Surviving Adolescence

I want to announce a new release! I am in the release-any-second-now anthology, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl, I Learned from Judy Blume. Edited by Jennifer O'Connell, it contains real-life essays from 21 authors--including yours truly--on the Judy Blume books that got us through adolescence.

I wrote about Deenie. When I read the book I was the same age as Deenie and just as mad at the world. But it was making peace with myself that somehow--as an adult--made that book even more meaningful.

I don't know that most men "get" how Blume's books charted adolescence for a lot of women. How honest the books felt. How scandalous (in Forever, she discussed S-E-X--in a way that was completely realistic).

My adolescence--like everyone's, I suppose--was a landmine of feelings and often unhappiness. I skipped a year of high school, feeling intellectually bored and hopelessly out of place. But Blume's books somehow made me realize that as different as I was, someone else "got me."

Any women care to share their "Blume moments"--or any book that somehow made surviving the teen years a little easier? You guys, too!

Working Through

I recently became a fan of this musician. I have bought several songs for my iPod, and turns out I had a few of his songs on compilations--and didn't even know it until I loaded the compilations onto my iPod. So off I went to Google him, and discovered, in nearly every bio or review that critics said his lyrics were "harrowing" and "autobiographical" and "an attempt to work through tragedy."

I have an acquiantance I used to spend time with who is an artist. On weekends at his beach house, we played charades and drank way too much wine. And I found him very witty, but when I saw his installations, I found them dark and intense and funny and morbid all at once.

I know some people create simply to entertain. There are popcorn movies and popcorn books. But I also--strictly based on my pals--know a lot of creative people are working through some process through their art. And while I can take art for art's sake and music for music's sake . . . and a book for simply a book, I do find the ones that have some undercurrent fascinate me more.

What am I working through? After the death, funeral, and assorted stuff of the last few weeks, I think I am squarely going in some existential direction. The beauty of life . . . which ALWAYS ends. As the character Lou O'Connor (named after my late and much-loved godfather) told Cassie in Spanish Disco (paraphrased), "You're angry that people leave. Whether they abandon you or they die, in the end you either leave first . . . or they do." It's the human condition.

So . . . care to lie down on the couch? Is there some bigger current in your work you feel yourself groping toward, fumbling toward some deeper understanding? Any artists that draw you in because of that? Music?

Old News at Amazon?

I admit that I don't Google myself. And I don't visit Amazon all that often either. Once in a blue moon, I will check over there to see if a new book or cover is up, if the iPod or audible versions of a book are now available, or the download versions for e-readers (because I would say every two weeks or so a reader will write and ask when something is coming out on e-reader). So, I popped on late last night to respond to a question from a reader--and lo and behold, I discover that now when you see the number of stars a book has, way up at the top, there is a little down arrow. When you click on it, you get a graph detailing how many five-star reviews, four-stars, and so on--you can thus do so without having to read through a bunch of reader reviews.

I, for one, am impressed.

Why?

Well . . . when I read through reviews as an author, or, as I often do knowing so many writers, as a personal friend of an author, I never cease to be amazed at the sheer venom with which some people will review. Case in point . . . you can read through 11 good reviews of one of my books . . . and there is 1 atrocious review. Not just atrocious--but NAME-CALLING. As I was perusing this new thing over on Amazon, I saw one review in which the person threatened to throw the book at me. I have a friend, a writer I adore, who got one review that said "I'm sorry I spent money on this book and encouraged this hack to write." WHAT?

Now, I cannot imagine going through life feeling so compelled to write bad reviews. Many books aren't my cup of tea, but I know SOMEONE likes to read them. So more power to them. I know, because I am in this biz, how personal a business it is. But the great thing about this little down arrow--which for all I know has been there for ages--is that if I click on a book's stars and see that 20 people gave it a five-star review or a four-star review, and ONE person gave it a one-star review, that chances are, that lone reviewer was looking for something different. And chances are, because I've never seen a one-star review written in a dispassionate voice, it's a petty review or it just is so filled with rancor that I won't really get a sense of the book.

Do reviews sway me? Sometimes. When I choose books for my book group, I will generally go and see what kind of reviews are there--sometimes it's to make sure it's not an overall lukewarm-reviewed book, sometimes reader reviews will tell me a few spoilers that let me know that it might not be thematic enough for a book group, or it might have something too political or controversial about it, and maybe I don't feel like dealing with that with other readers at my group. So yeah, in that sense they sway me. But, as I've detailed here, I'm savy enough to know what certain types of reviews mean. Nonetheless, this new arrow key lets me cut to the chase.

What do you think? And do reader reviews ever sway you?

