Perfect Sunday and Sending to Mom

I've been having a rocky time writing lately, but Sunday was the best day ever.

The boyfriend had to work, and I had nothing to do - the housework and groceries were done (that's what Saturdays are for.) So with a clear conscience and a fridge full of food, I sat and wrote all day. ALL DAY - from 9 to 5. I just got started, and the next thing I knew, it was 5 o'clock. Wonderful.

I did a complete rework of some of my early chapters - not something that's recommended, but in this case it was crucial. I was totally on the wrong track with one of the most important elements of any romance novel: the hero.

You see, my heroine is confident and strong-willed. (she's also shallow and selfish - boy howdy, is she going to learn a few lessons by the end of the book.) I also started with a hero who was confident and strong-willed. But as I wrote it I realized that two confident people would just get together, and the book would be over by page 10.

So I rewrote and made him a little more interesting. And when you change your character, you change your plot (don't know what I mean? Read your Robert McKee.) So I had to change my plot.

I think it's better now, but I've reworked it so thoroughly that I'm not objective anymore. So it's time for the big guns.

That's right - my mother.

My mother is a voracious reader, but a picky one. She's a busy woman. Give her a good book, and she'll rave about it for years. Give her a story that annoys her, and it hits the wall in two chapters with a decisive "Bah!" Things in stories that annoy my mother: 1) jerky asshole men, 2) wimpy pushover men, 3) men that act like idiots without being charming about it, 3) women that act like idiots, especially over men, 4) big misunderstandings, 5) boring writing, 6) sucky plots.

This makes her sound like a terror but it actually makes her a good sounding board. If you ask for her opinion, she'll not only tell you whether it sucks or not, but why, and that's the important part. She's good with specifics.

If it can get past my mother, I have hopes. If not, it's back to the drawing board on Sunday.

Not for the faint of heart

I got an agent rejection letter yesterday that said my work was "not strong enough for the market", though this is "just my opinion".

I'm quite sure it's a form letter - I can't imagine an agent sitting, typing, and mailing something individual for a query letter/first chapter cold submission. But damn, it has a bit of a sting to it, doesn't it? What happened to "not right for me at this time"? I got one that said "I am not the right agent for this work", and another that said "Our current roster is full". Those went down a bit easier.

The boyfriend read the letter and said two things: "Ouch", and "I think they don't want you writing back to ask why." Cut 'em off at the knees - effective tactic. Though I'm sure there are still nimnods out there who ask why it isn't strong enough, and where it can be fixed.

Then again, maybe it isn't a form letter, and the agent was so moved by the not-strongness of my writing that she had to warn me before I embarrassed myself further. Could you guys please put "FORM LETTER" on the tops of these things so we know it isn't just us?

Children - if you think you want to be a writer, think again. Go be a fireman! A rocket scientist! Cure cancer or something! Get into television and contribute to the creation of junk for the rest of your life. Writing is awful! Stay away!

Only one good thing - the more rejections you get, the less they bother you. Good, right? Good.

Cover Art

The Smart Bitches are running a cover art contest - submit your amateur romance cover, and win a prize. They're trying to prove the point that you can make cover art for nothing (or next to it) without having to use Poser or make your readers' eyes bleed. They're right.

I submitted one, just to help them prove the point. The post is here. This is my cover:




Well, my skills are pretty basic. I suck at typography, too. But I still maintain it's better than Poser.

Everyone's left for RWA. Lucy Monroe is having a no-Nationals party - check it out. How the hell is Wendy Crutcher so smart? I love her post at RTB this morning. And if you're really suffering conference envy, you can read the Blogging Nationals page. Really, everyone is very nice. No beeyotches at all...

Because I Can

Some days, you just don't ask why.


What is it about him? Honestly. I haven't said it in a while, so just in case he's reading this blog: MARRY ME, CLIVE OWEN.

To balance things out, I will admit that there are few men as sexy as Gladiator Russell Crowe. Regular Russell Crowe is sort of hit-and-miss - I thought he looked flabby in Master and Commander and terrific in Cinderella Man. But he has not yet surpassed his Gladiator self.




And for many years I was madly in love with Brad Pitt. It started with Thelma and Louise and reached its peak with Fight Club. I put up with Legends of the Fall, Meet Joe Black, and and countless others to get the Sevens and Ocean's 11. But, tabloids aside, he hasn't made a good movie in years. (WTF - Ocean's 12? Troy? It's like he can't read anymore.) I am over the Angelina thing and he needs to make some good movies to win me back. Still...




