My Last Agent

This morning my agent and I parted ways.  I hoped he would be my last agent and he is but not in the way I expected.

My pal said agents are like the hula hoop.  Passe.
Certainly they are not required for digital publishing.
From a writer's perspective, everything that is wrong with the traditional publishing business is cured by digital.

In a business journal there was a longish article about Amazon driving the digital market.  It touched on the fact that print is declining while the trajectory of digital is improving.  I understand the reluctance some people have to this reality.  I feel it this morning.  Much of my life has been devoted to finding the right agent.  Having the agent.  Being annoyed with the agent because they won't do their job.  (To make it clear, the agent's job is to submit the client's work, if they're not doing that, they're not doing their job.  It's really simple and you might be surprised at how few agents can rouse themselves to submit the work in a timely fashion.)

I am doing a renewal of my website because it was so out-of-date.  I'm sure it's not as fancy as it could be but if all the links work, then I'm practically a genius in my own eyes.  Let me just say I'm using Expression Web and it's a terrific program.  I cannot explain how it can be a Microscoff product and not create the hairpulling hassles I usually accord MS.  But to be fair, so many people hate Vista and I've been running it for about 3 years with the only problem being that I don't know where to look for stuff I could find in XP.

To any veteran who might wind up here, or to any family of a vet, we all owe you a debt of gratitude.  Thank you for your service to this country.

Not Low Maintenance review

I haven't done much (enough) to publicize my books but I did submit it to a review site, The Romance Reviews and today the review was published.   I couldn't ask for more.  The reviewer, Rho, is obviously astute and well-read! ;-)  In truth, Rho read the book carefully and understood it.  I'm grateful for that.  That the book was well-received is lovely.

I noticed that several other books received 5 stars and they were traditionally published.  2 weren't "tradpub" and received 4 stars.

What does this suggest to us?  The important issue is that it's perfectly possible to achieve the level (laughably easy one might say) tradpub insists can only be gotten thru a relationship with them.

I write and edit all my books, getting no outside input.  I create the covers myself.  I want it that way.  I want to sink or swim on my own.

It's true I've been doing this nearly all my entire adult life and am pretty good at it.  Writers just starting out might need some help or another perspective.  That's fine and they are encouraged to get all the assistance they need.  The goal is to be at the same level if not better than tradpub (laughably easy to achieve, for further illumination on this point check yesterday's post on cover art).

It's very nice to get a glowing review.  Thank you Carole and Rho.

Back to Bad Apple2.

Marc Chagall

Love In The Air

This is the book I have coming out next year from Avalon.  It's about two people who fall in love while performing a World War I era show at an aerodrome.

Since I'm working on a couple of different projects right now, I don't want to take time away from them to do a mock-up cover for LITA for the blog.  I'll just say it wasn't what I would have done at all.  It's a romance, there's a  handsome flyboy in the book.  Why not feature him on the cover?  Women read these books and we should assume they like men.  It seems like a good choice.

First is their cover as the editor sent it to me last week.

Then there's an image I found a year ago that I thought would make a good cover.  It's what I can offer.

And then there's a really quick mock-up I did for my agent without a super handsome guy but a super good pilot, Cole Palen.

Maybe Avalon didn't have the budget for a male model.  There was a budget for a plane.  How about using a plane from the book, ie the plane the character flew, a Fokker Dreidecker.  Which was red and would have shown up a lot better (on a baby blue background???).  I don't understand their choices.  Neither did my agent.

Make It Interesting

I came into publishing just as the impact of television was really being felt.  A hundred years ago a writer could stroll their way into a story.  Not anymore.

Some years ago I wrote 3 chapters of a mystery and my agent sent to to Avon.  After about a year they said it started too slow, (talk about slow, they can't read 3 chapters in 12 months?) the murder didn't happen quick enough.  I rewrote it so the first line was "Oh damn, a dead guy."

How fast does a book need to start?  Do we want the experience of being immersed in the world of the characters or do we just want the bare bones of the plot and how it all turns out?

When I first approached Sweet Cider/Bad Apple I wanted to set the scene.  To me, unlike for some people who read this book, the story is not about the murder.  The roots go back 30 years.  It's a concatenation of events and choices that lead all these people to where they are in the present day.  It's important to know this otherwise nothing can be explained.

Do we want to know why people behave the way they do or do we just want to be titillated.  (I met a guy on the internet who was interested in electric devices to be used in the most startling of ways, oh never mind.)  Do we just want that shock, that visceral reaction?  Maybe it's a vampire screwing someone's head around on their neck.  What's the next shock?  How do you outdo that?  Or do we want to know why people do what they do.

This is the essence of entertainment now.  What are we trying to say?  If nothing, okay.  There's an audience for that.  BIG audience.  Maybe these people never get tired of Life Lite.  The non-caloric, non-substantive meal that doesn't feed, doesn't nourish.

If you're trying to say something, make it interesting.  Your readers will stay with you.

Christmas In Connecticut or When Does This Thing Start

After yesterday's post I decided to watch the movie again.  As soon as it began I remembered I fast forward through the first 10 minutes until we get to Elizabeth Lane.

I realized this is something important.  Something went really wrong in this movie if you can replace that much story telling with 2 lines of dialog spoken by the magazine publisher which goes something like "A nurse at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital wrote and asked if Elizabeth Lane would host Christmas for a heroic sailor who never really had Christmases growing up and so enjoys her cozy magazine columns.  I said yes."

Actually that's pretty much the log line isn't it.

Do we need to see Jefferson Jones in his act of heroism, floating on the ocean for 18 days?  I don't.  If it was any good, I'd watch it again.  After all, I've seen the movie a bazillion time and it never gets old.  Except the first 10 minutes.  Has storytelling changed so much since 1945?  No.  If I were to guess why we see Dennis Morgan for 10 minutes is that they paid for him and they were going to use him.  They would have been better off doing the dinner scene that doesn't exist for 10 minutes.

So what's wrong with these scenes?  They don't advance the story.  Do they reveal his character?  He is the love interest so maybe we do need to know about him.  Yeah, that's a good argument, but what we learn isn't that positive and also is restated later when the nurse shows up at the farmhouse.  While we supposedly should care about Jefferson Jones because he's the love interest, he's with the nurse and his buddy who we are not supposed to care about and don't.

Why am I making a big deal about this?  Because starting your story when the story commences is better than starting your story when your story starts.