Love and Funerals

I'm in NYC for a funeral for my much beloved godfather. This has been one of the most grueling four-day periods of my life, capping two hellish weeks. It's not just my own grief, which has been rather intense, but seeing the people I've loved my whole life in great grief and pain as well. These are the people I have written about. The people I love.

It was a true Irish send-off, complete with bagpipers. And the SECOND I hear bagpipes, that's it. I lose it. I don't even have to KNOW the person, let alone being in the surreal experience of standing on the sidewalk on the lower East Side, watching professional pallbearers (who are amazing in their lock-step and perfectly choreographed ritual) carry in a coffin of someone I love as two men in kilts start playing. It's almost too much.

But even amidst all the grief, there is a sense of CLAN. A beautiful peace. A sense of coming together, all of us, and the way the bonds aren't broken by time or distance when we gather.

And that, I realize, has been a consistent theme in all my books from The Roofer to Billie Quinn's series . . . to Invisible Girl.

The clan.

Anyone else have that theme?

Peace and love,
E

My Kryptonite

My life is filled with worry, stress, and tinged with grief of late. People I love are sick, friends are sick, deadlines loom, I'm overtired because of insomnia (been up since 1:00 a.m. and it's now 6:20 p.m. Do the math). It's life. I have been in a roughly ten-day cycle of extreme pressure and anxiety. And thus . . . it is my Kryptonite.

I can write through exhaustion.

I can write through illness. Hell, been doing that for years.

I can write through anger.

I can write through a move several states away with my life in boxes.

I can write in a hotel room all alone.

I can write with six or seven kids running through my house.

I can even write while nursing a baby.

But I cannot write through anxiety. It is my Kryptonite. It is what shuts me down.

It is what it is. I am on a nine-day prayer vigil undertaken for people with cancer in my life and for my baby and other things that are troubling me. The prayer vigil is helping to conquer anxiety because I feel like I am DOING something. But I am still not at 100%.

So . . . blog friends . . . whether you are writers, or readers . . . doesn't matter. What is your Kryptonite?

Brown-eyed Girl

Ahh, Van Morrison, that Irish singer with the immortal voice . . . and his hit . . . Brown-eyed Girl.

Being a said brown-eyed girl, I always liked the tune. Too many drunk boyfriends sang it to me . . . but none so well as Van Morrison, of course. And I have to say the song summed up what I thought a character was--way back in high school when I was first writing. I thought the most important things to tell your reader about a character were no more than a police suspect sketch--you know, brown eyes, average height, scar by the left eye, whatever. The exterior details were what made up my characters, and I assumed that was how readers would remember them.

HA! Okay, so now I know better. Character is so much more that my previous beliefs are really silly. Character is soul. It what makes us who we are. It's why I have been up since 1:30 a.m.--the way my mind ticks . . . it's what makes ME tick. I live for my children, for my garden, for my friends and my dogs. I cry at the St. Jude's Children Hospital commercials. I abhor the hatred and racism and intolerance that threads through our society. I pray throughout the day in a running conversation with God. I like to read about quantum physics. And even all that really doesn't let you know who I am. It's just a "character sketch" and you would have to spend years--or a book--getting to know me.

In thinking about it . . . I realize now that when I recall the characters I loved best in literature, I cannot tell you what they look like. Can't tell you what color their eyes are or if they are short or tall. Atticus Finch and Scout. Jo in Little Women. Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises. It's them, their reality or their being that I recall. Atticus' decency. Jo's spunk. Lady Brett's charisma and underneath-it-all broken nature. Somehow, the authors made them come to life.

So how about you? Favorite characters? What made them stand out? And what about your main character in your work-in-progress?

Moody Blues

I am DYING to see this movie. But I can already tell, from the raves (but hints) in the NY Times review, that it is one of those movies in which I (me personally) will be bitterly diasppointed. NOT because it's not brilliant and reinvents the movie musical, but I KNOW that I personally don't deal with bittersweet movies very well. They linger, they sometimes depress me. A week later, if it was a really great movie, I will still find myself moved--and not in a good way, often.

The same thing with books. I thought House of Sand and Fog was fabulously well-written. But from page one, I knew this was not a book to end well. I didn't even BOTHER to see the movie. I knew it was a doomed affair.

True fact: I call my BESTEST friend Pam before I go to see any movie to ask her how it ends. She knows me. She knows what I can handle. She'll tell me--"Nope. It's sad. Don't go."

Sometimes, I guess, books and movies MOVE us. We start at point A and move to point B. I am just as easily LIFTED by a happy movie or book, a gloriously joyous crowd-pleasing ending.

