West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

Originally, Trevor's Song was supposed to be the follow-up book to the story of Mitchell, Kerri, and Kerri's mother. It was supposed to tell the story of ShapeShifter's dead bass player. The hows, the whys ... all that fun stuff.

But then I woke up one day and realized that Trevor's Song is really the better story. That I'm still floundering with the story of Kerri's mother; it's not right. Yet. So shopping commenced and by last May -- yeah, a few short months ago -- I realized that the problem I'm having with selling Trevor's Song isn't the writing or the story or anything of the sort. It's that it's hard to sell a book about a rock star. It's hard to sell a book about a dude with cancer.

Put them together and it ain't like what you get when chocolate and peanut butter taste great together.

At about this time, some of you devoted groupies started to really fall hard for Trevor Wolff. You guys love the man.

And I began to feel guilty. Because, after all, I know how the book ends. It ain't pretty. And you guys won't like it. The more Rhian fights the whole world for her shot at Trevor, the worse I've been feeling.

Thunder and lightning have been themes for me this summer, and today, lightning struck in the form of Lisa Andel, who is probably floored by the ease with which I took what was a very bold, critical statement and found paydirt. All those years of writers' workshops in undergrad and MFA programs do pay off in the long run, boys and girls. They teach you how to stare down an ugly truth and turn it into something beautiful.

So... the post I had edited for later today will have to wait a few while you digest this news and try to figure out what I'm up to. Booking Through Thursday, which I was going to have a lot of fun with this week, will have to wait for another day and another topic.

Right now, I've got a book to revise. And an ending that'll make Rhian just that much happier.

Maybe.

I mean, there's still this girl named Heather for her to consider...

Labels: Inside Writing, Rhian/Crowwoman, Trevor's Song

Check this out to learn a bit more about me.

Also, the Tour Manager and I are off to a 22-mile (round trip) bike ride today. Uphill both ways, from the sound of it. We'll be riding from Ohiopyle to Confluence, PA. So if I'm not around, you know why.

And speaking of that part of the state, it's not far from where I took #1 to Cub Scout Camp. Last week, a Boy Scout camping in a different location on the same camp burned himself badly -- over 50% of his body suffered second and third degree burns. We don't know much else, but from all of us here, we wish him speedy healing and limited pain.

Talk to you guys later.

Labels: Inside Writing

When I was twelve, my mom bought me copies of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight and Dragonquest at a flea market. They were stripped copies but this was twenty years ago; what did we know?

I may not have known the first thing about the book business back then -- hey, I was only twelve -- but I knew good characters, and it didn't take long before I'd fallen in love with F'lar and Lessa. They were as real to me as the friend who lived three houses down, who I'd get together with almost every day that same summer.

I wanted to be part of F'lar and Lessa's lives; they seemed so real, so easy to envision. I knew they were fiction, but oh, how I wished I could be fiction, too, and have a place in the Weyr with them. I wanted to live a dangerous, exciting life. I wanted to be among the group of heroes who made a difference.

Eventually, I grew up. Found other things to read. You know how it goes. But every now and then, I'd return to those Pern books, particularly when my life was in tumult. I remember staying up all night after I was married, looking for solace. The Tour Manager's ex-roommate had blamed me for his wife's insecurities, and he hadn't exactly been kind about it.

I read, and I read, looking for the way to cope with what felt like a neutron bomb that had gone off inside my life. I was looking for wisdom, for guidance, for escapism. I found it all.

A year and a half ago, or so, a friend pointed me to Miss Snark. I needed to read her, she said.

At first glance, I was put off. But then, I laughed. And finally, I was hooked.

It wasn't just the things I was learning from her. I mean, heck. I'd been around the publishing block once already. I'd had an agent. I knew that glitter and neon pink paper weren't such great ideas. I knew about twelve-point font and SASEs and to follow the damn directions.

Of course, there was plenty to learn. After all, I've only been around the block once. Maybe I didn't get the whole way around, since my wonderful agent didn't make me a sale.

What hooked me wasn't the content; it was the writing. Snark didn't just dish out her own advice, she took it and whoever created her did so pretty completely. She was her own person, a work of fiction who was as well-rounded and clearly drawn as any of the best fictional characters out there. She had a voice. She had inside jokes. She had a love for shoes and a disdain for cats. In some ways, I knew Miss Snark better than I knew my own best friends.

