PLOTTING--a tutorial (PLUS a big complaint about Cracker Jack)

I recently got a question from an aspiring author. She had a question many of us have when we are trying to complete a novel:

"I know the beginning, and I have some of it written; and I know the end of the book. It's the getting from here to there that I'm having trouble with."

She told me she knew her characters inside and out, she knew what they'd do in any given situation, and the story idea was compelling, but she was stuck!

How many times have we run up against this dilemma? We've got an idea of whose story we're telling and about their happy ending, but what happens to them along the way? What fills up the middle 2/3 of the book?

Great question!

And....I think I have an answer. Ta da~Here are my thoughts:

First off, we need to know what our character wants. If, like the author said, she knew that character inside and out, she would know what s/he wanted more than anything. The thing the main character wants more than anything IS the story. Desire drives every good story.

Second, we need to discover what stands between the main character and her/his desire or goal. Make a huge list. Make the list of possible obstacles exhaustive. Delve into the preposterous. Go for the obvious, and then go beyond. Ask yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen to my main character?" and then ratchet it up.

Once you have that list, whittle it down to (about) your top 10 favorite obstacles. Sometimes the more unexpected the better. Surprise the reader! We read to be surprised, and surprise delights us and keeps us turning pages.

Then, imagine that each one of these becomes a scene in that middle 2/3 of the book. Figure out all the ins and outs of what could happen to the character when that obstacle arises. Make things really tough on the character. Imagine what all the possible range of emotions would be for the character when the obstacle arises. That's the reaction. Then, get the character moving toward overcoming it. Show how the character obliterates the obstacle. This gives the readers a chance to cheer. Then, hit us with the next obstacle--and end the scene with a cliffhanger.

Line up the obstacles in a crescendo. Arrange and rearrange them until the obstacles are paced just right. Then plop them down. Write the scenes, flesh them out. In each scene, as the character encounters and overcomes each obstacle, the ideal is if that obstacle serves to "reveal character"--to give the readers a further glimpse into what that hero is like on the inside. So...when you're choosing obstacles from your exhaustive list of possibilities, try to make the obstacles different enough that they'll expose a different facet of the hero/ine's character.

The final obstacle should be the worst. It should propel the main character into the crisis and the final showdown that leads to the triumphant ending.

It's okay to have lighthearted things along the way, but conflict reveals character, and drives plot, which is character. Character is plot.

Right now I have three or four characters in my brain. They are barely on paper, just a page or two, and I'm trying to decide which one needs to have his/her story told next. I keep thinking of it this way: I know this character. This character has a story, and it HAS to be his story. With the traits he has, the story really only has one possible plot. This is HIS story.

I'm not sure that makes sense. Maybe not. But I know what I mean, and I think I know what will happen to millionaire gone bust Ivan Potts (this oddball character in my head who keeps bothering me) when he makes this life-changing decision to take his friend Nils Jacoby up on his offer to go to England and start over after his (latest) bankruptcy. Ivan's story needs to be told soon. What's his happy ending? I think I know--and of course it involves finding love--and now I have to discover out what stands between him and his happily ever after.

This process can be really fun--creative crack. Er, Cracker Jack. Rarely in the novel-writing process is there such a rush as when brainstorming the middle section. I crack myself up. My husband is good for a few insane ideas. In fact, one of my favorite obstacles to happiness for my main character Susannah Hapsburg in Delicious Conversation came from my husband: the legacy Galapagos tortoise once owned by Charles Darwin himself.

When considering what obstacles to throw at the story people, it helps to really know them. Take their character traits into consideration. What do they love, hate, fear? These emotions are huge clues for knowing what to throw into their paths.

So. That's long enough for now.

I'm boiling all of this down from several books I've studied, conferences I've been to, etc. I think most of it probably comes from James Scott Bell and James N. Frey, which I've mentioned umpteen times on this blog. So, check those out for a more comprehensive study of the topic.

Speaking of Cracker Jack... mmm. I love that stuff. I love the popcorn, totally love the caramely crispiness of it, how it crackles in my mouth and tastes kind of burned and yet heavenly. However, the truly magical part of Cracker Jack is....

NO! Not the prize inside. (They've gotten disappointingly cheap. A foldy face of Thomas Jefferson? Uh, maybe not very exciting as a "prize." Whatever happened to the mini magnifying glasses, or even a butterfly stick-on tattoo? Sigh. Things just aren't like the good old days of a mood ring.)

It's the peanuts. Mmm. The total immersion of each peanut half in the caramely crispiness of the coating. Now that's a thing for a heroine (me) to desire. Are we all the heroes of our own story? Me, I'm the heroine of my tale--that of a woman on a lifelong quest to eat as much candy as possible...what could possibly stand in my way?

An apology, Dickens, and how hubby slammed the Cadburys

First off, I must apologize for the mixed metaphor as title for my last blog post. I hope it bothers all my readers less than it bothers me. The truth is, I could go in and change it, but I choose to leave it there as a twisted form of "writer's punishment" for myself. Possibly as a motivator never to do it again. (Fodder and data-mining. One is food. One is mining. Honestly. I could have made an effort.)

So, I was reading (again) the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities the other day. I say "again" because I've read the beginning a LOT of times. I don't mean just the "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" part. I mean the first three chapters. Much as I love Dickens, (and I seriously do love Dickens and many of his contemporaries), this words on the pages of this book begin to swirl before my very eyes. I love the movie, I love the characters, it's magnificent. I just get stuck somewhere about halfway through.

I WILL conquer it, however. Someday.

In the meantime, I will continue to reflect on this little gem of writerly insight from the beginning. Dickens muses at the beginning of chapter three to this effect:

"A wonderful fact of nature to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

He goes on, and waxes eloquent in expounding on this theme. I love it. You can read it here. I have reflected on this idea dozens of times, and probably mentioned it to YOU (if you and I speak on any kind of regular basis because I'm like that, repeating myself everywhere I go). Even someone I think I know very well, like my husband, or my sister, or my bestest friend, still houses secrets I will never know. The thoughts, dark and light, will only come to my knowledge if the person allows me in.