What am I saying?  Starts?  Commences?  Same thing.  Probably the words are close but take the movie, yes because the sailor survived an ordeal on the ocean then was in the hospital and the nurse fell for him and wanted to do something nice is where the story "started".  It's the backstory.  But the real action begins when Elizabeth Lane finds out she's hosting Christmas for the sailor at her Connecticut farmhouse where she supposedly lives with her husband and baby and woops she doesn't have a husband, a baby or a beautiful farmhouse in Connecticut.

I don't think we need to know the particulars of Jeff Jones' incident.  We don't need to see it, especially if everything we need to get out of it can be said in a couple lines of dialog.

In general, if you have to set your story up, keep it brief, keep it salient.

Do I always do that?  No.  Read Sweeps and you'll be shouting I don't follow my own advice.  That sounds like a part 2 to this thought may be required.

Thanksgiving

Now we have Thanksgiving bearing down upon us, then Christmas and New Year's and then we pretty much have a month off until the completely concocted (as if they're all not) Valentine's Day.

I'm ambivalent about writing about the holiday season.  Please note, many Hollywood movies make use of one holiday or another.   You can also check the many romance novels set at Christmas.

So what is it with the holidays that writers are trying to tap into?  I just love Christmas to pieces and I'm Jewish.  But as Ariel Robbins said in Sweeps/Love After Lunch, it's a secular holiday now.  Historically it was a non-holiday.  Christ's Mass was the day when all the medieval folk went to church.  That was the end of it.  It wasn't until the Victorian era when it became a big thing with presents and decorations.  The tree business was from Germany and all about the evergreen.  Maybe it had something to do with the Solstice, since the days were getting longer and there was renewal in the air.  I'm not a maven on this so if I get it all a little wrong, don't send mean emails.  There was the whole Kris Kringle thing going on in Northern Europe and it all came to fruition in America.

Now we have these incredible tense days when everything is supposed to go so perfectly and if they don't, people kill themselves over it.

I was lucky to find the trailer for one of my favorite holiday movies, Christmas In Connecticut.  I don't know why it's my favorite, I also love White Christmas, but it contains most of the right elements.  Connecticut.  Snow.  Romance.  Big Christmas Tree.  What it doesn't have, and maybe it did, but was cut, we really need the iconic holiday meal.  We schlepped the chef all the way from NYC and there's endless talk about food but we don't see them at the table with the candles lit and the turkey glistening.  I needed that and I feel its absence.

When I do Christmas or Thanksgiving, I always write about the dinner.  I did it in Just Kate but now that I look back, I think I could have done more.  When I was doing the rewrite, I didn't feel the more of it so I tweaked and hat-tipped Christmas in Connecticut, and it was snowing.  I expect I did 75% of what I should have done, but the book wasn't structured for that.

Now I'm facing both Thanksgiving and Christmas in my current project.

The best Thanksgiving I ever did was in a book I haven't finished yet.  It's really good but it's not snowing.  It doesn't usually snow in Connecticut until Dec. but it was cold and it wound up raining.  This is the companion book, not so much sequel, to Not Low Maintenance.  It was more specific.  I think that's better.  And a terrific woman is going to let me use one of her marvelous food photographs for the cover, so I suppose I should finish that book Real Soon Now.  Like around Christmas when the book ends.   

Well Boo!

To quote a chapter heading from Sweeps which is now for the time being called Love After Lunch (thanks J!)

Last day of the month. 

I was talking to someone about ebooks and they were stuck on the old model of once something's published, it's that way forever.  Most of my ebooks have undergone some kind of change after publication whether it's the cover or the title.  Why is this?  Because no one of are really sure how digital publishing works.  We don't know what sells and why.  Because we can change any or all the elements, we do.

I know I will be challenged on both of the what and why and I will even help do it.  For the most part the simpler the idea, the easier the sell.  The hotter the idea, the better it will sell.  No one buys a Joe Konrath book and wonders what it'll be about.  It's a known quantity already.  No one buy a vampire book and wonders what it's about.  The only question is what's going to happen.  Like an action movie.

A cover--let me interrupt myself here.  You can learn a lot about digital books by reading books on writing screenplays.  One of the cardinal rules of writing a movie is that the initial image tells you what the movie will be about.  This rule was never done better (that I've seen) than the movie The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner.  The opening scene is Costner standing over  the person he's protecting and there's a firefight in progress.  So that's great, we know he's a bodyguard, there's lots of violence and potential for death.  For me, I didn't have to see any more of the movie than that.  Didn't that just tell us everything?  Of course what it doesn't tell us is that the best part of the movie is Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You or whatever it's called (written by Dolly Parton, btw).

So in digital publishing we want to have a cover that's much like that first scene in a movie (as opposed to any artsy 20th century type covers which may be quite complicated visually).  We want it to be so bold and simple that it can be read like a billboard going past your car at 60 mph because it's a thumbnail.  Potential book buyers are scrolling through an almost endless list of books and they are all introduced to the public as a tiny little thumbnail and title.  Is this combination so compelling the buyer will stop to click?

Some people think they know.

Some people are so lucky.

Crime and Television

OJ Simpson was the first time, that I can remember, television viewers being treated to a soap opera like blow by blow account of a crime.  And then of course the circus/trial.

Since then it's become an industry and a madhouse full of violent criminals and kooky television pundits.  I admit to tuning in Nancy Grace now and then to see what's the latest story.  We went from Lacey Peterson to Stacey Peterson and an uncountable number of little girls who disappear and Nancy insists it's disappear when I think most sensible people know they've been killed.

We're still hanging on the Caylee Anthony story.  Haleigh Cummings hasn't been found.  I forget (sorry) the little Florida girl who was lured into the drug addicts' trailer and was murdered.  Florida seems a hotbed of such stories, altho no region of the country hasn't had the media descend on it.

The worst for me is the recent one in North Carolina, Zarah Baker.  This little 10 year old had osteosarcoma, had her leg amputated, went deaf and still seemed to smile, even though her stepmother abused her for not walking more gracefully on her prosthetic leg.

I'm not suggesting that such things never happened 50 or 100 years ago, but people do seem more unmoored than ever before.  Violence and abuse is validated.  It's everywhere.  It's approved. 

Someone gave me a book to read over the last week.  It was not violent, it was supposed to be funny but it tripped my perimeter defenses and I told the author I wasn't capable of giving it a fair reading because of some of the elements in the story.

Sometimes you just have to say no.

