won't flood you with email, and of course I would never share your email address with anyone.) This month's contest is limited to the US, please (though not all of them are). The drawing will be on January 31st.

Btw, the winner of Under the Poppy (see post, below) has been notified. Thank you to everyone who left a comment.

Reviews, Interviews and Falling In Love (Again)

2011-12-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

If only writing were this easy

Although you can generally depend on a bit of downtime between Christmas and New Year’s, there have been a few developments here:

The Taker was reviewed by The Washington Post today, with the headline, “The Taker takes a fresh bite out of old vampire tales” (never mind that there are no vampires in The Taker, I think it makes the point . . .)
I recorded an interview for the blog radio program Literary New England, scheduled to air on January 2 at 8:00 PM ET. There are some stellar authors on the same program, including Nathaniel Philbrick and Brock Clarke (An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England). They'll be giving away a few copies of The Taker during the program. You should be able to access it here.

In other news, the first pass pages for The Reckoning arrived today. This is the author’s last chance to make significant changes to the manuscript; after this, changes will impact the publisher’s production schedule and are generally frowned upon. It’s a nerve-wracking time for an author anyway, but having the pages arrive on the same day that a major review comes out is particularly . . . challenging.

The thing about this profession that makes it worthwhile (to me) is being seized with an idea for a new story. It’s like those giddy first days of a new romance, when you can’t wait to see each other again and want to spend all your time together. Right before Christmas, I got the idea for a standalone historical novel that I am really excited about. I managed to get four chapters written even as I was cleaning house and cooking for twenty Christmas day, but now must put the story aside to polish up those first pass pages.

That’s all the news for now. What are your plans for New Year’s? Anyone planning to curl up with a new book and a glass of eggnog?

Christmas traditions: simplifying while keeping the important things

2011-12-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else asking how can Christmas be here already? In my case, it must be because I’m working from home now and I don’t watch television, so I’m not exposed to the reminders, the elves and lights and Christmas music in elevators.

We’re hosting my husband’s East Coast relatives for an early dinner tomorrow, as we do every year. My husband’s family is very close, and they get together for every major holiday, hosted by one of the families. Most of them live in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and since we moved to Virginia eight years ago, we don’t get to as many of these get-togethers as we’d like to, but they are all kind enough to schlep out our way on Christmas, so we can see each other.

It’s quieter now that the cousins’ children are all grown. A few have children of their own. But the days of tearing wrapping paper and screeches of delight are, for the most part, over. My husband’s parents were the hosts for Christmas for a long time but we took over at least 12 years ago (though we might’ve missed a year here or there). The menu is always the same, and the highlight for me is my father’s stuffing, which is made with smoked Portuguese chorizo. It used to be an ordeal trying to find Portuguese chorizo but thank goodness for Wegman’s: they now carry it in our area.

For desserts, I usually make my specialties, a four-layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and cheesecake. The carrot cake is a knockout, almost a fruitcake as it’s dense with raisins, coconut, pineapple, walnuts and carrots. I’ve made it four times this month alone, it’s so popular. This year we’re supplementing with a gorgeous seven-layer cake sent as a gift. One year when we lived in Maryland, we ordered eclairs made by a local man. He made then for the summer festivals, where I’d had one and was blown away. A Frenchman would probably faint: they’re not proper or fancy, and were huge, as big as an adult’s slipper. We cut each into three pieces and even those were a challenge to finish.

This month has been so busy I didn’t have time to decorate or shop, and I hope no one will be disappointed. For presents, there’ll be a big box of books and everyone can choose one (or more) that looks interesting. Lazy, yes, but well-intentioned. And, arguably, better for you than a box of chocolates.

The reason I’ve been so busy is because I’m writing. I’ve decided to try to write a spy novel, and have been working with my agent to put together a proposal. Then just as I turned in the synopsis, I got an idea for another book. A straight historical this time, no supernatural things going on. It’s so much fun to write, I can barely tear myself away from the computer to attend to holiday duties.

What about you? Have you been able to keep up with holiday requirements this season, or are you—like me—simplifying in order to get it all done? What food are you looking forward to making, or eating? What will you do on boxing day, after all the excitement is over?

Make Your Own World: Small Beer Press + UNDER THE POPPY giveaway

2011-12-14T20:09:00.000-08:00

High on every book person’s list of Things We’d Do Given Unlimited Time & Money—right after own our own bookstore—is run our own independent press. Who wouldn’t want to have the ability to take writing that appeals to us, writing that is most likely underserved by the traditional publishing establishment, and share it with the world? But then we come to our senses, or realize how overstretched we are and . . . we let go of that dream.

Which is why I admire Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, co-founders of Small Beer Press and lit zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (LCRW). I’d heard of LCRW years ago, but Small Beer came back on my radar screen when I heard they were publishing John Crowley’s Endless Things. Being a fan of Crowley, it seemed the height of cool to publish one of hiss works. But it didn’t stop with Crowley. There was a small parade of incredible authors being published by Small Beer (you’ll see more names below). And then in 2010 I picked up Kathe Koja’s Under the Poppy. That’s when I realized Grant and Link were publishers of exceptional vision and bravery.

Grant and Link have a specific literary aethestic. It just so happens that this aethestic is difficult to describe. Some use the term slipstream, meaning prose that is fantastic, surreal or speculative. Some use the term ‘strange’, while Grant himself calls it ‘weird’. While Small Beers’ books defy categorization, you know one when you see one, and that’s due in no small part to Grant’s and Link’s clear vision.

Steampunk!An Anthology of Fantastically Strange and Rich Stories (Candlewick Press) is Grant's and Link's latest project

It seems that Small Beer and your lit magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, have a lot in common with the independent music scene, which flourished in the 1980s and beyond. That sense of wanting to do promote art that appeals to you but isn’t getting mainstream attention. What made your decide to start your own independent publishing house centered around this particular type of fiction?

When we started our zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (LCRW) in 1996 it was very much inspired by music zines. I’m not a huge fan of punk music, but I love the ethos and the world view. I like to remind myself and everyone else that you can go out and do something that could make a difference in the world. LCRW exists because none of the magazines I was reading was quite what I wanted. If I had an actual budget, we’d have more nonfiction, but c’est la vie. We started out publishing fiction that fell between the cracks: too this for one magazine, too that for another. We were lucky and very much of our time: many other publishers sprang up at the same time and now I look around and there are tons of places publishing what I really love: fiction, slightly weird.

Small Beer was a natural progression from LCRW and it’s still working really well as a home for books that might have difficulty finding a home elsewhere.

How do you decide what to publish in a given year? I imagine that, since your press is well-known within certain circles and highly regarded, you have both authors who come to you looking for a home for a particular work, and have your eyes on certain authors you’d like to work with. Do you want to talk about how you came to publish any particular works by more widely known writers, such as Holly Black, John Crowley, Karen Joy Fowler or Poppy Z. Brite? Or highlight one of your lesser-known but fabulous authors, a current favorite or new release.

Part of it has been luck. When we started out we knew that Carol Emshwiller had this novel, The Mount, that no one would publish. We read it, had our minds blown, published it, it won the Philip K. Dick Award and is now taught all over the country. There have been books we’d loved to have published that we missed for various reasons. Quite a few of our books have been us pestering authors and agents to see whether a favorite author has something new—or something that hasn’t quite fit elsewhere.

Kelly and I both loved Poppy Z. Brite’s New Orleans cooking novels and, in a fit of optimism, we hoped that we could inspire her to write more of them if we proposed a paperback of Second Line. She may not write more, but at least we got to spread the word on books we love.

One of our new books, The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett, was originally self-published. A mutual friend, the writer Nalo Hopkinson recommended he send it to us and the rest is history. We get quite a few self-pub’d books, but his grabbed me from page one. It’s a quick, tight, thriller with a superhero-ish main character—not our usual book, but I loved it, so we were happy to put it out.
One of Kelly Link's short story collections

Let’s say someone wants to follow your example and start up her own independent publishing house. How would you recommend she start?

Everything in publishing has a longer and longer lead time do as much prep as you can long before you even announce the press. Come out of the gates with an initial list of titles (1,2,5, it doesn’t matter) and a distributor lined up. (Print distribution contracts are usually exclusive; ebook distribution contracts are usually nonexclusive.)

People love a new press, a new voice. Don’t miss your chance: exploit your freshfacededness!

One of the non-intuitive surprises is that if you have some successful books they can make life hard as they will take up all your time but you still need time to concentrate on the other books. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation from experience so you need to be able to plan on ways to find more time or get more help if the work expands. As it will!

A key factor in your success is that, as editors, you guys have a fabulous eye for good writing. Any tips for aspiring acquiring editors regarding cultivating a distinctive list that reflects a precise taste?

You are too kind! I would just say trust your own taste. We’re lucky in that when we’re not sure we can check with the other person and see what they think.

You live in Easthampton, Massachusetts, which I consider the western part of the state (maybe it’s more central Mass, but coming from the Boston area, it seems western to me!) a gorgeous area that’s away from the congestion of Boston. Maybe I’ve completely over-romanticized your situation, but it seems like he best way to live, away from the madding crowd, doing something artistically and personally satisfying in a beautiful place. Please do not dissuade me. (Okay, that’s not really a question.)

It’s definitely Western Mass! And I won’t dissuade you. I love cities but doing what I do I can’t afford to buy a house in a city. I wanted a place for our kid to be able to go and play in the garden and be able to cycle into town. We’re working as hard as we can so that this somewhat idyllic dream will come true!

Is there a five-year plan for Small Beer? What would you most like to see happen/want to do next?

I am hoping that in five years time we will still be publishing paper and ebooks. Our plan is to keep publishing books and see if we survive the seismic shift in the bookworld. We love books and indie bookstores (new and used), and have some sympathy for the book chain stores as they are fighting to survive against the WalMartization of everything. WalMart are good at some things, but selling the kinds of books we love isn’t one of them so we have to try and ensure that bookstores that will stock our books survive. Every dollar spent is a political act which remakes the possible futures — in other words, if you don’t shop at your local bookshop / hardware store / bike shop / clothes shop / grocery store then all that will be left are chains which are exactly the same from one side of the world to the other.

This pretty much sums up Under the Poppy: "A gothic, glam-rock take on love and sex and death that reads a little like what would happen if Sarah Waters and Angela Carter played a drunken game of Exquisite Corpse in a brothel . . . will make you want to get out your very finest crushed velvet, drink a couple bottles of wine, and do something a little bit illegal with someone very good-looking. In other words, it’s a winner."—Tor.com Would you like to win a copy? (Of course you would!) Leave a comment below.

Paper Lantern Lit + LIESL & PO Giveaway

2011-12-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

I’m excited to be doing something different this month, and that’s talking to people who are doing interesting new things in the book publishing business.

We all know that book publishing is going through a time of tremendous change, as are all media industries: newspapers and magazines, movies, television. As digitalization and mobility change how content is produced and delivered, long-standing business models are being blown up, re-imagined, and torn apart again as the reinvention cycle becomes more and more compressed.

On top of that, a lot of people are re-evaluating what it means to have a fulfilling and meaningful life, particularly when it comes to work. Technology is making it possible for more people to rethink their jobs or to reshape their careers entirely, whether it’s working from home or an entirely different part of the country, or finding an audience or a market that would’ve been unthinkable ten years ago without the kind of resources that were out of the average person’s reach.

It might be a good time to contemplate a radical change in your own life.

In December, I’m going to talk to people who are doing just that, pursuing their interests on their terms, and I hope you’ll be inspired by their stories to think about making your life more creative, more satisfying or more fun.

I’m starting this series with a look at Paper Lantern Lit, a literary development company founded by Lexa Hillyer and Lauren Oliver. Now granted, I’m new to the publishing business, but what they’re doing seemed sort of novel to me: coming up with ideas for stories, then finding the right author to bring the story to life, with their guidance. They’re able to use the storytelling skills and instincts they developed while working as editors at major New York City publishing houses—and Lauren’s own experience as a bestselling author—to nurture young writers and bring these story ideas to life.

Elizabeth Miles (whose name has appeared in this blog once or twice—heck, three times, if you’re counting) is one of PLL’s authors. I am a big fan of her YA novel FURY and was intrigued when I learned of the PLL connection. Elizabeth kindly approached Lexa about talking to me about PLL, and answers some questions herself about being a PLL author.

With the publishing industry undergoing revolutionary change, people are looking for new ways to do business, ways that make sense and bridge the best of what’s new with what’s working now. Paper Lantern Lit certainly has a lot of people in the industry talking. As a matter of fact, they were just interviewed by Business Week, which you can read here.

What gave you the idea to start PLL? For a lot of people, it comes with a change in life circumstances—starting a family, needing to move to a new location, finding a work/life balance—which in and of itself is a characteristic of the way the business world is changing. Was this the case for you? Or was it the lure of entrepreneurship?

LEXA: The idea for PLL came about organically between myself and my business partner, author Lauren Oliver. We’d been friends for awhile and used to work together at Penguin as editors. The company really emerged from our mutual desire to do something even more creative and challenging with our lives. We both felt we had a special talent for formulating and plotting good stories, and recognized a need for those skills in the publishing landscape. We wanted to build a company that would allow us to do just that, all day long, on our own terms, in the hope of providing a valuable service both to writers and to publishers. To be honest, I’m not sure either of us truly thought of ourselves as entrepreneurs, until we got started. As our vision for the company grew, so did our sense of what we could truly accomplish on our own. It was exhilarating. It still is!

How did you come up with the model for PLL? Is it because you guys are story machines? To be clear, PLL comes up with the ideas for the story and finds the writer who will be the best match, correct? Can you talk a little about that process—how do you come up with the ideas for your books? How do you decide which ones to pursue?

Such great questions! Yes, you are correct in that our focus is generating ideas (or “sparks”) and expanding them into detailed plot outlines, while searching the world for the most impressive, poignant, engaging, fresh writers who are in need of direction, in need of a home—in a need of the right project! We really do like to think of ourselves as matchmakers. We aren’t just looking to “hire” an author. We’re looking to pair a voice with a spark, and ignite a perfect union between the two! And yes, our model really evolved out of what made most sense according to what we can offer the world, and we try our best to keep our model clear and simple. We know that when it comes to ideas, there can be a lot of anxiety and warring over ownership. But our belief is that there truly are infinite good ideas, and the magic comes in how you execute them. So our attitude is inherently not one of possessiveness. Our approach demands passion and hard work, instead, to make sure each project gets the attention it needs at all stages of the process. Ultimately, there are some sparks that fizzle out before they see the light of day, and that’s perfectly fine. We have to treat each project on its own terms and we rarely have to decide which ones to pursue and which to drop—if you listen, the story will tell you what it needs. Sometimes it needs to go into hiding for awhile. Sometimes it has its own momentum and you just have to keep up!

Oh and to answer your question about how we come up with the ideas, that’s fairly organic, too. We do have one or two brainstorming sessions per year, where we bring in ideas, images, and concepts that excite or intrigue us—we throw the ideas into a mixing pot and see what happens. Usually some great things emerge. But we also try to let our lives be open to constant inspiration. Sometimes it’s an article in the paper or a conversation with a friend or a piece of art that sparks our imaginations. As a creative company, we put a high premium on structuring our own work weeks so that there’s always room to have those spontaneous moments of inspiration.

