Writers Make Great Human Beings

I don't have a whole lot to say again this week. Sorry. A lot of things are up in the air for me right now -- things I don't want to talk about publicly. Let's just say I'm preoccupied and having trouble finding inspiration for this blog.

But the most powerful thing I've been reminded of these past few weeks is what an incredible group of people writers are. How so many rally around to offer advice, support and help, without even being asked.

Sure, there are always some bad eggs in the basket, but with all the things I've done in my life, I don't think I've ever met such a supportive, interesting and genuinely generous and gracious group of people. ("That's a lot of alliteration for anxious anchors." Sorry, that's a quote from one of my favorite movies... Broadcast News.)

In one of my previous lives, I worked in a business environment where arrogance and posturing were the norm. Where success and recognition wasn't as much about what you accomplished, but about how many people you told about what you accomplished -- no matter how small that accomplishment might be. I swear I worked with people who did little else than toot their own horns for a living. Now, don't get me wrong. I met a lot of great people, too... It just seemed like too often people got ahead for the wrong reasons. In fact, in my last job of my previous career, I worked with someone who defined his success by how small he could make other people feel or appear. Toxic.

None of that kind of behavior cuts it in writing. No matter how many people you know, or how much you want to brag about various accolades, or how much you want to intimidate people, it all comes down to the work, to the writing.

Plus, in my experience, the vast majority of writers are genuinely nice people. Anyone have any theories why writers make such fabulous human beings?

I have a few, but am interested to hear what others think, first.

Flirting with Evil

Last week, I wrote a scene from my villain's point of view. Now, I've thought a lot about this guy. I know a lot about who he is and where he came from and how he came to be the way he is. I hadn't really thought a lot about how he got along with other people in the world.

Turns out he's a freakin' charmer. Seriously, he's just as sweet as pie. I really like him. So I wrote another scene from his point of view. And another. And another.

Pretty soon I realized it had been several days since I'd stopped to think about what was going on in the heads of my hero and heroine. I couldn't precisely remember where I'd left them. I did a little rereading on Sunday when I had some unexpected hours to myself (the Davis Shepherds finished at the top of their bracket and therefore had a bye in the semi-finals, we went on to take second in the Davis World Cup U16 Boys' Division today in a game that went through two overtimes and into PKs, Yay team!) and found them again, but I'm feeling a little guilty about how easily I was seduced away from them.

I am trying really hard not to make my secondary characters more interesting than my primary characters. At least, to me. It's a struggle sometimes, though. I really thought I had it this time, but here my villain goes and with barely a wink of his eye has me wandering off down the garden path with him.

Writing Across Genres

I'm a straight up contemporary romance kind of gal. It's my skill set. People talk. They have daddy issues or mommy issues. There's some sexual tension. A kid hanging around. Totally vanilla.

Somehow I've thrown my hat in with people who want to cross-pollinate their genres. They want to mix historical with fantasy. Paranormal with suspense. Their tastes run purely down the middle of sub-genres. Taking the best of all worlds and trying to create something totally new. I can't tell you how I admire their thinking. Envy their creative freedom. It takes some guts - because more often than not the rejections come in with things like: "we just don't know how to market this" or worse "we just don't know where this would be shelved."

We all understand this - publishers have to sell books and if they can't figure out how to sell a book, it serves no one.

But what I think this writing across genres does is allow the writer to bust wide open. It's huge or it's nothing. There's no middle. The publisher doesn't worry about where to shelve you because you have a table to yourself in the front.

But I think what it takes to be huge going this route, is a story so pure and a world so simple that nothing trips the reader/editor/agent up. They have to believe they are in good hands, confident hands that are attached to a brain that has thought everything out. Things can't be complicated when walking the line between genres. It boils down to the whole reason we love reading and writing - characters in conflict. Big odds. Huge stakes. Human emotions. And most importantly, the unexpected.

What cross-pollinators do you love? Susan Squires comes to mind. Hunger Games, of course. I'm not sure what it crossed, but it feels so fresh it has to be something new. I feel like Eileen brought a bright ray of light to urban fantasy, which was new and needed. What else?

My writing break is coming to an end

I took May off, needing a break between books, and wanting a chance to really think about the next book, without the pressure of producing pages for my critique group.
And the break was great, I read, I brainstormed and in the end, I have a starting place for the next book and a very ambitious writing schedule.

I read some great books, Souless, Vampire Academy, and I managed to steal Maureen's arc of Chevy Steven's book Still Missing and it is amazing. Seriously gripping and so different from other suspense books I've read.

And it got me thinking about POV. (Maureen does the best explanation of POV and tense I've ever heard, so I won't try and explain anything other than my twisted thinking on it)
I've just finished a book with seven POV's and multiple storylines, and am prepared to start a book with first person POV. This changes the structure of the book, subplots have to be handled carefully and everything revolves around the central heroine, a huge change of pace for me, but it gives me an opportunity to make everyone in the book a mystery.

The restricted POV needs to be an opportunity to create tension as she decides how to interpret the actions of those around her. Which is what Chevy does so remarkably well in Still Missing.

I'm keeping it in mind as I create characters, what actions best define their characters? And in the end, what are their secrets and how will the heroine discover them?

I've got two more days on my self imposed break, and I'm trying not to start this book, trying to keep working on plotting and character studies.

Maybe I can sneak in one more book in the next two days..

The Zing...

I was thinking the other day that it might be possible that I’m a masochist. Now, don’t go all kinky on me… I’m talking in terms of writing.

I recently finished a proposal that I’m excited about. I let loose a “girl in the basement” and after writing the synopsis and the first sixty pages I’m not 100% satisfied with where it is. But I know after another hundred passes it should be okay. This for me is pretty impressive. I have hard time not thinking everything I write sucks. So to think I might eventually get there… well done me!

I let my brand new shiny critique partner read it (thank you Karen!) and took some of her excellent advice. Actually all the advice was excellent but some things I’m stubborn about and so there it is. The first book will feature Penny… sorry Karen.

Then I send it off to the agent. You have to see what she thinks right? You want to know if she thinks it can sell? Maybe given my writing history a proposal will be enough for some editors. But let’s at least see, before killing myself to finish the book, if anyone possibly might think the idea has merit.

You wait and wait. You check email two hundred times a day even though you know she told it would be a week before she could read it. You obsess. We writers know all about obsession.

Then on that 201st try when you refresh your email… there it is. The email from your agent. Your gut drops. You’re heart picks up speed. You look away – not ready to deal with the news if it’s … “Oh wow I’m sorry, but I just don’t think something like this is marketable/sellable/good….”

But what if it isn’t? What if it’s… “Oh my, this is the best thing ever and will sell sell sell!”

So despite being completely frantic about waiting for this email, now that it’s arrived you can barely stand to open it.

And it’s not just with a proposal to an agent. It’s any part of the submission process. Queries. Proposals. Full requests. Each time that email comes you wait to click on it because you know your happiness (at least for the next hour) hangs in the balance of what it says.

I thought about how horrible it felt to be hanging on the edge of that abyss. And I thought about how great it was too. I love that little zing of thrill. I love the expectation that maybe this time it’s GOOD news. Even though most of the time it’s the opposite.
I really believe it’s part of the joy of writing. The storytelling, the characters, the sense of completion when you finish a book… all good.

But that zing when the email comes… also pretty awesome.

How to Promote a Book

Since Molly's been stressing out about promotion for her new contract, I thought I'd post this video I first saw a couple of years ago. Hilarious.




BTW. Our blog template is one of the minima templates, just like his.

They say it's my birthday

Well, actually, yesterday was my birthday. Forty-eight years ago on Monday at about 10 a.m., I made my first entry into the world. It was not a propitious beginning. My mother, being somewhat ahead of her time, was trying to give birth without pain medications and struggled against the doctor as he insisted she have demerol. Long story short, the needle broke off in her arm, she got a hefty dose and I was born a little bit drugged. Oh, and the doctor slit the top of my head during the episiotomy. Really, it had to go up from there, right?

That said, I'm not feeling particularly enthusiastic about my birthday this year. Maybe it's the old thing. I look in the mirror these days and, well, I feel old. Plus, we're super-busy. My oldest (affectionately known around here as Thing 1) is graduating from high school and there are parties and arrangements and college things to deal with. My youngest (that would be Thing 2) is right at the end of a long soccer season and we've spent three of the past five weekends out of town. Plus we just moved my mother from one senior facility to another which went about as well as something like that can go which is to say it was hideous.

Is it any wonder I'm not feeling festive?

That said, for my birthday, I asked for my whole family to spend all of Saturday cleaning out the garage. We needed to all be there to make decisions on what to toss and what to keep. I wanted the kids to be the ones making the decisions about their stuff and my boyfriend to be making the decisions about his stuff. Turned out it was a good thing. I would have totally guessed wrong.

My boys wanted to keep an ancient pastel drawing I'd done of the cat we had when they were little, but had no sentimental attachment whatsoever to their father's old leather motorcycle jacket. That would not have been my guess at all. Seventeen year old boy? I would totally have gone with the cool leather jacket from Brazil with a pocket that was ripped in a motorcycle accident rather than a poorly rendered sentimental drawing of a black cat asleep on a table with a lace tablecloth. I would have been wrong.

Of course, they remember the cat, but they don't remember the motorcycle (he got rid of it before they were born). Still, it got me to thinking about what we have sentimental attachments to. I would not have predicted that I would have blithely tossed my wedding dress with the little matching hat and shoes onto the Goodwill pile and burst into tears when I ran across my father's down jacket with the duct tape patching on the right shoulder. No one will ever wear that jacket. It's still in the garage.