It's a gift God gives us.

And, a friend commented Saturday, "Plus, do we really know ourselves?"

This struck me. And suddenly I realized something about fiction, and why we love it, why we crave it, why we almost need it: fiction allows us a window into another person's soul.

The writer slits open the character and gives us a view of deep feelings, of motives, of fears, of doubts and misgivings, of anger, hate, jealousy, love, longing, despair. The list goes on. And the more expertly the author delivers the emotions, the greater the connection the reader will feel to it, and the more satisfying it will be. Perhaps this is because we long to understand others, or ourselves. The writer conveys a full banquet of emotions we ourselves have felt, and probably not expressed to anyone. It comes as a relief to us to recognize those same emotions lain bare in someone else, even someone fictional. It doesn't matter if it's fictional, because the more real the emotions, the more real the character is to the reader.

Readers read for character. Character revelation is plot. We feel a connection to a character, we're most likely going to read that book. The greater the connection, the faster we read the book. Period.

Connection. A glance at the secret inner workings of the soul. Sometimes the character expresses the feelings, and sometimes the author can convey emotion that the character himself cannot recognize honestly in himself. Both deliveries can be valid, if done well.

And now, I need a new delivery: another bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, if you please. The one I bought just over 24 hours ago is officially empty. I even shook the little candy shards left in the crevices into my hand and popped them in my mouth. Did I share with the children? Maybe one or two. When Gary tasted them, he disparaged them (is that the root of the term "dissed?") and was thereafter forbidden, even while we were watching Hulu retreads and mindlessly popping candy in our mouths. Instead, I tossed him mini Twix bars in pastel mylar wrappers.

I know, I know, I am leaving out important detail, as in how Gary slammed the Cadburys. (Shame on him!) It's not nice to repeat low gossip. But since it's about chocolate and not a *person*, fine. Fine! He said the chocolate wasn't quite right. It was of low quality. How DARE he!

He's a chocolate snob, though. And I'll love him through thick and thin(mint) of it all. So, I guess I need to go buy him a Dove Dark Chocolate Bunny that he can chip the ears off and leave melty shards (speaking of shards) of on my bedspread during Hulu marathons while I hog the Cadburys. But he better keep his mitts of them. They're mine.

The Candy Has Landed. And Magazines for Fodder and Data-mining

They're here! I feel like I should do that in that creepy movie child's voice.

Stopped by WalMart this morning for some dishwasher detergent and ZOINKS! Getting lined up in their cardboard crates on the holiday aisle ... Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I found myself singing, "It's the most wonderful time of the year."

When I mentioned to the lucky gal who was filling the shelves with the heavenly Eastery candy that I'd been looking forward to Easter candy since Valentine's Day, she said, "I'm glad it's here because it means the end of my candy-holiday season." Poor girl.

So, I bought just two bags today: a Cadbury, of course, and a bag of pastel mylar wrapped mini-Twix bars. I think I can hold off until 10:00 a.m. to break them out. I think.

If you live in my WalMart region you better get over there and get your own bags before I buy them all, though. It's a risk. I guess the reason I have to make the Easter candy announcement in the poltergeist voice is for me, I could go into a sugar coma at any time between now and the post-Easter clearance. But a coma of bliss!

It's the best, best of all the candy times of year.

New topic. And, no, I didn't make it until 10:00 before I ate the chocolate. I made it until 9:51.

My brother sent my 13 year old son a subscription to Auto Week magazine. My brother's a car guy. He bought a 1967 MG in high school and a parts machine and made one sweet cherry red convertible over the course of a few years. It still sits in his garage and I assume he takes it out for a spin now and then, as the father of four. It's great. One time we were driving to the local ski resort in it together, squished in with the skis and boots and 90 blankets and as we rounded an icy bend on the mountain road, MY DOOR FLEW OPEN. Holy smoke, I was almost the topping for a road kill snow cone. Glad that seat belt kept me inside the beloved rattletrap. Other memories...I'll save them for another day.

My son isn't a car guy (yet.) So in the meantime, I'm devouring the weekly updates on the Detroit Auto Show and what Bugatti is doing next. And Formula One racing. And a comparison between the Ford Focus and the Chevy Cruze. I eat it like candy!

This makes me think. Yeah, I'm probably never going to write a book about racing. (I heard there's a NASCAR imprint for Harlequin these days. Seriously.) Or about cars, even. But who knows? I do love it. I would never even have thought of it (even though its a lifelong mini-obsession) without the magazine showing up.

A few years ago I had some kind of frequent flyer miles that netted me no trips to Hawaii, but two magazine subscriptions, one of which was Frommer's Budget Travel. It was fantastic! I loved reading about the places, places I might never visit, but the writing made me feel like I'd been there. I ended up writing a few chapters of a novel set in one of the places I read about.

The point is, subscribing to a magazine on a topic you like might be a great way to spark a few ideas for  writing. Yes, there's magazine writing for cash and excitement, too (I took a class on that at a conference a while back.) But just for interest, and to broaden knowledge base, and to become more expert in an area, it can be a great option. I have an idea about a guy who gets roped into taking care of/restoring an English garden, so maybe I'll check out some good gardening magazines. Some people write YA and want a convincing voice. Check out some of the teen glamor magazines. They write for a specific audience and sell a LOT of those things. It's a great resource. Take advantage of it!

And while you're in the grocery store, pick up a bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs. You'll be glad you did. Easter comes but once a year...

Editing Makes Me Fat

It's a good thing I'm writing a novel about a heavy guy because it makes me feel better about myself when I eat two peanut butter sandwiches while I'm editing.

Why do I need to eat more when I'm editing?

When I'm just writing a draft, I don't seem to chow like this. I don't seem to need to stop every 20 minutes and gaze at the contents of my cracker and cookie cupboard. Sure, I still love those Girl Scout Cookies creative-process-round and year round (if only we could get them year round I might not have to gorge myself on them mid-winter. It's that old fear my husband blames on being raised in a big family: get the food while it's there, every man for himself!)

