The Care & Feeding of Authors

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Okay, I’ll admit this reads like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but hang with me on this post about writer’s life.
Bears in Alaska are heading into hibernation. The reason I know this is because one of my crazy sisters is hunting brown bear in the Aleutian Islands. She’s been sending photos and funny text messages over her 10-day adventure. She’s not hunting. Her husband pulls the trigger. But being the trooper she is, she dons the appropriate layers against the cold and rain to trudge alongside him, lugging water and food. For added color, she met an interesting man on this hunting expedition—a Romanian billionaire traveling with his body guard. (I’m not the only one in my family who should be writing fiction.) And because she’s my dear sweet sister, she brings books of mine to give away. The photo below is of a woman at the lodge they stayed while they hunted. She is holding my young adult book – In the Arms of Stone Angels (Harlequin Teen, Apr 2011), a cold case murder mystery for teens.
The reason I’m sharing this family story with you is that bears going into hibernation reminded me how I get when I’m in the middle of a project. I’m totally oblivious to EVERYTHING. I’m so vexed on the characters and the world I’m creating that I go without eating or eat weird stuff, forget about sleep, and my capacity for coherent conversation is limited—unless its dialogue.
Simon Wood was a guest on TKZ not long ago. Once he shared a funny story with me about how his wife caught him on the sofa watching TV when he should have been writing. He had eaten a bag of chips and had cats sleeping on his chest. Seeing the look in his wife’s eyes, he headed her off by saying he was deep in thought—that he was actually working. (Yeah, right.) But seriously, this is how it can be for a writer. We never stop working. So I’m fairly certain Simon had his brain “sweating to the oldies” as he gorged on Cheetos and snagged quality cat time.
In truth, Simon might have been indulging in another bad habit of author behavior. Snackage. Authors eat stuff and may not even pay attention to what it is. Like drones or Zombies, we are fixated on what’s in our head. It’s nothing personal, but dirty dishes in the sink, dog hair on wood floors, and a growing mass of dirty laundry become invisible. Personally, I call that a gift, but my husband has a different perspective.
So I’ve turned over a new leaf and after John Gilstrap’s fine example of slimming down and focusing on his health, I am in week 2 of a change in diet. Mostly it’s vegan. I eat raw and cooked veggies and legumes with plenty of fruit. No dairy. For those who know me, this is a HUGE change. Before, I considered meat as dessert. I would rather eat meat than even indulge in something sweet. But I’m outing myself on TKZ to say that I am committed to eating better and taking care of my health.
Anyone have a good vegan recipe?
Seriously, I have been more focused on cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients. My husband and I actually sit at the dinner table to eat instead of plopping down on the sofa with the TV on. We have semi-real conversations over dinner and not just talk about how to kill people and get away with it (a real crowd pleaser). We may even indulge in a glass of wine now and then. I’ll soon add a regular exercise program into this and not just limit my cardio to fast moving fingers over a keyboard.
For those of you smarter than I am, how do you stay healthy with your hectic schedules? What’s your routine? And I would seriously like to hear if you have any good vegan recipes that aren’t loaded with cheese.
Reckoning for the Dead (Adult thriller, Sweet Justice Book #4) – HarperCollins, Sept 2011 Now Available.

Is it a Sin?

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Forgive me, for I have sinned. Last weekend, on the holy Day of Atonement, we asked forgiveness for the general sins of mankind, for anything hurtful to others we’d done in recent times, plus we requested entry for the coming year into the Book of Life which would be sealed on this solemn holiday. We asked for help to become as pure as when we were born and to realize our full potential as human beings. I did all this, but I also thought about my work.

Yom Kippur fell on a Saturday this year, making my transgression a double whammy. On each Sabbath, we are supposed to rest and avoid all thoughts of business. So you’ll have to count me as a sinner, because I couldn’t shut these musings off during the Yom Kippur service. I found myself writing blogs in my head. I studied hairstyles in my alter ego identity as Marla Shore, my hairdresser sleuth. Hmm, how would I add more shine to that lady’s hair color? I thought about my daily page quota and how I’d catch up since I was behind.

