The Writer Editor Relationship and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

It's been such a crazy week - my son decided to not nap for about three days which sent me over the edge and kept me away from the computer for three days. We're back on track and I'm making up for it with what may be my shortest post ever but these two things are so great.

The first is a clip - with one take on the editor/author relationship (actually it's more like drunk writer talk. Maureen comes to us and says I want to write a really delicate story about a mother and a daughter and Sinead and I say "YOU NEED SHARK SEX!")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0


The second clip is for Sinead - who at last DWT - confessed a new love for Bruce Springsteen. I am stupid for the man. And this is a clip I think she will LOVE LOVE LOVE (it will appeal to her norweigan heritage). Amazing song -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGwUrmNI6wY

Writers need to be selfish

Phew, it’s been a crazy day so the blog is late. But the subject matter is timely.

I’m a mom of two kids under two, so time, any time, to shower, dress, eat, is hard to come by. Finding writing time requires strategy, perserverance and occasionally outright bitchiness.

And I have to admit, with laundry piling in the corner, a bathroom that might soon be condemned, and toys scattered everywhere I sometimes have to shut my eyes as I fumble my way to the computer for what some days is no more than half an hour.

This blog isn’t a poor me, blog, promise, but I decided shortly after my first child came into the world that writing was necessary for my sanity and I would do whatever necessary to ensure I had the time.

So my husband does the cooking, our garden is a wasteland of brown grass and bare patches, and my house is a disaster and I’m okay with all of it.

Too often I speak with women(mothers are the worst for this) who give up all their free time, all of it. I know women who write in the wee hours of the morning, because that’s the only time they can find. They’re busy taking care of children, husbands, their parents.

I have a friend who does all the cooking and cleaning and childrearing because her husband gets grumpy when he has to help out. Needless to say, she has zero energy to write in the evenings.

Screw that! It’s time to be selfish. It doesn’t mean ignore your kids, but perhaps the laundry. It may mean hubby has to watch his favourite TV show by himself, or the kids have to do their own homework.

Start with carving out an hour a day. Protect it with the ferocity of a lioness guarding her cubs. That hour might extend into two, it may not, but at least we’ll have an hour.

Forget the 24 hour sacrifice for our families crap. Make it 23 hours, or less, if possible.

Hopefully it’ll be habit forming and if we’re really lucky, someone else will clean the bathroom.

Building to a climax

Get your mind out of the gutter. This is not a post about sex scenes!

It's about another kind of climax. We all know most successful commercial fiction builds to an exciting climax that keeps readers turning the pages more and more quickly. We writers do things like shortening the length of the chapters, scenes and even sentences later in the book to give the reader the illusion they're reading quickly and/or to help make sure they do.

One of the films I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival this year did an amazing job of this. And in a non-conventional way. (Readers of this blog know I'm a big fan on non-linear storytelling structures.)

Anyway... The film was Rendition, starring Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal, with smaller parts played by Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and others.

I recommend this film. I saw it early in the festival but it's one that resonated with me. It's about the policy of "extraordinary rendition" that's been used by the US and other countries since 9/11 to send terror suspects to countries where they can be held (and tortured) in secrecy and without right to counsel or without even being charged of a crime.

The film examines both sides of the policy as well as the efficacy of torture for gaining intelligence, and I thought it did a good job of both. (Or maybe just because I agreed with the conclusions I think the filmmaker reached.)

But the movie's content and message aside, as a writer, I was impressed by a little trick the writer played on the audience. And I don't want to post a big spoiler, but there are three main stories being played out throughout the movie and the climaxes of all three stories happen simultaneously with quick cuts between the action in each... The clever little trick (maybe McKee would call it a mind fuck?) was that the three stories weren't actually happening at the same time and the emotional impact, in my opinion, was increased when we as an audience realize this. Certainly the overall climax of the film was more exciting in that all 3 stories hit this point at once. If the writer/filmmaker had decided to tell this story in an entirely chronological manner, it wouldn't have been nearly so compelling.

On the other hand, I just finished reading a book (not going to tell you what it is, but it was a literary novel) that was told in letters. Actually, it was told almost wholly in a single letter that quoted other letters and conversations that had occurred years earlier. So, sometimes you're reading dialog originally quoted in a letter now being quoted within another letter. Confused? Well, I was at times. And I felt very detached from the characters and their stories.

So, the connection, if there is one, is that if you're not going to use a traditional linear storytelling structure, there'd better be a very good reason why it would work better in the more complicated way... IMHO it worked in Rendition.
I think it also worked in Sidney Lumet's new movie, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), but it didn't work in that novel for me. The new Lumet movie was really good, too... Another one dealing with the slippery moral slope that one can descend once one takes the first step.
BTW. If you're interested in films... I've been blogging about the 40 films I saw at the TIFF at www.maureenmcgowan.blogspot.com

The difference between run of the mill and success.

Went to a great TRW workshop recently, about empowering character’s emotions by Margie Lawson. Really great, would definitely recommend her workshops to anyone out there.

One of the things that really struck me was her rule about clichés. Basically, don’t go there and if you must even approach one, turn it on its head.

Cliches are just lazy writing. This hit me like a ton of bricks(ha ha!) when Margie brought it up. She talked about clichés in the context of the actual writing, the words on the page.

But then it got me thinking about the clichés that exist in the subgenre of romance.
The Duke of Slut in the regency romance, and the bluestocking heroine. These are clichés, because they’ve been produced so often.
Same with the evil villain in romantic suspense. You know, the villain pov where he stalks a victim, and we as the reader get to see everything but his identity and perhaps real insight into his reasons why.
In paranormal Vampires are headed in the direction of clichéd.
And in chick lit, it’s the ditzy but sweet heroine who’s obsessed with shoes and shopping.

I see a cliché like the above and I’ll usually put the book down right away. But turn one of those clichés on their head, and I’ll sing the books praises.

Not to repeat, but JR Ward with her unique take on vampires and amazing world building, took her vampires way beyond cliché.

There’s a lot of speculation out there on what it takes to sell as a new author. The market is tight, lots of competition for fewer spots, but I think most editors would love to see a fresh take on an old cliché.

It’s not too big a risk for an editor, but still compelling to read, it feels fresh, but they know how to market the book.

Sounds easy. Sure, if you can come up with one. Me, I’m still trying..

Impending DOOOOOOOMMMMM!

Our critique group met last night and I thought it was a better than usual night mostly because something that has been floating around in my head was totally confirmed - for me and actually I think for Sinead.

Every book needs a sense of impending doom. It's not only the WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT question that keeps pages turning. The WHEN IS THIS ALL GOING TO FALL APART question that also works.

It is of course hingent on that thin thin line of dramatic irony. For this question to work the reader has to know or suspect something that the character doesn't....wait a second, that's not even true - that book that Maureen and Sinead love - Something Blue - that hinges TOTALLY on when is the shit going to hit the fan regarding this woman's affair with her best friend's fiancee? The main character knows the poop and fan are going to meet - she just keeps at it anyway -- But THAT creates a seriously thin line between I'm totally invested in this character's delimma and this character is a total idiot. I leaned toward the idiot - Sinead and Maureen went the other way. I totally digress - Maureen is at the film festival (feel free to curse her - Sinead and I are) so I am taking on her tangents.

Anywho---

I think most books benefit from a little of the when is this all going to fall apart dramatic tension. It's why romantic suspense writers use the villian POV, and it's working really well in that subgenre. But last night - my scenes were all working - lots conflict and tension but as Sinead pointed out - no doom. It's about getting the two questions working together - the what and when. As for Sinead I think I gave her bad critique months ago and said something along the lines of "if the reader already suspects - why drag it out?" Stupid me. Dragging it out for dramatic irony is the point.

World Building – part deaux

Molly, speed reader that she is, already blogged about one of the best elements of the JR Ward book. Ward sets a tone, and keeps is really consistent throughout the entire book. It her world, and at no point does JR Ward deviate from it. It’s really effective and great to read. She doesn’t wimp out on her heroes. The book starts dark, violent and fast paced and ends that way.

World building is something every writer has to do. Ok, that’s a duh statement. But for a long time, I thought it was something only fantasy and paranormal writers had to do. Come up with new worlds, or new concepts, and while those writers have to explain their worlds more, every writer out there has to create their world.

We do it through tone, the details in how the characters see their surroundings, but also how they think of the people and things around them.
One of the movies that does this really well is the Departed. I know it’s set in Boston, and the city is well represented. The world in this movie is the two separate existences of the police, and the mob. The world the two main characters live in is tense, completely on the edge, where one bad lie could have really serious consequences. Everyone immersed in these worlds seem to exist on the edge, with hair trigger tempers and one foot in the grave.

Joss Whedon is someone who world builds brilliantly. Check out Serenity to fully understand how he can create a world that is completely unique, through dialogue, a ship that’s almost a character in its own right and again, tone.