So, is there a psychological difference between the creative phase (drafting the novel) and the deconstructive phase (chipping away at that draft)?

I think so.

Today I was looking back over some conference notes from last year and something Nancy E. Turner said jumped out at me:

"Write with your heart; edit with your head."

I think that might be it. When I'm writing that first gush of words, it's a total rush. I can get caught up in the excitement, lose track of time, get lost in the story.

Not so when editing. In editing, every few minutes I have to take a mental breather. It's tough! It's WORK. It's probably true that the difference between writing a novel and writing a good novel lies in the editing. Editing requires more thought, more care, more PAIN.

And, apparently, more Thin Mints.

Now, if only they made me Thin. False Advertising! For shame, you cute little girl scouts!

Rocket Candy and Rocketing Careers

This weekend I attended the ANWA Conference in Phoenix. Simply put, it was fantastic. So much good information, and so many great opportunities for the writers who attended.

It started off with a workshop given by the dynamic Elana Johnson, a query ninja and former blogger for querytracker.net.  She gave us a great tutorial and hands on help with queries and pitches. That girl is a firecracker. AND she has what looks like a killer dystopian YA novel coming out this summer: POSSESSION. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I really liked MATCHED, and Elana's book promises more of the same, but with an "angry-girl" angle. Good times.

Chris Stewart gave the keynote address. The comment I heard most in response to his presentation was, "Isn't he wonderful?" Yep. I'll give that an amen.

This year, the organizers invited two agents (national) and one editor (LDS.) Writers could sign up for a nine minute pitch their work to any of the three. In addition, they and the presenters hung around at the chocolate reception and during the classes and visited with conference attendees.

The other classes were great. I loved the songwriting class by Chava Cannon. Who knew all *that* went into writing a good song? Coool. Plus, a Barnes&Noble exec came and spoke about how YOU TOO can get your novel onto the shelves of your local BN. No, seriously. It's not that tricky.

But it's a different blog post. Later. Maybe tomorrow. I'll also be sharing some of the great info we were given in some of the other workshops.

Probably the most anticipated and dreaded and valuable aspect of the retreat was the PITCH SESSIONS. Covenant Communications editor Kirk Shaw came. What a stand up guy. Seriously. He's a credit to his company. I was just jumping for joy with quite a few of my friends who met with him and got requests for full manuscripts. Good stuff! I could see the doors opening for their writing careers and no doubt, some of those are going to ROCKET.

Speaking of rockets, I have to mention candy. But today, it's not edible. Eep. Not that I didn't eat waaaaay too much candy on this weekend trip, including the breakfast of champions: snack size Twix bars and three handfuls of Hot Tamales. Possibly not the breakfast of champions.

No, today I must mention Rocket Candy! My kids (four of them) have the science fair this week. Do you KNOW how many science projects that is? Naturally, I turned it over to my husband. "You're the scientist, sweetheart." That's kind of how it went.

Anyhow, we dropped eggs and Jell-O from the peak of our roof onto our driveway. We sprouted some pea seeds and bean seeds. We did a comparison between sprouting times of watermelon seeds in a cool room versus those on a heat-mat. (The heat mat seeds sprouted, window seeds didn't.) Gary had to buy a heat mat anyway.

The oldest boy, an aspiring aerospace engineer, built a rocket. His question was what kind of fuel works best for model rockets. He used regular model rocket engines he bought at the store. Then he made a putty-like thing called rocket candy. This consisted of saltpeter (which I had to buy at Safeway. Really.) and Karo syrup. Kind of Pepto pink, it was.

The last fuel was *actual space shuttle fuel.*

No, really.

When I asked Gary jokingly where he planned to get that, he said, "It's okay. I have to get some anyway."

WHO SAYS THAT?

It took a while, but it's now clear to me: YOU CAN GET ANYTHING ONLINE.

Space shuttle fuel can be purchased from Pocatello, Idaho.

Some people's husbands.

The rockets went up. All of them flew. The real space shuttle fuel caught a small area of the stubble in the field on fire. Four or five times. The rocket candy worked pretty well, but boy did it smoke. Just as my genius son predicted, the commercially produced engine flew the highest. Maybe that was a safe guess...But a smart one. I'd hedge my bets against my own ability to make a rocket fuel on my stovetop or in my garage. Smart kid.

Querying Querying

It's time to dust off the old query-writing hat. It's been a while since I donned it. About a decade. And times have changed. Query expectations have changed. Heck, even submission systems have changed. Email queries are the norm for a lot of agencies now? Cool. And bad at the same time. How easy is it for an agency screener to hit the delete key?

So, I have gone over mine a zillion times. It's starting to come together. It has a bit of the flavor of the tone I use in my novel; the voice of the query seems to be a mirror of the book. There's a hint of the conflict, a hook at the beginning, a bit about the character's growth.

Today I ran across this great post by Natalie Whipple. She has a fantastic writing blog. Highly recommend. Here's a link to her post called, "Don't Knock the Query."

She's right. I find myself hating the query. Why can't the agent or the publisher just take the time to read my whole novel and make a judgment? Come on! We writers went to all the trouble to pen these tomes--doesn't the world owe it to us to at least read the things?

Ha. Well, ha. Isn't that a bit egotistical? I regularly put down books that don't catch my interest with a back cover blurb or a good first page. I'm not a last page peeker (I know some people are, and I guess that's your right, even though it's kind of wrong, unwrapping the presents on Christmas Eve and then rewrapping them and acting surprised on Christmas morning.) A lot of books simply don't appeal.

So, in a way, it's kind of merciful that agents only ask for a query initially. How much forestry would be wasted (and I do mean wasted, as agencies just don't recycle. Sorry. That's what I'm told. Not that I'm a big recycler myself. Guilty! Guilty as charged!) if we all just printed out every single word of our 90,000 word novels and sent them off in piddly little mail trucks to the upper West Side of Manhattan? Gasoline alone...think of it. $3.35 a gallon around here this morning, baby.

