Tool Box: Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a library of 17,000 free ebooks whose copyright has expired in the USA Book listings. Search engine, newsletter, articles, and information by the truck load, including info on how you can help. Right now, I'm revisiting A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, which I'm using as counterpoint in a novel I'm working on. PG makes it super easy to copy and paste so quotes stay accurate.

Book the First: Recalled to Life

I ~ The Period

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

In case you're curious, the Top 20 EBooks downloaded yesterday were:

1. Manual of Surgery by Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson (577)
2. The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) by J. Arthur Thomson (442)
3. Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by Paul Lacroix (382)
4. Jokes For All Occasions by Anonymous (340)
5. Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols (297)
6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (267)
7. The Street That Wasn't There by Carl Richard Jacobi and Clifford Donald Simak (266)
8. Our Day by William Ambrose Spicer (264)
9. Woman as Decoration by Emily Burbank (232)
10. Illustrated History of Furniture by Frederick Litchfield (227)
11. Kamasutra by Vatsyayana (225)
12. The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete by Leonardo da Vinci (206)
13. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (191)
14. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (190)
15. Ulysses by James Joyce (186)
16. The Mafulu by Robert Wood Williamson (184)
17. The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English by Ray Vaughn Pierce (181)
18. Custom and Myth by Andrew Lang (179)
19. How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) by Mary Owens Crowther (176)
20. English Songs and Ballads by Various (165)

Why Harry Potter Works

I was thrilled yesterday to finish reading the last installment of Harry Potter (The Deathly Hallows). I got hooked on the series when it first came to the U.S. and have been avidly following it ever since.

I won't post spoilers here, nor will I pick any minor nits. Instead, I'd like to focus - as a writer - on why the series has worked so well for me -- and millions more.

1. Larger than life characters who are nonetheless relatable. Sure they have unimaginable (to most of us Muggles) powers, but Harry's still every child who's felt unloved, just as Hermione is every bright girl who's felt pressured to tamp down her intelligence (that's why we love her for continuing to be a know-it-all), and Ron is every friend who's walked the line between loyalty and doubt. From the most major characters to those playing smaller roles, Rowling takes the time to humanize each one.

2. The Hero's Journey. Joseph Campbell studied powerful myths/stories and wrote of the classic quest tale which is central to so many. There's something innate to humans that makes us respond to the tale of the underdog/last hope who, with the help of friends and mentors, overcomes terrible obstacles (often death itself) to succeed in an impossible quest. Many, many very popular stories adhere to this ancient pattern. FMI, I recommend Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

3. Imagination. J.K. Rowling has an incredible imagination. Each of her books delights with the sheer inventiveness of the details of the world she has created. Whimsical humor (Bertie's Every Flavor Beans) leavens the darkest of inventions. Though critics may gripe about some elements of her writing or the length of later tomes, the sheer power of her creativity never fails to impress and entertain, especially in the way she shows lovable characters' reactions to each wonder -- or horror.

I feel blessed to live in an age where, for all its troubles, the power of a story can captivate millions of people all around the world. It's story that unites us, story that provides our souls with sustenance, and story that can, upon occasion, supercede much of the harshness inherent in the human condition.

So thank you, J.K. Rowling, for being so damned good at it.

Lessons from a Tough Week

I've had a tough week, a few of them strung together, in fact, as I've battled a mystery virus that has laid me low. At first, I didn't want to admit I was sick, and the idea of asking for or accepting help -- no way.

The Big Bad Bug had other ideas, and I've been forced to reckon with in. My husband, family, and many friends -- blog buddy Joni among them -- have really proven their mettle, and I'll love and appreciate them forever.

But today, the first day I've had the focus to write more than a brief e-mail, I've been thinking about how these lessons apply to the writing life.

1. You have to face the fact that you only have so much control. Whether it's a health issue, a publishing line's demise, or a really icky cover, there's only so much say you have. All the vitamins, exercise, critique group meetings, and self-promotion in the world can't insulate a person from the occasional bad break. They come into everyone's life sooner or later.

2. Failing to admit there's a problem doesn't eliminate the problem. It only isolates you from the support system that can keep you going.

3. Everyone you know has faced a crisis of one kind of another. And a lot more than you suspect are eager to give you a hand up out of yours.

4. The road to recovery, whether physical or career, generally isn't in a straight line. You might take a few steps forward only to slide back, but as long as you keep moving, you're bound to end up somewhere else.

5. When it's someone else's turn to face the fire, you owe the universe to pay back at least a smidgeon of the kindness you've been shown.

Thanks, Joni, for everything - including keeping the light burning on the blog.

someecards: "When you care enough to hit send."

Got a horridly hilarious e-card from my spouse this morning, and while I will do us all a favor by not sharing that particular message, I will pass along a link to someecards.com. You'll find an array of hilarious and profane messages for all occasions, including "Cry for Help", many of which are particularly apropos for writers...

