February 2008 Archives

Oh, the best laid plans. . . With less than three weeks till deadline, I just discovered an absolutely insurmountable snag in my story. Actually, after 18 books, I know there are no insurmountable snags, but that's how I'm feeling at the moment. And since I can't figure out how to surmount the snag right now, I'll blog about it instead. :) Here's my snag: It's too late for me to change something that happened in Book One (BEFORE THE STORM), and now something I thought would fall neatly into place in Book Two (AFTER THE STORM). . . well, it won't. My character, Keith, is eighteen years old in AFTER THE STORM. He has to be eighteen for certain elements of the plot to work. This morning, though, I suddenly realized that some of the dates in the story don't make sense. I pulled out the final manuscript for BEFORE THE STORM, created a new "date chart" and began taking a critical look at what happened when. (That involved numerous gestational charts, among other things!) To my horror, I discovered that Keith is only seventeen, and that changes everything. I stared at the dates and tried to twist and turn them so that I could squeeze another couple of months into Keith's age, but not only is he just seventeen, he's barely seventeen and a half.  I'm at my wit's end. Can you tell? Now, the truth is, if I wrote that Keith is eighteen in AFTER THE STORM, readers would probably never notice the disparity. (Of course, NOW readers will definitely notice. Hmm. Maybe I should delete this blog entry. . . ). But it would be so wrong for me to tamper with the accuracy of my tale. So here is my plan. I'm going to check the dates one more time in the hope that I've made an error in calculation. If by some miracle he's gained six months since the last time I checked, I'll keep working for another couple of hours. If not, I'll go to bed. Then, in the morning, I'll make a few research phone calls to find the least plot-disrupting solution. And the revisions will begin. Till then, I'll leave you with a picture of one of my recent houseguests because it makes me happy to look at, and I need a little happiness right now. This is my great-niece, Joanna, who became instant best buds with my pup, Jet. Pleasant dreams.                    

It's been a crazy week here, between work and (very welcome) houseguests, so rather than get serious, I'm just going to post some pixes.   This is the view from my office window. Yes, the dear deer are back (actually, they never went away. Here they are eating what the drought hasn't killed. (The "bars" on the window are between-the-glass blinds).                   Here's the newest member of the family, my adorable granddaughter, CC (no relation to CeeCee Wilkes and her Secret Life!). CC lives in California and it will be May before I get to hug her. I don't know how I'm going to wait that long.                          The other day, it was warm enough for me to take my laptop onto the porch. Jet enjoyed the outing, too. (Keeper was behind my chair).                         And finally. . . we discovered that our every-other-week housekeeper, Ginnie Dowd, has a hidden talent. She paints! It's always fun to discover the passion behind a person's facade. Here's a print Ginnie gave me of a water color she was commissioned to paint for Christmas. It's of three women friends enjoying their getaway at the beach. I like it because it reminds me of my three stepdaughters. And I love the colors. Hope you enjoyed the pictures! I'm off to bed, then back to work in the morning. Just a few weeks to deadline.

