Jay Eckert's Sharpened Pen

Children of Midian is PUBLISHED!

2012-01-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

Woo-hoo! In the midst of the snow, work, family, finishing up my Financial Accounting course (yech), and physical therapy (can you say, L5/S1?), I managed to land the plane that is Children of Midian. The runways required a bit of foaming, but what can you do? In my last post, I talked about the process of rewriting this novel, and promised I'd have it published by January 21st. Well, it is January 21st, and the novel is, by hook or by crook... published.

First, an aside. MRI's. Not a fan. And I generally forget that I am not a fan. Them: Are you claustrophobic? Me: Nope. Then I slide head first into the metallic sausage casing and panic sets in.

Oh no. I can't go through with this. I'm going to press this button. I can't believe this is freaking me out. What am I going to do? Breathe. Think of something happy. Think of what I need to do at work when I get back. Oh, no. Oh, no. CLANK! CLINK! BRRRRRR! CLANK! BRRRRRR!

Yeah, that was my Friday. Any-hoo.... Back to the post...

Children of Midian is an upper middle grade boy-friendly fantasy/adventure, though such a category doesn't really exist on Amazon and the like. So you'll find it in the Young Adult section for the most part. Here's the little bittie pitch for Children of Midian:

When a dark secret thrusts Elliot Hanson into the ethereal land of Midian, the fourteen-year-old army brat discovers friendship in a community of lost children. He also finds a legion of werewolves set against them. Feeding on imagination, these ruthless killers serve an even darker leader who intends to destroy every last child, leaving Elliot with no choice but to fight for all their lives.

And the longer description, which I quite like, questions and all:

How do you defeat the bad guys who exist only because you believe in them? Now, imagine there isn’t a single dull-minded adult around. What would you do now? This is the challenge facing fourteen-year-old Elliot Hanson, an army brat who careens into the ethereal land of Midian from which he cannot return.

Aside from his younger sister, he’s got no friends in their new hometown. Yet, this is exactly what he finds in the children of Midian. He also finds a legion of werewolves set against them by the evil Lycaon. What’s worse, rumors are flying about a weapon to wipe Elliot and his new friends off the map. He can’t let that happen, even if he finds a way back home.

But then Lycaon’s wolves capture his parents, and his sister joins him in Midian. Now, it's no longer just the children of Midian who need help. Can he thwart Lycaon's plans and save everyone before it's too late?

The novel is available on Amazon as well as Smashwords. Smashwoods has all formats - Kindle, Nook, iPod, PC etc, etc.. Once it is accepted into the Premium Catalog, it'll be available from other retailers, including Barnes & Noble.

The Rewrite has Landed

2012-01-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

It's quite remarkable what happens when you set out to revise a novel you first wrote years before. At least, it was remarkable to me. I wound up rewriting an absolute ton of the thing. About two years ago, I revised the Children of Midian, but I don't think my heart was really in it. I'd spent far too much time with the characters, having moved onto a second novel of a "planned" trilogy.

The first "final" draft had several problems. First, it was bloated. I can't say it any simpler than that. No matter what I did to the book, it only got longer. I seemed unable to murder my darlings.

I also discovered that the book wasn't quite as YA as I thought. A few agents provided me some excellent feedback on that very point. And so I learned the real difference between Young Adult and Middle Grade. I also found that neither Middle Grade nor YA are tidy little categories. Midian presented some darker themes than one might expect in a MG boy novel. Given the character ages, issues they faced, and some of the "dark matter", this was an upper middle grade novel. Go ahead. Try explaining that in a query letter.

The dawning realization that Midian was MG also led me back to my original problem. The book was already too long for a YA novel from an unpublished author. How was this going to work as Middle Grade fiction?

Novice that I was, I decided to split the first novel into two middle-grade-sized books. Big mistake. I had written one story, not two. Choosing a dividing point was like throwing a dart at a double-pane window. Don't get me wrong. I knew I needed to add a little something to make it "work". I wrote a new chapter to help augment the first half and to let it stand on its own. The end result? Two smaller halves, neither of which really stood on their own.