But I didn’t write those pages, nor did I write any blogs on the holiday. I tried to stay away from the computer, truly I did. However, during the service, I didn’t concentrate on the hymns and prayers as totally as I should have done. At home again afterward, I hereby confess that I checked my email and social networks. What can I say? My addiction to writing is to blame. I beg forgiveness for my irreverence and weakness of mind.

Have you ever tried shutting off your writer’s brain? It’s nearly impossible, at least for me. Even on vacation, I’ll compose mental blogs or take notes on my observations. When I read newspapers or magazines, I tear out articles to file even though they might never be used. It seems that once you begin writing fiction, you will always see things differently. Every experience becomes fodder for a story. Every observation can inspire a setting detail. Every person you meet might turn into a fictional character.

Our writer’s life is like a book, only to end when we close the last page. Thus, once a writer, always a writer. Do you agree, or have you successfully shut off your writer’s brain at times?

ON-SITE RESEARCH: Author/Dolphin Encounters? Oh, Yeah!

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By Kathleen Pickering  http://www.kathleenpickering.com

My job rocks!

My dear friend, Heather Graham, won this amazing Dream Date with Dolphins from a fund raiser at the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon Florida. Guess who she invited? 

056_56

Yes, indeed. Yours truly. (This photo is dubbed: The Board Meeting)

Heather and I spent the entire day with trainer, Linda, and DRC director, Mandy, who took us through their daily routine with the the dolphins. OMG! You just know that an amazing experience such as this, as well as watching Heather transform into the proverbial Mermaid while swimming with these charming creatures, could turn into nothing less than on-site research.

You see, Heather has invited me to join her, and authors Beth Ciotta and Deborah LeBlanc to write a Christmas anthology slated for 2013. The characters will be in line with her Keepers series. That said, my search for a “Keeper” character who will transform from animal to human was easily found at the Dolphin Research Center.

005_5Between the dolphins, sea lions, peacocks, exotic birds and other aquatic life surrounding the compound, you know that I discovered my character for the Keepers anthology.048_48

But, I’m not telling. Not yet, anyway.

I really don’t have a question to ask you folks today, but would welcome your comments. If you’d like to talk about how lucky I am at my job, well, feel free. I heard Steve Job’s Stanford University speech back when he originally made it in 2009. When I heard him thumbnail[3]

then, I punched the air saying, “You’re so right, Steve!”  Up until around 2005, I had been sidetracked, and letting “stuff” get in the way of my dreams. But no longer. It’s amazing how, when you decide to live true, you world unfolds in ways you’d never expect. Hence, a dream date with a dear friend at the DRC, and what do I get? The character for my next book. Not too shabby, eh?

So, let me leave you with this last link to a day made in heaven. If you have ten minutes, you may enjoy viewing Heather’s and my first ten minutes of our dream date morning at DRC.  Click Here:

http://kathleenpickering.com/Dolphin_Videos.html

Yeah, we’re hooked.

Oh, and if you’d like to read an in-depth discussion of our fun day, visit Heather’s blog: http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/the_lipstick_chronicles/2011/10/dream-date.html

Happy writing, one and all!

State of Play

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I had a great visit to New York, justified in part by our friends’ wedding anniversary (a fabulous rooftop renewal of vows ceremony and dinner) and, in part, by a desire to touch base with my agent. The major downside about moving back to Australia is the sheer distance it is from anywhere else. It literally took a day and a half of travel to get from Melbourne to NYC…so I was really hoping that the visit was worth it!

It was.

Meeting my agent was important for three things: 1) to get feedback on my WIP; 2) to discuss next proposals and plans; and 3) to get insight into the industry (as it continues to change, an agent’s perspective is always helpful). I also think there is no real substitute for a face-to-face meeting.