 

Giant Pumpkins

I don't understand the competitions to grow the largest anything.  The pumpkins are especially unnerving because they look like Adam Arkin playing that whale guy in the Mr Monk episode, a guy so huge, he can't get out of bed.
There are also competitions to grow the largest tomato.  I don't understand.  I already have trouble finishing a normal size tomato.  I don't grow large tomatoes for that reason.  If you can't put a tomato in the fridge to save it until later because the cold reduces the flavor quality, then I have to give it to the dogs.  Who are totally good with this, but still the point is I'm not finishing it.

This has nothing to do with writing.  Or does it?

Quality or quantity.  Life can be seen in a myriad of ways.  Will you grow a tomato so that it reaches 6 pounds and is aesthetically ugly or will you be pleased with a beautiful smaller tomato, which because of the size, all the goodness and taste is compressed?

It's all a contest and ultimately we are the only judges of ourselves while we're alive.  Good luck if there's something beyond this!  (I should throw in some commas because everyone has been accusing me--rightfully so-- of not using, enough, commas, in, my, writing.)

a Beauty King I grew from seeds from Brad Gates, Napa, California

Nothing Serious

Disconnected/Paige, Turning/Nothing Serious.

There's something about this book people are not getting.  It's a very cute story.  It was with a publisher before I asked for it back.  I'm not sorry I didn't let them go forward with it and I still think, eventually, it will find an audience.  I like the cover image.  So did an editor I sent it to.  I'm not sure how much difference a cover makes.  If it's attractive, shouldn't that work?  I don't have the answer.  Would I be better off with a naked male torso like someone assured me?

That brings up the question/problem I have.  Should a cover have ANYTHING to do with the book?  Yeah maybe naked men sell books but if there are no semi-nude men in the book, isn't that a misrepresentation?  I took the sex scene out for the publisher and I didn't bother to put it back.  It wasn't all hot and steamy anyway.  I'm rather embarrassed by these invasions of privacy.  (Which is why I'm not racing to deal with Fling.)

Audience

I've been having an exchange over the last few days with an ebook writer who is doing massively better than I am.  This person writes commercial fiction and I think if you can do that it's very easy to find an audience.

I've never really done commercial fiction.  Whatever I've done is more on the quirky side.  Not in a good Bohemian type way that's all edgy and easily identifiable as being predictably quirky.  It's more along the lines of "Sheesh!  Was it this?  Is it action, romance, comedy, tragedy WHAT?"  No, it's just life reflected on your screen.

My great hope for ebooks was and is that people who are out of the mainstream can find a group of like-minded weirdos here in the virtual world. 

I renamed Sweeps and created a new cover.  I only put this version on B&N.  And yesterday the 1st copy sold at Amazon.  So as a test marketing adventure, I draw no conclusions.

Threshold Level

Just before I got my first job in television I was working closely with the team at Procter & Gamble (Hi, John, wherever you are!).  Since I had absolutely no previous experience in television writing my big concern was that I was at the same level as working writers whose material was airing.  To get confirmation of that was a big deal.  I felt I had achieved something significant.

Fast forward to nowish.  Over the weekend I emailed 2 chapters and the cover of Bad Apple to an agent who treated me with professional courtesy and who exhibited an excellent disposition.  She was in the editorial side of Big 6 publishing for many years until she retired and decided to do a little agenting on the side.  I suspect she was rapidly overwhelmed by people who want representation and she cut back to nonfiction only.  I would have loved to be represented by her because she was such a nice lady and has a ton of experience but it wasn't to be.  The reason I sent her the material was to thank her because something she had said about Sweet Cider was what pushed me into the clarity of Bad Apple. I appreciate that she took the time to say anything at all and wanted to let her know that tidbit was nurtured and bloomed.

Her reply reminded me of being on the brink of television work.  Was I threshold level then.  Now the question becomes can an independent author working completely on their own without paying for cover art reach a level equal to traditional publishing.

Here's the quote

"Amazing cover--it's definitely the creepiest apple I've ever seen!"

Things to feel good about.

Being Out There

We all want to think of ourselves as different and we are.  Some of us are just more different, we are out of the mainstream, there is something about us that sets us apart and keeps us there.

Lest you think I am speaking of myself, let me tell you about an actor I met at one of the soaps I worked on.  He was then and continues to be so handsome.  He is so almost beautiful in real life, that I could hardly speak coherently to him.  (Isn't that embarrassing!)  This man is so talented, has so much depth, so much in reserve to draw upon, he isn't interested in working all that much.  He already knows the truth about this business and intellectually it's a bore.  Whenever he decides he wants to work, someone will hire him between the first and second breath.  He's not like anyone else.  You know that standing next to him.  You know he is going places in his head, you couldn't follow with GPS on a fast motorcycle.  I wonder what he does during the day. 

I wonder if digital publishing will enable niche writers to find their niche readers or are we just going to have more vampire stories.  Having learned the lesson of homogenizing everything at the feet of big entertainment, will anyone be experimental or will we just wind up with exactly more of the same?

Specificity

I've been writing quite a long time now and time and distance have given me the opportunity to look back--

T. S. Eliot -
- We shall not cease from our exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

I'm not going to be arriving where I started anytime soon but I sure can know that place better than when I was there.

I wrote very fast.  Which did me in good stead in television, where you wouldn't be at all if you couldn't write really really fast.  The problem with writing fast is that most people don't think that fast.  I don't think I think fast at all. 

Some people, and I've written with them so I see how they do it, can write mechanically.  They say "Vicki becomes Niki and then Mitch Laurence shows up and we have them..."  And they'll mechanically move the pieces around until they have story.  I do very poorly at that.  I need things to come to me and often it's not on schedule.  Things come to you when they come to you, unbidden, a surprise.  Not good for television.

The real problem with speed is that like a speed skater, you're flying over the ice 1/16th of an inch deep.  There's no time to reflect.  You neglect the texture, the implications, the coloration, and the specificity in order to be done.

This works for an awful lot of writers, and many readers don't mind.  These days, people don't miss complications.  You don't have it in television or film.  You don't have it in music.  Why should it be in books.
I had to explain a shallow little love story to someone involved in the project.  She couldn't imbue the dialog with the meaning that was on the page.  (I wasn't specific enough!)

So my advice of the day is to take the time to be specific with your characters, make them complicated, make them detailed, make it possible to understand them. 

B&N--This Joint Is Jumping

First off, if anyone is visiting here from Ukraine, a big hello.

B&N is the place to be, and their royalties are better as well.  The drawback is there are no humans answering questions, all you get are cheery robo-replies to any question.  For instance, Not Low Maintenance went to B&N via Smashwords.  Smashwords only allows a 400 character description.  I unpublished from Smash and uploaded NLM to B&N myself complete with the same description from Kindle.  No change.  So I wrote Support to ask what could be done.  I got a welcome letter that had nothing to do with the issue.  I guess the lesson to be learned is don't try to change anything, get it right the first time.