Really great world building will pull me into a story, and keep me there long after the plot’s fallen to pieces and the characters have become cardboard. But usually the great world builders don’t fall prey to these problems.

World Building

I just finished the first JR Ward book and my husband and I rented Black Snake Moan (the movie with Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci set in the south - it was sort of mismanaged by marketing folk because it became known as the nympho chained to the radiator movie when it's really really so so so much more than that.) But the book and the movie built worlds so seamless and compelling that they became practically the main characters of the stories.

The movie worked mostly because the dialogue was unbelievably true - amazingly true and it only fueled my jealous rage over southern writers who are tapped into something I just can't even pretend to replicate. And Samuel L. Jackson while not my favorite actor delivered this performance like he was born in it. But the other reason it worked and it's the same reason the Ward books work so well - there's no telling. It's just questions. The writers barely stopped to explain anything - granted Ward cheated brilliantly with her glossary of terms. She didn't have to stop and figure out a moment where one character tells another character what the reader needs to know - she did it at the beginning. And frankly, considering the plot of that first book she could have done it - but the fact that she didn't makes me like those books even more. But in Black Snake Moan it really felt like the writer was saying - if you can't figure this out - don't watch the movie. Not that there was that much to figure out but still - it just flowed - everything happened in real time. So the world never broke.

The Ward series is amazing. She's got a knack for the small moments that show and don't tell. I thought she went a little overboard with her guy talk - but that's just me - and frankly it's her world. She gets to do whatever she wants with it.

What’s in a hero..

Would love to talk more about the brilliance of Judd Apatow, but nothing comes to mind that hasn’t already been said.
Except we need more movies with Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.

I’ve been thinking about heroes lately. It’s actually come up in Drunk Writer talk. Molly made the point that the subgenres, specifically romantic suspense and paranormal allow for more latitude in the hero, basically, heroes can be very alpha again.

I definitely agree. Been reading JR Ward’s first of the brotherhood of the dagger series. A really good vampire book for those interested. She world builds really effectively in this book, and creates, dark, sexy men with silly names(Tohrment, anyone?)

Her heroes are definitely alpha. They wear black leather, listen to rap, are tortured and unhappy and wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way, human or otherwise.
They remind me a little of some of Iris Johansen’s historical heroes. Dark, tortured men who had few scruples, at least at the beginning of the books. Laura Kinsale does this brilliantly with her heroes as well.
A hero as an assassin, one who isn’t filled with much self-loathing at his profession. Loved it.

Give me a hero who’s dark. Legitimately dark, with deep character flaws, and show them to me. I’ve read too many Duke of Slut books, with men who besides their predilection to sleep around at the beginning of the book, turn to kittens as soon as they clap eyes on the heroine.

I’m looking for a hero who isn’t heroic at the beginning of the story. They may have heroic tendencies, but they should have a character arc.
JR Ward’s success tells me I’m not the only person looking for this, but I also think a percentage of the romance reading public would hate it. They want their heroes, well, heroic, right at the beginning of the book.

What are the character traits that would turn you, as a reader, off?

For me, there are few. Perhaps outright cowardice, harming children, really detestable stuff, but the rest is fair game. Make him interesting, charismatic and redeemable and I’m in, hook, line and sinker.

While we're talking about Apatow...

So for a few years I've been hearing how great Freaks & Geeks is/was. I think I've actually had the DVD set in my shopping cart on Amazon on and off for at least 2 years. I finally bit the bullet and bought it. So far, I'm not disappointed.

I vaguely remember when this series came on TV (1999) and didn't watch an episode. I don't think watching it even occurred to me. I think it may have suffered from bad promos. I mean, I just assumed it was a silly juvenile comedy show aimed at teens. I certainly didn't realize it was more drama than comedy, nor did I know that it was set in 1980 -- a time when I actually was in high school, so it's full of nostalgia for me -- the clothes, the movies, the shag carpet glued onto the stairs going down to Nick's parents' basement. This series was the better, way more real version of That 70's Show in terms of representing what it was like to be in high school then.

I've only watched the first 6 espisodes (sadly, thats a full 1/3 of all the episodes ever filmed) but I'm really digging it. The episode I'm With the Band opens with one of the most perfect yet simple scenes I've ever seen on TV.

The character Nick (who we know from the pilot is passionate about playing drums) is in his basement. He puts on a Rush tape (8 Track of course), drops a piece of dry ice into a bucket, dons his headphones, turns on his strobe light and starts to play and sing along to "The Spirit of Radio". We're in Nick's POV so we hear what he's hearing, Geddy Lee singing and Neil Peart playing drums. (Hope I got that right. I may be from Toronto and I may have come of age in the seventies, but I was never a big fan of Rush. The older brother of an ex-boyfriend of mine used to be the pilot of their private jet though. Cool, huh?)

Anyway... Nick, the character, is totally into it. From Nick's POV, he's amazing, the music is amazing. He's a rockstar.

Then we switch POV's to his father walking down the stairs to the basement shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Suddenly we're not hearing the tape of Rush playing, we're hearing what the father is hearing. Nick singing hopelessly off key and banging on his drums like a four year old might, demonstrating little or no talent.

I laughed out loud.

But while this was a brilliant little funny scene -- the teaser before the opening credits -- it perfectly foreshadowed the heartbreaking character arc that Nick goes through during this episode--facing the fact that he's never going to reach his dream of being a drummer in a big rock band. And it's such a relatable character arc. I mean so many of us first realized in our late teens that maybe all our dreams weren't necessarily going to come true just because we wanted them to. It's when many of us realized we weren't as special as we may have thought we were, even if we were the best at something in our high school, our high school was just a tiny insignificant drop in the world. This tiny, maybe 45 second scene, also showed Nick's (also heartbreaking) relationship with his father really well. Brilliant writing. (A weaker writer would have had Nick tell another character how he's such a big disappointment to his father, but in these few seconds, we get it.)

That episode was written by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah. I'm off to check them out on IMDB.com and/or listen to the commentary for the episode. (Okay, maybe I'm off to bed. The DVD will still be there tomorrow.

Oh, and fun fact for those of you who've seen Superbad. I'm about 99% sure that the old guy who gets arrested in the bar in Superbad is the same actor who starts a fight at Lindsay's party in Episode 2 of Freaks and Geeks (Called "Beers and Weirs".) Yup, just checked. He was. He was on an episode of Firefly, too... Must rewatch that.

Anyone else have a perfect scene they've seen/read?

Superbad The Movie - juvenile perverted gross out film? Or master class in dialogue?

Here's my confession - I love juvenile perverted gross out films - but only when they have the heart behind them that this one does. Superbad is so gross at times but there's such a nougaty ribbon of sweetness in just about every scene, that it is utterly redeemed and becomes a hilarious romance between two friends. (Seriously, it's a romance.)

But what's really amazing about this film - and about most of the films Judd Apatow is involved with is the dialogue. The dialogue doesn't just get characters from A to B - in fact it rarely does that. It goes from A, circles B zigzags near C and ends up back at A. But somehow plot is forwarded, subplots meet up but every single time a character opens their mouth - the words reveal and stay true to character. Which seems like a no brainer - but think of the books we read - wherein there needs to be a lot of information revealed - say, about a 11th Century political situation involving a King and some marauding oh...vikings. (Were there Vikings in 11th century - Margaret?) Or, a serial killer with unknown motive but some disgusting calling cards. Often times we get lazy - and we just dump that information. Just put it out there in one big chunk. Case in point - I have a character reading a newspaper article to three people very emotionally involved in what that article says - and right now she's just reading it and they are just listening to it. That's all. Strictly information. I can do better than that. I should do better than that.

Superbad elevates dialogue - makes it what it should be. And the kid from Arrested Development sings in it. What more could you want?

We have a Winner! (And new beginnings)

I'd like to announce that the winner of the ARC of Debrah Williamson's PAPER HEARTS is Marcy!

Marcy, when you read this, e-mail me at info @ maureenmcgowan.com (spaces removed of course) and we'll figure out how to get you your ARC. There may be a short delay in you receiving it due to an emergency on Debrah's end, but we'll make sure we get it to you one way or the other.

On other news... I'm starting a new project. Or to be more accurate, trying to decide between two (or more) projects I've bandied about for a while. I have two short listed right now... And I'm trying to flush one of them (the scarier/more challenging one) out to see if I really have a story I know how to tell.

I find this stage of the writing process both terrifying and fun. I think much of the terrifying part has to do with my commitment issues... partially revealed to the masses (the masses being the thirty or so people who read by other blog) on this post . While the commitment issues discussed in that post had to do with furniture, I think the same fear translates to writing.

But maybe it's not a fear of commitment. Maybe it's a fear of making a huge mistake. (Or are those the same thing???) I discovered doing my last project that I may not be as fast a writer as I thought I was. Although perhaps this new project will get me back on the fast-writing track. (She said hopefully.) Or at least out of the super-slow lane. So, because of this slow-writing thing, taking on a new project is a huge investment of time--time that may end up proving fruitless should the book never sell. Okay not fruitless. I don't need that lecture. But you know what I mean...

