Dr. Kat's Top Ten Motivational Songs for Writers

Bouncing off Colleen's post from earlier, I thought I'd explain the "playlist" I'm talking about in the comments. It changes from week to week, but generally, this is my list of go-to songs for working out, for picking me up when I'm down, and for when, as I am now, close to deadline.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Uprising, Muse
2. Firework, Katy Perry
3. Under Pressure, David Bowie and Queen
4. Eye of the Tiger, Survivor
5. I'm Coming Out, Diana Ross
6. Unwritten, Natasha Bedingfield
7. King of Anything, Sara Bareiles
8. You Think You're Cooler than Me, Michael Posner
9. Independence Day, Mel C
10. Written in the Stars, Tempah/Turner

There are others, but these are the ones I tend to find myself listening to lately. And if you can stomach Lady GaGa, some of her dance tunes are deliciously motivational. And now, to start off our weeks on a victorious note:

Lev Yilmaz: Tales of Mere Existence "The Best Book Ever"

Here's to a productive work week! For more Lev Yilmaz visit Ingredient X.

Sara Bareilles' Awesome Musical Response to Know It Alls

Ever wanted the perfect musical response to a blistering rejection, scathing review, or soul-destroying editorial letter?

Thanks to Sara Bareilles, now we have one. "Who died and made you king of anything?" indeed!

Check out my go-to attitude adjustment, Colleen's-got-her-sass-back theme song! Or better yet, share your own.

Working in a Coal Mine (Lee Dorsey and friends make me feel a little less sorry for myself)

First can I get a AMEN for M's post yesterday? I'm a tragically poor blogmate right now, slogging through the massive overhaul on a novel that's had me up early and late 16 hours a day for several weeks now. I'm mentally and physically exhausted, but loving what it feels like when fiction goes on fire. I'll be rejoining the real world soon. (But not as real as these guys.)

On Marriage and Dancing As Fast As You Can

Dear Friends, I thought you all might get a kick out of this: PopEater (AOL's pop culture site) yesterday published my story "How Dancing With The Stars Almost Ruined My Marriage" to coincide with the season finale of Dancing With The Stars.  My husband and I are devotees of the show for all sorts of reasons (some of you might remember I'm a former dancer), not the least of which is that it takes two people who have no idea what it means to move in exact synchronization, chest-to-chest, and teaches them not only how to survive the encounter, but fly.  Music and a good instructor can do that for you.  Even sometimes, in my husband's and my case, after something has gone terribly wrong between you:

Here's the thing: You can be married to someone for two decades and still completely screw up. Make mistakes so profound it's like you've never even met before . . . But Alejandro taught us how to walk, side by side. Then he taught us how to walk facing each other. He taught us how to stretch, how to glide our legs a little more, so that we were walking a little farther, a little more powerfully than we thought we could . . . All we had to do was hold each other, and listen . . .

I hope you enjoy not only the story of our salvaged tango, but the chances you get, with your partner, to laugh, cry, fail, fume, recover, and finally, if you're lucky, step out.

The floor waits.  Grab someone you love, and find the beat!

--MD

For the Love of Classics, Buy This Book: Anne of Green Gables

I was in the garden thinking about garden fairies (From the photo you can see why!) when I  remembered Anne Shirley and her love of fairies and her unshakable belief in them, how she would not be dissuaded. Not even by Marilla, who had been so certain that adopting Anne was a mistake, who cautioned Anne time and again that she was too talkative, too imaginative. But then, over time, Marilla fell in love with Anne. She became secretly pleased with her, this slim girl who had hair as flaming red as her flights of fancy. I tried to recall when my own conviction that fairies were true and real took root and decided that day, working in my garden, that I came into this world with that understanding, the same way Anne believed she did. I remembered that as a girl of around the same age as Anne, eleven or so when I read the children’s classic Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery for the first time, I felt vindicated in my belief. I felt reassured. But not only because Anne stood up for the existence of fairies. In so many other ways too she was like most young girls, hunting a way to fit in, to belong, to be loved.