I wound up stitching it back together before leaving the book for dead a couple of years ago. Yet, the real problems remained. The plot was too confusing. The kids were melodramatic. Elliot--the protagonist--was sort of likable, but he was just kind of... meh. Above all, there was simply too much gunk--too much stuff I had been too stubborn to remove because I thought it was so neat and indispensable.

I picked it up a couple months ago and reread it. Though fairly horrified by large swaths of the what I'd written, I spotted what drew me to write the book in the first place. So, I decided to give revising it another shot.

I once asked my daughter, "What do you do when life hands you lemons?" She was probably eight at the time, but her answer lingers with me. "Suck on 'em." There would be much lemon-sucking, which completely explains the faces I pulled as I went through the process of rewriting the book.

The Peanuts cartoon atop this post is about where my head was at. Here are random thoughts that swam in my brain during the process.

1. Get to the point already.

2. He's a total wuss. Can't have that. (about the protag)

3. Cute, but who cares?

4. Kill it.

5. Did you forget you cut that scene? (upon finding references to aforementioned cut scene)

6. OMG - he/she is turning again. (characters kept turning to SEE things)

7. Great. That's the author, not the story and characters.

8. Hungry.

9. You suck. Whose idea was this?

10. Hey, look, the word-count is way down.

I'm on track for the planned release date on Smashwords to start - 1/21/2012

Midian Cometh

2011-12-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

I love taking time off from work. Who doesn't? Not only am I NOT slavishly doing what I get paid to do, I'm also enjoying a three week break from school. There's been no financial accounting for me last week, or this week. And I get next week off from that dry material as well.

The last time I had time off, I busily readied Urban Mythos for self publishing as an e-book, and I got it up on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This week, I spent some additional time on the aforementioned YA Urban Fantasy and published it on Smashwords.

So now for my next trick. On January 21st, I will publish my earlier novel, The Children of Midian. It needed some serious polish from whence I last looked at it, but I am hard at work readying it. This is an upper middle grade novel, with some slightly darker themes, but still firmly targeted at the middle school reader.

Elliot Hanson doesn’t live in an ordinary town, for it harbors a dark secret that leads him out of our world and into Midian. The thirteen-year-old army brat discovers friendship in a community of lost children, but he also finds a legion of werewolves set against them. Feeding on imagination, these ruthless killers serve an even darker leader who intends to destroy every last child, leaving Elliot with no choice but to fight for their lives.

Look for the e-book on January 21st on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and many other fine booksellers.

Support Four Debut Authors and Snag $125!

2011-11-28T05:00:00.003-05:00

Four books

Two Days

Great Prizes

With this contest, there is something for everyone and it’s SO simple to be in on the winning!

On November 28 and/or 29, purchase 1 or all 4 of the debut author’s books listed here. Then forward proof of purchase (the receipt Amazon sends you will do just fine) to : motionsrider@yahoo.ca and get up to 4 entries into a draw for a $100 Amazon gift card!

It’s that easy, no reviews, no hoops to jump through. Just a great .99 book or two. Or three or four. AND, if the person who wins the $100 Amazon Gift Card has purchased all 4 books, an additional $25 Amazon Gift Card will be awarded to the winner!

On top of that, 2 random commenter’s picked from 2 of our participating blogs will receive $5 gift Amazon gift cards . So, be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think of the promo, the books, or the authors.

Winners will be chosen randomly, one entry per person, per book.

All winners will be announced on December 7^th on Wringing Out Words.

“Between” by Cyndi Tefft

It just figures that the love of Lindsey Water's life isn't alive at all, but the grim reaper, complete with a dimpled smile, and Scottish accent.

After transporting souls to heaven for the last 300 years, Aiden MacRae has all but given up on finding the one whose love will redeem him and allow him entry through the pearly gates.

Torn between her growing attraction to Aiden and heaven's siren song, Lindsey must learn the hard way whether love really can transcend all boundaries.

Buy it on Amazon.

“Until Dawn: Last Light” by Jennifer Simas

When darkness falls, whose side will you be on?

For the past six years, Zoë has been anything but “normal.” Struggling to accept her immortality and thrown into a war that’s been waging in the shadows for over a thousand years, Zoë must now become who she was meant to be, joining the other Chosen to save what’s left of humanity. When the endless night falls over the Earth, will she be able to save the one man who reminds her of what it is to be human, or will it be too late?