Thankfully, the feedback on all three was extremely positive, and perhaps just as importantly, my agent seemed pretty optimistic about the publishing industry in general. A year or so ago he seemed much more subdued – but (no surprise for us TKZers here) the success of e-books has definitely buoyed the industry. Here’s a few things I took away from our meeting:
  • Though the YA market continues to be vibrant, the mystery/thriller market is still tough going, with many houses streamlining their lines and focusing (again, no surprise) on their bestselling authors. It remains tougher than ever to get published (in fact, I doubt my first book would ever have sold in this market – which is a depressing thought!).
  • E-books have become extremely profitable for publishers and are creating greater opportunities for publishers to target readers. A few years ago most publishing decisions were driven by what the buyers from Barnes&Noble and Borders liked. Such market concentration wasn’t necessarily a good thing (for writers or readers) but now, e-books present a huge opportunity for a more ‘level playing field’. Even Amazon doesn’t command a massive market share and the growth of the Nook and other e-reader/book options is making the market more ‘democratic’ and accessible. Good news for authors and readers alike!
  • Given all the industry changes, agents are re-evaluating how they can advise and work with their clients on publishing e-books (particularly for their backlist). As there is potential for conflict of interest, agents are looking into the options carefully. There are now companies who work only with agents and their published writers in this respect. I think it will be interesting to see how this pans out – especially as many writers are already choosing to go it alone and self-publish their e-books with or without an agent.
So my question to you all is: how do you view the role of agents changing in this current environment (apart from selling your work to a traditional publisher)? Have your expectations regarding an agent changed with the success of e-books? If you are unpublished, are you still seeking agency representation?

What Would You Want in Your Writer Bio?

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JAMES SCOTT BELL was born August 10, 1912, in Arlington, Kansas. His father worked for the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway, but quit in 1918 and moved his family of ten to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to work the oil fields. When Jim wasn’t in school or working odd jobs, he was reading Zane Gray, Edgar Rice Burroughs and pulp magazines like Black Mask.
When the Depression hit, Jim rode the rails to Los Angeles and got a job as a cub reporter for the Hearst newspaper, The Examiner. By day he tracked down stories of murder, fraud and corruption. By night, in his one room apartment on Bunker Hill, he pounded out short stories for the detective magazines. He was published almost immediately alongside such luminaries as Horace McCoy, Erle Stanley Gardner and Dashiell Hammett. When his crime novella, One More Lie, hit the racks, Jim garnered instant national fame. The story sold to MGM and became the classic 1941 film starring Joan Crawford and Robert Taylor.
Jim became one of the most sought after screenwriters in Hollywood and contributed as much as anyone to the post World War II film noir genre. He continued to put out suspense stories for the paperback original market and pulp magazines.
In 1952 Jim and Robert Mitchum got into a fight with two henchman of mobster Mickey Cohen, who had been bothering a cigarette girl at the Brown Derby. One of the thugs pulled out a .38 and shot wildly, hitting Jim just above the heart. At the hospital Jim refused sedation and insisted that a studio secretary be summoned so he could dictate the final pages of a screenplay due the next day. That script went on to win an Academy Award.
Jim kept up his prodigious output of short stories, novellas, full length books and screenplays right up to his death at the age of 99. He had just typed The End on a novel when his heart gave out. His last words were, “Don’t forget the mayonnaise.” 
Here is a picture of James Scott Bell in his office at Warner Bros. in 1947.
 
# # #
 
This flight of fancy is based on how I feelas a writer. I always admired the pros, the ones who could deliver the goods time after time. The writers who wrote to make a living and yet found a way to make their writing come alive.
What about you? If you could write your own writer biography, and it could be from any era, what would it look like? What sorts of books would you have written? Who would be in the movies based on your books?
This is not a  mere game. Use this exercise to focus on your long term goals as a writer. Ask yourself how your imaginative bio might inform your writing today.
Go ahead. What are some of the entries in YOUR writer’s biography?
NOTE: I wrote a little bit more of my philosophy of pulp fiction writing over on Rachelle Gardner’s blog. 

