Tough Choices

A tough day at work today - a former coworker died young. So let's just skip that and talk about books, K?

I'm going on vacation next week - sun, sand, Playboy Mansion-sized pools... just me and the guy and a few fish. Paradise. (Why else do you think I put up with bathing suit shopping?) Oh, and books. Lots of books.

So, now I'm down to the Big Question: What books to take? Oh, the deliciousness of it - every book lover out there is just humming with anticipation along with me. I've done everything else, made all of my plans, but I'm saving the best decision for last. What books will I take with me for a week of pure sinful beach reading?

Here's what I've got so far:




I'd heard that Silhouette was doing a paranormal line called Nocturne, but I had no idea it had started yet. This was the only title my local Chapters had in stock (my local Chapters is utterly clueless about category romance - they obviously have not one employee who knows anything about it. The stuff is stocked 2-3 weeks into the month it's supposed to be released.)

So I bought it, though I don't normally read paranormal. I need to keep current with trends. I need to see what's getting published out there so I can either a) gloat that I'm a better writer in my own mind or b) despair of my talent. Every romance writer needs to know what H/S is buying.

Okay, I just liked the cover. Rockin' covers on the Nocturnes!

Next:




I bought this one because the flap says it won the 2005 Golden Heart. Again, research. I need to know what kind of books are winning the GH, right? I vaguely remember that I should enter the GH every once in a while, but then I remember that it's outrageously expensive and all you get is a number. Then I go buy books with the money I saved.

OK, I also bought it because it's cute. OK, she's cute. His hair is WAY too modern.

Next selection:




This has been on my TBR for a month or two. I bought it because Megan recommended it at one point. I've been dying to read it, but I'm waiting for just the right moment. Vacation is just the right moment, don't you think?

I think I'm going to top off my selection with one heavier book - maybe a non-fiction. I must go to my shelf and ponder for a while. (My poor guy is a little confused that my favourite pastime is staring at my bookshelf, lovingly rearranging. Oh, well. I just tell him there are a lot of worse pastimes in the world.)

Any suggestions - I'd love to hear 'em. I still have room in the book bag. Oh, and if there's internet at the resort, I'll try to write.

Pity me, sisters...

... For I have just been through your worst nightmare, the experience you would not inflict on your worst enemy, the experience that makes poking out an eye seem like painless bliss.

Pity me, for I have been bathing-suit shopping.




Pity me the hideous change-room lighting, designed to make your thighs look like cottage cheese left to ferment.

Pity me the execrable popularity of boy-shorts, and my confusion as to who the hell actually wears them.

Pity me the horizontal stripes, old-lady florals, and endless brown (???) selection.

Pity me the impossible choice between barely-there bikini and geriatric sailing-ship.

Pity me the price tag, so high that it made the guy (who bought $20 swim trunks four years ago and called it a day) gasp in shock.

Yea, o yea, pity me!

Big Bucks

Sigh. I just couldn't bear to move Clive down on the page. But I have to post sooner or later.

Said to me when I admitted I've written a novel: "I've always wanted to write a novel, but I don't have the money."

So, what do I say? Do I tell him my startup was $6 in some binder paper and a mechanical pencil? That I invested in a spiral notebook? That I print all my stuff off at work? (Oops, now I have to kill you.)

In this case, I let him keep his little dream - that, but for money, he would be the Next Great Novelist. That really he had it in him, but The World conspired to Keep Him Down.

Also said to me: "I tried to write a novel once, but I couldn't get past the first line." I didn't know what to say to that one either. I think my answer was, "hmm."

I imagine, once you're published, you hear this stuff all the time. Excuses, excuses, and self-deceptions. Being a writer tends to bring it out in people - it's a coveted profession for some reason, and everyone thinks they need an excuse not to be successful at it.

How about, "I never wrote a novel because I don't think I could do it."

It's what I'd say to an athlete, or a nurse, or a garbage man. It's honesty.

Then again, if the world were full of honesty, wouldn't writers run out of stuff to write about?

Time for a Clive Owen Picture

..or two.






Ssh - no talking.
Abby

Kate Can Babble on my Blog Any Time She Likes

Yes, she can.

It was Thanksgiving up here in Canada - long weekend. So I was away from the computer for a while.

There was eating. Some drinking. Okay, quite a bit of drinking. But at least I was sober on Sunday night, while the guy had a bit too much. So Monday was Veeeewy Quiet at our house.

I'm never sick, but last week I got a cold that hit me like a ton of bricks, and it completely derailed my writing. So, there's my little peek into life as a writer - you get sick, too bad, you either work or you don't get paid. The day job may suck, but at least I called in sick for two days and still made money. Not a bad deal in that case. Try writing with a fever: You just sit there and stare at the screen, and your thoughts go round and round, and you go to type something but you can't remember what it was. Then you stare some more. Then you go lie down, but you have this terrible feeling of guilt because you really should be working. It's horrible.