So, before I start actually writing pages for my next project I want to feel good about the story. I want to feel like I'm at least 60% sure it's actually going to work, (I don't think I'd be challenging myself if I picked something I was 100% sure about), and I want to feel like it might have a chance of being marketable, too. (And I don't even want to think about the will-it-be-a-good-follow-up-to-either-of-the-projects-my-agent-already-has should-either-of-them-sell question.)

So, scary times for Maureen...

Do you like starting new projects? I have a few writer friends and CP's who seem to do four books a year and I am so, so jealous of this.

What I am looking for in a romance....

With all my various beach vacations and a new critique partner opening up her extensive and delightful keeper shelf - my summer has been filled with some seriously good reading. Brockman aside (seriously, at this point this Alyssa Locke/Starret romance is killing me. I'm like a junkie and the worst part is -- these books aren't that great! They are kind of all over the place and messy BUT can't wait to get my hands on the next one!) I've been introduced to some great romantic suspense. And I like my suspense lite - no need to overshadow the romance for me. But as I was reading Tara Jenzen (her Crazy series - have you guys read these??? Wow! What fun!) A couple things came to me about romance, sub-genres and what women, myself in particular want from romance.

Sub genres like romantic suspense and paranormal and erotic are exploding because I think men in traditional romances have gotten a little too PC. The heroines are all tough and can take care of themselves and the men aren't about to fight too hard for what he thinks is right for the heroine. Unless of course he's a cover FBI agent and there's some serious bad guy after them. OR he's a werewolf and if she doesn't get out of the way she'll be dog food. I think paranormal and romantic suspense have given us back the alpha male. And - I think that's what readers want.

The Greek Tycoon's Secret Mistress and books in the Presents line have kept him alive and well fed but he's missing from so many of the historicals and contemporary romances that I love. Hell, I'm not even writing him anymore.

This month, after packing up my stuff, my son's stuff, making sure my husband had his stuff, getting directions, getting gas and snacks, asking the tenants to take care of the mail, my in laws to take care of the dog - I slipped into these romantic suspence books with these heroes and heroines and it all made sense. The fantasy is having some of the decision making taken away. It's about being swept up in something that's utterly utterly outside of the heroine's control - ergo - the readers control. That's why I think those sub genres are working so well and why it's so hard to get a mainstream romance that's satisfying.

That's my latest thought. That and I love smores. Love them. Why do I wait until I'm on a beach before I indulge in those?

Harry Potter

You had to know one of us would get around to blogging about it sooner or later.

Like the rest of the world, got my copy of the 7th book the day it came out. Unlike most others, it took me a few weeks to read it, due to being seriously busy, occasionally sick and somewhat sleep deprived.

I love this series. Probably my favourite was the 4th book, which I read in a day and half. But having finished the 7th, I feel satisfied. The series and I can’t give away any spoilers, felt complete, I closed it with a happy sigh. Did I love the last book, not with the same fervent attention I had given the first four books, but I did really enjoy it.

One day, I’d like to reread all seven books and try and really figure out what it is that JK Rowling does so well. Some day far in the future.

My initial impression is her pacing. Except maybe for some excess in the 5th and 6th books, each scene adds something new to the plot. Even though the books are long, they don’t feel that way when you read them.

Her plotting is also excellent. I rarely know exactly how things are going to go and those lovely surprises are a rare treat these days.

How did everyone else feel about the 7th book?

Meet Debrah Williamson (and a contest!)

Today, in lieu of a normal DWT blog, (because I'm lazy and it's hot out), I'm posting an excerpt of an interview I recently did with Debrah Williamson, whose latest novel, PAPER HEARTS hit the shelves yesterday, August 7, 2007. On my other blog, I've talked about cyber friendships and meeting people online. Well, Debrah is another example. She found my website, noticed we have the same agent, and we started up a correspondence.

UPDATE! Debrah is generously running a contest. Comment on this blog post before August 23rd for a chance to win an ARC of PAPER HEARTS! (Note to self and to fellow drunk writers... We should have contests more often.)

Here's a bit of the interview. (Some context since this is from mid-interview. Debrah published close to thirty romance novels with various publishers under a couple of different pen names, including Debrah Morris. Some of these novels were co-written with another writer.)





MM: You describe yourself as a veteran romance novelist. Do you think the genre has changed? For better? For worse?



DW: A veteran is someone who’s been through battle and survived, right? Maybe wounded, maybe scarred, but stronger for having seen the elephant, and no longer starry-eyed or delusional about her insignificant role in the big scheme of things. Yep, that’s me. A veteran.
Seriously, romance gave me opportunities I probably would not have found in other genres of fiction. I will always be grateful for those opportunities and what I learned from them. And yes, I think the genre has changed. A lot. Hence, the reason I am a veteran romance writer and not a currently successful one. I won’t make a judgment call on better or worse. It is what it is. Like any living organism, fiction must adapt to the changing world or perish. Romance is still going strong, and that says a lot.



MM: Why did you decide to branch into mainstream fiction?



DW: I think I’ve always been a mainstream writer at heart. As I said, I didn’t read much romance before I got into it, and what I read was mostly Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt.
I quit writing for a while after our collaboration dissolved and focused on my clinical profession. But you know what they say. Writers must write. My last foray into romance was as a solo writer. I wrote five Silhouette Romances as Debrah Morris and had a good time with those. However, when I realized the line was on the verge of closing, I finished my contract and decided to make one last do-or-die stab at cracking mainstream.

Besides the practical consideration of the line folding, I just wanted to write bigger stories than could be told in 50K words. Even after cutting and revising, my novels are 100K words or more. And I wanted to explore relationships other than romantic ones. There are too many kinds of love in the world to limit myself to just one. For example, my recent work delves into the meaning of love for children, parents, and friends.





MM: Tell us a little about PAPER HEARTS.



DW: Thanks for asking. Paper Hearts is about the oddest of odd couples: a young girl at the beginning of her life and an old man at the end of his. Fifteen-year-old Chancy Deel runs away from Pittsburgh and her abusive mother and finds herself stranded in picture-perfect Wenonah, Oklahoma. Streetwise and vulnerable, Chancy is afraid. Afraid to be alone and of being hurt. Afraid she'll never find the new life she so desperately wants.

Eighty-three-year-old Max Boyle is scared too. And just as desperate. He's lost his beloved wife and is about to be forced out of his home of fifty years by a well-meaning social agency. He has no reason to tough out the rest of his lonely life. Because his chronic heart condition isn't doing the job fast enough to suit him, Max decides to end it all.

Everything changes when Max finds Chancy sleeping in his garage. He believes the girl with the wary heart was sent by his late wife and hatches a plan that might just save them both. One transforming summer teaches these two unlikely friends what we all know in our hearts-that no one is meant to go through life alone.

I have worked with these at-risk populations in a professional capacity. In our city, abandoned or homeless teens can have their own place through an independent living program.. We have a day care program that allows young parents, both girls and boys, with custody of their children, to attend high school. I’ve also dealt extensively with the geriatric population. On both professional and personal levels, I understand how devastating the loss of independence can be. Max Boyle grew out of some statistics I read about how the fastest growing rate of suicide in this country is among men over the age of seventy.

It’s been said that the true test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. In PAPER HEARTS, I try to put faces on these voiceless – and often invisible – populations. I hope after readers meet Chancy and Max, they will never look at a grungy teen or grouchy old man in quite the same way again.



MM: How about SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN.



DW: Oh, now we’re talking about the book o’ my heart. I first started hearing Pauly Mahoney’s voice twenty years ago. In the conversation with the author pages in the back of the book, I talk about how she visited and revisited me over the years. Well, nagged the heck out of me is more like it. She just wouldn’t shut up until I wrote her story. So I did. When I finished it, I realized I didn’t have it quite right and put it away. I did other things. Wrote those five solo romances, and a historical (as yet unpublished). When I decided to make the do-or-die-trying effort to break into mainstream, an interested agent asked to see something completed.

When I pulled out SINGING WITH THE TOP DOWN and re-read it, after so much writing time had washed under the bridge, I realized exactly what it needed. So I rewrote it. The agent took it on, submitted it to publishers and it sold within a couple of months.

The story is set in 1954 and is about a couple of children orphaned when their irresponsible young parents are killed in a freak carnival ride accident. An aunt they don’t know — a wannabe movie starlet — shows up at the funeral to take them back to California and a new life.
SINGING is essentially a road-trip story. They set out in a 1953 Buick Skylark convertible, thus the title, and share many adventures and misadventures between Oklahoma and California. They pick up an elderly hitchhiker who is a nursing home refugee, and together these four figure out how to be a family.

Editorial Changes at Harlequin Superromance

Sorry I've been out of the blog/loop for so long. It seems like my summer has started late but with a vengeance - it's been nothing but beaches and cottages the last two weeks...it's a rough life but someone has to sit on that deck chair.