So now I'm thinking about what my heroine might have her in her garage and what it might say about her. What do you all have in your garages?

Promotion: what's the next step?

That title makes it seem like I've done a first step. Which I have, I suppose, but barely. Truth is I hate promotion. I hate anything that feels like promotion. If I can do it passive/aggressively - that's the kind of promotion I'm all for. This is what I do now:

I have a website (a brand-spanking, slick slick slick new one coming up soon, thanks to Simone!)

I'm on facebook - but I tend to ignore it, mostly because I can't figure out how to use it without feeling like a knob.

I have this blog - which doesn't feel like promotion and frankly, I doubt I've sold a lot of books because of it, but that said - it's my favorite thing! I also blog on the superromance eharlequin blog. I like blogging. It's passive/aggressive. At least the way I do it.

I go to conferences and give talks. I have an article in the RWR in June. I send out books to a few review sites to be reviewed. Because I think there are a few websites that a good review can change your sales.

That's all I do.

Here's what I am going to start to do: run monthly contests from my slick and shiny website. Figure out Facebook. Maybe twitter. Though I hate the idea of it more than I can say. But that's it. That's all that I can think of.

What do you guys think works? Honestly. What do you think is an absolute-have-to-do-it-or-you're-a-idiot promotion tool. Does any of it work? Are we all just screaming into the abyss?

What do you like in a blog?

I read a few blogs here and there. I used to read more, but then my free time got squished to a smaller block and I had to cut some out.
Right now I read industry blogs, and the blogs of some of the friends of Drunk Writers, and that's pretty much it.

But here's what I enjoy and don't enjoy reading in other people's blogs.

I love reading about another writer's process, and their challenges, because so much of it is universal and at the same time so personal. Every writer struggles and sweats and obsesses over the details, and that justifies my own neurosis.

I love reading about the process of publishing, because again there are similarites and differences to every published author's experience.

I love any blog that tells me something I didn't know about writing, or research. Eileen listed a couple on her blog on Tuesday that are terrific.

I love debates on movies and TV shows. Tell me what you love, and what you hate and explain why, because in my experience, writers do this best, and I love those debates, whether in person or through a blog. Right now I desperately want to see Iron Man 2 to see whether I fall into Stephanie's camp, or Maureen's.

And especially, let's hear about the triumphs, because they need to be celebrated, whether it's a sale, finishing a book, a great review, or a great page count.

I do not want to hear about cats, or dogs, or hampsters, racoons, whatever, unless the story is sidesplittingly funny. I have a cat, I like him just fine, there ends my cat story.

Celebrate the triumps, but don't wallow in them. A great review is fantastic, but posting every review, every piece of positive fan mail, it gets a little dull, and that's what websites are for.

No industry gossip, please. Just the facts, m'am. I've seen message boards go crazy over gossip that was never substantiated.

I love how blogs keep us in touch with writers we've met at conferences, or through email. It's another way of communicating and keeping close to this incredible writing community we are so lucky to have.

And, True Blood coming soon, and the trailers make it look great. Stephanie, your boyfriend is coming. I have decided Maureen and I are going to have a cage match over who gets Damon from Vampire Diaries.

Today I'm at a baseball game...

If you’re reading this blog and it’s after one o’clock in the afternoon I’m probably (if the weather held) watching the Phillies, eating a hot dog and drinking a beer. Then another beer. Okay, one last beer…

Growing up I was never a baseball fan. In my house it was football and oddly golf. I know they’re on opposite sides of the spectrum but if you think about it all the major events in those sports happen on Sunday. Sunday was sports day in my house according to my dad. So whether it was the final round of a major or game day we always had something to watch summer through fall.

Then deciding it was time to adopt a team from my home base city (I’m a Giants football fan.) I gave baseball a try. In fairness I also gave basketball and even more so hockey a try. Hockey players are manly and buff and hit things… so I was like yumm.

But basketball and hockey moved too fast for me. I know others complain that baseball, golf and sometimes even football with it’s stops and starts move too slow.

So as I was watching a baseball game – on TV no less - I was thinking why it is that I took to the sport so easily where hockey and basketball couldn’t hold my attention for a full half or period…even with all the hot guys.

I realized it all had to do with writing.

What? Writing? Sports? Impossible you say. They can’t be linked. I say yes!

What I realized is that in many ways sports is just one big reality TV show for me. It’s not just the athletic achievement or prowess. It’s not just hoping my team kicks the other team’s ass (although it’s part that). It’s the drama. It’s the back stories. It’s the rivalries. It’s the sense that I don’t know what’s going to happen next and I love being on the edge of my seat.

And when I look at the sports I gravitate to, I realize that in those sports there is a sense of build up. The moment, that big-time-stop-everything moment where you hold your breath waiting for the outcome, takes time. In golf it’s the putt. The player reads it, studies it, stands over it… wait for it, wait for it…. Success! Or failure. In football it’s the play. The huddle with the team, the call, the snap count, the roll out and then… success or failure.

In baseball it’s the pitch. It’s the build up of the count until that one moment where there is only one swing of the bat or one pitch left to win or end a game.

With baseball and hockey, you can blink and someone has scored. Blink again, another score. Now I know fans of both sports might protest and really it’s not a competition. The great thing about sports is that there are so many. Maybe you’re a soccer fan. Or a tennis fan… who knows.

I only that for me I need that big slow dramatic build up. I want to move inexorably to some point and then I want a big explosion of drama at the end… just like I want with books.

Reversing Expectations

I've been thinking about reversing expectations a lot lately and a few movies and TV shows I've seen have done a great job of it. Of course, because my brain is currently mush, I can't remember the movie that made me think this recently... (Might have been Ghost Writer) but the finale of The Vampire Diaries did a good job of using this reversal of expectations technique.

There's an old play-writing rule (attributed to Chekhov, I think) that goes something like: If there's a pistol in the first act, it better get used in the third act -- or something like that.

Because I often feel my storytelling is too pat, my new rule (that I'll really try to apply) is: if there's a pistol in the first act, make the reader thinks that it'll be used to kill someone in the third act, but then have someone use it to scratch their back. Okay, not as a backscratcher, but make it relevant in a way that completely reverses what the reader is expecting, while not making him or her angry that I've been dangling them along, foreshadowing something that didn't happen.

The trick, I think, is to make the reader think you're going to give her something comfortable and predictable, make her think she knows what's coming -- and then to do something different. Something better. Something she didn't see coming. Awesome. (Not so easy, but awesome.)

Another technique I saw in those last few episodes of Vampire Diaries (which I watched back to back because I was behind) was the magicians' trick of misdirection. Dangle the bright shiny keys over to the left so you can slam the audience (or reader) from the right.

Now, spoilers... If you haven't watched The Vampire Diaries and plan to, and if you hate spoilers... stop reading.

Okay, so I expected Catherine would turn up at the Founders Ball. Totally. And when they showed Elena in that period gown, I was very suspicious. But of course, it wasn't her. And all the build up of "Damon is in love with Elena" was slightly off putting. It made me uncomfortable. It made me think, Oh, no they wouldn't! It felt almost like really clunky foreshadowing. Or foreshadowing a clunky plot point. Or manufacturing false tension... Because while it has been clear for a while that Damon is in love with Elena, it would be SO out of character for her to cheat on Stefan.

But while I was thinking about all that, the writers did all this key gangling to distract me... With the mayor and his son, (werewolves? something else?) and Jeremy converting/committing suicide (another interesting twist) and Elena's real mother actually having some feelings -- then pow. A kiss. An AMAZING kiss. A kiss I instantly forgot was out of character for Elena, because I'd been distracted by all the misdirection and she was so into it (and I was so into it.)

And I was so busy dealing with the implications of that kiss, that POW. I did not see that final twist coming. When the first shocking thing in the last 10 seconds happened, I thought. WOW. Elena! Look at the balls on you! And then of course, it wasn't Elena at all. For the first 3/4 of the episode, I'd been thinking "when is Catherine going to show up?" But the writers did such a good job of distracting me and not doing it when I expected... that they completely surprised me. Awesome.
And the implications of all that happened in those last few moments... Of Damon thinking he's betrayed his brother when he hasn't, etc. etc. are DE-licious. And Elena and Catherine about to meet... Will be eagerly awaiting the next season of this show.

I admire The Vampire Diaries more and more. It doesn't try to be Mad Men or Friday Night Lights or any of the other shows I admire for different reasons. It knows what it is--a genre based teenager drama--but it does such a good job of being what it is. Awesome.

Oh, and I sense a cage match coming on. I saw Iron Man 2 tonight and loved it. Maybe because I went in with low expectations, but right from the ridiculously funny opening scene, I didn't stop smiling through the entire thing.

Researching and loving it

I am not a fan of research. It's not that I really dislike it, it's just that I suck at it. I tend to get bored reading non-fiction. The pace just doesn't move fast enough to keep me interested. There are some exceptions to that and honestly I'm getting better at reading non-fiction, but it's generally not my thing. Plus I don't seem to absorb it right. Details and connections between one thing and another escape me.

Right now, however, I am having a blast. I started reading blogs by emergency room nurses. I got the idea from my friend Spring who had been reading blogs by police officers (also fascinating, by the way).

I've been reading blogs for awhile (hello, I help write one, right?), but most of the blogs I visit are by other writers talking about writing stuff. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but it's a wonderful glimpse into how other people think and speak and feel. Plus, how can you not love a blog whose title is "You Can't Fix Stupid." I'm like an addict. I keep clicking and clicking and giggling and getting weepy.