"I heard Barnes is great but Noble is a real prick."--Billy Crystal in Analyze This.
Very good line even if completely untrue!

Here's the incomparable Fats Waller

Mr & Miss Mitnick Live

At B&N, it'll take a couple more days for Amazon.

Publishing in all its forms has become a scrying ball.  You look and see not what the future is but perhaps your past and the way you wish the future would be.

It's like anything, the personal experiences may be wonderful or they may be painful.  The fact is that digital books are gaining a foot-hold.  For every lament from a publisher of how terrible the situation is and how badly they're being treated by writers, there are 1000 laments from writers who have been abused in this business.


It's hard to feel sorry for those with the whiphand.

PubIt is Really Live

I'm still working on the Mitnicks, I thought it would be done yesterday but I got overly involved with illustrations.

I uploaded the first books to B&N on the 6th.  I've already sold more there than I have at Smashwords for the last 6 months so that convinces me to forget about that venue for a good long time..  Very impressed with Nook readers and their perspicacity even if the cover images aren't visible. 

Fond of Fonts

I had a book designer look at one of my covers who thought it was fine except for the font.  The takeaway for those of us trying to get by with what's free and what we have, is to keep it simple.

I spent several hours looking for an Arts & Crafts style font and didn't turn up with anything I thought would work on a cover.  The one I thought would work carried a price tag.

The Art & Crafts movement  started in England with people like William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the 1800's, not stuff from China you buy at the hobby shop.  When it came to America, designers like Gustav Stickley, Elbert Hubbard and a whole host of others created a Craftsman style inspired by the California missions.  Hence Mission Oak furniture.  Square, simple and desperately uncomfortable.

That's what I wanted for my mystery set on the Central Coast of California with a mission in the center of the valley.  Couldn't find anything useful so went to a Celtic font which is close enough.

The question is--do you attempt to find a font that is somehow linked to the book or do you just go for an unadorned font that will convey only the title and stylistically recede into the background.  I don't know the answer this morning.

PubIt Is Live At B&N

I signed up to be notified months ago but learned today it's live now.  So if you have only been at Amazon, you might was to stroll over.  They don't require an ISBN (yet, I'm sure at some point everyone will) and it's an easy to navigate form.

Because of the formatting issues with Smashwords, I haven't used them for the last few books.  There was a ton of information in the PubIt FAQ and I can only say it seemed that kindle style formatting would be acceptable at B&N.  There's a similar preview and the document looked as good as I could expect.

If we listen to Joe Konrath (and we should) the sales away from Amazon are a fraction for him, which is another reason why I haven't been bothering with Smashwords.  I don't want another afternoon spoiled by phone calls to my computer smart friend and struggling with obscure Unix commands trying to get the formatting right.  It's not always easy to understand what the problem Word is having.  Sometimes it's just easier to solve it in Open Office.  Googling doesn't always give you a good answer.

Get your books to the reading public.

Root Vegetables

I don't have anything clever to say about publishing.  This is my quick advice:  Be professional.  Realize it's not about you personally until you make it personal.   Realize there is something bigger going on always.  Be grateful.

Root vegetables are good this time of year.  Unless you live in Australia.

Swept Away On A Sea Of Soap

I've been working on this all week, mostly trying to perform certain Photoshop tasks (see how I'm not complaining anymore).  I had most of the pieces for a couple months knowing this book would finally rise to the top of the queue so it was just a matter of fitting everything together and getting the colors to be beshert.

I got the rights to the Wish You Were Here Series from Penguin yesterday but I don't know if I'll have the time or inclination to format them for Kindle.

I think I probably broke most of my own rules for this cover.  What say you?

Freebie Weekend

To celebrate Bad Apple going live, anyone who would like a nice freshly baked PDF of the novel, just send up a flare, or comment, flag me somehow.

I will try to remember to check back here before Monday but I'm working on Sweeps, so don't be alarmed if I don't notice you're trying to contact me.

And to all the traffic suddenly coming here looking for images, hi.

Day of Mourning, Or Not

Today, unexpectedly, I got an email from the production editor of the novel being published next year.  Just a couple final questions 8 weeks after I turned in the corrected galleys.  After much upset and gnashing of teeth, I realized this is probably the last book I will ever tradpub.  It's a significant day.  It's the end of a lifelong journey.   I certainly can't imagine submitting anything on my own in the future.  Why do that when there's literally years lag time?

Later today (I thought it would be already), I put Bad Apple on Kindle.  Then I do Sweeps, I guess, if I can figure a cover.  Months ago I said I had enough work facing me that I wouldn't be free until the spring of  '11.  It might even be into the summer, if I'm ever "free" in the same way again.

I don't have anything smart to say, any good advice to offer except don't view my experience as somehow being out of the ordinary.  As much as I like to think of myself as extra-ordinary, in this, I'm not.  The only thing that might set me apart is I'm very willing to give up tradpub while other writers seem to be reluctant. 

La Roue de  la Fortune

The question is raised.  In life, when is the right time to leave?  When do you know for certain things aren't going to get any better?  Are you better off leaving just a little bit early rather than a little too late?  History abounds with examples where people gambled wrongly and lost.

What I'm Listening To

While I finish up kindling Bad Apple, I'll share with you what I'm listening to.
And for those of you at Amazon, here's the link in case you can't stand not knowing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw2Ic_2XdVQ&playnext=1&videos=aiEGCuhT3js&feature=artistob

Agents Redux

I started out in books.  Then I got into television.  Then I went back to books.

After television, agents would read my work and say it sounded "soapy".  Initially, I think that was true.  I picked up some bad habits.  But I watched myself very carefully and rid myself of the tics.  The complaints remained.
Then I took a chance and removed my television credits from my resume.  Then no one ever complained I wrote "soapy".  When I put it back, I was "soapy" again.  So for many years I left off a substantial and impressive chunk of my resume.  I was one of the youngest headwriters of a network daytime serial ever.  I didn't dare say that because it would be held against me.  How crazy is that?

The exact same thing happened with my novels.  If my YA credits were on my resume, then my adult books sounded like kid's books.  If I deleted those credits--you got it, no complaints.

I'll give you another problem I faced.  If I used all my credits from the beginning of my career, my writing was dated, I wasn't "with it".  Hint: I was too old to be viable.  If I removed the early books, then I was plenty hip.

