electric mist

new Spinetingler issue up

The fantastic winter issue of Spinetingler is up — available for FREE via download. Inside there are the results of the “Cozy Noir” contest (and congrats to Bill Cameron for the first place win!) as well as short stories by a lot of favorites, including J.D. Rhoades. Also, you will be missing out on a lot of laughs if you skip the author interviews, particularly Duane Swierczynski’s by Sandra Ruttan. Go! Enjoy!

synchronicity

Check out my latest post on my nutty life over on the Killer Year blog.

Meanwhile, I received my first pass pages (also called "page proofs" or "galleys) a couple of weeks ago and got them proofed and sent back in. I swear, the typos breed at night. I'm amazed at how many keep slipping in, though everyone has made a great effort to catch them. Still -- no telling if we got them all. I do love the look of the layout of the pages, though.

I should be getting a cover in the next coupl of weeks. I've seen a couple of rough drafts that my editor wanted to tweak, and we talked about how to tweak it. Fingers crossed there. This is the really scary part, because if a cover just doesn't resonate with the audience, they won't pick up the book. You can have the greatest blurbs in the world, great reviews, but most of the time, bookstore readers who are browsing (and who didn't go there specifically to get your book) will only pick it up if the cover art grabs them. That is incredibly intimidating and frightening, to be honest with you, because I know I'm guilty of the same sort of "judging a book by its cover." The writer usually has no say in the cover art whatsoever, so I'm extremely lucky that my editor asked for my input and really listened. The hard trick is, can what we see in our heads be adequately communicated to the people trying to execute the design? That's not nearly as easy as it sounds.

So, cross your fingers for me.

Meanwhile, I'm working on book two... which leads back to that Killer Year blog post. Hope you enjoy!

Killer Year (update)

We’re kicking off in an official capacity by being adopted by the International Thriller Writers organization (ITW) — and wow, there’s so much good news about that… go see MJ’s post on our newly redesigned Killer Year blog to see what all that means.

And while you’re at it, check out our brand spanking new Killer Year site — especially the individual author’s pages. The guys working on the design did an amazing job and put in a tremendous number of hours gathering up all of the info, designing, etc., and my hat is off to them. I love the expansion features that are designed in, too: we’ll have a calendar so everyone’s events can go up in one place for all Killer Year visitors to see at a glance (everyone’s tours or signings or events of any stripe) and we’ll also have the ability to expand our author’s page to include press-worthy news (like reviews, etc.) and excerpts (woo!). So come on, pull the curtain back and see what’s new over there!

go see...

I blog over at Killer Year... the topic is "Why I blame my breasts for turning me to a life of crime / caper writing."

And I'm mostly blogging over at my new site: over here... see ya there!

busy

I'm not posting as much over the next couple of weeks because I'm running like crazy to do a bunch of things. I'm going to Houston to give a talk about "voice" and how to shape it. I've also just been invited by the Baton Rouge Chapter to do the same, which is extremely cool. Woo! I'm in the middle of casting and shooting something here locally (more on that when it's done). And, most important, working on book 2, which is so rocking, I am thrilled. I mean, it's not "easy" -- but it's extremely fun to come up with the twists and turns and characters and.. well, this is the cool part of writing: creating that world afresh, finding what makes the people tick, throwing up huge obstacles in their paths and seeing just how they climb over or around (if they do). It's the first draft, Playing God, not having the self-critic on my shoulder too terribly often. Real joy in the writing. (You know, except when I paint myself into a corner and then grouse for a few days until I figure it out. Then, it's annoying as hell.)

I still need to figure out what I want for a design for the website (the official one), and I'm not sure. The design my guy came up with was terrific and exactly what I asked for -- so it's not his fault. I changed my mind when several people (mostly guys) pointed out that they thought the design was more for a YA type of book, and since Bobbie Faye is so far from that, it hurts, I figured it would be best to rethink this. You know, with actual thoughts. Design type thoughts. Of which I've had exactly zero. I'd like something edgy, hip, and yet, still funny, that I can us for an author site, and then something that ties in with that for the official book site. Gah. Anyway, eventually, there will be an official site. I hope.

the script that just won't die

The bottom line to the story: a producer wants to option one of my scripts.

The preamble:

Before I sold the Bobbie Faye books (see description in left column), I was a screenwriter. In fact, that had been my focus for several years before making the switch to fiction. I probably would have never deviated from fiction into screenwriting if my university had not been so closed-minded about anything that was genre. As it was, if you wanted to write anything other than literary fiction, you were going to have a really difficult time getting any serious help or attention from the faculty, who all prided themselves on their literary publications. And, maybe, that was okay, because every program should probably have a focus (I say this with loads of hindsight) in order to be successful, and literary fiction was theirs. I love reading lit fic; in fact, I wrote in that vein for a while, but writing it didn't move me, didn't entertain me in the same way as the bolder stories of genre fiction did.

I had gone back to school when the kids were young; I had already published a lot in non-fiction (news features, magazine articles, mostly local/regional and a couple of national sales), but I wanted to get help in learning how to structure a big story. Novel length. However, through a series of events, I realized I wasn't going to really learn anything, in spite of making straight As, and I felt a world of frustration. I couldn't just pick up and go to another college. There was no internet as we know it today or blogs or links to writing sites. I didn't really understand how to dissect a novel from a writer's POV (instead of just a comparative literary study). There had to be some way to learn structure.

Then lo, there was an answer: screenwriting class. Whether you wanted to write a small, literary script or a big, honking action story, all were welcome. Screenwriting was a new subject for the university, and no one was quite jaded against it yet. (Later, there were many faculty complaints that the screenwriters kept winning all of the big awards and got the attention. Ahem.)

I thrived in that class. The internet was growing by leaps and bounds about the same time, and I discovered the fantastic (and I would say "master level" class-worthy) essays over on Wordplay. I took every one of the university classes they'd let me take, and then they invited me into the MFA program (again, another euphemism for much political bickering and my screenwriting professor and another mentor won). Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I landed an agent. (Another long story, but a big thanks to Tamar for the referral.)

The first script which went out was an action script, and I got tons of meetings. It came very close to selling to Warner Brothers, but they had already spent six million trying to repair a script on a very similar subject as my script, and they didn't want throw that one away, even though the producer said that mine already solved all of the problems they were having with the other one. So, strike one. Next, my agent wanted me to write a romantic comedy. The logic there was to show range to the producers, with the goal being to gain their confidence that I could do any type of story they needed, so that they would hire me on assignment. Assignment work is what runs Hollywood. Spec script sales (a spec script being one a writer creates and writes and then tries to get to an agent to sell) were dropping off. Most producers / studios preferred to come up with an idea (or buy the rights to a property), then get a bunch of screenwriters to pitch how they would execute that idea, and then they'd pick the one whose pitch they liked best and assign them the job. Assignment work is how many screenwriters manage to have long careers... many many scripts do not get made for a thousand different reasons. If all you had was one sale and all you were waiting on was one script to be produced so you could make the production bonus money (the money they paid you when the film was done), you'd go broke in Hollywood very very quickly. Every agent, therefore, tries to get their clients assignment work, but in order to do so, the producer has to be able to see samples of the writer's work: hence writing various types of stories to show a range.

I enjoyed writing the romantic comedy much more than I expected, and it went out wide (meaning lots of producers wanted to read it) and it went to the top of three studios and almost got purchased and then didn't because someone's stars were playing hooky, or Lord knows what, it's hard to tell, but at any rate, it didn't sell. Strike two. Ironically, I got way more meetings, ended up making a lot of long-term contacts who are supportive of my writing through today.

Fast forward through other scripts, which was a wash/rinse/repeat of the above, but all the while, someone, somewhere, would call me about the romantic comedy script. And then that someone would try hard to get it made. Again, and again, and again. We were on the verge of getting it made (it had been optioned), when Katrina hit and the company which was going to make the film ended up being gutted by the losses from the hurricane. I had, however, sold the Bobbie Faye books and was kinda in an, "eh, whatever" mood about the whole thing because really, I have had a tremendous amount of fortune, no need to expect more. When a close friend of mine called me last week to say she'd pitched the script to another production company which loved the concept and wanted to see it, I was still in the, "eh, whatever" mode. That producer happened to be in New Orleans making another film there (he's made eight films in New Orleans alone, so he seems to know the city / state pretty well). When I was on the way to New Orleans yesterday evening to meet said producer, I was still in an, "eh, whatever" frame of mind.

He seems to really love the script and he's serious. We talked about exactly what will happen next, who does what, option agreements, what I wanted, what all I brought to the table. In the previous process of trying to get the film made, I had managed to get some very nice things attached which would be a big deal, marketing wise. (Big as in international prominence. I'll say more later when it's a done deal.) Since I brought several fairly big things to the table, he agreed that I should get a producer's credit (and therefore, producer's money) as well as money for the script. What any of that will be remains to be seen. I'm cautiously optimistic. At this stage, I know he's moving forward. They are drawing up the agreements, which I will then send to a top entertainment attorney in L.A., and my "we'll see" attitude is due to the fact that I don't know what the specific amounts are yet, so I don't know if it's something I'll end up agreeing to. I have ballpark notions (because of the proposed budget).

Mostly, though, I liked his down-to-earth attitude, the fact that he has made a lot of films and has some really good connections, and I was very impressed by his tiny notes on the script. They were extremely smart. (I must be the luckiest freak on the planet to get a really cool editor with terrific notes and now this guy. You may think I'm just saying that because it's a blog, but seriously, I have been impressed.) I like that he wants to move this script up into his next slot and make it his next film. (He has one film in line to do before mine, and another one he was developing which would have been next.) I also like that my close friend would be a producer on this film. She deserves the break and she's an amazing friend and has always always always had my back, even to her own detriment sometimes. I want her to succeed, big time, so if this can do that for her? I will be extremely happy.

The thing about script options, though, which are vastly different from book sales is, the option may end up only being that. If they can't get the stars on board, or if they can't get the exact stars the distributor will approve or the money people will approve, or the right combination of stars, or any number of variables, then the script could be back-burnered until the option ran out and that would be the end. With a book sale, they are definitely publishing the book. It's way more relaxing and joyous for that sort of sale. At the same time, I am sort of bemused by the fact that this little script just won't seem to die. Every single time I have completely forgotten about it, someone else tries to make it. Maybe, just maybe, some good karma will head its way this time. We'll see.

on discipline...

Alison Gaylin cracked me up over on the First Offender blog this morning. When talking about her own discipline, she said:

"[W]hile I'm liking what I've done with it so far, I have pages and pages and pages to go before the first draft is done. And I seem to have the discipline of a second grade class set loose in Chuck E Cheese's with Ozzy Osbourne for a chaperone."

It's a great entry (and not just because she was answering my question!)... but it also points out just how much discipline best selling authors have. I would post about my mulling, surfing of websites, staring into space, but then, you know, my editor reads this, so just for the record, I am writing all of the time. Seriously. Every single minute. You know, when I'm not napping. But other than that? All of the time. (Well, except for checking blogs.) But other that that? Every single moment of every day. Well, except for the...

hmm. I think I'd better shut up now and get back to work.

brainstorming

So. Book 2. It's begun, and I'm pretty jazzed about it. I'm balancing between writing some stuff and still working out some details on the plot twists. This weekend, I had one of those epiphanies that you live for as a writer, a woohoo moment of ooooooh, and if I do that, then it makes all this other stuff mean this other thing and... hey, you. Wake up over there. This is the interesting part! Of writing! Well, maybe not to you.

Sorry about that.

I love the brainstorming part of writing, when a story is new and growing. Sometimes there are discoveries that are giant leaps forward and sometimes, there are little teeny nuances a writer discovers that deepen the meaning of everything around it. I love playing, "what if?" and then seeing where that trail leads.

My way of writing is a sort of mishmash. I tend to write reams of notes, thinking out the characters and what they want, what they need, why, what bothers them, upsets them, makes them happy... what the obstacles I'm about to place in front of them mean, what's at stake for them if they fail, etc. And I also tend to simultaneously start incorporating some of those what ifs, how they'll affect the character, what direction with they take the story, and so on. At some point, the structure of the story gels and I can start writing; I'll have a pretty good idea of where I'm going and the major turning points and twists and obstacles, but I'm also free(ish) to incorporate new discoveries along the way. Sometimes I'll have set something up without realizing it, and then suddenly, I'll have an epiphany about the way that set up could pay off, and I'll usually be floored at how well the set up worked... when I hadn't even planned it that way consciously. Overall, though, I have to have the general structure of the story and know (reasonably well) how it ends to know where I'm going with it. I chalk this up to a tradition of oral storytelling in my family -- it's a bit of a performance art, really, and you have to know where you're going so you know how to bring your audience along with you. (If that makes sense.)

So, I'd worked on book 2 quite a bit prior to getting the edits from my editor, and am back working on it, having a lot of fun, although this part of the writing process is the one where my family wants to say, "Yeah, sure you're writing while you're staring out the window eating chocolate." Hey, it is not my fault that staring and chocolate are required for brainstorming. It says so. You know, in the writer's manual. Which I had around here somewhere. It was on page 82, I think. And I'd be happy to show you... as soon as I put my hands on it... I think someone borrowed it. But I'm telling the truth. Would I lie to you?

staying original

In the comments on the "10 things" entry a couple of days ago, JScott said:

I envy people who can write and just seem to flow effortlessly across pages. I read anything I can get my hands on.. How does one keep from plagarizing due to reading SOOOO many books. How does one stay original? I imagine that it can be hard..

It's an extremely good point. If we read really good work which resonates with us as a writer, we want to dissect it, analyze it, learn from it, and figure out how whatever it was we admired could be put to use in our own writing. That is, frankly, how you learn to be a writer -- read very good work and learn from it. So how do you keep from plagairizing it?

Here are two mini examples. Each of these could easily be a whole book, so I'm just touching on the highlights here.

1) Characters

Character = story. Who your character is, what they need, what they want, what their obstacles are, what's at stake, what is painful for them, what makes them happy, how they grew up, who hurt them, who helped them, what they fear, what they're ashamed of, what they'll do under pressure, what is their core moral center... are all things which make your story unique. When you do the homework on the character, when you really know them, their choices (how they speak, how they act, how they choose, how they dress, etc.) will be unique to them. They're simply not going to do something identically to someone else in another book. Fill your story with well-developed characters that come from your own hard work, your own imagination and perception of their world, and you very likely won't inadvertently emulate another author.

2) Voice

When you're choosing the method of telling the story, you're going to have to choose the type of point of view you want to use, the tone, and the perspective. Every one of those choices will affect presentation of the matererial, particularly as the story is filtered through the character's eyes / thoughts. A rapper is not going to perceive the world the same way as a wealthy, elderly widow. A poor person is not going to comment or think or notice the same things in the same manner as a tycoon. A truck driver will have different life experiences that informs his perceptions from those of a pastry chef. When you've created a unique character and you've chosen the method of the story (first, third, omnipotent), your method will be used by the characters.

If you have, for example, two characters telling the story equally, then each section should have a voice -- a perspective of that person and their life. That will influence what they see in the world around them, what stands out as important imagery to comment on (if they do comment at all), what they think of the people and activities surrounding them.

And so on...

The question is, what drives the story for you? If you're creating, what do you find helps you find that unique story? If you start with plot first, what do you do to work out the voice, to give your own work that unique spin that you and only you could do?

BIC

In the comments section on the previous post, Lori Armstrong made the excellent point of how accomplishing anything as a writer really depends upon the writer putting Butt In Chair and working. There are tons of ways to procrastinate, and there are loads of ways to freak out about what your career will or won't be (yep, done that) and really, the only thing a writer can control is the practice they give to the act of writing.

My youngest son (bear with me) is having a really painful time right now coming to grips with the fact that he can't earn a couple of paychecks and then run out and buy the really cool motorcycle he's drooling over. I know that feeling. I want to have that instant gratification too, quite often. I want to hand in something and the world screech to a halt, startled by their joy at what I've written. (I don't have big dreams, no?) The world really doesn't work that way, and it's lucky for most of us that it doesn't. I'm glad a guy who wants to be a doctor can't just decide that as a senior in high school and run out and pick up a scapel. I'm really relieved that girl who wants to be an air traffic controller can't say, "Oooh, planes are cool!" when they're a junior in college and, after an all-night kegger, go get that job.

Some people get big headlines for having sold something, like the recent debacle involving Kaavya Viswanathan and the alleged plagiarism case buiding against her now. She got a $500,000 advance, and there are up to (and possibly more, I'm not sure) 29 passages in her book which are very very similar to that of Megan F. McCafferty's works. Instant gratification, like a sugar high, or a cocaine high, can have a price. You really can't say, "Oops, I read these when I was younger and accidentally worked 29 nearly identical passages into my own work and it is a complete mystery to me how that happened." Well, you can, but that's not only egotistical idiocy, it's a little disingenuous to proclaim yourself smart enough to get into Harvard and yet, too naive to realize that you've plagiarized when you have such identical passages. Using the "I'm a genius, I can't help but absorb so much it's hard to remember where it came from" excuse is pretty much bunk.

Accidentaly mimicry can happen. There are too many stories out there where two people came up with similar books or movies at about the same time and when they were published, one looked to be a copy of the other (depending on which came out first, usually). But, if true (and since she's apologized for it already and not denied it, I'm not sure how it could be anything other than true), the effort of copying here is pure greed. Wanting that instant gratification, wanting that acclaim, wanting that money, wanting that attention... is not what writing and work (anyone's work) is really about. If you're a genuine person -- in the sense that you care about being authentic -- then you care about what you do. Whether you're a nurse or a doctor, a contractor or a ditch digger, you try to do your best at what you do. You hope that one day, what you do will matter, will shine, and that somehow, people will notice (for we, most of us, are creatures of society and we want to be accepted, or even acclaimed, at least once or twice for our own accomplishments, I think). But if you co-opt the work of someone else and pretend it's yours, you're not only saying you have no respect for that person and the effort they put into their craft, you're saying you have no respect for the rest of us, to whom you are lying.

For me, the satisfaction is in the work. I like creating a world, building a place where people can go in their imaginations and feel like they have fully experienced that place, those characters, as if they were real. I like entertaining and keeping people glued to the story, seeing them have a moment of escape, a moment away from their lives as they enter that world. I like the hard work it takes to do these things, to build these worlds. I like that I have to push myself to continuously improve, to find better ways to express something, to find nuances to help build the characters into fully dimensional people. It's not easy. It is, occasionally, rapturous, when something goes really really well. I worked for a week on a small section of the book because I knew it wasn't quite working. It would have been easier to let a slighter effort pass because I had other stuff to do, and this was such a small section. But I knew it was important and I knew why: it set up mutliple character issues, emotions and a foundation for building of trust later in the story, and a sense of outrage when one character thinks the other has betrayed her. It's really a tiny moment, and I'm not even sure the reader will sense it when reading it. Yet, after wrestling with it for a few days, when it finally worked, when it finally just sang, I was elated. That, folks, is what's satisfying as a writer: to set a goal and then to know you've accomplished it.

Butt. In. Chair.

There is a second, equally important component to the BIC rule that many of us fail to disucss, partly because it's scary when you realize how much you're putting on the line with the choices you make... but the thing that will help keep your BIC is committment to the choice you make when you pick which story to tell. There is no one single story which is going to be all things to all people. There are stories which are serious, stories which are frivolous, stories which will wrench your heart out, stories which will make you laugh until you have to pee, and none of them could work if the author started doubting herself half-way through and worried that maybe the dark mystery would get more readers if she had some funny quips in there or maybe the humorous mystery would be better if it somehow touched on really deep, dark, important secrets (when none were originally set up).

There is nothing wrong with writing what you enjoy. Or what touches your heart. Or what captivates your curiositiy. It's perfectly Okay for other people to think that the only acceptable fiction is the kind which gets snooty awards. Whatever works for them, is fine. But if you put your butt in that chair and you start writing and you start second guessing yourself, trying to make your story all things to all people, something equally funny and sad, equally poignant and pithy, you're probably going to create mush (unless you're a stunning and amazing writer, and then we'll just cook you and eat you, so shut up). Most of us are going to learn, one book at a time. Hopefully, the first one the public sees will be so well polished, no one will see the growing pains that went into creating it. And believe me -- those growing pains are there, for every writer who really cares about their craft.

So, Butt In Chair. And No Fear.

10 Things I Know About Writing

10. You read.

9. You read a hella lot, in all sorts of genres. Quit whining.

8. You write. All. The. Damn. Time.

7. People read what you wrote. They hate it. They give advice. They usually tell you to get a job. Something not in writing.

6. You read a hella lot more to figure out where you can improve.

5. You're still writing. All. The. Damn. Time.

4. A few people sort of like some parts of what you wrote.

3. You repeat all of the above steps until you can substitute "few" in #4 with "most" and "sort of like" with "freaking love" and then you...

2. Keep writing.

1. You might sell. You might not. Odds are, people look at you weird when you say you're a writer, or they start telling you how they could be one, like, in an afternoon, if they just wanted to, and you try not to kill them (with witnesses around) and then you drink a lot and probably cry, and then you start to burn everything you've ever written and then this one piece, this one sentence, catches your eye and you start readng and you think, "You know, this is pretty good. I could do something with this." And so while they cart you off to jail or to the insane asylum, you start thinking just what you're going to do with your next story.

Don't Look Down

So Monday night, when I was stressing over the big screw up I'd managed to do with the deadline (previously mentioned), I was so freaking relieved to have a fun book to read to keep me from completely wigging. (I can be one with the stress, lemme tell you.)

I had been eagerly waiting for Don't Look Down, a Jennifer Cruisie and Bob Mayer collaboration, particularly after following their progress on their hilarious blog. (They have been blogging about both the good and the bad of collaborating and now, of their 40 city book tour, and every freaking blog entry has me cracking up. On one a couple of days ago, Bob had handed Jenny her apartment key, then hours later, forgot he'd done so and had her frantically help him look for a lost key -- and in that typical manly way, neglected to mention he thought he'd lost hers and let her assume she was helping him find his. When she finally realized what was going on, she reminded him he'd given her key to her earlier and he was so frustrated at the wasted time, he snapped, "Why didn't you tell me?" To which she replied, "Bob, you were there when you gave it to me... I assumed you knew.")

The book was a kick to read. It's a terrific blend of action, banter, great pacing, fun, well-drawn characters and loads of humor. It has Cruisie's humor (which I expected and love) and Bob's dry wit (which was great). It's being billed as a Romantic Adventure, which is a sort of experiment at coining a new genre term, and I hope it works, because its pacing and humor while keeping a mystery and action and tension throughout is similar to what the Bobbie Faye books will be. (See the "about" section, on the left.... except mine's very much action/adventure with a side order of crazy thrown in.) I particularly like the inside type of information Bob infused his J.T. Wilder with, the type of Green Beret POV that (usually) only a real Green Beret can bring to the game, and it made Wilder very interesting and not just a generic "good soldier" type. So if you want to laugh and enjoy a romp, go get it. You'll have fun.

(Note to Bob.... Ta Da. Now that's all of the talking points. I think. And there is no grim on book tours.)

The read last Sunday...

I meant to post this Monday, but then Monday I majorly screwed up a deadline for the construction company, which is just a dumb move, and by Tuesday morning, 8 a.m., it was fixed and all was completely okay, but man, I really hate doing something so blatently dumb. And it wasn't that I didn't know about the deadline, it was dumber than that: I looked straight at the little deadline notation last week, saw the date, looked at the calendar and somehow, in spite of all of that, decided that the third occurred on Thursday instead of Monday. Geez. I definitely need to be taking some of those memory whatsits.

So, meant to post about the read, got sidetracked into and then out of disaster, and now...

The read.

Was great. Really wonderful, actually. We probably had about thirty people? I'm not sure, something like that. Many of them were my friends and family, and I greatly appreciate them all coming out and, woo! buying the The New Orleans book. They were a great audience because I knew they were rooting for us to do well.

Crystal, the CRM at Barnes & Noble, had everything set up, had made announcements all week over the loudspeaker, had put a recording on their phone so that people calling in knew all week that we'd be there signing. We had others there not related to us (always a cool thing) who also bought books (yay). I think Crystal did a fantastic job getting it all set up and organized.

Dave Rutledge, one of the writers and publisher, intro'd us. Then Jette read from her terrific essay about old movie theaters in New Orleans. She had several laughs and much nodding of appreciation from the audience. I read next, and kept it very short, and people told me I did well, though I can never remember afterward. I sort of zone out. Then Sarah Inman read from hers and Ray (whose blog seems to be down right now) was our final reader, which is perfect, because Ray's piece is really funny.

We then signed books for everyone who bought them (and I love every single one of you who did that!) and then we signed the rest of the stock. We were each signing on our essay, and we got into a real groove and the rest of the stock disappeared quickly. By the time we were done, many of the people had cleared out.

(I was going to snag the signage, but forgot, and they had spelled my name wrong, which cracked me up. Never think for a minute you can keep much of an ego in this business. I went back the next day to buy a book and snag the signage, but it was already gone.)

What I loved about this event was the fun and calm I think we all felt; it was with friends and family and very well organized, which is great. Another huge plus was to see people wander over while we were reading... stay to listen... and then end up buying the book. That happened with several people, and that's extremely cool.

I hated not having more time to spend with the others from the book; we very likely won't be seeing each other any time soon. I may be able to attend the signing in Austin that Ray and Jette are organizing, but that so greatly depends on the work schedule. It was a little like watching the winding down of something amazing and important, although the book sales remain strong.

rocking the house

We had our panel at the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans. I noticed on the site's schedule that we were going to be opposite Elizabeth Berg, which meant exactly two people might might show up at our panel. And knowing this ahead of time, with tremendous confidence, I should add, meant that I was completely relaxed. I was so relaxed, that when I noticed the slight wobble in the heel of my brand new, very favorite boots, the ones broken in just right that are so cute, yet, so comfortable, I thought, no problem... I'll just put a dab of super glue on there... and didn't realize a little had run down the side... and from the angle I was holding the boot, the glue pooled in the zipper... sealing it open and unwearable. Still, I was relaxed, so I switched to the strappy sandals (and five blisters later, I am rethinking that choice)... and yet, no stress. I was zen. Completely calm. I was so completely relaxed that when I passed up the correct exit on the interstate and ended up going over the stupid toll bridge and had to circle back around, I only came mildly unglued and did not spiral into any sort of hamonic motion of fear and doom. (Hey, we take the successes where we get them.)