Treme, Friday Night Lights and The Forest of Hands and Teeth

It's a perfect storm of entertainment right now. Everywhere I turn, every book I pick up is knocking it right out of the ball park. It's bliss. Let's start with Treme.

This show (despite being picked up for a second season) is doomed to fail. It's lighter than The Wire, but it doesn't have the forward driving plot that The Wire had and it doesn't have Idris Alba - which really is too bad. It doesn't have much sex appeal at all to tell you the truth. When the only character you see getting anything is Steve Zahn...well, that's not sexy.

Instead Treme has unbelievable music, Steve Zahn(who is hilarious to me), microscopic realism, the best most real and least dramatic characters to grace the small screen and dialogue that breaks my heart. Much like The Wire and Madmen (Madmen, which seems so innaccesible at times, has all that ridiculous sexiness that no one cares that they don't have a clue what's going on) I have no idea what's happening or what's going to happen next. It's so much smarter than me all I can do is sit back and love every minute of it.

Friday Night Lights is like eating a big bowl of chicken and dumplings with a big slice of cake for dessert. It doesn't have Treme's big brain, but is has a huge heart and it trades some of that brain for sex appeal - oh Tim Riggins, I want to write a poem about the way your butt looks in jeans. And drama. Good drama. Slightly better than reality drama. I watch that show and I feel like I can see the splits in the road in terms of plot and characters, but I also know that those writers are going to suprise me. And that is worth loving too.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a YA novel that Sinead has been waxing poetic about for weeks, so I finally got my hands on it and...Sinead is right - YA is the most jaw-dropping entertaining subgenre going right now. This book is shocking and exciting in it's violence and drama. Several times I put the book down thinking - there is no way NO WAY she got away with writing what she just wrote. But she did.

At the same time, this book is flawed. I thought it got a little over-emotional and lost some serious impact when we needed impact. And Sinead has her beef with it which I'm sure she'll share - but this book is a book everyone should go out and get, just so you can see what's happening in YA.

Could life get any better?

Enough with the platforms already

I was inspired by Stephanie's movie rant yesterday about how too many summer movies were written for a seventeen year old boy, by people with the attention span of a four year old boy.

And then heard that a publisher has given a young, famousish model money to publish a book on inner beauty. And there it is, the last straw, dropping through the crack.

So I am taking a pledge.

I will not buy a book written by a celebrity who has not written for a tv show or is not a stand up comedian.
This especially includes Lauren Conrad, and Pamela Anderson.
(almost got caught there ending the sentence too early. Had I finshed at celebrity, I would have included Tina Fey, or Craig Ferguson in there, and I'd read their grocery lists)

I will not buy a perfume with a celebrity's name in the title.
I do not want to smell like Kim Kardashian, or Avril Lavigne. I don't care how sexy Mariah Carey feels when she gets out of the shower and I do not want a spritz of eau du Paris Hilton or Paula Abdul.

I will not buy a piece of clothing designed(?) by a celebrity whose only experience with fashion is trying on clothes.
Being a fashion designer requires the ability to tailor and sketch, and better still an encyclopedic knowledge of fabrics, usually garnered through years of interning for another designer, experimenting on their own, school, or a combination of the three. So I will not buy a clothes simply because some chick from the Hills, like decided, that clothing was too cool and she simply could not find the right kind of simple mini jersey dress and therefore had to, like, design her own. It sort of insults the people that trained and sweated and really worked at something they love.

I get that these people have access to Oprah, or US weekly, or the National Enquirer and what's better than free publicity, but I can control what I do, and I choose not to play this game any more.

I want to read books by people who love the written word, and breathe, sleep and eat story telling. I want to buy a perfume created by a person who can identity, individually, the twelve different ingredients in the scent, and if I buy a dress, I want to know that the person who designed it knows at the very least what a hemline is.

If we don't buy tickets to badly reviewed movies, chances are they won't make money and movie exec's will put their money into actual scripts and not a four page opus where every second word is 'boom'. If we refused to buy books written by people who don't understand what a sentence fragment is, publishers will stop giving them money.

At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

Rant over, now I have to go ponder when the CW became my favourite non-specialty cable network. Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries in one night, it's almost too much.

Movie Ranting...

I read Maureen’s post yesterday about how she forgave the mistakes she saw in the movie because the movie overall was so good. Today I’m having the opposite reaction. I can’t forgive any of the mistakes I saw in the movie I just watched because overall the story telling was so completely lazy. This movie… Iron Man 2.

Now I know what you’re thinking, why would I expect anything from this movie? But I remembered vaguely liking the first and based on the previews I had seen there was going to be a large emphasis paid to the love story (which is all I really care about.) The love story in Iron Man is a boss/secretary dynamic. I love the boss/secretary story. Love it!

So here I have Robert Downey – sexy arrogant brilliant guy – my ultimate weakness. A boss/secretary love dynamic. And the vague memory that the first one was good.

What did I get… GARBAGE. Now some will like the film for what it is. Cool scenes, crazy action, Mikey Rourke (Had they given him a real plot line would have been excellent.)

But all I could see is what they didn’t give me. No real plot. No understanding of what 3 of the major characters were even doing in this film. Lazy, lazy motivations for everyone. Introductions of characters with no lead into who they were or why they were there. And a love story that climaxed about as hard as soft serve ice-cream… after it had melted for a minutes.

So I’m here to rant against crappy story telling. Jon Favreau (the director/guy from Swingers) - I know - sat around with his buddies back in the day and talked about what made a movie good. He probably called out big budget busts like these. Now he’s responsible for directing this!

I spend hours, I spend days making sure all the elements of my plot works. I struggle with the beginning, middle and end. I try to give surprise, suspense and action. And I make damn sure (or my critique partner or agent or editor does) that the freakin’ story makes sense.

How did this guy watch this movie the first time fully edited and say… Yup! That works.

And why is it that I’ll struggle and struggle to make a story “perfect” on the hope that an NY publisher might buy it for a couple of thousand dollars… and someone thought it was okay to spend millions on this piece of crap and no one gets called on it.

People will go, spend their money, get a lazy half-assed story with some special effects and call it a day. I say NO! I say it’s time movie makers with their million dollar budgets become accountable to a higher standard. Good action movies can be made. Doubt me? Watch Star Trek.

Come on Hollywood. JJ Abrams can’t be the only action storyteller left can he?

Phew… rant done.

Going Along for the Ride

I went to see How to Train Your Dragon with my niece and nephew on the weekend and enjoyed it WAY more than I thought I would. Sure, the idea was cute, but nothing about the trailer made me think I'd like it. The trailer seemed to be mostly about the special effects and showing the audience that it was going to be in 3-D.

But it was actually a great story. Good pacing, entertaining, fun, heartfelt... enjoyable.

Once I stopped questioning whether or not it was historically accurate to have Vikings with Scottish accents and small details like why did only some of the main characters (the ones played by Clive Owen and Craig Ferguson) have Scottish accents? And once I got beyond the fact all the young people were dressed like Bratz dolls (particularly their footwear) -- I got totally caught up in the story.

So when questions entered my mind later in the film, like how come if it took him a long time to train one dragon, the others cooperated instantly when the story required them to... and how come the dragons understood English... By the time those questions came up, I was having so much fun I was along for the ride regardless.

It got me thinking about when/why we forgive "mistakes" in stories and when/why we're willing to let them slide. Any theories? Anyone else seen this movie?

And taking a slight tangent, okay maybe not so slight... I'm looking forward to the film The Trotsky more than I've looked forward to a Canadian film in ages. The link? The lead in The Trotsky is played by the same actor, Jan Baruchel, who does the voice of the main character in the dragon movie. (And he's also in another big film this summer... The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Plus he's from Ottawa and I saw the dragon movie in Ottawa... )

Wow, ramble much?

Low Humor

This is not going to be a particularly erudite post. Bear with me. Lately typos (and other little errors) have been cracking me up. It's probably a sign of the stress I'm under that I'm finding these as funny as I do, but I thought I'd share a few with you.

We were planning a campus visit for my oldest son and thought it would be nice if his friend Chris came along. I sent an e-mail to Chris' dad saying Teddy would have more fun if Christ came along. Spell check didn't correct me. Chris' dad wrote back saying that he didn't know Teddy was so religious, but it was always good to have the lord by your side when driving 17 into Santa Cruz. I now bust out laughing every time I see Chris (and I seem him quite often).

One of the detectives whose reports I edit was describing an apartment building. He said it had multiple balonies. I'm pretty sure he meant balconies. I'm still snickering.

My sister was e-mailing with a potential suitor. They were discussing a movie they'd both seen. He wrote "your right tit was inane." It took ages to figure out that he meant "you're right. It was inane." She decided she couldn't date someone who didn't know "your" from "you're." Plus, she has a completely bodacious set of tatas and they are not in the least bit silly.

One of my sister's friends was setting up a dating profile. She's into exercise and billed herself as "fitness fun gal." Unfortunately, if you run it together and break it up, it comes out "fitness fungal." She still hasn't figured out why no one seems to be responding and my sister doesn't have the heart to tell her.

When my boyfriend left the office today, he texted me to warn me that it was raining (we live in California, it's a big deal) and then said "Layer." I thought he was telling me how to dress. He meant to say "Later."

And last, but oh so certainly not least, in my WIP, my hero rolled over and slammed off his alarm cock.

