Off to Write

On the up side of things, Ernesto has mostly moved on, a steady drizzle trailing behind. There were no outtages or damage here that I know of except some fender benders due to wet road conditions. It really felt more like a storm drill than a real storm. May those of you in Ernesto's path to the north have the same great luck.

On the down side, storm prep and sundry put a ding in my schedule that it really didn't need, and then an editor dropped an emergency job in my lap. I have to unplug for a couple of days to catch up. There will not be a Friday 20 this week, but I'll be back next week to update the blog for September, talk shop and give away some new releases.

You all have a great Labor Day weekend.

Say Hello

Tropical Storm Ernesto is just now rolling into town.



So far, a little bit of wind and a tiny sprinkling of rain is all we've had here. More rain is on the way, but my friends down south say they've had worse thunderstorms. About our biggest worry today will be storm-generated tornadoes, but as Jim Cantore put it, this one is a dud.

Ernesto

I'm going to post this now because it seems like Tropical Storm Ernesto is headed our way. Out here in the country we usually lose power for a day or more after storms like this, so if I'm not around for a time don't worry. We've got plenty of supplies and are in a good location.

An update on my e-book challenge: I've put together a rough outline for Midnight Blues, my Darkyn novella and have assembled a character list. It's set in South Florida, and Rafael Suarez from Dark Need will be one of the protagonists. Lucan and Samantha will be the secondary characters (this will be a continuation of their story, too, for everyone who wrote about wanting more of them.)

Folks in Florida and the immediate vicinity of Ernesto's track (storm winds currently extend out 85 miles from the storm's center), now is the time to get out your hurricane plan and make sure you have enough water, nonperishable foods, batteries and gas tank filled as soon as possible, and stay tuned to the National Hurricane Center or your favorite news source for updates on the situation.

Now We're Cooking

My daughter and I have been talking about someday writing a cookbook together. I've already published some of my own recipes in my GCI books, and I have a lot of things I've invented or recombined that people might like. My kid is like Improv Chef in the Kitchen, so she would spice things up. I just have to hide the hot sauce, salsa and cayenne pepper; she inherited her uncle's asbestos-lined palate.

I'm also currently in month five of The Bark and Twigs Heart-Healthy Diet From Hell. I'd like to put together a reasonable cookbook for other people on this diet, too, because it drives you crazy trying to stick to it and not eat like a myopic squirrel. Honestly, if I see one more whole-grain English muffin, I'm going to develop a facial twitch.

I have tried all the heart-healthy products and know which ones are decent and which taste like cardboard (i.e. whole grain angel hair pasta is okay if you use a thick marinara sauce to drown out the damn "nutty" flavor, but whole grain lasagna noodles are made from strips of cardboard.) And oh, dear Lord, the Smart Balance Products. Don't get me started. How does that company manage to turn something as simple as peanut butter into crunchy fish oil-flavored spackling paste? And their fish oil-flavored margarine substitute? Doesn't melt. Ever. I swear to God, not even in a cast iron skillet on high heat. It just sits there, spreads a tiny bit on the bottom, and then leers at you like Jabba the Hut.

Anyway, thinking about titles for my future cookbooks got me to wondering about other writers, and what we'd see in the cooking section . . .

If Cookbooks Were Written by Fiction Novelists

1. Cool Granola: Make-it-Yourself Breakfast Cereals by Stuart MacBride

2. Hot Chile in the City: Sexy Tex-Mex Recipes by Alison Kent

3. If You Like That Nose Job, Don't Insult My Thai: Gourmet Cuisine by Dr. Douglas Hoffman

4. Kiss Hershey's Goodbye: Handmade Chocolates by Robert Gregory Browne (introduction by Bill Peschel)

5. Love Portions: Romantic Dinners for Two by Monica Jackson

6. Midnight Rapini: Salads and Other Vegan Delights by Holly Lisle

7. Pop Goes the Bundt Cake: Cooking with Coca-Cola by Rosina Lippi

8. Rocky Road Rules: Frozen Desserts by James R. Winter

9. The Next Person Who Offers Me Cheesecake Gets Slapped: Living on a Low-fat, Low-cholesterol Diet by PBW

10. You Cook When I Call You: Last-minute Meals for Unexpected Guests by Douglas Clegg

If you (or your favorite author) were going to write a cookbook, what would be the title, and what sort of cuisine or food would it feature?

