Writing with Blinders

When a horse gallops with blinders on, some handlers say it helps the horse focus, keeps the horse from shying. Sometimes, as a writer, blinders can be a good idea.

There is an online writer I know by her online name--I don't really know who she is, where she lives, what she looks like, or any of the rest of it. I know she isn't yet published and wants to be very, very badly after ten years of trying. And I know, without a doubt, that any time I post in the place I run into her, she will find something in my post to get angry about. She will be not be viciously rude enough to make herself look like a fool, but will be abrupt enough that the communication is always odd. I try to go out of my way--bend over backwards--to make sure nothing can be misconstrued in my words. I will always use phrases like "in my humble opinion," or "I don't know, but for me . . . " Doesn't matter. Finally, one of her friends wrote me at my website, embarassed for her, apologized on this writer's behalf, and said, "She just doesn't get why she isn't published and the fact that it seems so easy for you makes her jealous."

This writer needs blinders. No one can ever possibly know another writer's journey. Ever. No one--unless they went through every entry of this blog--and I have 356 entries!!!!!!!---could even begin to guess. And even if you had read every entry, you couldn't know. have written through being bed-ridden. I have written through pain that made me bite down so hard I cracked a tooth. I write with four kids. I turned in a book when I was 9 months pregnant--and I was so tired in that pregnancy, I would cry with exhaustion sometimes. I had deadlines while baby #4 was in NICU and intubated. I have written through grief. I have written through things no one could ever know about except my best friend and most beloved friend. And NONE of that is to say "Well, I have it tough." I don't. I think I have a GREAT and wonderful and joyous life. I don't have it easy, I don't have it tough. I HAVE IT THE WAY IT IS. I am more talented than some, less than others. I have friends in the biz, but that doesn't mean doors are instantly opened. I have had books I believed in be rejected. 25 books doesn't mean those are the ONLY ones I wanted to write. Some have been cast off along the way. You still get rejected once you're published. Rather than being angry with me, why not continue to hone craft? Why not put on blinders and keep on the path?

I can get jealous. I know a not-very-nice writer who has met with big success, and that irks me in some way. But I learned a LONG time ago not to go onto Amazon and compare numbers. Don't look who got reviewed in People magazine, or who got a starred review in PW with anything more than a "Good for them." Otherwise, in a business that makes you crazy, you could get even more crazy. Be happy there is room in the universe for everyone to fulfill their dreams and for everyone to have success.

While the blinders are on, be gracious to every person you meet. Every writer, every person who comes to your book signing or speaking engagement. Be gracious to those people you meet in cyberspace. It's just the better way to go through life.

Be aware of what's selling, what's hot, what's sold to the movies . . . but . . . use it as a carrot . . . something to work toward, without begrudging the horse next to you.

Focus on your path . . . and like the horse, you'll get to your destination. At least, that's what I think.

Thoughts?

Peace,
E

The Buddhist's Way of Writing

I tend to think of writing as a journey. As the path, as "the practice." If you are familiar with Buddhism, then you know these are terms Buddhists use, ways in which to describe what it is they do, what they believe.

And with that in mind, here is wisdom from Buddha himself--that fits the writing process perfectly.

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it.
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.
But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings --that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.

I live my life this way. Is it the kind path? The path of good? Of grace? Of compassion? Is the choice I am about to make the one that leads to peace? And when I waver--as believe me I do--examine it and get back on the path as soon as possible.

But this is also, I think, the way to approach writing. I try not to "pontificate" on this blog. I wake up each day and think about who I am and why I write. I connect the lines between my real life and my imaginary one. I look inside and wonder . . . why do I want to write about this character? What is the process? Sometimes, because I've been in this biz a while, I talk about what I've learned, but always, I hope, from the perspective that "this is what works for me." Not "this is the only way." And then I enjoy hearing from other writers and readers about the same.

And if there is anything I have learned, it's that there is nothing you can cling to about this biz. Why does one person get a six-figure advance for a book that makes you go "huh?" and some brilliant jewels get ignored because they are simply not commercial? What the heck does an editor mean when she says, "I didn't feel your voice." But then the next one says, "I love the voice." It's all subjective. No "teacher" can tell you how to do it. It's all about discernment. So you go to blogs, writers' groups, take classes, read, read, read, think, daydream, write a lot, every day even, and after a while . . .

. . . you start to "get" it. You don't copy them, you make it your own. You find the way you are writing is, as Buddha says, conducive to the good. It is getting better. Each day. Each word.

That is my path.

Thoughts?

The Query

Ahhh, the query letter. A source of panic for many a writer.

Just because I've sold doesn't mean I've kissed the query letter good-bye either. My agent always asks me to write a pithy sales paragraph for new proposals because I know my stuff best. He tweaks it or may reject it outright and tell me to try a different angle, but he and I collaborate on the pitch--and it's very much like a query letter.

Having spent many years reading other people's queries when I worked in publishing, I learned which ones made me pay attention and which ones made me aim for the circular file.

Here is my do's and don'ts list.