It preserves resources and time to simply send the query. Either just a single page and a SASE goes, or else a blip of electricity, into their inboxes. I think we can trust these people to know if the concept appeals to them or not after a few minutes, as much as we trust ourselves to know whether a novel in the library or bookstore will *not* be our cup of tea at first glance.

So, with that, I'm going to keep honing the query, make it match the story as well as possible and so it will give my super duper chosen agent a chance to decide based on what's really there. That's the goal, folks. Not to write the best query every, in particular, but the best query for your book. It's gotta match.

Speaking of things needing to match, there's got to be a matching candy somewhere. Probably my favorite way to have a matching candy would be to have two of the same candy. Or three. Just a good candy in multiples.

However, one matchy-matchy treat stands out: the Twin Pop. Sweet, cool, fruity (unless you get a root beer flavored pop) and oh-so-refreshing. I have about 15 of them in my freezers right now. The red kind, which I assume is cherry, isn't quite as good as the blue. Who knows what flavor blue is. Does it really matter? Some days -- days when I don't care if I have what looks like a purple tattoo around the inner level of my lips -- grape is the only flavor that satisfies.

Luckily I live in a warm climate, and be it mid-February or not, a twin pop is almost always in order. One caveat: banana. Not a fave. Luckily, it is the favorite of two of my children, so no pops live in vain! Long live the twin pop! Ooh, once I saw a "How it's Made" episode that showed the life cycle of the Twin Pop. Very interesting. I bet you could youtube that if you really wanted to know. I need to get back to my query, or I'd dig around and post a link for y'all.

Happy querying and popping!

Clean Carpets and Clean Manuscripts

Last week I did what I dread. I pulled out my carpet shampoo-er. It was time. Long past time.

To get the dirty deed done, first I had to move a ton of furniture into the garage and to the side of the room. This involved silk plants and magazine racks and the rocking chair and a couple of lamps and the little bookcase with all the kids' piano books. And the kitchen table and chairs. And tipping the loveseat up on its side and balancing it against the window casing. And shoving the long couch up against the front window where no one walks or drags trikes or sleds or rollerskates so the carpet is still relatively bluish there, as opposed to the brown-grey-blue of the heavy traffic areas.

In this house, with these feet, everywhere is a heavy traffic area.

Then, it was the vacuums. I make that plural because the big one, my Hoover Platinum, vacuums the middle of the floor, and the hand-held with the wand gets the edges of the room. Man, that thing has a loud, high-pitched wail. Good thing I put in earplugs, or I'd be sitting here enjoying the strains of tinnitis instead of Phineas and Ferb being piped in from the other room.

How long does it usually take me to vacuum? Like 15 minutes? More or less. This time, I think I clocked in at three times that long. There was just that much dirt lurking. Ground in cold cereal, thanks to the little girls doll tea parties. Hey, I had a bad year for housework. It happens.

FINALLY, I pulled out Old Reliable. Er, Old Soapy. Or whatever it is I'm going to name that shampoo-carpeter (as my sister calls it.) The Hoover SteamVac. It's pretty heavy. And it's loud. And it requires vacuuming at a snail's pace with something twice as cumbersome as my regular vac.

It took me five (count 'em five) hours of push and pull to get through the living room and hallway. Forget the bedrooms. Every time I emptied that rinse basin, I cringed. How could that black sludge be all around us?

WE ARE LIVING IN SQUALOR.

When I finished, I couldn't just stop. The black sludge sickened me. I had to make another pass. Against the better judgment of my impending back-pain, I got up my courage and made another pass.

Guess what. No black sludge! Yes!

Sure, there was brown sludge this time, but it wasn't black this time. A little cleaner! So happy.

After that pass, I realized it could use another rinse. However, I'd been at it for hours, and all I could do was crawl into the passenger seat of our suburban and say, "Sweetie, can you, just, please, uh, drive me through McDonalds. Need. Hamburger. Need. Yogurt. Please?"

My sweetie did. Those yogurt parfaits deserve a place in the candy pantheon. I love them.

So. My point is this. The first time I went through my manuscript to edit it, it made me sick. Pulling out black sludge. Chunks of goo. Bad, bad, murky nasty. It made me want to quit.

But I kept at it. The second time, it was more like brown sludge. Less goo. More clarity. And the third time, even cleaner.

Now, on my umpteenth read-through, it's a lot cleaner. My critique pals are pointing out the typos, rather than the glaring plot errors, for the most part, and it's encouraging.

So, to get a clean draft, it might take a lot of passes to get there. It's worth it! Here at home my carpet is almost blue everywhere again. I walk through and it's spongy fluff, rather than brownish matted ick. What a change! I feel the same way about my manuscript. With every pass it improves.

Of course, like with any analogy, it can be taken too far. The wash cycle can actually start wearing away at the fibers of the carpet, and likewise over-editing can start chipping away at the charm and life of the story. Be gentle and selective and careful.

Now. Enough of that. I have been thinking about that yogurt parfait and how a lot of things ought to be included in the Candy Family. How did that biology chant go? Kingdom, phylum, class...Who knows. Anyhow, it's my firm belief that many cold cereals belong firmly in in the candy family. For sure any that list its first ingredient as sugar just flashes "candy!" at you. Apple Jacks? Candy. Froot Loops? Totally candy. Those taste a lot like Skittles to me. Sugar Smacks...burned candy. What about anything that is half sugar-coated oat flour and half marshmallows? Undeniably candy.

Bill Cosby had a skit about fatherhood where his kids were chanting something about chocolate cake for breakfast. Not a bad idea. But candy/cereal -- just a good substitute for that on days we don't feel like baking before the morning meal.

Bring on the sugar. I'll have mine in honey nut flavor today, please.

Pitching the Woo-- and rejoicing in Brown Wednesday

So, it's time for me to take it to the next level. I have to take what I call "my novel" and pitch it to an agent. That's the next step (after my final rewrites, which I'm procrastinating until I get a couple more critiques back and see if there's a consensus about which spots need revamps) after finishing the book.

