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Writing Full Time

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Many writers live with the dream of writing full time. They go to jobs they hate, and shuttle kids around, and then with the tiny bit of energy they have left, even if they have to eat a frozen dinner and turn their spouse down for sex, they write.

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

They want to get to the point so they can replace their current income so they can stay home and write full time.

My situation going into this was both a blessing and a curse. I didn’t have an income to replace. ANY amount of money was going to be a boon. I’d had 33 jobs, and that taught me that unless the other option was dying in a ditch, I probably wasn’t going to ever successfully work for another human being. Another thing… they’d all been Mc-Jobs, basically. Crap jobs that didn’t pay well. In fact, the highest paid job I ever had paid $300 a week. That’s not a hard income to replace with… almost anything.

So even though I’m in my sales slump, I find myself hopeful. I’m still making money. I’m still making more than I ever made at my Mc-jobs. And I am working hard on releasing new work, under more than one pen name, so it’s not just one book I’m working on. I’m working on two.

I spend a couple of hours writing a couple thousand words on one book, then I spend a few hours doing edits and rewrites on Save My Soul. After I finish work for the day I sit back and think… I’m a working writer. No, I’m not yet where I want to be, but I’m working on it. I’m working toward that goal. This is my job. This is what I do to make money. I’m writing full time.

And I’m finally WRITING.

I’ve cleared out much of the emotional clutter. I’ve seen my sales ranks start to dwindle from not having my backlist built yet and I’ve buckled down to work and create and shape words into something to entertain someone and to pay me money.

Fuck the drama. Fuck the idiots. I don’t sit in a cubicle every day. I sit in my bedroom with my laptop in front of me, making stuff up all day. I’m creating and controlling my own work. I’m making money.

There is no better feeling than that.

I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do when I was a little kid. Sure, it has taken a different form, in the form of self-publishing… but my childhood dream was never to “have a NY publisher”, it was to hold my book in my hands, make money writing, and have people reading me. All things I’ve done and am doing.

Most people grow up and put aside their childhood dreams to work building someone else’s. I didn’t. That’s worth celebrating and being proud of. Sometimes I get so focused in on goals that are so far away that I don’t stop to smell the roses or truly appreciate where I am right now and how lucky I am to be there.

 

 

This is a cross-posting from Zoe Winters‘ site.

Aspiring Authors Fail To Click During E-Book Emergence

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This story, by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal and was reprinted on the South Oregon Mail Tribune site on 9/26/10.

When literary agent Sarah Yake shopped around Kirsten Kaschock’s debut novel "Sleight" earlier this year, she thought it would be a shoo-in with New York’s top publishers.

"Her project was one of the most exemplary in the last decade or so," said Jed Rasula, Kaschock’s teacher, who has taught in the English department at the University of Georgia since 2001. "I certainly thought she’d find a New York publisher."

To the surprise of Yake and Rasula, the major New York publishers passed on "Sleight," a novel about two sisters trained in a fictional art form.

Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, a small independent publisher, now plans to publish the book, offering Kaschock an advance of about $3,500 — a small fraction of the typical advances once paid by the major publishing houses.

It’s always been tough for literary fiction writers, particularly first timers, to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the book industry is having an outsized impact on the careers of literary writers.

Priced much lower than hardcover books, e-books generate less income for publishers. At the same time, big retailers are buying fewer titles.

As a result, the publishers responsible for nurturing generations of America’s top literary fiction writers are approving fewer book deals and signing fewer new writers. Most of those getting published are receiving smaller advances.

"Advances are down, and there aren’t as many debuts as before" says Ira Silverberg, a well-known literary agent. "We’re all trying to figure out what the business is as it goes through this digital disruption."

Much as cheap digital music downloads have meant fewer bands can earn a living from record company deals, publishers and agents say fewer literary authors will be able to support themselves as e-books gain broader acceptance.

"In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income," says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and John Pipkin.

In some cases, independent publishers are picking up the slack by signing promising literary fiction writers. But they offer on average $1,000 to $5,000 in advances, a fraction of the $50,000 to $100,000 advances that established publishers typically paid in the past for debut literary fiction.

The new economics of the e-book make the author’s quandary painfully clear: A new $28 hardcover book returns half, or $14 to the publisher, and 15%, or $4.20, to the author.

Under most e-book deals currently, a digital book sells for $12.99, returning 70%, or $9.09, to the publisher and typically 25% of that, or $2.27, to the author.

The upshot: From an e-book sale, an author makes a little more than half what he or she makes from a hardcover sale.

 

Read the rest of the article on the South Oregon Mail Tribune site.

While You Wait For Book Three, Authors Die!

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The title of this post is slightly sensationalist, but in a literary sense it’s actually very true. I mentioned recently that I’ve finally started reading A Game Of Thrones, which is the first book in George R R Martin’s A Song Of Ice & Fire series. This comment led to a few discussions in various places that has subsequently led to this post.

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

When I mentioned that I was finally getting around to reading A Game Of Thrones a lot of people assumed that also meant that I’d only just bought it. Especially when, in answer to the question, “Why has it taken you this long?” I replied, “I was waiting for the complete story before I started.”

A lot of people do this, and fair enough. When you notice a big old fantasy series that you think catches your interest, it’s reasonable to assume there’s going to be a whole story told. Often these days a writer will sell a trilogy (or bigger series) to a publisher and that publisher will set a publication schedule to release those books over a relatively short period of time, maybe even inside a year.