Not only am I thrilled with the opportunity to do ebooks on my own, I derive satisfaction from watching tradpub struggling.  One reason it's struggling is that I am only one of many authors who were treated dismissively over the years and we're gone.  Apparently other writers are just as ticked off as I am.  All you have to do is read Joe Konrath's blog for confirmation of that.

So now you don't know how old I am or where I've been or what I've done.  Unless you are clever enough to come here on a regular basis.  In a digital world all the matters is the document in front of you in the Kindle Store.

I like it!

Adding Content

I was going to include a gallery of farm photos in Bad Apple but I changed my mind and made a collage instead.
I enjoy being a girl having a mind to change.  (I also quite enjoy men.  I don't think anyone says that enough.)

Speaking of enjoying men.  Nice segue.  I'm skimming thru Gillian Roberts' The Mummer's Murder or whatever the title is.  There are seemingly endless conversations between the girl detective, Amanda Pepper, and everyone else in Philadelphia.  I think I write better dialog than I do prose, so I'm comfortable with yammering but this is way too much.  I can't even follow it.  But that's not my problem with this book.  I don't like how petty she is with her boyfriend who seems perfectly lovely.  Does this pass as a modern relationship when the woman practically takes a cudgel to the love of her life and does nothing but bitch and moan at him for the slightest little problem of hers?  Be grateful you have someone in your life, Mandy.  But no.  The ungrateful little wench never shuts up.  Sorry, I don't like it, I don't believe it and it's against my religion.   But I don't live in Metropolis so I'm not au courant with the sophisticates.

Next time someone complains about men,  remember who ran into the World Trade Centers as they were burning and crumbling to save people without a thought to their own safety.  Men.  That's what they do best--protect the rest of us.  If that's not honorable and praiseworthy, I really don't know what is.

Agents

I have a very ambivalent relationship with agents.  You may have noticed that.
When I started in the business, agents weren't a necessity. But I eventually got one--Carol Mann.  I might as well start naming names.  Nothing was going on in my career particularly, I was doing books for Atheneum.  And I don't even know why we stopped working together although I imagine it was the desire to move into television.

I've had far too many agents.  I wanted it to be like the old days when you got an agent and stayed with them for 30 years.  Of course I think it was Bob Shanks who said agents are best changed every two years, and I suppose that's how it went for me.

Over the years, many agents (not all, not my current agent) have taken on an elitist attitude and given the circumstances it's understandable.  Publishers have made them an integral part of the equation.  Publishers need agents to keep substandard writers away from them otherwise they would be inundated with stupid manuscripts to read.  Agents are also inundated by stupid manuscripts as well as good ones (which they fail to detect on a regular basis), so they've become pressured and rude.  They are psychologically unsuited for the exigencies  of this reality.  Agents who once were helping writers, now see themselves as helping publishers.  They're facilitating the publishing of units (otherwise known as books).

I was somewhere yesterday, some blog, where an agent was frankly stupid enough to complain about writers and that person was lambasted enthusiastically.  I joined in as well, something I don't often do.  It has to take a debilitating sense of elitism and entitlement to insult writers at this point in history when we're running from tradpub to the digital format with great enthusiasm and relief.

I think the question becomes what can a publisher do for me that I can't do for myself.  I actually am hard-pressed to come up with reasons beyond some money up front.   Luckily for agents and publishers, all writers haven't gotten to this point yet.

When I Use a Word

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Through the Looking Glass.

I had an experience yesterday that taught me that even if I choose words with immense care it doesn't matter to the reader.  The words mean only what they mean to the reader, not what they mean to me.

What are the implications of this?  I think, as of this morning, it means that words have ceased having the precise meaning they once had.  Words have become some kind of signpost pointing the way to the reader's personal experience, not necessarily anything the writer is trying to convey.

It's funny/odd/coincidental to now be saying this after Bad Apple has been completed because there's a scene (which I know the meaning of but now I suppose no one else will) in which one character says based on his choice of words "You're not listening to me".  

Instead of the reader identifying with the characters, they now personalize the story.  It's not about the story/written word/book, it's about how the reader identifies with their own experiences. 

This is not good.

Gluyas Williams

Flattened Affect

It seems to me that in literary novels there's almost no emotion.  In psychological terms that's called flattened affect.  People don't seem to react.  At all. 

Throughout the media people don't seem, to me, to react appropriately to situations calling for heightened emotion. That's not to say we don't see people becoming emotional, hyperemotional really, on television all the time, but that's not an appropriate reaction.

If we want to focus on soap operas which I have some experience with, the earwigs will tell the writers to have all four burners turned up to high all the time.  So you get the chewing the scenery kinds of emotions.  They're not accurate or specific.  I don't know what kind of emotions there are in the Twilight movies.  They all look like they're under heavy medication.

Is there some middle ground ie reality?  Do we live in a society where genuine emotions are becoming rare?

Added Content

I went out yesterday on a mini photoshoot looking for images for the Bad Apple book.  Not the cover, that's done, but for a gallery at the end.

My suspicion is that no one particularly cares now about added content but next year it will be becoming an expected part of every digital book.  It will be like a movie dvd, where people expect behind the scenes interviews, special effects secrets, and previews of coming attractions.

Some books will be crammed to the margins with video interviews of the author, perhaps music, maybe even games.  If tradpub can ever figure this out, they will be way ahead of authopreneurs in this arena because they have the money to invest.  Yet again, though, the whole reason there's a mass defection in paper publishing, is that people like Stephen King will be given the glory treatment and the average midlist author will get nothing.

No one should be surprised if authors say "What's in this for me?" to their agents and publishers.  "What are you giving me?"

It will be progressively more difficult to convince an author that having their book on store shelves for 6 weeks before it's pulped, is better than having it available digitally until the end of time.  Or to add in the financial equation, why turn over your digital rights in perpetuity, reaping the smaller percentage of the royalty pie while the publisher does nothing ever after except to give the author the pleasure of their company.  Briefly.  Very briefly.

Roof Over Our Heads

Interesting Revelation Today

For writers who had never been published on paper, I suspect if they feel that's the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and are not completely confident in their writing, they will make any changes suggested by an agent or publisher.

For writers who have been through the tradpub mill and are confident in their writing, is there any reason to accept changes suggested by someone else?

When I was in television, you often find yourself in story meetings.  Seated around a big table, you're surrounded by your fellow writers, the producer of the show, a couple people from the network and possibly some representatives of the advertising company.  There are only a few people who know what they're talking about, the rest are talking through their hats.  But they have the clout.  They can make life difficult for you, they can make you go away.

