Who's the Hottie?

I will admit up front that I filched this idea from Lisa Samson, who as far as I know was the first and last to host a hottie contest for dead writers. But we're fresh out of seriousness today here on Novel Matters, and it's the month for spookiness, which we do have - and which is why the contestants are all dead.

And I totally know that somewhere, someplace you took interest in an author just because he was so adorable.

I'm pretty sure about this. Or was it just me? (I'll tell you who my crush was later.)

For now, here's the lineup. Which of these authors was gorgeous enough to earn your devotion on looks alone, and which were not? Tell the truth. You can't hurt their feelings: they're dead.

(It's okay to add a write-in. Just be sure and pick a dead one, for reasons referenced above.)

Ernest Hemingway

Langston Hughes

W.B. Yeats

Pablo Neruda

Katy, you know me. I'm such a rebel. I have a write-in from the start, Jack London, ruggedly handsome and intriguing. Besides having survived all that he wrote about, he puts his reader right into the setting of his books. Be careful, you may get frostbite and always bring extra matches. A little cabin. A wolf sleeping in front of the fire. And Jack London. He would have loved Goretex. "I'm putting on my parka, Jack!"

Jack London

Okay, Patti, Jack's a hottie. Young, but a hottie.  Like this one of Ernest Hemingway as a soldier boy. He had the good looks of Tom Cruise.

 Also, I like his scruffy look, after life had put a little mileage on him. I think it makes him more interesting. He has an Errol Flynn-type of roguishness in this picture, which goes with his whole warrior/safari hunter/toreador image.  I admit that while I've read a lot of his work, I can't say I understood them one hundred percent.

Debbie, you're right. Young Hemingway does have a Tom Cruise look about him. May I just say it was, well, a challenge to find a deceased male author who fit the "hottie" category. A real challenge. But I came up with Jack Kerouac, whom I've never read, but I may want to remedy that.

Jack Kerouac

I vote for two write-ins: Nathanael Hawthorne and Sir Walter Scott, both of whom I mooned over as I played the old Authors card game when I was young.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sir Walter Scott

Soul Shards

I'm a bag of raw nerves today. After reading Sharon's post on Wednesday (and the various Novel Matter posts from the past week or so), I've been thinking about all the stuff of life that I can't talk about. Oh, I can say this happened or that took place. I can state it. But I can't talk about it.

I take that back. 

There are things I cannot even utter. About times when I've been little more than raked earth, half returned to the ash from whence I came and looked up with eyes blind to wonder and saw it anyway. There are things I know solely because I experienced them in the arena beyond language.

This is where story plays is most fantastic role. It's where we all go to find ourselves tucked between the words. Story is our wailing wall, our dear diary, our ebenezer. 

I've done real soul-baring in my writing, but not in a way that is easy to find. Not theme, or subject matter. Not plot. My soul shards are tucked away between the words, present, but hidden from plain view. This is the way it must be for me. Every writer is different. For some, it must be front and centre, painful as that is. Why? Because it must.

For me, I must tuck it away. Will that change? Maybe. I don't pursue it, instead I let it pursue me. A writer never travels to the place she intends.

The most bare writing I ever did was a poem I wrote last year. Isn't that just like poetry? 

With Thanks to Bill Holm

by Bonnie Grove

Words lined up in particular form

bring the mirror to your face,

except

it isn't your reflection as much as it is

the face you thought you'd already forgotten.

I've been taken up by my hapless collar and

pulled through the rake of divorce;

tendons separating from bone.

Bone and marrow finely defined.

Later, I leapt

foolish footing from a cliff's edge I hadn't

noticed, or pretended not to see. I didn't think, only

felt the fall and blessed its decent. The

ragged bits of me weightless in the movement;

fantom limbs.

I forgot

the sensible thing, the priority of self

preservation and gave it up

for a guy with blue eyes, his hapless collar tented at the

back. His raked form lovely to my missing eyes.

All these years

for the sake of the heat of the hand in the middle of the night.

The one that has been there for years. Will be.

             The heat that could melt a stone. 