DON'T. I may be in the minority here, because often books on writing will tell you to compare yourself to a famous writer or a popular book. "If you loved The Da Vinci Code then you will love My Great American Novel." This is only wise if your book can truly stand up to the comparison you've chosen to make. Most of the time the ones I've read can't. Think about it . . . you have now prepared the agent to open your package and curl up to a book that is just as good as one of the most successful novels of all time. I think it's great to be enthused about your book, but it's a risk that I have yet to see pay off.

DO . . . Better tactic? "I know you represent Author A, whose work I think is very funny. My chick lit novel also features a witty heroine, but Kate finds herself in over her head when she is hired to train a monkey for the circus. She globetrots to London with the monkey and finds herself embroiled in a murder scandal featuring the royal family. Hilarity ensues." Whatever. You get the idea. A milder comparison. Also shows you did your homework and know the agent represents work similar to yours.

DON'T. Please do not tell the agent or editor that your mom loves the book. While this seem like obvious advice, you would be shocked at how many writers will say, "My reading group of four fellow writers thinks the book has enormous potential." Um . . . four is not some magical number. They're your friends. They're supposed to think you have potential. I also know most of my agent and editor pals in NYC don't pay attention to small contests. I know it feels good to win one, but with one or two exceptions (such as the Golden Heart through the RWA), most agent know contests are often a small pool of entrants. It doesn't mean don't enter them . . . and I know (so please don't post angry comments) that sometimes a contest is judged by a really great editor--so definitely enter those. But listing a contest win of a tiny chapter of a writing organization in a town no one has ever heard of . . . is not really what will sell your work. And remember, you want your query to fit on one page--so each line and sentence counts!

DO. But go ahead and tell the agent if you have workshopped the manuscript with a well-known writing teacher, an MFA program, or something along those lines. My agent is always impressed by good MFA programs.

DON'T. Please don't say your book is difficult to describe. Don't say it doesn't fit into any genre. It is the most unique book ever written. Any of that. The bottom line is if YOU can't pitch it in 50 words or less, you can't expect an agent to.

DO. Hone your elevator pitch. That pithy pitch that will make an agent pay attention. Focus on the character--what makes them unique. Get some of the voice in there if you can. Focus on the central "wow" factor of your plot. Avoid discussion of themes . . . too esoteric for a query. People should be able to read the book and figure out the themes.

DON'T. Please don't tell the agent or editor that you are God's gift to writing. I can't tell you the astounding number of times I have read claims of such jaw-dropping arrogance. Maybe most of you reading this have moments of insecurity, but there are writers out there suffering from grandiose delusions. I read one that claimed he was "the next Steinbeck." And oh my God but he was not.

Okay, so that's my "off the top of my head" post on queries. Feel free to post your pitch if you want . . . or ask questions . . . or share thoughts.

Peace,
E

Welcome to My World

Expect exciting news here soon. In the meantime, as related to that exciting news, I am doing some world-building.

I am going to be working on a very complex project--multiple books and a family tree complicated enough to make me dizzy. Shifting time. Centuries of story. YEARS (and I mean years) of writing time. And suddenly I realized that storing it all in my brain wasn't going to be enough. I realized that . . . well, I was creating something a bit different. An entire world with rules that aren't like the rules I follow. Rules that break fundamental elements of the universe relating to time. Space. That Einstein guy.

So I've decided to get a notebook. Me, the writer who has always stored everything in her head, who never takes notes . . . is filling a notebook with sketches and photos and storylines, and family trees, genetic lineage and costumes, maps and most especially rules.

It's a whole new world, and for me, as writer, whole new territory. It's totally fun, a creative exercise because I'm not crafting sentences yet. No, just a world.

So I began to wonder . . . how do most writers keep track of their stuff. Yesterday I wrote about index cards. Today a notebook. I know some people store stuff on their computer. Some use photos. Storyboards. I had a friend who used flowcharts. Do you need visual aids? Do you scribble things down? Do you keep a notebook by your bed? Do you talk to your dog? (Don't knock it. Cosmo, Chip, and Dreamer ALL get plot run by them. Cosmo gets plot more than the others. Chip . . . he gets to hear when I am depressed and frustrated by characters.)

Come on . . . share your writing oddities. How do you build a world?

What Happened to My Index Cards?

Once upon a time, I was very organized. When I had an editing assignment, I would write the total number of pages of the manuscript, divide it by the number of days until I promised it to the publisher or author, and came up with a per page daily rate that I stuck on an index card and attached to the first page. Same thing with my novels. Same thing with almost everything. I had daily goals.

Now? Not so much.

I know that many writers set a daily goal. I just found out one of my writing buddies does 1,500 words a day. Seven days a week. I just cannot seem to assign myself that. Yet my output is huge--just in terms of the number of words I write a year, the number of books I complete. So I'm not a slug. I just don't write every day.

I don't know what happened to me along the way in terms of those little index cards. Was it baby #1, #2, #3, or the Tasmanian Devil Baby #4, who appears to exist on a steady secret stash of coffee or something for how insanely energetic he is.