Saturday evening, I participated on a panel sponsored by the Raleigh Right-to-Publish group at Quail Ridge Books. The topic was "How to Publish a Book," and we had a packed house. Since the four of us have been published in very different ways, the discussion covered a lot of interesting territory.  Stacey Cochran (on the left) was the moderator and is a LuLu published author of a novel. Next is Luleen Anderson , the author of four non-fiction books published by a small press. I'm the one hogging the mike (and the water bottle) and I'm published in the "usual" way--by a large commercial publisher. Finally, on the right, is Adam Shepard, entirely self-published but well on his way to fame with his controversial non-fiction book, Scratch Beginnings. There was so much to cover, and I'm sure many in the audience were left frustrated by how little we could give them in a mere ninety minutes. Any one of us could have filled that time with only a fraction of what we've learned along the way. Having four diverse paths to publication made sharing our knowledge especially tricky. I hope it also gave the audience insight into the different ways you can get a book on the shelves. Stacey was a good example of how rejection by a string of agents ( a looong string, by his own charming, self-effacing admission) led him to success with the print-on-demand technology at LuLu. LuLu, unlike many of the Self-Publishing companies, charges nothing upfront to publish your book. However, the pitfall of being self-pubbed, as both Stacey and Adam acknowledged, is not having the distribution and promotional capabilities of a publisher. Luleen had the lovely experience of a publisher approaching her after reading some of her essays. That's a rarity! I addressed the challenge of getting an agent and was quick to point out that, even if you publish with a large house, that doesn't mean you get the publisher's promotional dollars behind your book. You do however have a good chance at getting reviews and can be distributed widely to both chain and independent bookstores. Adam had, in my opinion, the most intriguing story. He's only 25, but he decided to plunk himself down in a randomly selected city, with $25 dollars in his pocket and the clothes on his back to see if he could go from "homeless" to finding "the American Dream."  He's entirely self-published, taking control of every aspect of the creation of his book and most critically--putting his all into promoting it. He admits that's a full-time job in itself, but he had a brilliant--and as I mentioned, controversial--idea, and that is sure to start people talking. Watch for him to appear on the Today show (every author's dream, next to Oprah) on February 26th.  So this was a nice break from my mad dash to the finish line on AFTER THE STORM. I'm in my writing 'round the clock mode now. I love this part (except for the deadline pressure), where the story really comes together and grows deeper with each layer I add. It's a challenge, writing three adolescents in first person, making sure each of their voices is distinct. Even more of a challenge is changing the one adult's point of view from first person to third. I resisted, but the story demanded it, and it the story always has the final say!

I just finished Barbara Delinsky's latest, THE SECRET BETWEEN US (Isn't that a great title?). I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I had a weird spooky deja vu feeling as I started reading it. Having recently finished reading the galleys for my June release, BEFORE THE STORM, the plot similarities between Delinksy's book and mine jumped out at me. There are only so many plots in the world, and Delinsky and I must have been drinking the same water as we came up with our ideas. In THE SECRET BETWEEN US, the three central characters are a mother, Deborah, her teenaged daughter Grace, and her somewhat handicapped (vision loss) ten-year-old son, Dylan. After a car accident in which a man is killed, Deborah lies about who was driving in order to protect Grace. The novel then focuses on the relationships between the characters and the toll the accident and the subsequent lie have on all concerned. In BEFORE THE STORM, the central characters are a mother, Laurel, her teenaged daughter Maggie, and her somewhat handicapped (fetal alcohol syndrome) fifteen-year-old son, Andy. In the first chapter, a fire takes the lives of three people. Laurel goes into supermom mode to protect her son from blame. But that's where the similarities end. You can give two writers the exact same storyline and characters, and they will turn out two completely different books. To me, that's the excitement in writing. The plot is like the foundation of a house. Then the writer decides the layout of the rooms, adds color to the walls and texture to the furnishings, creates the view from the windows and fills every corner with the characters' emotions. The result is an entirely unique book, unrecognizable from any other. Years (and years) ago, when I was working on SECRET LIVES, I had lunch with an author friend, Kathy Gilles Seidel. Our conversation went something like this. Kathy: So, what are you working on now? Me: A book set in the Shenandoah Valley. Kathy: So am I! Me: Really! Mine is about a woman who lives in California but returns to her childhood home in the Valley to-- Kathy: So is mine! Me: You're kidding! Well, this woman's mother was a famous author-- Kathy: My character's father was a famous film maker! Me: And this woman has to unearth the true story about her mother to learn the truth about herself. Kathy: And mine has to unearth the true story about her father to learn the truth about herself. Kathy and I were both a little spooked by this revelation, but we knew each other's writing well enough to know our books would be entirely different. And they were. Thank goodness. So, back to THE SECRET BETWEEN US and BEFORE THE STORM. Here is where our different writing styles (Delinsky's and mine) play a significant role. The major differences: -I make a lot of use of backstory (what happened in the past). I'm a sucker for backstory and often know more of the backstory than the current-day story when I start a book. I believe this comes from being a therapist. How did my characters get to this point in their lives? What happened to them before that makes them the way they are now? In BEFORE THE STORM, the backstory is significant and important to understanding what is going on in the present. . . and it's filled with surprises.   -BEFORE THE STORM has, like many of my books, a large mystery component of the who-done-it variety. -BEFORE THE STORM has many subplots that arc away from, then tie back into, the main storyline. -BEFORE THE STORM has a somewhat darker, mystical and ethereal thread running through it. -THE SECRET BETWEEN US has a stronger romantic element. -Delinsky and I have distinctly different voices in our writing. Voice is that hard-to-describe "style of writing" that is unique to each author. If you are very familiar with the books of, say, three different authors, you should be able to read a paragraph or two of something one of them wrote and know which one wrote it because of his or her distinct voice.  It's something a writer can not easily work at creating. Rather, voice tends to evolve naturally until one day you read something you wrote and realize, Wow! I think I've found my voice! All this is to say, I enjoyed THE SECRET BETWEEN US very much, but I had trouble separating the "reader" in me from the "writer" as I dissected, studied, compared, and contrasted, marvelling once again at how two authors can turn out entirely different books from similar plots.