Another option, of course, would be querying agents. But I'm lucky enough to be attending an upcoming conference at the end of this month, where several agents are taking appointments with writers, and heck yeah, I signed up to meet them. It sounds SUPER DUPER STRESSFUL, but it also sounds like a great way to bypass the slushpile. I mean, it's kind of like getting junk mail versus getting a letter from a friend. Which one are you going to read first -- if at all. If I were an agent and I could (at least vaguely) put a face to a name, I'd be waaaay more inclined to read a submission (especially a requested one) than one from a stranger. Just seems like human nature to me.

That said, I know it's still not a guarantee that my pages will get requested by an agent from this conference. I am okay with that, totally. The topic will be kind of like what Bob said in "What About Bob" when he spoke of Neil Diamond. "There are two types of people in this world...those who love Neil Diamond and those who can't stand him." I'm paraphrasing. But, still, my book's subject is definitely in the realm of "no middle ground" on whether a person/agent/reader will be interested or repulsed.

So, I'm getting all psyched up for the pitch. Trying not to psych out. Trying not to pitch the breakfast I just ate. Or the lunch. Or the entire pan of "brownie edges" I just ate before delivering the heart-shaped brownies to the Kindergarten class this morning. Don't you love the edges? Well, I hope some people don't so there are more for me. Anyhow, the pitch-practice begins. I have to write a pitch that reflects the tone of the book, that has my book's "voice" in it, that is exciting and tantalizing. I hope that can happen. It could turn out pretty lame. And unprofessional, and silly. But...that may be the TONE OF THE BOOK. So, hey.

On the note of Bob, I think I must mention corn. And on the cob. Is this corn hand-shucked? There has been a lot of rumbling about corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup lately and how bad it is for you. In fact, I just sipped (don't tell my husband. If you're blog-stalking me, Gary, forgive me!) a Pepsi-Throwback, the kind that is made with *real* sugar instead of the high fructose corn syrup. I didn't get a caffeine rush, as evidenced by my immediate snooze through the episode of Chuck we watched on Hulu, so it wasn't a LOT of Pepsi Throwback. (Have you heard the recent study about why women fall asleep watching TV? I'm not alone.)

I'll make a true confession. It's all sweet to me. I'll take it. Corn is getting bad rap. I mean, it's all probably bad for us, let's be honest. Whether it's empty calories from sugarcane or sugarbeets or corn or whatever. It's never going to be as healthy for us as spinach or celery or even plums. But those nutritious things will probably never give me that euphoric rush I can get from a nice big handful of cherry jelly hearts (I love Valentine's Day candy.)

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With V-Day in mind...I just have to note that I love it when they refer to the day after Valentine's Day as "Brown Wednesday." All the chocolate goes on sale. Big nod to whomever thought of that moniker. BUT the bad news is...I went to my local Mao-Nart (we call it that around this house for various reasons) and found the shelves all but EMPTY. You all bought your chocolate by the crateload early this year, folks, and there's going to be nothing left on the big morning-after sales. Maybe at the grocery store. Safeway is always a good place for Brown Wednesday. I think I'll head over there.

Value Added Writing & SnackPack Eat-a-thon

    A couple of years ago, my sister (a doctor of education) and I were talking about our kids' picture books. She mentioned liking one in particular because she didn't "feel dumber when she finished reading it." I've thought about that a lot since then. There are so many kid-books that way--books where no author is even listed on the spine or cover. Books no one dares take credit for. Books that deplete the brain mass in my head.

    Then, on the other hand, there's the beautiful, mind expanding, soul-lifting book. The book that makes the heart sing. What's the difference? What's the magic?

    If I knew that, I'd be cranking out magical books every day.

    I haven't got it pinpointed, but I do have one idea that keeps cropping up. It's the term "value added." Like the "bonus features" on the menu selections of your DVDs, sometimes a book has something besides the story to recommend itself. It's the thing that makes the reader come away *not* feeling dumber.

    Shakespeare said there's nothing new under the sun. Or, maybe that was Ecclesiastes even longer ago. Fact: plots get recycled--whether the author realizes it or not. Most plots have been done before. The thing that makes a story new or different is the "value added."

    Here are some ideas to add value to our writing.

    1) Take the reader somewhere new. Describe an exotic setting, whether real or imagined, and make it vivid enough that the reader feels like he or she has really been there. It doesn't have to be a fantasy world or a "foreign land." The movie Napoleon Dynamite made tiny Preston, Idaho, my dear homeland, seem alive and exotic.

    2) Introduce the reader to someone new. Describe at least one character with enough precision that the reader feels like s/he would recognize the character on the street. This was the author's gift in Twilight. Readers knew Edward and Jacob well enough they'd buy t-shirts defending one or the other.

    3) Teach the reader something new. Describe a process or a situation in your story well enough that the reader feels like s/he can now educate his or her friends on the topic. Legalese is what makes Grisham fun. Make the reader feel smarter in *some* aspect. It doesn't have to take up five pages. It could just be a tidbit, like how to whip cream perfectly, or how to dispose of used oil after an oil change. It just needs to be there, adding to the brains and not depleting them. (Make sure you know the info well, or you may anger well-informed readers who already like the topic.)

    Being writers inherently means we think we have something to say that someone else ought to want to hear. It's hinting at the edges of what my husband and I call the "superiority complex." And readers are fine with that. They come to be told a story. They come to be educated. They come to be swept away. Take the responsibility seriously and we'll win repeat customers of our blogs, our novels, our newsletters, our memoirs.


Meanwhile, I'm going to think about what kinds of candy add value to my life. That's easy. Pretty much all kinds of candy. And my category for candy is broad. It includes cake. And pudding. And ice cream. And chocolate of all varieties.