Tender writer, all raw-souled and roiling, how do you put yourself in your work? Are you front and centre? Tucked between the words? A shadow falling across the page, or a charge of light illuminating the ink?

When God Whispers in Your Ear

Writing hasn't been a hobby with me for years. It's been my ministry. When I got past the dabbling stage of writing -- where I splashed around in the shallow pool, experimenting with fiction v. non-fiction, and different genres once I settled on fiction -- and began to swim in the deep end of the pool, I knew I wanted my writing to do more than give the reader a few hours of entertainment. I wanted it to minister . . .  in an entertaining way, absolutely, but ultimately to minister. That's what my writing evolved into. And that's why my novels deal with the painful things we experience in life. I hope to touch a place in the reader, to give her hope as she wades through her own difficulties, to let her know that someone knows what she's going through.

My latest novel, Unraveled, deals in part with human trafficking. Lying on Sunday  deals with the loss of a spouse and infidelity. Every Good & Perfect Gift deals with infertility and devastating illness. Because my writing is my ministry, I pray about the stories I write and the details of those stories. When I was plotting Unraveled, trying to decide fundamental things like characters and setting, I prayed about where to set the overseas part of the story, because I didn't want that setting to be a cliche. I wrote about my choice of Moldova, which I'd never heard of until the day I selected it for the location, in my August 20 post, and about the missionary couple, Andy and Nancy, who helped me with the details of the location.

I recently received a newsletter from Andy and Nancy with an update about their ministry to trafficked women who have been rescued and given a place to live at Freedoom Home, a house they built where rescued women can begin to find healing. Andy wrote, "Three weeks ago I was honored to do the water baptism for "Amy," one of the first girls at Freedom Home. Her life is so changed that it is hard to believe. Three long years battling for her life the entire way. But now she is free, full of joy and God's peace." People like Andy and Nancy are ministering to girls like "Amy" all over the world, making a one-on-one difference with the love of Christ. I so applaud them.

To help balance the heaviness of the topics I choose, I try to infuse humor whenever possible, because I honestly believe there's nothing we face that can't find relief in humor. My dad died very unexpectedly in 1980, at the age of 54. I was 28, and in no way ready to lose him. My sister and I had the difficult task of dealing with his belongings and moving all his possessions out of the house he'd lived in most of our lives. We spent several days there just after his death, sifting through his possessions. That included his desk, which was chock-full of personal correspondence. I found, among other things, a letter I'd written to him and my brothers when I was a 7-year-old girl in the Brownies. I had no idea my dad had held onto things like that.

So what does that have to do with humor? My brother-in-law Bob spent a night and a day with my sister and me at Dad's house, helping wherever he could. Of course, the three of us, unable to sleep, talked long into the night. My sister and I were so filled with grief. But my dad had this near-dead spider plant hanging in his living room, and I swear, every time Bob got anywhere near that plant he'd bang his head into it. He'd stand up, bang! He'd turn around, bang! It became so funny to us after the 3rd or 4th time, that we laughed until, well, we cried, but with tears of hilarity instead of the tears of grief that had overwhelmed us since we'd gotten the news of Dad's death. It was a while before I realized that Bob's encounters with that spider plant maybe weren't so random. That he was providing the comic relief we desperately needed. I can't think of him, ever, without remembering the kindness he showed by making us laugh when our hearts were breaking. By letting us know it was okay to laugh. Because we weren't so sure anymore.

As I write this post it is Monday, October 8, the day our son Brian would have turned 40. It's a difficult milestone, but our family will face it together. Besides a visit to the cemetery, we're meeting tonight to share a pizza at Brian's favorite spot. It is, in fact, the last place we were all together just a few days before Brian's death. I understand loss, and I drew on my experience as I wrote my next release, The Color of Sorrow, which should be out next spring, and yes, I found ways to infuse humor into a sad situation.

Just as the Lord drew near to direct the setting of Unraveled, he drew near a few moments ago, interrupting the writing of this post, to confirm to my heart that I'm on the right path with my writing, my ministry. His validation came in the form of a phone call from an old, old friend who lives several hours away now, near San Diego. She had just that minute finished reading Unraveled and wanted to tell me, not just that she enjoyed it, but how much the story meant to her on a personal level, and why. It always means a lot to hear from a reader. But when you can almost see God nudge her with his elbow and whisper, "Go ahead, give her a call. Now's a good time," well, who couldn't use that kind of validation?