But, also, I am aware, that I as movie goer and book reader often choose to AVOID certain books and movies. Not forever. Just until I am in a different place. If someone I love is sick, I am hardly going to rent a movie with death and disease as a theme. I need to be in a place where I can take it.

Case in point. I saw Schindler's List. I KNEW I was going to be viewing a sad, sad, difficult movie. But that, like the movie Sophie's Choice, does not fully describe how deeply I felt it. I was pregnant when I saw it, and I truly worried that I had released WAY too many sad hormones into my body. It stayed for days and days. I was not, as I recall, really in the right place to see it. Not that there's ever a "right" time--but sometimes, you just know you're in a decent spot to accept that kind of grief in a movie or a book.

Right now, I am reading a philosophy text. But I have been working 24/7 and am so exhausted, I am probably not in the right frame of mind to read it. So I'll give it until after the weekend when I hopefully get some rest.

How about you? How do books and movies affect your mood? And do you delay seeing or reading some things because you just know you're not in a good place?

I'll Take Darwin for $100, Alex

I am flying high writing because of a happy accident. The short version is while researching eugenics for a plot, I discovered the work of Francis Galton . . . which perfectly ties into my book's storyline. Total accident--and it totally works to give a darker, deeper back story to the Gemini Conspiracy. And turns out Galton was Charles Darwin's cousin. Even better!

I love when that happens.

As such, I would be a great Jeopardy contestant. As an author, I know a little bit about a lot of things. All in the name of research. You know when they have a murder trial, and as "evidence" the prosecutor points to Google searches? As in, "One week before the husband was murdered, his wife was searching the Internet for cyanide poison and faking suicide."

Well, if that's evidence, everyone around me better stay pretty damn healthy because I know how long it takes maggots to appear on a rotting corpse, how much a human liver weighs (2.4-3 pounds), and assorted other weirdo facts.

I can tell you how to make a boilermaker and nearly any other cocktail or how cremation works, exactly and in great detail. I can tell you more medical facts than the average doctor (true story . . . whenever I have to take someone to the hospital E.R.--kids with broken bones or high fevers or whatever--I am usually mistaken for a doctor or fellow nurse by the triage nurse on duty).

Yes, being a writer means I am a repository of totally useless information. Sometimes USEFUL information. But trivia nonetheless.

So what are some of your weird areas of knowledge because of what you're working on?

Before & After

Life as I know it has changed. Baby #4 has learned to climb out of the crib at will. I will think I have him settled down for the night and can FINALLY write. And voila! There he is, peeking his head around the corner.

Yeah. There is life BEFORE he learned to do this.

And life AFTER.

And, I will say, my other three kids were a LOT . . . less . . . wild. So not only is he out of the crib, but he is likely finding his sister's drumsticks and trying to break the glass coffee table by "playing" it; raiding the dog food and flinging puppy chow from end to end in the kitchen; or otherwise causing mischief.

But life is like that. There was life before I gave birth. And life after. And the difference has less to do with stretch marks and more to do with an immense outpouring of love like nothing I had ever experienced before. Then I did it three more times, each showing me that love is boundless and eternal and can grow beyond what you thought was possible.

And there are books I feel that way about.

There is life BEFORE I read The Little Prince . . . and life after. Life before I read The Sun Also Rises and life after.

So . . . before and after? Seminal event? Book? What reading experience changed you forever?

Smackdown

This has been, without a doubt, one of the worst weeks of my entire existence. My kids think I've finally cracked under pressure. Maybe. The funny thing is I started Monday with prayers that I would allow nothing to dampen my joy. That I expected great things, miracles, and joy in my week. Nothing would stop me.

You know, when you put a challenge like that out into the universe, I think the universe says, "You think you're so f*cking evolved . . . see how you handle THIS."

And it gave it to me in spades, capped by my youngest baby--two years old--needing some pretty extensive testing at Children's Hospital. He'll be fine, I hope . . . but you know, the universe engaged in a version of WWE Smackdown with me (and you know, I don't watch wrestling, but that guy on the link is HOT). Yesterday, I was on the canvas, when my agent called and a proposal I adore was sent to a different imprint at a house--and ping pong continues. This biz is not for the faint of heart. But that wasn't all--or even a fraction of all that was happening. It reached a point where I didn't even want to open email because it was likely going to be someone giving me a hard time for something. And frankly, because of Baby #4, I didn't give a sh*t about any of it.

And in the midst of it, I was working on something and my daughter asked me about it. And I told her the editor wanted x or y change. And my daughter said, "That's bullsh*t. Buy back the book. Don't let them have it. Have artistic integrity, mom. I like your characters tough-talking and strong, just the way they are. INTEGRITY!"