Can you tell us a little how PLL differs from a book packager?

Yes, you’ll notice we call ourselves literary developers, rather than packagers. While the distinction may seem subtle, it’s incredibly important to us. We consider it one of our greatest values to nurture new talent, and so we are not simply using writers to churn out a final product, as with some other packagers—we’re more process-oriented than that. We’re really aiming to help cultivate and develop our writers’ voices. Both Lauren and I have MFAs in creative writing, and we generally give notes and feedback to our writers on a weekly basis. We truly provide an editorial “home” for these authors while they hone their craft and get their professional careers off the ground.

PLL seems to offer a wonderful start for authors: the ability to work on their storytelling skills with professionals in the business. You’ve described it as “a paid MFA” but it seems like more than that to me, sort of MFA + real-world experience. Could this be one model for the future, a step in-between trying to do it all on your own and traditional publishing? (For writers with the right mix of talent and willingness to work hard?) Or, if this question makes more sense: where do you see PLL on the publishing spectrum?

Yes, I absolutely see PLL as just that—a bridge between academia and industry. In school, the premium is on creating the best sentence, the most fully-rounded character, the best prose you can have. Rarely is there a major focus on finishing a book. Rarely is there a bare-bones approach to the craft of plotting. And even more rare are the discussions about what’s relevant to readers now. That’s all stuff one must learn slowly in the real world, the hard way. So that’s where PLL comes in. We bring that market awareness and industry savvy, in addition to the attention to prose, character and individualized voices.

I find there’s sometimes a lot of fear in academia when it comes to the publishing industry. Writers are terrified of signing contracts and are told horror stories about losing all control over their work. But mostly when you look around at the publishing world, it’s a lot less scary than that. Yes, there are risks, and rights that must be negotiated, and so on. But ultimately it’s a business transaction among people who all just want to make some kind of living doing what they love. So, it’s important to me to get that message across.

Can you talk about what’s next for PLL?

Well, that’s up in the air! We have a relationship with Fox 2000, a film studio we greatly admire for their love of books. So of course we’re very hopeful that there will be developments on the west coast for us sometime soon. And we’re constantly meeting with other young companies we admire, and exploring how we can adopt to the constantly shifting publishing landscape. We want to be diverse and dynamic—we never want to become bored or complacent. We love collaborating with others, and we may launch a charitable portion of the company next year—stay tuned for details on that! Ultimately, though, our emphasis will always be on quality over quantity, and our focus will always be on creating wonderful content and great relationships.

Elizabeth, would it be possible to talk about what it’s like to work with PLL? Can you step us through the process for FURY? As the writer, are you given a general idea for the story [the plot] and it’s up to you to develop the characters, setting, sub-plots and the rest of the story magic?

Once I was “matched” with my story (it was clear from the beginning that I was “auditioning” for PLL’s horror/paranormal project), I received an outline for Book One from Lauren and Lexa. We spoke about my wanting to set the book in Maine — having gone to college in Boston, and now living in Portland, Maine, I’m very familiar with the “New England aesthetic” and I wanted to explore that in Fury. Working off the outline, I sent a few chapters a week to Lexa, my PLL editor. She responded with helpful notes, and I revised in larger chunks. The character development, sense of place, and general tone/voice of the book are all very much mine...I like your term “story magic.” I had some raw talent and working with PLL helped me — a first-time fiction writer — learn quickly about both the craft and the industry. For Book Two (Envy, which comes out next year), the process was similar but there was a bit more collaboration in terms of establishing background, plot points, and the general direction of the story.

What interested you in working with PLL?

I’m a journalist by day, and I studied non-fiction writing in college. But I’ve always loved reading fiction and I’ve always wondered about what it would take to have me strike out in that direction. Certainly the fact that Lauren and I are old friends helped nudge me along...but more than that, I think I was looking for a new challenge, a new outlet for my creativity, and a chance to connect with an entirely different type of reader. However, as a workaholic with precisely zero idea of how the publishing world worked, I would never have taken the plunge were it not for the support and safety net of the PLL model. I found Lauren and Lexa to be both professional and approachable, and while navigating the financial aspect of things can be tricky (especially when working with friends!), I feel like they’ve been both up-front and fair from the beginning.

What happens next for you as a writer? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you see yourself continuing with PLL or striking out on your own, or a mix?

What happens next for me as a writer...Well, I’m writing about campaign finance for next week’s paper, and groundfishing permits for the week after that; I’ll start working on Book Three of the Fury series soon — oh, wait, you’re talking more long-term? Ha. I have a lot on my plate and it’s hard for me to think that far ahead. That said, the easy answer to “Will I write more fiction?” is: Yes, I believe I will. I’m not sure how or when, under what auspices, whether it will be for young adults, adults, kids, aliens...But I’ve caught the bug now. And, what Lauren and Lexa say about PLL being akin to an MFA bootcamp isn’t far off. I feel like I have a solid foundation on which to build. Overall, I feel very fortunate to have had this experience.

Visit PLL’s website and see their lovely logo

Visit Elizabeth’s website

Visit PLL’s website for The Fury series

GIVEAWAY: Leave a comment below by December 19^th and be entered to win a signed ARC of Lauren Oliver’s LIESL & PO which I snagged totally by happenstance at BEA in May.

Faster Than A Cannonball

2011-12-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

Since some of you are writers as well as readers, I thought I’d write occasionally on the business end of being published. Here’s what’s been going on lately:

It’s been three months since The Taker, my first novel, was published in the US. For the most part, the hubbub has died down: requests for interviews have died down, and reviews have tapered off. The final revision of the next book in the trilogy, The Reckoning, has been turned in to the publisher and I won’t see it again until the first pass pages—all typeset and looking like they will in the final product—are sent to me in late January. Which means I should have my days free to work on the third book, The Descent.

And I am. In fact, I started writing it during the lull between when I turned in the first version of The Reckoning to my editor and when I got her comments back. So I’m returning to a work-in-progress, not an entirely blank sheet (thankfully). I’m learning that a writer’s job is far more than just writing the book.

There’s still business to attend to, for the publication of the trade paperback version of The Taker and the hardcover of The Reckoning. The publishing business works months and months in advance, and it seems there’s a never-ending succession of pieces to review and approve. For a trade paperback, there’s what’s known as front and back matter to approve.

Front matter consists of praise generated from the hardcover release, blurbs and quotes from reviews meant to entice a reader into buying the book. Back matter are the bonus materials: the Reading Group Guide and a teaser chapter from the next book. In the case of ebook version of The Taker, a chapter from The Reckoning was included, but as it turns out a different chapter has been chosen as the teaser for the trade paperback, so there’s a chance for readers to see quite a bit of the next book.

You get to review and approve front and back matter twice: first in softcopy, and then later in typeset pages.

Before this stage, there was jacket copy to approve, which gets used in one form or another in advance materials, too, such as the publisher’s catalog, and advertisements. As the author, you get a chance to review this, too and I’d argue that next to the book itself, this is the single most important piece for the author to pay attention to, as it’s what most people will use—whether the book buyer for a store or a reader—to decide whether to take a chance on your book.

And while all this wordsmithing is going on, there’s the cover art to consider. But this is so important that I’ll discuss it in a separate post.

NaNoWriMo #30: Five Top Tips, and Moving Mountains With Story

2011-11-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

Last day of NaNoWriMo! I’m going to put up the last couple of pieces of advice contributed by our published authors, and in the next couple of days I’ll do a little wrap-up.

First up today is Elizabeth Miles, author of FURY. She wrote a great post recently with her top five writing tips, and is allowing me to reprint it here.

“After not using a Power Point or any type of formal presentation for the first set of tour stops with Becca and Moira, I finally decided to create one before I met BF in Toronto at the end of October. I found that it helped me stay on target while talking to school groups. In addition to the requisite "childhood embarrassing photo" and info about FURY, I included five writing tips at the end. My little gimmick (you gotta have one...)? All of them contain the word "out." Here's what I mean:

1) Spill it OUT.

Staring at a blank page (slash screen) is the absolute worst. Get something on there, even if it's crap (and some of it won't be). As some of you know, I know an editor who calls this "word-vomming." Whatever you want to call it, don't fall prey to the belief/personal expectation that your first attempt is going to be great, or even that good. Words beget more words, beget more (and better) ideas. Skip around, if that'll help - if you love writing dialogue, get some of that down and then come back to the exposition. If setting the scene is your thing, do that before you start hammering out plot details…” (read the rest of this post here)

Next is Karen Dionne, author of eco-thrillers BOILING POINT and FREEZING POINT. She’s also the co-founder of Backspace, the online writers hangout. And I do mean hangout: everyone from NYT bestsellers to the newest aspiring writer congregates in the forums, swapping advice, news, and support. She’s also very active in International Thriller Writers. But most importantly, she should know that Karen is one of the sweetest and most supportive people in the writing community, and a great person to have in your corner.

“Don't be afraid to move mountains. Accuracy and research are important, but the story has to come first - always.” Karen’s advice is spot-on. Without a great story—something that intrigues readers and makes them keep turning the pages—you have nothing.

NaNoWriMo: Write a Great Book, Watch a Good Movie

2011-11-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

We’re in the homestretch of National Novel Writing Month. We’re down to our last few tips, too. Today’s tip is a really good one and it’s from Alia Yunis, author of the amazing novel The Night Counter, a clever retelling of the Scheherazade story. As you’ll see when you get to the tip below, Alia has also spent a lot of time working in the film industry, and she’s currently a freelance journalist and a professor of film and television. I had the great fortune to meet Alia at Squaw Valley Writers Conference last summer. Alia is a great person to spend a weekend with! (Let me give a little shout out for Squaw, if you’re looking for a writer’s conference to hone your skills. Check it out.)

“What came first—the novel or the screenplay? In world history and in most agent deals, the book came first. Not a trick question. The trick is for the writer of the novel to appreciate the screenplay while he or she is writing her book. I spent years toiling in LA in the screenwriting trade, as a writer and as a script analyst. There are days when I wish for the sake of my soul and sanity I had run away in half the time it took me to make the decision to leave. But when I sit at my computer writing, I am grateful to the screenplays I wrote and the hundreds and hundreds of scripts I read and movies I watched.

“Freedom of speech does not apply to screenwriting, at least when it comes to structure. Your three act structure, plot points, turning points, back stories, narrative description, and dialogue falls within a limited set of pages—or on screen running minutes. So when I find my novel just wandering along without a plot, without stakes and turning points, I take a break and watch a good movie. It gives my eyes a rest, but it also gives me a chance to map out my story. I outline the script of the film I’m watching, and that gets me thinking about plot in my own novel, and then I’m ready to go again. Indeed, screenwriting doesn’t allow for the freedom and creativity that novel writing does, but for the novelist struggling with too much freedom, taking a break to watch a movie can help give your freedom purpose.”

NaNoWriMo #24: The Importance of Connecting

2011-11-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

Not only can you stumble on your way to logging your daily word count during NaNoWriMo: you can stumble trying to do a daily post. Sorry for missing a day or two. I’m afraid it’s going to continue over the holiday weekend as I try to juggle turkey dinner, reviewing the copyedited pages from the publisher, and experimenting with a Facebook ad campaign.

Last week I went to hear Rebecca York address the Maryland chapter of Romance Writers of America. Rebecca has had a long career as a writer. Not only has she written many romance novels, she’s also written cookbooks, non-fiction, and mysteries.

I have known Rebecca—or I should say, I have known of her—for a long time for, you see, I worked in the same federal agency as her husband. He has always been proud of her work and I’d heard about her writing thirty years ago, when I just started on the job. She was one of the few people I’d ever met who earned their living writing novels, and has been an inspiration of mine all this time. We met in person a few years ago at a writer’s conference when I told her I knew her husband—and lo and behold, he was sitting in a chair a couple tables behind me! (I can’t tell you how heartwarming it is to see the two of them together nowadays, as Norm goes with Rebecca—or Ruth, to use her real name—to all her conferences.)

I had just reached out to Ruth to ask her advice about something and she invited me to her talk to the Maryland group. I’ve been struggling with writing my second book and wondering if I’d been doing everything all wrong, and so it was the perfect time to go see Ruth: she was to talk about the lessons she’d learned from her long writing career. I think all writers today are struggling to figure out what’s best for them given the sea of options that now face us, and it was generous of Ruth to share her thoughts.

I’ll write about her advice in future posts, but the point I wanted to make today is that you can get advice about writing and publishing everywhere on the Internet lately, it seems. The authenticity of some of that advice is suspect, however. It’s easy to present yourself as an expert in the virtual world. There is no substitute for listening to someone who has weathered change and can put it all in perspective, smartly.

I’m sure somewhere in your area there are writers groups. People who get together once a month to critique each other’s work, bring in outside speakers, and keep each other inspired and informed. I urge you to join one of these groups, no matter how shy and introverted you are. As much as the world of books live in our heads, in order to get beyond writing for yourself, you have to connect to the outside world, and the best connections are the flesh and blood ones.

I think that must be why the NaNoWriMo write-ins are so popular: it gives you a chance to work in the company of other people like you, and to make connections in what is otherwise a lonely pursuit. Just don’t let it stop with NaNoWriMo. Join a critique group or writer’s organization, continue your education as a writer, and make friends who will help sustain you over the long haul.

NaNoWriMo #22: Pouring It Out

2011-11-22T05:22:00.000-08:00

Today’s bit of inspiration comes from Alan Orloff. In addition to being the author of standalone and series mystery novels—Diamonds for the Dead, Killer Routine and, coming in January, Deadly Campaign—he’s also a writing instructor at The Writer’s Center in MD/VA/DC. You can read Alan’s blog here, or follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

“BICFOK – Butt in Chair, Fingers on Keyboard. The only way to get a finished manuscript is to finish it! Set up a schedule: daily, five-days-a-week, whatever, and stick to it. Do your time! Finish your quota! Eventually, you’ll have a first draft. It may stink, but then it’s time to really get to work—revisions!”

Alan’s advice gives me the opportunity to bring up Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird, a great (and well-known) resource for writers. Her chapter “Shitty First Drafts” is a must-read. It explains why you need to give yourself permission to pour it out on the page for the first draft and is a perfect complement to what Alan said.

NaNoWriMo #21: Ruminating on Your Writing

2011-11-21T05:28:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been faithfully participating in NaNoWriMo, you’re probably thinking about your novel all the time: while you’re driving the car or loading laundry into the washing machine. Good! You’ve now incorporated an important writing technique into your subconscious. Today, Elizabeth Miles, author of the hot hot hot YA novel Fury is going to tell you how to tap into your subconscious and extract the gems. In addition to writing fiction, Elizabeth is a reporter for the Portland Phoenix. You can find out more about her Fury series here, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

“When I'm required to write a lot in a short period of time, or when I'm on a tight deadline, or when I'm faced with a plot dilemma that I need to sort out before I can move forward with my story, I try to ruminate on my writing even when I'm not at my desk. Before I fall asleep, when I'm walking to work, in the shower, or in my car, I'll set the scene in my head and turn it over in a kind of meditative way. It's almost like the scene is a rock and I try to make my thoughts the stream, running over and around it, finding new crevices, new ways to maneuver around it. I don't force it. If certain words or ideas come to me, I find a way to write them down (this leads to lots of scribbled notes on the backs of envelopes and receipts :). When I do this, I come back to my computer with a new, slightly fresher perspective, sometimes some new words or solutions, and at the very least, more time thinking about my story, which can never hurt.”