More Than Ten

Ten Things That Pull Extra Duty

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

1. Best Privacy Pack freeware offers a password and sensitive info cache plus a folder hider.

2. Flipbook Printer uses sheets of blank business cards to print out stills which can then be bound and made into flipbooks; could also be used to make business card-sized versions of cover art for magnets, double-sided business cards, etc.

3. Pindersoft's Floating Clock freeware includes a calendar (requires .Net Framework 1.1.)

4. Identify the color for any pixel on the screen and paste that color onto the clipboard with Instant Eyedropper.

5. Need an alternative start menu that starts up your apps, open files and folders and, web links, sends e-mail and more? Give LaunchOnFly freeware a whirl.

6. Serious music lovers can catalog, arrange, label, burn and synch music in a variety of ways and formats with the free trial of MediaMonkey.

7. Nestersoft's TimeLeft freeware gives you a virtual stopwatch, reminder scheduler, sticky notes, trayclock and more.

8. Looking for a Screen Capture, Sticky Notes, Color Picker, Magnifier and Virtual Ruler? Get them all-in-one with VMN Toolbox.

9. Weather Watcher will provide weather conditions around the globe as well as keep you updated on current conditions in your corner.

10. In search of a multi-format, multi-lang graphics browser, viewer, and converter? Test drive XnView freeware.

World Check

On Friday Tamith asked some interesting questions about world building:

I don't know if this has been asked before, but how much world-building do you recommend someone do before they get into a novel? I'm fleshing out a YA Fantasy, and I'm not sure if I should have all the details in place beforehand, or make things up on an as-need basis. Or should just being aware of character motivation be my main concern? What do you usually do?

What I usually do is fast but thorough. My writing schedule doesn't allow me the luxury of spending years in the construction phase of world building, so I build rapidly. I also like to know more about my world than the reader ever will, so I always build more than I spell out in the novel.

I make the time constraint and my need-to-know work together by taking only what I need from essential research sources and convert it into a cohesive, precise outline versus detail mapping or writing out tons and tons of research notes from nine hundred different sources that I then have to reread and condense in my head before I write. Think fast, bold strokes (and this approach will probably not work for all world builders, especially indecisive or organic writers.)

Here's my checklist for any world building, regardless of genre:

I. Define your world

a. Name the present age or time period
b. Review or invent the history for your world
b. Review or create the major sentient players, their origins, history, cultures and language
c. Work out the major players' habitats and socio-political status
d. Review or invent this time period's major conflict(s), encumbrance(s) and achievement(s) as they relate to your major players
e. Review or invent a biosphere and name your major flora, fauna and climate conditions as they relate to your major players
f. Define what technologies (real or magic) are available and who uses them
g. Chart the timeline of the your story plot in how it affects this world

II. Define your protagonist

a. Create a personal profile: name, description, personal history, relatives, current life situation, strengths, flaws, etc.
b. Outline how your protagonist relates to his world as relevant to the story
c. Outline how your protagonist relates to the other characters in the story
d. Outline how your protagonist reacts and responds to the conflict in the story

III. Define your antagonist

(same as the protag)

IV. Define your support cast

a. Create a simple profile for each of the secondary characters
b. Define your cast as to how they relate to your protagonist and antagonist and their own corner of this world.
c. Outline a simply timeline of what each secondary character does in the story

V. Detailing

a. Select and develop a reasonable number of the major players' most interesting cultural aspects to highlight in the story
b. List the most obvious similarities and contrasts between this world and ours to highlight in the story
c. Define your characters' most unique personal quality/qualities to highlight in your characterizations

How much is enough?

How detailed you want to get with your world building is really up to you, but try to make your building fit naturally. The authors who build the best worlds are the ones you never notice doing it (and I've got a list of books below of writers who are masters at this.) Don't feel compelled to give up world building aspects that you love just because they're not on my checklist, either. If you're able to relate your vision of your world to the reader without drowning them in floods of infodumps, go for it.

As for me, probably the most reliable resource I've used is my own knowledge of history and biology through reading nonfiction. Once you've studied enough real civilizations, cultures and species you get a feel for what you need to make the ones that inhabit your worlds more believable.

Books I recommend as superlative examples of world building:

Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel
The Ice People by René Barjavel, translated by Charles Lam Markmann (in French, La Nuit des Temps)
Mordred, Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg
Talyn and Diplomacy of Wolves by Holly Lisle
Kingdom of the Wall and Man in the Maze by Robert Silverberg

Related Links:

Astrofantasy's step-by-step online tutorial Create a Fantasy World.