...and the people who love us...

I am a woman trapped in a writer's body.

It's well known that the most difficult step in forging a career as a writer is the simple act of applying one's butt to the chair on a daily basis. So I guess I figured that if my butt was really, really huge...And if that excuse isn't good enough, I can tell myself I just had this baby...eighteen years ago.

After years of good intentions, it was a car accident that finally drove me to the gym. The pain in my back, shoulder, and neck made it impossible for me to sit at the keyboard, and for me, a day without writing is like a day without red blood cells. Having spent a number of years in the cancer treatment mill, I have a strong aversion to clinical settings, so the doc suggested I engage a strength trainer to help me rebuild. I found the perfect guy at LA Fitness -- he used to be a US Marine and is now in medical school -- and started working with him about seven weeks ago.

First and most important result: he addressed the pain I'd been able to mask but not actually heal with mass quantities of drugs. Got me moving again. That was huge. I can actually type for a number of hours without weeping, and my left arm no longer feels like a porcupine on a mop handle. I can sleep at night. Also huge.

Second lovely side benefit of all our hard work: I've gone from a size 18 to a size 14. Before I left for Florida last week, I actually bought a pair of jeans in the store where normal women buy normal jeans for their normal asses, instead of Lane Bryant, and that's not saying anything against Lane Bryant or the women who shop there, but girls, c'mon -- being fat is not fun. Image is something we never want to think about as writers, but the fact is, it does matter. A lot. I am going to feel a whole lot different about myself next time I take the stage.

For the last year or so, I've been walking around in the baggy jeans my son abandoned when he outgrew his baby fat. Yeah. Walkin' around in my son's fat pants. That was me. But I am writing this in an adorable Isaac Mizrahi top and twill capri pants, optimistically eyeing a size 12, and feeling nothing like a traitor to feminism or art or anything real. It is possible to care about one's appearance without being vain or superficial. And in truth, it's probably more honest to step out and say, Praise God and Ann-Margret, I enjoy being a girl!

(Above: "Seated Nude II" by Chen Bi Cong.)

PR pirates: how to blip the radar screen

Stranded on the tarmac in Orlando this aft, I finally had time to read through some articles I'd been storing on my trusty laptop. Seems to me this item from Poets & Writers was sent to me by a fellow working girl after a conversation about how midlist authors can catch some of the free PR that flows so freely to our industry betters.

In "Literary Journalists: How to Get on Their Radar", Jen A. Miller writes:

Those authors savvy about acting as their own publicists also probably know, as any good (and not-so-good) publicist does, that freelance writers are invaluable contacts. Of the 320,000 editors and writers working in the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that one-third are independently employed. That's more than 100,000 of us freelancers out there, searching for the next great story...The author-freelancer connection can be fruitful for both parties. So how can literary writers align themselves with freelancers? Not all freelancers are the same, of course, but knowing who we are, what we do, what we're looking for, and when, can help you on your way to forging that connection.

Miller goes on to give some great advice about where freelancers can be found and how to approach them. Click here to read the article in its entirety.

The buzz on Morbid Curiosity by Deborah LeBlanc

It seemed like the answer to Haley’s prayers. The most popular girl in her high school promised Haley that her life would change forever if only she performed certain dark rituals. And if Haley can convince her twin sister to participate, their power will double. Together they will be able to summon mystical entities they never dared dream of. But these are powerful, uncontrollable forces, forces that can kill—forces that demand to be fed . . .

If this leaves you wanting to know more about Deborah LeBlanc's new thriller Morbid Curiosity, you're in luck. It's avaialable in bookstores everywhere (and online, of course) this month.

The buzz:

“One of the best new voices of supernatural thrillers!” ~ Cemetery Dance

“It’s now official: Deborah LeBlanc has become a master not only of good spooky stories, but also of crafting great characters to fill them!” ~ Horror Fiction Review

“An imaginative chiller. Riveting!” ~ Publishers Weekly

“Ms. LeBlanc’s tale is a powerful, gripping read, with an ever increasing intensity that forces you to the end without laying the novel aside.” ~ Who Dunnit

Go, girlfriend, go!

Deborah LeBlanc: one writer's curious beginning

Deborah LeBlanc is out on the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit this week with her new thriller, Morbid Curiosity.

I'm always fascinated by writers' beginnings, so noodling around Deborah's web site, I was intrigued to discover that she's a licensed death scene investigator (which is actually not a surprising genesis for the president of the Horror Writers Association.) I also loved this little backstory:

Her first short story was written in the second grade, a tale about a misfit mermaid who grew legs. Admonished for writing the story instead of doing an assigned arithmetic lesson, Deborah's teacher confiscated the pages, and as recompense for not following instructions, gave her an additional math lesson to complete. At the end of the school day, the teacher pulled Deborah aside. Fearing that she might be forced to do additional math, Deborah listened in amazement as the teacher told her she'd read the mermaid story, thought she was a wonderful storyteller, and encouraged her to continue writing. Though the pages of that story were never returned, Deborah has been writing ever since. And she still hates math.