NaNoWriMo #20: Show Up

2011-11-20T05:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so today’s tip isn’t technically going to help you with your NaNoWriMo project. But at least a few of you are new to writing, and after NaNoWriMo is over, will want to continue. Part of the reason I decided to go these tips for NaNoWriMo is to give glimpses into the writer’s life. Chances are, most of you are trying in the hope of being published one day. And there is more to being published than writing the book. The writing is the most important part, of course: don’t put the cart before the horse. There’s the writing—and then there’s everything else: reading and continuing to work at craft, becoming part of the writer’s community, building a network to help sustain you, pursuing publication.

Have you been to an author event lately? Whether at a book festival, or a reading in a bookstore, make it a point to go to at least two live events a year. Why?

If you aspire to being a professional writer one day, you’re going to have to talk about your work eventually. You’re going to have to read out loud from your book. You need to see how others do it. And it helps to be there, in the flesh, and soak up all the atmospherics and to get a feel for how it’s done and what to expect.
If you consider yourself part of the community of writers, you need to help support that community. Bookstore appearances are important for authors for more than the opportunity to meet their readers. It gives authors a chance to get their name on posters and newspaper ads that are read by people who won’t be attending the event itself. It gives authors a chance to get to know booksellers, which is incredibly important, because if a bookseller doesn’t know about your book, he won’t recommend it to customers. I heard while on tour this September that the average number of people who attend a bookstore event is nine, and that’s the average from the newest of debut authors to the big names. The number of people who attend live events is dwindling to the point where such events may be in jeopardy for all but the most well-known authors. Let bookstore owners know you appreciate these events by attending them. And bring a friend with you.

Some people think that author events in bookstores will go away because they are so poorly attended. I think that would be a shame, and not because I’m one of those people who think we should continue tradition for it’s own sake. It’s because the experience you get from a live event is fundamentally different from what you get from reading. It enriches the experience of reading. It enriches your relationship to your chosen pastime. So please get out there and attend a live book event as part of your development as a writer.

NaNoWriMo #19: Improving Your Writing Through Reading

2011-11-18T20:30:00.000-08:00

Today’s writing tip is: read. To be a better writer, you have to read, and read with a purpose. (Okay, Alex Berenson raised this point a few days ago, but I’m going to expound on it today.)

You learn to write better by reading good writing. You can take courses, listen to writers speak, read how-to books, but in the end, in order to become fluent in storytelling, you must read.

I was at a talk given by Rebecca York last night (more on that in the coming days) and she summed it up best: to become a better writer, you need to figure out what you’re good at, and what you’re not so good at. Then, find the writers who are good at the things you’re not good at, and read them.

If you’ve been meeting your NaNoWriMo quota, by now you probably have a good idea of which elements are your weakest. Do you have a problem with dialogue? Read someone renown for her dialogue, like Elmore Leonard. Do you plots tend to be anemic? The answer here will depend on your genre, but if you’re looking for a place to start, try reading award-winners (the winner of the Edgar for best novel, for instance, or a book that made “best mysteries of the year” for more than one publication).

For problems with openings and weak endings, one of my favorite tricks is to sit down in front of my bookcase of favorite reads and to go through books at random, reading their first and last pages, studying the author’s technique. Put aside the ones that work best in your opinion, then go back and read the first and last chapters.

Some folks worry that they’ll inadvertently “lift” from the book they’re reading, and transplant a character or a subplot into the story they’re writing. I say if you find you’re doing this, you’re not analyzing the story you’re reading deeply enough. You want to uncover the writer’s technique, not that you found (for example) a particular character enjoyable, but you want to figure out how the author was able to make the character well-rounded. How the author was able to given that character dimension. What about the character made her come alive to you.

So, to recap: if you writing is feeling a bit beleaguered, try reading.

NaNoWriMo #18: How Does She Do It?

2011-11-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

How do you do it? Isn’t that the question we’re most often asked, as writers? The one we most often ask each other when we get together? What’s your process? How do you capture lightning in a bottle? Did what worked for you for the first novel work the second time around? How do you keep track of all your subplots—software, index cards, post-it notes, scribbles on paper napkins? Personally, I’m especially intrigued by organized writers, the ones who come up with methodical approaches to the messiness that is writing.

Today’s tip is from Miranda Parker. I met Miranda—or Dee as she’s known—at the Decatur Book Festival, where she was volunteering as a stage manager. She writes the Angel Crawford Bounty Hunter series for Kensington Books, and is a member of International Thriller Writers (ITW) Debut Class of 2012. Just as she rolled up her sleeves to help out at Decatur, she volunteered to run The Thrill Begins blog for ITW—she’s that kind of person, always ready to pitch in when it’s something she believes in, and hence, someone who knows how to manage her time. You can follow her on Facebook here.

“As you get deeper into the month you may find your story is floundering or you have no clue what to write today. I use a weekly plot schedule. The plot schedule is broken down into 4 acts for the 4 weeks. Week 1 my objective is to get the intro done and to get my main character to the inciting incident. Week Two I'm focused on getting my character to the quest and then to a surprise she discovers about herself once she gets what she think she wants. The other weeks fall into my major plot points with the last week, of course focusing on the climax and the conclusion. Having this objective to meet by every Sunday gives me a point of reference. If I have a day that's too busy to get a great deal of words in, I still know where I need to be at the end of that week.”

NaNoWriMo #17: Permission to Take a Breather

2011-11-17T04:44:00.000-08:00

Today’s tip is from Jennifer Haupt, writing for magazines and author of books of non-fiction and fiction. She writes a blog, One True Thing, for Psychology Today, and is one of the bloggers at the reading website, Reader Unboxed, and is the author of the upcoming book, I'll Stand By You: Changing the World, One Child at a Time (Dutton, 2012). What I find amazing about Jennifer is her attitude. She defines herself: “I’m fascinated by how people define, discover, and pursue something more. I write about all aspects of passion—from travel and food, to putting more heart in your home, to relationships and parenting, to the many different ways we each approach the quest to become part of something larger than our own lives. It's all about making meaningful connections.” She has a profound interest in other people in a no-judging way that, to me, is intensely spiritual. So when Jennifer speaks, I listen.

“STOP Writing! Don't be afraid to stop the madness for a day or two and evaluate what you've actually put down on paper. I know the idea is to just write your brains out, but sometimes taking a breather and letting the manuscript simmer takes greater discipline and is actually a great development tool for your story.”

NaNoWriMo #16: Practice Kindness

2011-11-16T04:37:00.000-08:00

Today’s tip is from Rebecca Coleman, author of the recently released, highly regarded The Kingdom of Childhood. Rebeeca, a daring and talented writer, is one of the friendliest people I know. What she has to say today is very important, and if you don’t have this particular knack, you might want to start working on it now. It extends to everyone you meet on your publishing journey, from your professional partners (editor, agent, everyone at your publisher’s house) to each and every reader, because each of these people has taken time from their lives to do something for you. And in this day, that's an increasingly rare thing. You can follow Rebecca’s blog here, or follow her on Facebook here and Twitter here.

"Be friendly. Be kind. How is that a writing tip? Because when you're *this close* to getting a publishing contract, the agent and then the editor want to talk to you on the phone. Your people skills are part of what helps them decide if they want to represent you or work with you-- because believe me, they have a very large pool from which to choose. If an author shows she is easy to work with, she's a safer bet for the publisher, who will often put more money behind her book because they know she won't let her ego compromise her relationship with her editor. And once you have that contract in your hands, you're going to need cover blurbs from published authors, and people to promote your book on their blogs and mention it in their guest posts or interviews. If you've been kind to people along the way, this will happen easily and naturally. So when you come across idiotic posts in writing forums, learn to roll your eyes rather than fire off a snarky reply. You're going to need that skill, anyway, once your book is published and you enter the wonderful world of getting reviewed."

Pardon this commercial interruption, but I want to let you know that the price on the ebook of my novel, The Taker (Simon & Schuster), is $4.99 for a limited time. A great gift for the holidays.

An American Library Association-Booklist Top Ten Debut of 2011

A Cosmo UK Pick of the Week

Kindle Nook iTunes

NaNoWriMo #15: Ignoring the Siren Call of the Internet

2011-11-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

Today we have two authors with the same message. I’m putting them together to also contrast writing styles. Alex Berenson is the NYT bestselling author of spy novels, the most recent being The Secret Soldier. Alex, a former reporter for the New York Times, started his career as a novelist after being deployed in Afghanistan for the newspaper. Thrillers need to be punchy and direct, compelling readers to keep turning those pages, as witnessed by Alex’s crisp advice, below. You can follow Alex on Facebook here and Twitter here.

"Turn off your wireless connection. And read."

Our second tipster is Kristina Yoshida McMorris. Kristina is the author of Letters From Home, historical women’s fiction. Her novel has been widely embraced by readers across genres and is beloved by book clubs, which are hotly anticipating the release of her second novel, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves. Here you get a sense of Kristina's more conversational writing style, and she gives practical advice on how to disentangle yourself from the Internet. You can follow Kristina on Facebook here and Twitter here.

“Pull the plug! To the Internet, that is. Turn off the modem, the router, whatever it takes to disconnect you from Cyber World so you can focus on the writing. And if your cell phone does anything more than make phone calls (unless it makes margaritas, of course), turn that off too. There's so much distracting 'noise' out there (FB! Twitter! Squirrel! Shiny!), like an army of techno-gremlins determined to keep you from reaching your final word count. Don't give them the chance. And if going cold-turkey is as terrifying as skydiving without a parachute (or a Blackberry), wean in doses and with mini-goals: type for 30 minutes = read new e-mails; finish the scene = check updates on Tweetdeck. Whatever it takes to disconnect, freeing your mind to focus, dare to take the plunge.”

NaNoWriMo #14: Essential Online Resources

2011-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Today is November 14^th, about halfway through the month. It’s official: whether you’re at the 25,000 word point in your book or not, you’ve hit “the sagging middle.” For most writers, the sagging middle is not a fun place to be. It will require a lot of attention—unsentimental evaluation, tightening, finding ways to up the tension. But not today. Today you are plowing ahead, continuing to put words on paper, playing out the story as it exists in your head.

Today’s tip falls into the category of inspiration. Whenever we take on a new endeavor, we live in hope. Hope that this time, things will work out. Hope that this is the story idea that catches fire. To fuel that hope, I’m listing some online resources for your onward journey as a writer. Resources that will not only help you revise your NaNoWriMo novel when November is over, but will provide insights into the community of writers.

This is a short list, the online resources that are required reading in my opinion. And it doesn’t begin to explore the book blogger community, or sites for book reviews. Have a favorite you don’t see here? Add it in the comments section and share your knowledge.

Backspace: an online water cooler for working writers. Need a place to ask a question of other writers or a publishing professional? Want to compare experiences with someone who has been there? Look no further.

Beyond the Margins: a lit blog written by authors who came out of the Grub Street writer’s center in Boston. Great advice, insights on every step of the writer’s journey.

Boxing the Octopus: a collection of writers and professionals in the publishing industry share their insights and advice.

Galley Cat: All the news in the publishing community here. A good place to catch the daily zeitgeist of New York publishing circles.

Guide to Literary Agents: Chuck Sambuchino’s blog for Writer’s Digest will help you find the literary agent that’s right for you.

How A Novel Gets Published: Want to know what it’s like to go from selling your first book to publication day? Meg Waite Clayton captured her experiences every step of the way, and provides thoughtful insights throughout.

Publisher’s Lunch: the daily free newsletter from this publishing industry trade resource. It’s subscription counterpart, Publisher’s Marketplace, is a great research tool when you’re putting together your strategy for querying.

Publisher’s Weekly: provides a daily email to the publishing industry.

Shelf Awareness: provides a daily newsletter to the trade, with a focus on booksellers. Also produces a twice weekly version geared toward readers.

Writer Unboxed: a roster of publishing professionals give advice on all aspect of the writing life, including super agent Don Maass and author of The Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry.

NaNoWriMo #13: Perseverance and Patience

2011-11-13T05:35:00.000-08:00

Today, I’m featuring two great writers of women’s fiction, Jael McHenry and Ann Hite. I met both these women through my publisher—we’re all published by the same imprint, Gallery Books at Simon and Schuster—and both have been wonderful friends ever since. (And there’s a mini-tip for you for down the road: it’s important to make friends in this business, just as in any business.)

Jael McHenry’s debut novel, The Kitchen Daughter, is about a woman who discovers she can call up ghosts by cooking from dead people’s recipes. Described as Julia & Julia meets Jodi Picoult, The Kitchen Daughter garnered rave reviews and was a book pick of O, the Oprah’s magazine. Jael has a blog which you can follow here, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.

“Don't expect a final product from your first draft. I often get discouraged in the early stages of writing because the book is completely perfect in my head, and then it doesn't turn out nearly as well when I start writing it down! But you can't get to a second draft if you never finish the first. Keep at it.”

Ann Hite’s Ghost on Black Mountain “twists folklore with the genres of Southern Gothic, paranormal and literary fiction like a fine, fat pretzel, a guilty pleasure after midnight,” says the Alabama Mobile Register. Ann also is the author of numerous short stories and book reviews, a self-professed “book junkie” and generous as all get-out. You can follow her blog here.

"Listen to your characters! I know it sounds crazy, but characters know so much more than the writers that created them. When you’re in the shower, walking, or just dropping off to sleep, a character will reach out to tell you something important or not so important about the book where he or she appears. Listen. And you just might learn something."

NaNoWriMo #12: Recapturing Your Sense of Wonder

2011-11-12T04:43:00.000-08:00

Today we have a piece of inspiration from Michael David Lukas, whose much-praised debut novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, is the story of preternaturally intelligent girl who becomes an adviser to the Ottoman sultan and changes the course of history. Michael’s piece today, about rejuvenating your imagination—in this case, children—was originally published in Publishers Weekly.

"Excuse me, Mr. Michael. Excuse me." A tiny third grader with short, curly brown hair and a mouthful of braces, Anna B. waved her hand with the force of an outboard motor. Before calling on her, I looked around the room to see if any of my less talkative students had their hands up. At the back table, Jason was hunched over his notebook, chewing the sleeve of his sweatshirt as he doodled a grisly battle between ghost robots and mutant vegetables. To my right, a shy, red-haired girl named Mackenzie was watching the class rabbit chew through a pencil she had stuck into its cage. "I just thought you would want to know," Anna B. burst out, doing her best to stifle a fit of giggles. "That someone farted."  

Welcome to creative writing class at Thornhill Elementary School. When I first took the job, teaching after-school classes at Thornhill, I saw it as a stopgap, something temporary to help pay the bills. Little did I know Jason, Mackenzie, Anna B., and the rest of the third graders at Thornhill would help pull me out of the quarter-life quicksand into which I was sinking.  

