Where do these people come from?

Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 1:55 pm (Guest Posts & Interviews, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Note: I’ve moved, and this is my last official post at this site, so if you’re reading this through an RSS feed or at http://booklady.wordpress.com, then please change your links. The new RSS feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/booklady, and the new website is http://www.caryncaldwell.com/blog. You can also visit this post on my new site. Thanks!

I’ve loved author Sandi Kahn Shelton’s blog ever since I first read it many months ago. Her humor and warmth are evident in every paragraph, and her stories are rich with detail. So of course it was no surprise to hear that her newest book, Kissing Games of the World, has received rave reviews, including a coveted starred review from Library Journal. What do they love best? Her multi-dimensional characters. And here to talk to us about how those fictional people came to life is Sandi herself.

One of the most fun things about writing a novel (or as my uncle put it, “telling lies for profit”) is coming up with characters. People are always asking writers where the characters come from — it’s the #1 question when you go for readings and signings — and I’m afraid they always seem disappointed by the truth, which is, “I have utterly no idea.”

With my new novel, Kissing Games of the World, the main character, Jamie McClintock, showed up one morning when I was taking a bath. I was lying there concentrating on keeping the tub filled to the top with hot water using only my big toe (a delicate balance of draining and refilling which practically requires a degree in engineering and physics to keep it just right), when I noticed somebody wafting around over by the shower head, explaining to me about how she was an artist and a single mom raising her 5-year-old boy, Arley, who had asthma. They lived in a farmhouse in Connecticut with Harris, an older man famous in town for his rascally womanizing, who was now redeeming himself by raising his 5-year-old grandson, Christopher, whose father had run away.

I like a character who shows up with her trouble already spelled out; it’s much harder to work with somebody who insists that life is just fine. And Jamie had a whole bunch of trouble. Right at the beginning, Harris dropped dead unexpectedly, and his estranged, hated son (Christopher’s father, Nate) came back to claim the house and his little boy, and move him back to California. As Jamie explained the situation, Nate was a jet-setty, arrogant kind of guy, a salesman, and his plan was to drag his kid along on his business trips and educate him in hotel rooms. Jamie went hysterical over this. (I didn’t mind; I’ve learned finally that you have to put your most beloved characters in lots of trouble, or there’s no story.) I was having lots of fun writing about Jamie’s view of this guy when one day, while I was driving to work, Nate said to me, “Wait just a minute. Would you just hold on a bloody second? I’d like to tell my side of things, if you don’t mind.”

And — well, he proceeded to take over the whole book. (Kind of like when you let a man drive your sports car for a minute. You have to be careful or you won’t get the keys back.)

At first I thought I would just give him a chapter, let him explain a couple of things Jamie couldn’t possibly know about, but then his voice was so strong, and he had such an interesting story, that he and I just kept going together. He had things to tell me about his father, and about his mom and his wife, and why he played baseball as a kid, and who he slept with in high school, and why he thought traveling and sending money was the best thing he could do for his son. He told me about his fiancée and his charismatic boss, and even some of his favorite sales strategies.

And — this is a little embarrassing — but I kind of fell for the guy. In a good way, of course. Whenever I’d be writing his scenes, it was like taking dictation. I honestly could hear his sarcastic, take-no-prisoners tone of voice. He made me laugh.

“Write a book about me,” he would whisper to me at night when I was falling asleep. “Come on. Let’s do this together!”

But I had to tell him, “This is not your book. This is Jamie’s story. And even more importantly, my publisher doesn’t want a story told from the man’s point of view. This is women’s fiction, pal. I have a contract.”

So we compromised. I limited him to every other chapter. One for Jamie, one for him. And an interesting thing happened. While his chapters were exciting and funny as hell and practically came to me faster than I could type them, Jamie realized she was being outdone and had to step up and start making her story deeper and more dramatic, too. I mean, this woman had issues. Not just the kid with asthma either. Trust problems, ex-boyfriend troubles, a wish to use her art to hide from human beings. And when little Arley ended up adoring Nate, while Christopher would have nothing to do with him, Jamie found herself actually hoping that Nate, whom she loathed, would stick around.

He didn’t, of course. Not at first anyway. But I can’t tell you any more than that. Except that it was a real ride, being in these two different heads at all times. It was fun exploring love that comes out of nowhere and slams people right upside the head, as my mother would have put it. I hadn’t ever written a real love story before. I was afraid of being too Hallmark card-ish or sentimental. You know how that can be. And honestly, there were times when I was writing this book that I thought this love story was so unsentimental that it wasn’t going to work out at all, that everybody would go their separate ways and be better for it.