Oh, and life must be pretty good if you're the former Dr. Doug Ross.



Just be quiet and enjoy the eye candy.

Not Dead Yet?

From Kristen Nelson's blog:

Not that it’s any big surprise but historicals are hot and editors are actively looking for original voices—both for big women’s fiction historicals but also for what I call “straight” historicals (especially if they have some sort of intrigue or mystery bent).

Think a more commercial Umberto Eco.

Pitter patter, my heart accelerates...

I don't have a "mystery bent" in either of my works but historical is what I write, popular or not. It's just what I write. Of course, historicals are dead. Except when they're not.

Medievals are dead too. Except that I met Margaret Moore recently and she's been writing Harlequin Historicals - many of them medievals - for fifteen years. She has a medieval out in August, as a matter of fact. Her secret? Medievals sell well almost everywhere except North America. Europeans love 'em. The Japanese, she says, really "get" medievals - whereas Americans just say, "Code of honor? He gave his word and he'd rather die than go back on it? Why doesn't he just break his word and move on? What a stupid plot."

So, when you're submitting your work, you just never know what the person reading it has in mind. It's possible they could be thinking, "this will sell like hotcakes in Japan." Or, "Peru just loves this stuff right now." Or, like Agent Kristin, "I just talked to an editor yesterday who was looking for this." It's all a crapshoot.

I have five queries out right now, two of them for over a month. I won't see anything back until well over RWA is over. But the hope keeps going. In the meantime, I keep my head down and write.

How to be a Nationals Beeyotch

It's coming.

I've blogged about it before. But it's coming, and it's worse than ever. That's right, the RWA National Conference is almost here. The Prom, the big high school dance, The Do.

The email loops have been buzzing for weeks. "Who's going to breakfast? Lunch? Who has the reservation? Who are you pitching to? Let's meet up!!" The blogs have been full of advice on what to wear, what to bring, how to behave. If you're going to this thing, you've had an overload of information.

But there hasn't been a peep out of those of us not going. That's 'cos we feel totally inadequate and we don't want to advertise it. But I have no shame. Here, then, is the list on how to totally be a Nationals Beeyotch.

• Take the $42.50 you've saved in your "Nationals in 2015 YEAH!!!!" account and blow it on cheap beer and cigarettes, especially if you don't smoke.
• Take a dark, blurry photo while hammered and post it on your blog with the caption "Me at Nationals!! SO DRUNK!" Bonus points if you can get a pic of you being held over the ladies room toilet by someone who resembles Eloisa James. Even more points if a Connie Brockway lookalike is passed out in the corner.
• Make a pass at every man in the bar by saying, "Didja know, you could really be a cover model. Buy me a drink?"

• Everyone's gone; their blogs are abandoned. Go from blog to blog, hijacking all the comment threads. What are they gonna do?
• Email yourself on the PRO loop over and over. "You still here?" "Why, yes, I am!" "How delightful to hear from you. I thought I was the only one." "You know, I'm a big fan of your books." "Really? I'm a big fan of yours!"
• Take all your dissed Golden Heart manuscripts and self-publish them. Have the bill sent to RWA. Add a note: "SO THERE."
• When everyone starts posting their "Hugs to XXX!" and "Drinks next year with YYY!" stuff, post the comment: "Great pic. That must have been just before you made an ass of yourself by kissing Lisa Kleypas's feet and flashing everyone at the RITA dinner! Gosh, great memories."
• Take Paperback Writer out for a drink. Get her to give you the real dish on everyone. She knows it, she just isn't saying.
• Read Katherine again and blog about how They Just Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore.
• Finally: While wearing your usual Goodwill wardrobe and eating your daily Ramen noodles, write your next dissed Golden Heart manuscript and tell your mom you're a working writer.

Toodles,
Abby

OTHER other writers

Since I work in television, I occasionally wonder about writing a script. I don't do it for two reasons: a) I don't have a really good idea and b) screenwriting flat out gives me the willies.

The thought of all those producers, actors, directors, editors getting their paws on my work and reinterpreting it - screwing it up... Oh, and if they decide they don't like your script the way you wrote it, they can fire you and hire someone else to rewrite it.

Now, fiction writers love to complain, but jeez, we don't have it that bad. Sure, we have to do edits and rewrites. But at least we get to do them. Think about getting fired from your own novel and having it handed over to someone else for rewriting. We'd freak!

When it comes to writing, I just don't play well with others.