Until Dawn: Last Light is a story of death and despair, love and longing, hope and hopelessness, and the ability to survive and keep going even when it seems impossible – when you want nothing more than to give up.

Buy it on Amazon.

“The Kayson Cycle” by Jonathan D. Allen

A stranger enters a dying town and makes a desperate plea…

The Kayson Cycle introduces the Kayson Brothers, a pair of faith healers who once wowed crowds in a traveling show but went their separate ways after a night in which a healing took a dark turn. Jeffrey Kayson disappeared into the wilderness and William Kayson, wracked by guilt, moved to the failing mining town of Calico Hills to build a nice, quiet life – one that has lasted for over ten years.

His quiet, predictable life crumbles when a mysterious stranger walks into his tavern bearing a proposal to find his long-lost brother and do the one thing that William has sworn to never do again - have his brother heal a woman. William soon learns that he can’t escape his family – or his destiny.

Includes an exclusive sample chapter of The Corridors of the Dead. Please note that this is a Kindle Single, and around 6,000 words in length.

Buy it on Amazon.

“Sundered” by Shannon Mayer

A miracle drug, Nevermore, spreads like wildfire throughout the world allowing people to eat what they want, and still lose weight. It is everything the human population has ever dreamed of and Mara is no different. Only a simple twist of fate stops her from taking Nevermore.

As the weeks roll by, it becomes apparent that Nevermore is not the miracle it claimed. A true to life nightmare, the drug steals the very essence that makes up humanity and unleashes a new and deadly species on the world that is bent on filling its belly. Locked down within their small farm home, Mara and her husband Sebastian struggle against increasingly bad odds, fighting off marauders and monsters alike.

But Sebastian carries a dark secret, one that more than threatens to tear them apart, it threatens to destroy them both and the love they have for each other.

Now Mara must make the ultimate choice. Will she live for love, or will she live to survive?

Buy it on Amazon.

Internet Book Fair Blogfest, Jay Eckert

2011-10-26T19:45:00.010-04:00

A day later and a dollar short they say. The internet book fair is/was happening, and now it's Wednesday! What fantastic time management skills I have. Nevertheless, here goes...

Urban Mythos

As other Mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their kind. His initial resistance causes the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. While trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco must rescue his friends and step-mom. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio’s help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

Urban Mythos is a young adult urban fantasy novel that blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and assimilation. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and Catherine Jinks’ The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

Available for $.99 at Amazon or Barnes & Noble in Kindle and ePub formats, respectively.

5 out of 5 stars A MUST Read Book!, September 26, 2011 By S. Belveal "Frankie Blooding"

I thought this book was fantastic!

It's a book that isn't getting nearly as much attention as I think it should. This is due to the fact that the market is huge and this one small book in a big-big world.

This book literally held me from the first line.

"My name is Zydeco, and I'm a recovering mythological creature."

I instantly chuckled and settled right in for a fantastic read that swept me away!

Zydeco can be a little dense sometimes, and as a main character, I wanted to reach through the pages and slap him around a bit. But Mr. Eckert's ability to create fabulously rich, multi-dimensional mythological creatures was astounding! I. Couldn't. Put. The. Book. DOWN!

If there is one book you have to read this year, it's by far this one! And you REALLY can't beat the price!

5 out of 5 stars Recovering Mythological Creature in Trouble, September 7, 2011 By Airdale

Zydeco is a "recovering mythological creature" - a teenage griffon exiled to our world. That wouldn't be so bad if the mayor wasn't on a path to rid the streets of Mythos by sending them off to die in a hell dimension. And if Zydeco wasn't dealing with school, a girl, friends and other teenage issues. The combination of teenage-boy-mindset with fantasy and an ever twisting plot is smooth and interesting - think Smallville, but with a bunch of teenage Clarks. My favorite though, is Zydeco's fun, sarcastic narration. Despite the serious threat to Zydeco's friends and family (and himself), this isn't a doom and gloom everyone-is-after-me type book - it's more of a BAD THINGS AFOOT!..I GOTTA FIX EM adventure. Recommended!