We love hearing from you. Tell us about how humor has helped you deal with a sad event, and how God has validated you in a personal way.

Write Your Strengths

Today's post comes from Ariel Allison Lawhon from our sister blog, She Reads. Please join us in congratulating Ariel on her recent book contract with Doubleday! 

“You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat.”

– Margaret Atwood

I love this observation by Margaret Atwood. I am incapable of reading my own work with clarity and have been known to love sections that need to be cut and hate sections that need to be kept. For instance, my latest novel recently went on submission* and during that process I had the opportunity to discuss the story with a handful of interested editors. During one of those conversations an editor commented on how much she liked a particular scene. She talked about the tension and nuance and how present she felt in the story. But all I think about when I read that scene is the eight dollars I spent on lunch the day I wrote it and how I sat in a corner booth in a crowded café shivering beneath an air conditioning vent. My association with the book is much more complicated and fraught with memories of wiggly rabbits and tattered top hats and clumsy attempts to create literary magic.

This is where the feedback of others—particularly those who are reading our work for the first time—becomes vital. We don’t know how to play to our strengths until we know what those strengths are. And it often takes a fresh eye to point them out.

I tend to approach feedback from a clinical perspective these days. (My husband pointed out this wasn’t always the case and reminded me of the time he went out for flowers, chocolate, and a card in the middle of the night after one particularly brutal critique that left me sobbing on the couch. Needless to say I’ve developed thicker skin in the years since.) So when my agent began forwarding the feedback she received from editors I took careful notes.

This strategy does two things: helps us see areas of natural strength (which I believe ought to be the foundation of our writing) and also areas of natural weakness (which show us where to invest the majority of our effort while writing). Through this process I learned that Plot and Pacing come easy for me. Almost every editor commented on this. And apparently I’m much better at Setting that I thought. The words “atmospheric” and “cinematic” cropped up frequently in their notes. This was quite new to me.

On the flipside I found that most of the negative feedback came in regards to Character Development. (Interesting aside: the novel is comprised of three main characters and I was fascinated to see how different editors related to different characters. They were often hot or cold, love or hate. There was no unanimous favorite. Given my fondness for book clubs, I envision many vigorous discussions in the future about these three women.) I needed to know this, despite the fact that it’s disheartening. Plot, Pacing, and Setting will only take the story so far. Without believable and sympathetic characters there is only a fast moving, pretty backdrop.

So where to go from here? A large stack of printed pages—407 of them to be exact—sit on the desk in front me. Now comes an edit consisting of fine-tuning. I’ll pay special attention to Character Development on this round. I will revisit everything I’ve learned from John Truby. I will develop my characters until they are nuanced and real. I will strengthen my weakness so I can play to my strengths.

Question for you: what are the strengths that others have consistently pointed out in your writing? How can you bring those to the forefront in your current novel?

* After two hectic weeks, the book sold at auction to Doubleday to an editor who loves it as is, Characters and all. (Knowing this, it would be easy to disregard the other feedback I got but I think that would be a mistake. I will trust my editor but keep in mind that I have areas where I need to grow) That pile of pages sitting on my desk was mailed by her and is filled with notes on how to enhance the story. If you care to, you can read the Publisher’s Marketplace announcement here. 

Define Your Motivation

If my post today borders on the morbid, it's only because Latayne's post on near-death experiences on Wednesday started the juices flowing.  It's amazing how many water-related mishaps readers have in common, and I can completely relate. I remember swimming in the Chesapeake Bay and getting just a bit too far from shore, clutching my friend's inner tube and her screaming "Help!" because I was pulling her under with me.  I felt both desperate fear and humiliation, wishing she would stop calling attention to us, which is, or course, what saved us both.

Later, as an adult, I faced not just the possibility of death, but ran the whole gamut of 'what-ifs,' 'whys' and 'why me-s' when a routine mammogram revealed a suspicious shadow that turned out to be cancer.  That was 14 years ago. I'm grateful that I had the presence of mind to journal my experience.  That, and hindsight, have helped me to sort things out a bit.