So, by now word has spread about the change in senior editor at Harlequin Superromance. Laura Shin was replaced a few weeks ago by Wanda Ottewell. Of course rumors and theories abound as to why this happened - but I think it all comes down to what we writers usually forget - business and numbers. As a writer for the line I can attest to a pretty substantial leak in sales and printruns and cashola, and from what I have heard from other writers it's been going on for a while. It's going on almost across the board for category romances, with the exception of a few lines. The romance reading world has changed and category has had to scramble to maintain readership - and a lot of that responsibility falls on the senior editors of the lines. It's a job I do not envy. And Laura Shin was a great editor - a classy smart lady. But with numbers where they were something had to happen.

I think what Harlequin and Silhouette has done in the past is been at very start of trends - christian romance, chick lit (RDI was there from the get-go), the various paranormal lines that have come and gone over the years as well as the romantic suspense lines, and the Blaze line pushed the envelope in terms of sexual contact leading the way for mass market erotica.
But there are a lot of lines stuck in ruts of their own making -- Superromance being one of them. The last year Laura did a great job of bringing in new authors with new and interesting story lines and voices, but Superromance is a huge boat and it takes a while to turn it around.


I've worked with Wanda for years - since the doomed Flipside line - she's brilliant. And, if anyone can pull Superromance around - it's her.

Does writing lessen our enjoyment of reading?

This is a question that comes up pretty frequently in our little Drunk Writing Circle, and amongst other writers. Do we read differently now that we write and have to analyze our own work and that of others.
It’s also something the Smart Bitches Who love Trashy Novels recently posted on. Check out their website, they are tremendously entertaining. www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com

The short answer on this question is YES.
I read much differently now and am much harder to please. Cliché’s bug the hell out me, I really notice repetition and where before I would read a ho hum book all the way through, now I toss them aside the moment I lose interest. I’d just rather be writing than read something not completely worthwhile.
But when I read a book and don’t notice scene structure and don’t take note of POV, or the intricacies of plot, I am thrilled in a way I wasn’t before I became a writer.
We all have them, the books, or writers who can sweep us into a story and we forget everything but the characters and what might happen next.
One writer who almost always does this for me is Susan Elizabeth Phillips, I can never analyze her books, even on multiple readings, because I get too caught up in the story. Is this because of voice, or plotting, or an amazing skill level I can only gnash my teeth in envy over, (probably all three).
Because this happens less often these days, I treasure these writers and their books. Anne Stuart can do this on an inconsistent basis, Maggie Osborne, JK Rowling, absolutely, and then there are my favourite books, but that’s a much longer post.
There are times I mourn those days of carefree reading. But I’ve come to realize it’s a side effect of writing, unavoidable I’d guess and a small price to pay.

Multitasking vs One thing at a time

I read somewhere recently that few of us actually multitask very well, in spite of the fact most of us think we do. I also heard that what little ability we have to multitask gets worse as we age, and that scares me.

Why have I been thinking about this? Actually, it was Sinead's last post about writing faster (and my recent snails pace of finished product production). My snail's pace is due to the frustrating time I've been having doing final revisions on my latest opus.

I've always been a multi-tasking kind of person. At least that's how I think of myself. But I'm realizing (either because of age or wisdom or both) that maybe I'd be more effective if I forced my ADD underground and focused on one thing at a time.

And I don't mean doing multiple books at once. I've stopped projects mid-way to start others... but I've never been a write-two-books-at-once kind of gal. I wish. I mean, dealing with one stage of revisions/editing at a time.

Once a book is sold to a publisher, it goes through a few very distinct kinds of edits. Here's how I understand it:

The first is revisions. Which, for popular fiction at least, is mostly about changes to the story. Making sure it's as tight and strong as possible. Depending on the book and the editor, this may go through a few rounds. (Have you ever heard Lisa Garner talk about her revisions for The Perfect Husband?)

Then there are line edits. This is where the words become the issue. The prose. Are there repeating words or phrases, overuse of adverbs or adjectives, repetitive sentence structures. That kind of thing. (I understand depending on the editor, and the extent of revisions needed, these two stages are sometimes combined. I also understand that with more "literary" novels this stage is more rigorous. Fine. I heard one story about an authors and her editor arguing over the choice of one particular word for a few weeks. Lucky publishers have popular fiction to help pay for that kind of anal-retentiveness.)

Then, only then, does it go to the copy editor who worries about continuity and fact checking and punctuation and grammar and do the heroine's eyes change color on page 243.

This is how I understand the process to work, anyway.

So, I'm thinking. Why the hell do I make myself crazy trying to combine all those different kinds of edits into one set of revisions myself? Why do I worry about all of these things on each pass through my manuscript? Why am I fussing over the exact wording of a paragraph until I'm absolutely positive the overall story is working? Do I like wasting time? Making extra work for myself? Subsequently cutting huge swaths of prose I'd tinkered with until I loved it? Am I that worried about my CP's opinion of me that I can only show them stuff I think's nearly finished?

I'm not sure why I never tried to apply this multi-step approach to revisions to my writing process.

And even if I hadn't made the connection earlier, I could have taken a lesson from my CP, friend and fellow drunk writer, Molly, who never cares about line edit things when she's just trying to get the story right.

I've learned to (mostly) ignore grammar and repeated words and poor punctuation in Molly's early drafts, but I'm seriously just realizing now how friggin smart she is. (I knew she was smart about lots of things, just not this.)
What I now realize is how much time I waste trying to polish my work before I show it to my CP's for that initial "does this story work" critique. Or even before I make my own assessment of my story.

Damn, damn, damn.

Can you edit your work for just one thing? Can you ignore the wording and just worry about the story? Or do you multi-task-edit, too?

Writing faster

I have a really limited amount of time on my hands these days… largely due to my expanded family. Whoever said newborns sleep a lot should be shot..

So when I do have a free moment, I have to think carefully about what I want to do. The usual answer is work on my current WIP. Which is what I’ve been doing.

What I would love to know is how to write faster. I really have to work on this, because right now, a book is taking me close to eight months start to finish and I really have to shave two months off that.

Lots of people write several books a year and raise families, so I know it can be done. I think it’s a lack of focus on my part. I sit down to write and my mind wanders and I take breaks and check email, and all of a sudden my time is up, and I only have four pages written in two hours.

Molly is great at writing fast, three books a year, and she has said what helps her is having a computer disconnected from the internet, along with deadlines.

Other people leave the house, go to a coffeeshop where they have nothing to but work. This works really well for Maureen.

Me, I work in spurts. I have great weeks, and really pathetic weeks. Some weeks I get to the computer and can focus on what I'm doing and get tons done, other weeks, I find surfing the net irrestible when I should be writing.

What does help me is having a specific goal when I sit down to write. Knowing exactly what scene comes next, and what needs to be accomplished in the scene. If I sit down to the computer with only a vague idea of what comes next in the book, I'm screwed.

Does anyone have any other ways to keep focused and write faster? I'd love to hear them.

Surreality TV

No, this post isn't about the Surreal Life, I got bored at that one after the first season. Once they started casting so-called celebrities who actually realized the joke was on them, I didn't find it so funny anymore. Does that say pretty bad things about me? (But seriously, Cory Feldman's antics and tantrums in the first season cracked me up and appalled me at the same time. That's entertainment.)

What this post is actually about, is John from Cincinnati. Does anyone else out there watch this? What an interesting and bizarre little show. Who wouldn't love a television series featuring levitation, surfing, resurrection, illicit drug taking and a strange man who doesn't eat, sleep, or poop, and might be an alien, or a robot or maybe the second coming.

When this show first came on at the beginning of summer... (it's on TMN in Canada and they're at about episode 7 now. Don't know when it was/is on in the states...) Anyway... when it first started up here, I watched a few minutes of one episode, saw Bruce Greenwood floating off the ground and decided it wasn't for me. (Or rather that if I was going to watch, I'd have to watch from the beginning to figure out what the levitation was about. Now I know even if I had watched from the beginning, I'd have no idea what it was about.)

So, I finally got around to giving it another try and have been getting caught up via the on demand channel.

Wow. I don't really know what's going on, but it doesn't matter, I'm hooked. I've always liked Bruce Greenwood who until now could mostly only been seen in Canadian films (like The Sweet Hereafter). I thought he was going to become famous after he was cast as JFK in Thirteen Days... but Kevin Costner kind of ruined that movie and it bombed. (But I also understand it never would have been made without Costner's involvement... so there you go.)

Anyway... Bruce is aging well.

Check this show out if you're into the surreal, bizarre and unusual.

Why ON THE LOT isn't working...

I've PVR'd all the episodes of On The Lot and I just got around to watching all of them. They have been remarkably easy to turn off - which doesn't say much about that show. However, after watching all of them in a row - the show is great. What those filmmakers are doing in such short turnaround is astonishing and the guest judges! Yikes! You don't get much bigger. So - why isn't it working. Granted, it's not as accessible as a singing talent show or even a dancing talent show -- but there are enough lovers of movies in the world and not enough good tv on in the summer that this show should be doing great.