5 out of 5 stars Humorous and Entertaining, September 24, 2011 By Annie McMahon

The Best Thing Ever

2011-10-13T20:14:00.001-04:00

All right, it's not really the best thing ever, but still...

The other night, while lazily slumped in bed, I realized I had nothing to read. I had finished the last book I'd been reading - Halfhead, by Stuart B. MacBride. This was a physical book, by the way.

I had finished my grad school homework (endless nights of study are quite annoying after working all day). Granted, I had some eBooks available to me I'd reserved from the local library. I had even checked them out onto my computer with Adobe Digital Editions. But to read one of those books, I would have to get up and haul my Nook and my butt downstairs to plug the thing into my PC... the Nook that is, not my butt.

That's when I remembered the second book in Rick Riordan's, Heroes of Olympus series was out. Deciding I needed me a little Percy Jackson fix, I fired up the Nook at my bedside and turned on the Wi-Fi (I leave it off so as not to totally drain the battery). Pressing the "Shop" button, I found myself on the Barnes & Noble homepage. And what do you think I found? Much to my surprise and delight, staring back at me was some guy's top recommendations for the day, which included Riordan's, Son of Neptune. I clicked it, or whatever you want to call "touching the screen with your finger". Tapped? Yeah. I tapped that book. Well that sounds dirty. Anyway, I tapped tapped the buy button, confirmed and within seconds the novel I wanted to read was in my hands.

Dude! Yeah - I've bought some other books for the Nook, but those were mostly bought to "have and get to later". This was a serious impulse buy.

Okay, like I said. It's not quite the best thing ever, but it made me seriously happy for a few minutes.

Internet Book Fair BLOGFEST

2011-10-08T22:51:00.000-04:00

Michael and Amy Leslie have this terrific idea. You may know them as M.A. Leslie, authors of Tristen and the Magic Shop, as well as Liberty (my daughter's favorite). They've conceived an internet book fair, scheduled October 25th, where folks can learn about a wide variety of books and meet the authors. If you are interested in participating through your own blog, click the big ol' button below to visit their site and register. It promises to be a lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet and greet! It's open to self and traditionally published books.

An Odd Moment in the Office

2011-09-23T20:39:00.000-04:00

The strangest thing happened at work yesterday. My boss's boss, who actually will be my boss once my current boss retires (confused yet?) - Rich - let's call him Rich, which is a good idea since that's his name. So Rich pops his head in my office and quotes something that sounds pretty cool and science-fiction-ish. One of the things I like about Rich is that he's a bottomless well of movie quotes.

After Rich recites this line, I hem and haw before realizing he must be quoting a movie line. I blurt out, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which is dead wrong, because I know the book quite well and this line did not come from Douglas Adams' pen. Of course, that doesn't mean someone didn't throw that line in the film -- I liked the BBC television version way better -- but I doubt it.

Rich then tells me it's actually from a book he just started reading. So, now I'm at a loss, and I ask him if it's a new book, to which he replies that it is new to him. Again, I've got no clue, and it shows on my face. Rich tells me I know this book, so I scrape the inner recesses of my cobwebby brain, but can't for the life of me figure it out. Then he tells me I'm scaring him, which doesn't help. Rich's follow up comment?

"You wrote it."

Ah.

Ever had one of those days?

He recently picked up a copy of Urban Mythos for the Kindle. The good news is he likes it and is going to share it with his teenage kids.

And now for a random movie quote, which for some reason came to mind as I wrote the preceding paragraph.

"Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

...Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), Caddyshack

Vacation, Natural Disasters, and Books

2011-09-02T16:47:00.006-04:00

toLet's start with vacation. It was time to hang with the mouse this year down in Orlando. Yeah, I know. We're always down in Orlando hanging with the mouse, but it's just what we do. We flew down back on the 19th of August. And then everything went to heck.

First, there was the earthquake. These are not particularly common up in the northeast, and when they do occur, they're quite small. I cannot imagine what the folks in the Pentagon were thinking as they evacuated. It makes me shudder.

While this was occurring, we were watching the weather channel every day, keeping an eye on some hurricane named Ilene. It skipped right on by Florida--we had a bit of wind and that's all--and then launched itself up the coast and wrecked a lot of stuff. The coast of North Carolina, Virginia, etc. It slammed into Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York and left devastation throughout New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and flooded the heck out of Vermont.