I had just turned 30, had just moved back home, and was feeling like the punch line of a bad joke. While I looked for a "real job," I was supposed to be finishing the novel I had spent the past six years working on, but that wasn't going very well either. Every time I sat down to write I hit a wall, paralyzed by fear of failure and the possibility that I had wasted six years of my life. Who would want to read a book about a little girl who becomes an adviser to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire? Worrying about the future, I had lost touch with my sense of wonder and possibility, the very reason I was writing the novel in the first place…” [read more]

NaNoWriMo #11: Finding the Story in What You've Written

2011-11-11T04:33:00.000-08:00

One phrase I heard a lot once I sold my book was that “writing is a marathon, not a sprint.” It applies to so many aspects of a writer’s life, and provides a bit of solace whenever you run into a short-term disappointment: a bit of luck that doesn’t turn your way, not being selected for an award or recognition, and especially—as you’ll read below—when it comes to finding the story.

Today’s tip comes from John Milliken Thomson, whose most recent book, The Reservoir, a historical mystery set in Richmond in the post-Civil War era, rightly earned accolade after accolade when it came out earlier this year. John is a working journalist and the author of several highly-regarded works of non-fiction. He’s the consummate writing professional, and I’m thrilled to have him on the blog today. You can follow him on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.

“I think the value of NaNoWriMo is that it gives writers confidence that they can complete a long piece of fiction, like a first-time marathoner realizing that, after all, he actually can run mileages in the double digits. The paradox, it seems to me, is that you have to be confident not just that you can write long but that you can abandon a work that's going nowhere. Many writers I know get 50-100 pages in and realize that their story has no forward momentum. On my latest novel, I probably wrote 30,000 words before I realized I was writing about the wrong people; I dialed the story back 50 years and started again. I felt like I'd struck gold, and had no problem writing 150,000 words.

A writer completing the NaNoWriMo challenge, if she doesn't burn out, will have either a good jumpstart on a novel or several ideas that she can follow up on. Of course, the real work begins from there. I have a friend who is a week into the challenge and already has realized things about novels and novel writing that he never had before. He said he had no idea how hard it was just to put together a coherent story, let alone give it pathos, humor, meaning, interesting characters, and all the other things that go into a good novel.

Writing 50,000 words in a month may not be many writers' ideal pace, but there's no doubt it'll give you a taste of what lies ahead if you see the novel through to publication. My advice, though probably not what people want to hear mid-month, is: Don't be afraid to drop those 50,000 words and start over. After all, this is a marathon, and you've just started training.”

NaNoWriMo #10: Getting to Know Your Characters

2011-11-10T05:40:00.000-08:00

Today’s tip comes from international bestselling novelist MJ Rose. She’s the author of 13 books—most recently the Hypnotist and The Book of Lost Fragrances, forthcoming—where the suspense comes from exploration of the individual’s personal unknown. Her novels ask the question, what lies beyond the edge of our own consciousness? Her books are full of wonder and mystery and beauty in all its forms. Her novel, The Reincarnationist, was the basis for a television series on CBS, Past Life.

In addition to her writing, MJ Rose uses her extensive background in advertising to help fellow writers, through her blog Buzz, Balls and Hype and her service AuthorBuzz, which gets books a little time in thousands and thousands of the right blogs, newsletters and websites. She is generous with her time and expertise in both the book and advertising worlds, and dear reader, if you hope to get into the book business, you really must follow MJ. And you can do that on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

“If you get stuck don't just vomit out more of the book. It is okay to stop. Most writers blocks issues come from not knowing your character well enough - so stop and take a walk and interview your main character. Or take her shopping. Or to a musuem. Talk to her and ask her what her issues are - what she's scared of - what she wants - why she's being elusive? Listen hard to the answers - so many times for me the character's revelations allow me to keep writing. And oh - have fun!!!”

NaNoWriMo #9: Finding Time to Write

2011-11-09T04:37:00.000-08:00

I’m honored to have Tananarive Due here for today’s writing tip. Tananarive is the very model of a professional writer: she’s written or co-authored thirteen books, from the ABA-award winning The Living Blood and her African immortals series (of which My Soul to Take is the latest), to mysteries with actor Blair Underwood, to non-fiction and screenplays. And her writing is consistently superb, genre-stretching, rich. She’s worked as a journalist and is now a professor at Spelman College. Tananarive has a blog on writing you can follow here, and you can find news on her releases and upcoming events here.

“Too often, writers believe that they can only work if they have a huge block of writing time carved out of the day, preferably in a cabin or on a beach. While it would be great if all writers could work at writers' retreats, most of us are juggling our writing, our day jobs and our loved ones. (Spouses may be understanding, but children have a harder time thriving under a faraway gaze.)

When I wrote full-time, I had the luxury of four-hour blocks for nothing but writing. But now that I'm teaching full-time at Spelman College, I'm having to teach myself how to write in the cracks again. Would I prefer to have an hour or two uninterrupted? Sure, but sometimes thirty minutes--or even fifteen--will do. Sometimes I have to write on my laptop instead of in my office, shutting away the television noise.

I was trained as a journalist, so I don't believe in pampering one's Muse. Yes, promise her breaks and a treat, but she has to show up on a schedule just like the rest of us.

Too often, we are lying when we say we don't have the time to write. It may not be the "perfect" time, but any time will do.”

NaNoWriMo #8: Books on Craft

2011-11-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Don’t forget to put time aside for inspiration. You may not have time to read a book on the craft of writing NOW, but here are a few to consider ordering from your local bookstore in December:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: a classic for good reason. Superb writing advice and inspiration. Go to Squaw Valley Writers Conference and get to hear her in person.

On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner: another classic. Still taught in every writing program in the country, I bet. Will remind you to keep your expectations realistic.

Steering the Craft by Ursula LeGuin: also a classic. Nuts and bolts lessons and exercises to improve your writing. Indispensible.

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose: you must be able to analyze other writers’ work in order to understand how to put together a story. This book will teach you how.

The Art of Subtext by Charles Baxter: one of The Art Of series, this one is particularly good at teaching you about weaving overtones and undertones into your fiction. If your story seems one-dimensional, you might want to read this.

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neill: do your plots lack narrative drive? Not enough oomph? One of my professors at Hopkins recommended this book. Makes plotting crystal clear.

NaNoWriMo #7: Writing as part of your life

2011-11-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I wanted to do something for NaNoWriMo is because in many ways, it’s not so different from the life of every working writer. I think after the initial surge, you’ll find it’s less about plunging ahead pell-mell as it is about finding a rhythm and learning to trust your instincts, whether it’s over a character that doesn’t seem quite right or a thread that looks to be going nowhere. Every day, you have the challenge of working with words on page, and creating or sustaining magic while at the same time being as efficient as possible with your time and energy.

Today’s tip is from Nichole Bernier. I'm so pleased Nichole is joining us today: every aspiring writer can learn a thing or two from Nichole. In addition to writing her forthcoming debut novel, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D, Nicole has written for a slew of magazines and has been a long-time contributing editor for Conde Nast’s Traveler. She is one of a group of writers who run Beyond the Margins, a lit blog that provides some of the best writing advice on the web. She manages to do all this and raise her young family. You can follow her tweets here.

“It’s easy to be self-conscious about the pace of your writing, amid the hype of NaNoWriMo and watching the speed of other writers. But completing a novel isn’t a roadrace; there’s no expectation that you finish within a certain amount of time. The important thing is making your characters always a part of your thinking even if writing can’t always be a part of your day. I found that setting a weekly goal of 2,500 words was doable with writing sessions whenever I could grab them—nights, weekends, early mornings, kids’ naptimes. That was also a goal forgiving enough that I could have a day be a bust without killing the week. It’s also a matter of saying no to the other ways you could be spending your time. For writers with multifaceted lives and responsibilities, many other hobbies and pastimes (hello, exercise, television) might go out the window. It’s about choices.”

NaNoWriMo #6: Revising Your Plans

2011-11-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

Always have a smiley face in your story schematic

Day Six of NaNoWriMo. Nearly a week down, three and a half to go. By now, you may be asking yourself questions: can I do this? Maybe you’ve fallen behind on your word count. Maybe you’ve written yourself into a corner. Maybe your protagonist is turning out to be less interesting than he original promised and the villain is threatening to take over the story. What if you need to revise your NaNoWriMo goals? Don’t break out in a cold sweat. Valerie Patterson, author of YA novel The Other Side of Blue, is here to help.

Setting a Goal:

The goal is to keep moving ahead on a project, and not try to revise as you go. Treat Nov as permission to just write and send the editor away. If you need to note where something isn't working, or where a scene needs to be inserted, or you're changing a character's name...just put a sticky note on a print out...or an e-insert in word and move on.

At the same time, the goal should also be realistic. Things happen....work, health, children, an editor says revise your old novel, etc. If a novel in a month is too much (well, yes, sometimes it is), there's no reason not to create a goal of your own that is realistic but still a challenge.

Okay, So How much?

1. An entire manuscript. The official NaNoWriMo goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. 200 pages. That's an average of 1666.66 words a day. About 6.6 pages a day.

2. A partial manuscript. A "half NaNoWriMo"--kind of like a half marathon. 100 pages. 3 1/3 pages a day on average. Not easy but easier.

3. A detailed outline. In her Book in a Month (BIAM) author Victoria Schmidt suggested if life is too much at the moment, don't try to write huge chunks. Instead, focus on a detailed outline instead. You could write the outline in the same basic frame that she suggests for a novel in a month. Week 1=Act 1. Weeks 2 &3=Act II. Week 4=Act III.

4. Revise a manuscript using same basic format. Week 1=Act 1. Weeks 2&3=Act II. Week 4=Act III.

5. Write 10 key scenes. Another suggestion Schmidt suggests in her 30-day plan is on day 1 to write a one-sentence summary...On day two she suggests writing scene outlines. Based on her days as a filmmaker, she thinks the best movies have about 10-20 scenes total. In a novel she suggests developing the story's ten KEY scenes--"opening scene, turning points scenes, climatic scene, etc." There may be more scenes of course interspersed...but like a pearl necklace, the key scenes are the pearls...and the knots are the connecting scenes that may be needed later. Scenes are not chapters...unless a chapter is just one scene. Index cards are good, placing characters/setting/tone/mood/and scene objective on each card.

Bottom Line: Set a goal for yourself and stick to it. Mark your progress on the calendar set up just for November. Encourage your writing group members to meet their goals. AIm for a celebration at the end of the month. Celebrate all successes--whether 50,000 words or something else.

First NaNoWriMo weekend: how will you spend it? Tip #5

2011-11-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

The first NaNoWriMo weekend is upon us. How will you spend it? Sure, the errands are calling, there’s a mountain of laundry taller than Mt. Etna and Boardwalk Empire on Sunday night (yay) but don’t let that throw you off track. Figure out a small reward you can give yourself—see the second tip, below—at the end of your daily writing session.

Our first tip is from Sarah McCoy, author of The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico and the forthcoming and highly anticipated The Baker’s Daughter. You can find Sarah on Facebook here, Twitter here and Goodreads here.

"Don’t be afraid of the trash. Make friends with it. Name it. I call mine Basura. That’s just “trash” in Spanish, but the foreignness of the word makes it sound like an exotic place—like I’ve sent those stories to a deserted island, a Neverland where the characters drink from coconuts and play in the surf instead of doing the hard work of growing up. And like Peter Pan and his posse, maybe they will some day. That’s the beauty of Basura. It’s not necessarily a permanent exile. In years to come, a plane of inspiration might fly by and one of the stories might decide it’s ready to leave the island. Other stories may laugh at it and warn that the real world is harsh and full of savage red pens, but it’s made up its mind. It’s felt the calling. After years of rest, that might be its time to develop. I would’ve certainly killed it, smothered it in its infancy, had I been too afraid to let it go—too afraid to close the document and send it to Basura."

Here’s my tip, and it has to do with bribery (also known as a coping mechanism for procrastination, the scourge of writers):

“Reward yourself. The urge to procrastinate will be strong. It will tear at your veins sometimes, cajoling you to get up from your keyboard and break the trance. When this happens, give yourself a deadline—say, writing for 15 minutes more—and a small reward (a snuggle with your pet, a few rows of knitting)—and then go back to work. Or, set aside a reward for the end of your writing time: a pumpkin muffin, that television episode waiting on the DVR, a walk in the woods. Of course, this strategy doesn’t work for the completely impetuous (or impatient.) Know which one works for you: tiny rewards sprinkled throughout the day, or a bigger reward at the end of the session.”

NaNoWriMo #4: Character Driven

2011-11-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like a great character. Plot may be the story, but it’s the characters that make people fall in love with a novel.

Today’s first tip is from Caroline Leavitt, NYT bestselling author of Pictures of You, which is kind of a study in character development itself. Caroline is the author of nine novels, has been published widely in magazines and newspapers, is an instructor for UCLA’s online writing program, and a book critic for the Boston Globe and People magazine. You can read her blog, CarolineLeavittville, here; follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

“Stuck with character development? Think like the Rolling Stones song. You don't want to give the character what he/she wants, but if they try sometimes, they might just get what they NEED.”

Our second tip is from mystery writer Alan Orloff. Alan’s first novel, Diamonds for the Dead, was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best First Mystery Novel. Killer Routine is the first in his Last Laff series, and the next book in the series, Deadly Campaign, will be published in January 2012. Alan is also an instructor at the DC area's magnet for writing, The Writer's Center. You can read Alan's blog here, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

“Finding age appropriate character names – Looking for a “popular” name to call your 97-year-old great grandmother character? Or perhaps you’re thinking about naming a two-year-old character Bertha—is that name still being used today? When deciding on character names appropriate for different-aged characters, I use an online tool provided by the Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ ). Simply type in a birth year, and it lists the most common names, male and female, of people born in that year. Conversely, if you are considering a certain name, type it in and you’ll get a list of how that name has varied in popularity over the years. Pretty cool! (By the way, Bertha hasn’t cracked the top 1000 names in the last 16 years. In 1911, it was the 36th most popular female name.)”

NaNoWri: Just Let Me Say This About That (and Tip #3)

2011-11-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, you may have noticed some people on the Internets writing against NaNoWriMo yesterday. Not on this blog, but elsewhere. A few blog posts by some prominent writers decrying the concept of sitting your ass in a chair until you got your requisite number of words written, every day for thirty days in a row. (Which is, you know, pretty much what you are taught in writing class: set a goal of so many words, try to write to that amount every day. For the rest of your life.)

This is your typical backlash, which happens whenever something becomes popular. I’m not a sociologist but I’m sure there’s a name for this phenomena in human behavior. It doesn’t matter what you take—motherhood, apple pie—someone is going to object to it. Being an analyst, I’d like to track and plot the see-sawing, pendulum-like cycles associated with this phenomena (and hence the poor graphic accompanying the post today): if n is the event, then n+ 2 shows the peak of the backlash cycle, while n + 4 shows with peak of the counter-backlash…

Nevermind. You get the idea.