Either/Or

This is a game my firend Ian thought up on very long hikes. So, here is the Drunk Writer Version of Either/Or:


Christian Bale or Eric Bana

The first season of Dexter or The first season of The Wire

The first season of Dexter or the first season of Battlestar Gallactica

Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Laura Kinsale

Laura Kinsale or Elizabeth Hoyt

Susan Elizabeth Phillips or Jenny Cruise

Young Marlon Brando or Young Paul Newman

Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia or Sophie's Choice

Season One of Lost or any season of True Blood

Elizabeth Berg or Alice Hoffman

Hugh Laurie or Colin Firth

Necessary writing conditions

There are certain things I need in place to really be able to write well. Some of these are lifestyle, and some are specific to me sitting down at the computer.

1) Coffee. I'm addicted. Completely. And I'm at peace with this. But the morning coffee is what gets my brain working.

2) An hour. A solid hour, or the expectation of it, of peace and relative quiet. I know some writers who can do amazing things in twenty minute spurts, I think Molly is one of these. It takes me twenty minutes to really get my head in the story and get words on the page and from there, I can get some pages down.

3) Exercise. I know, and this is not a preachy, we should all work out blog post. For me, at least twice a week doing something seriously physical gets my head working. I don't know why, but I know on the weeks when I manage to do this, I write better. And I suppose it's another way to guilt myself into the gym, which is never a bad thing.

4) Tv and movies in moderation, and sadly, not reality Tv. Watching something brilliant can make me strive to write better and watching something mediocre can usually get me thinking about where they failed and how I can avoid doing so.

5) My critique group. I haven't written something in a long time without them and they are the ones who confirm, usually what I already know deep down, whether something is working or not. And more importantly, they keep me from being lazy.

6) A child NOT screaming in the background. Which is what is happening now, so I have to end this blog.

But don't forget, season 4 of Friday Night Lights is tonight. Watch, if just to see the best, most realistic, healthiest marriage on TV, but there is so much more to this show.

The Big Book

As I always tell my family when they ask that hated question... “When are you going to write the big book?”…. I’m working on it.

I do it between waiting on Harlequin proposals. Each time I call up a lady from the basement, shake her out and give her a shot.

It’s good because it keeps me writing year round when the lag time between submitting a proposal and getting an answer can be a couple of months. It’s good because it pushes me to be more creative, more out of the box and more daring. It’s good because if I do all of these things well enough it might sell to NY and become a USA Today bestseller. And then of course life as I know it will be complete.

It’s good because it forces me to write for the fun and joy of it with no expectation that it will sell. It’s good because there are no deadlines for this work so the pressure is only self inflicted. It’s good because it forces me to take a more critical look at my work because I have the time. And because I know that if I’m going to sell to NY then it must be the absolute best.

I’ve written three complete books this way and one proposal that my agent didn’t think would sell. Each time I was convinced that this was it… each time it wasn’t.

So I’m back at it again with a ridiculously complicated plot and four POVS and I’m sitting here sixty pages into it and wondering… what I’m doing this for again?

See how easy it is to dismiss all that good stuff I just mentioned!

I’m questioning everything. Is it big enough? Are the two relationships less impactful because they both have history? How long is the audience going to give me to build the story before I plunge in to the gritty stuff?

My self-doubt is at an all time high. My weekends are spent with my ass in a chair. My alarm is going off every morning at 6:00 am (I’m ignoring that most days.) I’m in a constant state of panic.

And yet I have no control… the big book must have its day.

Chevy Stevens Guest Blog

Hi. Maureen here. :)

A month or so ago, one of my writer friends, debut author Chevy Stevens, was in Toronto on a pre-release promotional tour (yes! cool, right?), for her July 2010 release STILL MISSING, and we managed to grab dinner together. Among other things, we got talking about all the weird misconceptions that people have about writing and publishing. (And all the helpful suggestions they offer like, "You should go on Oprah!")

Now that I'm thinking about it, people assuming that authors always get sent on book tours, never mind pre-release tours, is a misconception I've dealt with. ;) But at least now I personally know someone whose publisher has done that! I also had the privilege of reading Chevy's ARC and let me tell you, this one's worth all the buzz and is sure to hit the lists. She just got starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal, too!

But one of the misconceptions Chevy's come up against is: if you know how to write, you don't need anyone else's input. To which everyone who is in the business would say, whaaat??? This came up when the Globe & Mail did a lovely feature on her and she mentioned using a freelance editor before seeking an agent. There were a few random bloggers and commenters on the Globe's site who clearly had no idea how publishing works (and/or were jealous writers.) Anyway, I thought it might be fun to have Chevy stop by for a drink to talk about it.


Hey, Maureen! Thanks for having me. This is so cool—I’ve been reading you guys for years! Ah, yes, misconceptions. I think the one that gets me the most is that if you work with a critique group, hired a freelance editor, or revised for your agent then it’s no longer YOUR book and you didn’t actually write it yourself, which makes me scratch my head. Okay, it makes me do a lot more than that, but I’m on my first drink. Wait until I get warmed up!

They’re aren’t many trades that don’t require learning from someone or getting feedback. Carpenters apprentice before they start building houses, plumbers too. They may have a natural aptitude for construction, but they still have to learn the skills. Great artists and magicians apprentice. My accountant's firm has a system where everything is checked over by another pair of eyes—twice. Olympic athletes have trainers, coaches, managers, nutritionist, and physical therapists. No one asks them if they really deserved to win the gold. Even sports teams have coaches. They run plays, study tapes, practice over and over again. On the occasions I’ve hired a personal fitness trainer I work harder and see better results. There’s something about having someone standing over you yelling, “One more time!” that really fires me up. In movies there’s the writer, the director, and then even an actor may bring something to the table. Chefs give people a taste of their creation, then adjust their ingredient accordingly.

Even when your final draft is bought by a publisher, your editor has feedback. Then there’s a copy-editor and after that, a proofreader. And you know what? Stuff still gets missed. I had to make two corrections last week because of errors readers found in my ARCs. One of them was a medical mistake that no one caught. You can’t see everything that’s wrong with your work. Sometimes you’ve been living with it for too long and other times it’s because you only see things from your own life experiences. Until someone points out that your character sounds like a real bitch when she says X, Y, Z and people are going to want to stab her with a fork, you might have no clue. Getting feedback can teach you a lot about yourself and your way of viewing the world.

I don’t work with a critique group because I live in a small town and don’t know many people working on novels. I also like one on one attention. I can be demanding and impatient. That doesn’t always work out well with writing partners! If I was to use an analogy, I’d say for me writing a book is like having an idea for a house, then building it and decorating it. When it’s as perfect as I can get it, I invite a couple of people in to tell me if I missed a spot, if my ceiling is sagging, or if the front door is crooked. I’m careful whom I invite as the wrong person can make me feel like shit about my house, and I don’t want someone who suggests I knock it down and build a condo because that’s what they secretly want to build. I also like having someone who can explain why it’s a bad idea to hook the toilet up to the sink and how I can get it to flush faster!

Once my beta readers have given me their feedback, I step back and think everything over. My natural reaction is always to want to slam the door in their face, so I take a moment, grab a tea, and when I’m ready, I go to work. A good freelance editor, beta reader, or critique partner might make comments like, “The kitchen seems too dark,” or they might brainstorm with me and say “orange” would look good. Then I might think, “No, I hate orange, but I agree it needs to be brighter so I’m going to go with yellow.” Then when I’m finally satisfied I’ll invite guests in. But I’ll still run around trying to straighten pillows and open curtains. I’m crazy like that. :)

Feedback is just that, feedback. You still have to find your own voice and figure out what works best for YOUR story. But getting feedback can sometimes help you figure out what the true essence of your story is, what is really, really important to you. It can be agonizing in the process. I once had someone suggest I get rid off all my shrink intros and just tell my story in real time. I considered it, because the intros weren’t working. I talked it over with a few people, tried to rewrite the book a few different ways, cried, ate too much food, and ultimately took six months, or so, to rewrite the intros so they were stronger.

There is no wrong or right way to write a book. If you want to use a critique group, go for it. If you want to hire a freelance editor, that’s cool too. But if you hire a freelance editor, do your homework. Ask for a sample and testimonials, check them out on Predators and Editors— be smart about it. I would recommend finding someone who doesn’t just point out flaws but teaches you why something isn’t working. Then learn from them. It’s also important they give you positive feedback or there’s no light at the end of the tunnel! Not all editors, critique partners, or beta readers are created equally, so be clear what you’re looking for and what works best for you. They’re a relationship like any other. You still have to know yourself, know what you need and want, and be willing to do your part.

Okay, I’m thirsty now. Is it time for another drink?

Great observations, Chevy. And to answer your last question, it's always time for another drink. Especially when talking about writing and publishing. ;)

Psych Me Out!

I have read three books in the past few weeks that I've just adored: The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane and Heartsick by Chelsea Cain. They're all very different books, although I suppose you could argue that Shutter Island and Heartsick are both mystery/thrillers, but one is a contemporary creepy serial killer book that takes place in Portland and the other is a 1950s mystery that takes place somewhere outside of Boston.

What actually connects the books is that they're both very psychologically intriguing. What actually happens in the books isn't all that interesting, what it means to the people in the books is FASCINATING.

I'm almost done outlining my new book. I want to make it as psychologically complex and layered and intriguing as those three books. It's not all about plot twists and surprises, although those are definitely there, it's about something deeper and truer.

Wish me luck!

Forcing Ourselves To Grow

Yet another way in which this business is unlike any other business. Improvement is largely self-driven. It can be inspired by competitive jealousy or even a big contract - but taking the steps to actually make ourselves better at what we do is something WE have to do ourselves. Editors help, don't get me wrong, but often they help after the fact, because sadly my editor doesn't sit at my kitchen table with me when I'm sweating through chapter 7.