However, if no one buys the first book, it’s very possible that books two and three will never see the light of day. An author survives on [his] sales figures. If [he] performs poorly at the checkout, the publisher will discard [him] like a greasy burger wrapper and think nothing of it. That’s business. It’s fucked, but it’s business.

Going back to Martin’s series, when people started telling me how awesome it was, I started buying the books. They’ve sat on my shelf for ages. I wasn’t going to read them until there was a whole finished set, but I bought them to ensure that Martin showed solid sales figures and stayed in favour with his publisher. (I ended up starting to read recently because of the forthcoming TV series, and I wanted to have read the books first).

Obviously someone like George R R Martin doesn’t need my help, but the same thing applies across the board. For example, I was on a panel recently with Paul Cornell and he talked about one of his comic series being cancelled. There was conjecture that the series was cancelled because so many people these days wait for the trade, rather than collect the individual comic books. If no one buys the comic books, the story is considered a failure and there’ll be no trade.

The same applies to big series of novels. If no one buys the first book, the author/story will be considered a failure and there’ll be no release of the rest of the books. The people that read the first one are denied closure, the people that were waiting for a whole series have missed the opportunity and, most importantly, the author is dropped and never has the chance to expand their career. This is a very sad result of market forces and it’s actually a false result.

So if you see the first book of a series that you think you might like, buy it! You don’t have to read it right away – consider it an investment in your reading future. Buy the subsequent volumes as they come out and you’ll end up with a solid reading experience once the whole series is finished. And you’ve done your bit to ensure the success of an author and their literary vision. Hopefully you’ve had a good read too. If you put off buying that first book, you could have actively participated in the failure of an otherwise awesome story and potentially stellar career. No pressure.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

7 Links To Encourage The Writer In You

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Great information abounds on the internet, but it can be difficult to find unless someone leaves a “signpost” for you pointing the way. Here are seven links that can help you in your pursuit of your writing career.

  1. Writing in the Face of Fear — This post covers ways to overcome every writer’s fear of writing and adds a few good resources for the writer’s toolbox.
  2. When It’s All Too Much — Sometimes self-publishers, especially those new to the field, find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “helpful” advice. This post points out that there is a need to take a break and just let the process take care of itself. 
  3. 5 Self-Publishing Lessons I Learned From My Toddler — With great posts come great comments. This post gave several readers some helpful ideas.
  4. 7 Ways to Stop Feeling Distracted and Start Writing What You Want to Write — This is a great post by Joanna of Confident Writing. The title says it all. 
  5. 7 Links That Will Make Editing Your Work Easier — Every writer knows editing is crucial, but sometimes we need a little help in the process. This post lists seven links that will do just that.
  6. Beating the Clock — Time is a scarce commodity, but there are ways to manage it. This post gives a couple of ideas and some advice on how best to manage your time.
  7. Deaf With Belief — If writers need anything, it’s encouragement. This post encourages self-publishers to believe in themselves regardless of what anyone else says.

There are always great posts out there, but sometimes you can’t find them. That’s why I like to leave signposts like these links for you on The Road to Writing.

 

This is a reprint from Virginia Ripple‘s The Road To Writing.

F&FW: What To Give

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Whether you’re in a workshop or not, giving feedback on other people’s stories helps you as a writer. A key question involves the formality of the response you give, and here my views are decidedly aligned with writers and others who focus on craft, and decidedly against critics and others who focus on meaning or worth.

For example, here’s a blog comment I wrote on a site a few months ago, on the subject of ‘critiquing’:

I don’t disagree with anything you say here. It’s a good introduction, and particularly so because you guard against giving the reviewer authority. Every writer will define themselves by their ability to listen to and sift responses. And of course that’s one of the benefits of a workshop: you can have confidence that issues that affected the majority are substantive simply because of the number of people agreeing on a point.

The one thing I might add here is that over my writing life I’ve de-emphasized the formality of the critiquing process to the point that I no longer even use that word. Why? Because the word is both formal and critical, and I find that both of those aspects of the reviewing process tend to goad the reviewer into responding as a critical authority.

When I respond to something, or offer to respond, I simply promise feedback. It’s a useful descriptor that imposes no weight of responsibility or attitude on the process. Too, because almost all feedback is useful, it allows for anyone to contribute — and there is always a shortage of readers. (To say nothing of trusted readers.)

If you’re a beginning writer and you have the opportunity to respond to someone else’s work, take it. Don’t worry about formal responses, don’t try to explain the author’s story to them and don’t try to write it for them. Just read the story, note your own reactions to what’s happening, and report those reactions.

Why is this important? Because what a writer is trying to do is create specific effects in your mind. Only by reliably reporting your experience with a story will the writer know if those effects were achieved. The job of the writer is to figure out why the intended effect may have failed in your particular case. Your job as a reader is to tell the truth of your reading experience.

This is one area where workshops tend to complicate the feedback process because of the social dynamics involved. Nobody wants to come off like an idiot in a roomful of their peers, and more than a few people will be determined to come off like geniuses. Not only does having the floor lead to words like ‘verisimilitude’ and ‘anthropomorphism’ being used more in a twenty-minute span than you will ever hear them used during the rest of your life, it prompts readers to pontificate about everything from the comma to the meaning of life, none of which ever really helps fix the story.