Tina Morgan's article The Ethics of Worldbuilding

Holly Lisle's Questions about World Building page and How Much of My World Do I Build workshop (Tamith, if my checklist doesn't work for you, Holly's workshop may be just the thing you need.)

SpecFicWorld's World Building Resource Links page

A transcription of a World Building 101 panel with Robert R. McCammon and Jennifer Roberson

Steven Swiniarski's WorldBuilding: Constructing a SF Universe

Good Grief

I'm not a shrink like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, but a while back I did a riff on her five stage grief theory. Mine was about defining writers' common experiences during the first years of their career. Here's how my theory of the five stages of publishing grief goes:

First stage: Who Let the Dogs Out?

If I could do one thing for the next generation of writers, it would be to chase off everyone who tries to mess with them during their first pro year. Preferably with a baseball bat. It's not completely horrible for everyone; a few authors have charmed first book experiences or great mentors who shield them from most of the crap. The rest of us? Are thrown to the Dobermans.

The season in hell is a rite of passage. If you're lucky, you'll develop selective amnesia and stay away from the people who messed with you. Forgive, and if you can't, forget.

Second stage: Play It Again Sam

A lot of writers face the second stage as the dreaded second book syndrome. It can be a concern if you sell the very first novel-length work you write; you don't know if you can do it again. Another variation happens when your first novel does super well, and your second book is very different from your first; there are going to be plenty of unfavorable and unfair comparisons.

I think writers often overthink the second book too much and overwrite it, or spend too much time promoting the first book and not enough writing the second. I seemed to skip this stage because I had finished both of my first two novels and sold them as complete manuscripts when I signed up for this cruise. When my book two hit the shelves, I was already working on what would be my fifth, sixth and seventh published novels. The wisest course is to focus on the work. Don't let a season in hell hangover or your insecurities short-change your second novel.

Third stage: The Gilt Flakes Off

I asked some other career writers if they have any problems after their rookie year and second book syndrome, and they all came back with basically the same reaction I had: by this time, publishing loses a lot of its glam. What seemed so wonderful and glittering and gorgeous loses its sequins and feathered mask; people you admired or thought were genuine whip out their true colors. The financial reality hits around now, too. While other new writers are getting dream deals, you're getting paid-upon-publication advance clauses.

I hated this stage, but I was to blame for the disillusionment. Having zero contact with the industry allowed me to build up authors and editors and publishers into demi-gods and fantasy creatures who Could Do No Wrong. Turns out that they're just people, like the people you work with at any job, and the business is like any other business: good, bad, and everything in between. Once you accept this, you're okay.

Fourth stage: Last Straws

The combination of what happens during your first, second and third stages all contribute to the eruption of the fourth stage: unreasonable anger. You find yourself getting pissed off over the most minor things. Everything becomes intense, magnified and overwhelming. You see into things too much. Nothing is fair.

Publication wasn't supposed to be like stage one, two or three, so stage four is really just an aftershock. Batten down the hatches by reminding yourself that most of what happens to you during your writing career is beyond your control. You can't change it, and letting it piss you off is counterproductive. Let it go and move on.

Fifth stage: The Longest Yard

The last stage a career writer goes through feels a bit like a perpetual marathon. At this point, a big chunk of the writers who started the same time you did are now writing something else or have quit. You have a pretty good idea of where your career is headed, and you've got a ballpark on what your maximum annual income is going to be. Writing has become work rather than fun, and with all you've learned in the four previous stages you're suddenly not so sure that you want to go the distance.

This is the killer stage, and guess what? It never ends. You have to accept that career writing is a job and it requires a lot of personal commitment and effort. Even if you give it 200%, there are no guarantees. For most of us, it's compete or die. You do this stage every single day until you stop writing professionally.

Have you got what it takes to survive the five stages of publishing grief? Only you and time can answer that question. In any stage, remember that publishing is not about you but your work. Let the work always be your center and your navigator, and however your writing career goes, it won't be riddled with regrets.

Friday 20

First up: the winners of the Tied to the Tracks giveaway are:

MiaZ

Dean

Joy (who picked Talyn by Holly Lisle, as the comment profile link doesn't want to work for me.)

Winners, please send your full name and ship-to address to me at LynnViehl@aol.com so I can get these books out to you, and my thanks to everyone who joined in sharing the people and books that teach, wow and comfort them.