If some of these people simply accept the good ideas put forth, they don't feel like they've earned their keep.  So they make suggestions.  They're not storytellers, they're not writers, they actually know nothing about the process but they want to be a valuable member of the team.  They need to be or they can be made to go away.

You get input which often makes little sense but your job is to make it make sense.  Except for the money thing, I'm glad I'm out of television.

So this is how I feel about "editors" right now.  I don't think they know as much as I do about the story I've told but they're going to try to inject themselves into my process often without even speaking with me. 

I told my friend today he had no idea what it was like to take the responsibility for someone's crappy ideas.  Whether it's a TV show or a book, someone puts their stamp on it, and you take the fall down the line.  I'm willing to take my own fall.  Okay, I make a mistake, something didn't work, I didn't make it clear enough, you hate my view of the world, you think my morality stinks, all that's fine.  I just don't want to take the rap for someone else.

If I have to prove I'm a good enough writer to be represented or published or aired, how about they prove they're good enough to work with me?

Either Kasachstan Rubin or Moreton Hybrid

He Was a Bad Bad Boy

And the first draft of Bad Apple is done.

It would have been a more pleasant experience if while I was writing about death, I didn't have to go through one, too.  But I suppose death is always with us.  For some people death doesn't function as a life-check, where you review and test all your beliefs and hope you come out on the other end relatively the same as you went in.

Otherwise someone will probably say to you "You really are a crazy chick."

Freebie Friday

For the next 24 hours, anyone who posts a comment, that includes asking nicely, or sends up a flare somehow  to get my attention can have a PDF copy of Paige, Turning.  If I wasn't working on the Bad Apple thing, I could take the time to build a page on my website and offer it there, but I'm sorry, even as good as Expression Web is, my html skills are pathetic.  Ditto with offering a coupon at Smashwords, and you know how every time I go to Smashwords I wind up with a long post about it.  I don't have the time from now until the book is finished.

Albert Robida

Ten Thousand Words

More or less, I'm guessing until the end of Bad Apple.  But I make no guesses how many days that is.

On the topic of movies I love to pieces, I would like to mention a movie I had never heard of until about 2 years ago.  Star of Midnight was released in 1935.  I have no idea when it was made.  It looks like 1933 to me.  The sets, the clothing, the film stock just doesn't look later than '33 but I can't find much background information about it.  It was made from a novel of the time which when I looked on abebooks was priced at about $40.  I did not buy it.  I'm sure it's not good enough to warrant that price tag.

We all know I think William Powell is terrific, could be the best actor in his genre ever.  He plays an attorney, Clay Dalzell.  Ginger Rogers (also a giveaway to the date of this film because she  looks quite young and fresh) plays an heiress, Donna Mantin.  The machinery of the story is that some singer in Chicago suddenly disappears, leaving her fiance in the lurch.  A year later he shows up on Clay's doorstep missing his Alice.  Smack us upside the head, Alice is now on Broadway, incognito as the star of a play titled Midnight.  And there are a couple murders.  So that part is really death.

What makes this a wonderful movie is the interplay between Donna and Clay, called Dal throughout the film.  Their backstory is that he's substantially older than she is.  When Donna was 11 she ran away from home, arrived at his apartment with the announcement that she was going to marry him.  Now we're at least 10 years later and Donna hasn't changed her mind.  Dal is a playboy and obviously has no intention of settling down.  Donna is the beautiful gal about town yet she can't help herself.

Dal:  Did you tell the gossip columnist that we were engaged?
Donna:  Certainly.

They are too terrific together.  Two masterful actors with good lines can make magic and they do.  The rest is passingly entertaining.

Ralph Morgan (the Wizard of Oz's brother in real life) plays the villain as always.  J. Farrell MacDonald does a fine turn as the lead detective.  You won't understand why the butler looks so suspicious all the time, no one ever has.  The point of this movie is the love story.

IIRC, the NYT review at the time said it was a knockoff of the early Thin Man movie.  No no no.  This is far superior to the Thin Mans if you care about the relationship between the lead characters.  There is, for me maybe you don't agree, no heat or passion between Nick and Nora Charles.  I understand that's heresy.  The URST--unresolved sexual tension--between Donna and Dal is sky high. By the time the lights are turned off, you're shouting "What do you mean we can't go in the bedroom with them?!"

At Work

I'm working on Bad Apple, so I didn't go for groceries and I won't do much of a post.  But we've been talking about vampires on and off for a while and I saw an article that  goes into the topic from a scientific perspective 411 on Vampires.  I think my milkshake question is answered by this

"though laypeople might assume that a body would decompose immediately, if the coffin is well sealed and buried in winter, putrefaction might be delayed by weeks or months; intestinal decomposition creates bloating which can force blood up into the mouth, making it look like a dead body has recently sucked blood. These processes are well understood by modern doctors and morticians, but in Medieval Europe were taken as unmistakable signs that vampires were real and existed among them."

Sexy!

A Lesson in Rewriting

I read a manuscript a couple months ago that I liked a lot.  It had so much to recommend it and was just overflowing with vibrant images and intelligence.

I'm always reluctant to say much when someone turns their baby over to me.  What do they really want?  Do they want gushing enthusiasm or do they want a realistic assessment?.  After I had worked in television, we moved to California so I could attempt to get into the business there.  My landlord had written a novel.  It was amateurish and I tried to back away.  He pressed me for an analysis.  I gave him a choice--I could treat him like a hobbyist or I could treat him like a professional.  Boy, did he make the wrong choice.  He wanted me to treat him like a professional, so I did.  By the end of the month we were being asked to move.  Oops.

So after reading this manuscript, I treated the writer as an artist who should make her own choices but pointed to some things in general she could do.

Today she sent the revision back to me.  It was sure nothing I've ever done in all the years I've been writing. Wait, there may be one time but I can't remember it, oh, it's the Bad Apple book with a reservation.  She reimagined the book.  I don't think she saved one paragraph.

No, I've never rewritten a complete book, dumped it, rethought it and then rewrote it from scratch.  Bad Apple went through years of turning the idea around, with various perspectives, various main characters, but I had only written 50 pages when I went in another direction.

I am so impressed at what this woman did and how well she did it. 

The lesson to be learned is don't quit when you've gone the extra mile, keep going until you get it right.

The Royal Life Is So Tough

Since my satellite dish is out, I have to rely on my stash of dvds until things are put right.  One of my favorite movies is The Gay Deception with Francis Lederer and Frances Dee.  This was when gay meant happy, way back in the 1930's.