But then — well, a whole bunch of stuff happened. It always does, if you’re lucky. You’re at the mercy of these characters who show up in the bathtub with you, or sitting next to you in the passenger seat, or chatting you up from your pillow in the middle of the night — and suddenly they take on a life of their own, and you’re just along for the fun of it. That’s the thing you can’t ever really explain to people who think the character surely is really you, or your best friend, or a guy you went to high school with.

They’re nobody you know, but for a little while, they move into your head and explain life to you — and then one day you finish the book, and you look around for them, but they’re gone. And soon, somebody else is lurking by the shower fixture, saying, “Pssst. I have something to tell you…”

Sounds like a terrific story, doesn’t it? If you want to know more, check out Sandi Kahn Shelton’s website, then head over to Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or your local indie bookstore to pick up your copy of Kissing Games of the World. Who knows? Maybe someone on your Christmas list would enjoy a copy, too…

4 Comments

41 Ways to Conquer Writer’s Block

Monday, November 3, 2008 at 7:34 pm (I Have Fun Sometimes, Internetting, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , , ,

For the past several years I have volunteered at the local high school, advising a number of very talented students in the creative writing club. This year I mentioned NaNoWriMo to several of them. Word spread, and now we have a large group of students who are all determined to write an entire novel this month. Only problem? Some of them had no idea where to start. Since I’ve dealt with this same issue, I made up the following list for them. Since many of you write — books, term papers, blog entries, thank-you notes — I figured I’d share the list with you as well. Have favorite ways to jump start your writing? Please share!

