Ah, Paris...

Edith Piaf on Ed Sullivan in 1952

New Cover Art

I admit it. One of my very favorite parts of being an author (other than interacting with happy readers!) is opening a new piece of cover art. Whenever I receive one, I hold my breath like a little kid about to open birthday presents. And yes, I'm praying for the pony instead of sensible new socks and undies. Or worse yet (gasp), something educational.

I think I got the pony this time, with my cover for my March 2010 release, Touch of Evil. Though it's sexier than my past covers, it conveys the story and its characters nicely.

Hope you'll forgive my sloppy scan. This was the best I could manage for some reason.

Here's a sneak peek at the back cover copy, too.

Tight

The noose cuts off all air, leaving its victim struggling hopelessly against death. One by one, the members of a small town zydeco band are being murdered by a macabre killer.

Tight

Sheriff Justine Wofford is boxed in on all sides, investigating a series of gruesome hangings everyone else considers suicide. Hospitalized by a severe blow to the head, unable to remember the details of the attack, under fire from her own department, she reaches out to the man she’s sworn to avoid at any cost.

Tight

Their affair was a close-kept secret, their bodies coming together with explosive heat even as she tried to maintain emotional distance. But now Justine can’t stay away from Ross. Somehow, he’s mixed up in this case and his hold on her is only getting tighter.

Some Things Defy Words: 9/11/01

Like millions around the globe, I can't help thinking about the events that unfolded eight years ago today, can't help recalling all the lives impacted, all the grief and, yes, the surging of a fierce, defiant pride in our country and its people.

I was with a friend, researching a book and travel article in Key West, when a pierced, tattooed guy taking out his trash blurted the ridiculous "sky is falling" news to us. We didn't believe him, thought it must be some bizarre and cruel "joke" a mentally ill or drug-addled local liked to play on the turistas. It took a while for it to sink in, for more news to reach us from the guide narrating our cheesy tram tour through the city. Few of those riding with us spoke sufficient English to "get" what was happening, but we did, along with the American guide. That moment, and his false cheer for the sake of the other tour guests, stand out as the most surreal of my life.

I don't really like to think about that time and those extra days I spent stuck, separated from my firefighter husband and our young son, as we waited to get a plane out of paradise, worry for our loved ones, and mourned, as the country mourned, its loss of innocence. But just as some memories defy words, they defy a person to put them aside.

This is certainly one.

Afterwards, like so many Americans, I went on with my work, slogging past our collective post traumatic stress to complete my writing obligations. But that book was the last historical romance I wrote. And I've never set foot back in Key West since.

September 10, 1983

So far...so good.

Get your Jack Imel on! (The writing life is all about multi-tasking.)

"What separates the men from the boys in this business is the ability to multi-task." Wise words from an editor I worked with at Random House a while back. We were talking about the overlapping timelines on two projects that had me editing and writing at the same time. It can be crazy-making, but a successful writing life requires the ability to compartmentalize projects and isolate the muscles you need to do more than one thing at a time. Throw motherhood into that mix, and you're seriously...tap dancing.

Spend a moment with the great Jack Imel from the old Lawrence Welk Show, then get into your jazz pants and have a great day.

Crashing Through Brick Walls: First Lines that Sold

On one of my writing loops (sending a shout out to my friends from PASIC) we've been sharing first lines from our own novels, specifically our first novels published. It's been so much fun reading the openings of books that snagged an editor's or agent's attention that I thought I'd carry it over to the blog today and see if I could entice any of you to share.

But first, a little about the rumored "rules" for openings. I've been hearing them for years: Don't start with the weather. Or a funeral. Or a woman sipping tea. Don't begin with a long sentence (some rule-spouters are so specific, they give an exact word count you mustn't exceed). Avoid prologues at all cost. Start with dialogue. Begin in the middle of things. Set off at the moment everything changes. Never start with a description. Eschew backstory.