Then I reminded her we're purchasing a $10,000 violin on Saturday.

Sometimes, this job is a JOB. Period.

But after everyone in the house was in bed, at two a.m., I had a long talk with the universe. Okay. Smackdown. You beat me this week. BUT . . . I ain't down yet. And hell, it's only THURSDAY. So I wrote up a list of what I am working on, what I want to do next, what proposal I'll work on next, what rewrites are due . . . and today, I work on my list.

With integrity.

Sometimes, in life, you just gotta push on. So, I won. I really did. Yeah, I got smacked down, but I'm standing today. I'm writing. And no, I am not going to ruin my character. I like her. I'll tweak her. I'll put it into the universe and see what happens.

What do you do when the world smacks you down?

Fight Club

Remember the movie (and book) Fight Club? The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about the Fight Club.

Well, I think the first rule of writing is there are no rules. Look at The Sound the the Fury. Remember Benjy? My God, but how the heck do you get through his narrative? You do, of course. And the end result is worth it--the novel is challenging and brilliant. But breaks rules as we probably think of them as far as narrative and chronology.

On the other hand, say you want to be published and you're NOT Faulkner. Well, you probably want to follow a few rules. To that end, I am always amazed when I am asked to critique a 200-000-word novel. Happened three years ago. It was, as I recall a mystery about a sailor in the Keys. And the person who asked me to critique it expressed deep SHOCK bordering on an anaphylactic reaction that word count was something he might want to think about if he intended to send it to an agent as a mystery/thriller.

I have had people tell me "that's what editors are for" when their plots fall down halfway through the book or their manuscript is rough to the point of needing a massive copyedit.

So maybe the first lesson of writing--if you want to be published--is do your homework. I am not a joiner, but if you read the NY Times article I linked to yesterday, they gave credit to the RWA for being an organization that does a lot of market research, that helps its writers. Other groups do, too. Writers' groups, blogs, books . . . the information is out there if you want it.

So, if this is Fight Club . . . or Write Club . . . what's the first rule, in your opinion?

The Crapshoot

Did you all see this aticle in the NY TIMES this Sunday?

I know an author who, by virtue of a huge promotional push--one of the biggest I have ever seen among authors I know--and some luck, a great cover, and a healthy dash of talent (because I never fail to recognize other people--jealousy is a no-no)--had a good seller. Not a best-seller. Didn't make any lists. But did well enough for her to earn out and get a pretty fat royalty check. And, like the author of PREP in this article, her subsequent books--without the publisher's huge promotional investment, and most definitely the timing of the chick lit market--have done modestly at best.

The thing is . . . when I would talk to her, she would not talk TO me, but AT me. Because by virtue of her sales, she had a LOT to say about the book biz, about being a success, about what a talent SHE is (but not, I was amazed to find out, the talent of ANYONE else out there in her genre), about many, many things--including knocking other authors (in front of editors, no less). She was, to all around her, a diva. One person in the biz called her "psychotic." And I had a tendency to be bemused. Because, I have been at this long enough to know that a lot of this is a crapshoot. You write the best book you know how, you promote yourself as much as possible within the confines of your budget, you have your agent push for promotion, you send out your press kits, do all that . . . . and then roll the dice.

Anyone who tells you they have the secret of publishing success has loaded dice. Talent is a component. But so is timing. And be careful who you knock on the way up . . . because the mighty can fall far.

It's a strange biz. That's the other really wonderful aspect of the article. It's unlike any other--even Hollywood.

So what do you think?

Jung and Me

The responses from my post of yesterday were very interesting, and yet again made me wonder what I consciously write--and what subconsciously filters into my writing by virtue of that Jungian portion of myself I am only half-aware of.

I know this . . . there are some things you will see in my writing--almost reflexively, without thinking about it very much. These include: positive gay role models, very loyal families that can be related--but can also be a loose assortment of friends who love each other, bad cops (with the good ones being truly heroic) and corrupt authority figures, male chuavinists always "getting theirs" in the end, martinis with green olives, characters who pray before they go to sleep, eclectic home furnishings, characters who add ketchup to scrambled eggs, and characters with the occasional neurotic elements--like I can tell you, all my characters are afraid to fly and you are NEVER going to see a pilot in my books.