She wasn't real. I knew that even as I exchanged e-mails with her and tried not to get excited that someone who could afford Jimmy Choos would actually deign to speak to me. There was room in Snark's world for all of us, so long as we weren't total nitwits -- or could laugh at ourselves if we were. We took that risk by e-mailing her questions for the blog or submissions for her writing contests. We knew that, but we risked it anyway.

Part of the reason was that she was trustworthy. The one time when I had a situation on my hands that I truly didn't know how best to handle, she came to my rescue. Didn't even call for the cluegun, either, but then, I know I'm not a nitwit. Every now and then.

That's the part of Snark I'll miss the most. Yes, I'll miss the jokes and the occasional times when I'd scream with laughter or put my water glass down before clicking on her name in my feedburner. For me, the power of Miss Snark was knowing that I always had someone I could turn to when I needed it. The only expectation either of us could have was a thank you; there were no obligations of sending gifts or making sure you followed the proper etiquette. The only etiquette was to have a clue, and the longer you hung around, the bigger your clues got.

She's gone now, as pretty much the whole world knows. I have no idea what I'll do if I land a contract with an independent publisher and need a referral to an agent, just for the purpose of the contract. And my feed reader will probably never again threaten to explode with the 100-plus Crapometer entries.

In a way, it's like closing the cover on my bedraggled copy of The White Dragon, knowing it was a great ride and I'm a better person for having spent time here. The site remains in case I have to dig through the archives yet again. Just as the books sit on the same shelf with my stuffed bison and Animal the muppet.

I am one of those people who is always looking forward, toward the next adventure and the next person who'll touch my life. I pretend I don't look back, but I do. In those quiet times, when I can't sleep or am driving somewhere and the music lulls me into letting my guard down. I'll look back on it all with a bittersweet laugh.

Just as it was eventually time to leave my beloved Dragonriders on the shelf, now it's time to move through the publishing world without my tart-tongued guide. Always grateful for the interesting things I've found thus far, but always ready to check out -- if cautiously -- the next thing that comes along. Certainly, because of Miss Snark, I'll be the savvier for it.

To the men and/or women who created her, thanks. I hope I never find out who you really are. If I do, I'm afraid I might look at you the same way I look at Casey Kasem now that I know he voiced Shaggy on Scooby Doo.

Some things, I'm better off not knowing.

Let Miss Snark remain her perfectly imperfect fictional self.

I'm sure George Clooney will sleep better for it.

Labels: agent hunting, blogging, Inside Writing, Miss Snark

Check out what my friend Breeni is up to!

Click HERE.

Other odds and ends:
1. The promised outtake featuring Val and her kitchen, to tie into this week's Thursday Thirteen, is still forthcoming. But you all need to see the interview before I bury it under fiction. *grin*

2. Details on the summer reading contest are starting to come together. Be prepared to join in by the end of June.

3. I'm up to more than just a summer reading contest. Stay tuned; we'll make a small difference in the world together.

4. I did a good peanut gallery impersonation the other day and won the "most creative" award for it. Check it out.

5. It's a really cool feeling when you're standing with a small group of people and before you can break into the conversation to introduce yourself, literary agent Jenny Rappaport reads your name tag and says, "Oh, Susan! Hi!" You'd think we're old friends. Given how much we have in common, separated at birth might be more like it.

There it is, folks. The power of blogging at work.

Labels: Breeni Books, contest, Inside Writing, interview

It's all Wylie's fault.

If you've been following the Walter saga, you understand the history here, such as it is. The short version goes like this: Wylie was musing about names.

Now, she's got me doing it, too.

Only, where she was wrestling with first names, my issues lie with last names. This has always been a thing with me, a detail I never overly cared about. I kid you not; I dated guys whose last name remained a total mystery to me even after we broke up. Makes you understand why none of them lasted more than three weeks (although the Tour Manager's early intrusion into my life deserves most of the blame for that).