As a reader, if you genuinely believe you know why you had trouble with a work, go ahead and give your reasoning. But remember: the most important thing you have to give to any writer is your honest reaction. If a writer doesn’t have the craft knowledge to judge and act on what you’re saying, the complexity and detail of your analysis probably won’t matter.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

What Do The Most Highly-Paid Authors Have In Common?

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We write for many reasons. Money is not usually the top of the list but we would all like to be rewarded for our work and financial success is certainly a great goal.

Forbes.com released their list of the highest paid authors earlier this year. The top 10 earners were: James Patterson, Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Ken Follett, Dean Koontz, Janet Evanovitch, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and JK Rowling

So what can we learn from them in terms of modeling success?

  • Write a lot of books. James Patterson has had 51 NY Times bestsellers and churns out almost 1 book a month now with a number of collaborators. While you may not like his writing style, he is certainly successful in understanding books are a product. Write to a formula, get them out there and people will buy them. Most of these writers are prolific with Meyer and Rowling as outliers (see the next point!)
  • Write a series. All of these writers have a series of books, some of them have multiple series with protagonists that people get to know and are keen to read the next installment about. Remember, it may take you a year to write a book, but it takes a real fan about 5 hours to read it. Then they want the next one! If you can hook people into your series, you will sell the rest of them to that reader and the books will keep selling.
  • Know your brand and write in a genre. Each of these names is synonymous with a genre. You know what you are getting when you pick up a Stephen King or a Danielle Steel. If they write in other genres, they use another name. These authors are brand names, instantly recognizable products. You need to decide what your brand is and where you fit on a bookshelf. Do you fit next to Patterson or Rowling or Sparks?
  • Understand it takes time. Most of the top 10 have been around for decades. Only Meyer and Sparks could be considered young authors, so it is encouraging to think that plugging away for years will eventually have some success. If James Patterson or Danielle Steel had given up after 2 books, would they be where they are now?
  • Write popular fiction. This may be controversial but if you want to make money, you need to write for the masses and avoid literary fiction. There is a clear difference between a best-selling author versus a best writing author. One makes money, the other wins literary acclaim and prizes. You need to be clear what you are aiming for. (That doesn’t mean bestsellers are not well written. Many of them are and we should all aim to write well. It just means they are not considered “literary” by the critics).
  • Create multiple streams of income. These authors do not just have physical books. Their ideas have been turned into other products including movies, merchandise, spin-off books, audio and digital products, games and even real world experiences (think Harry Potter world!). Yes, they are big names but you can create multiple streams of income for your books too.

What do you think about these top earners? Do you buy their books? How can you model their success?

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Indie Versus Traditional Publishing

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This article, by Jess C. Scott, originally appeared on her site on 6/1/10.

This is a condensed version of my quite-long (35-page) advertising plan which I submitted for BUS 345: Advertising, in the Spring 2010 semester. The paper was written with regards to “establishing my brand identity as an author.” I scored full marks for the paper (yay).

# # #

Industry Analysis of Traditional Publishers

II. SITUATION ANALYSIS

2.0 Historical Context

According to Doug Grad Literary Agency, whose founder spent twenty-two years as a senior editor at four major New York publishing houses:

Publishers, unfortunately, have a copycat mentality, so once a genre gets hot, they quickly overbuy and over-publish until the marketplace is saturated and the public gets sick of the rotten imitations on the shelves. Look at what happened to the Chick Lit genre, and is happening to the Young Adult Vampire genre right now. (Grad, 2010)

 

2.1 Industry Analysis

2.1.1 Current Industry Climate

George Bernard Shaw, a famous and controversial 20th century English dramatist (whose first book was published fifty years overdue—when publishers would publish anything that had his name on it), had this to say about publishers:

I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettishness, without being either good business men or fine judges of literature. All that is necessary in the production of a book is an author and a bookseller, without the intermediate parasite. (Bernard, 1990)

Independent publishing in the digital era offers what George Bernard Shaw dreamed of. Anyone can write a book, and get it in the hands of potential readers, without having to wade through a sea of literary agents and editors. The entire traditional publishing industry is made up of a series of costs, overheads, and ways of using up incredible amounts of time which might be used doing something productive. Big publishers will not look at unsolicited manuscripts from un-agented writers, and taking 6-12 months to respond to the submission of a full manuscript is considered an industry standard for “working in a timely manner.” The endless series of procedures for simply getting a book considered by a literary agent, are obstructive. Literature is competing with powerful media for space in people’s lives, and inefficiency doesn’t help (Wallis, 2009).

Authors also often have no say and/or control in the traditional publishing process. According to established author, critically acclaimed novelist, and National Book Award finalist John Edgar Wideman:


Read the rest of the article on Jess C. Scott’s site.

Story Awarded Sixth Place

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The results are in for a short story I entered this summer in White County Creative Writers Contests at Searcy, Arkansas. I was awarded sixth place for a version of the story I received second place for in an earlier contest. This time the story could only be 1500 words. That meant I had to do some drastic cutting and at the same time keep the basic story in tact. I managed to do just that, but I like the longer version better so that is my post for today. This story takes place during the Depression in the 1930’s.