I could go on, but I won't. Because I think it's all a load of bunkum. First lines aren't meant to be paint-by-number prescriptions. They're meant to engage the reader on some level, to transport us or raise some question that keeps you reading to the next line... then the next. To establish the author's voice and give the reader faith she is in good hands.

Truth to be told, a lot of really great books don't start with great first lines, but those that do definitely have a competitive advantage. Or at least they do if the story can live up to those first words.

To show how different successful beginnings can be, please share the opening line or lines (no more than a paragraph, please) of the first piece of fiction that netted you a contest win, an agent, or a contract.

I'll start off with the first paragraph from my 1999 historical romance debut, Touched by Fire (written as Gwyneth Atlee and published by Kensington). From the prologue:

The hardest part was stealing the fresh blood. True, the shabby boardinghouse where Hannah Shelton now resided was just around the corner from the butcher's, and often the smell of death loomed large. Truer still, the old meat dealer was a drunkard, but even so, he normally locked the slaughterhouse.

Big surprise I later ended up switching to suspense, huh? ;)

Now don't leave me swinging in the wind here, please. How about sharing some openings of your own?

Are you suffering Rejection Fatigue? (Take two of these with a glass of wine.)

Adding Scott Jeffrey's "Enlightened Business" blog to our Feed Me sidebar after seeing his post about ignoring the critics. Just a few examples of titanically wrong calls on the part of agents, editors and reviewers...

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
“The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
“It does not seem to us that you have been wholly successful in working out an admittedly promising idea.”

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss
“Too different from the other [books for] juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”

Animal Farm by George Orwell
“It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

Carrie by Stephen King
“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
“I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level.”

I know you've probably heard these before, but it's important to be reminded every once in a while that opinions are like...well, you know. Everybody has one. And the only one that matters is your own.

An early end to my Infinite Summer

After I flooded the bathroom at the Hay-Adams Hotel, I came to the inescapable conclusion that I would never finish reading Infinite Jest. I understand now. This book I've wanted to read for years does not want to be read by me.

Back in May, I enthusiastically hopped on the Infinite Summer bus and dove into David Foster Wallace's hefty tome for the severalth time. Cool, smart people discussing the magnum opus of a brilliant author at a super-doable pace of 75 pgs/week. What's not to love? I ordered a shiny new copy and enthusiastically posted here on BoxOcto:

Am I a huge bifocula for being really excited about this? I don't care. I think when I get to the final page of this extraordinary book, I'm going to be a better reader, a better writer, and I will have settled into a strong habit of crawling into bed at a reasonable hour with a good book.

By the end of July, about 400 pgs in (not even approaching halfway home), I'd remembered all the reasons why I keep picking this book up...and putting it down. I love the writing; I hate the book. And then I hate myself. Why why why can't I be cool enough and smart enough to see the Magic Eye puzzle? I was immensely relieved to see this incredibly brave post from Avery Edison on the Infinite Summer site, expressing exactly the way I felt about my IJ experience thus far...

I resent that I’m having to work this hard, that I feel like I’m indulging the author. I resent having to read enormous blocks of text, with no paragraph breaks, for pages and pages at a time. I resent the endnotes that (more often than not) only serve to either waste my time or confuse me even further. I resent that I’m continually reaching supposed milestones (”just make it to page 100!” “get to 200!” “300 is where you get rewarded for all your effort!”)...

Which brings me to the Hay-Adams.

In Washington DC on business a few weeks ago, I stayed at the la-dee-da digs where the Obama family stayed while waiting to move into the White House, which is visible from many of the Hay-Adams' immaculately appointed suites. The front desk clerk had a florid European accent. The orchids by the elevator were real. I checked. There was no coffee maker in the bathroom.

And no bathtub.