Here's a picture of St. Clare's Hospital in Denville, NJ, where my daughter had her tonsils out years ago. It was taken from an upper floor. The circular drive that surrounds the flag pole is the front of the hospital. What you don't see is the road in front of the hospital, the huge parking lot just beyond the electric & phone wires, or the great big field beyond it near the scattered trees. That's all Rockaway River in this picture.

Last Thursday, we knew the storm was coming and going to hit the tri-state area on Sunday, so we moved our flight from Sunday to Monday. By Saturday, even the Monday flight was cancelled. We got in our rental car Sunday morning, and drove the 20 hours north to get home on Monday, with one overnight stop in northern Virginia. We avoided I-95 once we hit South Carolina, since it is close to the coast. The kids behaved pretty well, thanks to the DVD player we bought at Walmart before leaving early Sunday morning.

New Jersey was a mess. The Rockaway River (see the picture above) had washed away part of I-287 in two spots, and flooded Denville almost completely. We couldn't pick up our little black pug from the place she was staying in Denville until Tuesday because the road leading to the place was under water. Fortunately, the place was on high enough ground that it stayed dry. The Passaic River has left unbelievable devastation all over the northern part of the state. Below is a picture of the very large and popular Willowbrook mall in Wayne, NJ. Yes, that brown stuff is river. That's a big mall with a huge parking lot completely under water.

IRENE PORRO / SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

Things are drying out, although it's going to take a long time before folks fully recover.

On the bright and non-hurricane related side, I devoured Cold Vengeance, by Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston. Man, do I love Pendergast novels. My mini review is on goodreads. I also re-read Josh Bezell's, Beat the Reaper on my Nook. What an awesomely fun book.

And when I returned, the library had my reserved copy of Death Sentence (Escape from Furnace 3), by Alexander Gordon Smith. The Escape from Furnace books are like Peanut M&M's. Or regular ones if you're allergic to nuts.

Well, at least a volcano didn't sprout up in Northern New Jersey while we were away.

Angry Birds - Curse Those Piggies!

2011-08-14T21:35:00.000-04:00

I looked over at the couch, and my wife had Rachel's iPod in hand and was playing Angry Birds again. Many has been the evening when she swiped my Nook Color to do the same. I've convinced her Google Chrome is a good thing, mostly because you can play Angry Birds for free on this nefarious web browser.

It's a stupid game. I play it from time to time, of course, but it is stupid. So the wife says to me, "I need to go kill me some piggies." Off she goes. Next thing I hear is, "Why are they wearing helmets? Who gives a piggy a helmet?" or "How on earth could that piggy wind up there, under all that stuff?" Good questions, all.

So, in honor of all things involving suicidal birds and helmeted piggies, I give you this [key of] awesome take on Adele's, Rolling in the Deep.

Two Ends - Harry Potter & Borders

2011-07-31T22:30:00.002-04:00

Friday night, the wife and I were on our way to the movies to see Cowboys and Aliens (not as bad as they say, but not great), when we passed our local Borders Books and Music. Unless you've been hiding in a cavern with the aforementioned aliens, you are no doubt aware that Borders is shuttering its stores.

We were listening to the soundtrack of Wicked as we drove by, and the song For Good was playing. Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith sang:

Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good.

We pulled around the corner into the theater parking lot, where the signs for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II were still plastered all over the joint. It was at that moment that I actually felt a deep sense of sadness and loss. If you haven't guessed by now, I am a huge Harry Potter fan as are my two kids. In fact, I would say that J.K. Rowling has been a huge inspiration for my writing. Deathly Hallows was published four years ago, but we always had the remaining movies to look forward to! This last film (which I enjoyed quite a lot, thanks for asking) truly meant the end.

It was at this Borders five minutes from my house that I took my family for the midnight release celebrations of the Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows novels. It was at this Borders that I spent countless hours browsing, reading, drinking coffee, researching, and above all dreaming.

And like the seven-book series brought to eight-film life on the big screen, it is coming to an end. While the tale of a bespectacled boy wizard drew to a close with brilliance, sadness, and joy, I only wish I could say the same for this forty-year old bookseller.