 

The Unexpected Visitor

　

The two room cabin Rachel Archer rented wasn’t air tight, but it beat sleeping out in the open with the migrants. Sitting at her kitchen table drinking a second cup of morning coffee, she watched the freight trains slow down at the road crossing. Four men jumped on the flat cars and six leaped off. It was an ever day occurrence these days. Homeless and jobless men headed west, looking for work. The men disembarking were on their way back home after finding out there weren’t any jobs to be had. At night, the red and gold glimmer of a dozen or so campfires glowed in the timber near the cabin. Most days, at least a couple poorly dressed, unbathed men, looking half starved, knocked at the back door, expecting her to give them a handout.

Rachel picked the three folded sheets of tablet paper up off the table and reread them. Last week, the letter came from a fellow teacher, Mary Winters. Rachel hadn’t seen her for over a year when they spent a term teaching at the same school seventy-five miles away. She was delighted Mary was coming for a visit. In fact, her friend be arriving any minute.

Looking around the cabin, Rachel anxiously wondered what Mary would think of this place she called home. No matter what condition it was in or how cramped she was for room, Rachel considered herself lucky to have a place to live. The alternative was staying at a student’s home. This way she had privacy, and the door locked so she felt safe at night.

If only she could stop the nightly noises that kept her awake. Lately, the irritating gnawing under the kitchen floor had given her nights of disturbed sleep. What she heard had to be a rat. No mouse would be big enough to make that much racket. Suddenly a horrible thought came to her. What if that rat made his way through the wooden floor while her company was visiting? How embarrassing that would be.

Mid morning, Mary Winters knocked on the cabin door. Rachel greeted her with a hug. "Come in. It is so good to see you."

"I couldn’t wait to get here. I’ve missed our talks this last year," Mary said, returning Rachel’s hug.

"Me, too. Sit down at the table. I’ve kept the coffee pot on so we could have a cup when you got here. I expect you are about wore out from the trip."

"Not really, but the roads make for rough riding with all the pot holes and ruts. I thought that poor truck I hitched a ride on was going to fall apart before the farmer got me here," Mary said, laughing. As she sat down, she looked around the combined kitchen-living room.

"Not the biggest of home, but big enough for me. Beats bunking with one of the students," Rachel assured her. "I wouldn’t have a bit of privacy, and another family’s home life is so hard to get used to for me and them."

"I know that feeling. I spent the last term with a family of six kids. That might not be so bad, but the father made me nervous. I didn’t like the way he watched me all the time."

"Did he think you might steal something?"

"I don’t think that was his problem. I just made sure to never be alone with him," Mary admitted, ducking her head bashfully.

"You must get out of there. You are applying for a different school for this fall, aren’t you?" Rachel asked, appalled at what her friend had been going through.

"Already got a different school close by as a matter of fact so we can visit more often," said Mary, grinning.

"Wonderful!"

A train, traveling east, blew its whistle as it approached the crossing. Mary watched out the window with a frown. The freight train slowed down. Men jumped from the box cars and ran into the trees. "Did you have a good year here at the school?" Mary kept a troubled look as her eyes stayed glued to what was happening out the window.

"Yes, I had a nice size bunch of kids. Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere that didn’t get as much snow in the winter. I hate being snowed in for days on end," Rachel admitted.

"I know that feeling," Mary said in a distracted voice. Another train, headed west, slowed down at the crossing. Men ran along side and jumped on while almost as many men leaped off. Mary shook her head in dismay.

"Is something wrong?" Rachel asked.

"How are you so brave to live this close to the railroad tracks? Hobos keep jumping on and off the trains at the crossing."

"The hobos don’t bother me," Rachel assured her. "They do knock on the door once in awhile to ask for food. If I have extra, I give what I can."

"Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. You shouldn’t encourage that sort of thing. Those men look desperate to me and that makes them dangerous," warned Mary.

"Perhaps, you’re just edgy because of what you’ve been through this last year. Those men are just down on their luck. How about some lunch? This afternoon, I want to take you over to the school and show you around. I have a car. When you’re ready to leave in a few days, I’ll take you back to town to catch a bus," Rachel offered.

After dark, Mary jumped at every little noise outside. Rachel laughed at how spooked her friend was. "Relax. There’s always stray dogs and cats prowling in the night, looking for scraps."

By bedtime, Mary still wasn’t convinced the cabin was a safe place to sleep. A series of sharp yips startled her. The racket came from the hillside in front of the cabin.

"That is coyotes on the run. They’ll be into some farmer’s chickens before morning, I expect," Rachel told her.

The yips came again. "Those animals sound like they’re right outside the cabin," Mary said, shuttering.

Angry voices, some talking loud and others yelling, drifted from the timber to the women through the thin cabin walls. "Sounds like the migrants are into a fight again," said Rachel with a sigh.

"Again," screeched Mary. "You mean this happens often?"

"Once in awhile. Some of the migrants are a rough lot," Rachel admitted, looking at her sideways.

In the bedroom, Mary put on her nightgown and crawled under the covers on the cot Rachel fixed for her. She tossed and turned, having trouble going to sleep in the pitch black room. In a trembling voice, she said, "Rachel, how do you know the difference between a dog prowling outside your door and a hobo?"

Rachel’s voice held humor as she said, "Simple. The dog can’t turn the door knob."

"Honestly, Rachel, you’re awful. That isn’t one bit funny," Mary said, pulling her covers up to her chin. "Do you have a gun?"

"Land’s sakes, no. Just go to sleep, Mary. You’ll be safe enough in here with me," Rachel assured her.