Tune in tomorrow for more about the buzz on Morbid Curiosity. Meanwhile, click here to watch the book trailer.

What's Opera, Doc?

Okay, it's Friday. Time to lighten up for a moment. I woke up from a dream about my favorite Bugs Bunny short, "What's Opera, Doc?", the send up of Wagnerian splendor starring Bugs and Elmer Fudd. I loved this cartoon when I was a little girl. The first time I saw it, I was so taken with it, I got my big sister Diana to help me search through the gigantic bins of record albums upstairs at the public library for the source music. We found Wagner...and Puccini...and Verdi...and my lifelong love of opera was born.

I dream about this Bugs ep from time to time, and I have all sorts of theories about why. Perhaps my subconscious is telling me to lighten up. Or perhaps it's reminding me of the fundamental elements of story that remain unchanged from Die Feen to das Fudd. Or maybe it's something far deeper about the psycho-sexual ramifications of the cross-dressing Bugs. Or maybe it's something about the smallest, silliest seed growing into a lifelong passion.

Ponder with me. Click her to watch "What's Opera, Doc?" in its entirety on YouTube.

A few things that just make my head hurt

Poor Colleen is suffering from the mother of all migraines this week. My heart seriously goes (very quietly) out to her. One of the glib little expressions that oft crosses my lips is, "That just makes my head hurt," and while I will be a little less cavalier about tossing that very relative phrase around for a while, I thought I'd share a few of those things people say that just flog my noggin with a 2X4.

"Everybody has a book in them."
No. They don't. Writers have books in them, and sometimes getting that book out is only slightly less effort than gestating and giving birth to a walrus. Other times it comes out like the toothy little creature that bursts from the guy's abdomen in the movie Alien. My standard response to this one is, "Everybody has a spleen in them, too. Only on rare occasions should it be taken out and displayed on a shelf."

"I'm writing a fiction novel."
Ow! Ow! My head! I can't even think of a scathing response. Usually, this is followed by "Would you be willing to read it and recommend me to your agent?" What can I say? My agent only reps nonfiction novels?

"No one can see me or hear me but you."
I was stunned to hear a variation on this iconic elk turd of exposition the other night in the much ballyhooed series Saving Grace starring Holly Hunter. I love Holly Hunter. I think she's twelve shades of fabulous, and this show was being talked up like it was the greatest writing since Exodus. I was looking forward to it, but I'm sorry, the script was just plain dumb, and when the dude on death row launched into his explanation of what a "last chance angel" is (because he is inexplicably knowledgeable about "last chance angel" codes and policies), tossing in the duh, ya think detail "No one can see him but you" -- oh, my little turtle ears...OW! My F#@%ING HEAD! How many dozen ways are there to show and not tell this factoid or any other factoid for that matter? Why, why, why is that writer's car so much nicer than mine? I swear by Holly's opening scene body double and all else that is pure and holy in the universe, I will not ever type those words in any manuscript. Ever.

Meanwhile...praise God and pass the Advil. Every time I get off on a rant about one thing or another that makes me nuts about the shuffling of words, I quickly remember how lucky I am to be doing what I do for a living. My head is generally a pleasant place, pain-free and full of ideas, for which I am grateful.

Tool Time: backing up online

Friday night at Midwives, we were discussing cheap/free ways to back up and store manuscripts online, a topic which usually begins with horror stories about some massive amount of words being lost to fire, floods, or computer crashes. I was a bad backer-upper for a long time and really lived with my heart in my throat about it until I did my first away from home ghost gig. Living in a funky little theatre neighborhood apartment in Manhattan, working for a client who frankly scared me (and whose project will never see the light of day), I realized I seriously needed online storage in case my lap top was stolen.

First I sent myself a Gmail invitation and set up an address with the name of the project to which I could email everything as I wrote it. I like that Gmail is organized through a super-searchable archive instead of folders. Now I set up a Gmail account for each book project, send the drafts there as I work, and forward copies of all my email pertaining to the book to that book's Gmail account, which keeps it all nice and frosty in one place. (And Gmail's chat feature made it possible for me to kibitz with my kids while they were in Amsterdam recently.)

Ghost books, however, also involve audio files of interviews uploaded from my digital recorder. Too bulky to email to scarymeanclient@gmail.com, so I set up online storage for relatively cheap at Streamload, which is now MediaMax. Online storage is super secure, easy and quick to upload, and I can email links that allow a third party to access a single file from my little cyber-fridge without giving out too much info on the account. They offer a free account with 25 GBs, but I quickly upgraded to support those bulky sound files, and now I have plenty of elbow room for photos and other stuff, too.