The Bi-Weekly Report From Rabbit Burn

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John Ramsey Miller

As I’ve written here, I’m probably going to try my hand at going straight to eBook with my next novel. I’ve been dragging my feet for a year or so, tinkering with two manuscripts, and thinking about what I want to do going forward. Since I have no publisher on the hook for this closest one, I had no editor to guide me. I need a heavy handed editor to tell me what I should already know and point to where I should know to go. I have been told on numerous occasions my talent is of the raw variety and can be lacking in the focus department. I have heard it over and over from the best editors in the business—and I’ve worked with the best. So I found a veteran editor who left NYC for the wilds of Ohio and who is raising a family instead of a brood of needy authors. So I have ten pages of notes in a chapter-by-chapter dissection. Great stuff, and I’ve got a hearty rewrite in my near future.

For the past two weeks I’ve been clearing a couple dozen trees—cutting them down, sectioning the trunks, splitting them, dragging the limbs into the pasture behind my four-wheeler, and stacking the wood to burn this winter. I’ve got central heat, but we like the wood-burning stove. I’m actually cutting the trees to make a yard in the ex-woods for the grandkids. I’ll build a fort, move the trampoline over and have a place kids will enjoy. My grandson has been here for three weeks. I work and he collects lizards and bugs in jars. Every night we release his catch so they can go home to their mamas. Weather has been wonderful.
Cool.
Bright
Clear.

I have not been writing, and that’s the thing I’m writing about.
I’ve been living life and thinking about writing as I go through the days.
Doesn’t matter at the present, but it might tomorrow.

I turned 62 last week.
Didn’t hurt a bit.
Didn’t mind it.

Next week I’m going to talk with my editor and start a long overdue rewrite. Then we’ll see.
I’ll keep you posted.

Where were you on the night of…

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by Michelle Gagnon

I was recently asked to participate in an anthology whose sales will benefit one of my favorite non-profits, 826 National. If you aren’t familiar with the amazing work they do to promote writing among kids, be sure to follow the link and find out! They have programs in several major cities now, including SF, NYC, DC, Boston, Chicago, Michigan, & Seattle, and there are lots of opportunities to donate and/or volunteer.

Anyway, the basis of the anthology is inspired: they’ve asked a number of renowned authors such as Dave Eggers, Lauren Oliver, and Daniel Handler to submit alibis because, sadly, we’re all suspects in the murder of the world’s meanest editor.

Is that perfect, or what?

So I thought that today we’d do something a little different today. Submit YOUR alibi for the murder of the world’s meanest editor. The only rules are:

  • Brevity: keep it short, 100-200 words max (I’m looking at you, Mr. Sands)
  • Language: keep it clean, folks; after all, this is a family blog.

Other than that, be as creative/zany as you’d like.

The Set-Up:

On the night of Wednesday, October 5th, Mr. William H. Meany III, the famed editor of such works as, I HATE YOU ALL OVER and IT’S LITERARY FICTION, SO WE DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T READ IT, was found dead in his home. That evening, Mr. Meany had played host to several reluctant authors, some of whom have spent decades under the brutal subjugation of his notorious “red pen of tears and shame,” a term that Mr. Meany not only coined, but copyrighted. It’s generally agreed that Mr. Meany was the author of the scandalous publishing blog, “I know what you did in your last manuscript,” which accused numerous famous writers of plagiarism, ghost writing, and improper use of gerunds, and was operated under the pseudonym “Nom de Plume Rouge.”

The police are currently requesting alibis for everyone present. It’s important that you be able to account for your whereabouts from 6:30pm that evening until shortly after midnight, when Mr. Meany was found facedown in a pool of blood, surrounded by the pages of a shredded manuscript. Rumor has it that he had threatened several of the attendees with revealing their deepest, darkest secret over nightcaps. He was murdered before making good on that threat.

Enjoy…

Yet Another Sign of the Times

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By Joe Moore

Things just keep on changing.

Back in August, my blog post Goin’ Through Them Changes was about how after 26 years I canceled my subscription to the local newspaper (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) in favor of a digital subscription. I now sip my Dunkin Donuts coffee each morning while reading the paper on my computer screen. Among the many advantages to digital over paper, there’s no recycling to the curb each week, no need to chop down trees, and no ink on my fingers. Since my August post I’ve discovered that many newspapers around the country including The New York Times are now offering digital-only subscriptions. The only thing missing is the thumping sound of the morning edition hitting my hard drive at 5:30 AM like it used to sound when the guy tossed the paper on my driveway.