Mary listened intently at first in case hobos lurked outside. Finally, she slept fitfully, dreaming the cabin was surrounded by hobos. They peeked in the windows and rattled the door knob.

Right on cue as soon as the lights went out and the women stopped talking, the rat gnawed with gusto. Rachel held her breath, hoping that Mary didn’t hear the racket. Rumbling snores from across the room convinced her the noise wouldn’t bother Mary. Rachel fell asleep wishing she could figure out a way to persuade that nasty creature to move out from under her home. The sooner the better. She longed for a peaceful night’s sleep.

The next morning, Rachel, while filling the coffee pot at the sink, looked down. There was what she had dreaded for days. In front of the sink was the feared hole, with fresh wood shavings heaped around the edges. Slowly, she opened the sink door. Cowering in a shadowy corner behind a stack of iron skillets, the beady eyed, black rat stared at her.

Horrified, Rachel screamed. She forgot about her sleeping company as she yelled, "Oh my, he’s gotten in." She slammed the sink door.

Startled awake, Mary sprang off the cot. She pulled a butcher knife out from under her pillow. The picture of an unkempt, menacing hobo ran through her mind. At that very minute, he was stalking Rachel in the kitchen.

"Where’s he at?" Mary’s loud voice trembled. Her bare feet thudded on the floor as she raced to the doorway. Afraid for her life, she flattened herself against the bedroom wall to listen.

"Under the sink," Rachel replied in a disgusted voice.

Welding the knife with its blade up in the air, Mary peeked around the door. Bewildered, she looked around the room. Rachel, stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the sink cabinet door. "How – how did he get in there?" She stuttered.

Looking over her shoulder, Rachel spotted Mary’s weapon. "That my knife?"

"If you had a gun, I wouldn’t need this for protection. I slept with it under my pillow," Mary replied sheepishly.

Rachel grabbed the broom, leaning in the corner. She opened the sink door and prodded back and forth with the handle. "Get out of there," she yelled.

Mary clamped her hand over her mouth and shrank back into the bedroom. She waited for the hobo to unbend from his contortious position and spring out of the cupboard. When he attacked Rachel, she’d have to be brave enough to stab him with the knife, but she didn’t know where she’d find the courage.

Suddenly, the rat darted out of the cabinet and ran in circles around Rachel’s feet. Doing a jumping dance, the frantic woman slapped the floor wildly with her broom. Mary peeked into the kitchen. She ducked back out of sight just in time to keep from getting hit when the broom came up over Rachel’s head. The rat headed for under the table. Rachel slapped the business end of the broom down at him, but missed. He hunkered by a far table leg, hoping that Rachel wouldn’t spot him.

Rachel rammed the broom handle at him, yelling, "Out from under the table, you creepy thing."

"He’s under that small table?" Mary cried in disbelief from the bedroom.

"He was," Rachel screeched. "He’s on the move again now."

A fast black blur, the rat, hunkered low and scurried across the floor, up the cupboard and under the wooden bread box lid.

Rachel cried, "Oh, no! He went in the bread box with my bread." Mary, clutching the knife, eased out into the kitchen. "Let him have the bread. You can buy more." Completely befuddled, she looked at the small box and whispered, "How could he fit in there?"

As Rachel turned her back on the bread box to answer, she felt a scratchy, fuzzy upward movement inside her left slack leg. She clutched her thigh and watched the lump continue to move up her slacks past her knee. "Oh, Mary, he’s in my slacks. What will I do?"

Thinking Rachel had lost her mind, Mary said, "Dear, he couldn’t be in there. Don’t you think you should sit down?"

"I can’t do that. I have to get shut of him," Rachel said, giving Mary a disgusted look. She yanked the back door open and ran out into the yard.

Mary followed her. Helplessly, she watched Rachel frantically jump up and down like she was skipping rope.

As the movement continued in Rachel’s slacks leg, she darted around the yard holding her leg tightly and screaming very loud. After she grew weary from the exertion, she looked down at her slack leg and begged, "Please leave. Please leave."

"Poor Rachel. I knew living out here on this prairie had to get to you. I just didn’t realize you were this bad. Please stop bouncing around," Mary commanded, grabbing Rachel by the shoulder. "You must calm down. I promise you there isn’t a hobo in your slacks."

That statement brought Rachel to an instant stop. Panting, she gave Mary a incredulous glare. "There isn’t a hobo in my pants. What are you talking about?"

Mary answered in a small voice. "I thought you thought you had a hobo going up your leg. What do you have in your pants?"

"Believe it or not. What’s in my pants is much worse. It’s a rat."

Mary turned loose of Rachel and staggered backed a few feet. "Really?"

"Really. I knew he was under the cabin floor, but I hoped he wouldn’t gnaw through while you was here." Rachel couldn’t feel movement in her hands anymore. She loosened her grip on the lump. It didn’t move. She shook her leg and cringed as she felt the tickling, furry lump slide down her shin. The motionless rat appeared and lay her shoe. Rachel gave a fast kick, sending the rat toward Mary.

Pale faced, Mary squealed and dodged sideways.

"Thank goodness, he’s dead," Rachel sighed, panting.

"He is, but I’m not sure I’m going to live through all this excitement," Mary said and giggled. "Tell me the rest of today is going to be calmer, please."