1. Well, in Canada it's on at 11. That's crazy. And they are still working out the kinks of how to make the show work. For a while the bottom two vote getting film makers sat on stage for the whole episode to find out who would get cut. The next week they had an off stage package declaring the loser of that week.

2. The host - Adrienne? Oh my lord she's awful. She's really terrible. The non stop reviewing of numbers to call and the rules of the game and the fact that America is voting --- it's all necessary but you need someone with a bit more like-ability or chit chat skill to make it easy to listen to all the time. She doesn't.

3. The judges. Carrie Fisher and Gary Marshall are the regular judges all the time and I think they were hoping Carrie would be a bit more blunt than she is -- the Simon Cowell type. Gary is a character -- he's the old grandpa with a lot of smarts but is old fashioned. But there's no conflict with the judges. The reviews are all the same "it was good." "it was a success." So bland - no conflict nothing juicy - nothing actually very real. Sometimes the guest judges lay down some pearls of wisdom but for the most part it doesn't seem like anyone is getting judged. Which leads me to

4. Everything is very competent. Unlike a singing show when someone is bad you can tell -- it's hard to tell when these shorts are bad because it's all very competent. There's a whole lot of middle of the road and as anyone who has had to judge a writing contest -- nothing is worse than a whole bunch of middle of the road. There are some real stand outs -- Will and Zach and I really liked Marty despite his meltdown. But other than that -- a whole lot of the same. And to get viewers you need conflict and highs and lows.

It's an interesting premise for people who love storytelling and movies but they need to make it an interesting premise for the rest of the world. The rest of the world without PVR.

Why the Emmys suck..

I love, love the timing of this, because the emmy noms came out yesterday and I have a whole lot to say about them.

First, my public service announcement. I don’t watch all the shows that were nominated, but I do read Entertainment weekly and TV guide, so I have a handle on what the critics are saying.

The noms could not have been more boring, or predictable, or in my humble opinion, WRONG.

I don’t have a lot to say about comedy, except perhaps the inclusion of two and half men, which I don’t love, but 30 Rock and the Office are brilliant and I’d like to publicly announce my huge girl crush on Tina Fey, one of the most brilliant comedy writers around.

But DRAMA… Wow, I feel they dropped the ball on a massive scale here.

Where the hell is Friday Night Lights, or Lost? Two shows that were completely riveting this year. How could they ignore the brilliant writing on FNL?
But I can answer this, by bringing up two more shows they have consistently ignored. The Wire, which almost every critic out there raves as being the best show on TV and Battlestar. If season 2 of Battlestar couldn’t get a nom for best drama, there was no chance in hell for season three, not even for those brilliant first four episodes.

4 shows that are so much better than House, Boston Legal, a really uneven season of Grey’s Anatomy, seriously, how they could they nominate these shows instead of the 4 listed above.

And what about acting nods? Where is Kyle Chandler, or Connie Britton, or any of the teens played so terrifically on Friday Night Lights? Where is Michael C. Hall for his outstanding performance on Dexter.
I agree with Hugh Laurie’s nod, but House was really disappointing for me this season, they seem to be building a show on his performance and that’s it.
And what about Battlestar, if Michael Hogan couldn’t get a nod for his unbelievable work as Colonel Tigh this past season, then obviously whoever is voting for the emmys is deaf, blind and dumb.

Phew! It felt good to rant. The rage still hasn’t subsided completely, but I feel better. How does everyone else feel about the emmy noms?

Agents and Editors are People

I know, pretty provocative title. (and not because the correct word is "persons", not "people".) The provocative idea is that agents and editors are mere human beings. How scandalous of me to suggest this.

Sure, I'm being silly to make a point, but I do assert that many writers act as if agents and editors are gods.

Before embarking on this trail toward publication, I was in a fairly high level position in business. The idea that there was anyone I couldn't approach, or that I was too junior to talk to, or any such notion, had been dispelled from my arguably once timid and cautious personality, many years back.

So, imagine my surprise when I started writing, got ready to submit, and found out there was all this mystique around these agent and editor creatures. All this strange protocol about how to contact these beings, how they'll snap and turn on you, how you'll be put on a "never publish ever list" if you make one false step. Some people will insist that editors and agents have special rulers to measure margins and won't read submissions unless you choose the magic font. You can't ask them questions, you must not speak unless spoken to, you must not e-mail unless e-mailed and invited to e-mail back, you can't make eye contact in the halls at conferences, you must bow down deeply whenever in their presence, you must send a SASE with every small note you write them.

Now, some of this is clearly joking... But except for the bowing down one, I've heard most of these on the loops or in workshops.

I've broken all of these so-called rules by now. In fact, the very first piece of writing I submitted (a requested partial manuscript to an editor at a major publisher) I did not include a SASE. GASP! Now, I do know that including such a thing is standard procedure in this industry... but at that time, I didn't believe it. You mean, considering my work isn't worth fifty cents to this major corporation/publishing house??? You've got to be kidding me??? I refused to send one. The editor had asked me to send my work, after all. (I didn't really refuse... I just didn't think it applied to requested submissions.)

On being assured, by people I knew not to be idiots, that the SASE myth (I had assumed) was true, I started to panic that all the other myths were true, too. But my submission did get returned to me (rejected, but obviously read given the specific comments in the rejection letter) on the publishing house's dime for postage. Okay, dollar--the sent my submission back, too. But while editors (in my experience) will respond without a SASE the same is not necessarily true with agents. (Although many respond via e-mail now, making the SASE obsolete.) This seems a bit crazy to me... since from all I can see, the real money in publishing is in agenting... Sure, to make money as an agent, you have to pick the right authors, and be good at your job, and have a little luck, and it can take years of eating expenses and not making money before you do well... But I'm sure, proportionately, there are a lot more agents with big incomes than either authors or editors... but I digress, again.

And I suppose this gets me around to, (finally, I'm sure you're all saying), what sparked this post. The lovely and talented Lauren Baratz-Logsted made a very interesting post to a forum in an on-line writers communitiy we both belong to about agents and authors and respect (among other things). She was asserting that many agents don't respect authors and how many authors deify their agents to the point where they don't question the agent's choices about their careers.

Some of what she said (and what I've rambled on about, above) got me thinking about agents who blog. Now, I LOVE that so many agents blog. It's a fabulous way for newbies to learn about the industry and for writers who are agent hunting to learn a bit about the working practices/personalities/likes and dislikes of those agents who do blog. But I'm wondering if some of these blogs (the belated Miss Snark in particular) don't help to perpetuate the agent as god myth. I think so many writers end up living in fear that they'll do something worthy of being shot by a clue-gun or write something that will score high on a crap-o-meter that they become paralyzed with fear.

Sad thing, I suppose, is that there are a lot of crazy people out there who've written a book or who want to.

It's possible the industry has built up this mysterious wall around agents and editors to deter the crazies. It behooves the rest of us to remember we aren't crazy.

If you know you aren't crazy, if you know you've written a great book, then don't worry about all the myths. Don't think of agents and editors as gods. Just submit. If you're at a conference, introduce yourself. Just don't be crazy. :-)

So You Think You Can Dance -- best show on TV. Period.

There - I'm putting it out into the world. For my money - as much as I loved Dexter and the Sopranos and The Office and yes, even Friday Night Lights - nothing compares to the way I feel about So You Think You Can Dance. I obsess. I watch. Rewatch. Rewatch. Think about deleting it from my PVR and then don't. So I can rewatch yet again. I worry. I really worry about Hok. I worry about who will be given the gift of working with Wade Robson in the next week.

This show - as good as all those other shows are - at least once a week startles me with beauty and honesty and something so creative and different and moving that I thank God that I am a writer and I have PVR. I think this show offers us a glimpse into something very real about the dance community. American Idol has become it's own planet with nothing relating to the real world. But this show puts real dancers in the same room with real choreographers - and it's always exciting.

I saw part of the first season - watched the second season at least twice and now am glued to the TV for the first season and it's getting better all the time. They have six couples left and while I know that Hok isn't the best male dancer and could be the next to go - how is that possible in light of that Wade Robson ballet from two weeks ago? That was one of the most stunning things I have ever seen. I also thought the waltz last week was lovely -- the guy is short! What can he do?

Danny? Oh Danny so stunning. His hands - beautiful. His body. His dancing - stunning. But the judges are right. He's either not in touch with something very vulnerable in himself or he is arrogant -- I don't know which.

As for the girls - Sara, Sabra and I love Hok's partner Jamie? I can't remember her name because I am blinded by my love of Hok. But she is beautiful and elegant and giggly. She's fun.

The whole damn thing is fun. And beautiful. And artful - and that is almost non-exist ant on tv these days.