Right now the candy in my cupboard that calls to me is the delicious Snack Pack pudding.  Back in the old days, this pudding came in a can. The can had a pop top. If you opened the can just right the lid would bend into a perfect concave to use as a spoon. (I guess that meant the package had added value.) However, if an 11 year old girl was not careful, she could slice open the edges of her mouth with the sharp metal of the pseudo-spoon. Oh, well. Blood just gave the chocolate pudding a salty edge.

I remember sitting at the sixth grade "read-a-thon" where our teacher gave us the whole afternoon to laze about on rugs surrounded by reading materials and treats. Some kids were lucky and brought Snack Pack puddings. Unlucky kids had spongy homemade banana cookies. My mom usually sent red and black licorice for me. The coolest kids got Pringles.

Not a lot of reading got done. More like it should have been called an "eat-a-thon." But that kind of situation is a bit of a fantasy for me still: lying about surrounded by reading materials and foods of my choice. Honestly, tell me: what could be better?

Egypt and Cookies and Fluff Writing

I have a cousin in Egypt.

That matters on a day like today. I can't stop thinking about her and what's going on and how tense things are right now. So many prayers for her safety, and the safety of her loved ones there, and, well, everyone there. Sigh.

It's been over 20 years she has lived there, and I've never felt anything but nervous about the whole thing. But she is married to an Egyptian man, a good man. Her daughter has kept us posted about what's going on with her at this tense time.

This afternoon I got an email that kind of shocked me, and it's relevant to the point I've been trying to make with this blog all along. In it, my cousin's daughter told me that Phyllis spent the day yesterday reading my book, Delicious Conversation, to keep her mind off what's going on in Egypt, and that now she is wanting to make "Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies," one of the recipes included in the book.

When I read that, I choked up. It shocked me that such a fluffy, pointless, cotton-candy nothing of a story could be just the medicine someone needed at such a time as this. I wish I could give copies to every woman in stress there.

So you can take all your Pulitzer Prizes. I'll just be thankful to the Lord that my cousin is safe and well and taking comfort in the gauzy sweetness of silly writing. It's a blessing -- so big I can't even count it.

Candy Celebration

Finished it! I have written it and read it aloud and edited it and gone back over it three times and now farmed it out to great friends who have agreed to critique it.

I can't believe I've finally gotten a novel to a point where it can be farmed out for critique. It has been FOUR (count 'em) FOUR years since I got anything this near to completion. Huh, could the reason for that be it coincides with the time we started getting high speed internet and therefore television again after 15 years without it? Hmm. That will require greater investigation. It also coincides with the birth of my fifth child. And the time I started homeschooling.  And the general breakdown of all order in the home for about a 2 1/2 year period. (Follow this link to read my award-winning essay on this baaaaaad time in mommydom.)

So, yeah. No real guilt there. But still. It's a long process. From idea stage to first draft, to second, third, fourth, fifth and final drafts, it has been a long road. The story has morphed over time. I tried to follow the outline of "how to write a commercial fiction book" found in James Scott Bell's great book often mentioned earlier on this blog, Plot and Structure.

This meant I had to go back and redo scene after scene to crank up the conflict. I had to go back and cut out characters whose roles changed. I had to redo whole subplots from time to time. It was a living work. Ever changing.

I know that once my dear and good friends who are SO KIND to read the manuscript and give feedback send it back to me, I'll need to go over it again and re-adjust quite a few things.  That's okay. The whole experience has been an exercise, one to teach myself to write something that will fit the genre of commercial fiction. No, as one online friend says, it won't win any Pulitzer Prizes. Who cares? Not me. I don't have enough angst for that in my life. But if it creates a good, diverting few hours and informs them on a new topic, great. Mission accomplished.

Yay!

I think I need to celebrate.

Candy is in order. What should it be? Well, so far it's been a hot fudge sundae from McDonalds, mini-Twix candy bars, mini-Snickers candy bars, mini-KitKat candy bars, (all the mini candy bars were left over from a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby prize pile), a Square Shooter hot cinnamon lollipop, a few fruit snacks, a handful of gummy bears. But these seem inadequate for the magnitude of the 18 month long effort, don't they? I should really go for the gold. I should head over to Walgreens and pick up a package of Toblerone or Toffifay or Boston Baked Beans. Yeah. Those would scream "celebration!" Or ... Peanut Butter M&Ms. Yeah, that would be fantastic. Or good old Mr. Goodbar. Even a Big Cherry--my tastes include the exotic and even the shunned-by-others-of-narrower-candy-palates. Now, a Big Cherry? That's more than your everyday, run of the mill, candy I had at home anyway. It would be a celebration. I'm taking suggestions!

Reading Aloud to Edit -- and How Bad Banana Taffy and Fluff Writing Can Save Us

So, I got the draft done! So happy! Now, back to the editing board again.

This time I'm going through it with a fine toothed voice. I mean, I'm reading the whole draft aloud, from hard copy, in front of a live studio audience. 

This is an undertaking. It needs to be done. I have found errors on every single page, missing words, words that aren't quite right, punctuation errors, things that just sound wonky. And this is after months and months of working on the draft in silence and on the screen.

Part of the problems arise from the fact I've worked on the draft in so many different stages. I cut and pasted from earlier drafts, and some things just don't make sense any more. They are irrelevant or inconsistent or just foreign to the current draft. Some of the problems arise from the fact I was being interrupted by my cute little ones while I wrote, someone needing a drink or a ride somewhere or a piece of candy.  Errors. Oversights. Glaring mistakes.

I honestly think if I hadn't gone through it reading it aloud I would not have seen a lot of these problems. This is a good exercise.

There's another little perk, though, besides catching the problems with the draft. Reading it aloud to the live studio (or SUV road trip captives!) audience gives me a sense of what's working in the draft. When the listeners react, either with laughs or groans, with questions, with gasps in the character's behalf, then I get a sense of what a real reader's reaction might be when the text eventually lies before them. Sweet.

Speaking of road trips, I like to keep movie size boxes of candy in the glove compartment of my Suburban, in the case of an emergency candy fit halfway between hither and yon.  Or if a bunch of kids are stuck in the car waiting ... waiting ... waiting, and needing candy.  Candy calms the savage beast, be it child or mom.