I was led from that day in the garden to get our copy of Anne of Green Gables from my sister (copyright 1935). It belonged to my mother and her sister before us and loving the story is a family tradition. Reading it again, it has not lost its luster. The themes are timeless. Where does the child exist who does not waver in confidence? Who is not uncertain about their looks, whether or not they will belong, fit in? If they will have friends, a certain, particular friend, a bosom friend, a kindred spirit as Anne calls it. Who, no matter at any age, doesn’t long for understanding, a sympathetic ear? Where is the child who does not imagine at times they are somehow larger than the life they are living?

Anne questions why she must pray on her knees and why she must pray a certain arrangement of words. She speaks of praying out of doors, “in a great big field all alone”. She would there “just feel a prayer”. I loved that in her, that she felt so certain in her lack of convention about all things societal and religious, and yet she was so spiritually connected to earth and sky and to people. She was my kindred spirit, too, in her love of the garden and growing, blooming things and in her irrepressible joy regardless of her circumstances. She speaks of the “romance” of life. It seems lovely to speak of life in such terms, as a romance, as if you are in love with the mere fact and breath of living.

Re-reading Anne of Green Gables reminded me of the solace and delight I have always found in books, of the assurance that my own differences might be an asset. I found the reflection of my joy in life in her story and it has not diminished with time. The book is beautifully written and although it is of another era and possibly for some considered old fashioned, it is not. The wisdom is as true now as then and as truth will ever be. Always true.

Persistence Pays Off: Jenny Milchman's Happy Ending

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to get to know then-aspiring author Jenny Milchman through her comments on this blog. We've e-mailed back and forth a bit, and I learned she had a good agent for her own suspense novel, but in the way of marketing efforts, things were proceeding more slowly than expected.

On her blog, Suspense Her Disbelief, (which I am sharing with permission) Jenny shared that she'd survived the excruciated ups and downs of 11 years, 3 agents, 5 novels, and 14 almost offers, and not surprisingly, this was beginning to get old. Old to the point where she'd about decided she'd had enough of playing by the traditional rules and was going to take the alternate route expressway, as so many other authors have done of late (some with amazing success, others not so much.)

Enter award-winning mystery novelist/fabulous person Nancy Pickard, who was touched by Jenny's story when she wrote to ask for her advice. Nancy did something authors almost never do (for reasons involving both time and legality) and asked Jenny to send her manuscript, COVER OF SNOW. After reading and absolutely loving it, Nancy recommended the manuscript to her editor, the highly-regarded Linda Marrow at Ballantine.

As rare and generous as personal recommendations are (I've made a few myself over the years), what happened next is far, far rarer. Linda Marrow loved the manuscript, it survived the myriad hoops that new acquisitions all must jump through, and was contracted for hardcover publication by Ballantine and in trade paper, with world rights, to follow via Random House. Can I hear a HUUUUGGGGEEEE hallelujah out there, BtO readers! Congratulations, Jenny! I'm looking forward to sharing more about COVER OF SNOW before its release.

What Jenny Did Right:

1. Had a talent, a dream and a belief in the stories she has to offer that enabled her survive the many ups and downs inherent in the journey.

2. Had the mental/emotional strength to keep writing and improving despite many setbacks. (Anyone who's had an agent and editor love a manuscript, only to see it die in committee, can tell you it's its own special level of Hell. Been there, done that, on more than a few harrowing occasions.)

3. Had the humility, self-confidence and professionalism to enable her to reach out and build a support group of more experienced (published) authors. Asked politely for advice rather than demanding or feeling entitled to special favors.

4. Approached the publishing dilemma as a large but solvable problem, one to be tackled by breaking it down into measurable steps.

5. Never, ever gave up.

Again, congratulations, Jenny Milchman on the sale of your debut novel, COVER OF SNOW. We wish you all the success in the world with your suspense!

Beta Readers

Before sending a manuscript to an editor or a proposal to my agent, I always try to chase down a couple of insightful reader/writer friends to look over the pages. Time and time again, my beta-readers have saved me embarrassment--and in some cases, almost certain rejection--by ferreting out confusing or overwritten prose, unmotivated character actions, lame dialogue, or slow stretches.

I've just finished reading Jon Ronson's fascinating and highly-entertaining new book, The Psychopath Test: a Journey Through the Madness Industry and loved what he had to say on the subject in his book's Acknowledgments.

"Being my first reader can, I think, be quite a stressful experience, as I have a tendency to hand over the manuscript and then just stand there exuding a silent mix of defiance and despair."