So, found the place very easily, found a parking space without a lot of effort, and even accidentally managed to park very near where our talk was to be (though I hadn't realized that at the time). I had time to find the place, go around the corner and sit and relax, watching the artists out on the square, drinking a cold water, sitting under the ceiling fan of a little store.

The Cabildo was gorgeous, and beautiful inside, though there were some quirks... like the elevator that opened upstairs directly into the conference room (with no way for you to realize that the very loud sliding doors were going to interrupt the conference in progress.) I thought I would be doing a good thing to get there early, which meant I traisped right into someone else's panel (oops), but they were apparently used to it, since no one seemed to notice. That's kinda like not noticing the 747 landing in your living room, it was that loud.

Anyway, their panel ended, and their people left, and our panel was sort of hovering around the back of the room, getting to know one another better. It was so great to see Ray there, and of course, the terrific publishers/editors, brothers Bruce and Dave Rutledge, as well as fellow panelist Sarah and moderator (and contributor to the Do You Know book), Jason Berry. So we were all standing around, thinking that maybe we'd actually have ten or so people, since a few people were milling around, when the elevator kept disgorging clusters of festival goers, one right after the other.

We ended up with a nicely packed room. And I hadn't had a chance to get nervous, so it all just ended up... fun. Really really fun. I tried not to answer too often (but Jason asked some interesting questions), and everyone participated well and I think we made some points that resonated with the audience (there was applause! and laughter! and much nodding of the heads in agreement!). Lots of people came up and said incredibly nice things afterward. And a few people offered to do some really important things when the Bobbie Faye books come out. That was extremely cool.

So overall:

Toll bridge fee = $ 1.00
Loss of super glued favorite boots = $ 60.00
Rocking the house on my first stint as a panelist?

Priceless.

beating the Da Vinci Code

Okay, this may be the only time in my life a book I'm in beats the Da Vinci Code on the sales charts, but I'm stoked over it, nonetheless. (Yes, that is just for New Orleans. I'm still stoked.)

I am also really thrilled that the book has already sold out of its first printing, and that Borders has placed a nice big order (big in the world of the small press).

Several of us are going to be speaking on a panel at the Tennessee Williams Writer's Fest on Saturday, and we're having a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Baton Rouge on Sunday, April 2nd, at 2 p.m.

Good things, all.

on editing

Over on The First Offender's Blog, Lori has been blogging about the editing process of a book and what each writer does. It's interesting to see so many different ways of achieving the same end result. Here's my response:

I love editing; I think it's my favorite part of the process because it feels like I'm taking raw clay and making it into something fun and useful and finished. (I hesitated to say "beautiful" because I write humorous action/capers.)

My process starts after I have two or three trusted readers' feedback. If there's a consensus about something being off, etc., I know where the major problems are. Since I come from screenwriting which had a fairly strict attitude about page count, I'm used to going through and cutting, which is what I'm doing right now for book 1. I go through the book and ask myself questions and mark the spots:

Does the pacing flag anywhere?

Is there consistency in a characters' actions / reactions? If not, is there a good reason why not?

Have I reached deeply enough into each character so that they're unique and not just an amalgamation of traits?

Do the stakes continually escalate? Is anything solved too easily?

Does everything flow logically? If I leave a question open somewhere, or a set up open, have I paid them off by the end? Is the pay off satisfactory?

Then I start looking at the smaller things... are my verbs the best choice? Am I giving the exact right visual detail? If I'm using a metaphor, does it feel original and/or organic to that character's POV? Is each character's dialog unique enough so that if you saw it on the page without signifiers, would you know who was speaking?

I also try to pay attention to word choice, looking for the specific choice which will make the text spring to life. While doing this, I try to find repetitive usages. (This apparently doesn't always work, as my editor discovered... there for about three chapters, everyone smirked. I'm not even fond of the word; I have no clue what happened.)

Finally, since I write humor, I constantly look at the humorous bits, dialog or action, and work to see if I can make it funnier. Sometimes the first or second choice will be amusing, but if you push for the unexpected (as long as it's still in character), it can make the reader laugh out loud. It's reaching for that unexpected which takes the most effort, because it must stay in character and work within the tone / events of the story.

What do you do? Do you work in layers? Do it all at once as you go? Or edit as you write the first draft and are pretty much done when you hit THE END?

the art of character development: shame

Ever read a book that didn't engage you? Of course you have. You didn't care what happened to the characters and you (very likely) put it down and possibly even mentioned to a few people how much you didn't like the book. Ever read one that absolutely held you riveted? Geez, I hope so, or I'm going to be depressed for a week.

The difference of being the latter type vs. the former is, of course, the characters -- how well developed they are, how unique, how they resonate off the page and with the reader. So what is the secret to doing this well? I think there is one angle into developing characters that I haven't seen anywhere else (yet, who knows?), and it's a simple thing.

Shame.

I'll get back to that in a moment.

When I first start writing about a character, I already have a sense of the type of person he or she is. This is born as much from the kind of person and the type of problems that personality would encounter as it does from the type of story I'm writing. For example, I'm not going to write an action / caper with a heroine who is passive. In that type of story, a passive heroine would require someone else to step in and do the saving, or at least do a majority of the saving, and frankly, the passive woman-in-jeopardy story isn't something I'm interested in writing. I wouldn't be interested in that character's growth because I'd have to spend so much time demonstrating her passivity when I'd be secretly wanting to smack her and make her stand up for herself. So for me, the type of character I'm going to write about is determined by the type of story I want to tell and the type of person I'm interested in watching go through obstacles and grow and learn and, ultimately, become. Become more of who their are, find their own strengths, weaknesses, make an effort to improve, etc. Most people don't radically change after the outcome of something major so much as they examine who they are and what they did wrong or right and they make some decisions. It's more of a continuum, not an abrupt change, and I'm interested in that art of becoming. That feeling of growing more comfortable in our own skin.

So, that said, story and character type help me narrow down a character's personality, but then I have to figure out the details to bring this character to life. The goal is to do it so richly, they become memorable. Becoming memorable in this cluttered world is hard as hell, so I can't rely on surface personality "traits" or "quirks" to accomplish that goal. Given that, there is a sort of checklist of things I look at to develop my characters which will help me get started:

What does the character need?
Want?
Does the "want" conflict with the "need?"
Character history (particularly as it pertains to need / want).
What is the character's goal in this story?
How does the goal amplify and / or conflict with either the "need" or the "want?"

Now, all of these things will get me a character, maybe even a great character. It helps me eliminate random traits and craft the character into a cohesive person. And sometimes, I'll get really inspired when I'm thinking of a character history and something will just click for me and I'll have my hook in how the character acts and talks and walks which makes them stand out. Even so, I go back to that emotion I first mentioned -- shame -- and I ask the character, "What have you done that you're ashamed of? What would you never, ever, admit to unless forced on pain of death?"

When you key into someone's self-inflicted shame, when you know what they've chosen to do which humiliates them and makes them hold that as a secret, as a thing against which much be guarded, as a potential for future damage, then you know your character.

Shame is a difficult emotion to peg. People get embarrassed at certain things, certain failures, of goofs or lapses or mistakes, but real DNA-rattling shame speaks to their core beliefs as to what kind of person they ought to be, what they see as their own potential and how they've betrayed that potential. That choice to betray something they believe in is an important insight to the contradictory nature that makes us human.

Sometimes, people will be ashamed at the strangest things which wouldn't bother someone else. Figuring out what someone would do that would create shame, something that they do in spite of being aware that they are creating a very bad emotion they'll have to endure, tells you their priorities and more about their secret desires and how they contradict what they'd like to believe about themselves. A man who thinks he's a moral person, yet, when he gets in a big financial bind, steals from his employer and is horrified at his own actions (and hides them), is someone who hasn't come to grips with the fact that maybe he's prioritizing "keeping up with the Joneses" much higher than what he thought of as his moral character. Will that make him cynical? Depressed? Sad? Will he over-compensate? Joke it off? Ignore it? Bluster? Fake not caring? That sort of personal conflict gives a writer a lot to work with and makes the character more memorable than simply describing a funny or dark "quirk." Quirks are easier to paste on, but they don't render a character as real or memorable.

Now the benefit to figuring out the shame of the character isn't necessarily to use it on the page or incorporate it into the book. It may not be necessary. If I know what a character is ashamed of, even if I'm writing something humorous, I know how that shame informs who they are and the choices they'll make -- from dialog to action.

True character is revealed by the choices a person makes when everything is going to hell. I think we often surprise ourselves by our own weaknesses and the things that can influence us when we thought we had more control or backbone or moral fortitude, and it's that sort of contradiction which can help a writer render a character memorable. One of the best writing exercises I was ever given... (wait... I digress... it's the only actual writing exercise I remember from four years of an English degree and then two for an MFA in Creative writing... that's sort of sad, I think)... anyway, the most memorable writing exercise was when a professor said we had to write a one to two page scene where the POV character was ashamed of something they were doing / were about to do, but we couldn't say they were ashamed or have them think that. In fact, they had to do the deed and through their actions and dialog, we had to show their goal to get the thing done and yet their own self-loathing at having done the thing without ever once allowing them to admit the shame. It was one of the hardest two pages I ever wrote, and the most illuminating. I highly recommend it as a tool to use if you ever need to figure out how to make a character spring to life.

notes

The part of the writing process that I think I have been most looking forward to, believe it or not, was getting the notes from my wonderful editor. I know that makes me weird, but I love the editing process. I love seeing how someone else has read the material, what resonated with them, what didn't, and why. Getting that sort of feedback teaches me more, faster, than any sort of coursework ever did, because it's personal to me, to what I've written, and it shows me how well I accomplished what I set out to do, and where I can improve.

And frankly, the goal is to always improve. I love this first book, and I'm happy with it. (A little tired of reading it, and sometimes that makes it hard to really focus on the page because I know it so well, already, that I can end up skimming over something I should be reading more critcially.) But as much as I love the first book, I feel like I've already learned a lot of things which are helping make the second book much better. I now have the chance to apply some of that back to book one as I go through the notes from the editor.

When I called my agent after receiving the notes, I think she was surprised by my excitement and enthusiasm. First of all, the notes are terrific. They're small, nuance sort of things, no major changes. Yet, they are very smart and elegant. My agent told me that a lot of first time novelists feel real despair when they first get notes back from an editor, because no matter how small the notes are, the fact that there are notes in or throughout their manuscript despresses them. Writers would love to write the perfect book and have everyone fall all over themselves proclaiming its perfection, of course, but that just isn't ever going to happen. I know a few writers who've had their editors tell them their book has zero notes (not even grammatical), and honestly, that would make me a nervous wreck. I know I am not a perfect writer, and I truly love love love the fact that I have someone in my corner who is very vested in making this the best book it can be. It's important to her, and I truly feel like she's got my back. I'd much rather know someone went through it and told me the honest truth and helped me make it better so that when it does get to reviewers, I can feel I am honestly giving them my best effort. (And I'm not writing all of this just because my wonderful editor reads the blog. Hi Nichole! I am truly that happy with the process.)

Part of my perspective about editing comes from my experience at having edited a small regional magazine for a year. I'd recruit writers occasionally from the MFA program at the local universities to try to raise our caliber of writing, and I'd get articles in which ended up needing way more work than I would have expected from that group of people. My goal was to make sure they didn't embarrass themselves or the magazine, and to do that, I had to edit them. The other reason I feel like I respond really well to notes is that I have lived through getting notes on screenplays for years. Notes on scripts tend to be brutal, because film is a collaborative medium, and everyone who reads wants to have some creative input. Like I said to my agent, "Notes on this book? A piece of cake. Notes on a script would have been, 'Yeah, we LOVE it, love it, love the girl, think she's amazing, truly, we love her. Can you make her a horse?'" I once got notes on a romantic comedy which were so brutal, I had people ask me if I had done something to the guy in a past life, and the really funny thing was, had I actually done the notes, it would have turned the romantic comedy into a very bloody thriller. That happens a lot in the script world (which is why so many movies have huge steaming plot holes or character flaws in them). Everyone has their own idea of what the film should ultimately be, and they want to steer it toward their vision. It routinely is notr about the quality of the actual writing... because audiences don't sit in the theater and look up at the screen and read the script. The script is a blueprint. And if you were building a house, you are going to want that blueprint tailored to your tastes. Happily, in the book world, it is very different, very respectful of the material. The point is the writing and the voice and I cannot say how happy I am that I made the switch. I couldn't fathom ever going back and writing scripts again.

There's another meta sort of reason, though, that I've been looking foward to getting the notes, and that is because it makes the publishing process more official and real to me. Sure, I've cashed the check and I have the contract, but since I'd sold the book based on a partial, and not the full manuscript, I spent several months after cashing said check just finishing the book. As a result, there was this whole lack of direct interaction with the publisher that made the process feel a little unreal. Now, though, I've got the tangible notes, I know what to do next, and it all feels very concrete and real and wonderful.

Expect a lot more writing-related entries for a while since that's my main focus. I'll still be writing the random observational posts on other topics, of course, both humorous and not, but the blog will probably lean heavily toward writing and publishing subjects.

little things I learned from my first read...

Tonight was the first reading of the New Orleans essay book, and now, several hours later and wide freaking awake at 4:30 a.m., I thought I'd record a few of the things I learned on the off chance they may be of help to someone.

1) It might help if you actually told people your name. Including last name. You may have to practice it a bit on the way to the read if you're a tiny bit nervous, but it's a really bad idea to have someone ask you your name and you stare at them with a blank expression as if this is some sort of pop question no one prepared you for and you're being graded by the most evil teacher in the world. Not that I did anything remotely like this. The first ten or so times I was asked. So, full name.

2) Remember how to spell your name when really warm and gracious people come up to you after your read and ask you to sign their book. It is probably a bad thing to look down at what you've written and realize you have completely wandered off track in the middle of your own maiden name and spelled it with some new foreign spelling which is guaranteed to have your dead ancestors knocking at your door in the middle of the night, promising to haunt your ass for being an idiot. So, spelling... kinda important.

3) Remember to say, "Thank you." It is never a good thing when people come up to you and say, "Wow, I really loved your essay," for you to be standing there, frozen in shock, thinking, "OHMYGOD, THEY LIKED IT! THEY LIKED IT!" while staring at them with a blank expression as if they haven't said a word. As loud as it is in your head, they can't hear you. Do something, anything. Grunt. Nod. Aim for a reply in English, but try not to just stand there like a mime.

4) Contrary to what you feel at the time, you will not actually spontaneously combust right there on the spot when you have to get up in front of people and read. There are no records of any writer ever spontaneously combusting. No, really. Never.

5) If you feel like a big idiot (for the inability to speak your name, the blank stares, the nerves), just remember: statistically, no matter how big this reading is, it's still a small number of people (unless you're Stephen King). No one is going to follow you home and put a big "Stupid lives here" banner across the front of your house for the world to see. I think. Let me check in the morning and get back to you on this one.

The publisher, Chin Music Press, was wonderfully represented by Bruce and David Rutledge and gifted designer Craig Mod. I did remember to tell Craig how beautiful I thought the book was; it's truly unique and I am very proud of the aesthetic. I remembered to thank Bruce -- who was just an amazing host -- but my brain completely failed me when I forgot not only to thank David, but I neglected to tell him how very powerful and well-written I thought his essay was. So David, please forgive an idiot too nervous to remember her own name: you totally rocked.*

I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting and hearing the other writers, and seeing the diversity that is so uniquely New Orleans. There is something about a read in a bar where it's almost standing room only, where food is a big part of the party (and many delicious dishes were scarfed up by an appreciative crowd), where there is laughter and drinking and story-telling and all ages gathered around a smoky room, dark paneling, old paintings fililng the walls, with photographs of many a group who've frequented the bar pinned around all of the doorways and archways... it's New Orleans. There just isn't any other place like it.

Ironically, I am not a shy person. At all. I have no problems talking (hush, Corey), and meeting new people and mingling and handling crowds. I'm actually very good at this! So it really surprised me how very tense I felt prior to the read. It all went really well (I am told -- I have almost no memory except for being sort of frozen, though my husband assures me I did okay). We guestimated that we ended up with a hundred or so people attending this tiny location in a ravaged part of New Orleans, so I was very pleased with the turnout. The proceeds from the donations made at the bar as well as $10 per book sold went to the charity "Rebuild Together" which is helping elderly and disabled people without means to be able to get back into their homes. This is so wonderful, I'm thrilled to have been a part of the event. I got to hear the fabulous Ray read his terrific and funny essay. He did such a fine job reading, too, totally cracked up the crowd several times. And he was much better with the whole "introducing yourself, say your name" thing. I need to take lessons. Finally, you just can't beat a night with lots of friendly faces, laughter and mingling.**

*(David not only introduced my read with really gracious words, but he made me feel a lot less nervous through the night and told me a couple of times afterward that he saw people tearing up during the read. I remember hearing it, but it honestly didn't register on my brain until I was on the way home that I don't think I responded much, if at all. Can I plead brain freeze? In addition to being an idiot?)

**(I'm told. I'm not entirely sure. I have this vague memory of a bar, lots of people, and standing on a staircase trying to read in a light so dim, braille would have been easier. I am just insanely proud that I didn't fall down the stairs. You have no idea how proud.)

first review of the New Orleans book...

I received my copy of the collection of essays, titled Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? I love this book; it's got such a wonderful blend of voices in it, of flavors, it has the feel of New Orleans, and it doesn't pull punches about all the things New Orleans was and is, good and bad.

And that link above? References a small quote by the Times Picayune who called it "an inspired riff on the Armstrong song." Very very cool.

Right now, there are readingd already being set up. We're going to be reading at the Saturn bar near the French Quarter on Feb. 16th. There's another read on March 16 in New Orleans, but I'm not sure if I can make that one. Then there's a panel at the Tennessee Williams Festival on April 1st at one o'clock, and I'm thrilled to be on that panel. The very next day, the Barnes & Noble here in Baton Rouge is hosting a big reading event for us at two o'clock. If you're in the area for any of these, I would dearly love it if you'd stop by and say hello!

And look!

Here's the Amazon link!

It says you have to preorder, but the books are printed and on their way. So this should be corrected soon.

figuring out what they're not telling you

If you've been querying or sending your work out and you're getting positive responses but you're not quite crossing that elusive sale line, it can be incredibly frustrating and debilitating. Sometimes, it's an issue of luck or timing, and there really isn't a helluvalot you can do about that. On the flip side, there are times as writers that we'll get encouragement and nice comments without really knowing what is making them say "no, not for me." In the course of a discussion on Backspace, someone asked, "How do you know what to fix when they don't tell you?" I had gone through a self-evaluation process before thIe book which just sold. It's not a "fix-all" sort of thing. Instead, it's just a way of looking at your own work and stepping outside what you've been seeing up to that point to analyze it. On the off-chance that it might be of help, I'm re-posting my answer here:

A much larger part [of the analysis process] was sitting down and disecting my own way of telling stories, pros and cons. Instead of listening to what readers were saying, I started to look at what they were not saying. The gist of what I was hearing was that they always loved my characters, loved the humor, loved the setting, but something about the way I told the stories wasn't working since they weren't selling, and no one could tell me why.

Believe me, I asked. Especially of those producers with whom I had a personal relationship.

Instead of assuming that it was all just subjective or luck, and in order to figure it out, I started giving my writing to people and asked them to list the positive feedback they'd give me, and then I'd look at those things and say, "What's missing? What am I not seeing on this list?" This is an odd sort of way of going about this, I know, but the critiques I was getting weren't pointing out the "gestalt" -- the overall problem.

(I started doing this sort of analysis with my screenwriting, and when it worked, I transferred what I'd learned to my fiction. The relative shortness of a script as compared to a manuscript may have given me an advantage because it was easier to see it as a "whole" when trying to break it down. )

With that in mind...

So... what was not being said?

The one thing that popped in my head that I noticed wasn't said (or if it was, it was only occasional), was, "I couldn't put it down." That whole "couldn't stop reading" aspect is critical, especially if you want to maintain an exec's attention (in the screenwriting world) or an agent's attention (either world).

Now here's the kicker -- people would say how much they loved the read, how immersed they were in the characters, so you'd think these were the same things, but they're not. And it took me a little while to realize that.

Second thing that happened is pretty notorious in the screenwriting world-- you get killed by encouragement. But when you try to get to the heart of why they're not buying, they'll use vague terms. They're not doing this to be mean, but because they aren't writers and they have no clue how to explain to you that there's something not working. So they've come up with a sort of shorthand which sounds like they're telling you something, when in fact, they're basically saying, "I don't know jack, I just know I can't buy it and I can't put my finger on why.

So one of the things I had heard was that they loved the scripts (the romantic comedies), but they were "soft." What the hell is soft? It's a romantic comedy. If it was 'hard,' it would be porn. How is 'soft' a definition for writing?

I'd ask my then-screenwriting-agent, who would be just as confused. We would try to get more specifics out of them but the execs didn't think "soft" was a bad thing per se...and since they were in the middle of telling me all of the good stuff, it was easy to set that aside as a vague excuse.

Until one day, I finally realized what they weren't saying.

They weren't saying "I couldn't put it down."

I'd get stuff like, "I love reading your scripts, I will always give your agent a read overnight for your stuff," and "Your characters and your worlds are so original, and I laughed all through it, so it's funny!" Which is great! But no one was saying, "Ohmygod, I had to pee and I refused to get up to go to the bathroom because I had to see what happened next and now I have to buy a new leather chair, damn you."

That is critical. You have to write in such a way as to get to feel a freakishly urgent sense of needing to finish the read, which is what translates into them being compelled to convince their bosses to spend the money.

A lot of other writers and people in the business were trying to guess what "soft" meant at the time (since this was a fairly common excuse floating around), and one fairly common opinion was that it was the opposite of edgy. Well, not everything can be edgy, so that wasn't really working as a definition. Then one day I put the two things together and I realized what 'soft' meant: it meant that there wasn't enough forward motion in the story to actively compel the reader to keep reading, regardless of all else.

'Soft' is the opposite of 'crisp' and 'urgent.'

How did that apply to me?

This is where it got tricky. I went through my stories and on the surface, it seemed like I was already doing what needed to be done.

interesting characters...........check
clear goals............................ check
obstacles.............................. check

So, hmmm. That looks like everything I need. What the hell is up with that? Then I looked more closely at story structure, which is when I realized: a lot of what is motivating the characters isn't revealed until sometime later in the story. And some of these were pretty important reasons for being motivated, but they were buried deeper.

The problem with writing so "indirectly" is that for the first part of the story, the reader has to take it on faith that you're going to eventually supply them with the motivation and what's at stake for the main character. I managed to dance fast enough to keep them interested, but I am certain that when they put my stuff down and had to go explain to their boss, they weren't able to sum up the character very easily, or what the character wanted / needed or why. I definitely had reasons all along the story trajectory as to why the character was doing what they were doing, and the reader could deduce some of the motivations, but at the same time, I blocked the reader from getting too much information because I wanted to reveal more about them later. My assumption had been that this sort of structure made the story deeper, more thought provoking, creating a greater impact. That delay can work, but it also renders a lot of your story as appearing to be re-active instead of active: it doesn't look so much like the character is forging forward as they are simply reacting to what's happening, and that can make the story feel passive and less immediate.

Complex characters can make for excellent writing, but you have to do one very simple thing to pull them off: give the reader at least a surface motivation as to why they're doing what they're doing. Why they must have whatever it is they're going after in the story. Even if you want to deepen that later or turn it in on itself and twist it to surprise your reader by making the character more complex, you still need to keep the reader invested in the story, and they have a hard time staying invested if they don't know what's at stake or why it's critical to the character.

So the new list:

interesting characters.......check
clear goals........................ check
motivation..........................check
obstacles.......................... check

Then I looked at the "obstacles" and analyzed my writing, and I realized that not only did I have to make those obstacles incrementally tougher, they had to matter so much and the character had to keep failing.

Terry Rossio, over on his Wordplayer (highly, highly recommended reading) used Indiana Jones as an example...

Indy is this great archeologist / hero, able to go into difficult areas and retrieve these priceless artifacts, and when he's going after the ARK, he keeps failing. When it looks like he's about to succeed, there's another twist and he's not only failed, he's in a bit of a worse situation than he was when he started. And now he's got to brainstorm his way out of that.

Someone once said to me: character is shown by the choices we make when things aren't going well.

A person may talk the talk of a pacifist, for example, but when confronted with a situation, realize that they would resort to violence to save someone they loved... so their character is not a pacifist after all (something they may have difficulty dealing with in the story.)

When you make sure that your stakes are escalating and that your character has to keep dealing with these problems, and the problems are getting worse, then you've got the chance to show what this person is really like -- good and bad -- which, along with the stakes, renders the story a 'page turner.'

So I looked at my scripts and realized I wasn't applying that sort of tension. (This can, honestly, apply to literary fiction as well. The stakes are more intimate, more personal, but they have to keep increasing and keep mattering to the character.)

Once I realized these things, I looked around for the kind of story that resonated with me, the kind of character I just could not put down. I looked for a way to tell this story without sacrificing voice or style, a way to immerse the reader immediately and have them hanging on, turning the page to see what happens next. When I started getting that "I couldn't put it down" reaction consistently, I knew I had stepped onto a higher level playing field. (There are always higher levels, no matter where we are, where we've started.)