"Can’t never tell what will happen next around here," Rachel affirmed, laughing.

　

　

　

The Language of Drunk(Acrostic Poem)

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Three sheets to the wind, the boat meanders,
Hammered with repeated blows.
Euphoric, triumph will prevail.

Loaded with accessories,
Annihilates the blue screen of death.
Naggin-bottle, empty and sweaty.
Groggy from exhaustion and blows.
Under the weather deck,
Addicted in a weakened state,
Giddy, as dusk approaches,
Erunk, The past becomes present.

Oiled on troubled waters,
Fried from battling the waves.

Drunk with passion to reach
Rocky land in the far distance.
Under the influence, controlling my fate,
Newcastle, on the horizon,
Knowing, the safety of the harbor.

Things That Go Bump When We Write – Tough Topics

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This post, by Tereece M. Clarke, originally appeared on The Freelance Writing Jobs Network site on 9/16/10.

Life is full of difficult, uncomfortable situations. How we deal with those on a personal basis is one thing… how you deal with tough topics as a writer may be completely different. One thing that doesn’t work is avoidance.

Usually at FWJ we have to caution writers about taking on too much work, but the room clears when sensitive subject posts are passed out. Why?

Fear. No one wants to get their name tagged to a controversial subject because they fear they will lose out on future gigs because of it. No one wants to call the woman with breast cancer and talk about the big “C” because they fear they will come across insensitive or nosey. No one wants to offend.

Debra Stang of Confessions of a Word Concubine (love that title by the way) answered a question I posed from a previous post about this very same topic. She had some great words of advice from her own experience:

Perhaps because I’m a medical social worker and get involved in ethical dramas every day, I seem drawn to sensitive topics; for instance, I recently wrote an article for Suite101 about whether a mental illness could ever be considered terminal. I’ve also written articles about abandoning aggressive care for palliative care and about the efficacy of electro-convulsive therapy as a treatment for depression.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Freelance Writing Jobs Network site.

When Author Intrusion Rears Its Ugly Head

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This post, by Lydia Sharp, originally appeared on The Sharp Angle blog on 9/10/10.

First, I’d like to clarify what author intrusion is NOT. Although they can appear very similar at times, author intrusion is not the same thing as a POV slip.

That little mishap deserves a post all its own. It is also not author influence, which we discussed in a previous post.

So you’re reading [insert title here] and everything so far is just plain awesome. Then you get to the end of a scene or chapter (because this is where authors like to intrude the most often and the most obviously) and you read something like this (extremely generic example here): 

Kathy was in love. Her heart skittered. Real love. Little did she know her luck was about to change.

Dun, dun, DUN! Um… actually, something like that has the complete opposite effect as what the author intended. They try to make a cliffhanger by insinuating a coming threat, but it’s out of context and most definitely out of the realm of the POV character’s current knowledge in that scene. Which means the only place that information could be coming from is the author.
 

Read the rest of the post on The Sharp Angle blog.

Why I Love Crime Novels

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When reviewers come across a particularly good crime novel, they like to say it “rises above the genre.” They mean to be complimentary of the author, but it’s really an insult to crime fiction, as though the genre was subpar and the writer was able to drag the story to a higher level.

What nonense. For me, crime novels offer some of the best reading on the market. I believe, as many crime writers and readers do, that our fiction confronts the realities of life, across various cultures, in both sensitive and thought-provoking ways.

Crime novels are particularly suited to exploring provocative social issues and showing those issues and attitudes from various perspectives.  Some crime novels are often quite analytical about segments of our society such as illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug use. Other stories highlight cultural and social ills, such as racism, sexism, bigotry, and the dangers of stereotypes. Crime novels let us see the world from perspectives that surprise us and make us think outside our comfort zones.

Crime fiction also offers a way to vicariously win the struggles between good and evil. We get to see the good guys win and the bad guys get what is coming to them. It doesn’t always work out that way in real life, so it’s important to our collective mental health to experience this triumph and justice in fiction and movies.

As crime writers and readers, we get to make sense of things that would otherwise haunt us. We learn why the family next door disappeared one day or what’s really going on in the creepy warehouse across the street. Sometimes that knowledge helps us sleep better and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least we learn one version of the truth.

Novels with well-written protagonists and antagonists bring us to terms with the duality within ourselves. Humans are all deeply flawed, with the capacity for great goodness as well as for deceit, jealousy, schadenfreude, addiction, selfishness, and often worse. When crime fiction heroes—detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors—possess such flaws, we not only relate to those characters, we forgive ourselves for the same shortcomings. When a killer calls his mother or pets a stray dog, we hate him a little less and remember to look for good qualities in everyone.

Crime novels explore relationships in a way that few other genres can. What better mechanism to test a bond between husband and wife, parent and child, or lifelong friends than to embroil the relationship in a crime, either as victims, suspects, or perpetrators. Similar to natural disasters, the aftermath of a crime can bring out the best—or worst—in humans.

The genre is rich with possibilities for exploring the complexity of the human condition. Victims become predators; predators become victims. A person is guilty, but not in the way we’ve been led to believe. Most of all, crime fiction is full of surprises, and we readers love the unexpected.

Writing complex crime stories that live up to my own expectations—while entertaining readers— is the most challenging and satisfying work I’ve done.

 

"I Guess We Should Get A Thousand Printed"

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This post, by Vic Barkin, originally appeared on The Digital Nirvana on 9/13/10.