I was surprised -- and disappointed, actually; a long, hot bath is always part of my ritual when I stay at a swanky hotel. The elegant bathroom was equipped with an elaborate shower. Lovely architectural features. Multiple water features. It seemed odd that there was no ledge or barrier between the shower floor and general bathroom floor, but the floor was very beautiful, and I did see a portal for water to drain at one end. I considered calling down to the front desk for advice, but I wasn't about to admit to the continental clerk that I wasn't up to the bathroom fixtures of my betters. C'mon. This was the Hay-Adams, so it must be wonderful, right? To my tiny mind, it might seem like water spraying onto a pristinely flat marble floor would tend to run all over the place, but clearly, this was a high-end head of state shower, the special design of which I was too pedestrian to comprehend. Clearly, this was how the intelligentsia and power brokers were showering while I bubble-bathed like a soccer mom in the suburbs.

In LA, luxury has a wonderfully old-school seediness. In NY, it's about money money chic. In DC, luxury feels intelligent. Venerable. They don't cater to commoners like me. This was a shower where duchesses rinsed away polo pony dust and congressmen seduced ivy league idealists. This was going to be the most amazing shower ever!

It took me ten minutes to figure out how to turn the snazzy water features on -- and another five minutes to get them turned off. By that time, the entire bathroom was flooded. Soapy water turned the plush area rugs to marshland and seeped out into the pile carpet of the entryway. I seized a complementary bathrobe and shoved it against the bottom of the door. Still naked, on hands and knees, I frantically pawed fluffy towels from the ornate cabinet, mopping and sopping, wringing water into the toilet.

What made me think I was good enough to be in this hotel, in this town, in this business--

There was a knock at the door, and a voice called, "Turn down service?"

Shit. "Just a second..."

"Would you like warm towels, ma'am?"

"Um..."

First impulse: hide the mess. Not even possible. Second impulse: my writer mind crowded with plausible scenarios in which a brilliant but eccentric author purposely creates a giant pile of sodden terry cloth and Velour heaped in a corner by a useless drain. You know -- like art! My mother mind had already moved to methods whereby I could clean and dry the towels before checkout time the next morning. Or I could just be honest and ask the housekeeper for help.

I pulled on PJ pants and a tee-shirt, shame-faced, prepping my profuse apology. But when I opened the door, the housekeeper said, "You got water on the floor, didn't you?"

"Yes. I did. I'm so sorry..."

"Happens all the time in this room," she said, pulling a stack of towels from her cart. "That shower is actually for handicapped people."

She wouldn't let me help clean up, but we chatted pleasantly. (Her son is getting married this month in Managua. The girl is extraordinarily beautiful, and her son is blind. A nice love story.) She left a few extra chocolates on my desk.

When I crawled into the perfectly turned-down bed that night, I took up my sky blue copy of Infinite Jest, as I have every night since the first week of June, but I couldn't bring myself to open it. I was stricken with the ridiculousness of my continuing battle to force-feed myself this book that simply was not designed for me. I'd assumed I didn't get it because I'm not smart/cool enough, when the truth is, there's nothing to get. I can't hear what this book is saying because it has nothing to say to me. It was intended for someone else.

Infinite Jest is like the New Testament book of Revelations. People have raised up an entire mythology around that book and endowed it with all sorts of meaning it never had. It was intended for a small, specific audience -- seven specific churches at a specific moment in history -- and only those few could truly understand its message. But it was so beautifully written, all those wonderfully cryptic predictions and wildly creative images. It took on a life of its own. First came the true believers, then the curious scholars, then the agenda-mongers, and then the flood of those who ably regurgitate the religion but are secretly baffled by the book itself. They loudly pledge their allegiance because they desperately fear being "left behind."

I'll never turn the final page of Infinite Jest, but looking back at my June post, I feel better about the time I invested.

Am I a better reader? Yes. Because after choking on that giant horse pill for two months, I was hungry for fiction. As soon as I got back from DC, I pulled the shortest novel from my TBR pile -- Thornton Wilder's slim but eloquent The Bridge of San Louis Rey -- and sank into a warm bubble bath with it. Now that is luxury. I read that and the next three shortest novels on my pile in quick succession and loved them. I've been on a classic fiction binge ever since.