On the flip side, I also know--and as far as I can tell, this is never a conscious choice--you will NOT see: pilots (see paragraph above), characters who smoke (makes me cringe--even the bad guys . . . not even THEY smoke), warm and fuzzy dads, atheists, characters who like frilly anything, characters who do any sort of "home" thing well--most of mine can't cook, and if they try something crafty, they do it poorly. I also, frequently, have characters of other races than my own--and you have to really be paying attention--I will never tell you "this character is black or Hispanic or white"--you're going to have to figure that out for yourself if that is important for you to know. You will not often, I don't think, see my characters have friends who are "same" to them--they are usually other races, other sexualities, other ethnicities, other religions. My characters listen to certain kinds of music. They do not like Jay Leno--and the thread of Letterman runs through all my books. They like cats and dogs, but hate dog slobber. They do not--in my YAs--like math.

I do NOT make character sketches. I don't write anything down. So I have to say that somehow a lot of this just "is." I will never write a smoking character because (no offense to smokers), smoking makes me physically ill. I don't even want to think about it. I never said to myself, "Gee, Character X will be a nonsmoker."

There are a zillion ways I could go on with this train of thought. When writers "free-write," I think a lot of this is unleashed. But there is definitely a component of the subconscious in all we do--and writing especially.

So . . . welcome to The Couch, as we call it on this blog. Do you see Jung dancing gleefully through your work?

Mother's Day

I adore my mom. She's one of my best friends. We talk an hour EACH day. I'm not sure why we always have stuff to say to each other, but we do. We play Scrabble together. She's teaching me how to purl so I can do more than knit lopsided scarves for the rest of my life.

But nice moms don't make for good dramatic novels. In thinking about each book I've written, the mom character has always been a crux--for good or bad. Or I've killed her off. Because I know that your relationship with your mother is something that echoes through your entire life, even if she's missing. It's your first imprint.

In Spanish Disco, my first novel, Cassie Hayes was the product of a bitter divorce in which, unusually for her age/the time the divorce occurred, her father assumed custody. Her mother was a villain. In actuality, her mother was very human, very shallow, but in the context of Cassie's life, her mother took on the life of a monster. I thought, as a writer, that was a dramatic thing to explore--because, I would hope by the time most of us reach 30, 35, 40, we have put into perspective the failings of our parents, just as I hope my own kids forgive me for the myriad ways in which I am an eccentric mother and somehow fall way short. People who fail to do this, fail to put the past into some sort of order--unfortunately, WAY too many people I know . . . as well as Cassie Hayes, my character--saddle themselves with a burden.

In The Roofer, Mom was bipolar. Drama galore. Even in books like Invisible Girl or Double Down, in which Mom is dead . . . her being missing is the gaping wound of my heroine's journey.

So how about you? Is MOM a big part of your novel?

The Girl is Calling

I came up with a new idea for a book. I think the central premise is pretty original (as original as anything can be--hasn't everybody thought up everything?). And I know who my main character is--a woman very much like me, only childless (which, with four kids, is something I can barely imagine, but she longs to have children, and that I CAN imagine). This main character is very, very much a part of me--I know this woman.

But the dead body--and there is a dead body in chapter one--is a discarded girl. I don't want to say anything more. But it is her . . . SHE is calling me.

Maybe, in this character, I see all the unwanted children in the world. All the discards. All the kids in foster care. The little boy from HeadStart I took in for part of the summer two years ago. The babies I visited in the projects. The children abandoned by a broken system.

Whatever it is, for the first time in a LONG, long time, this girl, this child, will not be silenced. She is there when I wake up. She is with me now as I am blogging. She is my last thought when I go to bed. She pops into my head as I am driving. And she is in my garden with me.

For people who do not write, I probably just sound nuts. For people who do write, you know this happens with special books or special characters. This one is an ache in my heart. I wish I could describe what this feels like to people this never happens to, but this child, this discarded little girl, is real. To me.

I wanted to blog about her because this is what writers mean (I think) when the Muse comes to visit. It is that story that wants to invade your current work in progress. The story that HAS to be written NOW. The story that is with you at breakfast and taking up a seat at the dinner table. This is what it feels like when the Muse has you and won't let go. When a novel has to be written.

I am resisting the girl. Not that I don't want to write her story, but I know, already, this is one of those books, like The Roofer, that will be difficult to write, that will filter through every part of my life. But believe me, the girl will not be silenced and I will likely, just to exorcise her a bit, start a little of her story today.

So tell me . . . do you have a girl calling you? What is it like the the Muse has you in her grips?

Picking Dandelions

I've never had one of those fancy little counters on my site that tells me (and you) what my word count is on various works in progress. The reasons for this are varied. One is I am technologically deficient and adding one requires having the ambition to figure out how it works. One is that I usually have so many works in progress in various stages of so-called progress, that I could easily have five counters. Sometimes I stop work entirely on a book because the Muse is calling on another book, or because an editor is anxious to see a proposal.