These things which applied to me may not apply to you. You have to really look at what is being said, make a list of the positives and the negatives, and then start looking at what's missing. Most people are not Simon Cowell (American Idol) and aren't going to tell you the brutal truth, even if they're thinking it. They're going to sugarcoat. But I think by looking at what is consistently not said, you may be able to dig up some useful truth.

If you're getting the "I couldn't put it down" sort of responses from just about everyone reading but it hasn't crossed that elusive "sold" line, remember that a big part of what we do is sales, and not every buyer is looking for exactly what we have. That's the frustrating part about the business, but it doesn't mean you're not on track with your writing (if you're getting the great responses)... it's just a matter of right person and right time.

Most writers know this, but it doesn't hurt to say it again: try thinking about it like you would your own personal shopping preferences. You're shopping for that perfect little black dress to go to a party and I hand you some fabulous jeans. You may love the jeans, but your budget is such that you can only buy one thing, so you're going to pass up those jeans and keep looking for that little black dress. Now, you'll be looking in the dress section, and you may see a blue one that works or a red one that surprises you how much it works, but it's still not the jeans. Editors, I feel, are in the same boat. They know what they are looking for in a general sort of way. The trick, then, is to either luck up and find one "jean" shopping at the right moment or make the jeans so absolutely stunning that they toss the idea of a little black dress and decide to buck the system and go with the jeans they fell in love with.

But, if you, yourself, are shopping, and you absolutely must have that dress... you're going to keep going from store to store to store until you find the right one in the right size. Well, the editors can't come to you, so you have to keep sending your stuff in until you find the right person at the right time. If you're getting the "I couldn't put it down" response from your own personal set of readers or critique partners, then it is more a matter of timing and luck in finding the right person. Luck won't do you any good, though, if the writing isn't ready.

Persistence is everything.

and all the people crowded around

PJ Parish has a terrific blog entry about how characters can waltz into a scene unannounced and unexpected and end up being pivotal to the story. It's a little freaky when that happens, though, because it feels very much like they simply showed up, except that you are aware, as an author, that you created them on some level. Only you weren't aware you were doing so, really. They stand there in their frumpy blue dress and pill box hat and white gloves which are so out of step with the times, and you wonder where on earth they came from and why are they showing up in the middle of this action scene, and why is it that you care that it's a 70 year-old woman buying a semi-automatic Glock? Nothing good can come from her actions, and you know it, and you know your main character knows it, and somehow, somewhere, Maimee Parsons (for that is her name, she introduced herself, thank you very much)... yes, Maimee Parsons is going to affect the story in a way that isn't terribly clear right now. She's talking, though, and making demands, and she's a minor character (though she doesn't know that, she thinks this is her story), and you sort of nod benevolently and agree to write about the times she shows up in your main character's story, but you know she thinks that's fine for now, but she'll wrangle more attention from you later once she has you hooked. It's all very very weird, and it happens in my head (I think)(right? it's not real, right?), and you try to explain this process to non-writing friends or family and they look at you just a tad more worried than they normally do, like they may spend the afternoon hiding sharp objects.

(Did you ever maybe wonder if all of those psychotics hearing voices in their heads are really just frustrated writers?)

I'm not sure what damage Maimee is up to, but it'll be fun to find out.

writing process

It's been a lot of fun reading the He Wrote / She Wrote blog by Jennifer Cruisie and Bob Mayer as they collaborate on their next novel. I am continuously amazed at how my style of writing seems to be down the middle between what they each do. (And since I really love Cruisie's work and Bob is becoming a favorite as well, it makes sense, I suppose, that their styles are similar to mine.)

Bob likes to outline; he's very linear, very action oriented. Jenny likes to meander around the character for a while, trying to get to know them, figure out their internal stories first, then the external. I end up doing an amalgamation of both. (I'm a Gemini. Maybe that explains it. Or maybe I'm just weird.)

I think I sort of drive my husband nuts for a while during the initial process of the book, though. I'll tell him I have the story, not to worry. (Because he worries. A lot. This whole book a year for three years thing is great, he's excited, but it also makes him very nervous.) So I reassure him, that of course I have it figured out. Then I'll start to pick his brain about south Louisiana locations. Carl's been in places few people from here have even seen, much less been in, and he's got an artist's eye for details and an amazingly good memory for characters (people he's met and their unique personalities). Carl is my secret weapon when I'm first putting together the direction a book will go because I couldn't get some of the stuff he already knows from pure research as quickly as I can just sit down and bug him. He doesn't mind (I think he enjoys it), but the phase I'm in at this point when I'm asking him the questions is not the linear phase... it's the meandering around getting to know the people and places phase, the Jenny phase, the blank stare when Carl asks me a simple question phase.

"You have how long to turn in this book?" he'll ask, and I'm pretty sure his blood pressure ratcheted up a few points.

I think he's a whole lot grayer than he was at this time last year. oops.

Me? It doesn't bother. This is how I work. I've got a sort of rudimentary linear outline. I know that in the beginning (page 1, literally), an event happens which is going to send Bobbie Faye carreening around trying to solve a pretty big problem with some pretty big ramifications if she doesn't solve them. I know some of the twists, some of the things which will escalate the problem into a much bigger and more personal problem. I've gotten to know the characters pretty well through writing pages and pages (two five-subject notebooks' worth for book 2) on just character detail: their emotional journey, why they do what they do, what they want, what they don't want, how this affects the others, etc. I'm pretty settled on how I'll do that first few pages so that readers who aren't familiar with Bobbie Faye from book one will know her pretty well without having to go backward and read the book. I'll spend the next couple of weeks working out more of the later details while I start the writing of the chapters.

The fun part -- and the scary part -- is that I don't try to figure out every detail of the story as I go. I keep a list of things that I need to figure out, questions I've set up that I need to answer, (both plot-wise and character-wise). And by list, I mean, I tend to remember them and then toward the end of the book, make massive notes in frantic red print all over the notebooks making sure I don't forget to tie up the loose ends.

Still, there are discoveries along the way which are a blast and surprise me. I won't know where they come from or why, but something about a particular character will present itself, and I'll realize it takes the character in a much better direction than I would have predicted. Or certain aspects of a location will present itself as an opportunity to do something better than I'd planned. Or I'll realize something about a character due to having grown with him or her throughout the story and I'll weave backward to set up that better.

(One hopes.)

New York trip

I returned from New York this week, having loved just about every minute of it. It was an extremely fast trip, with zero time to see anyone save the agent, editor and Tamar, with whom I spent one night. To my friends, like Kymm, who I very much wanted to see but didn't even e-mail, my apologies -- it was just that fast of a trip with no spare time built in.

The point of the trip was to meet the agent and editor in person (and discover to my complete non-surprise that they were as wonderful in person as they've both been on the phone) (and pretty!), and to discuss the editor's response to the book, any notes, and marketing strategies / ideas, etc. Of course, I was elated that the editor had read and loved the book. We discussed a few note-like things, in a sort of broadstroke way, and honestly, all of the notes are small, very do-able. In fact, two or three were things I'd realized I'd wanted to do anyway, so I'm pretty jazzed that we are not only thinking alike, but that her notes resonate with me so well. Plus, my agent had several brilliant suggestions that will make the polishing even easier. This also means the work I'd begun on book two can contunue as planned, since I don't have to rethink anything major. The actual written notes won't be ready until around Valentine's, though, so I'm back to focusing on book two, writing-wise, for now.

There were many things discussed about marketing, but it's premature to put them here. I'll be going back in the fall, though, which is very cool. The pub date is set at May 1, 2007. The reason for the distance from submission is twofold: one, unless you're famous already and/or there's some sort of reason to rush your book to press, the average is one year to eighteen months from submission of the manuscript until you've got a book in your hands. This gives the editor time to edit you, revisions to be done, then copyediting, then proofing of galleys, then Advanced Reading Copies to be printed and sent out with blurb requests and sent out for reviews, and time must lapse for those people to get a chance to read and do the blurb or review (if you're lucky and they do them). Our second reason for settig the pub date at May 1, 2007 is because it coincides with a particular festival here which is the background for my book (more on that later). The publisher wants to tie the launch of the book in with the opening of the festival, and maybe we'll have some sort of book signing there. If that can be arranged.

It was a little bit weird to me to fly to New York alone. I've been traveling to L.A. now for years, and while the first time was a bit scary due to the size of the city, the fact that I could drive around to navigate made it all seem relatively normal. Also, the architecture in L.A. is ironically very similar to that in Baton Rouge -- they are both heavy on the Spanish influence, transitioning into the Victorian and Colonial and Craftsman eras in much the same way in their neighborhoods as Baton Rouge did. New York, however, as everyone well knows, has subways. Baton Rouge does not have subways. We very rarely have anything underground except lots and lots of water, so the idea of walking down into a catacomb-like structure, sort of trapped under there by the turnstiles, getting on these subway trains and zooming underneath a city... well, it's just a little weird. My agent bought me a Metrocard, which promptly refused to scan. I flunked scanning! Children can scan a Metrocard, but not moi. Something like seven or eight times I tried to scan my Metrocard and couldn't, to the point where she had to come back through the turnstile, scan my card for me, and then go back through herself.

I felt like I should be wearing a giant "I am Southern fried and confused" neon sign above my head.

Yes, this is the person you want to give an advance to and trust she has a clue.

At any rate, I loved the convenience of the subway once I got acclimated, though the numbers for the stops whizzed past so quickly, it was a little difficult to know where the hell I was. I can imagine that day when I'm supposed to navigate the stops by myself or, God forbid, change from one line to the next to cut across town... I will probably bug everyone within hearing distance to help me.

Which is what I did when I took the bus out to Montclaire.

Everyone getting on that bus figured out within three nanoseconds that I didn't know what to do or where exactly my stop was, so three or four of them volunteered information (from descriptions of the routes, to telling me which stop mine would be after they got off), and one woman kept bugging the driver to be sure to let me know which stop was mine. I'm pretty sure that as often as she shouted, "Sir? Sir? Is this her stop? Because she doesn't know which one is her stop. Could you let her know, Sir?" the man would have gotten up and tossed me off the bus at my stop just to make sure I was gone.

Overall, I found New Yorkers extremely friendly. Not something you'd expect to find given the sterotype portrayed on TV and in films, but true for my experience.

The main thing about the trip was how the city juxtaposed itself to what I had seen and heard and known from countless TV shows and film imagery. Walking down a subway entrance was simultaneously new and a first for me and yet, old hat, because I'd seen it on hundreds of Law and Order shows and the like. Seeing the subways whoosh by was normal and expected, the imagery merging with that memory in my mind of having seen it before, only I hadn't, not really, not this way, not in person with the roar of the trains being so loud, you can't really hear what anyone next to you is saying and you can feel the platform rumbling, hear the rattle of the trains against the tracks, feel the air against your face. From standing in awe at the enormity of Times Square, seeing the overhead neon signs and giant screens and the utter competition between buildings to out-technologically shine over everyone else, to see the throng of people everywhere, to the wonderful little Italian restaurant in SoHo with its checkered tablecloths, jukebox, old world tin ceiling painted green and polished wood bar, where the food was utterly excellent, it was all both familiar and strange, a bit like falling down the rabbit hole.

I am very much looking forward to going back. The next time, I hope Carl can come and we can make a vacation out of the trip as well, because there are hundreds of things I would have liked to have seen and I know he would enjoy it as well.

For now, off to work. I'm finishing up outlining Book Two. I haven't done anything nearly so fancy as Diana has done for plotting, although I considered it. I have the board, I have the notes, I got started and then the trip interrupted it. I have written reams and reams on the story in my own way of outlining, but it's not a system anyone else could follow, as it's more my way of devling into character and plot simultaneously. Of course, if I get stuck, I will be coming back to this system Diana's mentioned here and giving it a go, because it looks like it could take some of the guesswork out of the fear of whether a story line is working and is being threaded through well enough.

More later...

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

If you remember, I mentioned a little while back that I'd been asked to contribute an essay about New Orleans and Katrina for a book. Well, the amazing publisher, Chin Music Press, is now going to donate all of the profits of all of the books which are pre-ordered through January 6, 2006, to relief efforts in New Orleans.

How amazing is that?

Go here to see their offer and lots of information about the book.

Go here to read the blog which updates you on the process and progress.

I am flattered to be included with such talented writers as Colleen, Jette, and Ray.

Right now in New Orleans and the Chalmette areas, they are bulldozing blocks and blocks and blocks of homes. Acres of homes. Gone. Eighteen wheelers are pulling up to piles of debris stacked up by bulldozers -- debris which used to be a home. Backhoes then lift the home and the personal items and the memories and drop it into the truck. And as the truck pulls away, the bulldozer moves on to the house next door. To begin bulldozing again.

There are stories still coming out of here which break our hearts. There is talk of raising money for Habitat homes for displaced musicians, to try to bring some of the lost culture back to New Orleans so that it won't disappear forever into some oblivion.

I love that this publisher is so awesome that they're trying to help, and trying to do so in a big big way. They're donating all of the pre-order profits. When is the last time you heard of a publisher doing something like that? I hope you'll support them. Please pass along their link to anyone you know who might love a book that is beautifully designed and has some fine writing (and even let me in).

Meanwhile, 100% of my fee will go to Katrina relief as well. I hope to help promote their efforts because really, this is something I can give, some small way to hold onto a piece of New Orleans.

tagged (15 things about books)

Pooks tagged me for a book meme, where the point is to write fifteen things about books. I like this topic. (Imagine that.)

So...

1) My love of reading started very early. I'm not sure if it was because my mom and dad were voracious readers and I always saw them reading, or if it was because I just loved being in a different world than the one I lived in and would have gravitated to books or a sanitarium at some point, anyway. My aunt brought boxes and boxes of books to our house whenever she was finished with them and I'd squirrel off a box or two in my bedroom and be in heaven. I loved going to the library when we were kids and if my memory's correct, I'd check out the maximum I was allowed every time. I love libraries, but suck at returning things on time, so end up buying instead now.

2) I'd stay up and read all night when I was in junior high / high school. My dad routinely had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to go to work. I'd hear his alarm, turn off my light, wait for him to get dressed and leave (because I wasn't supposed to be up so late reading since I had to get up at 6:30 in the morning for school). I'd listen for him to leave, waiting until I heard the whine of the truck engine make the corner and pass out of range (in case he looked back in his rearview mirror, he might be able to see the glow from my room) and then I'd read at least another couple of hours until 4:30. I'm sure most of my high school thought of me as tense, or not terribly friendly and the truth was, I was incredibly sleep deprived. But I still read all night through whenever something grabs me, no matter what I have to do the next day.

3) I think a bookstore is my idea of heaven. I love the thrill of walking in there and seeing so many stories from which to choose. I love the smell of new books, the virgin feel of a text which hasn't been opened yet.

4) It never really occurred to me to just read one genre; I read pretty much everything (except horror). Overdosed on southern fiction and literary fiction for a while there in college, but do love it, still, alongside thrillers and capers and mysteries and... er. I may have a problem.

5) I ended up with a creative writing degree and pursued an MFA. I stopped 6 hours short of the MFA in screenwriting due to the fact that I'd signed with an L.A. agent and had to get another script done (and didn't have time for the two French classes I'd have had to take to graduate.) Seemed a moot point at that time.

6) When given a choice between books and jewelry for Christmas or my birthday, jewelry never even got a consideration. In fact, lots of things completely lost out if I had to choose between them and books.

7) My favorite birthday / vacation idea is a week of no obligations, non-stop read-a-thon.

8) I have a lot of books on my TBR pile, perfect for the rare events like #7.

9) There are too many times I'll end up tossing a book after just a few chapters. I'll give one a chance for that long, but if at that point, I'm not hooked, it just ain't gonna happen. I have too many more on the pile to be read and like Nancy said, life's too short when there really are so many great books out there.

10) I have read many classics (partly as a result of the English degree and the MFA), but constantly hear about so many more I feel like I "ought" to read.

11) Even so, if I have the time to read and there's a current page-turner sitting there vs. an age-old classic that's supposed to be "good" for me to read, I'll hit the page turner every time. I want to be entertained, to escape, to live vicariously.

12) There are a few books I pull out and re-read every year. They're not important books, and they may not have even been a best-seller, but they meant a lot to me at a particular time in my life and re-reading them not only reminds me of where I was, but how far I've come from that point. I think books saved my life, many times over, because I could read about something and start to understand a bit of the world that seemed chaotic to me, or I could find someone who was going through something similar and not feel like I was alone, a complete freak. (Notice that I am not hoping that I'm not a complete freak. I just like knowing I'm not the only one.)

13) One of my prized possessions is a first edition Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time.

14) I didn't read many normal children's classics until I had kids of my own. I read whatever my mom and dad had around (everything from Agatha Christie to Louis L'Amour to whatever the latest bestseller was).

15) Logic flaws will drive me to throw a book at the wall. Especially when there's a clear way to have solved it, if the writer had thought outside the box a bit. It's probably my biggest pet peeve, and a big flaw will make me not want to read that writer again.

Well, hmmm. Fifteen doesn't feel like enough, but I'll stop there and tag Diane, Tamar, and Gwenda.

how do you spell relief?

You spell it: m y a g e n t l o v e d t h e b o o k.

I cannot express how relieved I was. And I know some of my friends are still reading and are going to have notes and I want those notes; I know handing people a big book to both read and critique over a major family holiday means that most people just are not going to be able to do it. I love them for trying, I know several are still reading and seriously? They rock, so no worries about time frame here. (I have the coolest friends.) I am going to still get notes from the editor and I will of course be working hard to keep taking the book up to the best level I possibly can manage, so comments from my regular readers will be much appreciated and utilized. But the fact that the agent read over the busy Thanksgiving weekend, in spite of all of the various events she had to attend, and still called first thing Monday morning (I'm late in posting this)... well, I think my agent hung the moon.

Also, special thanks goes to Tamar for reading over her busy weekend / trip to Boston and getting wonderful comments back to me Sunday night so that my head didn't completely spin off my body from anxiety.

Tamar had previously sent me this blog excerpt from the extremely funny romance writer, Jennifer Cruisie (whose books I think are hysterical and fun). Apparently Jenny Cruisie and Patricia Gaffney have been long-time friends and critiquing partners, and here's Jenny's comments about critiquing something of Patricia's:

But even worse was the time she asked me for help on a manuscript. I feel strongly that the only helpful feedback is honest feedback, but sometimes I am less than tactful, so after I e-mailed her my response, I got an e-mail back from her husband, Jon: Pat had read my critique and died. For the next week I got e-mails from Jon regularly about how devastated he was at his loss, about how all Pat’s friends were calling (“They forgive you”), about how beautiful she was going to look all laid out in her wedding dress (purple chiffon, which I think tells you all you need to know about Patricia Gaffney). And you know, there’s just no way to respond to that; even in death, she had me. Then came the last one. They’d been playing Pat’s favorite song, EmmyLou Harris’s “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down,” at the funeral, and Pat had sat straight up in her coffin and said, “Where am I and why the hell am I wearing all this goddamn purple chiffon?” It was a miracle, Jon said. So I told him I could never critique her again because of the danger to her health. And what happens? She sends me the first two hundred pages of her latest work in progress, Mad Dash, and asks for feedback. And I tell her the truth: It’s fantastic. But even if it wasn’t fantastic, I’d tell her that because, frankly, I don’t need to hear about that damn purple chiffon again.

I cracked up. (And don't think I didn't send Tamar a "Toni died" e-mail from Carl as soon as I got her critique.)

I'm making final little nitpicky edits, and then it will soon go to the editor. Any additional notes I get from friends will be incorporated into the next round. (Have I emphasized enough yet that I still want those notes? hmmmmmmmmmmmm? Should I say it a couple more times? Yes, I'm talking to you.) (heh)

But right now? I am just tremendously relieved.

writing links #2

Once again, links to terrific writing articles by other authors on the web:

Barry Eisler's column on "10 Points on Craft" is one of the best / most succinct writing lessons around. Heed the man's advice; he's an amazing writer.

Martha O'Connor has great advice in her essay, "The Devil is in the Details." Short article, but very good point.

Another excellent article on that same topic to be found at Flogging The Quill.

If you've got way too many subplots spinning around or you just want to figure out a way to analyze whether or not they're working for or against you, read Deanna Carlyle's article " Deanna’s Secret Trick for Dovetailing Subplots." I tend to do this a differently -- a future post.

And last, but not least, Kay Hooper has a very good primer at that link for writers (submission standards, etc.)

If you're a writer and you've got an entry / essay / post that would be of interest, send me an e-mail (see sidebar) and I'll check it out for possible inclusion in a future round-up.

dancin' the Snoopy dance over here

It's done. It's done done done done DONE done DONE. It's officially in the hands of the agent and various friends who are reading it this weekend. (Do I have amazing friends, or WHAT? I mean, seriously. Thanksgiving weekend? Tons of extra stuff to do because of all of the family obligations, and these people are taking time out of their lives to give me a read? I am so very fortunate.)

Of course, it's only DONE until the agent and the various friends give me notes, after which I will see what resonates and then execute prior to sending it off to the editor. Who will then give me notes and...

:::::::la la la la la la la::::: :::::::ignoring whole process of editing::::::

I'm going to pretend it's done. At least for a couple of days.

writing links

I'm short on time, and this is a feature I'd like to repeat weekly... giving you links to some great writing topics.

For an agent's POV, you really must read Miss Snark's blog. Lots of helpful answers, very smart, likeable and funny.

The writing team, PJ Parrish, brings you a funny entry in Cabbages and Kings on writing about sex scenes, particularly in non-romantic tomes.

Tess Gerritsen has several great entries. I love Tess's blog -- check out the entry on 9/28/05 (there are no individual links to entries) on writing the f-word, as well as the entry on 11/07/05 on how much a writer is worth.

MJ Rose writes about shooting oneself in the foot with your in-house publicist, aka, being an idiot. MJ's blog is always chock full of great marketing and writing information.

JA Konrath talks about what he's learned so far.

Colleen Mondor talks about the book we both have an essay in, (along with Jette and Ray). I'll be posting more about this next week as well.

Rob Gregory Browne has a terrific blog with writing advice which is always dead on. That particular entry is very helpful for pacing issues.

And if you're a screenwriter or if you want to read a very funny screenwriting blog, go read Josh Friedman. Josh has a lot of credits under his belt, he knows whereof he speaks, he's completely irreverent and snarky as hell. He hasn't been blogging long and it's really worth it to start at the beginning (which was August, I think) and read through in order. No drinks in front of the keyboard when you're reading, and I'm not responsible for you laughing 'til you embarrass yourself in front of friends at work.

I may keep doing this weekly if there's interest.

The Wheelman

I needed a break the other night, and thought I'd grab a book. I had heard really good things about The Wheelman, which is usually a bad thing, because it's difficult for a book to live up to much hype. I picked it up anyway, knowing I didn't have much time to take a break and I thought, "I'll read a chapter, that'll be it," and I'd go back to work.

I read the whole thing right then. Very well-told, fast-paced, fascinating world and characters and just couldn't put it down.

It's a tense heist-gone-wrong type of story, told from a unique POV. The writer, Duane Swierczynski, (imagine learning to spell that in kindergarten), has a wonderful style that puts you immediately into the action and just doesn't let go. There are twists and I won't say more since I loathe recommendations or reviews that give away the cool surprises of a thriller or mystery. However, if you're looking for a great heist / thriller read, get The Wheelman. (Then go tell Duane how much you liked it.)

they're real, aren't they?

"So if you need me to help you get that paperwork done, you're going to have to remind me."

"That's funny. You usually remind me."

"Yeah, but I have all of these people I'm having to keep track of, now, everything they want, all of the stuff they need to do, where they need to be, who said what to whom. It's a little overwhelming."

"What people?"

"All of them. You know. The people. In my head."

"Mom. You probably shouldn't say that out loud to anyone else."

head in oven time ahead...

Alison Gaylin, over on the First Offenders' Blog wrote in that linked entry about how easy it is to slip into thinking negatively whenever there's a gap of time between when she's handed something in... and is waiting for that response. Given the short amount of time, she was a little self-deprecating about how anxious she'd ended up feeling, but I completely empathize.

I once drove over to hand a friend a script, drove home (all five minutes of drive time), and then sat. And waited. Did I go do something useful? Feed the kids? Prevent the dog from destroying the living room? Put out the bread burning in the oven? Nope. Well, I ended up doing the latter, but it was more inadvertent because I was opening it to consider how quick would death-by-electric-oven be, because the waiting was horrendous. I was going nuts, worried about what she thought.

It had been, maybe, twenty minutes.

I'd like to say I'm much better now.

I'd be lying.

The only difference is that now, I'm aware that it's beyond a little nutty to expect anything back from anyone who reads it that fast because, now brace yourselvs, THE WORLD DOESN'T REVOLVE AROUND ME. I know, freaky, huh? Are you going to be okay? Do you need a drink of water? I'll wait....

Back? Still feeling fuzzy? I know, it's really shocking news, and I gotta tell you, I'm a bit flabbergasted, too, but there you go.

My friends, bless them, have not conspired to stab me over this annoying paranoia and have, instead, been very kind and read as quickly as they can. They may be hiring Guido for this next round, though, when I give them the book to proofread for me (next month), since a book is far more to read than a script, and I'll be sitting there, pressing my face on their windows, tapping "Open, open, open," on their IM boxes or e-mails. Luckily, I run faster than most of them.

Of course, I'm not entirely sure I can run faster than Guido, so maybe I'll find something to occupy my time while I'm waiting.

Other than oven cleaning. Wouldn't want to get too tempted there.

finish line

At 8:20 this morning, I wrote "The End" on the rough draft of the book. This is after staying up all night because the last section was flowing in a way I hadn't ever experienced before.

The feeling of finishing is... strange. After sleeping / resting today after finishing, I woke up and immediately started feeling weird that I wasn't writing. Disoriented. I've been pushing so hard to write (while still running the construction company, and, of course, family stuff) for the last few months, to finally hit the finish line feels surreal. Like I've misplaced a limb somewhere, maybe just in the other room.