Am I a better writer? Yes. Because I explored something that challenged my brain, and that's always good. I've also been sternly reminded of the toxicity of pretense and envy. When I finished Wilder's Bridge of SL, I realized it was every bit as convoluted and plot-wandering as IJ. But it worked for me because Wilder wanted to crawl in the tub with me and whisper in my ear. I know this sounds blousey, but I felt loved by that book -- and I felt jilted and scorned by Infinite Jest. Maybe that was DFW's intention: to let Me the Reader know how suburban and bovine and not in with the in crowd I am. If so, he succeeded. Brilliantly. But I'm not sure how much joy he took from that before he hanged himself, and I take absolutely no joy in knowing he came to that sad end.

"I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers," said DFW, "this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader."

I find that statement incredibly sad coming from someone who had a chance to make a life and living writing anything he wanted to write. A desperate desire to please is just as inwardly corrosive as hostility, and neither springs from the gratitude or eyes-wide-openness required to make a peaceful, joyous life in this industry.

I guess I have a different relationship with the nebulous entity that is The Readership. We take turns being the blind man and the beautiful girl, but there's mutual love married with occasional heartbreak, elegantly complicated with the handicap of being human.

The Camel Bookmobile Project

Read Masha Hamilton's riveting novel 31 Hours this week (more about that tomorrow) and it made me want to go back and check out her previous work. I'll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, be intrigued by these images and click to read the story behind The Camel Bookmobile...

Dialogue's Pettiest of Peeves

“Let's bring it up to date with some snappy nineteenth century dialogue”

Samuel Goldwyn, the movie Goldwyn (and the G in MGM) said this back in 1924, which brings up another great point about dialogue. It's a tether to the story's setting.

In thought and speech, characters reflect their milieu. Place, time, educational background, social standing: every one of these should be reflected. But delicately, as if you're painting a pastel watercolor instead of troweling foundation on a sow's face. (What an image!)

By this I mean please don't go overboard with dialect. At best, it get be offensive. At worst, incomprehensible. A few dropped g's and f-bombs go a long way, as do "lads" and "lassies." And if you try to transcribe a cherubic little child lisping or using a lot of baby talk, I'm sooo out of there! (Can you hear my pet peeves coming out?)

Resist the temptation to stereotype by prissifying the speech of "good" characters (often in terms of grammar and level of sophistication) and "dumbing down" the speech of villains. And please, for the sake of all of us living in the South (here comes another of the pet peeves) don't link Southern dialect, i.e. y'all and "shuggah" or sugar, to gross stupidity, or I will curse your Daisy Duke gams with an eternal case of cellulite.

If figurative language (similes, metaphors, and the like) come into play, the character will naturally use comparisons with which he or she would be familiar. A Twentieth Century longshoreman won't be comparing his girl's temper to a drunken lord's.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to go wrong with linking dialogue to setting. But no one ever said this business was for sissies!

So what are your pet peeves in terms of dialogue? I'd love to hear some more.

The Tao of Dialogue

One of the most challenging skills a novelist needs to develop is writing great dialogue. For the purposes of fiction (or narrative nonfiction, including memoirs), the author has to do far more than depicting "real conversation," which (if you really listen) is most often halting, repetitive, and mundane enough to put anyone attempting to read it to sleep.

So let's agree that dialogue has to do far more, and far better, than simply sounding real. In general, writers do best to remember the following.

1. Keep it pithy. Assume you're writing the "Best of" whatever comes out of that character's mouth. So you want only the cleverest, the most conflict-rich, and the most character-revealing. And for heaven's sake, avoid the temptation to allow characters to speak in long monologues. Nobody likes a blowhard. Especially in print.

2. Keep it pertinent. All, or very nearly all, dialogue must move the plot forward, heighten the tension of the story question, or raise new questions. There's no room for "How are you, I am fine" drivel, not unless it's loaded with irony or subtext. (You can use narrative to reveal this, for example, characters engaging in trite conversation as bombs or bullets fly around them. Or try showing body language which contradicts the spoken word.)