I can definitely attest that a writer is never more vulnerable or more hopeful than in the hands of that first reader. Going over and over the same chapters blinds us to our work's flaws, and sometimes, to its charms as well. Still, we cling to the mad hope that *this* will be the story that catapults us to the next level, that this will be the one that glides effortlessly through the submission and editorial process.

It takes a really good first reader to gently let us down and alert us to the work that still, inevitably, needs to happen before the project's ready to go out into the world. I can't thank my critique partners, particularly blog pals Barbara Sissel and Joni Rodgers, enough for fulfilling their duties so expertly and compassionately, and putting up with my outbreaks of "defiance and despair."

Neal Pollack (and agent) on JEWBALL and why it pays for some established authors (like me) to self-pub

Don't miss Michael Cader's excellent PL article Neal Pollack On Self-Publishing His Next Novel--And Keeping His Agent.

Says Pollack:

For a writer like me, which is to say, most working writers — midcareer, midlist, middle-aged, more or less middlebrow, and somewhat Internet savvy — self-publishing seems to make a lot of sense at this point.

Pollack's agent, Daniel Greenberg, says:

We have and will work closely thinking about editorial, packaging, selling foreign and other subsidiary rights, and strategizing online and traditional publicity and marketing. ...Though we are not doing a deal with a traditional publisher, large pieces of my job are the same.

I'm a huge fan of Neal Pollack's work and already downloaded the Jewball Teaser Chapter. (It's free! C'mon! Hit the link!) From the JEWBALL cyberflap:

From the bestselling satirist and memoirist Neal Pollack comes a funny, gritty noir portrait of a people on the brink and of a great American game coming into its own. 1937. As the world prepares for war and the Jews of Europe feel the tightening noose of Nazi oppression, tensions simmer in America. While thousands of homegrown Nazis gather in groups like the German-American Bund, American Jews organize against this scourge, resisting any way they can. Meanwhile, the game of basketball grows in popularity, and Jews rule the court. In Philadelphia, the greatest Jewish basketball team of all prepares to confront the Bund, fists cocked. Here, the Jews write the rules. This is war. This is sports. This is...Jewball.

Several years ago, Neal and I both contributed to The Worst Noel: Hellish Holiday Tales, a personal essay anthology pubbed by HarperCollins (I'd done a memoir and a novel there), and I'm exactly where Neal is now: "midcareer, midlist, middle-aged, more or less middlebrow." I've written several bestsellers as a ghostwriter, and my agent will continue to rep me on those projects, but starting later this year, I'll begin pubbing my fiction on my own imprint, Stella Link Books. If print deals ensue, my agent will handle the segue to a brick publisher. I have no idea where the endeavor will go, but I'm thrilled at the idea of doing fiction over which I have total creative and financial control.

GOFIGHTWIN author empowerment!

Footnote: The first title out from Stella Link will be the memoir I did at HarperCollins, Bald in the Land of Big Hair: A True Story, which will launch the imprint this summer. The HC paperback is (astonishingly) still in print, and my editor there has been enthusiastically supportive of my epress venture. The smart publishers know it's to their own advantage to keep authors like Neal and me alive in the marketplace.

If you're working on a novel, you may want to check your rapture status.

Click to enlarge. Visit Best Week Ever.

Today is a better day, or Scarlett O'Hara got it right

As some of you may have guessed from my lengthy comments on Colleen's last post, yesterday was NOT a good day for me. I was having one of those is-it-all-worth-it/I question my very existence moments. Part of that was that I was just exhausted; since turning in grades last week, I've been working hardcore on the novel, putting in an average of 9-10 hours a day. I've reached the point where the book is in endgame, and all I want to do is work on it. That point actually came for me before the end of the semester, which was interesting, because I couldn't quite give into the flow like I wanted. So when grades were in, I took a night off and watched old Bones episodes, and then dove back into the revision. For a few days, it was great. Then exhaustion started creeping in, and I started forgetting important things, like eating, and Mark started to worry about me, as he does at these times, when I get close to the end of projects and don't want to do anything else.