Now starts the next phase: the edit. The first part of the book is fairly well polished, but I'll be spending the next month doing a final edit / polish in order to turn it in by the due date (Nov. 30th). "Final" in the sense that this is the edit prior to turning it in to my agent and editor.

(Okay, full confession -- I was going to wait until at least tomorrow before starting the edit because you're "supposed" to take a break and celebrate, but I've already started on the edit this evening. What can I say? I don't deal well with non-writing, limb-leaving-in-the-other-room.)

on finding your "voice"

Over on Backspace, a writer's board I sometimes frequent, there was an interesting discussion about how to find one's "voice" in writing. Voice is that elusive thing, part style, part tone, part phrasing that is particular to you, the writer, or particular to your story/setting, and yet, still part mystery alchemy no one quite knows how to qualify. One of the moderators, Karen, quoted David Morrell who emphasized at Bouchercon that authors needed to "keep it real."

Good advice which can be applied to many things. Having not heard Morrell's advice directly, I wanted to elaborate on it a bit in the Backspace discussion, and thought I'd bring over that post here:

I agree, one meaning of "keep it real" is about cutting out the affected writing. It's also about cutting writing the way we think we "should" write because we're aware we're going to eventually be judged when someone reads it. There's a fine line there, which is difficult to perceive when anyone is starting out... the "yikes, I'm a complete newbie and this really sucks" to the "this is breaking the rules, but I know why and it works and I'm doing it anyway." I think the way to know if you've made it to the latter point is through feedback.

But I digress.

I think the thing about making it real as it relates to style is to think about how you would tell this story as an oral story teller, when there wouldn't be a written record to prove later on if you used all the right grammar or syntax or whatever. When you're telling a story, you end up infusing that story with something of yourself, something of your own style of communication, whether it's to know how to scare the bejesus of out everyone or leaving them crying or rolling with laughter. There's something YOU about your delivery. That's style.

Think of some stand up comedianes for example. There's the manic delivery, the dry, slow ironic delivery, the worldy delivery, the baffoon, etc. Each of those people figured out what it was about their delivery in a few jokes that worked, and then organized their material in such a way as to maximize their style.

Take this same notion, then, and think about your story. You have to marry what it is about you and your delivery that works for the story, that gives that extra impact. The same joke told by Rita Rudner is going to be vastly different if told by Dane Cook. (To randomly pick two different deliveries.) If the story would benefit from spare, sparse, staccato delivery, then that's a style. In my particular book, the main character is pretty outrageous, so the whole book has a style that reflects that.

Finally, you can't be embarrassed about your style. You can't beat yourself up and wonder what the critics are going to say, what the literary crowd will say, what the reviewers will say... and I think this fear sits on every writer's shoulders. There will always be people who'll pick anything apart. If you want to succeed, you gotta write like no one's judging and just tell the story. Your voice is already there. You just gotta listen.

I recently e-mailed with Colleen over at her new (very excellent) blog, Chasing Ray that I knew I was risking getting slammed by critics because my style is so very "in your face." Readers, however, seem to love it - it works well with the character. I have no idea what a reviewer will think, and when I was first working on the book, long before anyone read it, I had to come to terms with the idea that one day, I could get crucified for the tone, for the hyperbole, for the unapologetic outrageousness of the main character. She lives out loud. Very. Out. Loud. In the first few (sucky) attempts at finding the voice, I kept reining her in, thinking that no one would ever like her. At some point, I finally just sat down and admitted that this character was who she was. I couldn't judge her. I couldn't keep pulling punches because who she was wouldn't work that way. I had to let go of the fear of rejection for me as a writer. I had to go ahead and risk what people are going to think about me as a person in order to get to the truth of the character. Once I made my peace with that? The story rocked, and then it sold on the proposal... so the gut instinct was right.

That still doesn't mean reviewers will like it. But what the hell. You have to be true to your instincts, or what good are you as a writer? If we all write to be safe, then we're not being unique. And I'd rather be crucified for being legitimately who I am, for writing honestly, than play the safe bets. Safe bets are boring. And the cardinal rule in writing, the only rule we damned well better not break is, don't be boring.

thrilled for Rob!

Whoooohoooo, I am so excited and proud for my friend, Rob, who just closed a deal for two more books. He's an excellent writer and I've had the privilege of reading his first, which is a stunning thriller. I can't wait 'til all of you get to read it, too.

Such great news for so deserving a friend! Yay! Go, read his blog. He's got terrific advice there for other writers.

didn't disappear, just working like mad

Two quickie things... my Katrina essays below ended up interesting a wonderful publisher of a sort of anthology book on New Orleans, and I'm very pleased to say he requested an essay and as of this morning, it was turned in and accepted, so yay! My understanding from seeing another book from this publisher is that it's going to be really beautiful. More when I know the pub date specifics.

Secondly, I'm madly nearing the end of the writing of the book, which is going well. The first half is already pretty much edited, so I'll have to continue that through the second half. I've been making notes to myself along the way of the things I want to check, the nuances, etc., so there is still work ahead, but I'm pretty much on target to finish it / polish it in time for the deadline to hand it to my editor. (My agent will get it early, of course.)

More rantings and ravings tomorrow(ish).

writing -- what to submit? and when?

I obviously haven't been doing all that many writing-related posts lately, since the hurricanes riveted my attention to my state, but I received a question via e-mail, and I thought I'd answer it here. The submission process is confusing since so many different things "could" work, and there are a lot of myths out there. I've seen this site referenced on a couple of writer groups as a way of demonstrating that someone "broke the rules," based on the way I submitted and sold / signed a three-book deal, and there's an implicit "so, take that, you rule-makers" feeling... which I don't blame anyone for having, but I wanted to demystify the process a little and give a summary of what happened and why. It's not so simple as "Well, that woman broke the rules, I can too."

The question, as asked by a reader (I.D. info hidden):

I have a question. I am currently working on a novel and have a detailed 20 page section-by-section outline of the plot, setting, characters and themes, with snippets of scenes and dialouge. I have friends in MFA writing programs and they have all told me that if an author has not previously published, then one needs to have a minimum of a partial and a synopsis in order to get an agent and an entire manuscript must be written in order to secure a book deal.

However, recently, I've been hearing of writers that "get book deals" on the basis of just a synopsis. I don't know if that means they are offered the first half of the proposed advance when the manuscript is finished and the second half when the manuscript is edited or if it works in another way. As I work full time and would love to have a little money to take 6 months off to finish this thing, I am of course curious as to your thoughts on how I can make the most of a synopsis (if at all, seeing that I am unpublished).

I'd be much appreciative of any advice!

First, thanks to the reader for asking. (And so nicely!)

Here's my response:

I hope I can be of help. I'll tell you the stats, first, and why they are that way and then why I was the freakish exception. I'll answer the advance question in another post.

To start off, I haven't heard of any writers getting a book deal on "just" a synopsis alone -- unless these are established writers and their talent is already a known factor in the decision-making process. There may have been a tiny number (like four, or five) book deals based on the author's website (as an example) instead of an actual manuscript or sample chapters, and that author may have used a synopsis to show how they were going to turn their source material into a book and the deal was structured off of that synopsis, but this is so rare, you'd be more likely to win two lotteries this year first. Unless, of course, you have a wildly popular website and get thousands of visitors daily. Then, and likely only then, will that work for you. The only other way I've heard of this working is if the publisher is buying an "as told to" account of some event in a person's life (which means there's a ghostwriter doing the actual writing and you can be sure the publisher knows their work ahead of time), or the person is a celebrity (all bets are off for that... most celebs have a ghostwriter or a co-writer, but a small minority write their own books... publishers will make these deals because the popularity of the celebrity is what sells the books, not the quality of writing).

So, then, what's the procedure? How does it work? Why did something else work for me? And what does this mean for you?

Statistic-wise, it's really freakishly rare for someone to get an agent or a publishing contract without having finished the whole book. At a minimum, when you are querying an agent, you need to have about 50(ish) pages to submit -- OR -- three sample chapters (even if that means going over the 50 page guideline). My first three chapters took 83 pages, for example. Other people write really short chapters (like five pages), so that would be too little, and therefore, they'd need to submit more chapters.

Now, here's the gut-check: if an agent likes what they read of the first three chapters, they are going to want to see the whole book. Right then. They're not going to be too thrilled with having to wait until you finish it. Most agents, most of the time, will not even consider taking a partial manuscript out to publishers, *especially* if that author is unpublished. For one thing, writing the whole book is hard, even if you've got the money to do it, and publishers have been burned numerous times by "pro" writers who were supposed to finish a book and then didn't. Or finished it and gave the publisher something so radically different than what was agreed upon, the publisher didn't accept it. If it's that hard for previously published authors to finish something, publishers assume -- unfairly or not -- that an unpublished author would have an even more difficult time because the terrain is so new to them. The publishers are therefore highly unlikely to take a risk, or at least a risk for very much money. Which means it's not very lucrative for an agent to try to sell a partial. As a result, most agents are not willing to waste their time trying. So if you query an agent and you're not finished with the novel, there's a decent chance that many who requested it will be annoyed and won't bother with you later, when you do have it finished. Other possibilities: they will pressure you to finish it "soon" OR you'll end up trying to do so in a shorter span of time than what you normally would have had available and everything can suffer as a result.

(Believe me, I completely empathize with the working full-time and needing to have extra money in order to take time off to write... but it just doesn't usually happen that way.)

Second, a synopsis isn't the detailed type of thing described in the reader's question above (though that's good he's done that -- it'll help in the writing process). A synopsis is a 10 to 15 page (double-spaced) selling tool. It's the telling of the story as if you were sitting down telling it to a friend: you hit the highlights of the emotional track of the story while giving the most important (and only the most important) plot beats / twists, all the way through the end of the story. (I will write more on how to write a synopsis later.) The synopsis is written in third person, present tense, regardless of what you've used for the actual novel. It does not include character lists, character outlines, or an entire beat sheet for the novel.

Never send an agent a bunch of stuff they don't request, by the way. For example, the character stuff the reader mentioned doing above in his question -- good to have, good to use, not good to send.

Please note the NEVER above. When my agent read the query letter, she requested the whole manuscript instead of just the sample chapters. I didn't have the whole manuscript, so I wrote back and asked if it was okay to send the sample chapters and a synopsis. I asked before assuming it would be okay. She said fine, and it worked well for me. But I think she appreciated knowing the truth ahead of time -- that the book wasn't finished.

So why, if all of this can't be done, did I do it? Well, flukes, lots of amazing good luck and a lot of hard work.

First, the hard work: I've been writing and getting published for years. I've sold a lot of non-fiction and edited a magazine (regional), sold a small number of national non-fic articles to big magazines before switching gears into fiction; I also had nearly finished an MFA in Screenwriting, landed a screenwriting agent and had a script optioned. I wasn't new to writing, and the people who ended up helping me knew that. Second, I've finished a lot of full-length works (scripts) and through the years, made a tremendous number of contacts with other writers who read my stuff and vice versa. This is, perhaps, the most important thing I did -- learn how to get feedback, learn how to know what to use of that feedback, learn how to seek out really good writers who were also interested in trading works. I didn't think of this as a "network" and, at the time, I'm pretty sure none of these people were sold / published. This has changed a lot over the years, but the core group are all excellent writers, and I admire their work. Even so, it wasn't about trying to network as much as it was about trying to learn to be a better writer. (This isn't a lecture, by the way -- this is just what worked for me. Lots of other people hate to show their stuff and they end up selling fine. More on how to know when you're ready to submit in another column.)

Anyway, I have a track record with friends. I originally wrote this story as a script for my own use -- I wanted the story outlined so I could write the novel, and since I'd written many scripts, doing a script-as-an-outline was easy for me. It was still a royal pain-in-the-ass to move from script format into prose format in the beginning (a subject for another column.)

So, having written it as a script, I showed it to a friend who was staying here at the time. She loved it (laughing out loud very often from the other room -- which is still, to this day, one of my top ten days as a writer, because that laughter was like gold... it was so shocking and wonderful to hear), and then she asked if she could send it to a friend of hers who would enjoy it. Since she trusted this friend, "E," I figured, "why not?"

I had no clue E would end up doing all that she did.

E read it, loved it, and said if I ever decided to write it as a book, to let her know. I was already doing so, and told her that. Turns out that E -- unbeknownst to me -- was a best-selling author in another genre. She writes under a pen name and my friend here hadn't told me because E liked to protect her privacy. E loved the sample chapters. She gave me notes and I thought they were brilliant and helpful. (Small notes, but extremely enlightening.) She then helped a great deal in teaching me how to do a synopsis well. (That poor woman had the courage to keep reading drafts after a particularly atrocious first attempt. She really deserves a halo.)

After I had revised the chapters and synopsis, E re-read them and asked if she could pitch my book to an editor she knew. She also gave me a referral to an agent. The editor asked to see the project about the same week that the agent read the partial (three chapters and synopsis) and was interested in representing me. (She asked if the book was a stand-alone or a series. I said, "series" -- at which point, she asked if I could put together a synopsis for two more books. I did so over a weekend. Hardest weekend of my writing life.)

The agent gave the editor one week to have the material as an exclusive; after which, St. Martin's Press made a pre-emptive bid for a three-book deal. The rest, as they say, is history.

Would my query into this same agent have worked if I hadn't been referred by E to her? I have no idea. I did have a lot of writing experience to note in my query, and I have run a business for years -- which says a lot about the kind of person I am to a potential agent. (Finishes projects on time, self-starter, etc.) (This is a question I should let my agent answer.)

It's possible that the editor would have read it, too, but then, I never would have known which editor to pick and she's absolutely wonderful, so again, would I have gotten to the right person? I'll never know.

I went around for months after the sale still absolutely gobsmacked over my luck... because it's a helluva lot of luck going on in this story, and I couldn't fathom it. But several of my friends pointed out that I wasn't doing anyone reading this scenario here a true service if I didn't also mention all of the years of hard work that went into that luck. Yes, I had the right project at the right time and place for the right person to see, and that's just damned lucky, no matter how you slice it. But getting that project to that point? Well, lots of hard work. My friends (who have annoyingly good memories) remind me of earlier drafts which sucked, which I knew sucked with the massive suckage of a Grand Cayon sized vacuum, so great was the suckage, and I'd toss it all and start over, until I found the right voice, found the right way to create the world. I have a blessedly short memory where none of that happened. (heh) But, when forced to remember the growing pains of the project I remember too well that earlier drafts just weren't ready to be seen yet, by anyone other than my regular writing friends.

What this means to you:

All the luck in the world isn't going to help if you don't have the right project at the right time. There are a lot of people who are happy to point out the negative odds against writers, but I find that pretty useless. Odds don't mean anything if you're in the right place at the right time, and you've done the work. If I had handed my friend something she'd mildly liked, she probably would have given me some encouragement and notes, but I doubt she would have referred me on to her friend, the published writer. After all, she wouldn't want to burn that relationship by sending E a lot of stuff that E wouldn't love, ya know? So the real question to you is, are you getting people you already know to read it and if they are, are they going nuts over how good it is? Not just nice comments, encouraging words, but full out luuuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvvvve. If they're doing the latter, then by all means, query an agent. There are a lot of agents and you'll get read by at least a couple and you just never know. If, however, you're not getting that sort of reaction, then be honest with yourself and don't push to do this so soon - because you don't want to shoot a good project in the foot by getting it out there too early. Workshop it with friends. Get notes. Don't do all the notes unless they really resonate with you, of course, but learn where your weaknesses are, etc.

I have no idea what will eventually happen with the book. There's a wonderful designer working on the book's site now, and when it's live, I'll post a link back here. I'm not one to post all of the ups and downs and play-by-plays, but I do have a few more ideas as mentioned above that I'd like to write about or occasionally answer a question.

Best of luck...

I'm not sure how to answer that.

I have actually had to say, out loud to a stranger, that I'm a writer. (I bought a car and they asked me what I did for a living.) I fully expected the cynical eyebrow. You know the one, where it snaps up so high, it stabs their hairline and they start gushing blood. Yeah, that look. I was so certain that they wouldn't believe me when I said I had actually gotten paid (you know, enough to call it a "living" to justify giving me a car loan) that I went prepared: I brought a copy of the contract, a copy of the check, a copy of the deposit slip, a copy of the bank statement, a copy of all my financials, a copy of my birth certificate and marriage license to prove I was the person on said copies, my shoe size, a list of my favorite hiding places, the address to my evil twin, Skippy, and my aliases.

They never looked at any of it.

Nada.

They did, however, look (briefly) at my driver's license, which I no longer even resemble. I used to have blonde hair, and now it's back to brunette and cut differently and I'd lost weight and basically, anyone off the street could have grabbed that license and looked as much like my photo as I did. Indiana Jones looks as much like that photo as I do now.

So, they glance at the license, write down my SS#, go run the credit, never look at any of my financials, and they gave me the keys to the car. The entire time I was sitting there, I kept expecting the big vaudeville hook to snatch me out of the showroom, because who the hell believes a writer actually makes money?

I still feel like I got away with something, though I'm not quite sure what. I really wish they'd written down evil Skippy's address, though.

People so far have been exceptionally supportive when they hear (usually from my mom) that I've sold something. (I think my mom's covered about one third of the western hemisphere. You hear your phone ringing? Don't recognize the number? It's my mom. She'll go away as soon as you tell her you'll buy the book.) Anyway, everyone's been great, but occasionally, someone will say something which completely stumps me. I'm not quite sure what to say in response. Here are a few examples:

"You got a shark in your book? Because if you don't, you really should put a shark in it. That's what sells 'em." (er, okay... a shark in the swamps in Louisisana... maybe that could work)

"When will your book come out? All of my Sunday School friends and I have a book club, and we can't wait to read your book!" (Well, will they faint to read "fuck," "hell," "sonofabitch," or "goddamnit?" 'Cuz if so, can you videotape the meeting?)

"You should have a wizard in it. A wizard and a shark. Man, you could have a wizard that has to beat a shark. Wow, you'd sell billions." (:::blank:::)

"Wow, you're gonna be like that JK Rowling chick." (I don't think my mom can buy that many books, but I'll ask her.)

"When you get rich, are you still gonna be nice to the little people?" (I'm 5'3"... you mean, there are people littler?)

"Hey, can you get that Harry Potter lady's autograph for me?" (Uh, yeah, sure. Jo and I are thisclose. It's getting to the point of being annoying, with her constantly coming over here, borrowing my clothes, asking my advice, whining about being a billionaire and how much pressure that's going to be on her next series of books. I keep telling her that it's not my damned fault she's richer than God, go harrass Him for a little while, but damnit, here she comes again. Ugh.)

"I don't read books, but I guess I'll have to buy one, since I know you and all." (Sure, why not. Hey, all's fair in love and war, baby.)

y'all take care,

toni

I am / am not / am crazy

I'd mentioned somewhere in the last post or so that I would put up a link to the announcement in the trades -- which turns out not to be possible to view unless you have a membership, and that's a hassle for everyone. However, a friend saw the announcement mentioned by another blogger / book reviewer (whom I do not know) and so my friend posted an entry which includes the announcement and details and also a link to the book reviewer's blog entry. So if you're curious about the book, you can go there.

I signed the contracts a week ago-Friday. Real, honest-to-goodness contracts which have all of the little things in there like my name and the name of the book (which may end up being changed because the editor wants something that sounds more like a series title, and right now I have no clue what that will be), to things like the deadlines and obligations and rights. For the first time, it felt really, seriously, honest-to-goodness real.

I promptly had my first major league panic attack about ten minutes after they were in the mail.

Seriously, is it too late to decide to be a ballerina? Or a sherpa? Or a lamp salesperson? Because really, I could be a great lamp salesperson.

ohmygoodness

I knew that Diane from Nobody Knows Anything was sending me something, though I had no clue what. And I hadn't read this entry yet, so I remained clueless when the box arrived at my front door. I was on the phone to Pooks when I opened it, and saw that it was something edible (always a good choice for gifts for me) and, even better, chocolate. (I highly emphatically encourage this kind of gift-giving!)

Then I took a bite. And ohmygod, my knees went weak and I think my eyes rolled to the back of my head. Carl is going to be so jealous. heh. These brownies are so freaking good, they should be labeled "orgasmic brownies" and sold on the black market. Wow. (I cannot follow a mix on a box without something going significantly wrong, so I am doubly impressed that she made these from scratch!)

I do have to say, the names of the kinds of books she was finding (hypothetically, of course) were cracking me up when I read that entry today. I think the first one sums up how I was feeling for a couple of days... not, mind you, because anything went badly, but because it all keeps sounding so good. I cannot possibly live up to this image the agent / editor have. I am doomed. (I'll get over it, it's just how I felt after the first conversation with the editor.)

Which (hey, look ma! segue!) went really well, which of course, freaked me the hell out. I mean, I'm used to getting notes from screenwriting people -- execs, agent, etc. -- where I am basically told, "Wow, we loved it! It's perfect! Can you completely change it now? And we're probably not going to pay you! Thanks!" Instead, this editor was almost bashful about having a couple of questions, and then when I did flesh some stuff out, just kept agreeing with me, saying, "Oh, I love that!

Wow. I never expected the world of fiction to be so much better. Can I just say right now how much I love my agent and my editor? Loooooovvvveee them.

I have the deadlines now. I have to turn this book in Nov. 30th, which means a publication date of either very late in '06 or the spring of '07. The agent / editor were finalizing some of the contract stuff today, which is something they had to do prior to making any sort of notice in the trades. If and when they do make the announcement, I'll still post it here. And probably, at that point, have to figure out what I'm going to do with this space. This blog had always been a sort of release for me for the silly things that happen, but with real world deadlines, I'm not sure what it'll be. Maybe it'll stay the same. I would like to do a separate blog specifically for the book, and I have some ideas about how I want to do that, so maybe I'll keep them separate. Dunno. Watch this (chocolately goodness!!!) space.

Thanks, Diane -- you are amazing. (As are the brownies.)

gobsmacked

This is an entry I never really thought I'd get to write. It still doesn't feel entirely real, yet.

The agent closed a deal today for the book and two sequels. THE BOOK I HAVEN'T FINISHED WRITING, MIND YOU. The publishing company made a preemptive bid and after some haggling (oy with the haggling!!), we came to an agreement and it's a done deal. It's a pretty good deal, actually, and I'm sort of bumfuzzled. One month ago, I had no clue I'd even have an agent, much less a great one, much less one who could get a three-book deal with a major publisher for a writer who has never published a book before, based solely on three sample chapters and a synopsis (and an outline).

There will be lots of conversations next week between the agent and the editor (who called and man, with her enthusiasm, you just could not ask for a better phone call)... anyway, they'll hammer out the details and they are going to talk about making an announcement in some of the trades. (I think they may mean strictly the online trades, but I don't know.) When there's a link to the formal announcement, I'll put it up here. Which will kill my low-key anonymity (such as it is), but I'll deal.

Meanwhile, I'm freaking gobsmacked.

fell off the damned planet...

Thank you to so many people who left notes here or e-mailed to see if I had fallen off the planet. Seriously, I had no intention of not being around here for, geez, three months! It's been extremely busy at my house, with craziness aplenty. Including more work than we've ever had, Jake getting injured (multple broken bones in his cheek, then surgery, but he's okay now), lots and lots of travel for said work, travel to a friend's house, then coming home and signing with an agent. (Yup, surprised the hell out of me, too.) The agent has a proposal (three sample chapter, that damned synopsis that drove me nuts but finally was fairly decent, and the script-to-use-as-an-outline.) I have no clue what will happen, but right now, I am supposed to be "hurrying up" and writing the book. So I will be back, sporadically. I'll try for a consistent schedule (like Mondays or Wednesdays or something).

Meanwhile, just to give you a glimpse into one day that I had... I was traveling from Los Alamos, NM back to here, and had a connecting flight in Houston. When I say to you that every single nightmare I had ever had occurred on that one trip, save for crashing (and that was looking pretty likely too, at one point), I'm not kidding. I've flown a decent amount of times and I've always been pretty lucky. Got to the airport on time (well, except for once and that was Carl's fault and I totally had to stand in the doorway of the plane to keep them from taking off without him while he was parking the truck... pre 911, of course.) But in the back of my mind, I would occasionally think of something and think, "Boy, if that happened while I was flying, that would totally suck." Well, apparently, I used up all my good Karma going over to NM because on the way home, it totally bit me in the ass. For example...

... have to drive two hours to the airport only to be nearly sideswiped right at the exit to the airport?... check.

... stand in line at the ticket counter because the computer won't read your printed out e-ticket... and have them say to you that even though it is printed right there and even though they can verify that the bar code is legitimate... you don't actually have a ticket?... check.

... finally get a ticket (thirty minutes later), and go to stand in line for security and realize there are probably more than a thousand people in that line... check.

... then realize that line is the line to get to the line for security... check.

... get yelled at by a complete stranger because she thinks you're "butting in" line when a new line opens up and the attendant had directed you to come forward... check.

... get half-way to the security machines to hear your name called on the loudspeaker... and not be able to hear the "why"... check.

... get back to ticketing (after being sent to the wrong place first) to learn they had accidentally locked your suitcase and now needed the combo because anything locked has to be searched... check.

... go back to security and get the really thorough treatment, since you are obviously now suspicious for having been pulled out of line once... check.

... start your period, and it's a really bad day... check.

... wait in line for something to eat and then discover, once you're well past the restaurant and about to board that it is literally inedible... check.

... board... and sit on the tarmac for over an hour because all flights into Houston are delayed due to a huge storm... check.

... go to the bathroom on the plane and have the door yanked open by a really big guy (because the latch didn't hold)... check.

... squeal (inadvertently) and have half of the back of the plane look straight at you while you're on the toilet because they have nothing else to do... check.