  1. Go back to when everything last worked and to see if you went off-track.
  2. Skip ahead to what you do know and write that. Sometimes you’ll find that the scene you agonized over really doesn’t need to be there, or in the meantime you – or your subconscious – could think of a good way to fix it.
  3. Think of ways to make your characters’ lives worse, then implement them. It’s hard to have a book if you don’t have conflict.
  4. Make a list of all the scenes that have to happen in your book. Good. Now you know where you’re going, and you have a goal. Start figuring out how to get from your current scene to the next one.
  5. Read what you’ve already written to get back into the groove. Danger: Don’t let this lead you to edit too much; it’s possible to spend all your time polishing the first three chapters and never get anything else written. You’ll have a great beginning, but you won’t have a book.
  6. Write with someone else. This can often be inspiring; when others around you are being creative and productive, it’s hard to keep your own pen off the page.
  7. Writer’s block is often caused by fear. It may be fear of writing something imperfect, fear of what others will think, fear of rejection, or even fear of success. What are you afraid of? Sometimes just knowing will help you conquer it.
  8. Remind yourself that this is only a first draft. Most books go through many, many revisions, so if it’s not perfect the first time around that’s normal. You don’t have to show anyone until you’re ready.
  9. Perhaps you’ve lost sight of your characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts. What would your character would do next in order to reach his/her goal? Now prevent him/her from it.
  10. Watch a movie or read a book for inspiration. Sometimes the creative well just plain runs dry.
  11. Brainstorm with someone.
  12. Or, the reverse could be an issue: Perhaps you’ve talked about your book too much and now it doesn’t seem fresh or fun anymore. If that’s the case, try going in a new direction to freshen it up a bit, and keep it all to yourself for now.
  13. 90% of all people who begin a novel never finish it. 85% of all those who began NaNoWriMo last year never finished. Beat the odds no matter what, even if means writing utter crap. You can always revise later.
  14. Reexamine why you’re doing this in the first place. Write your motivation(s) on a sticky note and post it next to your monitor.
  15. Sometimes having too many options can cause a block. For example, should the character be an architect or a plumber? Should his/her parents be divorced or still together? It’s difficult, but make a choice and stick with it. If you still can’t decide, write each choice on a piece of paper, fold up the pieces, throw them in a hat or bowl and draw one.
  16. Set a timer and tell yourself you’ll write for this amount of time, no matter what – but that you’re allowed to stop after that if you want to. Anyone can write for 15, 30, or 60 minutes if they put their minds to it. Take a break to eat or do something fun, then set that timer again.
  17. Develop a writing routine – light a candle, write at the same time each day, choose a special writing chair, etc. Just going through those motions can tell your brain that it’s time to write.
  18. Shake up your writing routine. Write at a different time or place.
  19. Allow yourself some awful first sentences each time you begin a new writing session. After all, quite often the hardest part is just getting started. Once you’ve warmed up, it usually becomes much easier.
  20. Next time you write, try stopping in the middle of a sentence, paragraph, or scene. This way you’ll know where to begin when you come back to it.
  21. Write daily. Make it a habit. Often the longer you go between writing sessions, the harder it can be to get back into it, and the more time you’ll have to psych yourself out.
  22. Tell everyone your goal so that you are held accountable. Then you have no choice but to get something down.
  23. Start with success: Do something important but easy, such as finding a good last name for your character or doing some simple research. This gets you back into your story, and the success is often motivating.
  24. Sometimes you just have to get yourself out of your own way. Take a shower, do the dishes, knit a scarf, take a long drive, play a computer game, hike, run, swim…Do something that keeps your hands and body occupied but your mind free. Then assign your brain the task of thinking about what to write next.
  25. Disconnect your internet, so if you’re ever tempted to conduct another email check you have to get up and walk over to the modem to plug it back in. Quite often your willpower will return before you set aside your laptop or notebook.
  26. Think of what you could be doing that you want to do even less – homework, cleaning house, writing that thank-you note to your Great Aunt Pearl, whatever.
  27. Give yourself silly goals such as finding random words in the dictionary and having to use them, or starting the first sentence with the letter A, the next with B, the following with C, etc. The challenge can help get your mind off your fear and spark your creativity.
  28. Open a new document or turn to a clean page in your notebook. Anything goes when you’re starting fresh. If you like what you come up with, you can always add it in later. Sounds silly, but it’s actually one of my favorite — and most effective — methods.
  29. Type with your eyes closed. This can remove inhibitions.
  30. Begin a free-write with, “I don’t know what to write,” and go from there, writing whatever comes to mind but slowly working your way into examining your book and then, perhaps, starting to write it again.
  31. Interview your main character, or write a monologue from his/her P.O.V.
  32. Keep a notebook by your bedside, in your car, in the bathroom – wherever you’re likely to get an idea. When one comes to you, take a moment to (safely!) write it down. Next time you’re stuck with your writing, look through your notebook for ideas.
  33. Maybe you’ve gone the obvious route with your writing, and you’ve ended up boring yourself. Throw something big into the works to change things radically: someone new (dead or alive) turns up, your character finds out a devastating secret or is suddenly faced with what s/he most fears, the hero fails at an important task.
  34. Make a list of 20 things that could happen next. Cross out the first 10-15 since those are often the more obvious choices, then consider implementing the last few.
  35. Let your subconscious do the work. Long before you sit down to write, give yourself a problem that needs to be solved, anywhere from “What should I write next?” to “How should my protagonist react when s/he finds the dead body?” Think about it from time to time. By the time you write, a solution will often present itself with minimal effort.
  36. Eat, go to the bathroom, and do any urgent business before writing. That way you have no reason to get up from the keyboard once you start. Just make sure you don’t put writing dead last, or you may never get to it.
  37. Whatever you do, don’t delete! If you really don’t think it’s worthwhile, cut it from the manuscript and paste it in a new one so you can put it back in or use it in something else. Sometimes all you need is a little perspective, and that can take time and distance. If you’re stuck, go through your file of deleted scenes for inspiration.
  38. What do you like about certain books/movies? How can you incorporate that into your own work in a creative way? What do you hate about particular books/movies? How can you write it better, and with your own creative twist?
  39. Work on something else for a while. Ever have several books going at a time, reading whichever one interests you right then? The same can work with writing.
  40. Remember that writing is hard. Just because it doesn’t always flow, it doesn’t mean you’re blocked. So realize that it might not be easy, and work through it. After all, things that are worth it rarely come easily.
  41. Examine your attitude before you go into it. Are you expecting to have a fun, productive writing session, or are you expecting pain and blockage? Your brain often delivers what you expect.

28 Comments

A Post About Repairs — Now With Photos!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 7:52 pm (Cat Obsession, Let's Get Personal, Photos, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , ,

Seems everything needed repairs this week. First there was an elderly but sturdy machine at work, which required my second-favorite set of instructions ever: the now-infamous page 36 from the vintage manual I keep in a nearby cupboard.

Raise your hand if you had to stifle a juvenile snicker when you read the title above. Raise both if you were unsuccessful. Very good. You get three points if you’re the first to spot the spelling error, and ten if you can identify the machine in question.

Page 36 also requires a trip to the following diagram, which I would argue makes their assurance that it’s only “7 easy steps” a giant lie. Like the photo above, click if you need more detail, but do so with care lest your brain explode.

Despite my near-uselessness when it comes to anything mechanical, I managed to muddle through and get the mystery machine up and running again — just in time to go home and spend another evening trying to fix my book. Alas, that task doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

Aren’t they pretty? Good thing I don’t use red ink, or these pages would look like they’d been murdered, and that would ruin the tone of the whole book.

Then, of all the luck, I needed repairs, too. Yes, the flu visited again, just a month and a half after it last stopped by. So much for my weekend plans. Instead of going into the mountains to take photos like the one below, which I snapped a few years ago…

…I got to photograph things around home. This is not nearly as exciting — or as pretty.

Unfortunately, alien creatures kept popping into the frame at the last minute. The blobby heads and tails were so big that even Photoshop couldn’t help me fix the results. Too bad. I do hate to leave things unrepaired.

34 Comments

A Matter of Timing

Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 3:50 pm (Let's Get Personal, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , ,

On Friday morning steel gray clouds scudded across the sky and a restless breeze washed over the neighborhood, heralding bad weather to come. Hoping for rain, I ducked into my car and turned the key, then glanced over my shoulder as I sped down the driveway, later for work than usual. Then a thought struck me and I lurched to a stop a few feet from the road. My sunglasses, unnecessary that morning, were still in the house. It may have been too shady for shades, but the sun could break through later, leaving me to squint my way home again at the end of the day. I pulled up the parking brake, unclicked my seat belt, and threw open the door.

At that precise moment, the sprinkler in the front yard sprang into action. After the last cycle the head had come to a stop facing the driveway and now, with no warning, it burst on, hurling morning-cold water at my face, my skirt, the inside of my car. I spluttered, jumped out of my seat, and slammed the door, then sprinted onto our porch and out of range. As time ticked, I paused to wipe the drops from my face and watch the sprinkler sweep across the yard, dousing everything in its path.

I laughed, of course,  and shook my head. I had to. It had been that kind of week, every day filled with miniature disasters, every night spent in tense tossing instead of sleep, every email and phone call left unanswered. This Friday morning comedy routine only added to it all with such perfection. I wanted to put it in a novel, down to the promise of rain hovering above the scene as if foreshadowing the whole event. It was, however, too well-timed to be real, too slapstick to be believed, and therefore too weird for fiction.

38 Comments

The Revisionist’s Curse

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 10:17 pm (I Have Fun Sometimes, Let's Get Personal, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , ,

It seems I am in A Phase. Over the weekend I waved a cheerful goodbye to two unfinished novels, then dropped them off my nightstand. The week before that, I got twenty-three pages into another before dumping it onto my library donations pile without so much as an apology. This morning I broke up with a fourth, a best-seller with reviews that swore there was no way I would not love this book. After forty-eight pages I gave up and searched my pile of unread books for yet another victim.

Most of the time I go through books the way I would eat chocolates if my hips allowed it. I finish one and delve immediately into the next, savoring the characters, the plot, the clever turns of phrase. Each time I exercise or clean house or push a squeaky-wheeled cart up and down the grocery store aisles, I plug into an audio book, letting stories wash over me. When hubs and I take our canvas chairs to a nearby overlook to watch the sun set over the desert, we often tote along something to read aloud to one another.

But I cannot, no matter how much I try, completely lose myself in reading while I am in the middle of revisions. Once I spend hours analyzing each sentence of my own work, the picky part of my brain is turned on. From then on, every bit of writing I encounter, whether it is mine or someone else’s, is routed through my editing filter.

That is happening now. The obligatory six weeks have passed between the draft I wrote this summer and the edits required to start submitting it. Now, after several days spent performing major surgery on my novel at every opportunity, my brain has once again turned into an Equal Opportunity Editor, and I’ve gone from eager-to-read to impossible-to-please. The quality of my reading does not matter. If I am spending hours each day examining my own writing, then by habit I will analyze every other sentence to waltz my way as well. Only blogs, it seems, are exempt, perhaps because the style is so different.

My inability to switch off the ruthless reviser inside me is exhausting and inevitable, and totally unfair to the author of whatever pleasure reading I attempt. Worse, my inability to relax with a good book feels unnatural and somehow very wrong. Reading, after all, is what led me into writing, and now writing is preventing me from enjoying reading.

I’ve gone through this before, and I know that it will end. Within days of finishing edits, I will be able to see an adverb without feeling the impulse to ink it out. I will once again have the patience to read backstory — it is, after all, sometimes necessary. I will not automatically pause after I read each line of dialogue, wondering if it should be reworded to make it sound more authentic. I will, in short, be able to lose myself in a book again, which is the best possible incentive for finishing revisions. I’m already saving several books I know I will love for after edits, as a reward.

The second best incentive, for the record, is getting to begin a new story. My next book has already begun to evolve in my mind, and I cannot think of it without a little zing of excitement. But first, revisions.

37 Comments

Strong Women, Intrigue, and Great Prose. What Could Be Better?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 12:01 am (Guest Posts & Interviews, Internetting, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I had the pleasure of meeting debut author Joanne Rendell at a conference this summer and hearing all about her new book The Professors’ Wives Club, which is coming out today. Not only is she a lovely person with a fantastic blog and a great accent (she’s originally from the U.K.) but from the reviews and the premise of both this book and her next it appears she’s also a terrific novelist with a promising career ahead of her. I already ordered a copy for myself and can’t wait until it arrives. Please help me in welcoming her to the blog and to congratulating her on her well-deserved success!

Hi Joanne. Thanks for coming. I know I’ve already put my copy of The Professors’ Wives Club on order, but for those who don’t know anything about it yet, what is it about? What inspired it?

The Professors’ Wives’ Club tells the story of four women doing battle with a ruthless dean at Manhattan U – a university in downtown New York which looks a lot like NYU, where my husband teaches. The power hungry dean is set to bulldoze a beloved faculty garden. What he hasn’t bargained for, however, is the guts and will of the four professors’ wives who are determined to halt the demolition plans. In their fight to save the garden, the women expose the dark underbelly of academia – and find the courage to stand up for their own dreams, passions, and lives.

That sounds like an interesting premise. You just don’t read that much about university life, even though so many readers have been to college or are there now so they can relate. What inspired you to delve into this subject and write The Professors’ Wives’ Club?

I actually came up with the idea for the book when out with a friend, another professor’s wife like me. We were gossiping about other professors’ wives who we both knew and it struck me then what interesting characters professors’ wives would make.

These women – and, of course, there are professors’ husbands and partners too – are in an interesting position. They are often deeply connected to the university world. They live in faculty housing, take their kids to university childcare, and work out at the university gym. However, when it comes to university decisions, they have little power.

I liked the idea of pitting these seemingly powerless women against a dean who, in his little kingdom of the university, has so much power.

In addition to being the wife of a professor, you yourself have a very strong academic background, including a Ph.D. in English,  yet you write (and, I presume, read) commercial women’s fiction. Some might see that as a difficult leap, especially with the focus so many English departments put on high-brow literature. Was it hard for you to break out of your academic shell and just write and read for the fun of it?

Not at all. I’ve always been a big reader of commercial women’s fiction. Even when I was at grad school, I always had a stack of such books by my bed. Some of my peers and professors might have frowned on my well-thumbed copies of Bridget Jones’ Diary or Weiner’s Good in Bed but I didn’t care. I ate them up!

Popular fiction by women, for women, and about women has always gotten a bad rap. Romance novels continually get stereotyped as “soft porn for desperate housewives.” Chick lit has been dismissed by the literati as throwaway “fluff” obsessed with shopping and shoes. And even women writers like Jodi Picoult, ones who tackle more serious issues, are often labeled “hysterical” and “melodramatic” by snooty reviewers (if they get reviewed at all!).

It has become one of my missions to expose just how sexist and elitist this is. Why is it that women’s fiction gets such a bashing? Women do most of the reading these days, yet still the fiction we write struggles to be taken seriously? It makes me so mad, but it also makes me a fierce defender of popular/commercial women’s fiction of all kinds – from romance to Picoult!

I can definitely relate to that, especially since I experienced the same thing in my own academic career. So since not everyone is so englightened, how do you feel about your friends, family and contemporaries from your academic life reading your work? What about reviews? Are you worried about them, or do you just plan to ignore them?

I love it. It makes me a little nervous too, of course. You can’t help wondering what everyone will think when they read it and whether they will like it. I particularly love the idea of academics reading this book – if they dare! So far, there are few books out there that explore the private lives of women on campus. Novels like Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys or Zadie Smith’s On Beauty have looked at university life, but mostly from the male perspective. When literary fiction sets a book on campus it invariably tells a story about a male professor who’s either sleeping with or contemplating sleeping with his students! I’m tired of this story and maybe other people are too?

Reviews can be the best thing in the world if they’re good and a real kick in the teeth if they’re bad (especially when they’re posted on Amazon for the world to see!). But it’s all part of the roller coaster ride of publication. I’m learning that a thick skin is essential. As writers, we have to remind ourselves that reviews are just one person’s opinion. Furthermore, we have to appreciate that those people in powerful positions who get to say what is a “good” or “bad” book (in other words, the reviewers in the press or book trade) are often white, male, elite, and are not necessarily interested in the kind of books we write! In short, we can’t take reviews too personally; there’s too much politics and personal taste at play.

Yes, I can see how once again a propensity toward literature can affect reviews of women’s fiction. Although you are a great champion of women’s fiction — including romance, the most popular subgenre of women’s fiction — The Professors’ Wives Club is not a romance novel. Nonetheless, you were at the Romance Writers of America conference last month. Why? What did you take away from it?

My publisher was the one to suggest I go. At first, I was flummoxed. Me? There are no bodices or billowing pirate blouses on my cover after all, and when I looked at the RWA’s criterion for membership my novels didn’t fit the bill: “Books catalogued as romance” and “A main plot centering around two individuals falling in love.” My novel has romantic elements, for sure, but it’s more about women learning, growing, and finding happiness from themselves and from their friendships with other women.