Literally. I have a month left to go on AFTER THE STORM. In my waking hours, I feel marvelously in control (except for a few little glitches in the last couple of chapters). I'm on target (well, almost). I know my characters inside out (this is true). The novel is taking those twists I never imagined, enriching the story and making me say "aha!" several times a day. But, as is always true around this time in the process, my dreams, as my character Maggie would say, "totally suck." It's the usual stuff: I'm hopelessly lost in a strange city. I'm back in high school, taking an exam for which I haven't studied. I'm about to walk on stage in a play and I don't know my lines. I'm rushing to get to a class, but one obstacle after another appears in my path. I'm in terrible danger, but each time I try to dial 911, my finger slips on the last digit. I don't even want to go to sleep.               Clearly, after writing eighteen novels, I still am not the confident lass I pretend to be. How about the rest of you? Readers of my blog are from many different professions and walks of life. Do you still have performance nightmares?                    

 What a stunner of a day! When it hit 70 degrees, I took my work onto the porch and worked in the balmy air for several hours before it grew chilly again. And what did I work on (among other things)? One of the most difficult but important lessons for any writer to master: Showing instead of telling.  Although I'm only a bit more than a month away from my deadline for AFTER THE STORM, I still have some scenes that have yet to be written. In my outline, I have notes telling me what I need to accomplish in those scenes. For example, under "chapter 44," I have written "Illustrate some pathology in 'Gladys'."  (I'm using 'Gladys' in this discussion rather than the character's real name, so I don't give anything away to you.) It would be so lovely if I could simply write in chapter 44, "As she and 'Harold' drove through town, 'Gladys' displayed some pathology." But of course, I can't get away with that. So I had to think of a way to display Gladys's pathology. I finally settled on having her accidentally run over a small animal in the road. 'Harold' pleads with her to turn around so they can see if the animal is only injured, as well as to see if it is someone's beloved household pet. Gladys refuses, and mocks him for being such a wuss. But even all that is telling, isn't it? So I had to take it one level deeper by being inside Harold's point of view. He sees the blur of the animal as it runs into the road. Feels the thud as they hit it. Remembers a time he hit a rabbit while driving and how he handled that situation. Feels frustrated at not being able to persuade Gladys to turn around. And most of all, he feels sick to his stomach as he realizes that Gladys isn't the caring, wonderful woman he'd taken her to be. Whoops. There we go again. He feels sick to his stomach. I need to show, not tell. Perhaps he feels a pain in his chest or bile rising in his throat or he's so dizzy he has to lean his head against the window. I haven't decided yet, but I'll find a way. It's one of the challenges of writing fiction that I most enjoy. Deadlines, on the other hand, are one of the challenges I most loathe, so I'd better get back to work.