Here are a few favorite car candies:

I like the Hot Tamales in there because it's kind of hard for a kid to eat a whole box of those in one sitting, what with all the cinnamon flavoring. They last a while, most of the time. Jelly bean based things work well. Or hard candy. Candy buttons are great because it's just dried frosting and it will last forever in there. Plus the kids for some reason think it's the coolest candy ever. Around here, anything like taffy or chocolate is a mistake in the glove compartment. We went for a drive last week and needed the AC. Seriously. Mid-January. Please! Mid-January should be hot chocolate, not air conditioning.

Last summer, we were on a ridiculously long drive with stupid wrong turns and missed exits and doubling back and fifty potty breaks and I'd about had it. Then, at the back of the glove compartment I found this orphaned banana flavored Laffy Taffy, crusty on the edges, still chewy in the middle. I'm sure it had melted and re-solidified scores of times. I generally skip banana flavored candy (which is probably why it remained beneath the registration and insurance info), but at the time, nothing could have been more welcome. Sugar! It saved my sanity.

That's why I love it. You know, spun-sugar type writing can be just what we need when we're going through an annoying or tough journey. Even a bad old dried up banana flavored taffy type piece of writing can be just what our souls need. Bring on the empty calories. We need it from time to time.

Now, off to finish reading it aloud to my audience. Maybe I should ply them with a bulk canister of licorice.

Querying Querying Now We Go -- Er, no.

So, it's the new year. A lot of us are getting all excited about writing again, now that the rush of the holidays is over, and we're thinking about what we really want to accomplish. It's a great time to dust off our writing desks and get back to work.

HOWEVER, it is not the best time to start sending out queries!

Put those queries on the shelf, ladies and gentlemen.

In the excitement of resolutions, LOTS of people have this same idea. In fact, from what Anne Mini says, and what Kirk Shaw says, this first three weeks of January is the busiest time of year for agencies, with more queries coming slamming into their inboxes than any other time of year.

If I want to stand out in a crowd, I like to be in a smaller crowd (especially being as short as I am.)

Anne Mini had other advice on when to time queries, like, not on a Monday, as the inboxes are full to the brim with them, and not on Fridays or weekends, when agency people want to clean out the box and get out the door.  The best time is mid-week, she says.  So time it that way for "less competition."

Instead of making a goal for a January appearance on the agent's desk, go for a February 1 goal, or a March 1 goal, or thereabouts.  It's just doing yourself a favor.

Now, I'm not really in the know about all of this, and I don't mind admitting that. However, I think this makes sense and I believe it.  So, when I finish this novel I'm plunking away at (which I truly believe will be sooooon), I'm going to try to time my query to my best advantage!

Wait. Maybe I shouldn't have shared this info after all.

Speaking of things not to be shared, I'm one of those moms who doesn't share the best candy with the kids. One time I made a special dessert (her favorite) and took it to my friend who was going through hard times and when I showed up she let her kids pounce on it like locusts. Very generous of her, but am I like that? No. I am not. If there is food I love and feel like would be pearls before swine, the kids can just forget it. My husband too. (Although he doesn't give a rip about candy, poor guy. How much he misses!) The good stuff is mine.

My favorite things to hoard are the following:

Strawberry Twizzlers. See's Chocolates.

Conference (and Cake)

I'm frantically working on my novel, trying to get it finished up and edited and all shiny by the end of next month when I go to the annual ANWA conference in Phoenix, Arizona.  The end of February is a delightful time to be in Phoenix. Perfect weather, greening mountains, the occasional wildflower.

I'm really looking forward to the conference. I can't believe all the great workshops they have planned, and how low the cost is!  A hundred bucks? What? And the chance to pitch to agents and publishers? It's a deal, a fantastic deal in the sweet warm desert winter.

Here's the info about the conference:

"Writing at the Speed of Life"

19th Annual ANWA Writers Conference February 25 & 26, 2011.

Sponsored by ANWA - American Night Writers Association established in 1986. Website http://anwa-lds.com/

Join us in the beautiful Crowne Plaza Hotel near the airport in Phoenix, Arizona for two days packed full of workshops, classes and pitch sessions. This is a writer's dream. Rub shoulders with authors, agents, editors and publishers. See website for full schedule.

Program Focus: Autobiography/Memoir, Children's, Middle Grade, YA, Fiction, Non-fiction, Journalism, Marketing, Mystery, Publishing, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Humor, Writing a Query Letter, Dialogue, Family and Personal History Writing, and Pitch Sessions With Agents and Editors.

Faculty: Kelly Sonnack, agent; Kelly Gottuso Mortimer, agent; Kirk Shaw, editor; Cecily Markland, small publishing company owner, author and newspaper editor;

Authors: Chris Stewart, Janette Rallison, Laurie Schnebly Campbell, Elana Johnson, Angela Morrison, Conrad J. Storad, Carolyn Murphy;

Composer/song writer: Chava Cannon

COST:
General Public: Full Two-Day Conference $115, One-Day Friday Workshops $40, One-Day Saturday Workshops $90

ANWA Members: Full Two-Day Conference $100, One-Day Friday Workshops $30, One-Day Saturday Workshops $80

Prices increase after Feb 4.

Hotel discount available at Crowne Plaza Phoenix Airport Hotel. (See website below)

Details & Registration: http://anwa-lds.com/conference.html

Contact:
E-Mail: ANWAcontact@gmail.com
E-Mail: anwa-events@anwa-lds.com



Speaking of the sweet, warm desert, that reminds me of sweet warm dessert. Last night for my daughter's birthday I made her the cutest cake. White and pink checkerboard cake with white frosting and sparkly white sprinkles, pink and purple sugar hearts, and cinnamon imperials as a beaded border. It turned out so pretty! Sadly, we ate it all before I took a picture. But here's someone else's creation: bless the book for posting the beautiful thing online for our salivating pleasure.
 