... get into Houston, park at the wrong gate and are told that things "might be a little different" than they'd planned, due to cancellations... check.

... enter a freaking madhouse of thousands of people stranded, confused, non-working computers, long long long lines, being sent to multiple gates at multiple buildings because the computers are all wrong, being told to RUN to the next building because you're boarding in ten minutes, have the tram malfunction five feet from the door to the next building and the tram won't open, spontaneously combust... check.

... finally get out of the tram, run over little old ladies, kids, puppies, everyone, have the NFL offer to sign you up, you're so good at the running over people part, get to the entrance to the gate area which has four or five gates, big round room, and it's literally standing room only... check.

... push past (easily) a thousand people and go up to the front of the counter and ask if you're supposed to be boarding and have the attendant say, "What do you want ME to do about it?" (Um, answer the freaking question?)... check.

... have her laugh when you explain you were told to run because your plane was boarding because not only is it not boarding, there is no plane... check.

... next three flights are cancelled... check.

... finally get on standby, finally get on the plane (last standby called)... told after you are on the plane that the bathroom doesn't work... check.

... sit on tarmac for a while because they are confused... check.

... have the flight attendant announce that they are going to offload 1000 gallons (or pounds, I forget which) of fuel... because that wouldn't scare anyone... check.

... sit for another thirty minutes... taxi around... and taxi... and taxi... (secretly wonder if they plan on just driving the plane from Houston to Baton Rouge)... and all the while, there is an awful whining noise and one of the men in the back where you're sitting says, "You know, that sounds like a fuel pump that isn't engaging." ... check.

... look out his window... his prop engine is working... look out yours... and yours isn't... check.

... have a technician board the plane, enter the cockpit and plug something in... check.

... call your husband and say, "Seriously, we're taking bets in the back here... I have that the wheels will fall off, so if that happens, you tell the airline they owe you big."... check.

... fly into BR and learn that you're flying into the storm that had caused the chaos in Houston... check.

... finally get to the luggage carousel, all fifty of you, and watch the luggage go around, and around, and around... and no one's picking anything up... because none of it it's our luggage and there is no more luggage being off-loaded... check.

... leave and realize that the taco you have on the way home is the first real food you've been able to eat all day (because the lines at the airport were horrendous)... check.

The only good part was that they found the luggage and miraculously, delivered it early the next morning to my back door, which is fairly amazing, since I live a fair distance from the airport. But I'm hoping, crossing fingers and knocking on wood, that I've now had my share of bad-flying-events and can count on the next few flights being relatively stress-free. (One can always hope.)

writerly stuff

For some truly inspiring writing, which happens to be about a trip to the US, go read Notes from a Darkened Room. Michael has a way with description which captures the image as crisply as a photo and yet, with the depth and texture of emotion and living that a mere photo couldn't conjure. (He writes so well, I simultaneously admire the hell out of him and hate him. Higher praise does not exist for me.) I believe the trip story starts here.

holidailies

Thanks to everyone for the fun comments on the Santa from Hell entry below -- so glad everyone's laughing. (Hey, some good had to come out of it.)

And welcome to the Holidailies bunch surfing through. It's a great set of writers / journaler / bloggers, so if you're surfing in and looking for some great reads, try this portal:

the damned synopsis

Finished it.

Am certain it's terrible.

And apparently, "short" doesn't exist in my universe. It's twice as long as it's supposed to be.

But it's done. Well... written. Now I am editing it because my friend-with-the-agent wants it soon to send to her agent.

At least I won't have to have "and I'm still working on the damned synopsis" on my tombstone. grrrr.

when you least expect it

Script / novel update. Normal entries back by Friday.

Last week, a producer in L.A. e-mailed me about trying once again to get the romantic comedy made. She had a new avenue she wanted to pursue, which was nice to hear, but I had to check on the producer here who had been telling me over and over that she wanted to make it. I understood why she hadn't progressed here... first, they had landed a bunch of films to be shot here, several were bigger budgets than their originally planned $3 to $5 million budgets, and several have pretty big-named stars attached... all of which means she's working like crazy to keep everything running. In addition, she was divorcing one partner and buying out a third. And signing an exclusive distribution deal and some other financing deal which would give her her own discretionary money to develop her own films. (The films she's shooting now are financed by an outside entity and she does all of the actual production work here; they do this because Louisiana has offered a tremendous number of incentives to bring films here, which seems to be working.)

At any rate, I didn't know if she was still going to want to make mine. I had heard through some of her employees that she still did, but it's not the same thing as hearing it from her directly. And then she called this morning, telling me about the above mentioned distribution deal and financing (I knew things because I have a friend on her staff) and telling me all the things she was now ready and able to do to get the film made. She called it a "slam dunk" which surprised me. She's going after the MOW market first because, believe it or not, for a film this size, that's the best scenario for us to make more money. However, should that not work, she believes she can now get it made as an indie.

What shocked me was that she also had been holding onto my big budget action / comedy and also wants to make it here. I'm fairly shocked, to tell you the truth, because it's going to have to be a really big budget, at least twice what she's currently doing, if not greater, but she seems to think that's not a problem. I'm not giving her free reign to make it -- she hasn't optioned it -- but I'm willing to let her run with it for a little while and see how far she gets. Which will help me, ironically, with the book.

The book is the novel version of that big action comedy. The best-selling author friend who read it, loved it, and only had minor notes. She was at a meeting with an editor from a big publishing house last weekend and pitched her the book and now the editor wants to see it. I'm supposed to be finishing a synopsis so she can give the chapters and the synopsis to her own agent so that he can be the one to submit it to the editor. Meanwhile, another author read it and was extremely positive about it (so far, she still has a couple of chapters to read), but she's a best-seller in the same genre, so if she continues to like what she reads, I think I can get a blurb from her... which would help also with the agent and how he represents it to editors.

I just have to finish the damned synopsis, which I hate writing. And get a letter from the producer. And keep the producer moving forward and not getting too side-tracked with other projects. And... and... and...

It could all still be air. It's kinda nice air today and I'm glad it's good and I'm going to enjoy it for a few minutes, but mostly, I'm tired of being "almost" there. I've been doing the almost thing now for too too long, and hopefully, it'll move on into actual thereness very soon. (Of course, nothing will happen during the holdiays, so expect nothing else until spring, probably.)

Thus endeth the update. Funny will be back here tomorrow. If it can waddle this direction again.

why kerry lost -- a writer's analysis...

... or flawed characters and why they win.

[It is very long. Very. Non-partisan, and no bashing and strictly using a writer's analysis, but it is long.]

[I'm breaking from the short fun posts or story posts for one day because I have an analysis that I haven't seen anywhere else which, I think, starts addressing the "why" of this election outcome. There will be funny back here tomorrow.]

For a moment, I'm setting issues aside. I don't think this election was won or lost on issues, anyway. I think it was won and lost on how much or little people identified with a candidate. You may wholly disagree, and that's fine. There is no one finite explanation which, posted on a blog, would encompass all of the vast variety that is the American political process. This is simply a different way to look at the problem, one I haven't seen analyzed quite like this.

Whenever a writer develops a character for a story, they often (even after years of experience), want to make that character an "every man" or "every woman" so that anyone who happened to read it could identify with that character. You see this especially when they're writing an archetypal hero who does everything right and nothing wrong except maybe by accident.

It almost never works.

What ends up happening is that the author doesn't fully commit to any peculiarities or questionable qualities because they're afraid of offending this group or that group and what they end up with is mostly bland and basic (at best) and generally vague and confusing and theoretical (at worst). Readers won't follow a character like that through a story. They can't identify with anything in the character, and so their attention wanders and they feel disconnected.

Disconnection with the character is generally a sign that the story won't sell.

For a character to feel real and wholly three dimensional, the author has to find a way to do two things: make the character unique and yet make the character appeal to (hopefully) a large audience. Writers who know their craft well enough know the secret: it's all in the flaws.

Everybody has flaws. What happens when we read about a character's flaws is an interesting phenomenon, because while we might be really put off that person in real life, (because we are on the outside looking in to the repercussions), when we read (or watch a movie), we see what the character is going through, what they're faced with, and we empathize. And through that process, we recognize ourselves and our own flaws. It's a reciprocal process, and it's hard to say exactly which comes first -- recognizing the flaws in others and their struggle and then empathizing because we have the same sort of struggle, just maybe a slightly different problem... or realizing we have problems with certain things and seek out characters who walk down similar paths because we can identify with them.

Here's the irony: even if someone is seriously flawed, even if we really abhor their actions because they create difficulties for the people around them or have extreme negative consequences for innocent bystanders, if we have already identified with them, we keep identifying with them, because most of us have been through rough times, most of us have made at least one bone-headed choice or done something which was so patently stupid, they should sing songs about it, and we generally did that thing either through simply being oblivious or believing in it, however misguided that may be.

Think about what "identifying with" a character means... seeing oneself as that person or seeing something of that person in oneself. It's hard to make people turn against "themselves" once they see themselves in the character.

The same is true of politics.

There will be a raging debate as to what all went wrong with this election for the Democrats; CNN just had a discussion about how the Democrats have moved away from the hard-core liberals which give its party its focus, so to speak, because they were trying to court the center / moderates of both parties, and that's probably true. Laura over at 11D posted this entry about what went wrong, and she mentions a piece in the Times by Kristof who quotes Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, "What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."

Earlier in his piece, Kristof quotes Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," when he says:

I think this misses the mark. It's a specious argument, to be certain, and there is some truth in it, but it misses the fundamental problem with the election, and that was that a huge portion of America didn't really understand who Kerry was or how what he was going to do was going to help them. They didn't feel like they knew him or understood him or, worst offense of all, could identify with him. (Before your head blows up, just allow me a moment here...)

Bush is flawed. He is all kinds of flawed. Attacking those flaws seemed to be the fundamental strategy of the Kerry campaign from the beginning. The problem with that strategy is that a lot of ordinary Americans perceive themselves as having those same flaws. So let's look at a couple just as an example:

Bush can't pronounce words well. Do you know how many Americans suffer from dylexia, ADD, Autism, Asperger's, or other learning disabilities and don't pronounce words well? Clear and articulate annunciation is not a sign of someone's intelligence, yet it was clear from blog entries all over the internet that people thought Bush was stupid. (I'm not saying he isn't; I'm saying the use of annunciation as a benchmark was a bad choice.) Because what happens is that there are millions of Americans for whom college (some, all or grad school) is not an option, whether through finances or simply because that's not what they excel in. If there is wholesale ridicule of a flaw that many Americans can identify with... where do you think that's going to put that group of Americans? On the side of the person being ridiculed, because they can identify with him.

Bush is a "right wing nutjob." Some of this criticism is due to his politics, some to his religion, most to his insistence on dragging his religion into the nation's politics, and all of it probably justified. Here's the problem: Kristof states that:

I agree with most of what he says except the "take revenge" part. I think what it really boils down to is feeling defensive... feeling attacked themselves. They may not share much of Bush's religious philosophy, but they shared some of it, and when the vitriol spewed against everything remotely religious, they, too, felt persecuted.

You generally don't vote for the side you feel is making fun of you or persecuting you or thinks that, if you have certain values, you're stupid.

And so on and so forth... more and more flaws. But as much as many people who voted for him did not like many of his policies, they felt like he was someone they at least knew or understood. Is that a manufactured perception? Probably so. (What in politics isn't manufactured?)

Right now, the so called exit polls are saying that "morality" is what so many people picked out of four possible reasons when asked what made them choose the person they chose. But let's look at that for a minute. If I asked you, "Would you rather step in dog poop, or would you rather wade across this sewage canal?" you might say, "Er, the dog poop, I guess," and that answer could be interpreted as, "People want to step in dog poop." The number of questions which are asked and the way they're asked and whether there are any other choices that remotely come close to what a voter's really feeling would all affect those exit polls, but those polls aren't designed for that sort of detailed introspection. A lot of those "moral" people probably only agreed with one angle of Bush's thought, or maybe they were just afraid of Kerry, or maybe they felt like so many of the Democrats think they're stupid, they with the religious affiliation, that they'll be run roughshod over if Kerry gets in, and who could blame them? Or maybe they really just hated both men, and didn't know who to choose, and chose the devil they knew and when asked, just answered something that sounded the least specific.

When Kerry came on board, I doubt most of the nation knew him or understood him, other than his wealth and a little bit about his voting background. Most of the undecideds did know something though -- that the Democrats weren't terribly enthusiastic about Kerry per se, but just as someone who was an alternative, which isn't enough. That, by itself, isn't a message. And whatever Kerry's message was, it was never clear-cut enough.

Let's look at that a moment. (Yes, this will all tie in later.)

1. It's not the economy.

Case in point -- Ohio. Has lost more jobs under Bush's reign than ever, but still went for Bush in the end. Why? Because most people do not understand the way the economy works, most people aren't able to tell which candidates' promises are going to help them in the long run. Hell, for every expert economist certain their theory of what will work you show me, we could probably find another equally qualified person who believes the exact opposite. Secondly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, a country does not stop on a dime and turn around and race off, 0 to 60 in just a couple of months. It can take a couple of years or more for good or bad things to work down through to the general public. How do I know that? 22 years of business experience.

We run a business and we happen to work for several clients that end up being what I call "leading indicators" of what the economy is going to be doing. If things are good for us -- lots of work, good prices -- then the country is going to be following in about a year to a year-and-a-half. If they're bad for us -- scrounging for work, having to lower our prices because there's just not enough work to go around -- we'll start seeing big layoffs and a bad economy in general about a year after it affected us. The last of the Clinton years were terrible for us (though the country was doing pretty well). The country started following behind us about the time Bush got into office. After that, though, things were improving for us -- quite a lot, actually, and if 9/11 had not happened, I think the economy would have kept growing at that point. But it did happen, and things got extremely tight for us -- finding work, getting it for the right price, etc. -- very difficult. And of course, the rest of the country followed pretty rapidly, due to the nature of the event. However, things picked up for us about a year ago with a sudden force. Seriously, Februrary, 2003, sucked pretty much, but all of a sudden in March, it picked up. Lots of things to bid, getting better prices... and it has steadily grown. And grown and grown. We now have more work than we can do, we've raised our prices nicely to a very comfortable level and our only real downside is that we can't find enough qualified people to fill the jobs we have. The country is following, and within a year or so, I believe it's going to be booming, barring another large terroist action.

Most people don't work in the kind of field we do, and don't have that kind of perception. So trying to get them to vote for or against a candidate based on the economy isn't always going to work.

2. It's not Iraq, or Terrorism.

Because while most of the country, including a large share of Republicans who voted for Bush, do not believe we should have gone into Iraq, the problem is, we're there. Someone's got to finish what got started.

Is it confusing about whether or not we should have been there? Even Kerry voted to go in based on the information he had at the time. Was it wrong. Yes. Fallible? Yes. Bush's fault? Possibly. But here's the thing that ties back to the flawed character aspect: I don't think the majority of Americans believe that any human being can be without flaw, even one that is the President. I'm pretty sure they know that Presidents in the past have made huge mistakes. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. The part that most people forget is that people tend to forgive others (characters) if they think they understand the motives. The people who had already been supportive of Bush going into the war didn't want to backtrack on that support wholly. This is a crticial thing to understand. They had identified with him, that President who was flawed but who appeared to be rising to the occasion. That identification process means that they have to also rethink themselves in order to separate from their support of Bush.

Notice I'm not commenting on the right or wrong of that... that is just human nature. If the Dems want to sway human nature, sway that group of people who may have been having doubts, then calling them all stupid for supporting Bush isn't the way to do that. In fact, they pretty much guaranteed the antagonism from a bunch of moderate Republicans who probably would have switched over, because nobody likes being called an idiot and most people aren't going to say, "Well, you're totally right, you know, what on earth was I thinking? Of course I'm an idiot, let me let you lead me now that you've shown me the error of my ways." Doesn't exactly work like that.

3. It's not "morality."

I don't think the Republicans have a corner on "moral" and I'm pretty sure most of them don't think so, either. I think that particular exit poll answer just summed up their fears, because the Democrats have worked hard in the last few years to divorce any sense of spirituality from their politics. In spite of the fact that many are quite spiritual. And they will fight to the death for everyone's right to choose or to not choose to worship. Which is a very important spiritual aspect that the majority of Christians can respect.

And here's the thing, and I swear, this is the one thing that really ticks me off. Not everyone who voted Republican is a right-wing Christian nutjob. Seriously, there were quite of lot of sites which pretty much assumed that for anyone to be Christian meant they were radical right-wingers, foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalists who had been brainwashed and, can we say it all together... stupid.

Most Christians that I know abhor that subset of people. They don't believe in those radical right-wing things, they're way way more moderate than the general public would understand, but also? They're human. If there is one party which ridicules them (and they read the web) and there is one party which embraces them... which are they going to choose?

And the second thing about that? I could never in my life imagine a dedicated Democrat spewing the same kind of vile abusive statements towards other religions (Jewish, etc.). Making it okay to completely ridicule millions of people with a generalization doesn't win more people to a cause -- it risks making the generalizing side look narrow-minded and uneducated... because if you're dealing in generalizations, you've already missed the point as well as alienated millions of people who already weren't happy being associated with the radical right, but who don't feel that being completely condescended against is a better choice, particularly if you're not understanding what is important to them and looking for ways to find common ground.

4. Kerry's message, whatever it was, was too confusing.

Yes, he definitely contradicted himself. Several times. You might think Bush's positions and statements were utter nonsense or dangerous to the country, but they were clear-cut and on target and simple. A lot of people might try to take the time to research the different positions, but mostly they base it on the character of the person running and does that man's character have some aspects to it that they can identify with. In Kerry's case, I don't think he won people over on the basis of who he was as a person or as a candidate. I think a huge majority of Kerry supporters believed in the issues that are fundamental to the Democratic party and knew they had to support Kerry to try to get a Democrat in office, but I never saw a groundswell of enthusiasm for the man or his past. And without that, and without a clear-cut message, there was nothing "there" to convince the undecideds or the moderate Repbulicans to cross the aisle.

And to win, the Dems need them to cross.

Did you know that Kerry had a lot to do with bringing down the banking entity that financed a lot of Noreiga's (sp?) infrastructure? ( Here's one link.) I had been researching Kerry and didn't learn that until the BBC had a radio program and a friend told me about it. After the election. There are a lot of positive things Kerry did that didn't get across to the voters, and there are no excuses from the Dems for that. They spent upwards of $300 million to get their message across, but they didn't have a clear-cut message. Just mostly "not Bush" which is like sticking your tongue out at the bully in the playground. It shows you don't like him but doesn't really show what you're made of.

Tieing this all back in...

Now in writing, if you're going to have two characters compete and give them equal chance to win the reader over, you have to do more than make one "not" the other character. There has to be more than hurled accusations. The second character has to step out so uniquely that the reader can say, "Oh, I get it. He likes X. Or he really hates Y. Just like me." And start the identification process. I don't think Kerry pulled that off -- witness his last minute attempts to lure the blue-collar workers in middle America by going goose hunting. (First of all, the blue collar / hunter types may not have a college education, but they can tell when they're being pandered to and they can spot condescension a mile away. Kerry going goose hunting was the equivalent of an author giving a character a funny "quirk" in the hopes of convincing readers the character was really "funny"... when they've only delivered flat lines up to that point. It's a band-aid approach and superficial and ends up turning off the very people targeted.)

What it said to me, though, right there at the end of the campaign, was that Kerry understood (too late) that he had failed to get the voters to identify with him as a person. He had been arguing theories (for every campaign promise is simply an unproven theory based on a lot of conjecture), and he had been arguing for "anti" anything Bush (wherein a lot of people felt attacked) and he hadn't quite found a way for people to feel like they knew him and feel enthusiasm for him. Around the blogosphere, there was a lot of tepid endorsements for Kerry, particularly after the charismatic Dean lost the nomination... it wasn't that the general Democratic contingent wanted Kerry... it was that they just didn't want Bush. And in a nation where the polls were showing a 50/50 split up until the last minute, that notion of just "not" the other guy isn't enough to sway a voter because they haven't identified with the "other" choice.

It's why Clinton was so popular. He made it about him, the Comeback Kid, with the smile and easy-going nature and every-man personality and while he understood the nature of the national problems we had to face and had the education to confront them (whatever you feel about his politics, you would agree he was well-educated and intelligent)... he still came off to the voting public as someone unique, flawed but approachable. Kerry lacked that.

Four years ago when Gore lost, I postulated that the rising popularity of The West Wing influenced that race way more than the Democrats would want to admit. In The West Wing, the President, Jed Bartlett is a liberal who's constantly pulled toward the center by his chief of staff, and he's flawed, and ornery and quirky and very smart, but he's big on family, he's unapologetic about his religion, about his values and his own flaws. And it's a hugely popular show. He comes across as funny and charismatic and someone who can identify with the blue collar workers as much as with an Ivy League graduate.

Of course, he's fictional, but he's contributed to the gestalt of what most people want in a president. Worse for the Dems? Bartlett is the "ideal" Democratic candidate, one that Gore (very stiff)... and later, Kerry, didn't measure up to. Of course, in a fictional world, the writers have time to talk about issues and show the pros and cons of their side and to hammer out compromises that a candidate doesn't have the air time to do. Still, the issues of character (where I started this long and winding journey) are the primary issue, the ones that pull both Republicans and Democrats alike into the audience.

There's a lesson there for the real candidates. Yes, issues are critical. They are, honestly, far more important than whether someone is as charismatic or down-to-earth than the other person. But to get to the message of issues and choices and consequences? The voters have to not feel attacked, they have to not feel disenfranchised by an entire political party if they don't have a college degree, and they need to feel like they know the candidate -- and can identify with him. It's the only way they're going to start hearing the messages on the issues.

Now, you may think I'm totally baked. That's okay. Before you send me all sorts of comments on Bush or Kerry's evils, I've probably already seen them. I wanted to do this sort of in-depth analysis as much for myself as it was for the fact that I haven't seen any sort of analysis like this (yet).

Oh. And if you made it this far? You should get bonus points. I kept meaning to get back here and edit it down to something more succinct, but I haven't had the time in the last couple of days. Sorry about the long-winded-ness.

on editing / screenwriting

[Correcting the title to actually say 'screeNwriting' instead of 'screEwriting' because I apparently need to marry a spellcheck. Thanks to saltation for commenting.]

I'm nearly finished with the small edits the pub'd friend suggested (couple of entries back). The majority of these were so simple, I did them in just a few hours, and I probably would have been finished if I hadn't been battling headaches most of the week last week. (That resounding silence here for a weel? Cluster headaches.)

The few changes that have been taking more thought / time are turning out to be a lot of fun, too. Which is why I typically love the editing / rewriting aspect of writing (and I often wonder why so many other writers really loathe that part of it.) Sure, the first draft is the passionate draft, but the subsequent drafts refine and bring the story to life. Possibly my background in oil painting helped me with this; in oil painting, it's all about layering. You start with the darkest undercoat, the base colors of the general shapes and you continue layering in colors until you've defined the image, with highlights typically going last. (And obviously, you can go back and forth during this process and add back in darks if you've highlighted too much.)

Another cool thing -- I scored getting a three chapter critique from another published writer / best-seller. She even offered to critique a synopsis, too, but I actually have to write the damned thing before that part can happen. I'm hoping to finish these small changes and get the chapters out to both writers for feedback, maybe by the weekend.

The weirdness continues with the script. A bunch of management companies in L.A. apparently got the names of all the Nicholl people and started requesting scripts last week. I've gotten way more than I'd ever gotten before, and I think it has something to do with the script's title (which is funny) and the genre (action / comedy). I've had one request already from the reads for a meeting, which I don't know if I'm going to take. Maybe if there are more requests for meetings, it would be worth the travel.

My attitude about that has certainly changed dramatically from the last time I had a script that interested people in L.A. I used to be willing to hop on a plane any time and go take meetings. Now, when it's actually easier for me to do so, I find myself weighing what the value of the meeting will be. Which, I am sure, is why most management companies don't really want to have a client who lives outside of L.A., because we're always weighing the cost of travel vs. rewards, and L.A. and the film biz isn't a business where there are necessarily quid pro quo rewards. I'd say that more than 80% of the business is who you know, which means, you've got to get meetings and more meetings and get to know the execs on their way up, and get your stuff read by as many of them as possible and continue meeting with them until you stand out in their minds from the crowd... so that the next time they have a potential assignment, your name comes up as someone they want to hear from -- get your "take" on how you'd do that idea. And after a whole bunch of pitches like that, you eventually land an assignment.

All of which could happen in a few weeks or a few years; there's really no way to know. The one thing you do need? To be there, so that when someone says, "Hey, can you go to lunch Tuesday?" you can say, "Sure." And when they call and have to change it to Thursday or coctails or possibly the following Saturday and then move that meeting to the next Monday? You're not worried about catching a flight out and getting back to your real world.

I've been there, done that with the meetings. I know my attitude is bad, with regards to the screenwriting thing right now. If one of the big management firms who requested the script were to read it and get all hot and bothered and think they could sell it, I'd be enthused, I suppose. But since I know how so much of this works, it's not likely to happen that way.

The other real change is that I am just so loving writing the novel. Even if the pub'd writer friend can't set me up with her agent like she thinks she can? I'm loving the process. I could no more not write than not breathe, and this novel is so much fun; it cracks me up daily.

Speaking of, I need to get back to work on it.

not dead, really

So, I waited for the detailed notes from the friend-with-the-agent. I want you to know I waited patiently and maturely and never even ONCE thought about putting my head in the oven. In fact, I was so entirely mature, that when we were e-mailing (several times) about a completely unrelated item, I did not succumb to the temptation to get her to clarify her thoughts on my chapters, nosirreebob. Because that would be WRONG and WHINY and UNPROFESSIONAL and did I mention WRONG? I would never ever ever be pushy to anyone who was about to give me notes.

Hey. Where are y'all going? Whaddya mean, you want to avoid the lightning strikes? I'm tellin' the truth! I swear!