Surnames are something we're born into, maybe even more than a first name. After all, our parents sometimes anguish over first names. They fight. Hopefully, they don't come to blows and hopefully, they don't name their child after the first thing they see (Plexiglass, anyone? Know who was named for Plexiglass?) But a surname... forget it. We girls are sometimes lucky, in that if we like our husband's name, we can take it and shuck off our old name. But the guys, by and large, are stuck. As are we all, at least until we're 18 and can face a judge and explain why Heffenshitzel isn't such a great surname.

(This is where I point out the irony that the band ShapeShifter was named for Trevor's surname -- Wolff. And that I named Trevor before a friend, whose maiden name was Wolfe, named her son Trevor.)

So, of course, when Wylie asked about rock stars named Walter, I went with what she'd given me -- a rock star named Walter. It didn't dawn on me until after I'd posted the first Thursday Thirteen list that Walter had no surname.

Fortunately for me, this realization came at one of my favorite times for letting my mind wander: 4:30 in the morning, which seems to be my latest time to wake up for a potty break during the night. And which seems to be when I've been doing some really cool envisioning of scenes that get written out over the following few days.

Even more fortunately, Walter's surname popped into my head immediately. Cicewski. Pronounced "Chi-Chev-ski." You can tell a bit about the area in which I live if that name and pronunciation came together so easily.

So Walter's got a surname. He's got an outtake featuring a few familiar faces, too, but not for a few days yet. Sheesh. I'm still trying to get you guys more Pam, who didn't have a surname for years.

She was just fine. Never got cranky about it. So why did Walter?

It's all about character, huh?

And if you've missed it somehow, Just a reminder... go vote for me!




Yes, I'm totally going to torture you with this until the voting closes on May 22. So go vote, will ya? If you've already voted, why not register under another e-mail address?

Labels: Inside Writing, surnames, Walter

Yesterday, I showed you one variation on the real soy sauce story. Here's the other one.

Really, is it that much of a surprise to hear how much I love Mitchell?

Mitchell scratched his head as he contemplated the seven varieties of soy sauces. He hadn't paid much attention when Ma had asked him to pick some up on his way over; he'd figured that just remembering it was the brand with the Chinese name would be good enough.

He could hear her reminder: "Good enough rarely is, Mitchell." And his father, chiming in about how to find success, a person had to give 100%, all the time.

Clearly, he'd fucked this one up royally.

He was still standing there when a couple walked by. "Get the Ping's," the woman said. "It's the best of the all-natural brands."

"How can it be best?" the man asked.

"I don't know," the woman said. Mitchell smiled at her exasperated tone. "But it is. Maybe they use special soy for it or something. Make it in small batches. I don't know. Call them and ask."

Mitchell wondered if they would answer that sort of question if someone called and asked it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the woman nudge the man and make a subtle gesture in his direction. With a sigh, he picked up a bottle of Ping's soy sauce and tried to be casual as he walked away.

Just what he needed. To be spotted while making an indecisive ass of himself in front of something like soy sauce. It wouldn't be surprising if, over the next few days, someone's gossip column mentioned that he used Ping's Soy Sauce and there'd be a run of it.

And that he'd spend the next six months autographing the stupid labels.

He looked at the label on the bottle he held. Thankfully, it was black. That'd make it hard to sign. No one ever carried Sharpies in colors other than black.

He was safe, at least from that.

Labels: fiction, Inside Writing, Mitchell, Soy Sauce Story

It dawned on me over the weekend -- after I'd posted the Soy Sauce Story, of course -- that I could have written the same story, only fictionalized. From the point of view of one of my characters. (Isn't Mitchell the perfect naif to play the stranger?)

And then my brain really kicked into gear, which was no small feat because I'm still pretty sick and headed to the doctor today. Maybe I only reached this epiphany because I'm sick; I'm not certain. But it goes like this: many of you, when you've nominated me for various writers' blog awards, have said that you really like that I give you an inside look at the writing process. I haven't seen myself doing much of that, so I'll do it here and now.

Today, I'm going to post one alternate to the Soy Sauce Story. A fictionalized scene that shows how I take real life and put it into my fiction. Most of my outtakes are based on some real-life inspiration, you know. You just have to figure out what the real-life inspiration is.

Tomorrow, I'll post another. And we'll culminate this insider look with a Thursday Thirteen that ought to make you laugh pretty hard.

One quick note and then we'll get to the fiction: This is about as rough as my writing gets. I haven't gone over this for typos, for improvements or tweaks, nothing. So bear with me.