That’s not to say these people aren’t entitled to their opinion. But opinions change. Like mine. When I first heard of NaNoWriMo years ago, I wasn’t into it. Because I was raised a Yankee and kind of self-righteous and a strict self-disciplinarian, I thought that people should just do this without the structure of a formal mechanism. (I suspect a lot of the critics are of a similar mindset or were raised by parents of a similar ilk.) Because I was “serious” about my writing and I was going to work at it every day and if I didn’t need a website to keep track of my daily totals to reinforce my behavior then gosh darn, you don’t need it either. (I sound like somebody's father, don't I?)

Then I learned, one day, that not everyone was like me. Just as I am an introvert and not social and would just as soon not go to parties, I learned that they are some people who are social and will do better if they get to engage with other people. Just as some people like to learn a new skill by themselves whiles other opt to take a class right away, and not everyone likes bran muffins or the feel of wool against their skin…for God’s sake, can we all just unclench our backsides?!? Live and let live.

Okay, since I don’t want to embarrass any of my friends by forcing their really wonderful tips to be seen in public alongside my little rant, I’ll only run one of my own. We’ll get back on track tomorrow. And here's the tip:

“Exercise your imagination. When you find need to make a choice in your story—the gender of the “sidekick,” the location of the mysterious hideaway, your protagonist’s age—consider going with the opposite of your initial inclination. Push yourself: that’s what makes writing an exciting experience. Don’t stop for research—I have my characters using a hydrofoil to get to the oil platform, but can a hydrofoil travel that distance…?—just write in your best guess and keep going. You can always change it in the revision stage (and oh yes, there will be a revision stage.) Avoid the trite and see what doors open in your imagined world.”

NaNoWriMo Tip #2

2011-11-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

(*"Friends"--get it?)

Day Two of National Novel Writing month. Chances are you’re still on a high from the work you did yesterday. Prose is singing in your head. You can’t wait to get back to the story you worked on, the scene fresh in your memory. The characters are like the best kind of new friends(*)—so funny, so charming! You can’t wait to be in their company again. You’re kind of in love with them. But you know the task ahead of you. You know this is a marathon, not a sprint. And if you aspire to be a professional writer, you might as well have that saying tattooed on a part of your part that you can look at easily, twenty times a day. In writing, it applies to more than the writing. It applies to every aspect of your career: it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Valerie Patterson is a middle-grade author. Patterson’s debut, The Other Side of Blue, is a literary novel with “a story tender and true...each word seems to shimmer”-- Han Nolan, winner of the National Book Award. Val’s website is here, and she is hard at work on her next novel.

“A key to productivity is making the most of your non-writing time. That's right--your non-writing time. When you're commuting or cooking or doing anything that doesn't involve sitting at the computer writing, be thinking about what happens in your novel. Take notes. Draft snatches of dialog. Before you go to sleep at night, put to your subconscious the puzzle of a plot conundrum Let your sub-conscious work for you in the off hours. All of this non-writing is geared to enhance flow when you do sit down to write.If nothing else, NaNoWriMo is all about maximizing flow.”

My tip of the day has to do with editing:

“Editing when you’re writing? Many pro writers start their daily writing session by rereading and editing the material they wrote the day before then writing the new material. It’s sort of like taking a running start at the day’s word count AND helps to reduce the editing/revision workload to come. Should you do this during NaNoWriMo? Depends on your discipline, and the amount of time you’ve set aside for writing every day. If you’ve met your word count and still have time, try polishing up a rough section.”

NaNoWriMo Tip #1

2011-10-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

National Novel Writing Month is upon us again! The time of year when writers take the pledge to write a complete novel--or a very big chunk of it--for 30 consecutive days. It's like running a marathon, so to give you a little encouragement, or inspiration, or just because misery loves company, some of my writer friends and I thought we'd share with you some things we learned over the course of writing our novels. Check back every day for a new tip or two from some of your favorite authors. And please feel free to leave comments, let us know how you're doing, something about the project you're undertaking. Believe me, by day 30, you're going to be a little giddy crazy. Let it out.

Our first tip is from Sarah Pekkanen. Sarah has two wonderful novels out now--The Opposite of Me and Skipping A Beat--and a third, These Girls ("Bittersweet, laugh-out-loud funny and painfully real"--Jodi Picoult) coming April 2012. You can find out more about Sarah and her books here. Or follow Sarah on Facebook here, or on Twitter here.

"If you have a good writing stretch, try to replicate the exact environment the next time you sit down to write. Steven King recommends this as a way to "trick" your brain into writing and avoid procrastinating, and it really works! I wandered into a coffee shop one morning while my son was in preschool and got a chunk of writing done. Now I hit that same coffee shop three mornings a week - I even go in through the same door and try to sit in the same table. And I've rarely been so productive, which is a good thing, since I'm under a tight deadline for my new novel. Another benefit of this coffee shop is they don't have Internet access - which saves me loads of time, since I'm not tempted to go on-line."

And here’s my tip of the day:

"Best time of day? Whatever time of day you’re currently getting your writing done. Now is not the time to switch if you’re already in a groove. But generally, pro writers seem to write first thing in the morning, and there’s something to it. The head is clearer, fresh thoughts bubble to the surface. And like exercise, it’s easier to get it done before life intrudes. I wrote The Taker at night, however, while my husband, a musician, was at gigs and the house was quiet. The lesson here: do whatever works for you NOW, think about changing your schedule when a. it stops working for you, and b. you have the disposable time on your calendar to ease into a change."

Finding the Story in Everything

2011-10-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago, my musician husband was playing an album by psychobilly artist Reverend Horton Heat and a song, “Four Hundred Bucks,” grabbed my attention. In the song, the singer lent—you guessed it—four hundred dollars to a woman he was seeing, and after that she dropped him and wouldn’t pay him back. Listening to the song, I had no doubt that the songwriter wrote the song based on something that had happened to him. Wow, I thought at the time; this guy can make a compelling song about anything.

That realization had a profound effect on me. As any reader of this magazine knows, finding an idea good enough to carry an entire story is hard. “Where do you get your ideas?” is a question authors often are asked because readers find the process so mystical. Of course, writers develop lots of ways to cultivate story ideas: we use writing prompts, or a photograph, a news story. We take a memorable experience from our own life or the lives of others, whether a family member or someone famous.

From the “Four Hundred Bucks” experience, I decided that to become a better storyteller, I would try to find the story in the day-to-day things that happened to me. What I’ve found, though, is that it’s not the incident itself that makes for a good story—though there’s no reason to pass up an unusual location, once-in-a-lifetime encounter, or great mystery that life tosses your way (waste not, want not seems to be a motto writers can live by.)

The key to turning everyday experiences into stories is the ability to find the universal appeal in the situation. What is it about this incident that everyone can relate to? For instance, what makes the Reverend Horton Heat song universal and compelling is not the “what”—the act of lending money to a friend—but the “so what”—the feeling of being taken advantage of. Even though the song is titled “Four Hundred Bucks,” it’s really about his frustration at being used and his inability to get this woman to do right by him, and that’s something we can all relate to.

In The Taker, characters are given the quality of immortality, but through uncommon means. They’re not made into vampires or Greek gods, or any of the other immortal types we’ve come to expect. In this story, immortality is a curse imposed on the wicked that binds them to spend eternity serving an implacable master, and so I was faced with the challenge of making readers think about immortality in a completely different way.

I found the answer from a time when I had a prolonged period of headaches and vertigo. For six months, I was constantly dizzy and had headaches so severe that my skull sometimes felt as though it would break apart.

From the brutal headaches came the ‘presence’ that connects the damned to the man who made them immortal. From the uncontrollable vertigo I had every day, I created sense of despair that comes with being given a sentence that must be endured for eternity, I knew I’d done a good job when my editor at Gallery Books told me you could really feel the protagonist’s pain and hopelessness at being trapped in this hellish version of immortality. It was my “Four Hundred Bucks” moment.

The Taker named one of best debut novels of 2011

2011-10-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

We've had some very good news recently: the American Library Association-Booklist named The TAKER one of the best debut novels of 2011. This is an honor I was not expecting, and am absolutely thrilled for the book to be recognized like this.

It's actually been an eventful week for The TAKER: Down East magazine, the magazine of Maine and one I remember from childhood, mentioned The Taker in its November issue. It's the one with Martha Stewart on the cover. (Trust me, this is the closest Martha Stewart & I will ever be seen together. It won't be for my housekeeping skills, that's for sure.)

Then Tesco, the huge grocery chain in the UK featured The Taker in its biweekly book highlight. Yay! Perfect timing, as the mass market paperback has just come out in the UK.

NYT bestselling novelist & awesome person Caroline Leavitt lets me talk about the gritty and sometimes unromantic but all-true nature of love over at her blog.

I'm in New England next week. I'm on the New Literary Voices panel at the Concord Festival of Authors, and will be reading and signing at Longfellow Books in Portland, ME on October 27th, and Jabberwocky Books in Newburyport, MA on October 28th. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you.

So Bad He's Good

2011-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

I saw over at Heroes and Heartbreakers that Anna Bowling had written a post about addition in male characters in historical romance. I thought it was an interesting point to raise, since it seems in general—speaking as someone who has researched vices throughout history pretty thoroughly for her own books—that addictions were tolerated to a greater extent in the old days.

Certainly legislation has something to do with it: it’s only in the modern era that governments have had this degree of oversight into our personal lives. Sure, in medieval times, you might’ve been a vassal on some lord’s property and he could take your life under certain circumstances, but he probably didn’t give a hoot whether you were drinking yourself to death as long as you paid up the bushels of wheat that you owed him. Even in the modern era, the only thing that concerned governments about opium was whether other countries would remain open to trade (see Britain, the Opium Wars With China.)

Okay, so this is an extension of my rant again predictable, anodyne characters, but who doesn’t love to read about a self-destructive character, male or female, saddled with a fiend of an opium addiction or whoring himself to death in the brothel? Oh sure, in real life you’d run from these people faster than the swine flu, but isn’t it fun to read about them while safely tucked in bed with a book, pillows and a good light?

Okay, now it’s your turn: who are your favorite rakes and libertines, books or movies? What about Captain James Macleane in Plunkett & Macleane?

His Story: Alexi Zenter

2011-10-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Alexi Zentner's debut novel, Touch, made waves long before it's pub date. To say it was highly anticipated is an understatement. When I heard about it--set in the north woods! magical and mythical!--I had to read it. It reads like a fairy tale or folk tale, with characters that are larger than life, events that are unexplainable, equal parts enchanting and eerie, haunting and comforting. It's a story that will stay with you, like a myth you heard growing up. Alexi the writer is incredibly gracious, and funny. When he's not writing, he's teaching or speaking at writer's conferences.

BONUS: I have two copies of Touch to give away! To enter, leave a comment below. You must leave your comment on the blog to be entered, not on my FB page or through other means. Entries close on October 31st.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

I came to writing as a reader. I grew up with readers as parents and read a lot as a kid. Reading saved my life, and I think my desire to write is simply the desire to tell stories like the stories that captivated me. It took me a while, however, to understand the difference between wanting to be a writer and wanting to write. Most people want to be writers – which is to say, to have already written – but aren’t as keen about the part of it that is hard and requires sacrifice.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

As a kid I read widely, and that included science fiction and fantasy, as well as the classics and literary fiction. I think the emphasis on story in fantasy and science fiction had a real impact on me, but the authors who probably had the biggest impact were people like Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, because they wrote literary fiction that was also enjoyable.

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

I like books that take emotional risks. I want a book to move me. I’m not a big fan of detached irony.

Tell us about your book.

A pastor returning home to his dying mother has to confront the ghosts of his childhood, the memories of his mythic grandfather, and the magic and mysteries of the north woods. Also, it’s a love story. And though it’s a novel full of wonder, TOUCH is also scary and terrifying in places, full of monsters and witches. And the book will break your heart.

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

I started with an image of a girl trapped under the ice, and I was haunted by the idea of having somebody you love so close and yet to be unable to help them.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

Never. There were times when the writing felt easy, and times when I wanted to smash things, but I never considered quitting. I don’t know why I didn’t want to quit. If I did, I’d bottle it and sell it. All I can tell you is that I’ve had a number of pretty well known authors tell me that they were never the best writer that they knew but they were the most persistent.

Do you have a “path to publication” story that you’d like to share? Funny agent/editor encounter? Publishing etiquette you didn’t know until you entered the business? Tip for newly published or aspiring writers?

The tip that I’d give for newly published or aspiring writers is to calm down a little about getting an agent and getting published. Once you are done the book and it is as good as it can possibly be, just take a few days and research the process so that your query letter matches the quality of your book.

Alexi Zentner’s first novel, Touch, is published in the USA by W.W. Norton, in Canada by Knopf Canada, and in the UK by Chatto & Windus. Touch is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a Knopf New Face of Fiction pick. Touch is available from Dreamscape as an audio book. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Touch an "eerie, elegiac debut." Alexi Zentner has been named by the CBC as one of 12 Canadian Writers to Watch, and Touch was shortlisted for The Governor General’s Literary Award, The Center for Fiction’s Flahery-Dunnan First Novel Prize, and longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize. He was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, and currently lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and two daughters. He holds both Canadian and American citizenship.

His Story: Joseph Monninger

2011-10-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune to meet Joseph Monninger at a book event this fall. In a room full of writers and book people, he kept everyone enthralled with a story from his youth, of an incident that really allowed him to get to know his father. That's when I knew this man was a consummate storyteller. With sixteen books to his credit and a career as a professor of writing, yeah, you'd think so! Clever, gracious, self-effacing, and thoughtful, every writer could learn a thing or two from Joseph Monninger. His latest novel, The World As We Know It, goes on sale October 11th.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

I stared writing in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was an indifferent student in high school and college. I was an athlete. I never took a writing course. I always say now that if I knew how hard it was all going to be, I might not have started. But the Peace Corps sent you to your posting with a box of books. Without electricity or running water, with no radio or tv, you can imagine how important books became. I read many 19^th Century novels….big, fat juicy novels. The longer the better. I remember reading Middlemarch and loving it. It’s hard to say if I could read it today with all the distractions around me. Africa allowed me to concentrate.

So I wrote letters. And a few people seemed to like the letters and eventually I tried a short story or two. When I returned home to the U.S., I sent in a short story to the Redbook Short Story contest. This was in 1978. I won third prize for a story called A Slice of It. That got me an agent and really hooked me. I’ve been writing ever since. I try to write 1,000 words a day and I’ve been doing that for more than 30 years.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

Not by one book, or one writer, but the glamour of the whole Hemingway myth was certainly in circulation. I was living in Africa. I travelled to Paris. I expected to be an ex-pat. I went back to Africa, to Mali, when I finished my tour in the Peace Corps. I also ended up living in Vienna. I liked the idea of being outside the U.S. So while I wasn’t trying to write like anyone, I sort of had the notion of being footloose and seeing the world.

I will say that there are writers I try to avoid, because I find their style bleeds into mine. Faulkner was one. I found myself writing ridiculous sentences after reading him. Hemingway, too. I also loved, and love, Marjorie Rawlings. There was a writer, too, that people don’t seem to read much anymore: J.P. Donleavy. He is great, tremendously funny, and he was in vogue when I started out. I love the story telling of Roberston Davies, the Deptford trilogy. If you haven’t read it, I really recommend it.