 
The cake makes you look like a gourmet, but it's pretty simple to make if you have the right pan. It's three layers, and each layer has three concentric circles. You put the two colors (in their case, three, obviously) in alternating rings of the circle and then bake all three layers, then stack it. When you cut it, voila, it looks like a checkerboard. I think I got my pan a few years ago from saving Betty Crocker points. Remember Betty Crocker points? My husband once got a watch from collecting KoolAid points. It might have had that big smiling KoolAid pitcher on it.  Free stuff, ah.
 
The cake was really good! It had fluffy white frosting, made with shortening and almond extract and ... you know?  I just love the flavor of almond extract. It's kind of dangerous. In fact, I think I just *might* have eaten too much of it because after the kids went to bed and I sat down to recuperate I noticed I could feel my blood coursing through my veins and my hands were kind of shaking and there was a general zingy feeling about my entire body.
 
Too much sugar? Me? Hard to believe. Cake is my favorite form of sugar. Besides candy. Or alongside candy. And slushes. And chocolate. And pink bubble gum. And probably a lot of other things. The new year resolution to cut back on refined sugar didn't last very long, did it?

The Sweet and Sour of E-Readers

So. There's a lot of back and forth about e-books everywhere. Lovers of, haters of, utter rejecters of.

I don't fall into any of these categories. Me, I'm a book lover. Booking it to my library all the time, buying scads of books at yardsales and thrift stores and outlets and even full price bookstores when tempted. Even though I'm an avowed cheapskate, I do have this one major vice: I feel no pangs of guilt over buying a good book. Or even a stupid one!

This can be hazardous to my bank account.

I wish I didn't need sleep. If I didn't need sleep, I'd read all the Harvard Classics. (Some of them actually facilitate sleep, I'm here to tell you. Surely you're not surprised.)

This book-buying has a downside: shelving problems. Right now every room in my house has at least one bookshelf. (Minus the kid bathroom, where we are considering installing one when the girls stop being so splashy in the tub.) They are full. They overflow onto piles on the floor. They spill into closets and boxes and toychests. They're everywhere. They take up space. And I don't want to get rid of any of them. I like them. They make me happy, secure, and they give me a sense of hope--hope that an engrossing story lies behind any cover.

My dad once said, "Hell would be if you had no new books left to read." He's where I get my genetic flaw of book collection. (And propensity toward using that word occasionally.)

So. Along comes Kindle.

You can't turn it's pages or sniff the ink or finger the cover. You can't stare at the spine of the book on the shelf and consider the content. But...it does store 50,000 volumes!

Do you KNOW how many books that is?

And I can keep them ALL in my purse to read at the doctor's office! This is a big upside.

As I've mulled over my love affair (and occasional hate-affair) with my newish Kindle, I've found for me there are both pros and cons. Here are a few.

Pro: If I want a book and don't have it, I can download it. No driving to the library, no waiting for it to arrive via USPS or going to a bookstore. It's mine. It's now. It's instant! I loved downloading and reading Ally Condie's Matched without any wait.

Con: Now that I have Matched, a new and notable YA book, I can't lend it to any of my YA-reading friends. I can't donate it to the local (cash-strapped) library. I can't let my son read it--because he's not touching the Kindle. I like to be able to share something delicious, but the Kindle makes me have to be selfish.

Pro: The classics are cheap! Our library doesn't somehow want to keep the classics. They chuck them. Why? I don't know. I'm not in charge (yet.) So, it's sometimes tough to get access to them. But on Kindle, books in the public domain are very inexpensive or (cue the Imperial Margarine fanfare here:) FREE. The price is right! I have already downloaded all of the Elizabeth Gaskell books I've been salivating over for a year (ALL of them for only $.399! Shoot!), as well as my super longtime favorite Anthony Trollope--his complete works. They're mine!

Con: I can't show off my classics collection and feel intellectual by having them on my livingroom bookshelf. Ha ha. You know some of you bibliophiles do that, too. Don't deny it. There's a certain superiority sometimes we feel when we consider the excellence of our book collection.

Pro: In this way, the Kindle forces me to be more humble.

Con: I do like the feel of a book in my hands. The Kindle's page turning button doesn't feel like a page to turn.

Pro: It has a search feature, so if I can't remember a detail from earlier in the story, I can search the text to find that part and re-read.

Con: It's kind of faster to flip through the pages sometimes, with a loving dog-ear on a nice part, or a star in the margin of a particularly well-written phrase. Sure, there's a "highlight" feature, but it's not that friendly "star in the margin."

Pro: Did I mention it fits in my purse? I was happily entertained by Dr. Thorne at a wedding this evening when the groom's sister arrived 30 minutes late.

Con: I downloaded an anagram game. Unless I get vigilant I'm going to fritter away all my time trying to figure out all the combinations of words I can make from the letters in "WOBBLES." Seriously, there are a half hour-worth of those combos.

There are others I'm sure I'll come across as I read and read more on it.

As it is, with both sweet and sour aspects appreciated, I now have added my Kindle to the stack of books on my bedside. For me, there's room for both tangible books and e-books in my life. More access to books makes me happy!

While there are both sweets and sours of e-reading, I have to say, I have a ton of sweet and sour candies I love. Lemonheads? Those are fantastic! As are their sister-food, Alexander the Grape. I also love Mamba, although they're a pain to unwrap when you're driving a car--worse than texting while driving is Mamba-ing. Give me chewy Sweetarts, too. I remember eating those on the bus on the way home from swimming lessons every summer (closest pool to my farmtown was a 45 minute bus ride). Hated swim lessons, loved the 25-cent candy on the way home.

Maybe the most delicious of all sweet and sour candies to me was Tangy Taffy. Still might be. I love that grape one. And the strawberry one. Sure, they lean a lot toward sweet, but there's a tang, too. They're slightly different from Laffy Taffy -- no jokes written on them. Mmm. I wish I had one right now. Danged New Year's Resolutions about sugar. Danged sugar-withdrawal headache. Forget Tylenol. The sugar is the right medicine... I wonder what's in the treat cupboard...