Soy Sauce Story -- Val's Point of View

Val sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. They were out of Ping's brand soy sauce again. What was wrong with the place, that they couldn't keep up with demand? Everyone knew Ping's made the best soy sauce.

She turned to the woman behind the counter. "Excuse me?" she started, ready to chew the woman out. She worked there; surely she had some sort of control over the store's inventory.

It wasn't overly surprising that the woman ignored her. Val figured she was probably bristling with hostility and if the roles had been reversed, Val would have been reluctant to talk to someone so ready to explode.

What did surprise was when the woman yelled to someone in the back room. In perfect Mandarin, "Anyone want to come deal with the annoying slut out front?"

Val tried not to gasp or adjust her clothes. Yeah, so she was decked out; she and Daniel were on their way to a sex club and she'd asked if they could run in since the grocery was on the way.

"The annoying slut out front is pissed you're out of Ping's. Again," Val snapped back, not caring that her Mandarin was rusty. Not caring about anything except this had been a wasted trip and that she'd have to spend half the week searching out the Ping's.

The man popped out of the back room, full of apologies in both Chinese and English.

By the time Daniel came in to see what had happened to her, Val had promises that four bottles of Ping's would be held for her on the next shipment day -- Tuesday -- and that in the future, all she needed to do was call when she ran low and bottles would be waiting with her name on them.

Even if her name would be Annoying Chinese Slut.

Labels: Daniel, fiction, Inside Writing, Soy Sauce Story, Val

Two paragraphs I just cut out of Trevor... can YOU tell why I did it?

She was dying to fall into bed with Mitchell and screw him crazy. She hadn't believed him when he'd said that it would feel like they'd been gone forever, especially because she'd actually been looking forward to a little bit of space while he was gone. She'd expected to just fall back into her life, the one she'd had before she'd met some shy musician type -- so she'd thought -- in the produce section of the grocery store.

But some of her friends had gotten weirded out by the fact that she was dating Mitchell Voss. An ambitious few had tried to shove their art under his nose and get themselves on the radar the easy way; Mitchell had been as gracious as anyone could be under those circumstances, but those friends had scrammed as soon as he'd given them the polite brush-off. And then there was the subset who were jealous of Kerri's good fortune at finding herself a gravy train. "You'll never have to pick up a brush again!" one of them had been dumb enough to say. As if she could ever put it down in the first place.



Yeah, it made ME groan, too, and I'm the one who wrote it. This is why they say writing is a craft, folks...

But reading isn't, and if you'd like something free to read, check out the contest I'm hosting (just scroll on down for both my contest and the list of others). Yes, I'm asking you to write something, but I'm not judging you on the quality of the writing (I can't! Not when I have to edit out drek like what's above!), but on the content. Go for it; you never know when my LD will flare up and I'll forget how to count to seven.

Labels: creative writing, fiction, Inside Writing, Kerri, Mitchell

Trevor ordinarily would scorn bandwagon jumping. He'd start yelling about sheep, lemmings, being blind, and how we're losing the ability to think for ourselves. He'd brag about how proud he was of being an individual.

And that's all fine and good, but when there are people out there whose only aim in life is to take advantage of someone's good intentions, well, you need to stand up and raise your voice. After all, Mitchell is one of those who's probably naive enough to be taken advantage of, and taking advantage of Mitchell Voss is a definite no-no in Trevor's book -- err, well, his thinking, anyway. His book is something else. Trevor's Song

So... without further ado... Writer's Beware list of the 20 Worst Literary Agents. I nabbed it from Miss Snark's blog, of course, but it's the Writer's Beware list, all right.

Please, none of you folks on this list call me about representing Trevor's Song. I'm not interested in what you claim to have to offer.

* The Abacus Group Literary Agency
* Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
* Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
* Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
* Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
* Sherwood Broome, Inc.
* Desert Rose Literary Agency
* Arthur Fleming Associates
* Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
* Brock Gannon Literary Agency
* Harris Literary Agency
* The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
* Martin-McLean Literary Associates
* Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
* B.K. Nelson, Inc.
* The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
* Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
* Southeast Literary Agency
* Mark Sullivan Associates
* West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Labels: agent hunting, Inside Writing, Miss Snark, publishing