But then I perused the RWA’s website further and was reminded of the staggering success of the romance industry. More than a quarter of all books sold are romance and in 2006 romance fiction generated $1.37 billion in sales (outselling every other market category). In the current climate where book buying is on the decline and where authors are increasingly expected to do the lion’s share of their book’s promotion, a new writer would be foolhardy not to want to learn something from the perennial success of the romance world.

Thus, I signed up and at the end of July jetted off to San Francisco for the conference. It was a blast! The Romance Writers of America are such a supportive and generous group of (mostly) women. They are so smart and professional too. Plus, they’re eminently welcoming. They don’t care if your book doesn’t fit the genre exactly. In fact, it was rare to meet anyone who wrote a standard romance, if bodice ripping and ravishing princes are what you were looking for! I met young adult fiction writers, chick lit writers, and other commercial women’s fiction writers like me. One woman I talked to wrote books about aliens, another about elves; others about panthers and vampires.

Mostly, I had a great time meeting wonderful and encouraging women. I also learnt so much about the publishing industry which I would never have known if I hadn’t attended. I’m going to the RWA convention every year from now on!

Yes, it was a wonderful conference, wasn’t it? Although my first attempts at writing were in the romance genre, I’m not longer solidly there, and yet I have learned more about writing from the romance community than from any other. Those women really know how to band together and help each other, and they’ve analyzed what does and doesn’t work in storytelling. What better place for a writer to learn? So other than joining RWA or similar organizations, what other advice do you have for unpubbed writers out there who are hoping to become published someday?

Join a writing group, either on or offline. Other writers are often fonts of wisdom not just about the craft of writing, but also about the publishing business.

Keep reading. Whichever genre you intend to write in – whether it’s mystery or literary fiction – make sure you know it inside out.

Keep writing. I really treat writing as a job. I sit down at my desk and tell myself I must write 500 words a day. I then get going. Often I trash a lot of what I write the next day, but at least I have words on a page to work with.

Keep learning about writing. Even now, with two books published, I continually go back to my books about writing (such as John Gardner’s Art of Fiction). I have to keep learning about, and reminding myself, what makes good dialogue, or how to transition well into a flashback scene, or how to go easy with the adverbs, or how to show, not tell. Writing is a craft and thus something you must keep working at.

You mentioned above that you are about to have two books out, and I noticed on your website that your second one will be released in the summer of 2009. I’m curious now! What’s it about?

The novel tells the story of two women, professors this time, who work in an English Department. One of the women, Diana, is older, very serious, and extremely established in the academic world. She’s only interested in very serious literature and has written a number of books on Sylvia Plath.

The other professor, Rachel, is new to the department. She’s young, enthusiastic, and her scholarship looks at popular women’s fiction. Her scholarship ruffles a lot of feathers in the academy because people see the books Rachel looks at as trashy and unimportant. Diana is particularly adamant on this point and really doesn’t like it when the young professor comes to the department.

The book basically looks at the tensions between these two very different women and also shows all the repercussions in their department and in their lives when they are forced to work side by side. A handsome visiting professor from Harvard and some high-profile, misbehaving students only serve to make sparks fly even more between the two women.

It sounds fantastic, and I love that it addresses the idea of literary fiction vs. women’s fiction. It reminds me of some of the essays novelist Jennifer Crusie has written in defense of genre fiction.

Thanks for visiting, Joanne! Now I’m off to see if my copy of The Professors’ Wives Club has arrived yet. And if others are interested, they can pick up copies everywhere, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Target, and their local independent bookstores, starting today. Happy reading!

19 Comments

In the Meantime

Monday, August 4, 2008 at 11:06 am (I Have Fun Sometimes, Internetting, Writing & Reading)

Wow! Look at the thick layer of dust on this here blog! Sorry about that. The conference ended this weekend, and now we’re off to Yosemite and the long drive home. Will post again later this week. In the meantime, here are a few of the many bloggers I met while in San Francisco. If you get a chance, cruise around their blogs for a while, or at least stop by to say hello. They are all talented writers and incredibly fun to talk to in person. A few of them are slow to return to the blogosphere, too, but that’s just because we had so much fun. If I left your name out, worry not — I’ll get you later…

Robin Bielman
Pam Writes Romance
Jess Riley
Joanne Rendell
Marilyn Brant
Eileen Cook

14 Comments

Snails in Brown Uniforms and Kidnapping Mothers

Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 5:43 pm (I Have Fun Sometimes, Let's Get Personal, Photos, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , ,

I’m antsy in a way I haven’t been since I believed in Santa Claus. This year for my birthday my family members pooled their money to allow me to purchase my first ever big-girl camera. Well, the first I’ve owned since the ancient Minolta I perma-borrowed from my parents when I was on my high school newspaper staff, then handed over to my brother when I graduated and no longer had daily darkroom access.