Another little gem I couldn't live without: the snappy red jump drive that enables me to pop back and forth between desk top and lap top, so my office easily travels with me from Houston to New York...or Starbucks...or my favorite Adirondack chair out on the patio.

It's All Relative

As I've prepared lectures for an online class I'm teaching (Emotionally Engage from the Very First Page), I've been doing a lot of analytical thinking about what makes certain stories and in particular certain characters reach out and grab me by the gut. I can easily list characters with whom I immediately bonded and would follow anywhere (sometimes through some pretty damned unlikely plots.) Among the standouts: Gus McCrae (Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry), Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz), Stephanie Plum (One for the Money, Janet Evanovich), Harry Potter (If you don't know, I'm not telling). Sure, there have been books whose plots, premises, and writing styles gripped me -- books that were wildly successful by anybody's standards. (Although I thorougly enjoyed The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, I really didn't care about the protagonists as people.) But the ones whose *characters* captured my imagination are the ones I recall most vividly, and not coincidentally, these characters have garnered the fervid devotion of countless fans.

So how does an author create instant rapport with a larger-than-life character in a tough-to-imagine situation? I believe it's all about relating to emotions with which the average reader can easily identify. Odd Thomas is a young short-order cook who sees dead people and works for justice on their behalf. Pretty tough to relate to on the surface, but he succeeds as a character because Koontz so quickly establishes his humility (his greatest aspiration is tire sales), his intense, teenage love for his girlfriend, and especially his earnest vulnerability. The wry, self-deprecating wit helps, too, and in no time flat, the reader is rooting for this kid.

J.K. Rowling works similar magic with Harry Potter. On the surface, this kiddo shouldn't be relatable. He not only has magical powers, they're unprecendented even in his special world. But Rowling quickly establishes sympathy by setting up Harry as this downtrodden Cinderfella who's the object of much bullying and makes us feel his both his wonder and confusion as the truth begins to be revealed.

Everyone has felt picked on. Nearly everyone has felt the hopeless intensity of young love. And rooting for the underdog -- the little person who somehow finds the guts to fight back -- is practically hard-wired into our DNA.

For me, the lesson in this is to look at my book's opening and ask myself what universal emotions am I using to help my reader relate to someone in one hell of a pickle. If I fail to do so, I could still have a good story. But with that extra boost, I will have something far, far greater.

Does anyone have a great tip for helping the reader relate to the book's characters? I'm always looking for a sharper blade in my arsenal.

Lily Allen makes deplorable adorable

My daughter Jerusha recently introduced me to the delightfully profane music of British singer/songwriter Lily Allen, who looks like Petula Clark, sings like your baby sister, and says stuff like...like this:

There was a little old lady, who was walkin down the road
She was struggling with bags from Tesco
There were people from the city havin lunch in the park
I believe that it's called al fresco
Then a kid came along to offer a hand

But before she had time to accept it
hits her over the head, doesn't care if she's dead
Cause he's got all her jewellery and wallet

And I guess this would be Lily's idea of a love song:

Now listen I think you and me have come to the end of our time,
What d'you want some kind of reaction?
Well ok that's fine,
Alright how would it make you feel if I told you that you never ever made me come?
In the year and a half that we spent together,
Yeah I never really had much fun...

I could see it in your face when you give it to me gentle,
Yeah you really must think your great,
Let's see how you feel in a couple of weeks,
When I work my way through your mates.

I never wanted it to end up this way,
You've only got yourself to blame,
I'm gonna tell them that your rubbish in bed now
and that your small in the game.

It's gotten me thinking about the juxtaposition of innocence and profanity and why it surprises and amuses us so. A trucker saying the F word = so what? But a nun saying the F word = hilarious. Because Lily Allen has the face and voice of a cherub, her gritty lyrics smack us upside the head in an entirely different way. The backstory is hinted at. How did this girl get to this place in her head?

According to the bio on her official website:

Lily Allen is the 21 year old strange glint in her eyes singer/writer who has been tearing up the web at a rate of knots. When she was a young girl- "I was very lonely actually. I went to 13 different schools so never had time to make enduring friendships. Music became a lifeline to me."

Lily finally left school at 15 when it became obvious her creative needs were not being met. "I always read a lot. It was frustrating moving schools so much because I always felt I couldn't articulate my feelings as much as I wanted to. Books and music helped me do that. I became obsessed by quite arcane subjects, like second world war evacuation stories and books about 18th century aristocracy. I started to feel like I could have a voice. But I wanted to write about my own world in an entertaining way. So I did."