But another, the main, reason is my output varies. I have whole weeks in which I don't write more than a paragraph, and weeks in which I produce 100 pages.

Part of this is I have four kids. And the baby is 2. For those of you without kids--or those for whom the "Terrible Twos" is a distant memory--this particular age is a period of frustration--on both our parts. He has suddenly become very verbal, which means no matter what I am doing, he taps me on the arm, holds up an object, and says "What is this?" I will say something like "It's a statue" or "It's a candle." To which his reply is always very scientific and thoughtful, and never varies, "AHHHHHHHHHHH, a candle." "AHHHHH, a statue. Thanks." I am also training him to spout certain political slogans and to recognize key political figures. Often with the label "neo-fascist"--but I digress. His interrupting me is OK, but there can follow the period known as the "meltdown." If he cannot say a word or I don't understand him, he gets, in a word, pissed. And thus begins a meltdown that can involve splaying himself face down on the floor, some kicking and screaming, and, in general, tears.

Try to output ANYTHING with that little drama going on multiple times a day.

So. . . . for the first time in my life, I have hired a nanny. This is a part-time arrangement, she is my age, lovely, and I hope she can teach him some more Spanish (Daddy is Mexican, so our kids have a smattering of Spanish, but none of us is bilingual by any stretch).

Yesterday was day one. Let me tell you, it was utterly strange. FOUR whole HOURS of no munchkin in my office having a hissy fit. It was a tantrum-less day.

So now . . . . now . . . . do the math. I manage to write three books and several proposals a year NOW. What will happen with this new arrangement? My output should increase exponentially! I told my agent to "brace for it." I already am amazed at what I can do with an uninterrupted hour because I have a really intense focus.

But the point of this post isn't that I have 16 whole child-free (relatively--he's one room away in the playroom and I still eat lunch with him) hours a week to write. It's that all along I have respected the fact that "life happens." I have never beaten myself up over word counts, sh*tty weeks in which I wrote nothing but crap . . . none of it. I understood that in the grand scheme of an entire life span, this has been but a blip. And there has never been a counter, because having one somehow, to me, seemed to be a Scold-o-Meter. I read too many blogs where writers beat themselves up over it. Or others that were downright . . . rigid about HAVING to write x number of pages a day--no excuses.

Excuses? I always had plenty. And never for once felt bad about it. If my child wanted to go pick dandelions--our favorite activity--we did.

So I'm curious . . . what is your take on your output? Writing goals? Word count meters?

Peace,
E

Writing Changes Everything

Once again this weekend, I got a SPAM-type ad for a new book. The cover was hideous, in my humble opinion, with people who looked rather like avators designed by someone with a sick view of anatomy, and the premise left me cold . . . but still, in the world of books, I will often click on ads just to see who's out there, who's writing what, to look for trends, to I hope have a sense of wonder about something another writer dreamed up, as I did when I read this book.

Truly, I look to be awed by the creativity of others.

Once again, it was a self-pubbed book. And just maybe to prove myself wrong, I clicked on "read an excerpt." Once again, I wanted to scream.

I get that we all read different types of books. What I enjoy isn't what the next person enjoys. Considering THIS is my bedside reading (and it's an AWESOME book, folks), I know I don't read what most people read. But the thing is . . . we can ALL agree that a book needs proper editing. That it not be riddled with mistakes the average copyeditor would pick up inside of five minutes. That is not be so full of cliche that the average high school junior in a creative writing class would give it a D.

There's something to be said--good and bad, I suppose--for thinking outside the box when it comes to publishing. Yes, many great writers languish unpublished and unagented. But many, many more aren't ready and take shortcuts that a professional would just cringe at.

But even more, I suppose, is what it says about me as a reader. Because I am a writer, it changes everything. There are some mainstream-published, commercial fiction writers I used to read that I simply can't anymore. I start many, many more books than I finish. Knowing how to craft a sentence or a plot changes how I read. Maybe others don't see what I see. But I do and it changes my reading habits.

Has writing changed your reading habits? And what are your thoughts on the self-pubbed route?

Everyone Has a Story

As a fiction writer, I am fortunate in that I have lived a really full life, complete with family members who really should have their own reality show. Not kidding. Eccentric relatives, LOUD relatives, crazy but lovable people all around . . . and I've packed a lot of living in my years--some of it unhappy--divorce and unhappy marriage, a life-threatening bout of illness, high-risk pregnancies (baby#3 was born with me having a catheter inserted into my heart while in labor--and I went on to try for baby#4). But even the sad and difficult and grief-filled parts of life are fodder for fiction.

When people meet my family--boisterous and funny and a little left of criminal at times--they say how lucky I am. "They sure give you stuff to write about."