It was a dark and stormy night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. No. It was a bright and windy afternoon in the City of Big Shoulders. I had just landed at O’Hare and was waiting for my hotel shuttle.

The fifty-ish business woman to my left had no secrets. She was engrossed in a discussion on her i-Berrydroidpod oblivious to the world around her and with whom she was sharing her conversation, namely me.

Now I’m not a habitual eavesdropper, but this was so blatant I couldn’t help but absorb her end of the dialogue. I’m sure you’ve all been there.

She started out with instructions to her subordinate– edits pertaining to some document: “Move this paragraph here; add the sub-head for Obstetrics there; start a new chapter on page 87; be sure and link the footnotes” & so on. By now it was obvious this had something to do with the medical profession and was some type of publication, to what purpose I could not discern. Then came the kicker—“I guess we should get a thousand printed”, she said matter-of-factly.

At that moment, my old printer instincts kicked in and my ears perked up. Although I muffled the impulse to be a good-printing samaritan and come to her rescue, calculations started rolling through my brain bucket. Let’s see, this publication whatever its purpose is most likely a minimum of one-hundred pages; times one-thousand copies is one-hundred thousand digital 8 ½ x 11 clicks at the very least. A decent job for any short-run facility.

Did she have a use for that many, or was it simply a Pavlovian response to cost-per-piece-effectiveness training she received in an earlier life?

Read the rest of the post on The Digital Nirvana.

The Promise of Fall: How to Achieve a Balanced Writing Life

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Labor Day has come and gone, marking the end of a summer that went by so fast it gave me whiplash and the beginning of fall, which has always been my favorite season, even here in Southern California where September is often the hottest month of the year.

I was one of those odd kids who loved the return of school days, as the nights grew cooler in my Pennsylvania home town, my blood ran faster, washing away the sluggish dreaminess that a summer spent reading had produced. Adulthood, and a teaching career that mimicked the rhythms of my youth, meant fall continued to represent a time of increased activity.

This summer I was supposed to make serious progress on my second historical mystery, Uneasy Spirits. I was supposed to make so much progress that when fall came, and I went back to teaching (albeit a reduced load since I am now semi-retired), I would not falter, but continue to write with the goal of finishing a first draft by winter break. But this did not happen.

I did get 8,000 words written, at the very beginning of the summer, but then nothing. I can blame the two trips out of town and the two weeks on jury duty, which ate away over nearly half of the summer, then there were my husband’s two business trips and the increased responsibilities that this created, but none of these life distractions can explain why I didn’t write at least an hour every day.

So what did happen?

What happened was I sank into my life-long summer pattern-I slowed down. I read, I chatted with friends, I read some more, I upped my rate of exercise, I read, and in between I worked on marketing the book, Maids of Misfortune, which I published last December. I spent hours reading through the various blogs I now subscribed to, reading the threads of comments, writing comments when I thought I had something to add. Off and on during the day I wandered through the chat sites and forums I now belonged to, looking for places to put in my 2 cents. I worked on my own blog, updated my author web-page, and obsessively checked to see how many books I had sold each day. And by August I was now selling, on average, 10.8 books a day.

I had created a nice, healthy, balanced life–and my marketing strategies seemed to be working, but writing–the main point of all this activity–just wasn’t happening.

So, it is fall again. I can feel myself speeding up. And I have decided to experiment with cutting back on the time I spend marketing my first book in order to spend more time writing my second.

This is my promise to myself. I will not work on marketing after 7:30 am or before 6 pm.  The only exception is that I can spend up to 4 hours on Sundays working on a blog post and/or my next marketing initiative, which is to reach out to San Francisco books stores in preparation to my attendance at the mystery convention, Bouchercon, in October.
I will be curious to see if these limitations will harm my sales numbers, and I certainly hope they will help me progress on the second book.

I am also curious, what do you all do to ensure your marketing doesn’t interfere your writing? I would love to know.
 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

Taping Interview Sold Story

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I’m interviewing my mother-in-law while she tells me about her early years. Why you might ask? Well, she’s going to turn 90 years old in a couple weeks. There is so much about her life that should be interesting to her grandchildren and great grandchilden since life today is so different from when she was born.

 

We’re thankful that this woman is one sharp minded cookie and able to be a main stay in our lives as long as we can keep her with us. She has been dubbed Little Grandma because she’s an agile, healthy four feet eleven inches example to live by. Her life long passions have been two. First one is her faith. She knows all the stories in her well worn bible. Second is growing flowers and plants of all kinds. I’ve never seen anyone else that has a thumb as green as hers. We both started out with rose cuttings in June from the same plants. Her rose cuttings are alive and growing. Mine dried up a long time ago. I’m used to this problem and always know I can get another start from Mom when she has her plants big enough to share.

This lady is busy in the summer raising many flowers, which cover much of her large yard, and a large garden from which she freezes the bounty and gives much of the veggies away. She has given the coming of her 90th birthday much thought. Recently, she told my husband not to till up her garden this fall. We should wait and see how she feels about planting a garden next spring. I told her to look ahead. She’s only as old as she feels. She said age was a state of mind. She’d do what she was able to do as long as she could.

In the fall, she always takes in cuttings from her houseplants and keeps them alive all winter until time to set them out again. If she loses a plant she bemoans the fact as if she’s had a death in the family. I take my cues from this woman so I’m ready preparing for fall and winter, too. Working in a flower bed is much easier to do if the weather is warm.