No . . . I think somewhere along the way, I just "gave in" to a sense that when I was in the zone, I would write until I dropped, and when I wasn't, I'd screw around and just be OK with not producing. That somehow, it was healthier FOR ME to not insist on a certain amount of pages. I was OK with letting it organically happen, and I guess I understood myself enough that I knew . . . sooner or later the zone would come and I would write two or three chapters a day without even trying.

So . . . along with the last post, this one is about giving yourself (myself!) permission to do it the way it works for you (or me).

Thoughts?

Guilty!

Hi all . . . back from a trip to see my father and mother. Tomorrow he has surgery so think good thoughts. I am exhausted but it was great to see them . . . and now I am trying to catch up at home. It's a matter of prioritizing--laundry from me and three of my four kids gone for a week, unpacking, cleaning, brushing the dogs who are shedding like mad. Blah, blah, blah.

Which brings me to this post.

How do you prioritize writing in your life? Because I have a confession to make . . . even though I make my living and am the breadwinner . . . solely through writing fiction, writing still feels like a guilty pleasure to me. It was fun and something I played with for so long, and it always felt like a treat. Now that it pays the bills, it hasn't lost that feeling. Thus, to be honest, I have to WORK at putting it up high on my to-do list. My priority list. My ME list.

I was a classic overachiever my whole life. Crammed two years of high school together to graduate early. Skipped 5th grade. Was the editor who dragged my a** to the office even when deathly ill. I could NEVER call in sick just to call in sick or play hookey. I was practically IN labor with child #2 before I took maternity leave, with my department's assistant yelling at me to get out the door. I routinely put my kids first. Ahead of me. If money was ever tight, I always gave up haircuts for myself for violin lessons for child #1. No contest. I drove a crappy car for a long time so she could study with the bext teacher around. I got a gift of a day at the spa from someone who felt I needed it. The gift certificate EXPIRED before I went.

You get the idea. Some of it is being an overachiever. Some of it is being a woman (we are, I think, more prone to put others first). Some of it is being a mom.

AND . . . I think it's even MORE tempting to put writing lower on the priority list sometimes when you haven't sold a book yet because well . . . the "real" job gets in the way.

Guilt. That's what plagues me sometimes.

But I am here to say that writing is like exercise for your soul. If you ARE a writer, as in you know you could no sooner give up writing than you could breathing, regardless of where you are in your career, then it's important to TREAT it as a soul-sustaining part of your life. Make it a priority.

No guilt here.

Okay?

Thoughts?

Narrative Structure

Sometimes I just tell a story.

But most of the time, I tell a story a particular way.

For instance, in my upcoming novel, Freudian Slip, the LAST sentence of the male character's POV chapter is the FIRST sentence in the head of the female POV character's next chapter. It was a b*tch to write it that way, but it was a fun twist.

In Invisible Girl, Jimmy Malone was so paranoid about conspiracies that he believed the ONLY way to protect a secret was to never tell one living person all its parts. Therefore, he parceled out the pieces of his secret to three or four trusted friends. My main characters had to find each secret-holder to get the whole story, therefore it didn't emerge in linear fashion but in the piecemeal way they got the secrets. I thought it was a cool way to tell the story.

In The Roofer, the story unfolded in flashback over the course of an Irish wake and funeral.

In my new work in progress, the story unfolds in horicultural terms--each chapter deals with something in a specific garden.

In Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, Lily tells one chapter, Michael the next, and every third chapter is either her newspaper column or a chapter from his unfinished novel.

I love twisting narrative structure when I write.

So how about you? Do anything different with your storytelling?

Pop Culture

What's on my iPod?

Indoor Fireworks by Elvis Costello.

And there's a story in that.

You see, for most people, Elvis Costello is either a) an acquired taste, b) the guy who sang "Alison," or "Radio, Radio," c) a music god. I'm with "c." But he is NOT a pop culture reference. Not exactly. He's too outside the mainstream. Just a "touch" too obscure for most of his songs.

More to the story. In Spanish Disco, Cassie drove across Alligator Alley listening to "Indoor Fireworks." If a reader was so inclined to find Elvis's lyrics, he or she would have discovered it was complete poetry and very much, I think, apt to Cassie's lovelife. If not, it was a throwaway line and much could be inferred by the song title and her rumination.

In Rock My World, a YA title of mine, every single chapter began with a song title that fit the "theme" of the chapter. But 99% of them could not be found on mainstream pop radio (thank God). I have had teens write me that they downloaded all the songs to listen to on their iPod as they read the book--that's dedication. But they weren't "pop" culture references. They were too obscure. Like Cake . . . you either love them or hate them, but they aren't on top-40 radio.