But that's where they're wrong in a way. I once met an aspiring writer who told me he had lived a timid, quiet, shy, boring life. "Nothing to write about," he told me. "I've been a scientist all my life. I never even got married."

But he was wrong--because even in THAT there is the story. Maybe, in my own take on living life fully, it is a tragic tale of a man afraid to love or a man afraid to take risks. Maybe there is tragedy in the man (not him but some hypothetical man) burning with resentments and filled with pessimism and a life unfulfilled. Or the man who has sat in the same armchair for twenty years, drinking himself into a stupor. Or the wan who tossed his wife and children away for a chance on what he thought was love--and gambled wrong. In these lives of quiet desperation, there are stories.

In the lives of the man who packs my groceries and the woman I meet at the park who secretly loathes her mother-in-law, there are stories.

We all have them. The key, as writer, is to pull them out and write about them.

I am lucky in I have a bold life. A reckless, wonderful life that I can draw on. But everyone has a story. Don't you think? Do you listen to the stories of others or just imagine them? Do you draw from others' lives? I'm curious!

Peace,
E

More Than You Need to Know

Blame author Natalie Damschroder. I've been tagged. There are rules . . .

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

8 random facts/habits about me ...

1. I don't cook--at all--and only learned to operate a coffeemaker 2 years ago. Prior to that, I would go to McDonald's, order five jumbo coffees, store them in my fridge, and microwave as necessary.

2. My favorite soup is gazpacho. I hate string beans.

3. My current significant other and I pretty much met when I threw a steak at him. Long story involving a restaurant where I was waiting tables and he was chef . . . and a burned steak and my best customer.

4. When I tell people I will pray for them when they are having a difficult time, I stop what I am doing and light candles then and there, and say a little prayer so that I don't forget. I can have a dozen candles going at once on the shelves in my office. I don't know if it helps, but I know it cannot hurt.

5. I am a severe claustrophobic. Like wacky crazy claustrophobic. I had a panic attack this week sliding under my son's bed to pull out some out socks that were wedged near the wall. I am convinced there is . .. no . . . air . . . on elevators, in closets, under beds, or on airplanes, and no logic can convince me otherwise.

6. I like really ridiculously cheesy old movies, like Frenchman's Creek. In line with said taste in old movies, I adore the singing Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls and can sing all the songs from that movie by heart, even though I am, I am fairly sure, tone-deaf.

7. I see an acupuncturist every two weeks, and often fall asleep with twenty needles stuck all over me.

8. I make rude comments near women wearing fur. I know it is not terribly nice to do so, but I can't help but feel they are wearing torture victims on a coat.

Okay, I tag Jude . . . I'd tag Lainey, but she was already snagged, so I tag Karmela, and Michele, and Kelly. That's not eight, but . . . there you go. I was never good at following directions.

Why Do I Do This to Myself?

Yet again, I am kicking around a novel in my head, putting some notes down . . . and I already know the narrative structure is going to be difficult. It is a novel told, somewhat linearly, but with a theme each chapter. I am pretty sure what I want to do will work, but even as I am plotting it, I am kicking myself.

When I wrote Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, I told the story one chapter from Lily's point of view, the next from Michael's (her best friend), the next a column of Lily's with a title (she was a lifestyle columnist for a newspaper), the next Lily's POV chapter, the next Michael's, the next a chapter from Michael's novel--which unfolded in linear fashion every sixth chapter. And yeah, it was a b*tch. It was also the novel that sold the best and got great reviews . . . and judging by the emails I got, meant a great deal to many readers.

When I wrote Freudian Slip, my next RDI (out 2008), the last sentence of each of the hero's POV chapters is the first sentence in the mind of the female main character's next chapter (he talks to her in her head). And every once in a while, what the two main characters are doing ends up in a video stream on the laptop of Albert Einstein, who works in a sort of cosmic purgatory. And yeah, it was a b*tch.

When I wrote Invisible Girl, it was even more complex than the other two in terms of narrative structure. Because the father of the heroine believed the only way to keep his secrets from Vietnam was to never tell any one person all its parts, Maggie and her brother literally had to find each person who had a part of the secret and ascertain their story and place in the secret . . . which was not linear . . . and piece it all together. And yeah . . . it was . . . fill in the blank.

So as I ponder this new book idea, I know it will be difficult and I wonder why I do it to myself. On the one hand, I know when I pitch books to my editor, I don't have cookie-cutter ideas. On the other hand, I torture myself with these difficult narrative structures. But it's how the stories come to me.

Anyone else just really make things more difficult for themselves?