Critique partners, for me, are the biggest help, but once again, they're not drinking cold coffee with me in the middle of day while I pull out my hair - wish they were. But they don't.

So, it's up to us. It's up to us to think of better and bigger ideas, to write faster and more efficently, to create characters that force us to be on the top of our games. All, while actually finishing the book - which is hard enough.

I'm thinking of this because I just wrote a super in what seems like ten minutes. I'm not kidding. Ten minutes ago, I was at page 60 and this weekend I typed the end. I was telling my husband this, proud of myself, because you know ...it's hard. And he asked me - "is it good?"

The answer is probably not. But the downside of forcing myself to grow as a writer is that whatever little bit of perspective I had on my work - what little bit of confidence I had cobbled together from bits of scrap and pebbles is gone and I have to figure it out all over again. Can I write fast and still put together a clean rough draft? Who the hell knows? I just finished the thing ten minutes ago.

Writer's retreat

First off, my apologies, because of some drunk writer talk, I got four hours of sleep, and the coffee hasn't quite hit my system yet, so there will be typos and wierd phrasing. (it was totally worth it)

We at drunk writers have been throwing around the idea of a writer retreat for a while now. A place where we go for a few days, to read, chat and possibly drink. And last night we hammered out some of the details.

Molly's main criteria is a place where someone brings us drinks.
Mine is somewhere warm, because to me there is nothing more decadent than lying on a chaise, in really hot weather, and reading.
We threw around the possibility of Vegas, then an all-inclusive somewhere south and sunny, and finally Maureen mentioned the idea of a spa, which is particulary intriguing.

Molly and I have young kids, so who knows when this will actually happen, but it's really nice to think about and plan for.

Any other ideas? Anyone out there have an ideal destination for their writer retreat?

Drawer Books

What are drawer books you ask? Those are the books you write but your editor/agent/whoever felt that it wasn’t quite the right market/right book /big enough – you fill in the adjective – and you stuck it back in the drawer. These are books you loved, invested in and thought were good enough but these are the books that in the end got rejected.

Now don’t get me wrong, on some level I love drawer books. I have like ten of them and if I ever become an NYT Bestselling author I’m going to make a killing off of books that I’ve already written.
But here is the problem. As a reader I can smell a drawer book from an established author ten miles away. (Okay not really – I have to start reading it first – but then I can tell.)

The writer in me can usually appreciate these books. They give you a sense of the author’s growth. How they started smaller and eventually made their way bigger. I like to see that. I started reading Nora in single title and eventually went back to her category stuff. I enjoyed seeing the originations of the character types she would later perfect. Good stuff.

But what I don’t like is when they package and try to sell it to me like something new and for more money than the first book! I really think there needs to be a disclaimer. If for no other reason than to protect the author.

Now we’ve all read amazing debuts by authors followed by so-so seconds. But usually this is a direct result of the time the author had to write book one vs. the deadline the author had to produce book two. I get that and forgive them for it. As readers we want that follow up and we want it fast. So if the second or third book in the sequel seems a little rushed I’m still willing to give that author another try depending on how well I loved the series. Of course after a while if I don’t see them pick that pace back up then I get a little weary. I understand deadlines and I understand when something hits you have to act fast, fast, fast. But after a while a writer should develop a groove.

But then comes the drawer book. That sneaky book that doesn’t relate to the series, isn’t part of a new series, but instead stands alone and when you read it it’s like a shadow of that first debut you fell in love with.

When I read them it reminds me how smart agents and editors are. I just read what I’m SURE is a drawer book of an NYT author. It’s the author’s voice, the style… but it just doesn’t compare to the debut.

I think as writers most of us know that we usually do improve. My guess is this author wrote this book and garnered a lot of attention from the publishing world. But the agent or editor said… close but not close enough. Let me see what else you got.
You know what… the agent or editor was right. This book is an example of someone on the cusp just waiting for that right that story. And sucker that I was I paid twice for that drawer book than I did the original. Damn those sneaky publishers!

Character, Plot and Dragon Tattoos

I went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tonight and it got me thinking about plot and character, again.

On the absolute plot level, this film (and I assume the book, too, but I haven't read the book), is a who-done-it type murder mystery with a thriller/suspense edge. But it's so much more than that, and I couldn't help but think of how it rises above other popular books/movies in that same ilk like, say, The DaVinci Code.

Both had an intriguing mystery to solve, both have danger and life-threatening situations, both have chills and thrills, but the big difference is that Dragon Tattoo also has interesting characters.

Really interesting characters, whom we really care about, and worry about, and have unanswered questions about.... And the backstory for the one character is held back until virtually the end of the film but we're so fascinated by her (or at least I was) that I actually wondered at one point if maybe I'd be okay if we never found out what had happened to her. I actually started to think that they were going to hold that info back... because I knew there was a sequel (for the book, anyway).

I just read a bit of the description of the second book The Girl Who Played with Fire and it does have the same characters and it does sound like we find out more about her... Hmmm... Thinking I need to buy this book now. Too many books, not enough hours in the day.

Anyway. Good film. A few scenes were hard to watch, but a highly entertaining film.

On another aside... I don't know the story of how/when this bestselling book got optioned... but I also thought it was bold to do the film in Swedish with subtitles... After the book took off so big in its English translation, I'm sure there was huge pressure to do the film in English or even move it to Maine or someplace like that. Glad they didn't.

Je ne sais quoi

I've been doing some contest judging. I don't do a lot of it, but it's a volunteer something I can do at my leisure (sort of) so I don't feel like a total parasite on the bum of the many RWA chapters that help and sustain me in many ways.

The easiest entries to judge or the really great ones and the really sucky ones. It's fun to go through a terrific entry and mark places that totally rock. It's fun to write gushy notes in the comments at the end about what a pleasure it was to read the entry.

It's not as much fun to mark up the sucky ones, but at least I feel like I can offer some constructive criticism so the person has a chance to learn and grow. It's satisfying to be able to pass on some of the things that I've learned over the years.

The ones I hate judging are the ones that fall somewhere in between. They're good, but not great. There's nothing glaringly wrong, but there's nothing fabulously right, either. They're often missing that certain something that makes me fall in love, that certain Je ne sais quoi that takes something from ordinary to extraordinary.

I can't figure out how to tell someone how to do that (or how to do it myself ) and I so wish I could. It would make the process much easier.

My Cleaning Lady and A New Bantam Deal....

So, Lisa, my cleaning lady also happens to be a nanny, so a few weeks ago, amid a terrible freak out that I was never going to get any work done - I hired her to babysit my daughter for one morning a week. This stressed me right out - I like Lisa, but I was a little convinced that she was going to kidnap my daughter and sell her on Yonge Street. I'm crazy, but I think it's a common fear anytime you hire someone to look after your kid.

Now, at the same time a proposal I had written was garnering some interest. And then, suddenly it was garnering A LOT of interest. It seemed for one dreamy weekend like I was going to have the job of picking between two interested houses, but at one house the last person that needed to read the proposal before they could offer went on vacation. The other house made an offer but my agent wanted "everyone to be able to come to the table." So, on Tuesday it was all going to shake out.

Tuesday was also the day that Lisa was going to take Lucy for the morning. So, Lisa and Lucy trundle off to the park and I call Maureen and Sinead a thousand times to ask them what they would do if they had to choose between houses? Editors? Promotional promises? Money? Maureen had firm arguments for both sides. Sinead said Bantam. Every time.

My agent calls to say that Bantam wants a pre-empt on a two book deal. I don't have to make a decision! I'm so sick to my stomach with giddiness and nerves I can barely stand it. I giggle and stress out and call my husband, call Maureen and Sinead, my folks.

But what's really crazy, in this business where success feels like luck, I suddenly felt like the other shoe was going to drop. Like for this good fortune I was going to have to pay some price. And then I realized that my daughter was still out with Lisa. And what did I really know about Lisa? Really? Who hires thier cleaning lady to look after thier toddler? Am I nuts?

I stood on my front porch in a weird panic and I answered calls from my agent to hammer out delivery dates and other exciting things and the whole time my heart was in throat.

And then, they arrived. Lucy was filthy and happy. Lisa had bought her piece of pizza. And there it was - the best part of this ridiculous day - a two book deal with Bantam and my daughter didn't get sold on Yonge Street.

Who else hates the word discipline?

We talk a lot here at the Drunk writer blog, and more so over beers at our regular pub, about what makes for great writing. Seriously, we have analyzed the different components every which way.

We love to take apart our favourite books, figure out what maked them work, and hell, this is fun, usually because we're doing it over a few drinks and because it's how we learn to improve our own writing.

It's the fun part of writing. It's definitely one of my favourite parts. But discipline is the fundamental foundation writing is built on.
Discipline is what seperates the 'I'm writing a book when I have my weekends free again' people from the writers. Because aside from cool conversations over beer and sitting with a glass of wine, while you figure out the main points of a plot (seriously, I think I might sound like an alcoholic ) most of writing is one word, than the next, and then the next.

And then when you've put 90,000 words into your computer, you get to read them all again, and re-write many of those words. And then once you've done that, you get to re-read it all over again, and possibly again, re-write some of those words.

It doesn't sound sexy, and while a lot of this process is exhilerating at times, it can also be tedious. For example, reading all 90,000 words out loud, because it's the only way I can really catch all the basic mistakes in wording.