What a terrific movie this is with a fine script, direction by William Wyler, 3 time Oscar winner (Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives and Mrs. Miniver) and spot-on acting from everyone.

Francis Lederer, a wonderful actor from Europe who never managed to catch on here but should have been a huge star, plays a bellboy but is actually Prince Allesandro of Allesandria.  Frances Dee ( dishy Joel McCrea's wife of 57 years) plays a mousy secretary with big dreams who takes a $5000 windfall to NYC to have a month of living like the elites she has longed to emulate.

The movie is perfection.  There is nothing I don't like about it.  Lionel Stander and Akim Tamiroff do a brief masterful turn as two Allesandrian con-men. 

But as I was watching it for perhaps the 25th time, I began to think about all the movies where royals  need a break from the strenuous life as a royal and decide to mingle with the peasants.  This was Wyler's first outing at this theme as he later did Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.

We seem to be preoccupied with royals in a way.  In real life, I think Americans have little or no regard for royals except as curiosities.  Of course we loved Diana.  But in America, where the foundation of our beliefs is "All men are created equal" the notion of elites lording it over the population is annoying.  What makes them special?  They don't conduct themselves well--Princess Zara has piercings and Prince Charles should quietly stay at home and quit lecturing the rest of us.  Duchess Fergie famously had her toes sucked in the tabloids and even Princess Diana had more affairs than one can count on two hands and 10 toes.

It would be hard to believe either Charles or his squeeze, Camilla, have had enough of being royals and want only to go down to the pub for a pint.  No, they want Bolly in the palace solarium.

This is an American conceit--that the average citizen has a life so wonderful (true) that the effete royals envy us (they would if they had that much brain power).  You don't see stories like this coming out of Europe where they have had 1000 years of royalty and all that implies.

I'm sure you can come up with other movies that fit into this theme.  About two weeks ago I caught parts of the exceedingly dreary The Prince And Me.  That should kill off the genre for good but it won't.  Some other hapless screenwriter will try to put a new and more modern spin on it, but it will be hard to beat The Gay Deception, which is a work of art.

Francis Lederer

The Truth About Writing

A truth anyway.  The minute you say something that sounds definitive, people get all upset.

Some years ago I was in my agent's office and, I may be remembering this wrongly, but she sort of slumped and said "People just read for entertainment!"  She was trying to encourage me to do/say less in my work.

In an attempt to follow her advice, the novel I have coming out next year is my first published effort at writing a book with no content.  My pal read the book and said the airplanes were more main characters than the humans.  I think that's pretty much of a compliment actually as I love airplanes.

Bridget Jones and all the chicklit books that followed on her spike heels is the pinnacle of having absolutely nothing to say and yet revolutionized/created an entirely new genre of literature.  This chicklit thing that's now pretty much dead,  because people want to read about the real dead--vampires--and reading about Jimmy Choooos is not as sexy as being ravished by a hunky undead guy.

Has anyone ever explained why vampires need blood to "exist"?  Wouldn't milkshakes be just as good?

I read a post elsewhere about Tru Blood (based on the Sookie Stackhouse books) on one of the premium channels and since I wouldn't watch it even if I could sanction paying for all that junk, I was shocked at the goings on.  It sounded like pornography.  And women and gay men really like it.

So apparently this is what readers and viewers want.  Entertainment without content.  Unless vampires and chicklit actually has content I'm not aware of, in which case, please post a comment and explain it to me.

Cinematically, the German director, F.W. Murnau, showed the world the first really popular vampire in I think it was 1922 but I'll go check.  Yes, shot in 1921 and released in 1922.  That makes it in public domain for anyone who wants to find it on the net and download it.  It's a classic.  This isn't quite the Frank Langella sexy vampire you might be be conjuring up in your mind's eye.  Imagine being ravished by this fine fellow.  (What am I missing?!)

F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu

A Truth About Me

I can be a weak woman.

I just finished (aka skimmed) Ellen Crosby's lastest mystery the nearly unpronounceable  Viognier Vendetta.  Luckily, smartly, she takes pity on the audience, and tells us how it's pronounced otherwise, we're screwed.  It put me in a bad mood because I'm not really interested in stupid people and her main character and the former love interest are achieving new levels of emotional stupidity.  I'm really not interested in how bad life can be, I'm more interested in how to make it all work.  I think that's the Jewish thing to do, at least it's the Chassidic thing to do.  And since we're in the holiday/holy season, it's a good time to remember the teachings.

After her last book I wondered if I'd read the 4th but Ellen Crosby is, compared to what's being published in the mystery genre, a really good writer.  She's a professional.  So I thought, no, I'm not spending any money on it, but I'll get it through interlibrary loan.  Good thing, too.  Right choice.

Any comments I'd have about this book are more about me so would be worthless to you.  But in a theoretical sense--why do we write?  Do we write for ourselves, which would be some kind of therapy?  Do we write for others?  Why would we do that?  Do we seek to entertain?  Are we pontificating?  Are we so clever we know more about life than the readers?  Is our work the way in which we serve?  If so, does that make us responsible to our readers and in what way would that be?

Rebbe Schneerson taught that you never know when your one good act will be the one that changes the world, so you must strive to do good every day.  Light even a small light against the dark.  Let that be your contribution.

So here's my problem with Ellen Crosby's characters and I'm just using them as examples but I could pick up 10 books and would be able to say the same about 9 of them.  I don't think the reader is left with anything positive to see characters flailing around in their self-inflicted emotional morasses. People learn by seeing.  Seeing characters wound themselves and others doesn't teach us how to live our lives more effectively.

I can hear you shouting from here.  "This is real life."  No, it's not.  It's fiction.  Ellen Crosby made a choice to have her characters hurt each other.  I know people really like this kind of thing.  It seems real and edgy and reflects their own lives.  I don't know why they like it.  Maybe someone will post a comment and explain it to me.

It doesn't reflect my life, or my beliefs or my work.  Life doesn't have to be like that.  Real life, not fictional life.  I used to be such an existentialist.  I thought life was a wasteland.  I thought the best movie ever was The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.  I thought Terrence Mallick was a demi-god among directors.  I thought Horton Foote understood the universe in some kind of clever and magnificent, bleak, barren way.

Then I grew up.

Why am I a weak woman?  Because I will probably read Ellen Crosby's 5th book, too.

Bad Writing, and What In G d's Name Can We Do About It

I gotta stay away from Smashwords.  That's the lesson of the morning.