However, a peek into the screenwriting trade always teaches me a ton. What does screenwriting have to do with novel writing, you ask? Behold:

I write the cinematic equivalent of Kelly Clarkson. My movies are Chicken McNuggets. They’re Budweiser. There are people in the world who literally get angry when they talk about movies like the ones I make, the way that pop culture absolutists will mock gag over Kelly Clarkson, the way that food purists will assail McNuggets as evidence of some gustatory crime, the way that booze snobs will call Budweiser “warm piss” and refuse to drink anything but some beer from Djibouti that “no one knows about.”

You know…unpopular.

The truth, though, is that Hollywood and Kelly Clarkson and McDonald’s and Budweiser aren’t actually commiting crimes against some absolute standard of quality. They’re just popular. That’s all. They’re common. They’re not special. They’re comforting, normative, unchallenging and perhaps a bit shallow, but they’re also enjoyed.

Sound familiar? Try this:

The takeaway for those of us who write films for a living is simply this. Who do you love? Write for them. If you love the critics, write for them. If you love women, write for them. If you love young people, write for them. But always write with love.

And this:

In the end, it’s not being popular or “Hollywood” or critically panned that makes a movie suck.

It’s an audience saying “that movie sucked” that makes a movie suck. Nothing else.

All of this from a brilliant blog called The Arful Writer, by a man named Craig Mazin, an experienced screenwriter whose latest credit is on "Scary Movie 4." No, Craig Mazin does not think "Scary Movie 4" should win him an Oscar. He does not see himself as writing "Chinatown." He just thinks "Scary Movie 4" has an audience, and he also thinks it's funny. The same way romance writers continually protest that they are not trying to write War and Peace - they are just trying to deliver stories to their audience that will be loved.

The difference is that Mazin thinks that Hollywood has it right - that the equation of popularity to quality is the correct one. There are a lot of people who will agree. After all, who's to say that an art movie is good if no one saw or enjoyed it? Who's to assume it must be good for the same reason? In the art vs. popularity debate, Mazin is firmly on the popularity side.

I'm skeptical, up here in chilly Canada. I'm not sure I'm with him. But it's interesting to read the view from the Hollywood hills.

Vacation - Sort Of

I'm on vacation from the day job this week, mostly because they've already told me that the rest of my summer will be so busy that I won't be able to take time off, so I'd better take it now. I did. (I've mentioned before that my day job is really fun, haven't I?)

So, with no money, I'm on vacation at home. And except for the paycheck that's still coming in, it's a taste of what it would be like to be a full-time writer.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Full time writers, never for one minute think that those of us with day jobs don't envy you. We do. Even when you talk about deadline stress and irregular pay and burnout and whatever else, we still do. I'm sure those things are true, but we're not listening. We're thinking about going to our cubicles day in and day out until we hit 65 and realize our lives have drained away from under us and we envy you. We wish we could actually take the time to savor life and not look at it from a fluorescent window. The grass is always greener - it's just a fact.

I've been off work for two days now. I've revised my old manuscript, prepped three queries to go in the mail, and spent an afternoon building a website I'm volunteering to make. I've gotten groceries, made a nice big healthy salad to pick at throughout the day, read, cooked dinner two days in a row, done laundry, and cleaned the bathroom. Tomorrow I dig in on the new book.

I've eaten lunch both days and dinner before eight o'clock at night. We get up at six every morning anyway, but so far I feel much more rested even then. It's because I'm not rushing to barely keep up with the basics of life, cramming groceries and cleaning in after eight on a day that's already full. I even sat in the sun for a little bit, enjoying - actually enjoying! - my summer.

Yes, it's only been two days. I'm sure after a couple of months I'd be a lot less keen, the house would be a mess and I'd be sleeping at one in the afternoon. I'm sure if I was a full-time writer, I'd be a lot poorer than I am now (oh, I believe this - it's the only reason I keep my job) and the stress would interfere with my creativity. I'm sure there would be lots of things wrong.

But for now, I think I'll keep my illusions. I think I'll aspire to a life lived for myself, not for a company. I'll aspire to my time being mine, not sold to someone else.

It'll keep me going, at least for the next seven days.

Actual Writers

For those of you suffering from burnout, bummed-out, or descending into that strange pit of loneliness writers are so prone to, let me recommend something: Hanging out with other writers.

I don't mean online. Shut the computer off and walk away. Go find other writers, real ones, and talk to them. Like, a face-to-face conversation. Remember those?