Discipline is opening the computer at 9pm at night, while Supernatural is on, or editing for twelve hours in a coffee shop because home has too many distractions, and not enough coffee.

It's the discipline that allows us to sit and talk at excrutiating length about pacing over beers.

And it doesn't matter where it comes from. Real deadlines, self imposed deadlines, treats, the disapproving faces of your critique partners, not being able to watch any of your favourite shows until you finish the bloody book.
It all works and it's all worthy.

And if I ever want to see Supernatural again, I have to go back to work.

Networking

I was recently on a panel of romance authors at a library event in my area. It was the first time I had ever been asked to do something like this. I felt very official sitting up there on the podium. Like I had really arrived! Stephanie Doyle - author!

But it’s not like they asked me because they knew me or my work - I just happened to know one of the organizing authors. And it occurred to me how little time I spend networking and putting myself out there at events like this. I was told to provide a picture – I didn’t have a good one. (That’s since been corrected.) I was told to bring some promotional goodies… huh? I brought some books instead.

I’m an absolute loser when it comes to this. I know other people get published and right away get a picture, pens, bookmarks and business cards. It took me 5 conferences to learn that when somebody asked for my “card” they weren’t asking for my day job business card. I used to think what the heck do they want that for? It wasn’t until that 5th conference that I actually looked at what I was getting in return that I realized people were handing me “writing” business cards. Ohhhhhhh. I get it. (This has also since been corrected.)

Anyway one of the questions asked of the panel was how did you get your start. Two of the authors said that networking played a crucial role for them in getting published.

As the anti-network person I thought how? You write a book, you send it in, someone likes it or they don’t. But they gave a really compelling argument. One mentioned that they started with the three C’s. Contests, conferences, and critique groups. That it was important to have face time with editors and agents. And two of the authors actually told stories about how after meeting their editor at a pitch session, it eventually led to a sale.

I felt like a jackass. Not that I didn’t get my start that way. Just that here were these other authors - some with fewer sales than I had - who had gone out to libraries and bookstores, had been asked to speak on panels and had been to conferences around the country.

Who had stuff. While I was totally oblivious to all of it.

So for the “networkers” out there - educate me. How do you network? How do you get invited to conferences? Where do you go to get all the stuff? And when you have it who do you give it out to? But more importantly do you think it helps? Do you think it’s making a difference in your career for those published and not published yet?

I love me my RWA

Yet another short post today. Sorry, but I just got back last night from the Desert Dreams RWA Conference in Scottsdale.

It was fantastic. The organizers did a terrific job. The hotel was lovely (okay, lunch was questionable, but really, what do you expect?). There were tons of interesting talks and people and I feel all jazzed up. This is what I love about RWA. I mean, really, I got to hang out at a cocktail party chatting with Linda Lael Miller and then she mentioned it in her talk at the lunch the next day! How cool is that?

The whole thing felt especially meaningful to me since the very first RWA anything I ever attended was a Desert Dreams Conference back in (I think) 1993. I'd read about the conference in the Arizona Republic and as I'd been trying to write a romance novel, I decided to go. A bunch of people had these little stickers on their name tags. I asked what that was about and found out that it means that those people were published authors. I remember thinking, "I want to come back to this conference with one of those on my name tag."

Now I did! Well, that don't do stickers anymore. It was a ribbon, but it felt good all the same. I am reasonably certain that I would not have gotten published without what I learned through attending RWA conferences and workshops and meetings. It felt good to be in a position to pass it along a little.

Smoochies, RWA! Big Hugs, Desert Rose Chapter!

Taking Stock

So, there I was the other day, on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor using a wipe - yes, a DIAPER wipe - to clean up the mysterious sticky brown spots by my sink when I realized, while this wasn't rock bottom (I love my life far too much to be bothered by some diaper wipe house cleaning) it certainly was strange. And sitting there, next the the crushed blueberry that I haven't bothered to pick up for the last week - I took a quick stock of my life:

I love, absolutely love being a mom, wife and writer. But there are days - many of them, for each - I want to get in my car and drive to my mommy and let her take care of me.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips is about as comforting and page-turning as a writer can be and those two traits are hard to achieve in tandem.

I will never get to that Tuesday morning spin class. Never.

I have no problem saying no to the first beer, it's the second and fifth that get me in trouble.

Should my trusted writing friends get kidnapped by a Columbian drug cartel - I would ransome them. Maybe quicker than I would my husband....

The words SPRING MAKE UP TRENDS are so foreign they're like an alien language.

The self doubt that plauges me as woman, plagues me as a mother and a writer. It blows, but I really think I'm just going to have to live with it.

If I drank as much water as I do coffee I have no doubt but I would be healthier.

I want to pay people to do most of the things in my life so I can have more time to drink coffee.

Spartacus is as close to a penis as I get sometimes....

Where are you guys? Similar boat?

Tension, or why American Idol sucks this season

American Idol, so boring right now. And it's not, as some are saying, because the participants can't sing, because they can, go back a few seasons and listen to the top ten. These guys aren't awful by any stretch, but sadly, they are consistent.
Crystal is always going to be great, Lee probably too, Siobhan is going to scream at some point, and Casey will sound generic, but in tune.

No surprise from week to week, and no tension what so ever.

To me tension is the glue that holds any book together. Tension is created by not letting the reader know what is about to happen, but they know that it is of crucual importance to the POV character, and when it does happen, everything will change.

It involves everything - emotions, pacing, plotting, these are all the groundwork of creating tension. And when it's missing, that's when things get seriously ho hum.

There has been a serious lack of tension in the romances I've read recently. Sexual tension can only take you so far, and when added to a predictable plot, well, it's gets a little dull.

But there should be a new Sherry Thomas book released soon, which is great, and a couple of more books are getting serious buzz and I just cracked the spine on Eileen's book, so I'm excited to read that.

And, Tru Blood is coming back soon.

Summer should be good.

Crap!!!!

I screwed up. I messed up my pre-post option and it posted today instead of tomorrow.

I'm sorry Maureen!!!! Sorry everybody! Just wait and read it tomorrow!

You gotta have an arc... you gotta!

I have been majorly impressed with two television shows recently as they dealt with the romance of the lead couples. Glee being one (but I don’t want to talk about the episode if not everyone has seen it).

And the other is Bones. You all know I’m a fan. This week in the pivotal 100th episode our hero admitted his feelings, which we the audience have been privy to since the season premier.

The admission of love, the grab and kiss and then…. BAM! He was denied. She didn’t want a relationship with him.

Now for those who don’t watch the show – her prevailing arc has been she was abandoned by her parents who left her at age 15 - thought dead. Her 18 year old brother couldn’t take care of her. He left her to foster care, where we know she was abused in some of the homes where she stayed. A special child (she’s a gifted savant), she shut down all emotional connection with people and used her highly developed intellect as a defense shield.
In a very emotional scene she tells him she can’t love. She doesn’t have an open heart. And she doesn’t want to hurt him by failing to love him the way he deserves.

But what I loved more than the drama of it – was that it was so true to her character. She’s not done with her arc. She’s moving forward. For the past 5 years we’ve seen her developing this connection with the hero. We, the audience, can see by her actions that she’s in love with him. This season we see her touching him in simple ways.

But when pressed - her fear of abandonment kicked in… the way it should.

Am I worried that the relationship component of this show is over? No way. I trust the writers implicitly here because they’ve been so true to sticking to these characters growth arc that I know in the end they’ll get me to the Promised Land. (Although I’m probably going to have to suffer through the hero getting a new girl friend to get there.) But I have trust. This wasn’t the end of their chance. This was the first crack in her defense shield. If I was writing the next few episodes I would paint her as more agitated. She would have fits and outburst at odd times. The kind of thing to show us that she’s breaking down.

This is good solid relationship writing. The couples have internal conflicts that are legitimately hindering their chance at a relationship despite how deeply they love each other.

Every editor/agent/critique partner will say it. Your characters must have internal conflicts, not external. And they must grow over the course of the story. If you’re a writer and you’re asking yourself how do I do this? Watch Bones reruns from the beginning and start watching Glee now. (I trust those writers too.)

So many times movies and TV romances fail in this component. They set up the relationship – play, tease, fight, play tease, fight and then finally consummation. Inevitably people will complain that the “spark” is gone.

The creator for Bones rejects what he calls the “Moonlighting” curse. And I agree. Done right, the relationship after consummation can be just as interesting if your characters are still growing and working on that arc.

So you gotta have one. Who are your leads? What are their issues? Most people find this part easy. But how are they growing beyond just falling in love. The love in a romance is a given. It’s what your characters are going to change about the way the act, think and feel that makes them able to handle that love… that’s the challenge.

For the Love of Crit Groups

I'm thinking about Molly's post on Monday and wanted to explain what she quoted me as saying... But first a word about critique groups. I know some writers hate them, and I think there are bad situations. Situations where critique partners are biased or want to rewrite books the way they would have written them, or when writers are too timid to stand up for themselves and end up trying to please everyone and by listening to all the advice, end up with either a hodge-podged mess, or a something so tamed down and homogeneous it's boring.

But crit groups can also be fabulous. And I think all writers are smart to get feedback on their writing. I've been talking about this with writer friend Chevy Stevens a lot lately, and she'll be doing a guest blog very soon on the topic. (Next week, if I can get my act together.) Basically, she had a lovely article written about her in the Globe & Mail and then was attacked by a few crazy bloggers, (whom I won't link to, because they're crazy and don't deserve any more attention), who seemed to think her book had been written by committee, because she talked about her editorial process in the Globe article and they seemed to think that getting editorial input or critiques or even input from your agent meant the author wasn't doing their job. But more on that topic of craziness when Chevy comes over for a drink and some writerly talk...