Cheers,
E

The Violin

My oldest child is 17 and an amazing violinist. She started at age 3 . . . every day for a YEAR, she pestered me for a violin and lessons. At 4, she started at a university in a young strings program and took to it like a duck to water. From there . . . she just skyrocketed. Until now, at 17, she is auditioning for conservatories and playing professionally in a quartet. And we are getting ready to upgrade her violin.

For anyone who doesn't know--and believe me, the last 14 years have been an education--your instrument is important. Audition on a piece of crap, and no matter how good you are, you may not be able to get your foot in the door. A bow costs as much as a car. Her violin upgrade, even trading in TWO violins, will cost about $10,000. And that doesn't include the bow. Or reconfiguring the strings so she has a GOLD E-string.

As I explained to my parents last night, arts in this country (because no actual public school programs offered what she wanted to take as a child) are way down on everyone's priority list, I think to the detriment of all children. And certain arts--like the violin--are out of reach of the middle class, let alone the poor. I have four kids, and I can tell you the sacrifices for the violin have included driving only one car between us all, giving up haircuts for my significant other, and countless other things, big and small. And HAD I KNOWN what a long, expensive road we were embarking on, I might have said, when she was 3, "Hey kid, why not take up SOCCER?"

But really? I wouldn't have. Because this is what makes my child's heart sing. And I couldn't do that to her or anyone.

So bringing it back to writing . . . is there something I know now that I wished I knew then? I don't know. If the joy is in the journey, then no. I guess not. I needed each experience--good and bad--along the way. There are little things I might have wanted to know. Like I might have taken a pen name all the way through my career. I wished I had known about that pesky passive voice in high school rather than later. I might have warned my young self how hard it would be to succeed in this brutal biz. Or that I would meet people who are less than nice or less than honest. As well as find some writer pals who would mean everything to me. But I don't think so. I think my journey was as it was meant to be.

So how about you? Is there something you know now that you wished you knew then? Would you rather have taken up needlepoint than writing? Or the violin?

Peace,
E

Composting Your Writing

I am starting a compost. What goes in? Egg shells, coffee grinds, rinds of fruit, vegetable leftovers, grass clippings, and leaves. What comes out? A dark soil-like mix that can be used to fertilize my vegatble garden--and without pesticides and chemicals. Not only that, I am not adding the above list of "what goes in" to the local dump.

And all of that is a lot like writing.

When I first started, I was completely paranoid about having every sentence be perfect. The idea of freewriting, or continuing to write without having everything prior to it perfect was impossible for me to embrace. As a teen, I wanted to be a writer, but I probably ripped to shreds HUNDREDS of short stories, feeling almost a deep sense of shame that they sucked so bad.

No, with the wisdom of hindsight, I don't think those ripped-up things were gems. I was right. They sucked. But . . . I now realize that sometimes out of the detritus of crappy writing, something good can come--even a simple sentence I can go on to use--a little like fertilizer--in another book or story.

I've shared on this blog before that I wrote the sentence My first instinct was to look at the corpse as a 17-year-old writer or thereabouts. It was for a story that never saw the light of day, but I always liked that sentence. So I saved it. And saved it. And in May of 2004, it was published as the first sentence of my favorite book I've written, THE ROOFER.

I save everything now. Even stuff that's just the coffee grinds and leftovers of my writing life. Because with some age, some wisdom, some crafting, it COULD . . . maybe . . . become something good.

Thoughts?

Going Green

I've been on a journey for a while now. Studied Buddhism, gave up meat, went on a macrobiotic diet, started walking 4 to 8 miles a day, planted a garden. Now, I am going green.

To that end, all the lightbulbs in my house have changed. I am (today, as a matter of fact) starting a compost. I now wash my clothes in cold water. I gave up my blowdryer. I am insane about turning off the lights and not using the air conditioning unless Oldest Child comes to me swearing she is going to hurl because the upstairs bedrooms are too hot.

And all that has gotten me thinking that . . . well, my characters are going to have to start recycling. I just want my characters to be responsible stewards of the earth. Maybe they will all get hybrids. I don't know . . . but I feel like even if it's a tiny detail here or there, they are going to be green.

Which also got me thinking . . . I have had a Buddhist vampire, and I have had characters who have donated big money to charity. I try to have them do the right thing. And lately, I have been thinking that with the insane gun culture in the United States, some of them are going to have to give up their firearms.

So I wonder . . . do you find yourself imbuing your characters with things you think are important or right? ALL my characters pray. It may be a single sentence, but I can't imagine a life without prayer, and so I can't imagine a character who doesn't fall to sleep at night praying. It's there, these traits I think are important, if you want to look for them in my characters. So how about you all? Going green? How about your characters?