I ordered my new toy over a week ago, and it’s still in transit, which means that I’ve been checking shipping information every three hours, just in case the package mysteriously traveled from Secaucus, NJ to my corner of the southwestern U.S. in less time than it would take for me to watch Anne of Green Gables for the seventy-eighth time. (<– An estimation. Probably a low one.) I’m actually squirming with impatience.

Too bad, since according to UPS, which is now employing an especially slow breed of Peruvian snail to deliver all its packages, my camera should arrive Monday evening. That’s a whole weekend and several full week days from now. The good news is that the filters I ordered to go with it have already arrived, so I can fondle them and dream of pictures to come whenever I’m tempted to check the tracking information yet again.

Out of the two filters I ordered, the one below is my preference, not because of its spectacular performance — it’s still sealed in its case — but because of the packaging. And what, ladies and gentlemen, do you think this amazing filter might do? Go ahead. Take a guess.

Yes, that’s right! This special filter adds a hat!

Oh, wait. No it doesn’t. It has something to do with UV rays. Um. Yeah. That’s right. Too bad, since that blue hat is pretty snazzy, I must say.

As much as that amuses me (and, oh, does it ever) I have plans to do more than gaze adoringly at my filters and check the UPS website for the quadrillionth time. My mother has informed my father (who also has a June birthday) and me that we are to be spirited away to a mysterious location tomorrow evening. I’ve been given strict instructions on when to show up and what to wear, but no other clues as to the occasion. I’m up for about anything as long as it’s not skydiving; I draw the line when a flimsy piece of fabric is all that stands between me and the pull of gravity from a great distance. With most mothers this would not be a concern, but this is the woman who took me hot air ballooning for one birthday and requested a canyoneering trip, complete with two rappels over 100 feet each, for Mother’s Day a few years ago. Nothing is beyond her, which I admit is kind of fun.

My other big plan for the weekend involves skidding into Monday morning’s SoCNoC deadline with an unimpressive number of words written for the month. So far I’ve managed just over half of the 50,000 required, so unless I develop an unprecedented amount of discipline and creativity and an unhealthy reliance on caffeine, I’m not going to make the official word count. Which is fine, since I’d rather take my time now than untangle a hurried manuscript later. Anyway, I did warn everyone that I’m writing at my own pace, even if said pace currently feels slower than the slothful snails who’ve been holding my brand new Nikon hostage.

29 Comments

This Is My Blog on SoCNoC

Friday, June 6, 2008 at 1:05 pm (Five on Friday, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , ,

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of seeing the same post up on here day after day. However, I’m still SoCNoCing in addition to, you know, having an actual life, which makes this a good day to revive my Five on Friday tradition (if you can call something I’ve only done twice a ‘tradition’). If the planets re-align or my ingrained sense of guilt gets to me or I become sick of writing a million and a half words a day on my book, I’ll be back to more regular posting early next week.

When I first started Five on Friday, it was with the intention of sharing five favorite links and a video. Since then, other bloggers have played with the meme, and it has morphed into something different for each of them. It’s a fun thing to watch. However, this time around, I’m going to have to go with the original idea, because I’m a bit of a stickler. Since all my creativity is being siphoned off for my book, you get an obvious topic this week: Five writing-related links I’ve found helpful, plus a bonus video for those who have no moral objection to the wonders of YouTube.

  1. Feeling lonely? Directionless? Looking for a good community of writers, some great writing advice, an abundance of laughs or, at the very least, a cult to replace the one you left after that religious phase you went through in high school? Might I suggest Will Write for Wine? It’s a podcast! It’s a forum! Best of all, it goes well with chicken and pasta!
  2. If you’ve seen the size of my TBR piles (yes, plural) you’ll know that reading isn’t dead — not in my household, at least. But if you’d like proof that others share my addiction, you may find some solace in “Book Lust” by New York Times columnist Timothy Egan. While not a traditional writing resource, it provides plenty of inspiration for those who are convinced that the book industry is doomed. Unless they’re really cynical, in which case they’ve probably already given up on being published anyway, and are therefore unlikely to be reading this.
  3. Link number three is the perfect time to pause for a moment of gratitude, because even if reading isn’t dead, it’s still not an easy industry to break into. Yet I’m an info geek, and with all the resources for writers available out there, I’d still rather be writing now than at any other time in history. For a taste of what I mean, take a look the following three agent blogs. (You get three links for the price of one here, since narrowing it down was pretty close to impossible. Plus, I’m feeling generous.) If you haven’t read Nathan Bransford’s blog, Ask Daphne by Kate Schafer, and Pub Rants by Kristin Nelson, I highly recommend that you trot off there next and take a look at the advice they have to offer both aspiring novelists and those who are already published. Follow the links in their sidebars to find even more great editor/agent blogs.
  4. For those times when I need a character name and either can’t come up with one or realize that I’ve been inadvertently naming characters after former elementary school classmates or B-list actresses, I visit the Random Name Generator. Just plug in a few parameters, press the button, and you will be presented with a list of names to choose from. Best of all, if you don’t love any of the ones that come up, you can just do it again. And again. And, for those more into procrastinating than writing, yet again.
  5. As it turns out, it’s hard to narrow this topic down to five, which is why Writer’s Digest creates an annual list of the 101 best web sites for writers. (Note: It was loading very slowly on my computer, so some patience may be required. Then again, if you’re reading this list you’re most likely interested in publication, in which case you probably already have a well-developed sense of patience. Good job.)