A couple of new visitors have e-mailed asking what's the deal about Fridays here at the blog. This is a weekly feature we started doing here a few months back; each Friday you can post writing- or publishing-related questions for me in comments. I'll answer them to the best of my ability, or at least give you an opinion or refer you to a better source if I don't have an answer. I don't enforce the 20 questions limit unless I'm swamped or in the midst of a hurricane.

Debby's still out in the Atlantic, so any questions for me this week?

Personals

Madonna got me interested in the creative application of personal ads in her very funny film Desperately Seeking Susan. I loved how the screenwriter used the personals as a characterization device and an ongoing thread in the story. Now there's even a book about the best and worst personal ads of all time: Laura Schaefer's Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor (my own favorite personal ad to date is Michael Kelly's hilarious Free Competition: Win My Hand in Marriage.)

Writing a personal ad for yourself might be authentic torture, but creating one for your protagonist can help you get in touch with who they are and what they want, aka that stuff you need for outlines, proposals and pitches. To borrow and paraphrase some tips from Linnea Sheldon's excellent article on how to write an online personal ad:

-- Know what your protagonist is looking for
-- Know what qualities your protagonist brings to a relationship
-- Think about what makes your protagonist unique and appealing.
-- Know what hobby, passion or activity occupies a large amount of your protagonist's time.
-- Be honest about who your protagonist is and what they want.

and, oh, if only I could tattoo this on a few inner eyelids:

-- Write in a style that naturally resembles your spoken word, not in a style in which you think you should write.

Here's one of mine:

Old but rich Frenchman with great personality seeks nimble plastic surgeon who is not hung up on looks. If you don't find me, I'll abduct you. R.S.V.P. M. Cyprien, La Fontaine, New Orleans.

Protagonist personal ads don't have to be about finding romantic partners, either:

Short shire boy seeks hot, deep type to accept his ring and complete the quest of a lifetime. Must be okay with fairies, elves, dwarves, and excessively hairy feet. Reply with directions to J.R.R. Tolkien. No orcs, please.

Southern tomboy wishes to meet recluse or shut-in. Should like overalls, boys, scuppernogs and small town crackshot lawyers. Platonist philosophies a big plus. Respond soonest to Scout c/o Harper Lee (use tree hollow if convenient.)

Young British schoolboy, robust, glasses, minor breathing problem, looking for someone to rescue me before things turn savage. Shelter-building and food-gathering skills appreciated. Send message in a bottle to W. Golding. Rule breakers need not apply.

How would your protagonist's personal ad go? (if you're not sure, try to write up one for the protagonist of your favorite keeper novel.)

Back Climbers

A deadline kept me from commenting on the recent kerfluffle of lit-chick writers messing with the chick-lit writers (say it real fast six times without stuttering and I'll give you a cookie.) If you want the details, Monica Jackson presided over it with an excellent post, links and comments here.

As marketing strategies go, this one was not very imaginative. The lit-chick who started the whole thing claimed that chick-lit writers own too much of the market and are ruining things for "America's Best Women Writers" (this would be her and modest her lit-chick pals.) That evolved into a title and marketing angle for her anthology. As industry suck-ups go, you can't do better for critics than to slam a genre they almost universally condemn. It's also a terrific way to get some free if negative advertising via the reactions of every chick-lit writer with a backbone. Which is pretty much, hello, All Of Them.

Climbing up and standing on the backs of better performers has always been a time-honored marketing device. Politicians have been doing it for so long they don't remember what it's like to stand on the ground. In publishing, Dan Brown's been used like a footstool by so many other writers that all of his jackets should have shoeprints on them. On the internet, negativity spreads like flesh-eating bacteria, so slamming someone else to promote your stuff is especially good for online buzz.

Take the chick-lit out of this particular equation, however, and even with Huffy Post backing I seriously doubt this work of great lit-chick genius would have sold two thousand copies. Why? Literary fiction rarely sells these days; ask any NBA nominee. Also, there's not an established Name author among the anthology's contributors.

With anthos, you need a Name author to draw readers. Thing is, unlike genre Names, lit-chick Names seldom jump in on anthos. Had Anita Diamant been the headliner, the book would have been an instant bestseller, but there are no Diamants or Proulxes in this one. Best American writer anthos are also a dime a dozen. God Almighty, everyone is the best, aren't they? The Dead Best, the NYT Best, the NBA Best, the year's Best, the Bestest Best, the Best above the rest of the Best and, least we forget, the New Best. Publish a Worst American Writers antho; now that might actually make some money.