I wish I could copy and paste the first sentence of a story that's just been published there.  It's 63 words long.  I can safely assure you I have never written a sentence 63 words long.  I don't even want to deal with how bad the length alone is.  I'll attempt to explain the story's situation--thankfully only 1 page of this 3 page masterpiece is available for preview.  A 15 year old is asleep in her bed dreaming of her boyfriend who inflames curious sensations deep within her body (how deep, one wonders) and wakes to find she's sorta being raped.  Her breath is frozen in her lungs, she's unable to cry out but then fortuitously remembers there's a huge 160 lb. dog in the room which she then commands to attack her rapist (the dog has inexplicably slept through the rape).  Then apparently her gay father and his boytoy bust into the room and swoop up the now 12 year old girl into their protective arms while the rapist bleeds out from his torn carotid artery.  Poor dog, what a trauma for her.  Gabrielle (Guilietta?  Raphaela?)   Just try to get all those syllables out when you're being crushed by the odorific body, reeking breathed rapist who's got your mouth covered with his.

I taught writing for a while.  Some people want to learn and others are just so pleased with themselves, there's too much ego-static to penetrate in order to convince them what they're doing stinks on ice.  I also edited scripts when I worked in television so I've seen my share of really dreky writing. 

I'm not a therapist and a lot of bad writing results from psychology problems.  Narcissism will do that to you.  Lack of knowledge of the basics of the English language can be another cause.

So what do we do about it? 

1) Don't bother trying to edit it.  Einstein couldn't figure it out.
2) Don't bother trying to help the writer see the error of his ways.
3) Don't bother trying to read it, it's a waste of time and will only annoy you.

Shanah Tovah (Happy New Year) to everyone who winds up here this week.

Let's Talk About Covers

I just went to Smashwords to check on NLM which has been pending for 2 weeks (now they have a problem with the way the copyright was phrased) and I unfortunately looked at the recently published books.

First rule--if you're not a pretty good artist, don't attempt drawing the cover illustration yourself. 

I don't know what more to say about it.  There's nothing that screams amateur more.  If you can't find or afford an artist to work with, find a photo or vector art.

There are a number of stock photo sites where you can purchase the rights for a very minimal amount of money--and I mean under $20.  Isn't it worth $20 or $12 to have decent art for the cover?

Free, in public domain images-- Public-domain-photos 
5 images for $50--Shutterstock 
Even less expensive than shutterstock-- Fotolia

Go to Flickr and look around.  If you see something you like, approach the photographer and make an offer.

Deviantart is a terrific site not only to get ideas (plus lots of free brushes, gradients, backgrounds and hints for photoshop) but to see what people are doing.  Most of it is pretty darn good, some of it not so much.  Go there and look around.  If you see something, the artist or photographer may be perfectly willing to let you use it for a credit or a small fee.

You are not doing yourself and the community of authopreneurs any favors by being unprofessional.

I understand how great it is to think you're going to be published but once you finish the writing of the book, you have to switch hats.  You must be dispassionate, even cruel, to your work, because if you don't cross the threshold into professionalism, other people can and will be very cruel in the assessment of your efforts.  You invested a huge amount of time, effort and emotion in your book.  Don't put it up for derision because you didn't take time to spell check or get a sharp, eye-catching cover.

One Bad Apple

I was going to call the story One Lost Soul.  The man who murdered my acquaintance said that in his confession.
He referred to both himself and his victim as lost souls.  Or he was the victim or the perpetrator was the victim.  It was incredibly messy.  I probably was the only one who was trying to sort through the layers of emotion--that's not the province of the police, or his friends, or his sister.  Why was this murder committed?   It just was, isn't a very good answer.  Joe was sent to prison for 45 years for felony murder.  In the course of robbing the victim, Joe murdered him.  The end.  There was too much information in the house, in the possessions of the victim to not see the root of the murder was not in the minor theft of a television set and an older pickup truck and the victim simply got in the way.  There was more to it than that.  I do agree with you, Joe.  You were both lost souls.

I think this is the cover.

Labor Day Weekend

And, of course, I will be working on Sweet Cider.  I also have a bad apple to take a photo of.  I also need to make a white peach tort.  Busy busy busy.

A new twist to the book turned up this week.  I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier and I suppose the answer is that books are not like Venus on the Half-Shell.  They, for me, do not arrive fully formed.  They more or less fall together over time.  Like a good wine, an idea needs to age.

That's not to say I haven't written books in 3 weeks and they've gone on to do quite well.  I was there then, now I'm elsewhere.

I read somewhere in the last few days that 16% of the population is what drives Madison Ave. and the entertainment business.  It's a very narrow age range consisting primarily of late teens to somewhere in the 20s. This is a group who feels (as I did, yes I said it and I routinely drove twice the speed limit, got cars airborne and on 2 wheels, like this reckless driving is a recent invention) they know everything.  Well ya don't.  Time, if allowed, is a great bestower of wisdom.  You see how life works in the laboratory of your life.  You will be smarter later.  If you take time, step out of your echo chamber and expose yourself to real life, you will be smarter faster.

The result of all this is we get entertainment and products that appeals to a small segment  of the population, one not routinely praised for their gravity.  That's the audience for whom the poignant and thoughtful art film Hot Tub Time Machine was created.  This is not to offend anyone in that age group (like Jess) who is visiting here.  Obviously your fine and mature taste in blogs, demonstrates you are not of them.

Our House Is A Very Very Fine House

With 2 12 cats in the yard....

I'm not a cat person but the cats found me.  Many of them feral, Charm Boy and Mrs Awiggins are quite friendly.  I understand why Mrs finds Charm Boy well...charming, but since he's black as night, I know all the black kittens belong to him.  Her last litter of 4 produced 3 very friendly kittens and 1 who doesn't get that the evil human buys $40 of food a month to keep them alive. 

Mrs.

What Did They Know and When Did They Know It

Or what did they feel and when did they know it.

It's always good to check in on your characters.  What did they know about themselves and the situation in a particular scene.  Be able to expound on that in detail.  Sometimes it's difficult because we are treated to shallow emotions and responses in television and films all the time.  Life becomes a plot point for lazy writers or those who do not have much life-experience to draw upon.

Let's talk about the photo I took yesterday.  It's only cropped not Photoshopped.  The foreground is moderately interesting.  I like the blue and green, I like the movement of the water.  But your eye is drawn forcefully to the light rocks on the bank.  There the water is still.  Because there is a horizontal line moving across the image, your eye is quickly drawn to the right side of the photo into the darker foliage.

We need to see life in a deeper, more layered way.  It's there.  We're not.

Back to the Cider book.