So, full-time writers, hats off to you this one time.

It's almost NaNoWriMo time but just thinking about it makes me tired. Maybe some year.

The only thing that got me through my cold: Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart.



Once again, I did not have the edition with this really kick-ass creepy cover. I had an old yellowed nearly-disintegrated library paperback with an old-fashioned line drawing on the cover. It was nice, but this is better.

This book was awesome. Governess works for mysterious employer in large, old castle? Check. It's a Gothic cliche, but this is the way you're supposed to do it. You're supposed to plot, not just rely on atmosphere. You're supposed to draw your characters unforgettably. You're supposed to leave your reader actually hanging about what's going to happen. You're supposed to have a heroine who does not whine, shiver, act too stupid to live, or generally annoy your reader. You're supposed to actually have some shit happen.

Highly recommend it, especially if you're sick. Great book!

The Contest Experience, Again

So, I've got the score sheets from the one and only contest I've ever entered.

I did all right - a 77 average score.

Still, it's weird. I'm not sure I'd do it again.

There was some good feedback here (yes, I had my heroine look in the mirror and describe herself - I cringe now, but I had no idea it was overused when I wrote it). And they said some very nice things, especially about my writing. And the criticisms were more about the central conflict, which is the same criticism the agent had, so that's all perfectly sane.

Still:

"Editors won't accept the Times New Roman font you used." WTF? The entry form said "Courier or Times New Roman" and I got docked points for TNR?

"I've read that romance readers want heroes who don't have personality defects, at least not major ones." Huh? Who wants to read about a character without flaws? I made him shy, not a frickin' child molester. And aren't you a romance reader? If you aren't, what are you doing here?

Why did I get docked three points for my POV? Didn't you like it? Couldn't you write something about why?

How come I got docked points for "Does the dialogue suit the characters" and then at the bottom of the page, "Dialogue is very well done"? Which one is it?

In short, as suspected, I could easily drive myself crazy with this. Still, if I'm going to pay $30 for whoever-the-hell (it's all done anonymously) to mess with my head, I may as well rant about it on my blog. If not here, where?

There's something wrong about the whole process, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the scoresheet? The judges with no qualifications? I'm not sure yet. But next time I might use my money for a round of queries. It sounds like better odds.

One Minute to Read

Recently Paperback Writer blogged about how The Historian disappointed her in the very first line:

I just wanted it to be great. I wanted her to deserve that whomping contract and to give me the book equivalent of a bigass box of CrackerJack with a diamond ring prize inside so I could write up something about the book here. This is what I got:

The story that follows is one I never intended to commit to paper.

How did Kostova's first published line grab me? Well, I immediately slammed the cover shut and put it on the [To Be Read Maybe Before I'm Dead] shelf. The cats like to hang on that shelf and cough up hairballs...

This was followed, predictably, by a whole bunch of people chiming in on the comment trail about how a disappointing first line can ruin a book, never to be picked up again.

You hear this a lot - how a first line can make or break an entire book. Kostova was, apparently, supposed to give you an orgasm in one sentence to earn all that money.

Am I the only one who disagrees?

Sure, first lines are important to the writer who is trying to sell. But as a reader of fiction, let me speak sacrilege and say that I don't give a crap about first lines and can't remember a single one.

That's right - my name is Abby and I don't care about first lines.

I don't read while I am driving, or while I am running a marathon, or while I am working at my day job. I am not looking for easily-digested sound bites to be read in the least amount of time. When I read a book, I am sitting in a chair, and for the time being I have nowhere else to go. And if someone has taken a year or more of their time to write something that's ended up on my shelf, I figure I can give them fifteen minutes of my time to decide if I'm going to like it or not.

In fact, I'm going to go even further and suggest that if you only have time to read one line of a book, then perhaps you have not scheduled your reading time properly. Perhaps you need to take another look at your daily schedule and give yourself longer than three seconds of leisure. Relax!

Nothing to do with PBW specifically - and I'm not defending The Historian here, which I didn't like either. But with the one-line theory, no one sees the difference between the importance of the first line when trying to sell a book and when reading one. Agents and editors are reading your writing at work - during their busy day jobs. They're moving fast. Readers are reading it during their leisure time, when they (I suggest) have a little time to concentrate. Long enough to read a page, or five, or even ten.

Lots of books start slow. Eliot. All of Trollope's stuff. Those big Shakespearean monologues. Most of Dickens - even the oft-quoted Tale of Two Cities doesn't start with action. It's just a bunch of stuff about what the times were like. Give it a minute - it's spellbinding. I promise. And relax!