I use a tape recorder to document Mom’s answers to my questions about the last century. Where did I get the idea to tape someone’s story? Several years ago, I taped a resident at the nursing home. That happened because one evening at their dinner hour, I told everyone in the dining room the Good Old Days magazine bought my fourth story from me.

The woman said, "I have stories."
Afraid of where this was leading, I replied, "The magazine likes pictures with the stories."
"I have pictures," she insisted.
"The pictures have to be in black and white," I countered.
"They are."
"The story has to be before 1960," I said.
"It is."
"Let me guess. You want me to write a story for you."
Grinning widely, she nodded in the affirmative.

My day off was coming up. So if nothing else, why not share my time to reminsce with this woman. Spending time with a lonely person is a good way to volunteer. This lady happened to be a resident that had very little company. So I set up a meeting in the conference room one morning. I wanted this lady to think I was sincerely interested in helping her so I took my tape player and plenty of tapes. By taping the conversation, I wouldn’t forget details about her story, and I’d be paying closer attention to her if I wasn’t always writing down notes.

We went through her picture album together. She introduced me to her relatives and shared her early life with me. When the hour was up, I pushed her to the dining room for lunch and left. If nothing else came from that meeting, I was sure she had a good time remembering the past with someone who really listened to her and was interested enough to ask questions.

When I listened to the tapes, my idea as to write a story to give the resident. That should make her happy. The more I listened I realized what stood out was Sunday afternoons spent at her grandparents with a whole house full of relatives. Potluck for lunch, baseball in the afternoon with cousins and later rides on Grandpa’s white horse. What I heard on my tapes was this lady has a speech pattern I wouldn’t have used if I had taken handwritten notes. I’m told I write the way I talk. That’s what readers that know me say anyway. Taking the story from the tape, I was able to write her story in her words the way she spoke them. At that point, I recognized a story that had selling possibilities if I submitted it to Good Old Days magazine. Families don’t get together like they used to when all the relatives lived close by.

I read the story to the resident. She approved. I submitted the story to the Good Old Days. The by line had her name as told by me which I’d seen others do on several submissions. I explained in my submission letter that this woman was in a nursing home. I didn’t know if her story was something the magazine wanted but the woman had fun telling this story, and I enjoyed listening to it. To my surprise and everyone else’s, our story was accepted and published in the July 2007 issue of Good Old Days specials – Family Get-Togethers.

The resident was so proud. She told everyone she was a published author. The activity director had an activity just for her. The two of them sat in front of an audience at the nursing home while the activity director read her story. The other residents clapped their approval which made that woman glow. That short hour I spent with her taping her story gave her a shining moment that lasted for days as she repeatiedly told people she was a published author. Selling another one of my stories was great, but the bonus was how I brightened her days. I will always be glad I did that for her.

Now I’m taping my mother-in-law’s story. She speaks with a southern accent and a speech pattern from the 20’s and 30’s. I couldn’t duplicate that without the aid of a tape player. What am I going to do with this story? She’s already warned me I am not to make a book out of it that would be published to the world. I assured her my intention was to give her life story in book form to the following generations as her legacy to them. Besides, I can always use the writing practice.

At our first taping, I ran out of questions. Mom’s daughter that had this idea came up with suggestions. Since then we’ve had another taping. I found a way to come up with more questions by then. Last Thursday, my husband and I went to the Old Thrasher Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Talk about going back in the past. We took a trolley ride, watched school in session in a one room school house, saw rugs made on a loom and quilting in an 1850 log cabin. Everything is exhibited for men and women from steam engines and old tractors.

For women, there is a reminder of how far we’ve come from the drudgery of the past when I looked at wood cook stoves, lye soap, wash boards, sad irons and much more. My mind was on my mother-in-law’s story. I took pictures of what might have been used in her lifetime as well as pictures of signs describing what we now think of as antiques. So Saturday afternoon, I had another round of questions for Mom. After about 90 minutes, my sister-in-law and I ran out of questions again. Now I’m working on a new list for the next time.

Mom asked me how I was going to put the story together. I told her we skipped around in her life so this would take time. A story that will be a good winter project. Could it be she is eager to see this book she was hesitate about in the beginning? I explained I’d have to make chapters and add each story to the chapter it fit into as I put her life in order by years. Also, I want to make this a history lesson for the children, this story is intended for, so I will add who was president, the depression era, and other history events in a time line with her life.

She’s not so suspicious of my motives now. In fact, she was eager to start talking and thought of events like the pie socials and winter sled rides through the timber to her grandparents that I wouldn’t know to ask about. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to take notes, because I listened too intently to write details down. Whether you are a writer or not, take it from me that time gets away from busy families. I have lost many elderly relatives that could have told me the stories Mom is telling. Events have come to my attention that made me regret I didn’t ask questions when my parents were alive. This time, I’m making sure the next generations will know this grandma. The next time I have the opportunity to tape someone it might be to sell another story. This is a method that works for me.

Am I always looking for a good story and characters that stand out? Sure I am. Mom didn’t say I couldn’t use a likeness of her character with a different name in a fiction book. But just to be on the safe side now that I have her talking, let’s keep this our little secret.

 

This is a cross-posting from Fay Risner‘s Booksbyfay blog.