Without a Name, all the besty best lit-chick writers in the world couldn't grab an eyelash flick of attention, hence the chick-lit slam. Now they've tapped into that whole publishing conspiracy to destroy civilization as we know it literary paranoia: Omigod! America's BEST women writers are being overshadowed by LOUSY CHICK-LIT HACKS! Hurry! Buy this book and SAVE THEM!

Bad, bad chick-lit writers. No cookies for you.

Personally I'm very offended for being left out. See, I think it's the vamp writers who are stealing the lit-chick writers' sales. You know how much we've flooded the market lately. We're into all that dark and evil stuff. Or could be the Christian writers -- we have just as many tables as the vamp writers, and we're into all that goodness and light stuff. We might even be in on it together. Who would ever suspect us joining forces, eh? I'd make the perfect ringleader; I write both. I know I've always wanted to conspire with Jan Karon and Doug Clegg to overthrow our literary betters. Or just have lunch somewhere nice with them.

There was a point to this post . . . oh, yeah. Should you use back-climbing as a marketing device? Undignified and mean-spirited as it is, I can't deny that it's effective. Negative PR absolutely attracts more attention than positive PR. If you think nothing of standing on top of someone else's accomplishments to trumpet accolades about your own, then this strategy is right up your alley.

What do you guys think?

Tied to the Tracks

Like any reader, I have a keeper shelf. I also have author shelves, genre shelves, and best ref shelves. They're filled to capacity and then some (my best ref section is soon to become three floor-to-ceiling bookcases.)

One shelf I haven't yet filled is my writer's writer shelf. Few authors get on this one. To me, a writer's writer is someone who teaches, wows and comforts all at the same time. I learn from these intensely talented folks (the teaching.) I am also knocked on my ass by them (the wowing.) And in a strange way, I reconnect to my own writing through them (which is comforting, and maddening, and a few other things.) That's likely a lame way to describe it, but it's as close as I'm going to get without using a French bakery analogy.

One more disclaimer before I talk about the latest addition to my writer's writer shelf. Books set in or written about the southern United States are not my favs. Harper Lee may have written the greatest novel of the twentieth century, but she also instigated a literary attitude toward writing about the people of the south that is now about as applicable as calling someone from New York City a seersucker-suited carpetbagging Yankee.

You will not find any outdated stereotypes in Rosina Lippi's Tied to the Tracks. Instead, you'll discover Ogilvie, Georgia, a Monet of a small college town, populated by all manner of southern kin and kind. John Grant, son of Ogilvie's equivalent of gentry, is about to marry a much-loved local beauty; Miss Zula Bragg, the town's fearsome literary giant, has at long last decided to permit a film to be made about her long and colorful life, and Angie Mangiamele, Jersey girl and owner of Tied to the Tracks film productions, is coming to town to make the documentary about Miss Zula. Angie also happens to be John's ex-lover. When Angie and her crew arrive in Ogilvie, the real fun begins.

This novel has so much in store for the reader: romance, intrigue, humor, new lovers and old secrets, old lovers and new secrets. There are characters you love and characters you'd love to run down in the street and back over a few times. John and Angie and Miss Zula are the heart of the story, but the town of Ogilvie and its fascinating residents as well as Angie's crew are right there, too. That's what makes this such a marvelous work: nothing is forced, nothing is faked, and yet nothing is left unattended. That is the southern way, folks.

I generally read books quickly, but the writing of Tied to the Tracks made me ride my brakes from start to finish. My deference to the novel's many charms, surprises and pure delights, but also to the storytelling itself, so splendid that you slow down simply to enjoy it. I also admire the great care the author took with crafting this novel, because while you can't see that on the page (it reads smooth as peach skin) it shines through between the lines.

You all don't have to take my word for it, of course. In comments to this post, name someone or something that teaches, wows and/or comforts you by midnight EST on August 24, 2006. I'll pick three names at random from everyone who participates and send the winners an unsigned copy of Rosina Lippi's Tied to the Tracks. This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something at PBW in the past.

Utility Ten

Ten Things for the Utility Lovers

1. Need a small, fast editor for plain text? Try out AkelPad.

2. Voxelsoft's Alert is a utility that flashes the keyboard's LEDs like an alarm; does sound nifty. Another note: the original link for this one has up and vanished; my apologies to Katherine -- I was getting a cookie every time I clicked. And yes, it's definitely Monday.

3. Create protected CDs with Alternate CD Lock.

4. ArtPlus is offering a lite version of EasyNoter as freeware.

5. Poromenos has an entire page of freeware downloads; people who are disabled or risking CTS should check out Clicker (scroll down), which saves some repetitive movements by clicking the mouse for you. Note: I'm removing this one from the list per Katherine's comments to the post.