Flash back one week earlier to when we dropped into Borders. The coffee shop was closed. Wandering the busy aisles of people looking for bargains that were not truly to be had, all I felt was a sense of numbness. I walked my daughter past the graphic novel section - she was looking for the graphic novel version of City of Bones - and a teenage kid meandered over to me.

"It's a total bummer, man. Now where am I going to get my Manga?"

It is. It is without doubt a total bummer.

Borders is over. Harry Potter is over. Both entwined in my memory. One went out with a glorious bang, while the other went out with a whimper and a shrug.

At risk of copyright infringement or just seeming incredibly sappy, I hereby quote Elphaba (Idina Menzel) in For Good.

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me Is made of what I learned from you.

Urban Mythos now available for the Nook

2011-07-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

I must say, it took me a lot longer to create the Kindle version of the book than the Nook version. Working with an ePub file is a lot easier. It's basically a ZIP file containing a bunch of HTML files, all of which I can deal with since, well, I am geekwriter1. Plus Calibre is really straightforward, and it actually converted the work I'd already done for the Kindle into the format I needed.

In any event, here it is. My YA Urban Fantasy Urban Mythos, available on Barnes & Noble. If you have any form of Nook, or any eReader than can read the ePub format, I hope you enjoy!

Urban Mythos is Available on Amazon

2011-07-12T20:25:00.001-04:00

Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill uncovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. Two years since his own transformation from griffin to human, he’s been attending clandestine meetings of the city’s ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor’s office.

As other mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their kind. His initial resistance causes the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. While trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco must rescue his friends and step-mom. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio’s help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

Urban Mythos is available on Amazon for the Kindle. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible!

Urban Mythos - Coming Soon...

2011-07-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

Now that I've got the week off from class, it's time for the big announcement.

I've decided to self publish Urban Mythos. My YA Urban Fantasy about a collection of ex-mythological creatures learning to live among us is coming soon. Former Griffin Zydeco Hill, his human love interest, Tameina, and best pal and ex-Gnome Blaine, will debut first on the Kindle. The cover art is ready to go, and I'm in the midst of a very deep editing process.

I am pretty excited about the prospect of doing this. I'll be self promoting right here, on twitter, on facebook and wherever else I can insinuate myself. Keep your eye on the sharpened pen for a contest or two as well!

More to come...

Queries, Space Missions and Angry Birds

2011-06-01T21:17:00.000-04:00

During a short breather in my MBA program, I got to thinking about Urban Mythos again. I have about five queries and one submission outstanding on it. The sub is several months old at this point, and I sent a courtesy eMail checking in a month ago. The queries occurred about two plus months ago. The question is, do I wait, or do I start querying again? I fear I won't make a decision before the lull ends ... tomorrow. Maybe in between courses.

Time is precious as I close in on the last two weeks of this leadership course. I just finished my primary contribution to a paper detailing the leadership strengths of the primary characters in the film Apollo 13. I wound up writing about Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, portrayed by Tom Hanks. I really would have liked to do Gene Kranz, the director of ground control portrayed by Ed Harris, because that guy seriously knew how to lead. "We've never lost an American in space. We sure as hell aren't going to lose one on my watch." And then the absolutely pervasive line, "Failure is not an option." Sure, Lovell said, "Houston, we have a problem," but still.

I have another paper to do in the next week or two. Two? Man, I hope it's two. It's a big paper. Who signed me up for this again? Thank goodness for my Nook Color. I've loaded a ton of required reading in PDF format onto the e-reader so I can take the material anywhere. Did I mention that I bought Angry Birds for the Nook? Yep. The most recent software update for the Nook brought a newer version of the Android O/S, and access to a ton of apps. The downside is I can't seem to pry the Nook out of my wife's hands. She's a bit hooked on Angry Birds.

Even more work than I thought

2011-04-28T19:36:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything on the pen and I get the feeling it's going to be like that for a while. The first week of my MBA program is nearing completion. I'm doing an online program with Centenary College here in New Jersey. Numerous people have told me that the online variation of any MBA program winds up being far more work - incredible amounts of writing - to make up for the fact that you aren't in a classroom for three hours. It sure seems true so far.