And in general, pop culture references are a reason to be cautious. And sometimes they can be a definite editorial no-no. For instance, my daughter has a new book--kind of an erotic romance if the back cover is to be judged (she's 17). And I flipped through it and saw this astounding line, "She looked like Nicole Kidman." WHAT?!?! I wanted to fling the book. How lazy . . . What a horrible shortcut! It's okay, by most editors' standards, to describe someone who ends up sounding an awful lot like Nicole Kidman, but that's for the reader to connect the dots (strawberry-red ringlet curls, porcelain skin, tall, whatever). I once edited a book in which the aspiring writer wrote, "She looked like Elaine from Seinfeld." Again, DESCRIBE her, but to shortcut that way is lazy. And there's always a chance the reference will cease to be recognizable--or won't be a touchstone for your reader the way it is for you.

Don't get me wrong. My characters have iPods. They log onto laptops. They have conveniences that date them to the here and now. And sometimes I will throw in some funny cultural reference. But MORE often, I will make it something funky and obscure--or a classic. For instance, I might reference a Slinky toy--but I wouldn't reference a Furby, whose tide of popularity has come and gone.

So . . . thoughts? How do you use pop culture in your books?

And what's on your iPod?

What's on your character's iPod?

Flaws

You know that job interview question: What's your greatest flaw? If you've been through job interviews before or read about how to sail through them, then you know the correct answer isn't always honesty. Your potential future boss does NOT want to hear: "I alienate everyone around me with my pigheadedness." Instead, you know to finesse the question. "I'm a perfectionist" (a flaw, but yet one that has positive aspects).

Not so in writing.

Sometimes, in the act of making characters well-rounded, it can seem convenient to tack on a few so-called flaws. "Oh, I'll make her butt into her friends' lives--but in a cute way." "I'll make him still so hung up on his ex-wife that he alienates everyone" (usually on the way to winning back said ex-wife). The flaws are designed to keep your character likable--yet relatable and charming.

And while this makes sense, I tend to think it just scratches the surface. When the chick lit market went through a glut, every editor I spoke with said she was sick of seeing the "same old, same old." The slightly frumpy heroine (as if frumpy is a fatal flaw), the insecure heroine, the heroine who is just dying to get married. Whatever. No, I think to stand out, you have to really be bold. Take a chance on some flaws that are very, very, very real.

In nearly every one of my books, I have had editors and readers alike tell me they "almost" gave up on my heroine. She was THAT difficult, THAT pigheaded, THAT independent-to-a-fault. Note . . . to a FAULT. Slightly independent is just another way of saying "spunky." So independent that someone is incapable of letting others in? That's flawed and ready for a shrink.

I tend to think if you cut deep like that, it can elevate your book. I also think it's more real. I know my flaws--and they're not small ones.

Thoughts? It's a risk . . . but I think the end result can be a character that isn't cookie cutter.

Under My Skin

A regular reader of this blog wrote to me offline talking about connecting with your own characters. You know, if you read the comments of some of the last few posts, it seems everyone knows you have to have heart in your books. But how?

I know for me, writing my new work-in-progress, I ACHE for some of my characters' situations. I get her. I get him. I see each of them fumbling toward the other in the dark of their situations. I get them and they are under my skin in every way. But what if you don't fell that?

It's easy to write a character sketch. List some traits . . . where raised, what parents are like, where they went to school, and so on. But it's the difference, I suppose, between receiving a dossier on someone that details EVERYTHING about them . . . and being BEST FRIENDS with someone in which you know most things, but they are so much a part of you that you INTUIT some of the rest. You ache for their pains, you cheer for their triumphs. You love them.

How do you make the leap from dry dossier to heart?

For me, I pick the most tragic moment in that character's life and find my compassion for them. Maybe it's the Buddhist in me, but I learn more about people in their suffering than I do in their joy. Who is crushed by pain? Who rises from the ashes to walk with grace? Who becomes bitter? I get down to it. Who are they on this journey?

So that's my technique. But there must be a hundred others. How do you connect with your characters? Is it easy? Do you sometimes find yourself drifting from the heart of your book?

Share . . . .

Peace,
E

What I Know Now

Sometimes the gap between what I know now, and what I knew twenty years ago is HUGE. A chasm as big as the Grand Canyon.

For instance, now I know that one toddler, left to his own devices in the amount of time it takes to sign for a package for UPS can get into a five-pound bag of sugar and sprinkle it like confetti over an entire kitchen. In that same amount of time, he can cover the dog in Post-its and packing tape. I know that no sooner are you in your best outfit . . . that the universe will hand you a child who projectile vomits. I know these things.

I know some sad things. Like some people are simply treacherous. Or they lie. They go through life and it isn't even a blip on their own radar that they are as ruthless as they are. When I was 18 and encountered people who told treacherous lies, I was always shocked and hurt beyond belief. My parents said I was too sensitive--and they were probably right, but I am who I am. Now, though, I am more likely to sigh. It doesn't change who I am, how I conduct myself, but now I know those people are out there.