:::::zap:::::

Well who needed hair anyway?

Okay, so, I maybe sorta asked her at the end of one of the e-mails to clarify, but I swear that was because I was trying to start on the next chapter and I wanted to see what kind of notes she was going to give me.

Now, here's where a weird thing happens, and I recognize that this comes (for me) from my screenwriting background... but I like getting notes from friends. I learn a tremendous amount in a compressed time-frame about stuff that's specific to how I do what I do, and the next jag of writing will be greatly improved as a result. I forget that most novelists do not expect to get big notes or do huge rewrites in the same sort of way a screenwriter expects. (Screenwriters don't even really expect to get to stay on their own projects; when you come from the mindset that you probably won't last and will be fired at any moment, getting notes seems like a lifeline, a way to stay on the project, so you take them, pull them out of the chest or back or wherever they impaled you and you see what you can do to make them work. Novelists? Not so much.) So a novelists GIVING notes is going to be really careful and worried and nice about it.

How cool is that? woo!

Anyway, the original teeny three notes she'd sent were so minor, I felt like it couldn't keep going like that. So she responded with an even lovelier note, and then mentioned the one thing she had questioned, a thing I had already decided needed tweaking anyway, so we were pretty close on that one. And she had to go out-of-town, so I wasn't going to get "detailed" notes until today.

Which I just got.

Detailed.

All 1 page of them. She had such minor notes, I thought maybe I was missing a couple of pages (or ten), but nope, at the bottom of the note, she apologized for being so "nitpicky" but reassured me that she "really, really loved it" and wouldn't have been "so hard" on it if she didn't think it "had a shot."

I'm going to marry that e-mail. I swear, I am so jazzed.

Now, it just so happens, I agree with her notes. They were itsy bitsy things (like forgetting to explain how someone got somewhere specific or mentioning "daylight" when it was too early in the morning for that. Easy to fix. I had my own ephiphanies for some other minor changes, so I'll be working on those this week and sending it back to her for a final polish-through set of notes. At that point, we'll talk about what else I'll need to prep to send to her agent. (I suspect I will need a synopsis. I may have to kill myself, because that's how much I hate writing a sysnopsis.)

The thing is, it's not that I think this is a shoo-in for a sale, or even a big sale. Most books by new authors have very small print-runs, and the advances are low accordingly, and you really have to push hard to get the word out and get at least 60% of those sold or you might not even have a chance at a second book. And most authors don't really break out until they've had four or five books published and have grown their audience, so when I'm talking about all of this, I'm not talking about big money or even medium-sized money, but just getting it published and maybe, possibly, seeing it in a bookstore in the eye-blink of time it will get to be on a shelf. But I gotta start somewhere, right?

So, I'm off to work on the revision. Tomorrow I'm going to work on posting a rant about why teenaged children are guaranteed to drive you COMPLETELY FUCKING BATTY so that you end up at three in the morning babbling like a deranged person and thinking about cancelling Christmas because it's just not going to be the same here ever again (even though you love them and they love you)(supposedly)(but right now, grrrrrrrrrrr). So, all you moms who are battling your kids over putting the PB & J sandwiches into the VCR or bathing the cat in purple KoolAid or feeding their baby brother earthworms and calling it spaghetti? Just wait. They will grow up one day and not be quite 18 and not have a single dime to their name, but they will look you in the eye with all complete seriousness and tell you that they are selling all of their stereo equipment so that they can BUY A MOTORCYCLE, and not just some little dirt bike.... nooooooooooooooooo... that would be too SANE. They are going to buy a bike that is so fast, they have to be strapped on in case it zooms out from under them. So fast, it could break the sound barrier (which you just did when they told you about it in the first place). And they will look at you and explain that this way, they won't have as much to pay in insurance and gas, so aren't they being all MATURE? And you might just say to them, "Of COURSE you're not going to have to spend as much money on insurance or gas because if the first ride doesn't kill you, I WILL." And it will go downhill from there.

Now. Doesn't that peanut-butter filled VCR look great? You're welcome.

windshield

Some days you are the bug. And some days you are the windshield.

Yesterday was a windshield day. A good day.

I've been absent here because I was taking the very good notes my readers had given me on the chapters and edited them, and usually when I'm in that mode, I'm a hermit. I have a hard time communicating with anyone who isn't in the novel.

After making the changes, I wrote to the woman writer who'd encouraged me in the first place to do this story as a novel and had offered to show it to her agent, if she liked it. She read it yesterday and gave a very positive response. There were three teeny notes, (like I had a car red somewhere and green somewhere else), but nothing large. She said she'd think on it a while before giving me detailed notes (at which point my heart froze and I went straight into panic mode, freaking out, she must hate it and doesn't know how to tell me), but I slapped myself around a while, got over it, and then had a good day.

I'm not sure when she's going to send the detailed notes. Hopefully soon, because it's hard to move forward on the next chapters because my curositiy sits on one shoulder (hmmm, do you think that's the stuff that worked? or maybe that's something you're gonna get a note on?) and the bitch meanie self-editor in me sits on the other shoulder (that sucks, start over, who're you kidding). The nice thing about notes -- particularly this last round -- was that I got to see a lot of things that worked because everyone highlighted some of the same thing.

I could live on that for months. In the darkest moments of being a writer, I will live on notes like that which remind me that it is never as bad as my insecurity assumes.

I feel like I have a billion "important" things to post about here, and I haven't been able to sit down long enough in this forum and post. I want to talk about some of the political things that they're discussing over at 11D (see link on sidebar) (yes, I am that lazy). I also want to talk about loneliness and feeling lost and what I am watching happen around me with friends, which seems to be hitting so many people I love with such a terrible force, it's like a loneliness tornado. I want it to stop; it kills me to see the people I care about hurting so much.

happy sigh

You know what's really fun? Sending out something I wrote to friends for feedback and getting it. (I know, I know, that sounds exactly the opposite of the entry below on feedback. I'm a writer. I'm whacky by definition.)

But tonight, I've got comments from three people and I'm thrilled. The things I hoped were funny went over well (and in a couple of cases, all three of them highlighted some of the same sections to show that it was particularly funny), the things I knew needed work still do, but I've got great, helpful comments to work with now. Most of these things are tiny, tweaky sorts of things, nothing to take a long time, but I'm just happy.

hmmm

A former agent acquaintance e-mailed me today. She originally renewed our quasi friendship via a phone call a few weeks ago because she'd moved to a new area of the country (thus she is no longer agenting), and while teaching at the university there and critiquing scripts on the side, she had come across a horror script that was set here. After reading it, she thought it was commercial and remembered the Louisiana money I had told her about, so she called to get information from me to see if I could help her hook up with the money people. In spite of that not strictly being in my best interest (because hey, limited funds, 'if they spend money on hers, will they still want to do mine?' sort of thing), I gave her the information she needed and told her who the best person was for her to contact. Turned out, she knew that person's financial partner -- the guy who was actually bankrolling all of the films here (knew him personally), so she had a more direct line than I did, and she went to him.

Now, the twist isn't that they're making her script. Nope, the twist is that they turned her down. But in the original conversation, she had mentioned that the script wasn't that terribly well-written. It just had a good commercial hook and enough of a surprise ending, she thought it would get made. She was in a hurry to try to set it up because if she could, she would get a producer credit; she was worried that the script would sell elsewhere. Which it apparently did, yesterday. She e-mailed me today to let me know it had sold to MGM.

I'm not really sure how to respond to that. (I mean, technically, I know how to respond to her... but I'm not sure how I feel about her e-mail.) I'm sorry she isn't getting to make it because she is a nice person and I like her; however, I don't think she's broken-hearted or anything. In fact, she's got so much access, she'll be finding new scripts soon and making them. I don't mind that this other writer whom I don't know at all has sold. Plenty of people do. There's not a limited amount of purchases available in the universe and then poof, it all dries up with nothing ever to be published or sold again. I can't be jealous, then, since there are always opportunities out there. No, what I think bugs the living crap out of me is that someone whose writing isn't highly regarded (or regarded much at all) can have that many people going after his script, when really good writing doesn't sell. I get the whole "it's a commercial hook" thing -- hell, I've made that lecture a hundred thousand times to new writers. I know how the film business works, and this is the dark part of it -- that it really isn't about the writing. It just sucks a little bit of my soul away to see it in action.

the anatomy of getting feedback

There's this awful truth about writing that writers have to face, which is that at some point, they really do have to turn over what they've written for someone else to read it. Writers want to get feedback, of course, to learn exactly how the piece is being received so that they know whether or not it is working. The only problem is that the writer will probably hear the truth. They do not really want to hear the truth. Or, rather, they want to hear it, but they want it to be, "This is absolute perfection! Don't change a word! Why aren't you rich and famous yet?" Sadly, this is not the common reaction.

Have you ever seen people walking around kinda twitchy, their heads cocked a little sideways when they look at you as if they're expecting you to clout them at any moment, and they're mumbling inchoherently? Don't be worried, they're just writers waiting for feedback. One time when I gave a script to a friend of mine, I dropped it off at her apartment, holding it out and flinching simultaneously (this after she INSISTED that she get to read it because she swore she really really loved my writing), and I drove ALL THE WAY HOME (absolute torture) and I paced by the phone, and paced and paced and paced, and when I could not stand it any longer, I called her and left a message:

"Hi, it's me. I'm just wondering if you really hated it and just didn't want to tell me. Because I can take it. Really. I swear. You can be honest. So. I'm over here. Sort of waiting. No pressure though. I know you have important things in your life. Like work. But really, no pressure. If this message sounds kinda funny, it's because my head's in the oven. But really, no pressure."

To which she called back and left a message:

"IT'S BEEN FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES SINCE YOU LEFT. TAKE A VALIUM, TAKE TEN, TAKE A NAP, BUT QUIT WORRYING, IT'LL BE OKAY."

Like ten valiums would work.

Sometimes, getting feedback is a wonderful vindication of a writer's brilliance, and the notes they get are teeny little feedback sorts of things, and being writers (who have been Godlike in creating and peopling a world), they are magnanimous in their reception of such notes. Ever gracious, actually. Bowing to the wisdom of the reader. (Ahem. They also like sarcasm.)

I recently sent some of the book to a good friend of mine for feedback, and she really liked most of it (a phrase that sounds good, except it really isn't because there's always the WHAT THE HELL DIDN'T YOU LOVE ABOUT IT aspect, not that I shouted or anything.) (There may have been high-pitched squeaking, but I'm not sure.) So anyway, there was this one teeny little note which sort of annoyed me. Just a little. (360 degree head spinning is so too normal, so there.)

Needless to say, I objected to the note. I was nice about it. I am always nice and calm about it. (My friend is due to be released from the hospital soon. They say she will regain full hearing and speech in a few weeks. Isn't that great?) And since I knew that my friend was clearly, obviously, totally WRONG and had no BRAIN CELLS that were functioning properly, it was obvious that I could easily ignore those notes as being COMPLETELY IDIOTIC. Obviously, there are people out there who simply ought to recuse themselves from giving notes.

Now, there used to be times when all I would listen to were the negative notes and I would pretzel myself six ways from Sunday to try to address those notes even if I disagreed with them, and for the longest time, I didn't understand why. Subconsciously, I think it's easier to believe the people who say the writing sucks than to believe the ones who say it's good because most writers bounce between despair and despair (no, that isn't a typo) over how well they're doing, and the negative feedback just validates the despair, so it must be right. A produced screenwriter friend of mine was lamenting the same phenomenon once (and I would have assumed his ego was quite healthy since he had way more success and vindication), but notes had knocked him for a loop at that time. He said he thought it was the little kid in us always trying to gain approval, that the creativity in us is like that little kid, wanting so much to please, and of course, the ones it's already pleased aren't the target -- it's going to focus on the ones it needs to please next, like the child always trying to appease the angry parent and taking for granted the one who lavishes love.

It took a long time to learn that some people really are bad at critiquing, because they give notes based on what they would have done with the premise, or things / themes that they see that are more important to them personally than the ones the author explored or simply because their ego won't allow them to see that the other story works. There have been times when I've gotten critiques like that which were devastating, and it took a long time and other friends' perspectives and feedback to deal with it, but on the whole, it's made me a much better writer and much more able to receive feedback and know how to use it as a diagnostic tool. (An aside -- one of the best pieces of advice came from a young screenwriter on a panel at the Austin Film Festival one year, and ended up being repeated by several of the other more established pros, because they liked his description so much. He said that most writers use notes as a prescriptive tool, i.e., this thing is wrong and therefore change it, instead of a diagnostic tool to say, "Something isn't working and this is a symptom, now let me dig around and find the hidden cause." Most often, by the time a reader has recognized there is a problem, they've already passed up the source of the problem. Similarly, by the time an older person goes to the doctor complaining of really swollen ankles, assuming it's a simple water-retention problem, it could be a symptom of a hidden problem somewhere else, such as congestive heart failure.)

All of that to say, when I got those tiny tweaks from my now-recovering friend, I wanted to assign them to the category of the clueless, to something vindictive or wrongheaded or just plain dumb. However, my friend is none of those things (which I knew but was really hard to admit in the moment) and she's never ever been any of those things, and has always been encouraging and kind and helpful and DAMNIT, THAT SUCKS, because when someone is like that, you really can't just say, "SORRY, YOU'RE AN IDIOT, I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU ANYMORE, LA LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU." Which is just really fucking annoying, you know? So I did the mature thing. I stewed and steamed and stomped around all weekend that weekend, bitching and moaning and being angry. I may have kicked things. It was not pretty.

The problem was, I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't let it go. EVEN THOUGH she had been gracious (um, several times) and said, "If this is how you want to approach this piece, I'll completely support you in that and read it accordingly." I mean, THE NERVE. How in the hell are you supposed to deal with that, I ask you? All of that niceness is just WRONG and INAPPROPRIATE because it makes it so much harder to take out a hit, er, ignore the note. Especially when you're really really angry and you can't figure out WHY because you've been perfectly capable of ignoring perfectly nice people prior to this.

As painful as it was to start contemplating, it occurred to me that maybe, just possibly, there was a .000001% chance that the problem was within me. I know, I know, no fainting, but I am not perfect. It's a really scary thought, one that will probably ruin your life for MONTHS, and I know it's sort of hard to believe, like there may be aliens right here among us, but seriously, I had to face the remote potential that I was my own problem.

It took a while, but I finally realized what my particular problem was at this point; my friend disliked a certain technique I used and though she did like some other things, the things she liked came more from the script I'm adapting... the fiction technique she disliked was one I realized I had always used in my fiction writing (as opposed to screenwriting) and I had defaulted to that technique out of comfort and familiarity, and not, (and I really really hate to admit this) because it served the story. So what my subconscious was hearing when she said she didn't think that technique was working was that I SUCKED AS A FICTION WRITER AND MY COMPUTER SHOULD BURN IN HELL AND MY HANDS SHOULD BE BOUND FOR LIFE. Not that I was touchy about it or anything.

And, once I figured it out, the damnedest thing started happening... the emotional attachment I felt for that technique slinked away. (It may have whined and pouted in the corner for a little while, but we're not telling.) Without the emotional attachment, I looked at the other parts of the book that I had already said I felt much more confident about, felt like they worked much better and damnit if I hadn't written all of that the way she was suggesting already, having dropped my other technique and forgotten about it completely. There may have been more stomping and frustrated gnashing of teeth, because the very very VERY last thing any writer wants to do is admit when someone else's note that we knew to be TOTALLY STUPID was, after all, um, not.

Still not willing to totally admit I might have possibly been wrong, I decided to tweak the first chapter without the tainted technique and see if it worked better. I did not want it to, because that would mean I'd have to admit someone else was RIGHT and by default that meant I was NOT right, which would have caused very bad things to happen. (Hurricanes, anyone? You think it a coincidence that it came so much nearer to Louisiana than originally predicted. Ha.)

So. Tried it. It worked.

I really hate it when that happens.

(Um, thanks Pooks. Hope the ears heal quickly.)

more with the good

And, just to keep me floating on the ceiling, another person from the prodco here who is interested in making the romantic comedy script e-mailed me yesterday and then again this morning... she'd started reading it yesterday and said she was "loving" it and then said so again this morning. She's the assistant to someone else important at the prodco, and since I now have one of the owners behind it, I probably didn't have to have her doing what she's doing (which was reading it to get it worked through a different person at the same prodco), but it's nice to have multiple people at the same place behind it.

So, ultimately, what does this mean? It's all a little ephemeral right now, but there are a couple of different things that could happen there.

1) It gets made through this production company.
2) It gets made through an association with a production company formed by the owenr's husband, who is the one who just made the bigger deal with the guaranteed distribution deal.

If it's the first option, they could be thinking more MOW, because that's an easier thing since the financing comes into them through the networks and it's more of a sure thing. However, they are talking theatrical release right now. We will see.

If the second option happens, then they would definitely be going after a (bigger) theatrical release.

I expect in order for the first one to happen for a theatrical release, the distribution deal memo I have in place would have to be refined and a contract signed in order for them to feel secure about moving forward with the bigger theatrical budget they mentioned. Obviously, those conversations haven't happened yet, and I am going to touch base with them at the end of next week, so I doubt there'll be more news until then.

This feels a lot firmer than previous conversations and potential deals. I am going to think positively about it, that this is a movie and it will be made.

dizzy day

It was a strange day today. The financing / producing entity here in our state which has had my romantic comedy script for forever has had a lot of internal changes happening; they didn't move forward on my script becuase of those changes. Now, however, they are ready to try to move forward. They have a new theatrical deal in place (which they are supposed to announce in the trades in a couple of weeks) which gives them access to more / bigger money for indie films, plus guaranteed distribution in the US as well as international. That deal also includes Blockbuster. In addition, they have been doing movies of the week (MOW) for several networks, so if they can't get my script done as a theatrical, they're feeling pretty positive that they can get it done as a MOW. For this particular script, I'm going to be okay either way because hey, it will be made. However, I am happy that they want to try to do it as a theatrical first. So I am now printing out lots of copies that I am supposed to send over there tomorrow and the woman I'm working with there wants me to check in with her often. We also talked about how, if this script goes, they would be very open to me bringing in something else and producing that.

I've heard that the Nicholl semi-finalist letters have gone out - someone has reported on having received a notice that they moved up to that semi-finalist status. I, of course, did not get a letter today; while I fully (and I mean that honestly) do not expect that script to advance, I'm still tense. I just sort of want it to be over with. In the 18 years of the Nicholl, I think only 4 comedies have won, and none of them were broad comedy / big commercial action like mine -- they were either more dark / cynical or twisted, which doesn't bode well for mine. Still, it was a good day today with great potential, so I'm just going to be happy and not lament the contest. (Oh, I will probably be very grumpy once I see the letter, so I am stocking up on chocolate.)

busy

I have been writing. (I know, I know, no fainting.)

(I also spent four days in severe pain from the headache from hell, but since I get them often enough to know what to expect, when it's gone, it's wonderful! Which it is, right now. Gone.)

Also, the weather here? Stunning. I cannot remember ever in my entire life having cool days in August in South Louisiana. Very low humidity, a cool breeze, and reasonable temperatures which just felt glorious. I am very very sorry Florida suffered with a hurricane -- the (apparent) cold front we're having here reportedly pushed all the way to the Gulf, keeping it from turning this direction. Having gone through the hell of Andrew as well (it hit us after it crossed Florida and gained strength again) and having so many trees down, it looked like God had played pixie sticks everywhere surrounding our house.

Anyway, so the writing. Going well.

(Okay, for you non writers, lemme s'plain: going well means I'm not necessarily ready to find the nearest river and drown myself and that maybe, just possibly, it's not 100% complete dreck and I don't think I will be completely humiliated if someone actually glanced at it. Today. By tomorrow, I will probably be looking for that river, because I will have had time to realize it really sucks.)

kicking the three legged puppy

I was trying to do a good thing. It has backfired. I feel like I'm going to have to kick a three-legged puppy. I am going to hell.

This was a long, rambling entry about how someone asked me to read something, how he's in a wheelchair, suffering from cerebral palsy, unable to communicate verbally and how he wrote to ask if I would read his "novel"... and how badly written it turned out to be. (Let me 'splain. No, too much. Let me sum up.)

We communicate through e-mail, but he does show up at my door with notes taped to him. (I'm not sure who does the notes or the taping.) I thought my advice (in e-mail) (very carefully worded to not knock him down, to be encouraging without lying outright and saying it was good when it was dreadful) and all of the links I provided him for him to keep learning the craft if he wanted to apply himself would work. But it hasn't. He's shown back up at my house (two hours later) asking me to read it again, since he has now "finished" it -- even after I wrote him a second time, going into more detail about how much work he had to do, why so many of us writers have heard that sort of thing, how we all hate having to keep working to polish, to learn, to rewrite, to polish some more... he's back. I went to the trouble to explain how hard the business is, how cruel, how tough to break in, and how to break in, once he's done the work. I'm going to have to very firmly stop him, because he's not doing the research I gave him, he keeps showing up here, and I have scads of work to do. It always startles the crap out of me when he just shows up at the back door (because he's in a wheelchair and can't ring the doorbell, so he just waits by the living room window until I can see him.)

I feel evil, though. Like I'm kicking a blind, three-legged puppy for pure meanness. I hate this.

serialization of the novel

The New York Times has announced plans to serialize The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald this summer, along with others. It's being sponsored by commercial interest and they think the venture will end up being profitable, which is rather interesting to me in this day of declining audiences for books. (Well, percentage-wise, there is something like 10% fewer people purchasing books now than they did ten years ago... though don't hold me to that, I can't find the site which had had that listed recently.) As the article points out, a lot of famous writers got their start via serialization, and many of those books went on to become classics, so it's going to be interesting to see if there is an audience for a book already so widely available (like Gatsby). I wonder if the whole project wouldn't be more successful if they serialized something more contemporary or (or should that be "and") with mass appeal.

just when you think it's safe...

One of the things I did when I purged through this office over the last month, during all the office-y projects, was to box up things I didn't think I'd be needing any longer and put them up in storage. Labled, of course, but out-of-the-way. The business plan for the romantic comedy film was one of those things because I've gotten tired of pushing that project up the hill, only to have it stall and roll back down. I, Sisyphus, and the damned business plan.

It's one of those projects that I had spent way too much time and energy on to give up completely, and yet, spending more time on it means taking away writing time. Besides, I want to focus on the book. So the phone call today from my friend in New Orleans (Melissa, who works for a production company there) was a surprise... someone there wants to read the script and is fired up over the things I (still) have attached to the project. They wanted to see the script, and the business plan.

I am too far past cynical to be excited any longer. I've had too many people almost have the money or really have the money only for it to disappear again or think they have the money but they really didn't and oops, sorry to get your hopes up, or have the money and things fall apart through no fault of theirs, and really, I'm tired. I know what it takes to get projects off the ground -- it's hard enough in the construction business when you're bidding on work and you've got to pull it off for that bid, but having to create the financing to finance that work on top of bidding it... it's a lot of effort. And in film, you can't promise investors anything more than a completed film and maybe that it'll catch on. There just aren't guarantees. At least in construction, when the project is finished, there's something tangible there they can use -- a building, a scale, a parking lot. I long ago realized I would have been able to do much better in pushing the project had it been written by someone else. It just seems the height of ego to tout my own project and try to get lots of money from people who don't owe me for a kidney, ya know? I get embarrassed, even though I have already gotten a lot of stuff attached. And that self-consciousness has kept me from pushing this project as far as it probably could have gone just on the attachments alone.

So, it's sort of a weird feeling to send out that script and business plan. I know the reader's boss... the one she's trying to find a script for, and he likes to make thrillers. This is so clearly a romantic comedy, I couldn't really understand why she was requesting it, but she wants to try to convince him to make it. (He already definitely has the money.) In most things in life, I am pragmatic, but I always have hope. I try to look for the positive and live in that sort of mindset, but with this... this is hard to keep having hope, after so much. I don't really want to have hope for it, because it just sets you up.

But there's this little bitty tiny "what if?" voice down inside that keeps piping up and wishing, no matter how much I try to squash it back down. I'll let y'all know if anything comes of it, but don't expect anything.

On the book side of things, I looked up the big NY agent that Eloise has (see the post below on the 5th). Turns out he very much loves loves loves s/f / fantasy. And my book is so... not. I doubt I'll be a good fit for him, even with Eloise's referral, but I'm going to give it my best shot anyway and see what happens. I found myself freezing up, knowing that there was interest. You'd think that knowing this would encourage me and get me busy, but it's so much clearer how big I can fail, that I started feeling like everything sucked. I'm getting past that. For one thing, Eloise and I e-mailed several times and I realized she was going to help in several critical ways, one being that she'll read for notes and understanding that it may take several passes before we both feel like it's ready to be shown. I mean, it's within the realm of mathematical possibility that she'd love it the first time out, but I doubt that, and it's nice to know she's not expecting that, so the pressure's reduced. I also found myself procrastinating today with a couple of computer games, and in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way, realized I was thinking that if I don't get the book finished right now, I can't "fail" right now. Which just isn't rational, I know, and so I closed the game and got back to work.

Which I will do now.

re-charging

I think one of the things about down-time like the recently self-inflicted painting projects is that it's my way of re-charging by being forced to do other stuff. Granted, it's productive stuff, and much needed and I'm am already LOVING the doors and the whole closing-out-the-world concept, but during all of these projects, I didn't have time to work on the book. If I sat down at the computer this last month, it was either to frantically catch up on business stuff or, somewhere around midnight, to check e-mail and check in on other bloggers. The two brain cells which weren't burnt out already for the day were snoring and refused to be roused for anything remotely creative that didn't mean the immediate acquisition of chocolate.

However, my perverse little brain can't stay away from writing all that long, and as the projects grew and grew and GREW, the story kept popping into my head, with details I hadn't thought of before, with complications for the characters which delighted me or made me laugh, and with odd bits and pieces of dialog which illuminated something critical I had been pondering just a month ago. It always gets to the point in these projects where I am absolutely certain I am going to DIE if I have to keep painting, if I have to paint even one more inch of anything, even if it's something I have wanted for years and years and stood like a little kid on Christmas morning when it was being installed and said, "Oh, YES, I'll be GLAD to paint it," with the same genuine sincerity that a ten-year-old has when they're promising that yes, they will be the ones to feed the puppy FOREVER and WALK it, even in the rain or heat or Saturday mornings in the middle of cartoons. It never lasts.

I reached that "I'm going to die" point about mid-way through yesterday, when there were still two baseboards which needed a third coat mocking my vigilance. They will get it later. The doors are up and finished, all of the molding is done in this office and in the adjacent foyer, and everything is cleaned and put back to order. (We have to install the knobs on the French doors, still, and then there will be photos.) But right now, I am itching to get back to the novel and sink back into the luxury of creating a world where I can describe it without having to paint it. I think I'm re-charged.

teetering

Because it really wasn't quite enough to worry about with the offer in the entry below to show something to an agent by a complete stranger, a friend who had made the offer last year (before the year of work hell and tax audit and various things that made me insane) (okay, more insane than normal) (hush), that friend, I'll call her Eloise, wrote last night re-newing the offer. My name had come up with a mutual friend, the one who'd introduced us in the first place and Eloise asked her why I hadn't shown her chapters last year, so the mutual friend explained what my life had been like and that I had assumed that since it had been so long, Eloise would think I was a flake and wouldn't want to follow through on the original offer. So she wrote me directly to make it clear she was still as fired up as ever, planning to hand my chapters to her NY agent and if he passes, to another NY agent that she thinks would also be great.

So with all of that very good stuff on the horizon, what do you think I did? Do you think I ran straight to the chapters and opened them and in my cold, professional eye, realized that I had really GREAT stuff in there and that just by continuing, I would be able to finish out those chapters... because after all, I'm adapting it from a script, I already know the story, how hard could this be? If that's what you think, then you, dear reader, need to have your head examined because I am a WRITER and writers NEVER EVER think they are okay or that what they've written is any good and it all SUCKS and I am never ever ever going to write another decent sentence as long as I live because I have zero talent and I might as well just give up and do accounting...

I am fortunate in that the thought of actually having to do accounting for all of my life without the saving grace of writing is enough to drive me back to the keyboard and overcome the fear and the bastard editor devil on my shoulder and get back to work. The other saving grace is that this particular character I'm writing is about as kick-ass as they come, no holds barred, going to grab onto life the way she wants to, or at least die trying, in spite of all of the trouble and disasters that brings on.

So, back to work.

I guess this means I ought to get busy writing.

A friend called here yesterday -- I'll call her Kista -- and we visited, which we don't get to do very often. In the longish rather convoluted conversation, she started asking me about the novel, which she'd heard a bit about the last time we talked. Turns out that Kista has a good friend-- "Beatrice" -- who's published and getting six figure advances for her books. Beatrice told Kista that if Kista ever came across something in the same genre as Beatrice's own books that Kista liked well enough, then Beatrice would take it to her own agent to help out; apparently, Kista's either done enough favors for Beatrice or Beatrice just admires Kista's tastes, I don't know, but Kista then told me she wants to refer my book.

Kista asked me how far along the novel had progressed.

So of course, because I don't want to feel any pressure, because I don't want to write to an artificial deadline, I do the right thing, right? I say, "oh, at least a year," because I just got back into writing, and really, there's the writing and then the rewriting and then the polishing and I know this, I do, I have been down this road too many times, and lo, just as I open my mouth, there is an out-of-body experience and Skippy, my-evil-twin takes over (I know it's Skippy, it couldn't possibly be me because I am not a masochist and do not have a death wish), and then Skippy will smile oh-so-evilly-sweetly and sound JUST LIKE ME even though it's not me and she'll say, "Oh, gosh, I'm nearly finished. Just a couple of chapters and a bit of polishing and I'm done." And then there is a very ugly smackdown session going on where I'm fighting Skippy for my brain back and by that time, the other person usually says, "Really? Great! I'll expect to see it in a couple of months then," and Skippy looks over at me with her vicious brain eating grin and snarks, "muuuaaahhaaa" and my brain melts.

Somehow in the middle of that smackdown session this time, I got a little control back and tried to be a bit vague with, "Oh, but I'm giving myself until past Christmas -- I've got so many projects to do for the business, I want to be reasonable," and Skippy's trying to take back over and offer that August is so TOO reasonable, but I knock her down and threaten her with complete chocolate deprivation and she goes and sulks in a corner, plotting her next revenge. Meanwhile, I did manage to mention to Kista that it would be after Christmas (at least; I'm pretty sure I threw and "at least" in there) and she very nicely said, "Well, I'm not going anywhere and neither is Beatrice, so don't worry. Whenever you get ready, that's fine."

And lo, I was relieved. But I guess that means I had better get busy writing, huh?

I am finished painting all of Carl's office and most of the stuff for mine. I probably have one or maybe two more days and then everything is done and I won't let Carl start anything else for a while. Although he is now mentioning how he could build me a much much nicer credenza with places for the computer and printer built in, vs the too-big box-like shelf-thing I have now, which takes up too much room. I am trying not to be enticed, because I would have to paint (or stain) it, too. It's way too easy to substitute household projects for writing because of the instant gratification.

reading & critiquing

The last couple of days I've spent my spare time reading a friend's novel and giving her a fine / line edit; she has to turn it into her agent on Tuesday. It's the second book in a two-book deal, which is great. It's not the kind of book I could (or would) write, which is always a challenge when I'm reading and critiquing someone else's work, because she's a fine writer, truly riveting, and the goal is to remember what her objectives are rather than my own way of doing things.

I've been through critiques of my work where people truly had it in their head that they were going to look at my work with my goals in place of their own, and they worked hard to give me feedback and ask me questions which would help me achieve that goal. It's amazing how that sort of critique can bring clarity to what I want to do, can solidify what I believe (even when others disagree) and can help me realize what makes my writing mine. Finding readers like this is like finding your own personal gold mine, and you guard them and hoard them and keep them safe because they will make you a better writer far far faster than if you muddle through on your own.

Of course, I've also been through critiques which were just toxic by the time they were over, because they boiled down to what the other person would have done had they written the story, and how stupid I was for not having done it that way. Those, you learn to ignore. (And that sounds a lot simpler than it is, because they often hurt and give life to that nagging doubt that can sit on your shoulder and before you know it, that doubt has grown into a full-blown monster or, if it hadn't been beaten back before, grows from a monster to an all-out disaster that sucks you into its vortex and makes it impossible to write.) (To mix metaphors there a bit.)

Unfortunately, the really negative ones are usually the ones we remember most. One time in particular, a "friend" read a script of mine and proceeded to shred it to pieces. I not only didn't know how to write a story, I had told the wrong story for the characters, I had the wrong characters... oh, wait, no, by the time the critique was over, I didn't even know how to create characters, and if I completely rewrote it from top to bottom, I would have something amazing -- and he had a long list of suggestions of exactly how to change it. The minor glitch was, it was a romantic comedy and if I had made the changes he wanted, it would have been a thriller. (No, seriously, a thriller.) Of course, he capped the review off with a "but I love it, I love your work and you're a terrific writer!" Made me want to smack him. It was such a vicious critique, I was staggered. Finally, I showed the written critique to a couple of other friends who had read the same script and not only did they not agree, but they thought it was a particularly vicious and toxic critique as well. One person asked, "Are you sure this guy is your friend? Because I wouldn't even do this to an enemy."

It's sometimes hard to get past the negative feedback. I think writers can get 50 positive comments and one toxic negative one and our subconscious will focus on that negative comment. The real disaster happens when we start to subtly alter what we are writing (or editing what we had written) in order to silence that one negative voice. I used to think that I was the only one who had that tendency until I talked to another friend who'd had several movies produced. He said he felt like that one negatvie comment would sear into his brain and he had to do something to fix it, like a kid who wanted to please the toughest parent, and he finally learned to stop when he realized that the process was destroying everything he'd written... that he might make that one negative critic happy (but very likely not, because once someone has made up their mind they don't love something, can you ever really convince them that they do?)... and meanwhile, he would have destroyed what the other readers had loved. What do you gain if you make one person like something and the rest who had liked it... hate it? "Why," he asked me, "do we put a lot more emphasis on or weight or importance to the negative comments than we do the positive ones?"

Insecurity, probably. How does a writer have the gravitas to create a whole world out of our own imagination and concoct a story that we think people would not only want to read, but pay to read or see, in the case of a movie? You have to have a pretty big ego to believe you can accomplish that feat, and at the same time, you're human and you know you're flawed and you know you make mistakes and are just plain old wrong about some things (and it's your job as a writer to examine just those kinds of flaws), so you end up questioning yourself far more than, say, an accountant questions her own work.

I think, though, that having written for years and lived through the ups and downs of good and bad critiques did something to weather me as a writer, and I'm much happier in the place I am in now. There's a desire (always, still) to have a good reader and get feedback and improve the work -- that will never change. What has changed is that the number of people I give the writing to for a critique has decreased significantly. There are a couple of people I hand the writing to knowing that they will focus on characters, others will focus on plot, others will focus on language. They each have their sort of specialty and they have proven kind and constructive in the past, not afraid to tell me the truth but having no desire to do any damage, either. I think, too, one other important thing has changed -- probably the most important, and that is that I trust my instincts about what works. What I can do, how I do it, and why that's different from what anyone else can do. I don't want to write a novel that others don't have objections to; I want to write a novel which has its own unique flavor and take on the world which resonates with readers. It certainly won't be every reader, and it may not even appeal to a lot of readers, but I think I have the gravitas now to believe I can do that, and do it my way. Otherwise... why bother?

I write.

Spent the weekend writing, mostly. And resting. Sleeping. Writing. Repeat. It was a phenomenally relaxing weekend, which I desperately needed.

We'd had plans for Memorial Day, which got thrown into the trash first thing Monday morning because the slayed dragon was doing his dead level best to come back to life and haunt my ass, and I had to fax a whole bunch of stuff to the office of the stupid DEAD, damnit, dragon, at which point he finally agreed that yes, he was DEAD, and signed the damned check. And since he had managed to semi-revive once already, we drove to Covington to get said check before anyone could perform CPR. I swear, I wanted to bring a sword just to poke the damned thing. Metaphorically, of course. (not)

But the check was there, and signed, and for the correct amount, so we grabbed it and ran. I am not kidding when I say that I identify with Frodo and the last of the trilogy... I have never had to fight so many battles to get to the finish line.

So now, I am doing all of that fun, joyful, soul-inspiring accounting I just love to do, because I so love accounting to the bottom of my tippy tippy toes (/sarcasm). I am paying bills. Which is better, I suppose, than not being able to pay them.

anatomy of a writing day

Now that my old horrendous projects are done and I am FREE FREE FREE to write, I sometimes find that I must be very organized or else I might just procrastinate. Not that I would ever actually procrastinate, you know, because writers just do not do that (I think there will be a penalty box for using procrastinate this many times in a paragraph.) Anyway, organization. This, I have. And because you, too, may need to be organized in your writing, I will give you the anatomy of my writing day so far:

8:00 a.m. Attempt to look human. Scare the cat. Give up.

9:00 a.m. Wow, lots of journals and blogs to read. But reading is GOOD for a writer, so this I do because it will refill the well, so to speak. Plus I might see something good to steal inspire me.

12:00 a.m. Have a diversion... get lectured by an idiot client who has made so many mistakes, when she says something like, "And the next time you work for us," bite your tongue to keep from saying, "Over your dead and rotting body," even though you secretly are planning for just that event.

1:00 Decide the phones are going to be quiet long enough to write. Open the file. Promptly start answering the next three billion calls to be placed in the unvierse, including one from a guy in Tennessee who is utterly CONVINCED that you really are his friend Brandy who he claims to be going into town to visit the next day and why are you messing with him pretending not to be his dear dear friend. (Start to feel really sorry for Brandy.)

3:00 Look at the file again. Change the file title to Chapter Two because you finished Chapter One. Wonder briefly if that counts for writing for the day. Decide that maybe you actually have to make a paragraph or something.

4:00 Wonder if there are any one chapter books selling very well these days.

5:00 Start a sentence. Form an idea, a visual image that finally FINALLY finally is a real and true breakthrough and be thrilled and then have your entire family decide that the must AT THAT VERY MOMENT have your UNDIVIDED ATTENTION because LIFE WILL END AS THEY KNOW IT if you don't hear what they did for the day.

6:00 Try not to kill family. Not entirely sure they would let me have the laptop in prison.

7:00 Look back at the paragraph, the three words that started it anyway, and start to get back on track. Realize that you are effing brilliant. BRILLIANT. All you have to do now is keep going.

8:00 That one sentence may be too brilliant to be followed with anything else. Ponder if anyone will buy the book just for second sentence. Decide that maybe, not so much.

8:01 Suddenly realize you are STARVING and you will DIE RIGHT THEN AND THERE if you don't get something, preferably chocolate, but anything really will do. Decide that you will be much better after eating.

10:00 Everyone is asleep (or at least, quiet) and you fire up the laptop and look at that lame first sentence and decide it sucks rocks and you delete it. Think maybe you just need to wake up your brain, so you go off to play a game.

11:00 Admit that WeBoggle is the Devil. Or crack. But your average standing in the game is usually first or second, so maybe it did rev up your brain. Just one more game....

12:00 Freak out that a whole hour has passed AGAIN and decide that you absolutely are not going to turn off the computer unless you WRITE SOMETHING and it has to be decent. Promise yourself chocolate ice cream.

12:15 Debate with yourself as to whether a lame list entry is really "writing" and admit, ashamed, that you really really want to open that stupid game again.

12:30 Write a whole paragraph. Breathe a sigh of relief because you really have to get some ice cream and now you can. Except... you kinda want to keep going. So you do, and you get a whole section done. (Or you lie about it in a list to not look so lame. You pick.)

1:00 Decide that snoring sound might be coming from you since you may have possibly nodded off in the chair. Give up, go to sleep so you can be awake early again and be "productive."

So, there ya go. Just keep doing like I'm doing, folks, and you, too, will be the proud owner of a finished novel before... um.... 2100.

drained and... not

These last two weeks have been productive. I have finally finished with all of the paperwork for a very large (business) project that I loathed like the smell of a thousand rancid skunks, and I sent it in today to the person who needs to review it. I did more than she asked for originally in the hopes of not only resolving the problems which necessitated the damned paperwork to begin with, but which would, I hope, prevent her from needing anything else from me. I suspect she probably will, and if and when the problem ever gets resolved, I'll probably talk about the horrific experience then, but for now, I am just going to bask in the glow of being done. DONE. done done done done done. And let me just add, fucking done.

I also finished all the reams of paperwork that were required to wrap up a big Federal job we'd had, and it almost competed with the thousand-rancid-skunk award, except that at least by finishing this one, we should get the retainer the big honking suckass General Contractor owes us. We almost never work as a sub-contractor and now I remember why: total stupidity of gargantuan contractors who will not spend the dollar extra an hour to hire someone who actually knows what a "payable" is, or even, dare I hope, what a computer is. This company won this huge Federal job and approached us to bid the concrete work, and it looked so alluring and lucrative when it was first presented to us, and it was a bit like thinking you're dating someone sweet and caring and totally in sync only to find out that really, they are a demented Gollum-like creature who only wants to lure you in long enough to kill you. The job itself was complex, but they made it worse. One of the things you have to do when you do GC work for the government is turn in who your sub-contractors will be (and their resumes) when you bid; when you're awarded the job, you're supposed to stick with those subs or substitute others with equal or greater qualifications. In this case, the GC didn't -- they kept us, but they subbed others who just weren't up to par. They go into the bid process with one bid and then shop around after winning the job to see if they can find someone to beat that sub's price, thus pocketing the difference. Several times the whole job shut down because of a sub-contractor who couldn't get his act together. One time, at two a.m., the painting sub-contractor (whose job was a round-the-clock, 24-hour shift thing) dragged up all their equipment and left without notice... yeah, that was fun. So anyway, the job is done, and all of the insane paperwork is done and turned in and approved and wow, we may even get paid (which these people have a bad rep for trying to find devious ways to back-charge their subs so they can keep the retainers owed to the subs... but we've been beating them at that game since we had a heads up about their methods early on.)

So yay me. Two massive head-aches gone, lots lower stress levels.

As for the other business, the new one, things seem to be moving forward, though very slowly since the partner is recovering from the heart surgery. Honestly, I hadn't wanted to ask him anything, and we'd visited him without letting him talk about it; he still seems to think we're moving forward, though, so I guess that's good.

dreams: outside time and place

I think that in a thousand ways, I have never really lived in the here and now for long enough periods of time to feel rooted in it. Dreams -- desires -- aspirations -- have all pulled me out of time and place and I have lived in that "possible future" so often, it has overlain the real with a fine dusting so tangible, I sometimes have to remind myself that it is 'not yet' the real. Tamar and I were talking today about how so many writers will be entering the Nicholl screenwriting contest this year (deadline Saturday) and the Austin (deadline May 15)... and how that affects their lives. I know winners of these contests, so it's not a mythical thing; it can do wonders for someone's career, but it's also very sobering. Last year, there were a record number of entries to the Nicholl -- well over 6,000, and they anticipate more now. One of the first-round readers commented to a group of friends that she had seen the quality of the writing go up over the last few years, partly because of more books and degrees / classes available around the country, and partly because the internet has brought together people who would have normally been isolated so that they can form critique groups and learn faster from the experience.

How do creative people do it? Hit that wall year after year, determined to create, to find a door, to find a receptive audience? Maybe it's the Lotto mentality -- that one big win will change their lives forever. Maybe it's better planned than that, but whichever it is, they live on that dream, that place somewhere just an angel's breath outside of their grasp, yet so warm and inviting, they can't not try to reach for it.

Sometimes I wonder what I've taught my children. I've had bouts of success -- lots of non-fiction publication, edited a magazine (regional / pre-internet e-zines), won or placed in contests, but it's a wonder my children haven't thought to have me committed for thrusting myself against that wall day after day with nothing big and tangible to say: here's the proof I can do this. I simply dream that I can, and I cannot stop trying. It's hard to watch someone keep trying and wonder if they're just fooling themselves or is it simply a matter of time or timing. I know a lot of people who don't have dreams or ambitions to be something other, something meta, someone that somehow communicates with the world-at-large and the person-in-specific at the same time. They want to be the best mechanic they can be or the best accountant because that helps pay the bills or gets them the bigger car or the college tuition for their kids, and sure, they have hobbies they enjoy and in which they may even be terribly talented, but they don't dream to be other. Sometimes I think... no, I'm pretty sure I know... life would have been enormously easier had I just wanted to be a good construction manager, since that's the "paying" job I do every day. But a part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, seeing me keep trying and being happy at the attempt -- being happy enjoying the journey -- well, maybe that has taught them to dream bigger possibilities and reach for them.

Ultimately, I think of the world as divided into two types of people: those who consume culture and history, and those who create it. And given the nature of creation -- that you can't know everything about it and what impact it will have until it's actually accomplished -- there are definitely no guarantees if you choose to be one of the latter. Maybe you'll succeed and create something with impact and maybe you'll just disappear into the mists. I would rather be the latter, though, and live outside the real, the now, the ordinary, at least in my dreams, than to feel like I had no shot at permanently shaping something in the world.

somebody slap me

Carl and I went out to eat tonight at one of my favorite restaurants, and talked a lot about the new business thing. The partner guy is so pumped, he's gearing up big time -- he has already found several of the items we need (big, expensive things) for waaaay below what we had expected to pay. He's just that good at this, has a million jillion business contacts and knows how to find things. (Like one item we need is normally very expensive -- $60,000! And he knew a chemical plant who had that item and didn't want it anymore -- it was in their way. So they sold it to him for something like $10,000. Mind boggling.)

So this is becoming very real, very fast, and in the course of the conversation, Carl said something I should have LOVED hearing... that he couldn't wait until this took off because then I could just spend all my time writing. We would phase out the construction company to just the one item that ties directly in with this second business (and if the second business goes big enough, phase it out completely). And that way, I wouldn't have to be tied down with all of the mounds and mounds of paperwork I've been buried under for so long and you know what the absolute first thing I did was?

Pouted.

Then felt left out. Like, what am I? Chopped liver? Why didn't he want my help with this company? I'd be very good at it.

And at the same time, I'm having an out-of-body experience, wondering just what sort of crack I was on, why couldn't I just be thrilled at the opportunity? There I was spouting all this, "You don't NEED me?" crap, thoroughly confusing my husband who just wanted to make me happy and let me write full time, and there I was claiming I really really wanted to be a part of the office, no no, RUN the office, and schmooze with the clients and build up the business and TAKE OVER THE WORLD and and RUN THE UNIVERSE and....

He gave me that look. That look you give people when you know them really well and they are spiraling into the abyss of denial and that evil look pierces through all the protests.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll just bet you want to be on the phone every day to five or ten clients, arranging everything, dispatching everyone."

Oh. The phone. Gaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk.

(run run scream run run)

"So, what's this about, really?"

Normally, it would have taken me weeks to grok just exactly what it was about, but I'm trying harder to access what it is inside that I want. And trying to remember that want isn't a dirty word.

I thought for a minute, and realized, it was about fear. I've been pulled in so many directions for work for so long, that I haven't had much time to write and I squeeze it in between projects and phone calls and waiting up until Jake is home from a date (if I'm still able to string two words coherently together by that point, because I am usually just so tired)... that I've sort of had that busy-ness as an excuse for not having gone further, faster. And if I have all that time... with it will come expectations. From me. From (gulp) others.

Fear. (sigh)

I remember the first time I ever published something -- I got paid a whopping $75 for a feature article in the local newspaper, and I jumped up and down with more glee than anyone who's ever won a Putlizer could have imagined. And prior to writing it, I was scared lifeless and wouldn't have tried if someone (a former teacher) hadn't pushed me to try. And then I kept writing for them, and eventually was put on staff in two different divisions, and then moved on to freelancing magazine articles, and before I knew it, was Assistant Editor, then Editor, then sold to national magazines... then swtiched to screenplays... then started with the fear all over again. I hung out on screenplay boards, then met some really nice people who took me under their wing (hi Tamar) who then became great friends and pushed me and pushed me and then I landed an agent, and more stuff happened, and the whole time, fear. Fear slowed me down more than I can explain; there was so much more I could have done with so many of the opportunities in front of me, and I hesitated and didn't take advantage of them when I had the chance. And so, lost the chance to move onward, upward, too damned often.

Well, I sat there across from Carl and that look he was giving me, and I thought about it and realized, I don't have time for fear anymore. I'm damned if I'm going to let it slow me down again. Maybe it's having a doctor say they want to run a test for a brain tumor that makes you wake up to how much time you really have... and not that I think I have one (I really do not), but just hearing the words out loud? Well, suddenly, I skipped a whole lot of stalling and denial and looked Carl in the eye and said, "You're right, I don't want to be on the phone. Ever. Again. I don't want to do that paperwork. I'm sure [partner] has a fabulous CPA and as long as I can watch the books to feel secure that everything's being done right? I don't need to be doing it. Because I am a writer, and that's what I want to do. Full time. Write."

He grinned, and said, "It's about damned time."

hmmm.

Should I be concerned if I'm thinking about a character, thoroughly certain that X is what's going on with her when I hear her distinct voice / diction in my head informing me that no way in hell that that's what's going on, it's this other way, and could I please pay attention?

Yeah. I thought so.

ugh

I am not writing.

I am not writing in the office,
I am not writing in a bar,
Nor in the bedroom
Or in a car.
I am not writing near the cat,
nor am I writing with a hat,
or here or far or in or out,
and who knows what that's all about.

I'm feeling grumpy, I'm feeling mean
I'm staring at this stupid screen
I am not writing and that is that
It's time to take a good long nap.

permission to be naked

In her entry, Dream Credentials, Tamar says, "And then? Well, I don�t have any credentials at all now. I parent and I write. Someday I�ll be published, maybe even sooner than someday. And that will be important for the validation and the chance to get my words out there, but in the end it is not the main event. It�s the corollary to the main event. Which is living it. I know that now."

Sometimes I wonder how it is that I have been waiting for permission all of my life to "be" a writer. I sense in myself the sort of tentative approach to the novel that makes me think I am sort of waiting to be credentialed... waiting for someone to come along and give me permission.

I am a writer -- that's what I do, it's who I am when I wake up in the morning. I live with that awful double-vision, in that I am in the world in the moment, but there's always a part of my brain taking notes, wondering how I would convey that moment, living in hyper reality because I'm feeling something and analyzing what I'm feeling and how I'm reacting and comparing it to people around me because I want to be able to convey that moment, in its essence and richness.

But there's a part of me that keeps waiting for permission to delve into the novel, to explore it, and I think Tamar hit on part of that -- it's the feeling of, "who, me?" -- how on earth do I think I can write a book someone would want to spend money and time reading? There's something about the way a script works that sort of lets you off the hook, as a writer, because you know what you're creating isn't the final product -- if there ever is a final product, a film, it's going to be because a whole bunch of other people have stepped up and plunked down a lot of money and a lot of time and turned that script, that blueprint, into a filmic experience. And it may be great or it may be awful, but it really isn't all up to the writer, as much as we'd like to take credit for the good things.

But a novel? That is pretty naked right there. That's about as real as it gets, because there isn't anyone else swooping in to turn it into something else -- there's you and your own efforts and your own storytelling ability and your own truth and willingness to dig deep and expose the ugly, because there is no beauty without the ugly, and you've got to be brave. That's hard. That's naked, and honestly, I find myself falling back on the script format because it's safer.

There. I said it. Safer.

I don't want to be about "safer." I want to be about digging deep, finding the story, ugly and all, and getting it down in such a way that people respond. So maybe, that's all the permission I need. Maybe.

write like god

I really really love this shirt. And Corey, honey, this shirt was tailor made for you.

When you first click on one of those pages, page down and you will see links to other shirts or other parts of the site, which is, by the way, a very cool writer's site.

I have been absent from here due to a headache from hell. I don't get them often, but when I do, I would rather die than communicate with people. Any people. Including the loud noisy ones who live here. But I am better and I am back. (I, apparently, am also evil because I ducked out of a fund-raising luncheon that I was invited to today, but I have more work than I can even think about doing to get done, and really, I hate luncheons. My idea of hell is to have to dress up and go to a luncheon with "ladies who lunch" or coporate types who are into that sort of thing because it's a good work-networking opportunity. I think I would rather be skinned alive, this is how much I hate the idea. Anyway, I am here and doing something very cool on the thiller, which is waaaaaay better than trying to swallow poorly seasoned rubbery chicken.

night vision

I work in an industry that thinks it must start at the buttcrack of dawn -- construction. For someone whose creativity comes alive about ten o'clock at night, this is a problem. We have a business -- it's not like I can quit and go elsewhere -- and it's responsible for putting food on the table, etc., so it's not like I can ignore it and wander off to dance to the beat of a different drum, but damn, I wish the world would function a little less rigidly.

I have always been a night owl; when I was in high school, I'd start a book late in the evening, thinking I could put it down and just finish it the next day, but that so very rarely happened. More times than I care to admit, I'd hear my dad's alarm go off -- Dad was a truck driver and had to get up at 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. sometimes for some of his shifts -- and I'd quickly extinguish my bedroom lamp and wait until he was up, dressed, gone and the last sounds of his truck turning the corner drifted back to me before I'd turn on the light and finish the book. Of course, I'd usually finish it at four in the morning (I am so not a speed reader like Diane -- man, I wish I was!)... and my alarm would go off at six or so for school. I think I passed the majority of my first and second hours in a sleep-deprived stupor. (Of course, the drive to school with my little brother drumming on my arms and head tended to get the adrenaline pumping.)

Even now, with all the grown-up responsibilities, I find myself trying to go to sleep at a decent hour (with the inevitable sleep deprivation mentioned below), and my brain just turns on. Answers to problems, or doing suicide laps over new problems, keep me awake. (Suicide laps = the term my eighth-grade basketball coach gave to the exercise of going back and forth on the court in a hard run, each time going to 1/4th of the court farther. Then starting over until at least one kid fainted. Fun coach.) But much more than just the worrying, or the solutions to problems... night time is the time when I simply feel more creative. My imagination kicks into overdrive, I am better able to free associate and weave in and out of a sort of lucid dream state and snag the details I need for whatever creative endeavor is in progress, and I easily get into a zone where time suspends and the world feels right and good. It's god-like in those moments, intoxicating and wonderful, and somehow more real because of the silence enveloping me in the night rather than the intrusion of daily living.

I completely frustrated both of my parents, who are morning people. My dad used to say in the mornings when he got me up, "Now, don't be scared. There's this really BIG yellow thing outside right now. It's called the sun. It won't hurt you, I promise." At some point a few years ago, I read where they had discovered in some scientific study that there is a gene which predisposes a person toward being a night-owl or a morning person; apparently they discovered there was some sort of link to this gene (and I think it was also linked to a specific eye-color? or something in the iris?) and a person's biological clock and it wasn't just that person being lazy in the morning, but being biologically programmed to do better at night. I showed my dad the study, and told my parents it was their fault (hee). They at least left me alone about it after that. I can only hope that whoever discovered it got to work nights while doing so. There should be a secret midnight rally or something, celebrating bucking the system.

painting into corners

I have had one spectacularly wonderful writing day. (I edited this from "hellaciously wonderful" which accurately reflects the twistedness of the event of writing to "spectacularly wonderful" which better reflects how I felt when it was over. Writers worry about these things. This is why they do not give us the red button on the big nuclear silos. We'd agonize over whether to call it red, maroon or deep burgandy while the restof the world blew up.)

And "day" being a loose term since I spent a lot of it staring at the screen and finding various and assorted ways to not write, until all of a sudden, I realized the next step. The "holy shit" moment when the twist is both so organic and so unexpected, I feel like I have just slam dunked something. Of course, I have just made it extremely difficult for my hero to get himself and the people he loves out of this jam, and this it the turning point in act one, but hey, that's what's fun about the whole thing. When I was working on the action comedy, I would throw up these sorts of obstacles and I was absolutely certain I wasn't going to be able to come up with a way out of it, but it actually made me more creative. I think if you write to a predetermined solution, you end up with "predictable" -- but if you write with "impossible odds" against your character and force yourself to delve really deep, you can come up with some seriously creative moves / characters. Moments like this? They are the juice, the elctricity, the thing that makes the writing worth it. This is what makes the act of writing a joy.

(Lots and lots of people want to have written, but they don't want to be a writer. I want to do the writing. I want to be painted into that corner and challenge my characters to see if we can get out of that moment without resorting to the cliche. I love this.)

if writing were like sports

You know, I wouldn't trade being a writer for anything else -- I love the solitude, I love the creation of the world, tossing impossible obstacles into the mix and seeing what these characters will do, what makes them tick. I love the fight to distill the moment, each moment, to its essence, to the one exact point where everything hangs in balance. Last night I fought a fierce battle. It was me against the scene, which was trying its dead level best to be static, talky, informative without drama. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted... more times than I can count. I felt like a boxer in a ring, punched and counter-punched before I could even move into position. It took round after round, hitting the mat, wondering whether the bloody fight was worth it...why not just let this one go and live to fight another day... but you know, you just can't do that. The allure is great -- rest on this one, do the hard work on the next opponent, on the next scene. But you're not a writer if you rest, if you give in to the mundane, just like any great boxer or baseball player or footballer... you push. The great thing to writing is that you push yourself in the quiet of your own room, so it's not as likely that when you fail, there are witnesses standing around to boo. It's frustrating though, when you succeed -- that one round when you knock out the opponent and the odds had been against you -- there's no crowd to go wild, no screaming from the stands, no bookies paying off the ten-to-one odds. Wouldn't that be amazing, to have that sort of cheering going on every time you beat the odds?

Of course, all those crowds in the bedroom late at night when I've finished a scene on the laptop might just freak out Carl a little bit. Although that might be fun, too. Heh.

white fog

Another terrible nightmare this morning, after a night of poor sleep. I was comfortable, just could not shut up the brain. Most of the day felt like I was trying to function with white fog clogging the synapses, and even my vision is affected with days like this -- everything has a white, gauzy haze to it. Could not do anything for the construction business and was very lucky that is was a surprisingly quiet day. Gave up about 2:30 and napped. A very long nap. Still feel half human, but feel as if I'm coming out of a fugue state. These don't happen often and to tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever mentioned them in an entry or to friends. I rebound, work long hours and forget it even happened until months later, white fog closes in again. It is a strange, surreal experience to realize that you suddenly cannot think... you sort of realize that you're not grasping even basic sentence structure... explanations to other people are disjointed... and if it wasn't me inside this body, if I were watching it from the outside, I would assume distraction or drugs. It's strange feeling as if your IQ just dropped 40 points in one morning, but at least it goes away and I will be back to normal tomorrow. I think.

bringing the dark & twisty

I once wrote a thriller so dark and twisted that when readers responded, they told me they had slept with their lights on. (One suggested I get therapy.) This wasn't a slasher type of thing, but a psychological thriller (which I never showed anyone in L.A. because I was later embarrassed by how dark it was -- which is dumb, I think now.). Since then, I've written -- and become known for -- the romantic comedy and now the action comedy (which is going out soon, according to my agent who seemed pretty psyched.) I haven't gone back to the dark and twisted place to tell a story. Until now.

Lots of stories can be written about pure evil or bad guys doing bad things, but I wanted to explore something scarier -- what about when someone is so angry, they are seething beyond sanity... and they're right to be angry? And what if the actions they take are so deadly wrong, and they know it... but they know that taking those actions will be the only way lives are saved later? Would you kill a dozen people if you knew absolutely that a thousand would be able to live?

This interested me, in finding that character. In drawing the audience from the outside (the sympathy with the victim) to the inside (the sympathy with the perpetrator), in blurring those lines so that you at once are horrified by what the person might do next, and yet, secretly, you think they're right (and how that makes you feel about yourself in that moment.)

This is what I'm working on. It's a dark place, and twisted, and in some ways, difficult. In other ways that I'm too worried about to explore, it's easier, far easier, than comedy.

producers, comments

In the comments below on the romantic comedy status report, C. Vachon asked me if that was how I really saw producers because most of the ones she knows are hard-working and really trying to get their films made and keep the writer and director happy. And you know what? She's right. I started to answer her in the comments, but when I screw up, I'd rather put it up here instead of burying it.... so to answer C:

You know, after I put that up there, I knew it was going to bite me in the ass. Because I'm not referring to producers like yourself or this particular woman -- but so many of the ones I've had meetings with who brag about getting rid of the writers, or who, at festivals like Austin, will tell writers things they want to hear in the sessions and then afterward, in private moments at the bar, turn around and make fun of the very thing they've said.

But you know what? I hate it when I see others generalizing and damned if I didn't do one of the very things I hated, because I have met some pretty amazing produers as well. I've met some who have championed stories through amazing obstacles and got it made and made nearly nothing (or truly nothing) all because they fell in love with the script and they wanted to see it come to life. There are some real artists and honest producers, and I should have not let my cynicsm in that moment win. Thanks for the reminder.

romantic comedy script update

The producer who'd written a couple of weeks ago that she had pitched the romantic comedy to one of the main networks wrote tonight that the woman in charge read our initial material (one page synopsis, list of what's attached) and wants to see the script itself, so the producer is sending it over. I have no idea how much of a shot that is, but it's nice to see it got past a major gatekeeper. I don't expect to hear back for a month or more -- they are notorious for taking forever to read the script "this weekend."

I can't even figure out what I feel about this. Kinda "eh, okay, thanks, next?" Grateful that this one producer just keeps on being tenacious, because really, she is consistent and honest, which are two qualities among producers about as common as snow in the middle of summer in the deep south.

divided

I am at a crossroads of sorts, writing-wise. The thriller I was mentioning down a few entries is going really well. It is the kind of story that's a fast moving script with very dark twists, which is a good follow-up to the current script the agent has. The divided feeling I'm having is that I can see this story being a thriller novel. Again with the dark and twisty, but in the novel, I could play around with a couple of subplots and with internal things I just cannot show in a script. Both avenues for this story appeal to me, and I cannot make up my mind which way I want to go.

If I'm being honest (and Tamar is going to bop me on the head for this), (and I mean that in a funny / loving way because as a good friend, she's had to suffer through me babbling this angst probably too many times before) then I have to admit that one part of the appeal to going ahead and continuing the story in the script format is because the action comedy is currently with an agent, she is going to take it out next month (so far as I still know), and having a different script that shows some range would be a good screenwriting career-type of move. Let's set aside the little fact that the actual business of film drives me batshit the majority of the time, I have to ask myself if the reason I haven't gotten further with any one particular writing field is due in (large) part because I get bored, or I don't focus on just one format? Am I considering the idea of following up the script the agent has with another script because I want to write a script... or because I don't want to be caught without something new / fresh should the one the agent has get people interested in meeting me again? Since I don't know what the business of novel-selling is like yet first-hand, I have nothing to really compare that screenwriting-business-hatred part I feel, though I have a couple of published friends who describe the woe of trying to get PR for their books, trying to make sure the books have shelf-time, have some sort of backing from the very publisher who put it out, who writhe in agony when so many people drop the ball and the book dies fast because no one was willing to spend a dime to alert the potential audience that hey, there is a book here they would love...well, the process doesn't sound any prettier on the other side of the fence.

I started off wanting to write novels. That's what I went back to undergraduate school to do -- to go ahead and finish that degree (when the boys were very young), and get the kind of background reading / eduction that helps a writer, well, write. (Notice I didn't say "get published.") Then for reasons that are long and for a different entry one day, I got sidetracked into graduate school for screenwriting and loved it for various reasons. First, I really had to learn structure and so many writing lessons, and screenwriting is a very structured medium. Second, I could write scripts faster than a novel, so I had more things people could read more often -- a sense of gratification when writing has so few, if any, and so far in between. Third, people tended to give me strong positive feedback on the scripts (and then since I could write more, there was more stroking to be had.)

Writing the novel is far lonelier and isolated. It doesn't pay nearly as well if I sell (but just going with the odds, it is far more likely that I could sell a novel than a script since there are thousands of new novels published every year and only 400 or so films made, and maybe only a couple of thousand of sales, if that many, a year, most of those going to established screenwriters). On the plus side, writing is far more peaceful an experience to me, and I enjoy the freedom of the form immensely. I was at my happiest writing when I was working on the novel before this latest round of script stuff.

But am I just hiding from fear of failure if I decide to write this as a novel? I dunno.

One way I had been answering this is to just work on it in both formats, but I'm at the point where I probably should choose one over the other one, because it's going to affect how the story develops, since I could do a lot more within the novel. I'm worried that if I keep trying to divide loyalties, I will manage to get no further in either career (novelist vs. screenwriter). Unfortunately, neither form is feeling like the absolute right choice, and so I keep dividing my time.

Anybody with a reliable crystal ball handy?

dreaming

I laughed this morning in my sleep. Laughed to the point where I woke up, still laughing. This has happened a grand total of two times in my life. I tried to explain to my husband and oldest son at breakfast why I was laughing... that I had dreamed a movie. In my excitement, I began telling them the story, and both of them looked sort of... worried. Like I might not be cooking on a full burner, or something.

(Of course I'm not cooking on a full burner, I am a writer, what did they expect?)

thriller epiphany

Writing epiphanies come from the damndest places sometimes, and at the oddest moments. I have a thriller I've been working on; it's very high concept and high tech, which are two things I rarely do. What facinates me about this thriller is the people, though, and why they're in this tight jam they're in, and what they'll do to get out of it.

Still. That tight jam. I've been thinking about this idea for years. I think close to six years before I finally had a small series of epiphanies about how to make it work, how the mechanism functions and how to show it and build that tension. I could never even bother to start writing until those things fell into place, which just happened this past December. I was, however, missing a rather vital piece, and I had been trying out and discarding dozens of possible pieces, and nothing, absolutely nothing, was working.

And then tonight, as I was walking through the living room, someone had left on the TV and a show was on with a bunch of forensic type of stuff (I think it was on Discovery channel -- it was more of a case file for something, but I missed the majority of it). And I saw something on there that had abolutely nothing to do with the thing I'm working on, and that thing I saw had no way to interact with what I'm working on. But as I carried the image with me from the living room to the back of the house (master bedroom area), that image suddenly jigsawed its way into the answer. It changed, morphed a bit, but it was sooooo simple, once I saw how it worked. Elegantly simple, and in this very complex thriller, it has to be so simple, people would overlook it.

I can now write the rest of that story. Weird.

limbo

I feel strange and weird, and part of it is frustration and seething over something going on in our business (someone who wasn't competent costing us money on a big project), and some of it is just not being able to focus on what to work on. Part of that problem is that little things happen for the scripts which sound good but mean nothing, but the sounding "good" part keeps trying to rev up the "hope" part and the common sense knows-it-means-nothing part is smacking around the hope part because geez, it's really pretty much impossible to sell a spec, so be real. If that makes any sense at all, we're probably both in trouble.

The sounds good but means nothing: The agent sneaked the new script to someone, though I don't know how that will turn out; a producer who'd read it called her and loved it, though I don't think that producer has the funds to do anything; a friend and I talked last night -- she works for the head of production of a major studio -- and she wants the scripts because she wants to watch the tracking boards and make sure the new one's getting positive spin, and she's in a position to help with that... and the romantic comedy one -- well, she knows a lot of people she can mention it to, who might be interested... all of which mean a great big zero sales wise (though I appreciate the positives and my friend's efforts.)

I have stared at the screen tonight, thinking if I could just work, just focus, I would at least feel productive. Instead, I'm at that annoyed, bitchy, frustrated level where I'm certain everything I write just sucks and I should be breaking rocks for a living.

That, and I am seriously craving chocolate. (sigh)

contrariness

In most of the stories I write, I'll know the basic direction I'm going, but I work out the details as I go. Serendipity plays a nice role because I'll often see the right detail or overhear the perfect comment that will fill in the puzzle just when I need it; maybe I've trained myself to be open to the creative or maybe I'm lucky at that moment. Generally, I'll make notes in longhand in a spiral notebook I keep by my bed. Sometimes I have a strong desire to work on a particular piece, I'll feel some of the pieces falling together, all I have to do is work out a few of the specifics, and I'll make a generous amount of notes, asking myself questions at night and sleep on it, waking the next day to have one or two epiphanies about how to solve something. It's a very cool process and it's one of the things I love about writing. Usually.

And then there are nights like last night, where Carl's sick and not sleeping well, so of course, I'm not sleeping well, and the rain is upsetting the dog, and all I end up doing is tossing and turning and having feverish half-dreams about stories, and one story visits the other and the characters are all confused and annoyed and things happen that make absolutely no sense whatsoever and there's a mutiny and before I know it, I'm arguing with them and they're arguing back and I'm kinda sure they institutionalize people for this.

That's about the time I wake up and have an epiphany, all right, but it's usually for the story I hadn't planned on really working on right now, and damn it, it's a pretty good one, so now I know if I don't go off to work on that one, it's going to keep haunting me and annoying me and interrupting the characters in the other story and it's going to turn into a mess.

Of course, the way this works is I will go work on the one for which I now have the epiphany, then hit a point where I'm excited about it and need to figure out more details, and I'll write the stuff in the notebook all set to brainstorm and dream out the answers that night and it'll be a free-for-all again. These two stories in particular have been doing this for a while. I'm close to bitch-slapping me some characters. Or myself, I'm not sure which.

small quandry

I had an e-mail tonight from a producer friend who loves the romantic comedy mentioned a couple of entries down. She's done a couple of features and many Movies of the Week (MOWs). At one point, about a year or so ago, she tried to get financing for the romantic comedy as a theatrical release, but she's not a "big" producer -- she's small by her own admittance -- and her one financial source didn't bite since they decided they wanted to do thrillers. Ever since then, we've emailed or talked, and she keeps wanting to be involved in getting the romantic comedy made, which is very nice. She's been a terrific cheerleader through this process, and has come up with very helpful suggestions.

A while back, she had access to a major network (one of the big three) and she asked if she could pitch it there as a movie of the week. I had mixed feelings -- of course, prestige-wise, I'd rather it was a theatrical release. But when my brain actually kicks in gear and the common sense bitch slaps the ego cells back down to where they belong, I recognize that, duh, I don't have a film made yet and getting something made means (a) hey, I have something made and (b) I got paid for it. So I said sure, she could try to pitch it to that group.

She did, and nothing really happened (not a "no" but not a "yes" either). Since then, whenever she's had an opportunity to pitch the project to someone, she's written to ask permission. I've always said sure, since (as mentioned in the status report below), nothing much was happening anyway.

An odd little thing happened tonight -- she e-mailed me and said she'd gotten a opportunity to pitch it to another one of the big three networks; this opportunity apparently came out of the blue at a lunch for something else. She pitched it and they're interested in seeing more, so she's sent them the project. The teeny little niggly detail is that I didn't know about this first, so I didn't give permission. And the reason that matters is that I had told the director she could run with trying to get actresses on board, which is essentially a producer's job, and I know this director has no real desire to do this as a MOW. I think, should the deal actually come through and I was able to say to the director: hey, we can get this made and I still want you on board, she'd go for it, because she keeps stressing she loves the material.

But...

I probably should give the director a heads' up about the possibility that a network might want it, but I'm not leaning towards doing that. For one thing, the potential that they might want to make it is slim to none, and then it's a moot point, so why derail the director's enthusiasm right now with something that's nothing? Still, a part of me feels guilty, like I should call and tell her, just to keep her informed.

And then the producer mentioned above asked me about the current script. The one that's gone to my agent already that she's going to take out. She had read an earlier draft of it and I had completely forgotten that I had promised to send her the polished version (just for her to read) when I was done. Completely. Forgot.

oops.

It's not like she's going to option it -- I don't think she has that kind of money or access. I doubt my agent would look too kindly on her having it before some other people that the agent wants to have it, but I did promise that I'd send it, so I'm going to. And I'll tell her about the agent taking it out next month, because that's only fair.

This is such a strange business. It's always nothing nothing nothing for months on end, then a flurry. Then nothing again. I swear, Hollywood exists in a different dimension, some sort of quasi-reality where "tomorrow" could take six months. I wish I aged like that.

writer's high

In postscript, Tamar wrote:

"But the real reason I write is far simpler. I write because it gives me a rush. A physical rush. Oh, not the kind of writing I�m doing right now, putting words together to describe or muse on a given topic. Fiction. Dipping into the stream of semi-conscious right-brain meets left-brain word/sentence/story shaping. That kind of writing."

Tamar so aptly described what I feel; I can't imagine a life where I didn't want to tell stories. It's a fact of who I am, though life would have been far easier if I'd had this same drive to be a great contractor or accountant or seamstress. Tamar hit it exactly when she describes the process of writing in her entry quoted above -- there's a feeling of losing myself in the story, of being both creator and participant, of stepping completely out of this world and into another one for a little while.

I had not realized that there were other people in the world who did not have this sort of response to writing. (I mean, how could everyone not be like this? And then I realized, most people aren't like this. I am a freak. A happy freak. heh.) One day a few years ago, my philosophy professor / mentor and I were talking particularly about reality and how it relates to sight. How we define our world by what we see and hear around us, and somehow I mentioned how my reality completely alters when I'm in the stream of the story, as Tamar described above. I may be typing on the keyboard, looking at a screen, but there are long, crystal clear moments when what I'm describing becomes three-dimensional around me, down to smells and sounds, blocking out what's really there. My professor was a bit stunned, because he sees absolutely no visuals when he's writing creatively -- he said he never had had that sort of imagery in his head. To me, that would have been as awful as having a limb amputated, but he'd never known the difference. But it did explain to me all those times when the kids would stand at my side, trying to get my attention, trying to break into that world I'd created and I would turn and look at them so blankly (because I hadn't quite "come to" in the real world yet). Or the many many times they would ask questions or tell me something and I'd nod or mumble some response that had no meaning to them, and they'd realize that mom was gone again. What a strange creature they had for a mom; I think it might have been a little easier if I'd been blue or something -- that, at least, they could have sold tickets for.

status report: the romantic comedy film

For the few of you who were aware of the script I have in pre-production, there's only a smidge of an update: the director called and we talked last week. She's still enthusiastic about getting the film made, but disappointed in her own agent, who had not followed through on some promises to help our efforts to get the script to a few specific actresses. The director wanted to step up and do more (which would mean more of a producer's role), which was great for me -- I encouraged her.

So, the scorecard reads: seventh inning stretch. The score's still tied (we have some funds and a lot of important things attached, but not all, and we need the actress to get the rest, and we could get an actress a lot quicker if I had the rest already lined up and could make definite offers -- i.e., your classic Catch-22).

I haven't pushed on this project at all for the last few months; just had no time, and honestly, wasn't quite sure what the next step should be. I have no idea what (if anything) will come of the director's renewed vigor. We'll see. If anything happens at all, I'll report it here. For now, it's back in the director's hands to see what she can accomplish.

Meanwhile, I have writing to do. Off I go.

without the angst this time

My agent has my new script.

That phrase, by itself, is a little weird, given that I had completely quit screenwriting a long while back, had left my agent about that time because I wanted to write a novel, and had zero intentions of ever going back to screenwriting. The business side of screenwriting is insane, and I had had enough of it to know that I didn't want to ever ever go through the ordeal again. I started on the novel, got about half-way through it when life turned upside down and business kept me away from it for a while. Then the script idea took hold with a ferosity that I cannot explain. I had to write that one, and it had to be a script.

Even after writing it, after getting it out of my system (and showing it to one person who'd encouraged me and who had implied he wanted to option it or better... then who didn't, and I still don't know what that was about)... I put it in a drawer and decided to forget all about it.

Only, I didn't.

I waited six months (read: I was insanely busy with work), dusted it off, polished it up with the benefit of a handful of notes I'd gotten in a very constructive workshop I belong to, and then it sort of seemed silly not to at least get an agent's opinion. And getting an agent is another ordeal akin to having one's toes amputated by way of the ear canal. Not entirely a fun process. Since I had no real emotions invested, I thought I'd send it to my old agent first, figuring she'd turn it down (I really doubted she'd like it), and then that would be that -- I could say I tried and not feel guilty for doing nothing with all that work.

Frankly, I didn't expect her to answer the e-mail. Which she did, in 15 minutes. I sent the script and didn't expect her to read it for a couple of weeks. She read it overnight and loved it. When she called, I expected her to have notes throughout the script. She's never not had notes. This time, she had none. I expected her to tell me she wasn't going to take it out, though, because the market isn't right for it (for whatever reason.) Then she said she wanted to take it out, and thought she'd do so in March.

I'm pretty sure it isn't going to sell. (What the hell, this negative streak has worked so far.) Seriously, specs so rarely do -- they usually just "introduce" a writer to producers, who then want to meet with the writer (assuming they liked the script well enough) to "get to know the writer" (which is code for deciding if they want to work with this person or if they think the writer is nothing more than a fruit loop who got lucky on one script).

But weirdly -- strangest of all -- I just have no angst. Maybe having such low expectations is the way to function in that business. I don't know, but at least I'm sleeping instead of wishing and hoping and fretting. (I do that enough already for the construction business -- I have no angst left over.)

Meanwhile, I'm trying to write the novel and I have a thriller script I'm playing with -- I alternate between the two, depending on my mood. More on the actual writing aspect of those two later.