I'm on the blackboard system most every night, preparing assignments, doing research, and participating in threaded discussions. When I'm not doing that, I'm reading textbooks and research. By the way, I totally dig that the Nook reads PDFs since much of the research I dig up is in PDF format. Occasionally, the Nook's Quick Office app can't handle certain PDFs so they look all weird and illegible. Then I found Calibre, which lets you convert various file formats to the e-pub format. One such PDF converted nicely.. It's sooooo much nicer reading this stuff on an e-reader than on a PC.

Still, I'm finding time to read fiction. I recently finished the audio book for Scott Westerfeld's, So Yesterday, and I'm still wading through Richard Kadrey's, Kill the Dead, the much anticipated (by me) sequel to Sandman Slim. I think I like the first book a bit more, but it's still a blast. I've just begun to get my sci-fi on with audio book version of Richard K. Morgan's, Thirteen.

So despite my academic and professional pursuits, I'm still a double threat reading-wise.

And so it begins

2011-04-16T16:14:00.000-04:00

My MBA program starts this coming week. Life as I knew it, is over.... at least for a couple of years.

In other news, an entire week has gone by without a rejection letter. That's progress!

And in other, other news. We're the proud owners of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I DVD. Tonight, the family shall chow down on spaghetti with tasty meatballs purchased from Anthony & Sons in Denville. We also have some pasta fagioli, broccoli rabe, various breads, and fresh cookies from their excellent market. All this will be done in front of the television.

Rachel took one look at the quart of pasta fagioli soup and said, "So that's how they spell that?" Yeah, it's one of those words that you wonder how they decided to spell something that sounds like "Fazool" (at least in this part of the country). It's got that dangling "i" at the end. Ah, well.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

2011-04-11T20:24:00.000-04:00

Dang. I'm getting old. I took my son to a college fair down in Edison, NJ last week. Fortunately, he's only a high school sophomore, but come on, now. Is it fair that he's old enough to be thinking about college? That I'm old enough to have a son who's old enough to be thinking that way?

First, the joint was jumping. While my kids were on Spring Break, many schools in the metropolitan area were not. Yellow buses ferried hordes of high school students to the college fair. Most of the colleges that were a good fit for Scott were in attendance. Mind you, you won't find an ivy league university or, say, MIT at one of these. That's fine with me, because those places do not offer merit based scholarships, of which Scott would certainly avail himself.

We checked school after school, both private (wait - did you say $52,000/year for tuition, room & board?) and public (wait - did you say $25,000/year for tuition, room & board?). We dropped by my alma mater - Binghamton University (formerly SUNY Binghamton, at least when I attended), and lo and behold, Scott liked it. How funny would that be if he attended the college from which both my wife and I graduated?

For chuckles, we swung by the Cooper Union table. My grandfather graduated from that prestigious NYC institution 80+ years ago with a Civil Engineering degree. While every other booth had loads of pamphlets and signs, and people talking all about what their school had to offer, Cooper Union had one nattily dressed guy, a very small stack of single page pamphlets, some bookmarks, and a mostly empty table. The fellow looked generally bemused to be there. He said nothing about Cooper Union and focused on what courses Scott needed to focus on during his remaining high school years. When Scott mentioned one statistics laden research based analysis course he has now, the Cooper guy blessed Scott with a quote made popular by Mark Twain.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Scott was more than happy to share that with his RBA teachers when he returned to school today. The stats guy was amused, and the science guy told him it was Mark Twain.

Anyway, I may need to sell a kidney to put the kid through college. Of course, that would probably only pay for one year of tuition at a public university.

Sick and Solitary

2011-04-04T20:08:00.000-04:00

Yeesh, I am sick as ... well ... sick as heck. Yech. But now I'm so very happy. I took my daughter to the library to borrow her huge allotment of YA and other novels. She's on spring break, so it's uber important that she has loads to read, otherwise she'll whine about boredom. More so than usual, anyway. I'm introducing her to Christopher Golden, starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that's beside the point. When we were checking her books out, it turned out my copy of Alexander Gordon Smith's, Solitary was waiting for me.

