Loglines and You: Michael Ferris explains it all in Script magazine

Even the most seasoned writers I know struggle with loglines -- the single sentence at the top of your query that presents a succinct explanation of the plot, tone, and style of the book. Sounds simple enough, but that single sentence can really suck your head inside out. So Michael Ferris' "Loglines and You" article in Script magazine immediately caught my attention. He's talking about pitching a screenplay, but the rules apply to querying a novel or memoir.

Quoth Ferris:

"...your goal with a logline is not to talk about or encapsulate the story in (hopefully) an exciting way. Instead, a logline is meant to highlight the aspects of your script that would entice someone who didn’t give a crap two seconds ago into wanting to read/know more. If you can write one sentence that entices the reader to want to read your script, AND also gives some semblance of what they story will be, you’ve written the perfect logline."

He goes on to offer this example: "A journey of forbidden love between a poor boy and a rich girl on the final voyage of the RMS Titanic." Which isn't actually a sentence, but you get the drift. (They don't need predicates in Hollywood. It's a town without pity.)

Read the rest here (before that logline sucks your head inside out.)

Are the books in your local B&N all hiding behind a big Nook booth?

If you’re not a bookseller or a publisher or an author involved right now in the contortionist’s dance of promoting your own novel, then you may not know that commercial book culture is embroiled in a donnybrook. (Is that a mixed metaphor? Is it two mixed metaphors?)

Okay, these are are all pretty much inside-baseball articles, but I want to link anyway to a post by Chicago bookseller Jeff Waxman called “Notes from the Brouhaha”. I do this as an excuse to type “brouhaha” (which is almost as much fun as saying it out loud). And I do it in the hope that a good many folks out there might be interested in pondering the health and future of book culture as a whole. More specifically, I do it because in the middle of paragraph six, Waxman writes this: “When you pay less for a book, you will ultimately be left with less.”

His post is actually about the implications of Amazon's sponsoring the Best Translated Book Award this year. But his musings take him right to the real point—at least as far as literary novel lovers are concerned.

Pondering which books we buy and how we buy them is an ongoing, but worthy, exercise when we see what happens these days to novels that are not expected to become blockbusters—and what seems now to be the path for authors of more quiet works. How do we find those important authors now? By looking farther. And when we find them. . . .

I'm rooting for the moment when the love of reading raises the cultural value of all the great books to be found at the center of the store. When that happens we'll all be left with more.

New York Times will have e-book bestseller list early next year

File under "Gee, ya think?"

In an acknowledgment of the growing sales and influence of digital publishing, The New York Times said on Wednesday that it would publish e-book best-seller lists in fiction and nonfiction beginning early next year.

The lists will be compiled from weekly data from publishers, chain bookstores, independent booksellers and online retailers, among other sources.

Read the rest here.

A "Professor" schools her student, xtra normal style

Would be funny if it weren't so true. I recently showed this to my MFA and PhD hopefuls, just so they could be in the know . . .

The Gift of Perspective

Last fall and earlier this year, I spent a great deal of time working on a project that for all its potential, wasn't quite coming together. What's worse is that, I was so close-in, I'd grown myopic. I couldn't mentally take the step back I needed to see it as a whole and do anything but minor tweaks, when in reality, I needed to fundamentally rethink the story's plot.

Fortunately, fate intervened, in the form of a couple of manuscripts that absolutely, positively had to be dealt with before I could return to the revisions. Now that I'm finished (until edits arrive, anyway!) I've gone back with eyes refreshed and a mind more open to what, as it turned out, were some fabulous editorial suggestions. Suggestions that might as well have been communicated in the buzzing of gnats or the trumpeting of elephants for all the sense I was getting out of them before.

This isn't the first time the gift of space (and the perspective that comes with it) has done me a great favor. I remember back in 2003, when I was struggling to sell my first contemporary romantic suspense (after writing a number of historicals.) I had a proposal that was literally going nowhere. Idiot judges failed to see its brilliance in contests. Idiot editors passed failed to recognize my genius.

Except, months later, I had one last chance to put this discarded masterpiece in front of an editor. I then pulled out the proposal, along with all the feedback I'd received -- and suddenly realized that, now that I'd gained sufficient distance to get my ego out of the way, those judges and editors hadn't been the idiots. My "baby" needed work, changes several of them (RWA contest judges in particular) had been kind enough to point out to me.

Having no time at all (my agent needed the proposal yesterday) to second-guess these revelations, I quickly put them into action, and the results, I thought, made for a much more engaging book proposal. So I shoved it into an overnight packet and sent it out that very day.

In less than a week, I had an offer, and that book, FATAL ERROR, went on to launch a line and garner a RITA nomination and a Texas Gold Award. All because I had finally gotten enough space to see my story in perspective.

Will perspective do me as big a favor this time? I have no way of knowing, but I can tell you that whether or not this project sells, I'll have done my best for these characters and this story. I'll have learned and grown as a writer, and in the end, that's what really counts.

Have you ever shelved a project that wasn't working, only to have an insight later that arrived to save the day? Or do you currently have a project that's frustrating you that might benefit from a few months' distance?

Setting aside such a project and working on something fresh to clear your writer's palette could turn out to be the best decision you ever made.