I never really questioned why I should be the one to get sick.  Rain falls on the just and the unjust and I'm nobody special. My 'why me' concern was more of a 'why me now.'  My kids were in elementary school.  It was rotten timing.  But that fact in itself was incentive to stay positive and keep things as normal as possible at home while facing treatment. 

It's interesting that when people find out you've been diagnosed, they feel compelled to share all the negative things they know about cancer.  I don't know why. Everyone knows somebody whose experience was off the charts.  It can be pretty disheartening.  But the Lord spoke to me through my sister-in-law, who called me out of the blue and said, "Don't take everyone's horror stories as your own. Your experience can be very different."  Her husband's story was different.  As it turned out, mine was, too.

On the positive side, the experience resulted in my first by-line.  Because of that nugget of wisdom she shared with me, and of what I learned about God's great love, I was able to write an upbeat personal experience article for Coping With Cancer magazine and saw my name in print for the first time.  Later, I was able to share about my experience with women who were facing challenges in their lives, and not necessarily cancer. 

So I'm finally getting to the point of this post.  In my journal during that time, there is a raw observation of how I felt when the realization finally hit me that my future was uncertain.  I wrote that I felt like I was standing in a long hallway and all the doors were shut to me.  I was completely alone with no way out.  I knew that my family could support and encourage me, but they could not experience my illness for me.   (This is the morbid part, but stay with me)  At that point, I fully realized that we come into the world alone and when we go out, we stand alone before God. 

We don't like to think about that.  At least, I don't.  I think most of us largely define ourselves by the relationships we have with others.  I'm Don's wife and the mother of  Zephr and Galadriel (fake names so I won't hear about it later).  I could tell you about my  90-year-old mother and my sisters and on and on, and the people I work and worship with.  We find comfort in associations, safety in numbers and all that.  When we're faced with the realization that we alone will answer for our actions and inactions, it can scare the heck out of us or light a fire under us.  Maybe both.

I'm not suggesting that we get to heaven by what we do or don't do.  The Bible is clear that Jesus paid the price for my sin and I am grateful.  But I sure don't want to embarrass myself or let Him down, or shuffle my feet and stare at the ground when He asks what I've done with my talents.

So, whatever we feel God has given us to do, are we doing it?  As writers, if we feel called to write and have received confirmation that we're on the right track, are we seriously applying ourselves?  Some say they have a passion to write, but passion burns out.  What then? We each must clearly define our motivation in order to stick with it through the dry spells and the occasional disappointing review and the poor sales figure, and it doesn't take a near-death experience. If it's clearly a calling, it can't be treated as a hobby.  I need to be reminded of my motivation from time to time in order to stay on track.  What is your motivation for writing, or for whatever God has called you to do?  We'd love to hear.

P.S. This is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Go get a mammogram ;-)

One time when I was dead. . .

Okay, Patti kicked my patootie about marketing on Monday. (Boy, was that alliterative!) So I'll be brave and direct you all to my latest newsletter that tells what one of my publishers is doing to promote my books, and how I'm trying to get the word out. Specifically, my non-fiction The Mormon Mirage is selling for $3.99 in the Kindle edition right now on Facebook. (And I'm sure the presidential debate tonight has nothing to do with it.)

So Patti, do I get a marketing star?

Meanwhile, I'd like to talk about near-death experiences. Had any of those?

Before I had grandchildren, I made friends with the children of some people at church. Both the mom and dad were nurses and one slept while the other worked, and vice versa. Since I lived out in the country and always kept classic toys on hand (you know, building blocks and interesting old toys, nothing electronic), the parents and I would arrange for me to come into town and get the kids for a day in the country when they had a break from school. We’d first go to a store and buy junk food for the day, and then we’d play games and enjoy the fresh air.

A hike and a picnic was always the highlight. One day the ten year old girl, the seven year old boy, and the littlest one, a boy of four and I were walking around on our property, examining lizards and speculating on mysterious piles of rocks and ominous-looking trees and circling hawks. That is, the two oldest and I were discussing things while the littlest one carried on a nonstop monologue about anything that entered his head—with the result that the rest of us began to ignore him.