In September, one of my posts was called The Great MMPB Vanishing Act about an article in The New York Times on the decrease in sales of mass market paperbacks and the growth of ebooks. Some say ebooks are the new MMPB.

Later on in September, I posted a blog called More Signs of the Times about a piece in The Economist on the slump of hardcover sales and the continued rise of ebooks. Are you seeing an industry trend here?

Well, this weekend I read about another ebook development that I think is equally exciting. Yet another sign of the times. Libraries in South and Central Florida now kindle4offer anyone with a library card free ebooks downloaded to their Kindle, Sony, Nook, laptop, desktop, iPhones, iPads and . . . well the list of devices goes on and on. Library patrons can check out up to 10 titles at a time and have 21 days to read each. Free Kindle downloads are issued directly from your Amazon account and include current bestsellers and new releases. My library has over 16,000 ebook titles and close to 9,000 audio books with the list growing all the time. Videos are available, too.

Here’s more good news for just about everyone. You can borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the U.S. Chances are your local library already has this feature or will soon. So check it out and check out a free book. You can download the book in seconds and have plenty of time to read it.

What do you think of this latest development? Are you already reading ebooks free from your library on your Kindle, Nook or iPad? If not, do you intend to look into it? Will it affect or change your reading habits? Where do you think this is all leading? Happy reading!

What do you most fear?

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“Don’t write what you know. Write what you fear,” a famous writer once said. (I think it was Stephen King, but don’t hold me to it.)

That bit of advice has been on my mind of late. Over the years I’ve been plagued over by some recurring nightmares. I’m talking gnarly, bad-ass, they-should-put-me-on-a-couch dreams. I’m wondering if I should consider mining a few of them for writing material.

Assuming one can calibrate a Fear Factor by analyzing dreams,  here are some of my worst fears:

1. The sun starts to act strangely in the sky and then blows up, casting the earth into freezing darkness.

2. I’m trapped on an alien planet, being attacked by the locals. I am required to  a) fight the aliens while b) figure out how to get back to Earth.

3. I’m being attacked by a grizzly bear, but a pack of dogs shows up and helps me fend it off.

4. I’m being chased by a guy with a gun. I somehow find a gun, turn and fire, only to have the gun misfire. Sometimes the dream ends on a more optimistic note, and I manage to beat him senseless with a handy object.

5. I have to land a plane after the pilot dies.

Based on these dreams, it sounds like I should be writing an episode of V, Airport, or the Dog Whisperer.

Maybe it’s real-life fears that should inform one’s writing, not dream-fears. Here are some things I’m actually afraid of in real life:

1. Losing a loved one or friend. That’s got to be everyone’s top fear.

2. Walking into a spider’s web. I have nothing particular against spiders–I’m just terrified by the prospect of one going for a ride-along in my hair.

3. Being hit by a tsunami (never mind that I live on top of a hill).

4. Being hit by a home-invasion robbery.

5. Having to land a plane after the pilot dies. (Dreams and reality are in agreement on this one. Maybe I should consider flying lessons.)

I have in fact mined a few of these fears in my fiction. I’ve had a home invasion-style assault in one book.  Fear itself even becomes a character trait in the series. One of my characters drives his daughter crazy with constant warnings about all the possible bad things that could happen to her.

Do you mine your fears in your fiction? What are some ways your personal fears manifest themselves in your stories?

On the road

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On my way back and still not really online until I touch down back in Oz. I had forgotten just how long it took to travel from Melbourne to New York so I am steeling myself for the three flights needed to get home. It took us about a day and a half of travel to get here! Good news was that my agent was really optimistic and upbeat about the way the publishing industry is headed and my speech at our friend’s wedding anniversary went well.
Will update you all more next week.
Now back to packing and preparing myself for the horror that is flying these days!
Clare

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad