Sunday, August 26, 2012

It was a dark and brainstormy night


Sorry, I couldn’t resist.  This is a concept near and dear to my heart.  I love, love, love brainstorming.  I actually like doing it for other people more than for myself.  I love the ‘what-ifs’ of writing.  And I like coming in out of the blue and tossing out ideas to my buds.

I’ve been brainstorming for years.  I am blessed with a great group of friends who are always willing to help me work my way out of whatever hole I’ve dug for myself.  For us it basically works like this:

{Friend’s phone rings} Hello?
{Me} I’m screwed.
What’s wrong?
I don’t have enough conflict to sustain the book.  It’s now a short story.
Tell me about where you are in the story.
{Long recap}
Sounds like you’re rushing it.  Have you thought of X?
Um, no, but I don’t really like that.
How about Y?
Y could work.  Thank you! {I get giddy}

Okay, so maybe it’s a longer conversation.  We touch on characterization, plotting, pacing, conflict – you name it, we bounce ideas off one another.  The key to making this work is having a brainstorming buddy who is familiar with what and how your write.  My brainstorming buddies know better than to brainstorm an angst-ridden subplot because they know this isn’t part of my skill set.  The other thing you really need is trust.  Make sure your brainstorming buddy will tell you the truth.  If you want to be told how special you are, call your mommy.  If you want an honest critique of where you’ve zigged instead of zagged – brainstorm.

The other advantage of brainstorming is plotting and pacing.  By running your plot past your buddy, you can often hear and see the places in your plot that are weak and/or unnecessary.  The same is true of pacing.  Recapping your story gives you a better handle of how the book is moving.
Brainstorming should help you, not defeat you.  Find the right person or people and your manuscript will shine.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

I suck



First, bad reviews come with the territory.  If I could write a book that appealed to everyone on the planet, I’d be a very rich woman.  But the tone and tenor of bad reviews has expanded thanks to the internet and its anonymity.

So let’s start with the old.  Back when I was writing for Harlequin I used to get a letter from the same woman after every book was released.  Included with her letters were the pages of my sex scenes with big red circles around the consummation scenes.  Then her letter would blast me for being personally responsible for the aids epidemic and teen pregnancy because my characters never wore condoms.  I always wanted to write her back and say, “yeah, well, they can’t get aids or pregnant unless I write that in because they aren’t real!”  But instead I’d stew for about 30 minutes, then forget Condom Cathy.  Especially once I found out she was writing the same letters to many Harlequin authors.

On with the new.  Now it’s a tad tougher.  Between Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, publisher’s sites, etc. it is a whole lot easier for someone to offer a critique.  And they can do it while hiding behind some silly screen name.  It isn’t the critique that bothers me, it’s the fact that people don’t have the stones to sign their name.  IMHO, the worst site (And my editor at Simon & Schuster said the site is useless and they pay no attention to it) is Goodreads.  People go in and give a book a single star but they often don’t explain what they found so distasteful.  How helpful is that to other readers?  Maybe the critique hates funny dialogue or wants more romance.  Well then say that.  The next person may want more funny and less romance.  At least pretend to be a place to exchange valid information.

Then lastly, the direct email . . . yes, you can reach me through my website and yes, I eventually get around to reading each and every comment.  After FAT CHANCE was released, I received a strongly worded email from a woman who took great offense to a line in the book about Finley having homeowner’s Tourette’s.  She accused me of making light of a serious disease and promised me she’d never buy another book of mine.  STUPIDLY I responded to her, explaining that for me, it was an analogy, much like saying something was eating away at a character like a cancer.  That’s not making light of cancer and more than I was making light of Tourette’s.  Bad, bad move.  She came back at me telling me I had a sick sense of humor if I thought mocking the sick and infirmed was funny.  I thought about it for a while, then just wrote her back and suggested that perhaps my books were not meeting her reading needs.  What I really wanted to do was tell her to get a life, but I restrained myself.  Moral of the story . . . if my reply is anything other than thank you, I don’t bother responding, I let my assistant Susan handle the hate mail.

Monday, August 13, 2012

A nip and a tuck


Getting up there in age . . .
Plastic surgery isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Take Priscilla Presley.  The once beautiful woman had a facelift that left her looking like she’s standing behind a B-52 engine at take-off.  I almost didn’t recognize her when I saw her on an episode of Oprah.  If her daughter hadn’t been with her, I’m not sure I would have put two and two together.  Sometimes you can go too far.

Who has aged gracefully?  Michelle Pfeiffer.  I swear the woman still looks like she’s 35 when she’s actually 54.  Wouldn’t mind aging like her and from all accounts, she hasn’t had anything done.  Talk about great genes!

I know we’re supposed to be talking about women who’ve aged well . . . or not.  But in a nod to the Olympics, I have two words.  Bruce Jenner.  I swear, his ears are on his cheeks he’s been so tucked and tightened.  He’s a walking advertisement for what not to do to your face.  Like Priscilla Presley, his mouth is drawn into a taut line and he blinks and his scalp moves.  I’m old enough to remember when he won the decathlon in 1976 and at the time, he was the Olympic hotty of the games.  Now that he’s been relegated to the Kardasian stepfather, he looks more like a billboard for don’t let this happen to you.

I’m not anti-paint and body work.  I like my botox and I’ve had a lid lift.  Nothing major though and I’d be a little afraid to get any of that done.  The last thing I want to do is look like Priscilla.  Too bad I have a bad gene pool.  But maybe with enough moisturizer I can make it to the end without a major overhaul.

So if you could have anything done, what would it be?