6. Jordi's Handwriting Fonts allow you to add a more personal touch to your e-docs.

7. Duomart offers a cool free utility, Laptop Battery Power Monitor (scroll down) which displays a very small battery icon to show you how much power you've got left on your laptop and other status info.

8. ThinkerSoftware's Photo to Sketch is a neat little tool that converts your favorite pics into different types of sketches.

9. Clean up your desktop and organize your icons with Squal and Boerbull's SpeedMenus.

10. Jan Verhoeven offers over 100 different freewares, including a nice collection of various utility programs (click on categories in left sidebar to view details.)

Elsewhere: Tech Support Alert's links list to the 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities.

Link Worthy

I've found some generators while out link-hunting this week that didn't fit in with my lists but that I still wanted to post.

We've seen character generators a-plenty, but here's a site that creates three personality traits and a personal motto for your characters: 101 Quick NPC Personalities. The same site offers an adventure idea generator that covers just about every story element you'd need. Both are geared toward RPGers but could be very useful to spark and inspire some new ideas.

This is brilliant and useful: Aabashenya came up with a custom-design title maker that allows you to enter words you'd like to use in your title, then generates ten possibilities using them. Excellent if you have some key words or words from the story that you'd like to use in a title but are stumped on how to combine them.

Another gem, Maygra's Random Title Generator, produces six titles at a time, and comes up with some very interesting combinations of words.

Jellyn, who designed Maygra's generator, also has one for random fantasy titles.

And just for laughs: want a new job label for your character or yourself? Try DallionMedia.com's New Title Generator. Now to try to talk people into calling me the Virtual Resource Czar . . .

Haiku Day

Ten Things Created with Online Haiku Generators

the sable, silent mountain -
the storm is dreaming
of the spring world

-- Crow City Haiku Generator

afterlives fall, mean
frostbitten ripples destroy
dryly, flat passive

--The Genuine Haiku Generator

Twilight
Near the chateau I confine
The rose is lost.

--Haiku Generator

Hello tiny elf
Bringing Christmas Joy to us all
I hate you a lot.

-- Haiku-O-Matic

The clear hidden sea
in a flowing storm
a waterfall struggles

-- Haiku to You!

Sink, stray. With thin hills
Rebel, wither. With white barks
Write, glow: descending.

--Haiku Writer

A temple responds.
Earth skips but summer whirls hands.
Trinkets cover leaves.

-- Peter's Haiku Generator

ambiguities
consider fading systems
imagine the piece

--Random Haiku Machine

Collie vanadate,
welcome gonopore waterleaf,
archaeopteryx.

-- Random Word Haiku

Ugly is she who
must ridicule difference
to feel more special

-- Work Haiku

I feel all Zen now, don't you? For more fun, post your original or generated haiku in comments.

Friday 20

The Rules of Write Club

1st Rule: You do not talk about Write Club.

2nd Rule: You DO NOT talk about Write Club.

3rd Rule: If the muse says "over the top", calls your protagonist a wimp, or wants cheesecake, the writing is over.

4th Rule: Only one coincidence per novel.

5th Rule: One plot twist at a time. Okay, maybe two. But that's all.

6th Rule: No shoes. Bunny slippers.

7th Rule: Writing will go on as long as it has to, or until it's six hours before you punch in, or someone wants their dinner, whichever comes first.

8th Rule: If this is your first shot at Write Club, you HAVE to write.

Man, I see in write club the strongest and smartest writers who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. Gosh darn it, an entire generation sick with con crud, waiting for the PW starred review; slaves with pay-upon-publication collars. Working day jobs we hate so we can buy widgets we don't need. We've all been brainwashed by People magazine to believe that one day we'd all be millionaire bestsellers, and vidlit gods, and Book-TV rock stars.

But we won't.

And we're slowly learning that reality (now everyone, wave to your editors.)

And we're really, really pissed off.

Which is why we need the bunny slippers.

Any rules you want to add, or any questions for me?

Thesauritis

"John," Marcia uttered as she promenaded into the illuminated dawn chamber of his domestic residence, her scarletine frock contrasting unfavorably against the embossed verdant wall coverings as might an exceedingly vexatious digit. "I am obliged to converse with you directly."