3. Keep it peculiar. By that, I mean peculiar to the individual who says it. Ideally, each character in your story should be so richly realized (or at least hinted at) that his/her lines could not have been uttered by any other character. To check to see if you're succeeding, try stripping your scene of everything except dialogue, and then see if you can still tell who's talking in the conversation. Though this isn't always going to be possible (anyone can shout "No," for example), it's a very worthy goal.

For a howlingly-funny (and obscenity-laced, I warn you) example of pithy, pertinent, peculiar dialogue, check out the Twitter page of a guy who identifies himself as Justin, whose bio says: "I'm 28. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says." Justin proves he has a great ear for dialogue on his popular Shitmydadsays page.

Best grumpy old man material ever...

Today's question: Which authors do you particularly admire for writing great dialogue? Also, do you have any helpful dialogue tips to add?

P.S.- The adorable pups are from Loldogs. Check 'em out (if you have a taste for saccharine, anyhow.)

Your Attention Please

That's right, I'm after your attention. Or your attention span, which I'm sure must be better than mine of late, with all of life's distractions.

In part, I blame technology, which gives us such a wealth of easily-accessible entertainment and information options, it's becoming increasingly difficult to focus on the work. Twitter tweets for my attention, e-mails and other social networks clamor, and it's not hard to talk myself into the notion that all of these (including the blog) are work, that it's important to "put myself out there."

But I remind myself, that's not the work I chose. (The blog's fun; I admit that. And a nice little journaling warm-up in the mornings.)

And then there are other people's stories (and oh, how I love stories) drifting through the ether. Stories I can plug into via TV, DVD, Hulu.com, audio downloads, Kindle (if I had one), iPhone (ditto), or, lo and behold, the classic book. It's hard to resist the siren calls of story, for I can tell myself how important it is that I keep "up to date and plugged in to the storytelling culture." (My subconscious always sounds quite reasonable when wheedling to get its way.)

But absorbing all those lovely stories doesn't get my work done either. So there's nothing for it but to chain myself to my laptop, shut off the Internet for a while, and get down to the hard stuff. Because sometimes, writing's sledding, and other days you have to pull a heavy plow all by your lonesome. It's been the plow for me this past week, a synopsis that's giving me fits, but there's nothing for it but to throw myself against that harness and pull with all my might.

And pay attention so I can finally get my rows (and maybe my story) planted!

How about the rest of you? Have any tips to share on keeping focused?

Speaking of Structure

Late last night I finished reading a wonderfully rich, inventive novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The book, the ensemble cast story of how a mutual love of books pulled together a small, eccentric band of Channel Islanders (British citizens) and helped them survive the horrors and hardships of German occupation during WW II. I loved it because it truly transported me to another place and time, and rather than detracting, the many voices wove a gorgeous tapestry of a story told entirely through letters, telegrams, and (in one brief section) journal entries.

It's an interesting structure that really works for this book but wouldn't in most cases, and it got me thinking about structurally-different novels. A lot of fascinating possibilities are out there, from variations in tense to changing up or mixing the expected use of third or first person, and/or using the omniscient voice, where the "wise narrator" knows all. (This is mainly a 19th century technique, Dear Reader.) And of course, in this day and age, one could tell a story composed of e-mails, text messages, blog posts, or even pithy Twitter tweets.

But the thing about switching up structure is it often diverts attention from the story itself, screaming at the reader, "Hey, look at how I'm writing this! Aren't I awfully clever?" Not a good thing, unless A. the story is so engaging and the writing so smooth, the reader barely notices the switch up, B. the story is better told by using the "different" structure/technique.

If the technique turns into a parlor trick, distracts the reader, or doesn't serve the story, the writer has to face the fact that it's not working for but against her. Which means that it should either be revised or overhauled completely to put the focus where it should be: on the characters and their story.

Today's questions: Have you read any uniquely (or differently) structured stories you would like to recommend? And have you ever broken away from genre expectations in terms of structure, and how do you feel it worked for you?