But that's all lead in to what I meant to post about today. I wanted to set the record straight about my blurting out that I love everything I write until people tell me it's crap. I'm not that arrogant. Honest. :)

I think anyone who's read my posts on this blog over the years knows I'm a bundle of insecurities 90% of the time, but when I find my confidence about something -- well, I can be really confident about it -- at least until someone rips that confidence away from me. (Not that hard.)

The exact context in which I said, "I think everything I write is great until someone tells me it isn't," is kind of personal to what's going on with my career right now, and I don't want to get into it publicly, but in general, what I really meant was that I'm never shooting for mediocre or "good enough".

Once I finish a book, or proposal and send it out to my agent, I never think it's mediocre. I never think, "Oh, I'll be so happy if this is just published. " I never think, "Oh, I'll be happy, even if I get a tiny advance for this one." I never think, "I'll be happy if it's in print, no matter how it's published." I never think, "Oh, I'll be so happy if this sells a thousand copies." No! I always think, "I've done my part and done it well. Now, if the stars line up the right way, this book could be huge."

I know this might be delusional, and having those kinds of expectations means I get slapped down pretty hard when things don't work out how I'd hoped, and I know every publishing deal must be evaluated on its own merit.... and the more stuff I put out there, the harder it is to believe it's all awesome... but I still haven't given up. Not on any of my manuscripts except the very first one. (Which wasn't the kind of book I should be writing, but I learned a lot writing it.)

But this faith that what I'm writing is good, is the reason I haven't tried to self-publish or to submit to the digital-first or other really small publishers with my projects that haven't sold. I still think they mostly rock, but just haven't landed on the right desk on the right day, yet. Or if I now see (based on the rejections and with the benefit of hindsight) that there are issues with them, I think I know how to fix them to make them rock.

So, ya... I still get horribly nervous (and sometimes defensive) when I get critiques from my CP's, with whom I've been working for over seven years now, so you'd think I'd be over that. I'm not. I'm still genuinely self-deprecating and think my stuff sucks until someone is kind enough to tell me it doesn't suck. I still hear the bad crits louder than the good ones and beat myself up a lot...

But once I'm through the hell that writing and revising a book can be... I'm typically pretty damned confident about it. At least I try to be. At least until the first rejections come in.

Connection

My family put together a team for the UC Davis Relay for Life. We walked this past weekend. The Halperns for Hope (that's us!) was one of the top fundraising teams of the relay. In addition, we won a prize for having a team member from the farthest away (my cousin Sondra from Maine). We had three generations walking and ranged in age from 83 (okay, the 83-year-old more rolled than walked) to 15. For 24 hours (give or take), we talked, ate, walked, ate, laughed, cried and ate together (trail mix rocks!). We had several very memorable moments, including but not limited to, when I took off pushing my mother in her wheelchair for the special Survivors Lap and went in the wrong direction. It wasn't until my sister pointed out that the band was walking TOWARD us that I realized my mistake.

Mainly, however, we were together. I don't know of anything that gives my life more meaning than those connections. While I'm certain that there's some core to me that is immutable, much of me is defined by who I am to and with these people: mother, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, lover, friend. Each one of those people has touched my life, changed me, enlightened me, loved me, been exasperated by me, been proud of me and I've done the same for them. It's like a giant web of connections with the vibrations from any one occurrence to any of us reverberating through the rest of us.

Or as my uncle would say, we're like a bunch of little piggies. Pull one of our tails and we'll all squeal.

Tough Love

Maureen said something last night at our critique group meeting that rang totally true for me: "I always think what I write is great until someone tells me it's not." Sometimes I have an idea that something might not be working, but usually, I think what I've got on the page, or in my head, is pretty great.

On Saturday we went to the Donald Maass workshop at Toronto Romance Writers. And he said, that feeling resistance to changing our work is totally natural and normal and that we need to pay attention to is, because where we feel the most resistance is where we need to make the most change.

I can't say that I agree with that for myself a 100% of the time, but when I do agree with it, I agree with it 100%.

I'm working on a series of books and at the Saturday workshop I did a lot of great work on the first book, but those decisions impacted the second book and in regards to plot and character for the second book - I had nothing, so I really wanted to get it figured out so I wouldn't be half way through it and realize that the things I put into effect in the first book had totally screwed me.

So, my brilliant critique group started throwing around ideas. I love brainstorming. I adore it. And my ideas last night were weak, and tired and mostly non-existent. I had just kept circling the same tired plot points. And my lovely little critique group - and I have to say Sinead was particularly brilliant - kept saying; nope. Nope. Not big enough. Old-fashioned. What's in it for him? What happens to her? What's the worst thing that can happen to her? What does he really want? Until finally, the story broke wide open and it was fresh and exciting and new. Scenes arrived in my head. Characters created a second and third dimensions. Subplots got juicy and all tightly-woven with the main plot.

In so many words - they fixed my book.

After the meeting Sinead said she was sorry if they were too hard on me and I wanted to kiss her. Too hard was what I needed. Tough love was the only way this book was going to be anything but boring. It's hard to push a person past that resistance to change, but man, it's so worth it.

Thanks critique group.

I write like a soap opera amnesiac

Finally worked through the last major edit of the current WIP. An edit I thought would take a week, maybe two max and here I am four weeks later and i'm re-writing the ending.

And I still have one more read through of this bloody book.

Every book, I tell myself, I won't make the same mistakes and every book I get a little better, but the same problems crop up with every manuscript.

Inevitably, I race towards the end and finish it in ten pages, really abruptly, when it should be drawn out, savoured, satisfying. Hence the re-write.

I always write too short. Some people have to cut back on their word count. Not me, I struggle to get to single title length. EVERY single time. Even with six POV's... seriously.

I always underestimate how long it will take me to do the final edit. Always. This time by four weeks.

I always plan to write faster, so that by the time I get to the end of the book, I'm sick to death of the story, and have lost all perspective on it.

Maybe with the next book, I'll fix these things, but I'm guessing I'll be going through the same pain on the final edit of that book as well.

I'm writing like a teenage driver...

I just recently let my seventeen year old niece drive me to the beach. She’s actually a very good driver, but it just reminded me about the one mistake that new drivers (and sometimes bad drivers) make. That hitchy start and stop motion. Gas, break. Gas, break. You know what I’m talking about?

And I realized it’s sort of like my writing these days. I start and then I hit a wall - usually an historical fact that I need to know - and it stops. I find the information I need and it starts up again. But then I wonder where I’m going with the end of the chapter and bam - I slam on the breaks.

This freakin’ book! I can’t seem to build any momentum. I know the opening so well in my head but still I’m struggling at twenty pages when I should be at hundred by now.

I’m like a bad driver. Or a bad writer. I can’t seem to find that easy start up where I coast along and slowly break toward the end of the chapter. Instead it’s hitchy. Which I can only imagine how that’s translating on the paper.

I’ve tried that technique where if you don’t know a particular fact you just put ( ) or ??? and move on figuring you’ll find it later. Doesn’t work for me. I can’t move on until I know I’ve found the answer. Which might lead you to ask… why are you writing historical?

Good question. But it’s not like I really have all that much control over these stories. They just come.

Anyway – that’s my writing rant. In other news I now have a picture to go with my profile. Be warned – this is not what I look like. It’s really the best version of me. So if you see someone at say Nationals that looks like this picture but only chubbier with baggier eyes… that’s probably me. If you’re not sure call out “Steph” – if I turn around that’s definitely me. If the person instead looks at you funny, then turn your ahead away and pretend to look around for the person who just shouted.

Also Suspect Lover (see cover below on loopy thing) was nominated for best series cover of 2009 by Cover Café. The cover will be here: www.covercafe.com at the end of April and voting begins April 28th. Of course I take absolutely no credit for this. All props go to the amazing art department at Harlequin. But I do think this scene was actually one I submitted which never happens… so that’s cool.

Lessons Learned in the Pressure Cooker

Well, other than the line edits, I'm done with the first two books in the new Twisted Tales series for Pickwick Press, a new Children's imprint for Phoenix Books. YAY!!!!

And.... drumroll... I have release dates (October 5, 2010 for both) and covers! And they're up for pre-order on all the online retailers. Check them out!

But most of all, I feel like I learned a lot of lessons. I suppose one should expect to learn a lot of lessons while in the midst of one's first book contract, but the lessons I learned weren't necessarily the ones I expected to be learning. D'uh. I guess that's why I had to learn them, right?

1. I can write way faster than I ever imagined.

I had 4 1/2 months to write two 80K length books. And while they were simple in that they were based on fairy tales, they were decidedly NOT simple in their structures because of the "you decide the outcome" feature of the series.

2. Something will always come up to throw a wrench into your plans.

I knew from watching my friends and from reading writers loops that authors often have requests thrown at them from their publishers, without any regard for timing or their deadlines. I knew this. BUT, I didn't expect the number and frequency of such requests. Or how they would throw me off and take me out of my flow. And all that's before my personal life intruding... family and friends, eye infections, colds, daily life...