Ah, the female for whom he sustained strong emotions, John contemplated. Ostensibly Marcia was manifest to expound on that which he could not readily diagnosticate, yet nevertheless accepted in the bowels of his cardiac region would be a theorem of vital consequence to her. "Do specify whatever currently seizes you with such macroscopic anxiety, much beloved desideratum of my concupiscence."

"I have discovered it to be virtually impossible to discern the definition of the majority of the statements issued from your oral cavity," Marcia declared with her customary forthright emphasis as she arranged her lithesome frame on the brink of the alabaster brocade-upholstered divan. "Even during those tension-wrought episodes of debate which customarily result in illicit yet satisfying coition, my comprehension of your utterances is nil."

John's eyelids met and parted in a solitary displacement. "I entreat your forbearance?"

Marcia crimped the cosmetic-coated labium camouflaging her maxillary and mandibular arcades prior to offering verbally, "Our exchanges have set me adrift on the oceans of ignorance. Cognizance eludes me during those occurrences when we confer. Misinterpretation has evolved into the bete noire of my perseity."

A crease made itself recognizable in the juncture between the strips of hair above John's ocular organs. "Please, expand on these articulations."

"I can't stand saying another freaking word of this dialogue."

John caprioled to an erect stance. "Discontinue your tirade forthwith."

"No, I will not shut up." Tired of parking her appendages on the bony parentheses flanking her nether regions, Marcia planted her hands on her hips. "I don't care how big and important the words are, these are the stupidest lines I've ever been written to recite. I mean, say. Yours are even dumber. You may have a yummy body and smell great, but every time you open your mouth I want duct tape, ear plugs and amphetamines. By the way, the wallpaper in here looks like cat puke."

"Oh, sure. Like I want to keep pretending to be interested while you're heretoforing and postliminarying every five seconds. I had nuns in Catholic school who talked sexier. And I didn't pick out the damn wallpaper." John skipped sensing the rosiness of rage altering the coloration of his facial features and simply turned red. "Anyway, the author initiated . . . started it."

Marcia began to contemplate the dilemma, caught herself in mid-ponder, and grabbed John by the front of the shirt. "Look. I like you. I want to do something else besides resemble a sore thumb and recite Roget chapter and verse. What do you say?"

"I say let's go have relations."

"For dinner?" Marcia tapped her finger against the part of her body she never wanted to hear anyone call labium again. "Oh, coition, riiiiiiight. Do we have enough time?"

"The author's busy looking up a four-syllable synonym for argument. She'll be a while," John said, chucking all the non-said dialogue tags under the sofa cushions. "We can change the page numbers while she's gone. She never back reads."

"We'll still have to make it look good," Marcia warned. "You know, struggle with some post-coital feminist-related depression issues, endure a bit of non-fatal substance abuse and obliquely sneer at some chick-lit author who makes more money than ours does. May have to set fire to your Beamer, too, in order to free you from the capitalist enslavement preventing you from truly experiencing life, or something equally nonsensical yet intensely symbolic."

"I'm insured," John pointed out. "So, can we make like bunnies?"

"Works for me." She dragged him out of the parlor.

Got Cover

I put together the first version of my e-book challenge cover. It needs some fine tuning, but I think I nailed the title:



Once I have a final version, I'll add it to the sidebar along with a link to the challenge post. I will also be posting regular updates on my progress, and nagging everyone regularly to get going on their stories. I know the challenge deadline is right before NaNoWriMo, but think of it as a warmup.

Drivebys

Driveby moments in a story -- when two characters come together for a very short time -- usually last no more than a manuscript page. These mini-scenes are where I see housekeeping dialogue used most often, i.e.:


"Hi," Nick said to the innkeeper. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you," he replied. "How may I help you, mademoiselle?"

"Is your wife here?" Nick asked. "I'd like to speak to her."

He gestured toward the kitchen. "She is cooking dinner."


That's a standard driveby -- it's very quick, exchanges the necessary information, and thanks to the housekeeping dialogue, reads totally flat and boring. You could delete the entire conversation and replace it with a single line:

The innkeeper told Nick that his wife was in the kitchen.

It's tempting to skip drivebys, as it can be a real challenge to make them useful and interesting to the reader. I like them, though, because you can turn them into quick sketches to better illustrate your characters:

Excerpt from Night Lost by Lynn Viehl

When Nick approached the innkeeper, she saw that he was sorting through receipts and adding up figures.

She stooped to pick up a receipt out of the small trash can next to the desk. "You dropped this one, M. Laguerre."