And, finally, the promised bonus video. Although everyone and their cat has probably seen this by now if they have least a passing interest in novelship, my internal sense of right and wrong has ordered me to share it with you anyway. Enjoy.

Now it’s your turn. (You just knew I’d turn this into a homework assignment, didn’t you? You can probably even guess what I’m about to ask. Let’s see if you were correct.) Now that you’ve seen a few of my favorite writing-related websites, what are some of yours?

In other news, Ilana Stephens, a talented writer and fellow Will Write for Wine forum member, interviewed me last week for her blog. Since I’ve mostly disappeared from the internets lately I’m only now sharing the link with you. I’ve conducted a few blog interviews myself, but I’ve never been on the receiving end of the questions. I have to admit, it was pretty fun, and it made me feel kind of important — and since I’m the proud owner of and slave to three haughty cats, my ego could use the boost.

24 Comments

SoCNoC and a Contest Winner!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 9:02 pm (Internetting, Let's Get Personal, Writing & Reading)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Every year when NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) rolls around, I stand on the sidelines like an outcast kid, watching while everyone else gets to play. Because let’s face it — if there’s an inconvenient month to write 50,000 words, it’s November. (Actually, 50,000 words is nowhere near convenient, no matter the month.) That’s why when I found out that the New Zealand group Kiwi Writers claimed June for their own novel-writing month, I waited and debated and finally signed up. June’s still a busy month (and, blast it, it still has only 30 days instead of 31 like some months I could name — yes, I’m looking at you, January), but at least it doesn’t contain Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations. Not that I have cause to whine, since I’m cheating anyway; I only have about 43,000 words to go on my current book, instead of 50,000. Even that means 1,434 words per day, however, with no days off. I’m nervous and excited and already counting down the days until July.

Pain, suffering, and daily writing sound like a good way to spend the next month? If so, check out the Southern Cross Novel Challenge (SoCNoC). It’s free, and includes access to forums with a wealth of resources and plenty of people to encourage you. You can even friend people, since this is the age of social networking. (My user name is caryn.) Plus you don’t have to be a Kiwi, since New Zealanders are a welcoming sort.

Even if you don’t join, feel free to throw a few tips my way in the comments for this post. I could use some. (And, no, Don’t do it! doesn’t count.)

In other news, I seem to remember that there was a contest on here a few days ago, for which debut author Jess Riley donated a copy of her new book Driving Sideways. Well, this afternoon Random.org declared Ilana Stephens the winner! Please visit her blog and congratulate her. And if you haven’t picked up your own copy of Driving Sideways, rush right out and grab one because it’s a wonderful read.

P.S. Someone e-mailed me today (Tuesday) using the link on the left-hand sidebar. My stats tell me that they filled out the form, sent it, and got the thank-you screen, so I know it wasn’t spam. However, I had an e-mail glitch (which is now fixed, thank goodness!) and did not receive it. Could you please try again? I don’t handle suspense well, and I’m dying of curiosity. I just know you were writing to tell me I won a million dollars or you want to give me a book deal or something. That’s it, right? Right?

19 Comments

« Older entries

  • a

  • Archives

  • Today's Top Posts

  • Recent Comments

    Margo on Confessions of a Reading …
    On the Book Lady… on This Is My Blog on SoCNoC
    Recent Faves Tagged … on Strong Women, Intrigue, and Gr…
    Caryn Caldwell on Where do these people come…
    pamwritesromance on Where do these people come…
    Cam on Where do these people come…
    LaDonna on Where do these people come…
    alyson noel on Spreading the Blog Love

  • RSS Feed Subscriptions

    Subscribe in Bloglines

    Add to Pageflakes

    Subscribe in NewsGator Online

  • Site Search