Coming Up Blank

Ok, this is going to be the shortest blog post ever, because I have nothing to talk about. I’m not at Nationals, I had no real reason to go this year and no way to justify the funds it would take.
I’m really hoping that changes by next year, would love to go to San Francisco, but I need to justify the expense, with either a publishing contract, or a super agent willing to take me on, or a huge lottery win..
Which ever happens first.

I’m finishing a book, hopefully by mid August, and ready to send it out. So while I edit, I’m thinking agents. I learned the hard way to research the agents I want it sent to. I lost a lot of time with an ineffective agent, and don’t plan to go that route again. I need to draft a query letter and a synopsis, two things I’m dreadful at, but on the plus side, I have some talented critique partners who are great at this stuff.

And I’m thinking of the next book. I have some good ideas, but nothing coming close to an outline, or a decent structure, so I need to think on this as well. I don’t like to take too much time off during books, I lose a lot of momentum that way..

There you go, everything that’s been on my mind writing wise this week. Anyone else wish they were at Nationals?

Reading the Ritas....

Every year I try to read a few of the Rita nominated books and since Maureen is at Nationals right now - soon, I am sure to be picking up her Golden Heart -- I thought I'd give a quick report on the most suprising one I'm reading -- Anne Stuarts historical - The Devil's Waltz. All the same great stuff she does: an amazing hero, wonderful tension, moody moody moody - but, get this. The Heroine steals the show! The heroine is amazing! In fact she's outshining the hero! This is a great book.

How about the rest of you -- any good reports from the Rita's this year?


FYI -- www.torontoromancewriters.com won the award for best website. A huge congratulations to Simone Seguine who designed it. It's an amazing site - check it out.

Sicko: audience manipulation? Or great storytelling?

Husband and I went to see Sicko - Micheal Moore's latest documentary - on Friday. And as an American living in Canada I have a fairly unique perspective on the Health Care crisis in the United States. At one point in the documentary an American living in France (which has the BEST health care system) said that she felt guilty for all that she was given in France when her parents had worked their whole lives to only get a part of what she can take for granted in her adopted country - paid vacations, free healthcare, prescriptions and dental care.

I feel much the same way. After that movie I wanted to gather up every loved one in the United States and bring them to my home - so the stress of aging and dealing with HMO's could be lifted from their shoulders and they could go back to the business of being happy.

Now calling anything Micheal Moore does a documentary is slightly skewed. Sicko is to a documentary as Fox News is to journalism. But luckily, Moore is using his powers for good. (Unlike Fox). Moore is liberal. No doubt about it. He's liberal and lots of people can fire cannon balls into the huge holes in his other documentaries. But, I think with Sicko - he's figured out how to shut the mouths of even the most uninformed and vocal of the republican right. He uses babies and firemen.

Lots of people are being abused by the system. But Moore's thesis statement is: Because of the US health care system babies and fireman (who worked in and breathed the hellish mix of chemicals in ground zero) are dying. Uncared for and neglected.

Now, who - who can possibly say that the health care system works when Moore zooms in on the tear streaked face of a mother who lost her 18 month old daughter to a high fever that could be treated by antibiotics. And who could say that the firemen and EMS employees who have been cut off and run around and ignored by the government they worked for! shouldn't get the care they need - even if it is from a Cuban doctor?

Yes - he's totally manipulative - but that's what makes him a good storyteller.

Why TV is so much better than Movies

I love movies, have since I was a young child. I religiously watch the Oscars, love almost all genres, from horror, to drama, musicals and action, and even love to watch the shows on the making of movies.

But in the last two years, the movies I’ve seen on the big screen have failed to thrill me like they used to. I could be getting more cynical as I get older, but when is the last time I saw a movie that thrilled me start to finish as much as Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Aliens, or even Die Hard.

Movies that I was so entranced with, two hours went by in the blink of an eye.

My last favourite movie was Pan’s Labryinth, a wonderful movie, and one of a handful I really enjoyed in the past couple of years.

And then there’s TV. I have been thrilled by Battlestar Galactica, emotionally drained and inspired by Friday night Lights, held completely enthralled by Heroes, and hooked by Dexter.
Shows that have 22 episodes a season, and I watched each one with the same eagerness that I open a bottle of red wine. (I really love red wine, more so for having had to abstain for almost a year…)

TV has more time to develop characters and plot, they can introduce more arcs and plot points, but that also gives TV more opportunities to screw up. And the above shows rarely do.
It seems the really great storytellers have migrated from the movies to TV. Better romances, better tension, better villains, and more risk taking, independent movies aside.

And then let’s talk comedy. Is there any movie in recent memory funnier than Arrested Development, or as simultaneously funny and sweet as The Office?

We’re in the summer movie season and the only upcoming movie that vaguely interests me is the Bourne Ultimatum. Everything else is either a sequel, or a retread of some other movie.

But the Fall TV season. That I’m itching for… New seasons of BSG, FNL and Heroes. I can’t wait.

Conference Bound

Okay, I'm being a negligent drunk writer this week, posting a day late and without much to say. Sorry.

I'm off the the HUGE RWA National conference in Dallas early next week and have been bogged down in getting revisions on a book done, preparing for the conference and trying to dig a few trails through the clutter filling my house, because my niece will be staying with me for a few days right after I get back and I don't want her to get crushed by one of the piles. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. Well, maybe a little.

This is is my fourth "Nationals" and the second in Dallas. Nothing against Dallas, but I almost decided not to go this year because of the location. But, I thought, the reason it was so insane last time was because the conference dates coincided with a Mary Kay conference. Surely RWA wouldn't make that mistake again? Surely the hotels wouldn't book two huge groups of women at the same time? Surely they learned from their mistake?

Apparently not. A group of the 2007 GH finalists are trying to get a dinner reservation for Friday night somewhere within say, ten miles of the hotel, and guess what? Everywhere is booked up with Mary Kay people. ACK!

Can't wait until the MK ladies start berating writers for not wearing pantyhose or enough make up. :-)

I'll try to post next week to let everyone know how it's going.

Suzanne Brockman is ruining my life....

So a friend loaned me all of her Suzanne Brockman Navy Seal categories a week ago. She handed over this lovingly assembled hodge podge of reissues and used and new books and I had no idea what I was in for.

I haven't done ANYTHING all week. I go to bed at 9 and read to 1. I've stopped writing. I've stopped exercising - at every turn I am running upstairs to read more about Alpha Team Ten. I am chain reading them. The first one still warm from my hand and I'm three pages in the next.

And so, I've figured out what the deal is with Brockman - I thought it was the males and they are great heroes. But the worst book in this series was the first one -- SHE KEEPS GETTING BETTER. SHE DOES NOT DISAPPOINT. It's amazing. I love some writers -- buy each and every book - and when one is a bit of a stinker - I forgive and forget. But so far none of these books are bad. Her research gets more and more interesting. Her characters more complex and even harder considering her subject matter and the confines of category romance -- they are all DIFFERENT. Elizabeth Lowell's category romances - which I love - are all sort of the same in terms of plot and character. Still love 'em. But Brockman is really pulling it off with these boys.

Now, I write category romances and like most category romance novelists have aspirations of "breaking out." And, I sometimes get very very antsy about time but Suzanne has taught me this last week the importance of building an audience and honing my skills.

While none of them have been bad - Frisco's Kid - is my favorite. And so far - Harvard's Education was the least gripping -- it was fantastic but maybe had less romance than I like. Thoughts?

How about you guys? Is there another author out there that I am missing? Someone else batting a thousand.

Revisions – Will the book ever be what I initially conceived in my mind

Reading the new romance writers report this eve, and there’s this really great interview with Vicki Lewis Thompson. She quotes Barbara Samuel on revisions, basically saying the book is never going to be as good as she initially imagined, so at some point, she stops revising and lets it go.

I feel very much the same. I know the book is never going to live up to my initial concept and expectations, and I usually realize this during the revision process. Not to say I’m not proud of my work, but this is where the real self doubt hits, and I start to sweat the small details, the big details and focus on what’s wrong and not what’s working.

This is the part where I procrastinate, worry, doubt and lose some of the love of the process.

I’ve written enough to know it’s coming, to muscle through it, and finish the book, but in the past this certainly has derailed me for a couple of books.

But I know other writers that love this process, that fall in love with their books during this part of the writing. I’ve always wondered, is this because they know they can match their work to their initial expectations?

I would love some insight into this. Most writers I know are a wonderful mass of self-doubt and worry, and most second guess their books long after they’ve started submitting them.

Someday I would love to send a book into the world confident it was as good as I could possibly make it.

I’m a ways away.

Revisiting Revisions (and cooking pasta)

I know I've blogged about revisions before, and so have Molly and Sinead, but for some reason I keep going back to this topic.

Okay, it's no big mystery. I know the reason. It's because I'm not only revising right now--like Molly, I'm revising something I've already revised at least once before. But unlike Molly, I'm not feeling so confident about how it's going right now.