There are tons of writers' groups. So what if there's a fee? Whatever it is, it's likely cheaper than the therapy bills. So you need to get off your chair and make time to go to the meetings? What did you have lined up that was better, anyway? Staring at your work in progress? Obsessively checking your email? Waiting for the phone to ring?

It's summer. Go out! Quit blogging! Put your pasty writerly face in the sunshine! Quit emailing and looping and flaming and obsessing about dumb online arguments! Venture out into the real world, and find some other writers - turns out, you're actually not alone.

My loved ones are very supportive, but they don't get it the way other writers do. I can talk to another writer about agents, rejections, revisions, and my dream of getting published, and I don't get that kind-but-baffled look in response. I get nods, and those magic words, "Me too." I get insight and input and advice. From people who have been there, and people who aren't there yet - ahead of me on the journey or behind me on the journey, it doesn't matter. Just people who get it. Writers.

Besides advice, writers are good for book recommendations. I have to make a trip to the bookstore just to pick up the stuff we talked about. So you won't see me online every day while the sun is out.

I've got summer reading to do, after all.

Abby

Not Dead Yet

Though it may seem like it, since I haven't blogged in a little while... not sure what happened there.

Via Miss Snark, the list of 30 books to read before you die.

I've read sixteen. My life is more than half over!

Actually, it's 16.33 of the books 'cos I read the first book of the His Dark Materials trilogy but not the other two.

I can't read those other 13.66 books now, right? What if I don't read them and thus stave off death, like Dorian Gray or something?

I'm happy with To Kill a Mockingbird at number one. I love that book. You start reading it because you have to, and then the next thing you know you're crying and you don't want to leave. And then ten years later you're wondering how those people are doing, and are they all OK? The kind of writing we don't even think of achieving in our wildest dreams.

I'd put Great Expectations higher up - A Christmas Carol? c'mon, not even close - and I'd definitely dump the Poisonwood Bible off the list. That book just made me tired. The Curious Incident and Tess of the D'Urbervilles... well, they were good, but I feel I could die without reading them. For different reasons.

I'd add The Catcher in the Rye, but that's just me. Has that book gone out of style and no one told me? Would that put too many Americans on the list?

Book lists are inherently silly, but we love them anyway, don't we?

Not list-related, but two books to avoid, unfortunately: A Complicated Kindness and The Secret Life of Bees. The first one was ongoing torture of boredom (welcome to Canadian literature, y'all) and the second just left me scratching my head: "She just lived with black people? In the 60's South? And no one even commented?" Wherefore all the praise?

I'm a third of the way into this one, however: March. Um. Should I quit writing now, or should I keep illusioning myself until Geraldine Brooks gets even better?

Happy reading,
Abby

Buttons of Possibility

What is it with kids and buttons?

I don't have kids, but I've observed this everywhere, in kids of all stamps and sizes. In elevators, at ATMs, telephones, doors for the disabled - no matter where, some kid is dying to press the button.

What's the attraction? As adults, we know that the blase results of pressing any button are pretty much dull. An elevator will go up. The ATM will beep. Big deal. Don't kids know that?

No, they don't. A kid thinks anything can happen - that's my theory. Maybe I'll press this button and it will rain. Maybe I'll press this button and everyone will turn green. Maybe I'll press this button and I'll turn invisible. Maybe -

Every time. Kids live in a world where you could go through a wardrobe and find another world, or a guy could take you up in a great glass elevator. As adults, we lose that.

Except when I'm writing. And for me, that's the attraction, the reason I keep doing it. On my way to my boring, grown-up day job, I'm on an explorer's ship, or I'm gallivanting around Regency London. I could be capturing the heart of a gorgeous man and listening to his words of devotion. I could be battling villains and triumphing evil. For that too-short time, I get to be a kid again before I have to to to work and earn my bread.

It's also the reason I can't outline too much before writing. With every scene I enter, the first thing I do is push the button. Once I push it, anything can happen. Maybe in this scene everyone will turn green. Maybe in this scene the hero will become invisible. Maybe in this scene... An outline, for me, takes that away. In this scene, they'll argue. In the next scene, they'll make up. Too much like grown-up life for me.

Oh, I could try outlining. I'll be writing the scene just as I planned, and then the heroine will turn around and see a man staring intently at her from across the room, and she'll turn to her companion with fear in her voice and say, "We have to leave now," and then I want to know who was staring at her and why she's afraid, and stuff starts to happen. Story happens.

That's what happens when you push the buttons.

Anything at all. Think of it. What could be better?

Abby