Celebration! American Stories NOW Recognized in Creative NonFiction Issue 39

Dear friends, I'm taking a moment this morning to thank Creative NonFiction, one of our finest journals celebrating the form, for publishing my story "Meeting House," (re-posted here) in its Fall 2011 issue.  Over the summer, CNF announced its quest to find examples of "truly literary blogging," and "Meeting House"/American Stories NOW was one of two blogs selected to be featured, chosen from over 800 considered by the editors.  I'm pleased and honored, and delighted to post the piece again on ASN, for those of you who may have missed it the first time.  Here's to the canvas we call flash non-fiction, and the quest to render the world a few words at a time.

Monday Jump Start: Get your writing week going with Duck Sauce "Barbara Streisand"

Copyright and the Web: What is the Nature of Ownership?

If you're on facebook, you may have seen this piece already about a writer and editor's quibble over intellectual property and the web. Essentially, the writer found out to her great surprise that a piece from her blog ended up in print, without her permission, and the editor had the nerve to reply to her email with a pretty catty message. What's amazing is the editor's assumption that if something is printed on the Internet that it's public domain, and what's even more amazing is the tone of the response.

But the larger issue here is, of course, the devaluing of intellectual property, something that's happening more and more frequently, with lines that often blur. At what point does some kid's mashup of the latest Adam Lambert song become plagiarism? At what point does it infringe on copyright? And just because it's on you tube, that doesn't make it legal, right? And when is it appropriate to quote a snippet of someone else's blog, and when is it not? And how much of the material can legally be quoted without the author's permission?

In my research and writing classes at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, we discuss these and other intellectual property issues regularly. We talk about the ethics of using and even referring to other work, and, more importantly, the etiquette of asking for permission before reposting or recopying. Although I don't always succeed, I try to help students understand the basics of the law, what it means for them as students, and what it means out here in the big wide world.

In the ever changing landscape of social networking, blogging, and publishing, we're all out in the gunslinging world of the new century. But just because the lines haven't been drawn, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Even for Cooks Source magazine.

Trailer for Jessica Brody's YA novel "The Karma Club" scores Deepak Chopra cameo

Quote of the Week: Shaw's Hunger for Life

“There are too many books I haven't read, too many places I haven't seen, too many memories I haven't kept long enough.”
- Irwin Shaw

When I stumbled across this quote, I immediately recognized the late dramatist as a kindred spirit, someone who, like nearly every writer or artist I've known, has an insatiable appetite for life, for stories, for emotional experience. My life has been enriched immeasurably by my time spent in such company.

Having taught many children over the years, I've become convinced that everyone is born with a wide-eyed zest for life and that that zest is the spark that fuels the creative spirit. But it's not a gift one can ignore . It must be nurtured carefully, fed enough fuel and allowed sufficient oxygen to keep it alive. And above all, it must be protected from the harsh winds of cynicism, ennui, and routine.

So at least for today, do at least one thing to indulge that inner child, to feed the hungry flame inside you, to stoke the spirit of creativity until it warms you from within.

Faster Than the Speed of Doubt

Over the past two months, I've embarked on my own personal, real-world version of NaNoWriMo. I had exactly ten weeks to complete one 55-60,000-word manuscript and write another, from start to finish.

Though I had nearly finished the first, this still gave me no time for dawdling, no time for days off, and not nearly as much time as I could have used for whining and gnashing my teeth. (If you ask my husband and critique partners, they'll undoubtedly tell you I managed to squeeze in plenty!)

It's also allowed me zero time for self-doubt, and no more than a few odd minutes here and there to fret over how I'd never before written anything so quickly and was bound to CRASH and BURN and DESTROY my career FOREVER. (My subconscious is a fourteen-year-old drama queen with a bull horn, I can tell ya.) Instead, I continued blazing forward, pushing out between seven to ten pages per day with very little opportunity for looking back and second guessing. And somehow - perhaps because I wasn't interrupting myself all the time - the story took on a life of its own, working behind the scenes to knit itself together with a whole lot less angsting and head-banging on my part than usual.

Which goes to prove that the daily writing habit, the one so many people are working so hard to develop this month, is an incredibly powerful thing. Is it the only thing? Absolutely not. But it's a draft -- a story to coax, massage, polish, and oftimes vacu-suck a lot of ugly fat from.

And someday, with a lot of help from trusted others, it might even get to be a book.

By the way, mine will be soon winging its way to my editor. Days ahead of schedule. So take THAT and shove it up your bullhorn, you doom-slinging 14-year-old drama queen subconscious!

Buy This Book: Colleen's latest 'Deadlier Than the Male' is a Waldenbooks/Borders Top 10 Bestseller!

So apparently all you have to do is be extremely talented, work incredibly hard, come up with awesome ideas, weave rollercoaster ride plots with resonant atmospherics, generously share your knowledge, and...what am I forgetting...oh, yeah: rescue dogs!

Congratulations, Colleen!

Need a NaNoWriMo Assistant? Check out Jesse!

I could really use a little help from the amazing Jack Russell Terrier, Jesse, as I complete my edits in time to make Monday's deadline! Isn't he awesome?