I think the last time I blogged about revising I claimed it was my favorite part of the writing process. (Well, maybe second to those days where my fingers just fly and things happen on the page I didn't see coming, but those days are few and far between and hard to predict.) I think I've always liked revising because I felt like it was easier to control.

But I want to take back my "I love revising" claim. It seems, like so many other things about writing, that whether or not revising goes well, depends on the book.

The manuscript I'm revising right now, on the surface, would seem to be a much simpler story than my previous work which had multiple timelines and lots to things to juggle. But I'm actually finding this one harder. It's a story where it's all about the subtle changes in the character's attitude. Little by little they have to change and I'm only in one character's POV, but what's going on with the other characters is very important and has to show through, and I keep moving things around and then realizing the move's messed up what a character was thinking or doing somewhere else. (And to complicate matters, the two main characters' minds are in each other's bodies for 99% of the book... Yes. That's right. I'm insane.)

Right now, I can't even seem to keep order of the book's events straight, and having problems like that isn't like me. Before these past few weeks, I'd have said that sort of thing was my strength, not my weakness...

Of course, I know there are lots of tools I could be using (outlining, storyboarding, index cards, etc.) to help with this process, but I feel like I'm in a rush so I've been reluctant to step back to do the work I know I should be doing...

And that's actually what I had been planning to blog about before the huge preceding digression.

Why are we in such a freakin' hurry all the time?

I've spent so much time beating myself up about the fact I haven't had anything new out on submission with editors for a year, and I obviously I can't sell if I'm not getting new work to my agent, and obviously if I want a career in popular fiction I need to be able to produce at least a book a year, but sometimes I feel like, especially at this hunting-your-first-contract stage, that it pays to take your time, to make sure you're doing your best work, to make sure you're telling stories that will stand out with high quality writing that stands out, too...

I've heard several people give the "spaghetti" advice line to unpublished writers. That is, to write as much as you can in as many genres as you can, get lots out there and see what sticks. And I certainly know people who've done very well with that strategy, but for me, I think my work, like pasta, needs to be fully cooked before it'll have a chance of sticking to the wall.

All that said, I'm still determined to get this manuscript completely revised before I go to RWA Nationals in two weeks. Previously, I'd been hoping for much sooner, so that my agent could read it before I see here there... but I gave up on that pipe dream a few weeks ago...

Do you feel pressure to write quickly? Do you think it affects the quality of what you do?

Gotta go. I'm in a hurry. Back to work...

Hey, you know what really works...?

Beer. Works wonders. But so does the Sangria at Sarah's on the Danforth -- holy smokes - that's good sangria. That Tide To Go pen. A cool shower before going to bed on a hot night -- my mom was right. Macaroni and Cheese - my kid's not eating anything these days and last night he was shoveling that stuff in by the fist ful.

Oh, and that advice we always hear about putting your finished work aside before going back and editing. This is advice I always hear and never take to heart and always think it's simply a luxury. But, I've been working on a project for over two years now - and I work on it and send it to my agent who sends to publishing houses and most of the publishing houses reject it but someone likes it - not enough to buy it - but enough to say "What's the deal with the mother?" So, then my agent says - why don't you do something with the mother. And since it's been 2 years and any burning passion I had for this book is so gone I say -- why not? I can give it a go. Lo and Behold - I open up the file and I can see it all so clearly. Yes, of course. The mother. And here's where she will go. And this is what she means. And by God the book is better - why didn't I think of that?

Now, two years is a bit much, but being able to go back to something long after your all tied up in it -- it is a luxury but it's something I think we should try to make a reality. The book just gets better.

What are bigger books?

Stupid title for this blog, but my sleep deprived brain can’t think of a better one. I’m reading a book Molly loaned me, (ages ago, and I should have read it long before now), by Elizabeth Lowell. Tell me no lies, it’s a contemp, and I’m only 100 pages in.

And really, at 100 pages in, we’re not really into the action yet. It seems as if most of the major characters have been introduced, but you can tell this is build up for the story to come.

Popular, current wisdom would say the book should move faster, but this is a big book, close to 500 pages, and smaller print, and it was written about 20 years ago. Lowell has taken her time setting up the characters, you can tell she’s done a lot of research into ancient Chinese artifacts, and Washington, which is where the book is currently set, certainly it feels like she knows these two areas really, really well.
While the book is a romance, there’s a plot and storyline that seems equally as important as the romance, and the combination of both has really drawn me in.
(thanks for the loan, Molly)

It’s a bigger book in tone and depth than a lot of the romances I’ve read lately, and you can tell this book took her a while to both research and write.

I’m wondering if anyone knows of other more recent romances that read like this? Either historical or contemp.
I also believe in today’s market it would be really tough to write this book, given published authors need to be more prolific and don’t usually have a year or more to spend on one book. But if there are more out there like this, I would love to hear recommendations.

On another, unrelated note. Friday Night Lights. I’m three episodes from the end of the season.
Amazing show. I’ve been trying to figure out what they do best, but I think it’s to portray the small, perfect moments. The brilliant character reveals in small details that show us everything and tell us nothing.
Anyone else watching this? It does live up the hype.

Grammar in popular fiction

Okay, so this is a post that's been percolating in my mind for a while and probably isn't fully perked yet, but something I read this morning in a national newspaper made me consider it again.

First the disclaimers. I'm not a grammar guru. I don't pretend to have perfect grammar and know I make mistakes all the time. But I did have a few pretty good English teachers in school, and both of my parents were English speakers from birth, as were their parents and their parents, and one of my grandmothers was a teacher. (An aside... one of the aforementioned English teachers was Chinese-Canadian. So I don't mean to imply one needs to have been a native English speaker to have a good grasp of grammar. I just think it gives you a leg up if your parents used good grammar at home.) All that said, I suppose I have a better grasp of grammar than many, but by no means am I an expert. I look stuff up all the time, and even then, I'm often not sure... I mean, does anyone understand the rules for using which vs. that? (Okay, maybe it's just me with that one.)

But one thing I discovered when I started to write popular fiction, is that the rules seem to be looser in that piece of the publishing world. Either that or no one cares, because I've read a lot of published fiction with pretty loosely applied rules of grammar in my book.

One thing I think my very first manuscript had going for it was pretty good grammar. That manuscript boasted commas around every phrase, had zero sentences ending with prepositions, used the past perfect tense where appropriate--and was, well, stilted and dry.

So I loosened things up in my own writing. I probably went too far at first, shunning commas to the point my writing became hard to read, and overusing sentence fragments etc. (Still love sentence fragments.) But I started purposefully ending sentences with prepositions. (And starting them with conjunctions. LOL.) I started using "like" in places I felt sure "as if" was technically correct. I stopped being so hung up on grammar in my own work, and even cut back on marking up my critique partners' stuff.

So why am I blogging about this? The thing that set me off this morning, (or should "that" have been "which"?), was this sentence found in an in depth, hard news story I was reading on the subway:

"Nicole Richie's lawyer announced yesterday that her client will try and beat the driving under the influence rap...."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong... but shouldn't it be "try to beat" not "try and beat"? Don't know why that one sticks in my craw. I mean... wouldn't "and" only be correct if it were joining two separate actions the lawyer was taking? For example if he were both trying and beating? Doesn't the verb "to try" always need an infinitive after it? Something the subject of the sentence is trying TO do?

Grammar gurus out there. Am I right or wrong about this one?

Everyone else... Whether I'm right or wrong, does it matter? Does anyone care? How do you feel about grammar in popular fiction? Is it better to write the way the majority of people speak, or by doing that, are we adding to the problem by making readers assume it's correct? Am I the only one who thinks about this?

(Before someone says this in a comment... I think dialog should be written the way people speak, using the grammar the character would use, correct or not. But what about the other stuff???)

Am I the last person to discover Suzanne Brockman?

I read my first Suzanne Brockman book this weekend. Read it in two big gulps. A friend loaned me Brockman's first of the Navy SEAL series because I wanted to see what authors did to really stand out in catagory romance. Now, of course I know who Suzanne is. I've seen the droves of people lining up to get thier books signed. I even know someone (Maureen) who won a ticket to go to a special dinner with Suzanne Brockman where there was a spoof of her books performed by other list-making authors. I totally got that she was a big deal.

Now I get why.

Was Prince Joe the best catagory book I ever read? Nope. But it was really really good. Sexual tension. Attention to detail. Interesting external plot - some sort of old school internal plot stuff that wouldn't fly today - But man, those male character leapt off the page. And catagory romance has been and will probably always be about the hero. And she writes a hell of a hero. She also writes a bunch of them -- all connected so people can't wait to go get that next book.

Anyone know which book comes after Prince Joe? Because I am addicted.

Books books books books books

Okay, I should be sleeping right now, so if this post is completely incoherent (or more incoherent than normal) please forgive me.