"What?" He took it from her and examined it. "Mon Dieu, the laundry invoice. How did I . . . " His dark gaze went from the trash bin to her face. "Thank you, mademoiselle."

Nick was grateful he spoke flawless English. She usually embarrassed herself trying to speak French to the natives. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course." He scanned a yellow delivery slip while his fingers tapped the keys of an old adding machine.

"Is your wife here?" Nick kept her tone casual. "I'd like to ask her about one of the old houses around town."

"Adelie is in the kitchen." He nodded toward the back of the inn. "If you go in there, she will ask you to sample her fish stock. It tastes like dish water and smells worse."

"Whoa."

He leveled a stern eye on her. "If you sample it, you will tell her it is ambrosia, or she will fret and burn my dinner for the next two weeks."

Nick cleared her throat, mostly to stop a rising chuckle. "I'm allergic to fish."

"I wish that I were." He flipped over the receipt and began adding in figures from another.


The driveby performed its main function -- Nick finding out where the innkeeper's wife was -- but among other things it fleshed out the characters of Jean and Adelie without a lot of exposition or fuss. It also delivered a little humor, something I try to do in unexpected places in the story.

How do you take advantage of drivebys in your stories?

Related Link:

No one else calls them drivebys, I guess, but I found a good article I think might prove helpful to those who want to ditch the housekeeping dialogue -- Glenn Patterson's Writing Believable Dialogue.

Blast You Ten

Ten Things that Make Research a Blast

1. Three cheers for the Brits: Ancient Civilizations over at The British Museum's web site explores the most significant achievements of many long-gone civilizations.

2. All art all the time: Professor Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe's Art History Resources on the Web offers links to sites covering art from prehistory to present day.

3. Loving-Kindness: Buddhanet.net is a huge, gorgeous resource site for anyone interested in learning about the many aspects of Buddhism.

4. Thumbs Up: The Illustrated History of the Roman Empire claims to be the leading web resource on Rome.

5. Playing for keeps 3,500 years ago: The multi-award-winning MesoAmerican Ball Game, a companion web site to a traveling exhibit of the same name, is just too cool for words (Flash required.)

6. Medieval Megapage: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies not only hooks up to places like The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, but publishes actual translated medieval texts as e-books as well as textbooks about medieval subjects.

7. No velvet ropes: Take a virtual tour through the fascinating exhibits over at The Oriental Institute Museum.

8. Original artists: The British Library's Turning the Pages website (requires Shockwave) allows you to leaf through the actual pages of Leonardo Da Vinci's sketchbook, Jane Austen's early work, the oldest printed book in the world, and many other priceless manuscripts.

9. Who Painted the Mona Lisa Again?: The Web Gallery of Art is a "searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 15,400 reproductions."

10. Beyond Safaris: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. guides you through a treasurehouse of African history and culture at Wonders of the African World.

Uneasy

Writing is not an easy job. Getting your work published, even more difficult. But with all the conveniences of this techno-age, we're starting to forget that there are reasons things are difficult.

It's natural to want things to be easy, because there are so many other things we have to do. The wealthiest and most important man in the world could come to you and say "Hey. I need you to do something for me. It's going to take you years, you have to work very fast, you'll be stuck inside most of the time in very uncomfortable positions, and you'll have to nag me to pay you. P.S., it has to be magnificent and I'm not going to let you say no." You might be polite and not laugh in his face, but would you take the job?

Pope Julius II said that to this arrogant, crooked-nosed sculptor from Florence who didn't even consider himself a painter. And it worked; between 1508 and 1512, the sculptor covered more than 3,200 square feet with over three hundred figures, nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, all while painting very quickly on wet plaster, often in odd positions and tight spots. The results changed the way art would be painted for centuries and ultimately became one of the most recognized artworks in human history.

What would Michelangelo have painted if the Sistine Chapel had been an easy job?

Every time being a writer is tough for you, it's teaching you something. It's testing you, too. This gig is a marathon, not a 100 yard dash. As you jog down the writing career road, you'll notice a lot of abandoned partial manuscripts tossed in the ditches. Those were written by everyone for whom the job got too difficult. They packed it in and went home to watch TV.

Right now I'm arm-wrestling a proposal that wants to grow seven heads and become a three-tiered series. I will tame it into a manageable pitch that doesn't scare the hell out of the editor. I have fantasized about taking a baseball bat to this machine at least five times today. Dell needs to have a warranty option to cover work-related temper tantrums.

But that's my Sistine Chapel of the moment. What's yours?