3. It's not smart to drop everything else in your life.

Dropping everything while under deadline seemed smart to me when I made the decision. It was only 4 1/2 months. It was my first contract. I figured I could stop doing "optional" things like--opening mail that wasn't obviously a bill, deleting SPAM, doing my personal blog, updating my website to, like mention the sale, cleaning my house, talking to my family, answering personal e-mails, taking care of myself and my life--until the books were done. Turns out, this was dumb. Very dumb. I may have met the deadlines, but of course more writing things have come up... I have a bunch of opportunities in front of me, all with urgency.... So, I'm not really any less busy now, PLUS I have a very messy house and stacks of goodness knows what that landed in my mailbox. And these tasks seem monumental to deal with now, whereas with a half hour every couple of days... I could have kept up with it all. At this point, I can't even remember all the e-mails (personal or professional) I put off until later... I kept putting people off with, "Just wait until March." And so they didn't understand why I was still busy in March (editor's revision letter -- plus, um, my own revisions because I turned in such a hot mess) and why I'm still busy now. Worst, I stopped going to the gym and gained weight... Basically I let my life fall apart. Not so smart in the end.

4. Eating right and exercising is worth the extra time.

Kind of related to #3, but while under so much pressure, I figured I'd give myself a break in terms of eating right and working out. So, I ate too many thing sold at coffee shops. I ordered take out too many times. Now I feel like a slug. A fat slug.

5. You can't change who you are.

I know I'm a last minute panic person. Always have been. And when I have a deadline (whether self-imposed or not) I always make my schedule knowing my nature. Usually I set out a schedule I think is doable, leaving myself a few days off, and knowing that likely I'll fall behind, but will be able to catch up at the end. Problem with this deadline was I didn't have the luxury of a reasonable, doable plan from the start. When I divided the amount of work over the number of days (with no days off) I already had to produce more per day than I'd ever done before--even during a Nanowrimo situation. Nano seems easy peasy, now. Right from day one, even before I got behind and it all started to fall apart, I knew I was in trouble... And so it was a lot of stress.

6. I'm not good at tricking myself.

If I could change one thing, I would have stopped work on the first book, the Cinderella book, in early-mid December. That was the book that I'd already done a detailed outline for. (Did one for the proposal that sold it.) That was the book I'd already started and developed characters for. That was the book I had time to let my critique partners help with. If I'd stopped working on Cinderella in mid-December, that would have divided the time between the two books pretty evenly. But my deadline was January 3rd, and my editor wasn't interested in getting it before that (because she was on vacation in late December) and so I took every last minute to finish. So, not only did I not have as much time to do the second book, I also had to do revisions and line edits for the first book, as well as meeting several other unexpected requests (for marketing materials, etc.) during that shorter period of time. I think I had about five weeks to do the second book, total, and going in all I had for book 2 was a title and concept. No outline. No characters. No book. In hindsight, I feel like a superhero for pulling it off. And in the end, I actually love my Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer book. :)

7. Good friends will save you.

I don't think I've ever, in my life, felt quite so much panic as I did this February. And my friends came through for me. In late Jan/early Feb, even though she has 3 small kids and had just moved, Sinead met with me to go over my outline. Even though she has 2 small kids and deadlines of her own, Molly read the first scenes for me and met to give me some ideas. Then the weekend of Feb 20-21, I was basically only at about 33K in, and I knew some of that I had to trash. And not only was I behind, I still had some HUGE logistics/world building and story decisions to make and I could not think. Brain was frozen. Just kept going around in circles chasing my tail. (As Molly would say, I kept looking right, over and over, when the answers were off to the left...) Molly and Sinead came over that weekend and let me talk through my issues and told me which of my solutions worked and which ones didn't, and where I was making things more complicated than I needed to, and just as important they reassured me that everything was going to be okay and it wasn't the absolute end of the world if I had to send a near first draft to my editor, that I wouldn't be the first writer to ever do that... And I calmed down and wrote about 53K in the next ten days and did a quick second draft of the entire 83K in three days (the fastest I'd ever revised a book before that was four weeks. I prefer to have six weeks for revisions. I'm a reviser...)

8. If I take time off right after a book, I should plan something busy but satisfying and non-writing related.

Instead, I planned a short trip away that ended up being miserable, because after so many months of relative isolation, a vacation by myself wasn't what I wanted or needed... and I was still too anxious to relax. Plus the weather sucked, so I just felt sorry for myself. Didn't feel like a break at all. Just added to my stress.

And I think the biggest lesson, one I'm still learning, is you should stop and smell the roses. Cliche, but true. My dreams are starting to come true, at least things are moving in the right direction, again, but through this process I felt too panicked to rejoice and enjoy it.

So, let's pop the champagne now!

What lessons have you learned under pressure?

I'm taller!

Well, probably not really, but I turned my book in last week on Thursday (at approximately 8:05 p.m.) and immediately felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I'd grown an inch or two.

Normally, I take a week or two off after finishing a book. I don't have that luxury this time. I need to get to work immediately on the next project. At this point, I can't even remember the names of the characters and am having to reread the proposal so I know what it is I said I was going to write.

I was worried that there would be a certain amount of brain drain (and maybe there is a little, hence the fact that I'm posting this way later than I usually do), that I might not be able to plunge from one project to another. Apparently I'm getting better at the switch from one genre to the other and I'm now all excited about the new book and can't wait to get to it.

I think it might be possible that taking off the week or two between projects wasn't a good idea. Often the two weeks would stretch to three or more. I always felt sluggish when I finally got my started with the new one. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to turn off my author brain and rest it.

We'll see at the end of the summer. If my brain has totally overheated and I'm blowing gaskets, I'll know that those two weeks off helped at some point.

Stamina, Ryan Reynolds and why Sinead is off her rocker....

What a weekend! The weather was out of this world, my husband went away on rugby tour and the kids went to my MIL's. For two freaking nights!!! I had roughly 43 hours all to myself. The plan was to write as much as I could - at LEAST fifty pages.

But, man, I learned pretty quickly that I am out of writing shape. I've been writing in two maybe two and half hour stretches for four years now. Which is great, but I have no stamina. This weekend, every two hours I needed to move to a different part of my house, or a different coffee shop. The longest I think I could write in a stretch was four hours and that was first thing in the morning. Maureen's ability to put her head down and plow through twelve hour days is a freaking miracle! I amanaged to get those fifty pages, but it was work.

How about you guys? How is your writing stamina?

Also, this weekend, because a girl needs a break, I watched The Proposal. My feelings for Ryan Reynolds are out of control. It's not just his abs. Though, that's a big part of it. He's got the same twinkle as Harrison Ford. It's a really potent twinkle.

And finally, Sinead is off her rocker for publicly admitting she is excited about Clash of The Titans. Granted she had a few ciders, but honestly. Excited? Now, I have incredibly fond memories of the first movie (I went with the Zawislak's and Mrs. Z snuck in homemade popped popcorn in brown paper bags. I got scared about Medusa and Matt turned to me and said it was just a movie. Not making me any less scared, but making sure I kept my mouth shut about it.) And I too have a curiosity about Sam Worthington. But come on. Excited? Outside of some effects isn't this movie going to be a steamy pile of poo? Isn't Sinead wasting her few precious moments of entertainment?

Please, weigh in.

Instincts and Imagination

It's good friday, the kiddies are home, my house is a madhouse, so this will not be a long post.
I noticed the other day, both my daughters were trying to lift something heavy. Without ever being told, they both, bent their legs and lifted without ever straining their backs, as if the right way to use their body has been imprinted in their DNA.
The Wii fit has a test when you sign on, a balance test that no matter how much I suck in my stomach, or relax my shoulders, or tense my legs, I cannot seem to manage to gain a perfect score in this. But my daughter steps on, and every single time, perfect balance.
We're born knowing all this stuff and the older we get, the less we instinctively know.
Unless we make a real effort to nurture it. The same goes with our imaginations. Children compose the most far fetched, beautiful imaginary games, and as we get older, those imaginary games become harder and harder as we practice them less and less.

I'm keeping this in mind as I think long and hard about what I want to write next, because my instincts are leading me somewhere interesting and very, very different and I want to believe that they will not lead me astray.

Oscar Winning Performances

So I just watched the Blindside. Very nice movie. Very nice performance by Sandra Bullock. Was it Oscar worthy? Maybe there is some debate – but understanding Hollywood they probably wanted to recognize her for her career achievement. I’m fine with that. I’m especially fine with that since her husband turned out to be a scumdog. (Note to all scumdogs… if your wife is going to win a bunch of awards and you know you’re cheating on her and it’s about to all come out – tell her to tone down the love rhetoric in her acceptance speech. Ouch!)

What does this have to do with writing you might ask? Not really whole lot and I got off the track with the scumdog stuff, but it made me think of other Oscar winning performances.

That’s what I want to do. I want to write an Oscar Winning Performance! I want that type of story where the characters are so unforgettable, the emotion so elevated that if the book were a movie… my heroine or hero would be nominated.

I’ve got this plot point that will happen between my hero and heroine in my current WIP. It’s heartbreaking, awful, mean and purging. It’s all bottled up emotion and it’s going to come spewing out after this one revelation somewhere around Chapter 14 or 15 or so.

In my head I can “see it” sort of like a movie. No famous people. My characters are always strangers when I meet them. But I definitely can see the scene being played out. I know how they’re going to move. And I know the gist of what they’re going to say. The actual words right will only happen when it comes time to write the scene. But what I want to do is elevate it somehow. Take that nice performance and make it “Oscar” worthy.

Is it the dialogue? Is it what they don’t say? I don’t know yet and obviously the proof will be in the pudding. But it made me think about other characters. Who could have won “Oscars” in the romance genre? RITAs and GHs are great for picking the best stories but who have been the best characters?

Who would have won an Oscar if that book had been a movie?
My first thought… Laura Kinsale’s hero in Flowers from the Storm… portraying people with a disability tends to do well with the Academy. He would have been a lock.

Who else?