Dear literary agents and publishers,

I have a question.

These days most of you want queries and sample pages of our writing to be included in emails; attachments will not be opened. This is stressed not only on your websites but when we see you at conferences and workshops. Also stressed — that our work be perfect before even thinking of sending it to you. Perfect not just in grammar, punctuation, character consistency, non-cliché language, plot curve, and all the other mandates of a good book, but also in FORMAT.

Here is where the trouble rests. We authors spend months, nay years, perfecting our written work only to see it undone by copy and paste. Email programs don’t seem to place the same importance on format as you, or I. Once pasted the original format is forgotten.

Some paragraphs are indented, some are not.

Some of the indented graphs are ten spaces in, some are only one, or three, or any other number.

Some paragraphs are in the original font, some have been mysteriously transformed.

To quote the Kind of Siam, “Is a puzzlement.”

Internet solutions all lean on the “rich text” formatting in the email options. These do not work.

There is still no consistency.
So, we authors must deal with each paragraph in the email indenting or
not indenting as the choice may be, changing each one individually.

When emailing a query plus fifty pages it becomes a frustrating experience, not to mention the amount of time it requires. Then there is the nagging suspicion that the email, once sent in the correct format, will arrive completely jumbled again.

So, here is my question for you, overworked literary agents and publishers: How kind are you? When reading an email that deviates in its paragraphing, haphazardly changes its font, do you sigh and delete? Do you wonder as you shred those pages your assistant printed out, shredding the author’s dreams as well, if you are turning the next great novel into confetti?

Or do you take pity and read on?

Sincerely,
Tortured by Email

I loved Mr. Brown’s debut novel Fallen Land and had recommended it to a friend who then recommended Taylor Brown’s second novel, The River of Kings, to me. The second book is set in a very different time period then the first, is actually set in three different time periods. The narratives are held together by the setting of the novel, Georgia’s Altamaha River. Indeed, the setting is a character onto itself, so beautifully and powerfully described in Taylor Brown’s wonderful language. The story lines held me with their poignant and horrifying details of human desires and follies. In short – I loved this book! I can’t wait to see what tales Taylor Brown has in store next.

The Lightkeeper’s Daughters is a tale of an old woman and a girl united by secrets from the past. The narrative shifts between modern day and a period from the mid-twenties to the forties. It also shifts between Morgan, a sixteen year-old foster child on the road to delinquency, Elizabeth, a blind elderly woman in a nursing home, and the rediscovered journals of Elizabeth’s father – the lightkeeper of the title. Coincidence and fate are interwoven in the plot, which keeps the reader in a calm state of suspense throughout the book. The mysteries uncovered at the end of the story may be predictable to some but are no less thrilling. Ms. Pendziwol’s writing is evocative and sensitive, her characters fully realized. A great read!

 

Every student of writing has heard the axiom “write what you know.” It is drummed into our heads by English teachers. We interpret this to mean write about ourselves, our town, our loves, our family. But this limits our writing and, indeed, our imaginations. “Write what you know” can have a much broader scope.

After losing my brother in 1984 I went kind-of nuts from grief. So much so that I walked into a closet at the home of an acquaintance during a party while looking for the bathroom. Once in the closet I didn’t know what to do. I started crying and couldn’t stop. I had closed the door behind me and couldn’t seem to leave. I was in the dark. When finally found I was asked the very logical question, “Why were you in there?” Of course I had no reasonable, or sane, answer.

Years later, I was reminded of this incident by that same acquaintance but had no memory of it at all. I had blocked out this most embarrassing occurrence of my life. It came back to me as a whole piece when it was brought up. I was speechless in its wake, mortified all over again.

In my book Under a Gibbous Moon there is a scene where the main character is rooted to a concealed spot atop a staircase, horrified and grief stricken by what she has overheard. In the writing of this episode I was again in that closet, crying, unable to get myself out. I know what it’s like to feel trapped, to feel helpless, to feel out-of-control. So I wrote what I know.

Bingo!

Be brave and dig deep. You’ll be surprised at how much you can write about, how much you really “know.”

 

Well, I finally caved and entered the Twitter world. I know you’re shocked. In the past I have been heard to disparage the Twitt universe as superficial, self-centered, and unedifying. But then I happened on a Twitter handle (if that’s the right term) that appealed to me: Free Writing Events @writevent. They were offering a one day online pitch session with Elizabeth Winick from Mcintosh and Otis, an agent high on my To Be Queried list. Suddenly, I saw the value in Twitter and signed up.

Now you may say, “Well, she’s doing this for totally egocentric reasons. She has a book to sell. It’s the very thing she always railed against.” You would be right. I have thrown off my mantle of righteousness and joined the “me” generation, as epitomized by Twitter. Do I feel guilty? A little. Guilty that I was such a prig to begin with. Who am I to insult Twitterers? I can learn from them if not become one in my soul. So here I am: @Lives5271

Now comes the hard part…what to Tweet? I know this is half the “fun” of the site. It’s how you build “followers” that will walk into heaven or hell with you Tweet by 145 character Tweet. Yet I find I have nothing pithy to say. Perhaps I need to think in phrases instead of sentences. Not even phrases…clauses? A difficult task for me as I have been thinking in sentences and even (gasp) paragraphs all my life. So my first Tweet is a picture. In this way I superficially, self-centerly, and inedifyingly circumvent the strictures of counting. Because, as we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

To see the picture go to…well, you know.