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

I just mentioned some of them. I love John Marquand, a writer from the 40’s and 50’s. His novels read like old black and white movies. And in high school the Lord of the Rings was a profound experience for me. Maybe the most remarkable experience I’ve ever had with a book. We all say we don’t want a good book to end, but I didn’t want that entire world to end.

What I really enjoy reading, though, are books of consummate skill. I don’t mean that to sound snobby, but I appreciate the work that goes into a fine novel. If I made wine all my life, I assume I wouldn’t necessarily want to drink swill. Writers know good writing. You can see it small scenes, in dialogue, in characterization. A good writer often has several threads weaving through a scene, where a less skilled writer may only have one. You know pretty quickly when you pick up a book if the author has drunk sufficient ink.

Tell us about your latest book.

The World As We Know It as a loss of Eden story. They say every child must be expelled from Eden, from childhood, and face entry into the harsher world. In my story, three young people meet in childhood and they grow up together. One boy and one girl fall in love. Beyond that, I start to give away the story if I say much more. They try to stay in Eden, but fate won’t permit that. Can they return to Eden?

It’s a love story in its DNA. I’ve always been fascinated by these couples who say they met in high school and have been together two thousand years. This is probably my attempt to understand those couples.

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

Well, every writer is always looking for a plot, an idea that can carry them forward. One of the benefits of age as a writer is the ability to see the wood scattered on the ground and know, merely from looking, what size house you might propose. You get better at taking the measure of the story. For me, the plot is secondary. I am always after good characters. If the characters speak to me – and they do – then the story follows as night the day, as a pretty good writer once said.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

I wrestle like crazy to get started on a novel, but once I do I am dedicated to it. Trollope famously said, It’s dogged as does it. Stay at it. Keep coming back to it. It’s a little like exercising. If you don’t feel like exercising on a certain day, at least make yourself put on your sneakers. Once you have your sneakers on, you might say, well, hell, I have them on, I might as well go for a run. I make myself wake early and go out to a little writing shed in our back meadow and I try to write. I put on my writing sneakers, so to speak.

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

Oh, that’s a tall order. I will say I re-read Watership Down this summer and was completely drawn into it. I read it as a kid, so I wasn’t sure how it would hold up, but I’m happy to report that it did. If you haven’t read it, you might like it. Great story of animals surviving a hardship….kind of the Odyssey with rabbits. But I believe people should be quick to put a book down if they don’t like it. There are a million books waiting.

As far as contemporary novels….I read The Paris Wife this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it.

What have you read that, surprisingly, didn’t grab you?

I don’t knock other books because I know how hard it is to write one. That said, we all have had that experience of picking up a highly touted novel or nonfiction work and finding, at least for us, that it doesn’t speak to us. That’s okay. Sometimes you can see why a book was marketed in a big way….it had certain commercial chords that the publisher could count on. But books are so much a part of my life, I can’t worry about a book that didn’t speak to me. I’m all about the books that did speak to me.

Do you have a “path to publication” story that you’d like to share? Funny agent/editor encounter? Publishing etiquette you didn’t know until you entered the business? Tip for newly published or aspiring writers?

Not really. I guess if I had one tip to give, it would be that politeness counts. Write thanks yous. Appreciate the time people are investing in you. In other words, your mother was right when she told you how to behave. Publishers and agents and editors all love books. That’s why they’re in the business. You may not always agree with how your book is handled, but it’s probably not the end of the world one way or the other. Keep things in perspective. Also, write your shelf. Write the books you can and do each book as well as you can. A novelist friend said the number one obstacle writers face is the cheat of believing their next book will be better. We all do that. We all say, inwardly or outwardly, well, you might not like this one so much, but wait until you see what’s next. Don’t let yourself do that. Stand up and admit this is the best you can do for the moment.

What is the most surprisingly thing you’ve learned about yourself since getting published? The most unexpected?

As important as publishing was to me in my early career, now the writing is much more important. Journey vs. destination. I don’t mean to sound all surfer dude, but its true. I like writing; I like stories; I like inventing. The rest, the ambition, the wanting-to-be-famous, all slips away. Words count. Sentences count. Good scenes count.

Joseph Monninger has published nine novels, three young adult works ,and three non-fiction books. His work has appeared in American Heritage, Scientific American, Readers Digest, Glamour, Playboy, Story, Fiction, Sports Illustrated, the Boston Globe and Ellery Queen, among other publications. He has twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and has also received a fellowship from the New Hampshire Council for the Arts. His young adult novel, Baby, was named one of the top ten novels of 2008 by Yalsa. He has appeared on the Today Show and has written columns for several New Hampshire newspapers. He has been a licensed New Hampshire Fishing Guide and his family ran a sled dog team for several years in the New England Sled Dog Club.

One Day in Portlandia

2011-10-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's not a joke if they it themselves, right? Do you know what I'm referring to? There's a television show called "Portlandia" that pokes gentle fun at this city of liberals, hippies, grungeheads, peaceniks, potsmokers, and artists. When I got off the elevator of a downtown skyscraper to meet author Kristina Yoshida McMorris for lunch, a woman greeted me with, "Are you here for the Portlandia meeting?" I thought she was kidding. She wasn't.

Oh, but I loved Portland as soon as I got off the airplane. Everyone is so nice. It's clean. Not too crowded. Not many suits, lots of sweaters and polarfleece. The public transportation system is awesome. Many people on the light rail were reading BOOKS. Then I checked into my hotel: quite lush. I lucked into happy hour and got a glass of a great Malbec.

I was in town to read at the venerable and awesome independent bookstore, POWELLS, but had a day off after Los Angeles. Kristina and I had made plans to get together for lunch, meeting for the first time in person after being friends on Facebook for months. Novelist Jamie Ford had mentioned me to Kristina. I'd like to say there's a union of half-Asian novelists--there isn't, but there should be. Aside from me, all the ones I've met have been super nice.

It's always a treat to talk to other authors, especially debut novelists, to compare notes and be reassured that I'm not crazy, we're all like this. Lunching with Kristina was an extra-special treat. Two hours sped by! We talked about everything under the sun, but especially books. Kristina's first book, LETTERS FROM HOME, put her solidly in the field of historical writers, specifically those who write about WWII. She described her next book, BRIDGE OF SCARLET LEAVES, and gave me an ARC (!!!!). BRIDGE is the story of a young woman who marries a Japanese-American man on the eve of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, who then volunteers to go with him to the internment camps. Kristina told me that about 200 non-Japanese women went to camp to stay with their families, and BRIDGE might be the only novel to tell this story. It comes out in February 2012.

She then blew me away with the description of her next book, the third book, which she's working on right now. Reader, it is an amazing story. I cannot wait until she finishes writing it.

That evening I had an event at the Powells story at the Cedar Hills location in Beaverton. Thanks to Renee at the store for hosting a wonderful evening and giving me the chance to meet some wonderful folks who had the read the book, including a librarian who'd ordered it for their system. If you're in the Portland area and looking for a signed copy, Powells can help you out.

Now for something completely different. I try to learn something new every 4-5 years to keep my brain from fossilizing. A few years ago it was quilting. I'd been thinking next I'd learn to knit. I have a bit of a mental block about knitting, though. You see, my mother refused to teach me when I was a kid because I'm left-handed and she thought it would be too hard. So I never took up knitting. Now, I'm ready. I got a suggestion from a blogger in Portland to try Knit Purl, a downtown yarn shop. Oh, so glad I did! The store is staffed by very enthusiastic knitters who love to share their expertise. They got me hooked up with some gorgeous yarn (see above), my first knitting needles and great advice. This photo doesn't do justice to the intense colors of these yarns. I'm going to try to get started watching YouTube videos, and then hopefully will work on my first scarf while watching the Caps game tonight.

Dream Night in Los Angeles

2011-10-05T11:55:00.000-07:00

How many times in your lifetime will you get to present at a brand new bookstore? Mysterious Galaxy's new Redondo Beach store is just out of the box, new store smell and all. They were installing the big, lighted sign to the top of the building when I arrived that afternoon. I wish I'd taken some pictures, but if you 'like' them on FB, you can look through the photo album and see it being built from the ground up. It's beautiful, modern and sleek. I told them I'd happily live there & I wasn't kidding. The reading room in the back is like a cathedral. No detail is overlooked.

Needless to say, I had a GREAT time. The staff there--Emilio in the picture at the top, Nicole, Lauren, Conor--know how to make you feel welcome, relaxed and special. We had a good group of friends, customers and a woman who had read the book and drove out from Orange County, bringing a friend with her! I love people like that. Doing these gigs makes you grateful for your supportive friends, willing to draft their friends, put up with traffic and bad weather, hang out at a restaurant later and help you unwind.

Conor mugging with The Taker.

Great Night in Denver

2011-10-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

Denver was a great experience all around, and I will try to capture some of it here, but I'm afraid my brain is not up to the task of adequately describing the surrealness of one's first book tour.

First, I got to spend time with an old friend, Sarbina, someone who also grew up in the small town that was the inspiration for so much of The Taker. Sarbina was my older sister’s best friend and a big influence on what I read and what television shows I watched as a child. She was kind enough to hang out with me before and after the event, and we got the opportunity to catch up.

I got to meet with my first book club in Denver, too, as Jen, Tesa and Rene were game to come to the event and get together afterwards. It is completely surreal to sit down and talk to people who have read your book. It’s like you all share the same imaginary friends. And they were so smart and sweet—and voracious readers. They meet every three weeks because they just devour books. They were a great resource for future reads! (This is Tesa in the photo. We've decided that 'Tesa' will be the name of a villainess in a future book.)

I was surprised and honored that Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters, came to the reading. Yes, HONORED. Not only is Eleanor a very talented writer with an excellent debut to her credit, oh my god she is wonderful to be around.

My heartfelt thanks to the Tattered Cover for hosting the event. They are known for their generosity to authors, and I am grateful to be a recipient of that generosity. Denver is lucky to have such a dedicated supporter of book culture. (This is Tamara, who ran the event. It was a great pleasure meeting her.)

Running through Denver International Airport, I got to have a quintessential author moment: the first time I saw my book in an airport bookstore! I’m happy to report there are now signed copies at the Hudson Booksellers in the West Terminal at DIA.

I'm catching my breath before the event tonight in LA/Redondo Beach at Mysterious Galaxy. Full report tomorrow.

Her Story: Elizabeth Miles

2011-09-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

One look at the cover of Elizabeth Miles' YA novel FURY and you know it's no ordinary read. It's the story of two teenagers who bring the wrath of three mysterious Furies down on their heads, and the first in what sounds like a delicious trilogy. After listening to Elizabeth speak at an event, I knew I wanted her on the blog to talk about getting readers to embrace challenging characters; how she, a reporter, came to write fiction; and her idyllic life in Maine.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

I have always written. Short stories and journal entries as a child, essays and news stories as an older student, creative non-fiction and alternative journalism as a young adult. I always knew that reading, writing, and words would shape my profession. BUT, I didn’t always expect to become a fiction writer. FURY contains the first words of fiction I’d written since I was a kid.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

Well, this opportunity wouldn’t have come to me without the prodding and influence of Lauren Oliver (author of Before I Fall, Delirium, and Liesl and Po and a childhood friend of mine). When she co-founded Paper Lantern Lit, a literary development company that collaborates with authors to turn sparks of ideas into full-blown books, she encouraged me to get involved. So it’s safe to say I would never have entered this world if it wasn’t for her.

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

So many - Stephen King, Henry James, Lydia Davis, Anne Carson, Dave Eggers. Plus too many YA authors to list here.

Tell us about your book.

FURY is the first book in a young-adult trilogy. It is a paranormal thriller with elements of horror, contemporary realism, and mythology. It tells the interwoven stories of Emily Winters and Chase Singer, two high school juniors who make typical teenage mistakes (hooking up with the wrong guy, bullying). However, their punishment is atypical - they draw the (unfortunate) attention of the Furies, three mysterious young women who, like the Furies of ancient mythology, are obsessed with vengeance. The Furies show up to make Em and Chase pay.

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

I’ve always been interested in fables, myth, and folklore. I also have a longstanding love-hate relationship with the horror genre - I’m easily freaked out, and I kind of enjoy that heart-pounding, goosebumps-raising feeling. I’ve always loved teenage drama - 90210, Gossip Girl, The OC, whatever. AND some, ah, personal experiences made me start asking myself if what goes around really does come around...These ideas laid the foundation for some productive and fruitful brainstorming with the folks at Paper Lantern Lit, and later with Simon Pulse.

I feel that FURY and The TAKER are kindred spirits in that both have main/major characters who are not “irreproachable.” (I love your term, btw.) They have done things that are wrong, bad or could be considered poor choices, but this flaw in their character is central to the book. Why did you choose these character/this theme for FURY, or conversely, why do you think the themes of FURY resonate with you?

I am drawn to flawed characters - I think they are more real and more enjoyable to read about. In this story, specifically, the characters HAD to make mistakes - those transgressions are the catalyst for the rest of the plot. So it was kind of a given that I would have characters that were, on some level, difficult to like.

This has been a real struggle for some readers, however. It’s hard to root AGAINST the Furies (even though you might want to - their sense of justice is disproportionate and anyway, should THEY have the power to decide others’ fates?) when the supposed “good guys” are doing bad things.

But isn’t that interesting? Gray areas? No black or white, right or wrong? Or at least, no OBVIOUS categorizations? I think so.

Plus, with regard to Em in particular, I know it’s terrible that she hooks up with her best friend’s boyfriend. I’ve been in the best friend position of that situation, years ago. It sucks. But it happens. And she learns from it, and grows. Sometimes you make really bad choices, especially when you’re 16 years old. Luckily, we don’t all have the Furies to reckon with when we make those types of decisions.

Lastly, I think it’s interesting to point out that ancient myths and Greek dramas were full of multifaceted characters whose intricacies made their tragedies richer.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

I was lucky to fall in love while writing the first book. This was a challenge (the dark stuff was slightly less accessible at times, as was finding the motivation to write when all I wanted to do was lie in bed and make googly eyes at this new and exciting fellow!) and a relief (said fellow, Keagan, is a ball of optimism who deals with my deadline meltdowns gracefully) and an inspiration (helping to color the arc of the series’ love affair, boosting my confidence). He continues to be a source of joy, generally and in my writing life. He’s a carpenter and recently made me a beautiful desk out of walnut wood!

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

Honestly - and I’m not just trying to earn brownie points here - I am REALLY enjoying your book. It’s so gripping, I love the time period it takes place, and the characterizations are quite intriguing. Kudos!

What is the most surprisingly thing you’ve learned about yourself since getting published? The most unexpected?

I can do this. I can deal with public criticism and public accolades and a lot of talking to strangers ABOUT MYSELF (as opposed to about THEMSELVES, which is what I’m used to as a journalist) - without melting into the floor and completely dying. I mean, I’m still learning. But I’m getting there.

Elizabeth Miles grew up in Chappaqua, New York, not far from New York City. She graduated from Boston University in 2004, and has worked ever since as a journalist for alternative newsweeklies. Today, she lives in Portland, Maine. She loves pizza; she lives with a carpenter and two cats; she can often be found running around on stage while scantily clad; and a cold winter night in Maine is one of the creepiest and most beautiful things she can think of. Fury is Elizabeth’s first novel.