So Monday night, after nine hours of working on a chapter that is supposed to show the beginning of the mental breakdown of my antagonist-turned-antihero character, I decided to take a bit of a break--and to show Mark some of my most recent work. I wanted to be sure that the chapter was really showing the disarray of Isobel's thoughts, but in a way that wouldn't confuse readers. Mark has read the novel in its various incarnations, but it's probably been more than a year since he's read that particular chunk, so I thought he'd be a good reader. I asked if he minded and he said no--it's been awhile since I've showed him anything. But because I wasn't sure that chapter would be the best place for him to enter back into the story, I threw in the chapter before it, too, the chapter I hadn't revised much because it was already working.

Imagine my surprise then, when several nervous minutes later, Mark returned to tell me that the Isobel chapter was "brilliant," but the chapter I thought was "working so well" needed more work. "I just don't understand Diana's decision at the end," he said. "I feel like her motivation is missing."

"Okay," I said. "That's really bad. Because that's a very pivotal chapter."
"Really?" he said. "How is it pivotal?" And I went on to explain it to him, and then he sort of sighed and said "well, I don't get that at all. I mean, I did enjoy that chapter, but that's not at all how I read it."

Of course, by the time he said that, I was starting to feel very unsure about everything, and my new found writer confidence was starting to erode. On the one hand, it was great that he was so complimentary to the chapter I'd just slaved over, but on the other hand, how am I ever supposed to develop a sense of what I can let go/stop working on if I have that much of a disconnect between what I think and what he sees? Granted, he's but one reader, and not exactly my target audience, but the more he explained his reading to me, the more I realized he was right. And I hate to admit it, but I went into the bedroom and lay down and cried. Mark came in after me, perplexed.

"But I don't understand why you're so upset," he said. "The ideas are there and they're great! It's just all the words that are the problem."

At that point, I didn't know whether to cry or laugh. I think I did a bit of both. I went to bed that night frustrated with the chapter, mad at myself, and unsure of what to work on next. When I finally got up the next morning, I dragged myself to the chair and started trying things. I had not planned to spend any more time on that "pivotal" chapter, but the conversation had convinced me that I really needed to make a few things more clear. So I worked, and I worked, and I was in such a funk that I had almost decided not to go to a volunteer meeting that night or out to dinner with two of my friends from the group afterwards.

"You should go," Mark said. "You need a break."
"I don't deserve a break."

But by the time 4 p.m. rolled around, I'd figured out what the problem was with the chapter, and that it wouldn't actually take that long to fix. So by 5:30, I was ready to head out to the meeting and dinner, although still skeptical that I would have any fun. But I did go, and guess what? I did have fun! And more importantly, attending that meeting and going out with those women--brave, beautiful women who have a heart for something larger than themselves, reminded me of my greater purpose. It's the thing that keeps me going when the writing is difficult. It's the thing that keeps me going when the work is not at all "fun." I know I'm meant to do this, and if not with this book, then with another, although I still have a gut feeling about this one. Call it stubbornness, call it delusion, but I've been fighting this fight for awhile now, and both I and the book are getting stronger. I can withstand rejection and criticism and just plain bile, because the fight itself is worth it. And yes, I can even make a chapter pivot, dammit, even when it wasn't quite pivoting before.

That--and sometimes the next day is better because we've taken a break. And sometimes, it's better just because it's another day, and we can always hope Miss Scarlett was right.

Veronica Roth on Success

A very young writer, Veronica Roth has scored an amazing success with her fabulous Dystopian young adult debut, Divergent, which I found as brilliant as it was entertaining. More amazing yet is how much wisdom she has going for her. Wish I'd been so very together in my early twenties. Could have saved me a lot of aggravation.

From Ms. Roth's interview on Amazon.com:

Q: What advice would you offer to young aspiring writers, who long to live a success story like your own?

Roth: One piece of advice I have is: Want something else more than success. Success is a lovely thing, but your desire to say something, your worth, and your identity shouldn’t rely on it, because it’s not guaranteed and it’s not permanent and it’s not sufficient. So work hard, fall in love with the writing—the characters, the story, the words, the themes—and make sure that you are who you are regardless of your life circumstances. That way, when the good things come, they don’t warp you, and when the bad things hit you, you don’t fall apart.

Follow the buying link about to read more, and by all means, check out Divergent, too. It's one exciting read!

Sam Klemke's character arc in reverse

I've heard that proofreading is more effective if you work backwards through the manuscript. The same dynamic applies here.

Soren Kierkegaard: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."