Now I know that sometimes being nice isn't enough. I know sometimes, like the case with my mother-in-law, that there are people who will simply go out of their way to be cruel, or will dislike you just because they can. I know some people for whom friendship and loyalty is a throwaway item. I know you can't save everyone, even if you try REALLY hard. I know you can beg or plead with someone to stop drinking, stop taking drugs, or to get psychiatric help . . . and they won't. Just because. Loving someone isn't enough. Love can't save the world. It can save YOU, because love is good for you . . . but it can't save someone else. At least not always. Not that I would ever stop trying to save the world through love. (And that's both crazy and true.)

And I know a LOT more about writing than I ever did twenty years ago. I decided to pick a couple of things . . . figuring my regular blog readers will fill in many more:

1. I now know that writing a great book is the first step but not every great book sells.
2. I now know that weighing down a sentence with too many adjectives--while it may have earned you Brownie points with your high school English teacher--will lead to clunky, leaden prose.
3. I now know that adverb abuse--same deal with your high school English teacher and its effect on your prose.
4. I now know there aren't as many rules as you think. You can start a sentence with "Because." Your dialogue can be realistic and disjointed and even confusing because sometimes that's how people talk--every character doesn't speak like a soliloquy. If they did . . . that wooden prose thing again.
5. I now know it's a LOT more interesting to read about people who are shades of gray--not ALL good and saintly--or ALL bad an evil.

So those are a few things I know now. What about you?

I Wrote a Book and I Fell in Love

Occupational hazard.

For writers, it's generally a good sign if they cry while writing a particularly poignant scene. In Freudian Slip, my next Red Dress Ink title, at a key moment when Julian makes a courageous but heartbreaking choice, I literally wept. For two days afterward, I didn't really want to eat . . . had trouble sleeping.

If I laugh out loud at certain parts in my comedies . . . it's a good sign. If I find that I am smiling when I am writing, it means I am onto something.

I have felt a physical ache for some of my characters. In The Roofer, when I wrote the scene when Tom and Ava rode the subway as teens, observing "normal" families, knowing (as only the writer would know) what was shortly going to happen to Tom, I felt a real pang.

And while working on a children's book of all things, I have fallen in love with the cousin character. He's Russian and he kind of looks like the model above. He's arrogant and charming and brilliant. And he's threatening to overtake the book, which is something I have to guard against--he's just that clever.

And I am convinced only other writers "get" this phenomenon, wherein your characters are so developed, or your story is so real to you, that they intrude on your real life. They become so real that they butt into parts of your book you don't want them in. So real they can make you cry knowing their fate.

Writing? Or mental illness?

I wrote a book and I fell in love. Happen to anyone else?

Indescribable

Yesterday's blog post was on invincibility. Today's? Well, it's indescribable.

There are certain human experiences that we can only attempt to describe--and we can describe them best to those who have had similar experiences. There is nothing worse than being in the hospital on death's door, or burying a loved one, and someone says, "I know EXACTLY how you feel." Worse . . . when they say, "I know how you feel about your lover dying because I once had to bury my cat." Not the same thing. And no one knows EXACTLY how I feel.

If you have never had a child, then it is very difficult for me to describe how deeply and passionately and intensely and all-consuming the love I have for my children is. You can love your mother, father, lover, or dog A LOT, but loving your child is different in its own way. And I actually don't usually even try to describe it to people who do not have children. It's sort of like joining this club, and only by joining do you understand. Last night, my friend Scott showed me pictures of his newborn. His face was rapturous. I realized, "He's in now. He knows." It was a palpable electricty around him.

If you have never had the kind of love affair that makes you ill, then it's difficult for me to describe it. By "ill," I mean the kind of love affair that is so intense you might stay up for three days straight making love, talking, being consumed with each other. That when you are apart, you feel physically ill. I'm talking about obsessive love, or even soul mate love at its most consuming peak . . . or at its nadir. Some people spend their whole lives and NEVER have that kind of love affair.

The difficulty, as writers, is to make describing a love affair or a writing a sex scene both relatable, and yet completely fresh. The trick, the magic--or in the analogy of the movie I watched last night, the "prestige"--is to have the reader become consumed, to get so lost in the writing that they become part of it. In my new work-in-progress, I think Cate's pain is palapable on every page. I don't think anyone else has had her horrific tragedies . . . not EXACTLY, but the trick is to bring the reader in so completely that they are her. Or at least feel her pain.

That's the challenge. So what, for you, is the hardest to describe? What is indescribable? What makes the cursor blink there on the screen taunting you, saying, "Go ahead, TRY to describe this"?

Invincible

The following is my favorite quote . . . I wear it engraved on a silver dogtag:

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within

me there lay an invincible summer.

--Albert Camus

In my life, I learned, in a hospital bed, what I was really made of. For every hard knock life has handed me, I have learned my human spirit is invincible. I may have a dark night of the soul, but in the morning, I always have faith in God's grace.

And to me as fiction writer, this Camus quote has great meaning to character development.

I think the most compelling character is one whose GREATEST WEAKNESS must be overcome in order for them to triumph and discover their invincible summer.

It is one thing to discover inner strength. It is another thing entirely to overcome your greatest weakness in order to save the day.