Her Story: Rebecca Coleman

2011-09-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

I knew I had to meet Rebecca after I saw the ad for her novel, The Kingdom of Childhood, in which her publisher, Mira Books, named it "the most controversial book of the year." It guaranteed that Rebecca was a writer who wasn't afraid to take risks, and that's what the publishing industry needs more of these days: writers who create works that challenge readers, not offer more of the literary equivalent of comfort food for readers. Since we're both from the DC-area, it was inevitable that we would meet at a booksigning: in this case, at one of Keith Donohue's events for Centuries of June. Turns out Rebecca is sharp, friendly, brave and yes, pretty feisty and while her characters may be "complicated," Rebecca is a straight-shooter. Kingdom, which publishes on the 27th, already has a lot of people talking and may be able to shed its "controversial" label to become one of the most widely discussed books of the year.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

"From birth" is about accurate, yes. I remember at the end of my second-grade year, I brought one of my teachers a picture I had drawn of a bunch of characters from my stories, who I thought about constantly. As a teenager I behaved badly, and my excuse was that I was going to be a writer so I needed to Experience Life. So remember that, kids. You can justify all your juvenile delinquency as long as you get published one day.

Tell us about your book.

"The Kingdom of Childhood" is, on the surface, a story about a middle-aged kindergarten teacher who has an affair with her son's 16-year-old friend. But as the story unfolds, you find it's about a lot of bigger, deeper things, such as our struggle not to repeat our own parents' mistakes, and about power and trust and what happens when those things are violated. It's about how much our childhoods inform who we become as adults, and how hard it can be to find your way when your inner child feels wounded or betrayed. Some people feel it's dark or disturbing, and darn right it's dark and disturbing. But it's not without hope or redemption. I'm a reader as well as a writer, after all. I never want to read a book where at the end I feel like, gee, I want to slash my wrists now. So I wouldn't do that to my own readers.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

All along the way I was determined to write this story, which I felt had great promise, and to get it finished. But at one point I caught an episode of "The Secret Lives of Women" called "Robbing the Cradle," about women who had been convicted of statutory rape or similar crimes with underage boys. And I was absolutely fascinated to listen to them. The women they chose were very self-aware, and admitted they had been manipulative and obsessed and kind of out of their minds-- they could admit that at the time they didn't necessarily understand their own motivations. But they were complicated people. And I like 'complicated'-- I like to explore why you should like and dislike someone simultaneously. A lot of agents and editors don't like it, but I do. So seeing the reality of those women in some respect, and hearing their voices, was very motivating.

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

Definitely "The Lonely Polygamist" by Brady Udall. That book broke my heart several times along the way. Now, that's how you know you're reading a hell of a novel-- when you're not sure at some points whether you're going to survive the reading. That author-- I don't know him, but he's got some incredible cojones. Everything in the book is larger than life, in Technicolor, and he pulls it off with style. I suppose that having been Mormon-- and having a relationship with the church that's both critical and affectionate-- I really appreciated the approach he took toward Mormon culture. I found it hilarious and beautiful even as he was ripping my heart out.

What have you read that, surprisingly, didn’t grab you?

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." I'm the dissenting vote there-- just couldn't get into it, and I really tried. I did name my blog after it, though-- I called it "The Girl With the Milton Tattoo," after this tattoo I have of a wing and a quote from "Paradise Lost." Kind of nutty that I can be a fanatic for a 17th-century epic poem but I can't get through the most popular book in America.

Do you have a “path to publication” story that you’d like to share? Funny agent/editor encounter? Publishing etiquette you didn’t know until you entered the business? Tip for newly published or aspiring writers?

Sure-- to the aspiring writer I'd say, be flexible and friendly and work every day at being better. Believe in your talent but avoid the extremes of egotism or despair. If you're trying to get published, a lot of days you'll feel like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," but don't sweat it. It's just a flesh wound.

Rebecca Coleman is the author of The Kingdom of Childhood. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Maryland at College Park and speaks to writers groups on the subjects of creative writing and publishing.

His Story: Todd Ritter

2011-09-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

One of the qualities I admire most in a writer is the ability to find a compelling story in the smallest thing, a throwaway detail, a otherwise unremarkable event. I met TODD RITTER at Thrillerfest this year. We were both part of the debut author class presenting to an auditorium of 700 thriller writers, readers, editors and agents, under pressure to use our precious allotted minutes to try to quickly hook the audience with our story.

TODD RITTER hooked everybody. A newspaper reporter by day, Todd told how two real-life events--a coffin turning up on the side of the road, and a typo in an obituary--gave him the idea for this first novel, DEATH NOTICE. (Imagine the possibilities of a story springboarding from these two points, then multiply by ten.)

Todd's second novel, BAD MOON, is coming out on October 11, and it comes from an equally enigmatic and tantalizing premise. Read about it below, along with how he initially resisted but finally answered the siren call of storytelling to become a novelist and how he is like a superhero.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

I was lucky enough to grow up in a household that valued reading. My mother was never without a book. She read all the time. Even while watching TV. (To this day, I’m not sure how that’s possible, but she still does it.) So I was always a huge reader. There was something magical about falling completely into a world of words that someone else created, emerging hours later as if no time had passed.

With that reading experience under my belt, I guess the idea was always in the back of my head that I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to create a world that other people fell into. But it seemed like so much work! So over the years I dabbled in acting and playwrighting and screenwriting. Basically anything that didn’t require me to write hundreds and hundreds of pages. But I eventually came to terms with the fact that I needed to at least try to write a book.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

As a child, I loved THE WESTING GAME and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. I also loved Judy Blume and the Bunnicula books, and I devoured my mother’s set of Trixie Belden paperbacks. Then it was on to Agatha Christie, who for some odd reason was hugely popular with kids when I was in sixth and seventh grade.

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

Louise Penny, Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, Stephen King. But I’m also a big fan of more literary works. Jeffrey Eugenides is amazing, as is Donna Tartt. One of my favorite books is SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl, which, to my knowledge, is the only thing she’s ever written.

Tell us about your book.

My second book, BAD MOON, is about the present-day search for Charlie Olmstead, a boy who vanished during the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. Police found his bike at the base of a waterfall behind his house and assumed he had drowned and been washed away.

Fast-forward 42 years and the boy’s brother, Eric, now a famous mystery writer, is back in town. His mother recently died and her final wish for him was to find out what happened to Charlie. For help, he enlists police chief Kat Campbell, his high school sweetheart, and Nick Donnelly, a former cop turned private investigator. Kat and Nick were two of the protagonists from my first book, DEATH NOTICE. And while much of the characters and setting are the same, BAD MOON isn’t really a sequel. It’s just another crazy case that falls in their lap. Needless to say, there’s more to Charlie’s disappearance than anyone ever suspected. Much more.

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

It came to me while I was watching a Discovery Channel documentary about the moon landings. There was a shot of a cute blonde kid waving a flag while watching the launch of Apollo 11. As soon as I saw it, a morbid question popped into my head: What would happen if that kid vanished? The story eventually grew from there.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

Um, would it be bad if I said the entire time? Probably, but I’m just being honest. BAD MOON was tough to write, for several reasons. First was the fact that I was contractually obliged to finish it by a certain date. I had never, ever written something so large and unwieldy under pressure of a deadline. So that was hard for me to get accustomed to.

Second was the way I structured the story. It starts in 1969 before jumping to 2011. The rest of the book is the characters digging up what happened during those intervening 42 years. That’s a large chunk of time, and the characters uncover a lot of secrets and lies and deceptions. It was a challenge, which is what kept me going. I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I decided I was going to finish that book or die trying.

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

I already mentioned SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl. It’s brilliant in every respect.

What have you read that, surprisingly, didn’t grab you?

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Everyone in the world has read it and loved it, so I know I’m alone in this. But it didn’t grab me. I think I gave up around page 75. Maybe I’ll try again at some point.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned about yourself since getting published? The most unexpected?

I’ve learned that being a published writer is strange. A good kind of strange. But it’s still odd to receive e-mails from people who read and loved my work. Or sign copies of a book with my name and picture on it. And at readings and panels, it still floors me that people actually want to hear what I have to say.

My life hasn’t changed much since being published. I’m still just a working stiff, commuting to my job every day. I still do dishes and take out the trash and crash on the couch to watch Modern Family and 30 Rock. The only difference is that now I have far less free time than I used to.

In a way, I feel like a superhero with a secret life. Todd Ritter, Average Joe by day, crime writer at night.

Todd Ritter was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania. An editor and journalist for more than 15 years, Todd began his career as a film critic while attending Penn State University. Currently, he works for The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper and a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. His first mystery, DEATH NOTICE, was released last year by Minotaur Books. His second, BAD MOON, will be published on October 11. Visit his website at www.toddritteronline.com.

When Being a Writer is Social

2011-09-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

When most people think of book tours, they probably think of authors going to book stores, where the writer gets to connect directly with people with an interest in their book. Maybe they think of book festivals, where the writer is part of a a larger event and has the opportunity to talk about their book in front of a potentially broader audience.

What people who aren't directly in the book business may not know about are events geared toward booksellers. I've been lucky enough to have participated in two recently: a one-day event of the New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) and, on the 17th, to the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance's (SIBA) annual conference.

These really are special events. You have the opportunity to meet the people who help your book find its audience in the world. They want to learn about your book. You can see in their eyes that they're figuring out which of their customers for whom it would be right. Whether the resident book club might be interested. Whether you might be a good addition to a special event. They tell you about the books they've read that they're excited about. They tell you what the environment is like in their stores, what they're doing to keep book culture alive.

You also have the opportunity to meet with book bloggers, the wonderful readers who also help you connect with people who might like your book. I had the good fortune to meet up with some book bloggers I've followed on Twitter for a while (in the photo above, left to right): Kathy/BermudaOnion, Swapna of S. Krishna's Books (this doesn't qualify as 'meeting for the first time' because Swapna & I see each all the time in DC), Sandy/You Gotta Read This! and Heather/Raging Bibliomania. We had a wonderful time relaxing between panels, talking books and cooking and husbands, the stuff of our lives.

You also have the chance to meet other authors, and this is always amazing. I've tweeted about the awesome experience I had at the NEIBA event, getting to meet Joseph Monninger (THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT) and Bill Landay (DEFENDING JACOB) and personal heroes Kelly Link and Gavin Grant of SMALL BEER PRESS, an excellent publisher of speculative fiction, and Judy Rosenberg of the ROSIE'S BAKERY COOKBOOKs, which I adore & use all the time.

These trade industry events have really been a revelation to me, as I'm by name very introverted and find it hard to meet new people, but these are such great social experiences that I'm already going through withdrawal and hope I get sent to another one soon.

Her Story: Ann Hite

2011-09-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Ann Hite's novel, Ghost on Black Mountain (Gallery/Simon & Schuster), is a marvelous treat for lovers of Southern Gothic, ghost stories, strong women and "unspeakable secrets" (Joshilyn Jackson). The book has been praised to the heavens by a number of NYT bestselling authors, including Beth Hoffman ("Saving Cece Honeycutt"), Joshilyn Jackson ("Gods in Alabama") and Caroline Leavitt ("Pictures of You").

From Publishers Weekly: "Seduced into marriage by the charismatic Hobbs Pritchard, 17-year-old Nellie Pritchard moves with him to Black Mountain, where she discovers her handsome, amiable husband is really a vicious, murderous bootlegger feared by the entire community. Worse still, Hobbs is haunted by the spirits of his victims, who soon begin to haunt Nellie, too. After Hobbs nearly beats her to death, she kills him and flees the mountain, journeying to Darien, Ga., to make a new life for herself. However, Hobbs isn't done with her, or with Rose Gardner, who was pregnant with Hobbs's baby before he disappeared."

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

Every year my grandmother would visit for two weeks with my family in whatever state or country we might be living. I remember looking forward to this like a child looks forward to a visit from Santa. She was the booklover and storyteller of our clan. Each evening she would gather me on her lap and tell me episodes from her childhood. As I grew older, the tales became more revealing. After years of moving around the country and five years in Europe, I finally returned to the South. I was ten and it was the mid-sixties. This was enough to make a writer out of most book loving girls. My mother had brought my brother and me to live with my grandmother in Atlanta. It was then I began to absorb both the wonderful and eerie tales told by my extended family. Every weekend we piled into my grandmother’s Oldsmoblie and drove to ‘the country’ to visit with my great aunts. I would sit among what I considered very exotic women. One aunt was always on the verge of a nervous breakdown, wringing her lace hanky in her fingers. Another wore a scarf around brush curlers wound tightly into bleach blonde hair, a cigarette hanging from her fingers. And of course there was the cousin, who went and married out of the faith. Her husband was Catholic. If I was quiet, they forgot I was there and began to tell the old mountain tales. These were not for the faint of heart. Believe me. I loved each story and memorized them. This atmosphere of tall tales, spells, and spirits gave birth to Black Mountain, even though I didn’t have a name for the community back then. I spent many hours writing and forcing my little brother to sit on the back stoop of my grandmother’s home and listen to my stories of ghosts and goblins. I can’t tell you how many times I got in trouble for scaring him silly.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

If I had to choose one book that put the idea of writing a book in my head, it would be Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. And if I had to choose one short story, the choice would be a tie between William Faulkner’s A Rose For Emily and Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man’s Hard To Find.

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

I’m a book junkie, so that’s a tough matter. I love The Help and so look forward to reading Ms. Stockett’s new book. Bloodroot by Amy Greene is awesome. I have all the Harry Potter books. And I cut my teeth on Ellen Gilchrist.

Tell us about your book.

Ghost On Black Mountain is a book about strong women. The story begins in 1938 when Nellie meets Hobbs Pritchard in a soup kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina. She marries him, even though her mother warns her not to, and goes to live on Black Mountain. There are ghost aplenty, but the book is layered and has a strong message. Every piece I write organically grows from questions. The questions for Ghost On Black Mountain were: What happens when a person makes a decision that radically changes lives and then keeps it a secret? How does this ripple through the generations?

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

I’m a blank page writer, so I never know when I sit down to write what the plot will be. The idea comes to me in the voice of a character. This character will begin to show up in my head. This character always has a story to tell. I write it. In this process I find the plot of the story or it finds me.

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

In 2007—six months after Ghost On Black Mountain was finished—a small press here in the South wanted to offer me a book deal. It was a small press, but I was so thrilled to have my book published I didn’t care. A month later the deal fell through. I kept a smile on my face until I was alone, and then became angry. I promised never to write again, ever! I then proceeded to paint my writing room purple. It would become a playroom for my daughter. I finished one wall and stopped. The room never became a playroom, and I didn’t stop writing. The purple wall still remains to remind me that all good things happen in their own time. Had I gotten what I so desperately wanted, Gallery/Simon & Schuster would never have offered me a deal on Ghost On Black Mountain in 2010, and—here’s the best part—the book wouldn’t have been the best it could be. I used the three years between offers to make Ghost the best book it could possibly be.

The pure love of writing pushed move forward through the darkest of times. I think a writer has to love writing so much they will do it for free. In other words they are not writing for money. It’s then I began to grow in my art.

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

The Taker of course. Loved, loved, loved it. Kingdom Of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman which will be released this month by Mira. Stunning books.