I spent most of Monday wandering around BookExpo Canada. What fun. My friend Danielle Younge-Ullman, whose debut novel FALLING UNDER, will be published next year by Plume, got some free exhibitor passes for us from some dude she met on Craig's List. Go, Danielle!

Anyway, I had to pretend I was a published author, because that was the closest I came to any of the boxes I had to check to actually redeem my pass for an entry badge, but luckily no one questioned it.

What is BookExpo you may ask? Well, the Canadian one is a small version of the US one, and it's basically a marketing venue/trade show for the publishers (and people in related industries targeting bookstores) to show off the best of their wares for the upcoming season. In addition to the publishers' booths, I was interested to see a very large booth sponsored by a book distributor I'd never heard of before. They had a huge list of the houses they represent in Canada, and basically it seemed to be all the US publishers who don't have Canadian offices/counterparts and some smaller presses, too. So, from what I could gather, instead of those houses having a sales force in Canada, this company basically acts as an agent for them. (I really should have found out more... Maybe I'll do a little research and get back to y'all. Sorry about the y'all. Warming up for Dallas, already.)

The most popular feature of the show seemed to universally be the author appearances. Basically authors show up for about an hour each and give away signed copies of their new or upcoming releases. Free books!

Fellow Toronto Romance Writer, Kelley Armstrong, had one of the longest lines for signings on Sunday, from what I heard, but sadly, I could only go on Monday. (Jean Chretien was there on Sunday, too... Not to mention Clive Barker and a few stars like that.)

The attendees of BookExpo are mostly booksellers and librarians. I'd say at least 2/3 of the name badges I spotted were people who worked at a Chapters or Indigo.

But some other business seems to get done, too. Danielle managed to meet the woman at Penguin Canada who'll be handling her Canadian publicity when her book comes out which was pretty exciting. And I pumped a few people I met to try to improve my understanding of the biz.

I got a HUGE bag-o-books I can't wait to read, including Tom Harpur's new one WATER INTO WINE which looks fascinating, and Jan Wong's RED CHINA BLUES. (Although, true confessions, with great non-fiction like that, I always love the idea of reading the books and buy quite a few that interest me... and then I never seem to get around to actually reading most of them. Most of the non-fiction reading I do these days is writing related and I admit I'm still in the second chapter of Harpur's book THE PAGAN CHRIST.)

The funniest thing I picked up? A little teaser booklet thingy (I'm sure that's the proper marketing term) for a new one of those Chicken Soup books. What's this one called? Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. They are little stories written by past contestents on the show. And some bonus words of encouragement from Paula Abdul. Gah! What is the world coming to?

Another highlight for me was getting a signed copy of NYT Bestseller John Connolly's THE UNQUIET. I admit I'm not a big thriller reader, and have never read Mr. Connolly before, but I'll read this one. What a charmer. He was too good looking for it to be legal, and when he noticed my name he asked if I was Irish, and I started babbling like an idiot and basically told him my entire family tree. I think what came out was:

MM: "Actually, I'm only 5/8 Irish."
JC: "Well, that's pretty good."
MM: "I've got some Scots blood, too."
JC: "We can forgive that."
MM: "And some Welsh."
JC: "Oh, can't forgive that."
MM: "And some Flemish."
JC: "Now the Flemish is interesting."

Witty banter. We're opening in Vegas in 2 weeks. LOL. Anyway, while I was embarassing myself, he was busily signing my free book with what I assumed was his stock book signing "happy reading" or whatever. What I actually got was: "To Maureen, my fellow Irishman (5/8)
Peace and Happiness, John." and a big smiley face.

So sweet.

Also got to say a quick hello to Tish Cohen again, author of TOWN HOUSE, and got a copy of her upcoming middle-grade release THE INVISIBLE RULES OF THE ZOE LAMA which looks like a very fun read.

So, all in all, in terms of days I should have been writing but wasn't, I don't feel too guilty about this one. A day well spent.

Late to the party…. Heroes

Hey, Speaking of bad bloggers.. I’m way overdue for a new post. Been catching up on the series I should have already been watching, rather than American Idol, and possibly Prison Break. Still torn on that show, but now that Kellerman’s dead, my interest is gone.
Still love that magnificent bastard!

But I did watch the entire first season of Heroes, and loved it. It’s not my fave, that honour still belongs to BSG, but it is fast paced, wonderfully plotted, has offered some great surprises, twisted my expectations and kept me thoroughly entertained.

Why does it work?
It’s got a great cast of characters and they do a nice job of raising two questions, everytime they answer one. They layered in backstory beautifully, while keeping the plot moving forward.
Not all of the story lines are equally successful, the Nikki storyline seemed extraneous to me.
But every character, no matter how minor, has a purpose, one which often doesn’t come out until several episodes later.
And funny enough, my favourite character isn’t one of the heroes. Jack Coleman, the man we are supposed to hate in the first few episodes, became the most fascinating character on the entire show.
His backstory was the highlight of the entire first season for me and his scenes with Claire(the cheerleader) were really affecting.
I’m really trying not to give away spoilers here, because as writers, this show is great to watch, if just to pick up pacing and plotting points and how to integrate a large cast seamlessly.

So weeks after the season ended, I’m finally caught up, and really glad I did. Next on the list, Friday Night Lights. I’m a few episodes in and totally gripped..

Richard Price and the Season Finale of the Sopranos

Hey so sorry I've been blogless lately. I've been finishing up a contracted book and trying to get proposals together all for a deadline at the end of the week. This is always the most stressful time finishing and starting and keeping three things in mind at once...yikes. My brain - it hurts.

Went to a family wedding in Pennsylvania this weekend and got to listen to a lot of NPR. Richard Price the novelist (The Wanderers) and screenwriter (Clockers, some episodes of The Wire among many others) was being interviewed and oh! the fun.

He said the difference between writing novels and writing screenplays is the difference between chess and speed chess. You're getting from A to B you're just doing it differently. I thought that was very interesting. He also said that novel writing is more art and screenwriting is more craft and while writing a scene in a screenplay he writes it like he's on a hot burner and can't get off until the scene is done. Because it's about immediacy.

Now, I don't write the novels he writes but the way he looks at screenwriting is the way I look at writing the books I'm writing. It's about the immediacy of the scene. How cool is that?

Sopranos? Hated it last night -- love it this morning. I felt manipulated last night but today I realize that all that stress I felt, all the angst and gut wrenching nervousness -- that's how Tony lives and it's perfect that instead of being relieved of his life he's going to have to just keep living it.

Brilliant.

More random backstory thoughts...

Okay, so I'm reading Kristy Kiernan's impressive debut novel Catching Genius right now. It's really gripping. Definitely the sort of book I enjoy reading.

And it may be ill advised for me to make a comment/observation while I'm still 3/4 of my way through a book, but I'm making this observation not only on her book but based on other "women's fiction" novels I've read, too. (And an aside... anyone who reads this blog and my own with any regularity probably knows how I feel about the term "women's fiction".)

My observation is about back story. In many types of stories, it's considered bad form to include too much of this stuff. The wisdom goes that you slow down your story by telling us what happened in the past versus "the real story". Donald Maass goes so far as to suggest you should have zero back story in your novel. I've taken his class.

But what if "the real story" is what happened in the past?

My "big revelation" this week is that having the "real story" be the back story is super common theme (okay, not a theme... a device? a structure?) in commercial women's fiction. That is, there are many commerical women's fiction stories published about characters coming to grips with something in their past. The craft, the skill, comes by way of the writer carefully controlling how and when that information is dolled out -- not necessarily chronologically, but in such a way as to maximize impact.

When I think of it that way, I guess the back story principles in that type of past-heavy book aren't that different from those for books that are more "in the present". It's all about controlling what you let the reader know and when... It's just in some stories there's more of it to control.

I think Kristy did an amazing job of this with Catching Genius. There are "present time" stories/character arcs for both the main characters, but (at this point in the book, anyway) I feel like the present day stories are subplots and the "real story", the part the reader (me) is dying to learn more about, the part that's pulling me through the book, is wanting to know more about what happened to these sisters in the past.

Thus, the main story is, well, back story. (Is it still back story when it's the main story???)

Don't know why recognizing this past-heavy story telling structure was such a revelation to me. I mean, one of my ms's (the one in this year's GH) actually has two timelines, and what happens in "the past'" is pretty key to the resolution of the overall story... but I guess what I simply realized is that back story isn't necessarily an evil word -- especially in some types of books.

Back story. Wisely used, it can be your best friend. I think this revelation will really help me with my current WIP.

(Now, all you romance writers who read this blog. Don't take his as permission to include more of your hero's and heroine's backstories in your romance novel. (Not that, "one of the drunk writers said I could," would get you very far, anyway.) Romances are about a couple falling in love. Sure, both main characters probably have to get over stuff from their past to get there, but since the main action is, and must be, in the present for them to fall in love... back story should be used quite sparingly in romance in my humble opinion and mostly show up in the subtext and the characterizations... But I digress.)