Think about it. In every action movie, when the hero exposes a weakness early on, you KNOW that is what he is going to have to deal with in order to win--like Indiana Jones and the snakes in the first movie. ANYTHING but snakes was his motto. Of course, he ended up with thousands of those things slithering around his ankles.

Very often, in my books, my heroine's weakness is an inability to be vulnerable. An inability to let anyone in. And it is only by learning to trust and rely on someone else--usually her motley created family of misfits--that she can catch the bad guy, achieve happiness, overcome her childhood traumas.

Why is Batman the most compelling, to a huge number of comic fans, of the superheroes? Because he is the most wounded. The one with the darkest internal struggle.

In my next Nocturne, the hero is a Vicodin addict. Only by overcoming his own internal pain can he win.

As readers, we root for the horse with the longest odds.

Thoughts? What is your character's GREATEST weakness . . . and does he or she need to overcome it in order to succeed? I seriously think, in order to write the most compelling book, that it's not enough to triumph over circumstance . . . but that weakness.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

I am operating on about three hours of sleep courtesy of my air conditioning breaking on the hottest day of the year, with the heat index around 110. I was in bed, heart racing from the heat, feeling like I was suffocating. When I finally DID fall asleep, my baby son's musical potty chair malfunctioned and went off.

Yes, I said a musical potty chair. You pee, it plays a song. What will they think of next? But the chair decided it needed to play at odd hours of the night, and I went and hid the thing in the closet, thinking then I wouldn't hear it--but no, it was loud enough in a quiet house to hear even from the closet.

And THEN, when I finally dozed, because I wasn't properly in my sleep cycle, I had some killer nightmares.

From what I remember, the main one had to do with a rat biting my hand and latching on. I could FEEL its tail wrapping around my wrist, and the pain in my hand as its jaws tightened, and I woke up gasping for air, crying.

Now, I "get" why I had this dream. Once every three weeks or so, my significant other brings home a rat for Lydia, the python, to consume. The snake is my son's and she started out about the width of a pencil. Suffice it to say she is now over a foot long and pretty thick. She's very docile, but I just cannot even bring myself to touch her. When Lydia came home, I was very upset because I didn't, as a Buddhist, like the idea of sacrificing little animals to feed her. But I was overruled. So I basically told my son when he goes off to college in a few years, his roomie better like reptiles, because Lydia will be booted.

Anyway, this whole Wild Kingdom drama plays out every three weeks. I cry over the rat, my son consoles me and tells me to go outside while the kill is taking place. I sometimes even light a candle for the poor rats. BUT . . . BUT . . . I hate rats. I truly do. I would rather touch the snake than touch a rat. I hate them, hate them, hate them. Hence the nightmare--a combo of guilt and revulsion.

So there you go. I also have a really morbid fear of clowns (even Jimmy Stewart playing Buttons in The Greatest Show on Earth). Cockroaches send me over the edge. But I am surprisingly cool about spiders. I still sleep with a nightlight on though, and when I stay in hotel rooms when I travel alone to NYC, I always check under the bed and in the closet and the shower stall.

As a writer, I really think about these fears and phobias, because a good writer will use universal fears, as well as other creepy, crawly elements to make us pull the covers up as we read.

So . . . what is it that scares you? That when a masterful movie or book depicts it, you want to crawl under the blankets? What goes bump in the night.

E

P.S. And if I start having nightmares about singing, talking mutant toilets, I'll let you know.

The Towel

A regular reader of this blog asked me if all writers wonder if they should quit. Just give it up, hang up their hat, or in the boxing adage, throw in their towel.

A few thoughts . . .

I used to think that being published represented the Holy Grail of writing. Now I realize that if you are driven as a writer, there is always "the next book." I used to think that if I ever got in a national magazine, like Cosmopolitan, a mention in a publication like US Weekly, that I would faint. That that was my new Holy Grail. But then that happened . . . and somehow, there was another goal. No matter where you are on the food chain, there is always something you want as a writer. Some angst. So just because someone is published, or unpublished . . . doesn't matter . . . in a sense, probably every writer wonders at some point or another, if this insane passion is worth the rejection, the waking up at dawn to write, the loneliness, whatever. About two months ago, when I was just down and tired and worried about people in my life, and driving 8 hours for a funeral and all the rest of it, I thought I would just chuck my career and go back to bartending. I just wanted to sling drinks and take a break. But I didn't.

Why?

As I tell kids in elementary school when I go to talk to classes about writing, being a writer isn't something you "become." It's something you ARE. There's no test to certify you as a writer. And those things like being published . . . even they aren't enough to "prove" you have talent. There are awards, like the Pulitzer . . . but there aren't enough of those to go around.

But being a writer is something you are. If tomorrow I said, "I am never going to write another word," I am convinced I would be certifiable in a week or two. It's not that I can't take a break from writing . . . I can. But what would I do with all this stuff in my head? All the characters? The snippets of dialogue? The great opening lines.

My first instinct was to look at the corpse.

I love that first line to The Roofer. What would I have done with that line if I didn't have a book to put it in?

I think the cure for wondering if you should throw in the towel is to delve yourself in craft, in the pure joy of making stuff up, in your world.

I don't know . . . that's my take. Anyone else?

Unnecessary

In a review of Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, an online reviewer took offense at the details I included of the gay relationship in the book:

Gently minded readers who are conservative will need to be aware that Michael and his relationship with another man are portrayed a bit more bluntly than is really necessary, but that can be skipped over with ease.

No. It was necessary.

This blog post really started out as an open letter to the parents of my nine-year-old daughter's new playmate. But then I decided I really didn't want to go there. So I wrapped it up in the writing.

You see, my daughter's new "friend" told her that she doesn't "look" Mexican (meaning that as a compliment). And he has never known Mexicans, but what he DOES know of Mexicans is they rape little children. And THAT kind of racism can ONLY start at home. Nine-year-old children don't invent this stuff. Parents do.

In the last year, having movied from an area of the country with a huge Latino population to one that is less so, and having seen the immigration wars explode in this country, I see the way everyone with a Hispanic last name is suddenly suspect. Considering my children bear the last name that in Mexico is akin to "Smith" in this country . . . they are sitting ducks. Considering my nine-year-old daughter has a Hispanic first name, she even more so.

Since we moved here, I have had neighbors think they can make jokes about Mexicans. It's wrapped up in friendship, but you know what? It's NOT funny. My eldest daughter, age 17, was subjected to classmates saying all Mexicans are dirty and mow lawns. I have seen subtle and not-so-subtle prejudice, but THIS took the cake. A nine-year-old.

You know, in the romance-writing business, I've always sort of pushed the envelope. The characters I have don't neatly align into what are usually seen in a romance. The number of gay men who wrote me after Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven was amazing. It was on the "Top Ten Gay Romances" at Amazon . . . yet it was really a book about a woman with breast cancer.

I will always have assorted gay characters . . . and always mix friendships in my books between races and religions. I don't know that anyone picked up on the fact that Jack was part-black in Knockout. It was subtle, and you had to pay attention to her uncle and father's family history to even pick up on it. It wasn't important to the characters and how they felt about each other--we're all the same underneath.

In Diary of a Blues Goddess, my heroine was biracial. Her best friend was kicked out his home when he was 18 for being gay, went to NYC to find himself, and came back a drag queen. Yet, I don't feel Dominique was ever a cariacture. She was a fully conceived person, not comic relief.

And so this goes back to this family that I truly want to hate but am trying not to. Well, no. As a Buddhist, I don't WANT to hate them, but I have to work on it right now. I cannot tell you how I cringe to think what this boy will be like at 18. Poisoning a young mind! I also don't kid myself that my books are ever going to change someone's mind about race or gender. But with all due respect to the reviewer who said it was unnecessary . . . it is. I wish it wasn't, but it is.

Thoughts?

Manuscript Pyre

I have shared here before that I save everything. I never erase any of the ideas on my computer--even single sentences get saved. I have come to the conclusion that life's journey, the writing journey, is so twisting, with so many unexpected corners and hills--up and down--that I will never know when something that once wasn't working might be resurrected when I, as writer, am in a different place.

But when is it time to abandon a manuscript. To put it on the great manuscript funeral pyre?

Note, I said I never erase anything. I don't say, though, that I never abandon anything. I do. I wouldn't have a thousand saved ideas and files and sentences if that didn't mean at some point, what I had wasn't working and I knew it was time to give it a rest.

But . . . it's all in discernment. It's all in the writer and his or her process. Writing can be hard--not hard as in back-breaking labor, but hard as in sometimes you really have to write through slumps in a manuscript, through scenes that aren't working, through a voice that just isn't coming to life. You work it through and end up with something good.

But I have also seen writer friends take that philosophy and stick with manuscripts that I think are beyond hope for the moment. I have seen someone so determined to write an idea that they write and re-write the first chapter fifteen times and it STILL doesn't work. At some point, is it time to move on--for now--to something that "clicks"?

The question is individual. I will look forward to seeing the responses. I think for me, there is some internal voice that says, "You have something here." I may not know what it is, but I just can feel it. And that same internal voice, sometimes, gets real honest and says, "You are not executing this well right now. Let it alone. You are not the writer for this--AT THIS MOMENT. Come back to it." And I know the journey of writing may afford me an opportunity to come back to it when I am the writer for it AT THAT MOMENT.

I know working on multiple novels at the same time doesn't work for everyone, but I like to think that for me, it allows me to discern. I don't feel a pressure that I have to make THIS manuscript work NOW. Maybe it's a bit like the scultpter and clay. I can mold it, re-wet it in the morning and fix what didn't work yesterday, and I can wait for the clay to speak to me. I don't have to take something already turned to stone and try to chisel away at it. I can wait for the organic process to happen.

On a purely practical point, sometimes when I know a manuscript has "it," but I do not, I consider it a temporary thing. Like having a writer flu. I don't abandon it permanently, but only until the flu passes and I can return to it with enthusiasm. Sometimes all it takes is seeing an inspiring movie, a day of rest, a day of fun, or a week's vacation.

So . . . when do you know it's time to put something on the manuscript pyre?

Peace,
E

P.S. I cannot tell you how many emails I got from lurkers who read the story in the COMMENTS section of the syrup post--the story about my son sticking like flypaper to the kitchen table. I am so glad my ridiculous life makes you all laugh! :-)

Swedish Porn

See? I got your attention.

This post really isn't about porn though. Not really. You see, the first time I ever saw porn, it wasn't run-of-the-mill Playboy porn. I was 12, and it was my best friend's older brother's secret stash of hard-core Swedish porn. Stacks of it. And 95% of it was of beautiful, VERY buxom blonde Swedish maids and nurses spilling out of their uniforms, being shocked to open the door to find some sexy stud guys (usually two or three) that she just was only too happy to get it on with. The stuff was strange, most of it was interracial, and it was highly stylized. So now, when a character in one of my books (like a mystery) finds a stack of porn in an investigation, it's always weird Swedish porn. Why? Because I find that a more interesting detail than Playboy. What does it say about a man who goes to the trouble of getting his hands on nurses from Sweden in porn he can't read (I know, it's never about the storyline) versus going to the local truck stop and buying Penthouse. It says something about his motivation, about how specific his attractions are.

Whenever my characters have flowers, they are always lilies of the valley. Why? Because I used to lie down under the trees at my grandparents' summer cottage and smell the lilies of the valley and look at them, thinking they really did look like bells that fairies would ring. I would escape to the flowers and tell them my problems. When I got married for the second time, I had them in my bouquet. And whenever that floral detail is in a book, I sometimes have the heroine tell some whimsical tale about fairies because I think that detail says something about her sentimentality.

Whenever a parent in my book has a photo of his or her child on a desk, it is never a school photo. It is always a photo of the child captured mid-laugh--a precise moment that makes the picture seem to come alive. They always choose the photo for that reason. It's often a blurry shot, as if it is more important to have that bit of laughter on their desk than to have their child perfectly combed and lovely, to me revealing something about them as a parent.

When a character drinks tequila straight, no ice, intensely . . . it says something to me, versus someone sipping a glass of fine red wine--or someone knowing what region the wine's grapes were grown in.

The point of all this is . . . writing is all about the details. What you put in versus what you leave out. When people say they read a book and "skip over" all the details, to me it's usually because the author is just piling on visual details of a room or what someone is wearing, description overload. Instead, I try to tell a few details to simply get the reader into the room or a scene. But the DETAILS, like the above, are important. It isn't about getting you, as reader, into a room. We've all been in an office, a bedroom, a kitchen. It's the little things that REVEAL--those details make it into my final draft. They are quirky details, specific details, and as you can tell, they mean something.

To me, that is one of the best writing tips . . . control your characters and scenes by choosing the right details.

Thoughts?

A Thousand Minor Annoyances

I think it's human nature. I have some major stress going on in my life right now. My father's blindness has advanced rapidly, and we found out yesterday that the vision loss of this week, to near-total blindness, is irreversible. So that's it. What we thought would happen gradually over the next couple of years instead happened in one awful week. There's other stuff going on . . . and so I can't sleep. Thank God for my best friend who is also an insomniac. I can chat with her until I do get sleepy. But, oddly enough, in my waking life, I'm holding together well. I'm getting ready to go visit my father for a week or so, I am mobilizing friends to find the best eye doctors here, and so on. In a crisis, I'm your woman. I don't react, I don't cry, I don't panic (usually).

It's the thousand petty and minor annoyances that get to me. Like last night. Why do I have a picture of gallon jugs of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, you may ask? Because that monster-sized Costco container of syrup is what my two-year-old (a.k.a. Demon Child) decided to throw from the TOP stair all the way down to the first floor of the house, where it smashed against a wall and all over his older brother's horn (big brother plays electric guitar and also a horn). Yes, I cleaned it up, but what does syrup attract?

Ants.

Which greeted me this a.m., swarming.

But that wasn't all. The Demon Seed also took the ONE piece of skincare that has worked miracles for me--and costs $60 for a little jar--and while I was talking on the phone with my father and was distracted, he opened it and flung the medicated powder all over the floor of the bathroom.

Then, this a.m., I tried FOUR pens before finding one that wasn't out of ink. (Note to family: when you discover a pen is out of ink, throw it out, don't stick it BACK into my jar of pens.)

None of this is a big deal--not the syrup, the ants, or the jar--but I found myself bawling my eyes out over ants and a sticky horn and not the bigger issues. I know I am transferring. I spoke to a friend who has been sobbing over his cat's death--but was dry-eyed at a family funeral.

So I get the process, but now I have to let go of the thousand minor annoyances and focus on my story. On days like this, I love disappearing into my work.

So tell me . . . is it the big stuff or the petty stuff? Ever have days where you just want to throw your hands up and quit--when you know it's all just silly things forgotten in a day or so? Time to exhale. Time to go within.

Peace,
E