He rambled almost without taking a breath, creating long narratives about superheroes and what had happened in Sunday School and football games and colors of jelly beans and commercials on TV and possible names for a possible dog and….

Only when we spread out our picnic lunch did he stop talking, just long enough to eat. But as soon as he could get words out from around his mouthful of sandwich, he began again.

“You know, one time when I was dead. . .” he began.

“You were DEAD?” His big sister was scornful. “Good grief, you were never dead!”

“Oh yes I was,” he said, and proceeded to tell another long episodic story.

I’ve never forgotten the ease at which he could create narratives. Being dead was no preclusion to a good story for him; in fact, it made it better.

I got to thinking about that. I’ve had a near-death experience myself. When I was eleven years old, I didn’t know how to swim and at a public pool stepped off into water that was over my head. I remember the agony of my lungs filling with water, the frantic attempts to get myself above the swirling water I was churning into foam with my arms, the panic, the loss of consciousness.

I awakened, vomiting, with a crowd of people around me and a young lifeguard with zinc oxide on his nose looking at me, a teenager who had apparently saved my life. I don’t know his name nor remember but one other thing about that remarkable day.

I arrived home and everything looked different. Jokes weren’t funny to me. The sky looked different. My parents – who did not know what had happened that day until decades later, looked different. (I didn’t tell them because I felt shame, as if I had somehow provoked my own drowning.) My homework looked different.

And most of all, water looked different to me. And still does. I live in a desert by heritage, and by choice.

How about you? Have you ever had a near death experience? Was there a time, once when you were dead?

Marketing 101 or How to Kill an Author Without Trying

With my dear Novel Matters friends as witnesses, I would like to formally apologize to the marketers of books, one and all. Bless their little pea-pickin' hearts.

I'm not proud to admit this, but I was pretty sure they spent too much time at the water cooler, if you know what I mean.

I was wrong.

I wanted them to do more, to try harder, to find my unique set of elusive readers. Instead, they asked me to write books (historical romance would be nice) to make their jobs easier and certainly more profitable.

Now that I'm officially my very own marketer and publisher (Authors are and always have been their own marketers, but Indie publishing forces me to give up my delusional dream that someone is sweating over my sales numbers and calling important people to garner endorsements, interviews, and movie deals. This is my job and my job only.)

Marketing a newly released book is a tough job. I recognize that now. If I can make my book stand out among the 1.5 million books released each year, I'll be successful. Piece of cake.

But I live in the middle of nowhere. How am I suppose to reach the world with my masterpiece?

Simple, become a marketing genius by reading books written by marketing geniuses. Easy.

Not so easy. The marketing geniuses (MG) don't agree on much. Some want you to build a tribe. Others encourage building loyalty by giving things away. (Nothing like a little guilt inducing to sell a few books. I should be brilliant at this. After all, I'm a mother.) Another promises making a killing on Amazon without blogging, tweeting, or updating my status on Facebook. Frankly, that's appealing.

Since marketing is the job of the author, whether we publish with legacy publishers or go independent, won't you join me? I'm consulting the MGs and cherry-picking what makes sense for my sanity and my book's audience. I'll be doing this the next few times I post.

Let's start with James Scott Bell's ebook on marketing, Self Publishing Attack! The 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws for Creating Steady Income Publishing Your Own Books. I was attracted to Bell's book because I've met him, he's making a living at writing, and because he says there are only 5 unbreakable laws.

I have the attention span of a gnat. This sounded doable.

I love Bell's writing style. I felt like I was sitting across from him in a coffee shop. He's on my side. He wants me to succeed. And he's a great cheerleader. I was dipping my quill in ink before the end of Part One.

Here's a rundown of his laws and my reaction:

Law #1: You Must Think Like a Publisher

This, in large part, means writing a book that people will want to buy, preferably in a genre that's popular. My genre--women's fiction--doesn't make Bell's list of popular genres. So far, I'm not off to a promising start.