Just entered the Writer’s Digest “Dear Lucky Agent” contest from historical fiction. Because you just never know! They are also running one for memoir. Check them both out at http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/29th-free-dear-lucky-agent-contest-historical-fiction

I confess

I have never read any of the books in the Neapolitan series by author Elena Ferrante so I cannot comment on whether they seem to have been written by a man, as some critics think, or a woman, as the author’s name would imply. By I can comment on the hub-bub that has erupted from journalist Glaudio Gatti’s “outing” of the author by publishing the writer’s real name. Who Cares! Hasn’t this journalist ever heard of pseudonyms? Did he miss Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb in order to gain a male audience for her Death series? And what about J.K. Rowling writing under the name Robert Galbraith for her crime novels in order to avoid “hype or expectation? If he doesn’t know about these pseudonyms I must question his expertise as an investigative journalist.

The reaction to Mr. Gatti’s unearthing of the mystery has resulted in some fiery accusations of gender bias. I don’t get that either. Yes, the above mentioned writers may have picked male or non-gender equated names to write in genre’s associated with male readers. But it goes the other way as well. I was told at a writer’s conference some years back that one of the most renowned romance writers, an author with a female name, was actually two gay men who write as a couple and combined their names to appear female. I don’t know what their pseudonym is and I don’t care. The question is whether their books would sell as well if they used their actual names. I’m one of those naive people who think they would. Good books are good books in any genre and under any name.

Apparently this all started because a new volume of Elena Ferrante’s non-fiction Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey is being published and it is in that book that a fictitious background is presented. Mr. Gatti believeS this makes Ferrante a liar. But Ferrante is not a person but a persona. That being the case how can anything attributed to her be a lie?
He also believes that since Ferrante is a “public Figure” she is not entitled to privacy. I suppose since everyone now knows Mr. Gotti’s name he is a public figure and therefore no longer entitled to privacy as well.
Perhaps he should change his name.

 

Once upon a time in a Florida bookstore

I heard the clerk give a customer this recommendation: “Have you read Joshilyn Jackson? She’s a Southern writer but…” She gave a vague gesture and said no more.

Sneaky word, “but.” It can lead into the perfumed or the stinky and qualifies whatever has gone before. If followed by something wonderful it snubs its predecessor as awful and vice-versa. So did this clerk intend to imply a Southern writer was a good thing? That wasn’t my impression.

What is a “Southern Writer” anyway? Was the bookstore clerk thinking of Margaret Mitchell or John Grisham?  Did she refer to Faulkner or Mickey Spillane? Does the writer have to set their books in the South to be considered Southern? In that case leave out Truman Capote. Or does the person have to be born in the South. Leave out Cormac McCarthy. Both of these authors are listed as American Southern Writers, by the way. (http://www.biography.com/news/american-southern-writers-20874761) Amazon’s list of “Southern Writers of Fiction” includes Stephen King as well as Thomas Wolfe.

Perhaps I should have approached our unnamed clerk and asked her for a “Northern Writer.” Google “Northern Fiction Writers” and see what you get. Apparently Northern is an international term while Southern applies only to those United States that lie below the Mason Dixon line.

And still I am wondering “But what?”

Publishers get the blame for overly categorizing authors and their work. But I think this blame falls on the shoulders of book sellers as well – at least in the case of one clerk in Florida.

 

 

That pesky “like,” “as” comparison.

Some people absolutely hate them. I’m reluctant to use similes mostly because I read so many that I’ve read them before. You know the ones I mean: like a stealthy black cat, or slithered down the hall like a snail.  And that’s how similes get a bad name.

Reading Ashley Warlick’s novel The Arrangement makes me reconsider the simile. Referring to Los Angeles as “a city like a nervous widow.” One sentence that tells me: “Sleep rolled him like a thief.” The beauty and clarity of her similes is stunning. They stand out not only for their originality but for their scarcity. Overuse similes, even wonderful ones, and the reader is apt to read right over them. Or worse yet, get sick of them.

I think that was my problem. Too many of the books I read throw similes around like confetti. (ouch) An abundance of similes doesn’t prove a writer’s talent or intelligence. Perhaps it reveals the opposite. Granted bad similes can be humorous; in fact, there are whole web sites devoted to them. Check out http://www.eddiesnipes.com/2013/01/bad-metaphors-and-worse-similes/ if you want a giggle. One of my favorites: “When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.”

But I digress. Reading Ms. Warlick makes me want to be a better writer of similes. Not just to use them, but to use them well. That, to me, is good writing.

 

 

Priorities are tough.

They constantly battle with each other. Jobs, family, friends, hobbies, they all want a share of our time. The garden needs weeding, the bathroom needs cleaning, the dog needs to be walked, your best friend or brother is calling, you have an hour to get to work and don’t get off until 9. When the heck are you supposed to find time to write?

This was the issue I faced recently. A firm believer in the BIC, or Butt In Chair, philosophy of writing, I used to sit at my computer for an hour or so most every day, turning out stories to send off, blogs to put up, rewrites of my novel. Then I was hired as a library assistant (my dream job) and my husband retired, which meant he was home all day every day. Suddenly I had no time to write. We had upended our whole life sixteen years ago, even relocating, in order to allow me to write full time. Not writing seemed to be discounting those years and that move. I felt guilty and dissatisfied.

It took a long time for me to accept my limitations and realize I couldn’t be the writer I wanted to be under the circumstances. I had to rethink my priorities and make some tough choices. Though I love my job, I took a cut in hours. Though I love my family and friends, I have to let the phone ring, forgo that lunch date. My garden is full of weeds. We won’t even discuss the bathroom. To some co-workers, friends, and family I’m being selfish, or lazy, or simply in avoidance. It’s not easy to explain, but I feel better having made my choice and set writing back atop my priorities.

All I know is that my butt is where it should be.