What have you read that, surprisingly, didn’t grab you?

I’m thrilled to say I haven’t had this experience in a long time. I’m picky about what I read because my time is so limited.

Aspiring writers: write every day. Do not give up. Push your work and believe in what you’ve put on paper. If you do this, you will be published. Of course only when the time is right.

What is the most surprisingly thing you’ve learned about yourself since getting published? The most unexpected?

I’ve found I can relax in front of a crowd. This was amazing to me.

The most unexpected thing I’ve learned about me is the fact that I obsess on each review that comes out for Ghost On Black Mountain. I keep attempting not to pay the reviews any mind, but I go right back and search them out.

Ann Hite has published more than sixty stories in publications such as: Literary House Review Anthology, Espresso Fiction, and Skyline Magazine. Her Black Mountain story, Circle of Light, was nominated for Sundress Best of 2008 where she appeared along side Ron Carlson, the great short story writer. In addition, Ann has published more than forty-five book reviews. She teaches workshops throughout the South specializing in writing voice. Ann lives with her family in Atlanta with her ever expanding library, a butterfly/hummingbird garden, and her laptop. She is hard at work on the next BLACK MOUNTAIN novel, SIGHT.

Her Story: Caroline Leavitt

2011-09-13T04:36:00.000-07:00

I'm thrilled to start a new feature on my blog: bringing authors' stories to you. And I can't think of a better way to start than by interviewing Caroline Leavitt. Her most recent novel is Pictures of You (Algonquin), which came out to rave reviews and quickly became a NY Times bestseller. I had the pleasure of meeting Caroline at a book festival and we correspond online: she's funny, fearlessly honest, and generous to a fault on top of being a knock-out writer. Below, she explains how that fearless honesty made Pictures of You possible, and her tale of getting this book to publication is an inspiration for us all.

How did you come to writing? Did you start writing shortly after emerging from the womb or did you come to it later in life?

I was a lonely little girl with very bad asthma who spent a lot of time in the library, escaping in stories. I discovered early on that I didn’t just want to read stories—I wanted to write them! Writing saved my life, opened up my world, and once I started, I never stopped.

Were you influenced to begin writing by any writers/books in particular?

As a child, I adored this book Mrs. Mike, about a young woman who goes off to Alaska with her husband, and A High Wind in Jamaica, about British kids taken aboard ship by pirates! I read everything—fairy tales, Oz books, my mother’s books, too. When I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it cemented it for me. I had to be a writer!

Whose works do you most enjoy reading?

I’m a book critic for People and The Boston Globe, and I have a column at Shoptopia, so right now I love it when I’m surprised. I’m partial to debuts. I love F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby is my favorite book) and there are so many wonderful writers out there!

Tell us about your book.

Pictures of You is about a car crash and how it impacts the lives of four different people: Isabelle, a photographer fleeing her philandering husband; April, a wife and mother fleeing her life; Charlie, a husband who comes to realize he never really knew his life; and Sam, a young asthmatic with a terrible secret.

How the heck did you come up with the central idea/plot?

I’m totally phobic about driving. I have my license (all they made me do to get it is drive around the block), and I keep renewing it, but I gave up driving years ago after the third driving instructor sighed and said, “Caroline, some people just aren’t meant to drive.” I kept thinking how would I function if I got in an accident and killed someone? And what if it wasn’t my fault?

The asthma theme came later. Sam just appeared on the page. I had had a very shameful childhood being sick and the last thing I wanted to do was write about asthma. I never talked about it to anyone (I have very, very minor asthma now) and I certainly didn’t want to write about it. But Sam kept coming back. A writer friend of mine told me, “If you don’t want to write about it, it means you should.” So I did. And in giving this little boy my compassion, I ended up healing my own shame!

At what point in the writing process did you think you might give up on it? Were you most inspired? What kept you going through the long dark nights?

I had a first chapter that I thought worked that was obsessing me and that kept me going. I always start novels needing that first chapter because it becomes my lifeline, my proof that yes, I can do this! But of course, I felt despair and I always worried that the book was not going to work and that my career was over! I’ve come to realize that’s just part of being a writer.

I’m a rags to riches story. Pictures of You was my 9^th novel and although my previous novels have all had stellar reviews, the sales were so small that I probably could have bought groceries with them and that would be that! My last publisher rejected Pictures of You, saying, “We don’t get it. It’s not special enough.” I cried, of course. I knew, too, that after 8 books that didn’t exactly sell well, my chances of getting another publisher were nil. But my beloved agent kept telling me not to worry.

And then three weeks later, Algonquin bought the book. They told me they were going to change my life. Right from the start things were different. They not only returned my calls and emails right away, they made them to me! The whole place is brilliant, from my beloved editor to my beloved publicists to every beloved person there. They gave me my first tour—30 cities! Six months before the book came out they were pushing it, and the book went into 3 printings months before publication, into a 4^th printing shortly after, and it was on the New York Times Bestseller list, the NAIBA bestseller list and it became a San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick and a Penny’s Pick at Costco—and it sold to seven countries. I was used to publishers working for me halfheartedly for three months and then stopping, but Algonquin never stopped. The book came out in December and they got me on summer reading lists and they are still working for me! My next novel is with them, and they truly are an Edenic paradise for writers. I tell everyone I am the poster child for second chances, but I know I couldn’t have done it without the amazing gods and goddesses at Algonquin. (The tip is that your publisher DOES matter AND never, ever give up.)

What is the most surprisingly thing you’ve learned about yourself since getting published? The most unexpected?

I used to think of myself as a very private person—but I discovered while on tour that I love to get in front of people and talk about my life!

What have you read lately that you love and think everyone on the planet should read?

Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber. She’s just a brilliant writer.

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and eight other novels. A book critic for People and The Boston Globe, and a book columnist for Shoptopia.com, she is a senior writing instructor at UCLA Writers Program online and she mentors private clients. She can be reached at www.carolineleavitt.com

9/11: Memories of the day from an intelligence analyst

2011-09-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

Like many people in DC, I have very specific memories of where I was when the planes flew into the Twin Towers. My experience was a little different than most (anywhere except this town), as I was a senior analyst at one of the three-letter intelligence agencies at the time.

I was in my office when the first alert flashed across my computer monitor, informing us that a plane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. By the time the second plane hit, we were standing in front of a television watching what was happening with the rest of the world. I had been getting ready to drive to a 10 AM meeting with directors at the National Security Council in the Old Executive Office Building, but needless to say that didn’t happen.

Within the hour, we were told to evacuate. After the Pentagon was hit, senior management worried that there would be more attacks on government buildings. Intelligence agencies make good targets: you can leave the government deaf and blind with just a couple of strikes. But no one wanted to leave. Some volunteered to man the watch—the essential personnel who keep operations running after regular hours—to relieve those who had children, but no one on the watch accepted the offer.

We ended up staying home for several days. A lifetime, in intelligence work. Whether it was the right decision or not, it’s hard to say. I can tell you that in my office, the desire to remain on the job was palpable. No one wanted to let down the American people, or not be there to respond to the policymakers and military leaders who needed to make difficult decisions.

A lot changed after that day, and few worlds changed as drastically as the Intelligence Community. This blog post isn’t the place to debate whether or not those changes have been successfully implemented: that could be the subject of endless discussion. It is remarkable to see how much has changed in a community that traditionally changes very slowly.

A year later, I was detailed to the Pentagon, right around the first anniversary of 9/11. The office to which I was assigned had been in the wing that had been destroyed—but as luck would have it, they had been moved to temporary quarters in another wing a few weeks before the attack. So rather than having been wiped out when the plane hit the building, many of them helped get the wounded out, including one doctor who treated the victims on-site.

On the first anniversary, jets flew over the Pentagon as part of the commemoration. I was in a meeting with teammates who had been in the building, and you could see the terror pass over their faces as the low-flying fighters shook the Pentagon, remembering what had happened that day. You never expect a building as massive as the Pentagon to move but these people had felt it not once, but twice.

Ten years later, I’m no longer in intelligence, having recently separated to start a new career. This is one reason why I’m wrote this post: because I can, while my colleagues still working can’t talk openly about their personal experiences. I wanted to give readers a taste of what it was like to be inside the compounds when the planes struck, and to let you know about the commitment and courage of your federal workforce.

Backlash: You Don't Have to Have Written a Vampire Book to be Considered One

2011-09-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was at a writers conference sitting in on a panel about (in a nutshell) whether literary fiction should accede to commercial tastes, but the example everyone used was the supernatural (vampires, werewolves, magic) as a stand-in for everything that sells these days. One of the panelists, a literary agent, started praising The Last Werewolf, a recent work by a literary novelist that seems to be the poster child for the trend, when one of the other panelist said (paraphrasing), "I'm glad you told me it was serious because otherwise I'd never read a book with that word in the title."

I think that about sums up the current state of deathmatch smackdown that exists between the worlds of literary and commercial fiction. Not that everyone on the literary team is taking sides, but I get the feeling that most people who consider themselves "serious" readers would sooner eat Spam that's been left in the sun for two days than pick up a book with vampires, werewolves or zombies. Recently, this blog post on the trend of literary writers tackling commercial fiction prompted at least one person to add the subtitle "with the implication that genre writers aren't getting it right."

I expected to suffer some confusion with my own novel, The Taker, given its completely ambiguous supernatural element. Imagine my surprise to find that reviewers aren't even bothering to read the book--they're assuming it's a vampire novel and dissing it without reading the book. Getting tarred by the brush of disdain without even being a member of the party, as it were. You really can't win for losing. The part that slays me is that the reviewer claims to have read the book yet says it's a vampire book. Never mind that the premise for the supernatural element is dealt with at length, that there's about 75 pages of backstory dealing with the evil one's origins plunk in the middle of the book. That the word 'vampire' is never used and there isn't so much as a neck being nuzzled, we were so careful to avoid all things vampiric.

It's hard not to become cynical when you're surrounded by these attitudes. Writers are advised to write the best story they can, but what chance does it have when people aren't even going to read it to decide they hate it?

So, more on The Last Werewolf: I haven't read it yet but plan to. But several people whose reading taste I respect have told me they didn't think it lived up to the hype. They felt that reviewers who don't read much supernatural fiction got hot for it because it seemed new to them, but that the same material was handled as well or better by other writers. Food for thought as you're contemplating the hypecycle of books.

The Taker in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

2011-09-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Taker doesn't office pub until tomorrow, 6 September, but it's off to a great start with a full-page ad in the current issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY! I saw it at the airport as I was flying to the Decatur Book Festival. If you work in a doctor's or dentist's office, this is the issue you should keep in the waiting room forever. Okay, maybe just for the next 2-3 years...

Calm Before the Storm

2011-08-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

Business first: My first appearance for The TAKER will be at the Decatur (Georgia) Book Festival on 4 September at 3:45 with Tananarive Due (awesome). For more information, click here.

Business second: The other awesome thing to happen is that I was included in this article at Salon.com on what writers read this summer. I cannot believe that I appeared in this article and since it will never happen again, I am going to shamelessly point it out to people now.

Okay, here's the blog post: It's about a week to go to publication day. Is this what it feels like a week before the baby is due? I feel simultaneously impatient for the big adventure to begin and worried that I haven't prepared enough. I see/hear what other debut authors are doing and fret that I'm missing something.

I'm very lucky in that my publisher is giving The TAKER a lot of promotional and marketing support. Nonetheless, there are things the author must do for herself, and I thought that since some of the folks who read this blog are writers themselves, it might be interesting for me to list some of the little surprises I've encountered recently. Besides, I need to keep occupied.

1. Factor in some time in the weeks before publication to respond to Q&A requests from bloggers and others. You'll want to be able to come up with fresh responses and not be tempted to steal from something you've already written for someone else because you're pressed for time.

2. Buy some nice thank you cards. Send a handwritten card to everyone who has invited you to speak on a panel or at a conference, and to all the bookstore owners.

3. For debut authors: think about giving away a store gift card to someone in the audience at your independent bookstore appearances. This makes it a win-win for everyone: it's a thank you for the bookstore for hosting the event (debut authors are often a hard sell), and to the audience for taking the time to come out and see you. You can get raffle tickets at party supply shops. (I didn't come up with this one; I think I found in on the SIBA or NEIBA site.)

4. Get over your squeamishness and take pictures at your events. They don't have to be of you; you can take pictures of your audience and fellow presenters. But take pictures to commemorate the event: you'll never have the opportunity again.

What about you? What's your advice for authors who are expecting (a book)?

Do You Read for Discovery or Comfort?

2011-08-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

Now that a number of readers have posted reviews on The Taker, I've noticed something--let's call it a trend--that I thought I'd throw out for your reactions. And please bear with my tendency to analyze everything. That's what happens when you've been an analyst as long as I had been. I can't help myself; I will try to make sense of any accumulation of facts (data) the same as a border collie will try to herd any sheep that cross his path.

I'm starting to think there are two kinds of readers: those who like a book to follow a well-worn path, and those who want to be taken somewhere new.

The first group could be called Comfort Readers. Like people who prefer comfort foods, they like to go back to the familiar. It reminds them of things they loved once and they want to relive that experience, only perhaps with a few changes in the story, as long as the familiar elements are there.

The latter group I think of as readers who like to have a new experience when they pick up a book. (I've called them Discovery Readers, but that's a completely dissatisfying term, I think you'll agree.) They want a book to tell them a story they haven't heard before, to amaze and surprise them. They will read, but ultimately be disappointed with a story that is too redolent of other books they've read.

(Now I've come to the part of my theory that's going to piss some people off. You might want to stop reading right here.)

I think people who read genre tend to be comfort readers. Genres tend to have their own conventions and readers don't seem to like it when writers stray outside those conventions. They read within the genre because there are certain things they want to see in books and they expect to see in their books.
Whereas Discovery Readers probably tend to read outside of genres, because their preferences and expectations are different.

It reminds me a bit of modern movies. I don't go to the movies much because to me, they're all the same, just the names of the main characters changed but the character arcs remain identical. Other people love to find that same familiarity carried over from movie to movie; they find it reaffirming to see justice triumph over evil, they take comfort in knowing the good character will win and the evil character will fail (because, let's face it, this rarely happens in real life.)

It's not to say one is better than the other; it's just a matter of taste. And I'm not saying ALL genre readers are Comfort Readers; it's probably more of a sliding scale, where at one end there are people who like to see the rules bent or even broken, and on the other end, people who would just as soon see those same authors killed.

Having gotten a little roughed up recently in some reviews, I would like to warn readers up front that The Taker is not a genre novel. I don't want readers to be disappointed or, worse, hostile. I feel that if you like books like Interview With the Vampire or The Historian, you will find similar elements to like in The Taker. However, if you ONLY like vampire novels, for instance, then you may not like The Taker because it's not that type of book.

To put it another way, let's go back to the food analogy. You could call me a Comfort Eater. Not that I eat for comfort, but I tend to eat foods I already enjoy. I'm not an adventurous eater. Why waste mealtime on something I might not like, is the way I look at it. But a long time ago, when I was at my most timid as a eater, I went with friends to an Indian restaurant and discovered that I loved Indian food. It's now among my favorite things to eat. It just goes to show that sometimes it can pay to go outside your comfort zone.