But Bell presents a side to ebooks that I'd not thought of before. Say I decide to write a mystery. And since this is my fantasy, it sells pretty well, and my readers look forward to my next caper. But true to form, I get a literary bee in my bonnet and write a molasses-paced Mid-Atlantic plaster restoration romance. My readers are disappointed and barely glance at my next blood-and-guts murder mystery. Silent scream. End of fantasy.

This kind of genre jumping doesn't have to mean publishing suicide with ebooks. All that's required is a nom de plume for each genre I try. This could be a fun way to try on different genres to see which one--and this could be surprising--makes my heart beat faster and actually sells. In fact, Bell is big on self-determination in his book, which really appeals to my artist self, but he's also practical: "Spend your time developing the books you want to write most, but which also have the potential to sell to a large audience." It's all about balance.

Law #2: You Must Write the Best Books You Can

No argument here. Bell quotes another ebook author, Mark Coker, The Secrets of Ebook Publishing Success: "Eighty percent of your books' success will be determined by the quality of your book. The other 20 percent is distribution, marketing and luck." Bell gives pointers to beginners, intermediate, and advanced writers about how they can sharpen their storytelling skills to increase their chances of success.

My goal is to write a better story each time out. Publishing as an independent doesn't change that goal. If anything, I'm working harder than ever to make my story stand out by investing cold hard cash on a highly qualified editor. The very good news is that I control 80 percent of my book's success. I like having that much control. Note: This doesn't bleed into other parts of my life.

Also in this section, Bell gives the clearest instructions on how to develop a heart-grabbing pitch I've ever heard or read. It's worth buying the book just for his pitch pointers.

Law #3: You Must Prepare Your Book With Quality Controls

Bell caught me off guard in this section, in a good way. I'd completely forgotten about the back of the book, and that the copy--after the cover--is what really sells the book. In fact, he gets into the nitty-gritty of the front and back copy, all the boring stuff like copyrights, formatting, and an author bio. He also touches on the all-important art of categorizing your book on Amazon to get paying customers to your book page. (Next time I post I'll be talking about another book that does a more scientific and thorough job of assigning categories to your book.)

As for covers, Bell highly recommends working with a professional to avoid a cheesy cover. I have to say that I worried most about my covers. When the reader first sees the cover, it's about the size of a postage stamp. The cover shoulders the job of attracting a reader by setting the tone of the story and clarifying the genre in a tiny space. The cover is my foot in the door, so I hired a photographer and graphic artist to help. 

Law #4: You Must Develop and Work a Marketing Plan

Bell contends that every marketing plan, at the very least, consists of a pricing strategy, social media presence, newsletter/email program, and reviews, interviews and guest blogging. This section  made me tired. For instance, besides writing your own blog, Bell encourages authors to make thoughtful comments on other author's blogs, all for the purpose of building a relationship that becomes mutually beneficial. When my release date looms, that author will be more inclined to have me as a guest blogger, and I can invite him/her to do the same. I like this sort of partnership.

But have you noticed how many author blogs there are? The trick is to find author blogs that appeal to your audience, read them faithfully, and yes, make thoughtful comments. This will be my dead-of-winter January project.

In short, Bell takes a mainstream approach to marketing (social media, newsletters, email lists). There's nothing in this section I hadn't heard before, but he does refine and give first-rate advice for success. I'm thinking I need a mini me to get all of this done.

Law #5: You Must Repeat Over and Over For the Rest of Your Life.

Holy cow, Bell! Over and over? Now, I'm really tired.

Not only over and over but more and more. "...the more books you have available, the better you'll do."

Bell suggests short fiction and writing, writing, writing. Actually, I like the idea of writing short stories. They're an especially fun way to experiment with other genres, but would that mean 23 different nom de plumes?

I appreciate all that Bell includes in his book, so much more than five laws, and I highly recommend this ebook for all authors. Thanks to Bell, the important stuff will get done (he has a great section on priority setting) and I may dabble in other genres. Let's see, a nom de plume? How about Brenda Paris? Zaleena Hopstetter? Buck Tumbleweed? Jetta Stargazer?

Silliness aside, what's your marketing plan? Who are you listening to? What works? What doesn't? Help!