YES!!!! The entire Lockdown series has been out for quite some time in the U.K., but it has taken its sweet time crossing the Atlantic. At least I have book two in my clutches now. Of course, I'll have to wait until August for the final novel, Death Sentence.

I was in the midst of reading one of those Frankenstein novels on the Nook, but that's officially set aside in favor of this puppy. Plus I'll owe the library overdue fees for the audio book copy of Clockwork Angel, because I've been in and out of the car so often.

Maybe I can't breathe particularly well right now and my head wants to implode from a sinus infection, and the various horse pills I'm taking require some time to work, but having a novel that I've been itching to read makes it almost all better.

French Fry Letter

2011-03-29T20:29:00.000-04:00

A week or two ago, my daughter's sixth grade class was given an assignment in which they were to write either a letter to an actual company of their choice, with the content either being a complaint or a compliment. They were going to mail the letter, and let the chips fall where they may. I thought this was an interesting and useful exercise because few people write letters anymore. It seems to have gone out of fashion with the advent of eMail, texting, tweeting, and the various forms of Facebook communication.

Rachel decided to write a letter of complaint to Red Robin, the primarily hamburger restaurant. Now don't be fooled. Rachel adores Red Robin. We travel about an hour west toward the Poconos a few times a year to shop at these outlet stores in Tannersville, PA. On the way home, we'd frequently stop at the Red Robin in East Stroudsburg. We always had a reasonably good meal there for what it was, and the service was generally fine.

Imagine our excitement when word came that Red Robin was opening a restaurant in our local mall. We could not wait and a week after it opened around Thanksgiving last year, we headed over. As one might imagine, an eatery open for a week and with all new employees would have a few bumps in the road. It did, but we expected it, and we had a good enough experience to warrant going back ... frequently.

And go back, we did. Many times. And we've run into people we know countless times. The residents of our New Jersey township crave a decent restaurant. Several years ago, a Damon's Grill opened up, and despite the somewhat pricey nature of the place and extremely spotty service, the joint was always jumping. You'd always find people you knew there almost any day of the week. I can't say for sure why it closed just a couple of years later given how busy it always was, but I'm guessing the crap service didn't help.

Well, four months later, Red Robin remains crammed to the gills with diners most times. The food has always been consistent, and the service ... it's spotty and depends on your server. We've had phenomenal and we've had less so. But it's clearly improved and still improving, despite my father-in-law having a near temper tantrum when they sat a few parties ahead of ours (I wasn't there that day - but my wife tells it well) that had arrived later than we had. They quickly fixed that, and fortunately, I wasn't there to experience it

Here's where my daughter's complaint comes in. Keep this in mind - every burger on the Red Robin menu comes with bottomless french fries. She goes there for dinner with her friend and her friend's family one night. Rachel's a big believer in the Natural Burger - a plain burger - with barbeque sauce on the side. She orders it. It comes - eventually - with no fries. Only hers. No fries. Everyone else's has a lovely pile on the plate. Now Rachel is what you might call a tad shy, so she refused to say anything. Everyone at the table tries to force their fries onto her plate, but she refuses. They'd had some soup, so she really didn't need the fries anyway.

And, Rachel chalked it up to one questionable waiter. Until...

A few weeks back, the four of us head there for lunch. Rachel and I order natural burgers. Awesome waitress. Great service. Everything's coming quickly. The drinks are refilled without us having to ask. The food comes at the perfect time.

No french fries with either of our burgers.

I, of the loud mouth, catch the waitress and ask for the fries. She is baffled that the plate didn't come with them and scampers off, to return moments later with a massive basket of the good stuff.

This is the reason for Rachel's letter of complaint to Red Robin written a week or so ago, sent to Red Robin corporate headquarters. I never did read the letter.

Today, eleven year old Rachel received a Federal Express Overnight pack from Red Robin in our mall. Inside was a very personalized letter on the corporate letterhead, apologizing for what had happened. The letter also serves as a $25 coupon off a meal and an invitation to ask for the manager upon her arrival so that Rachel can keep her apprised of how they're doing.

I'm very impressed with Red Robin, but more impressed with Rachel.

Spring's Sprung. Sort of.

2011-03-22T21:06:00.000-04:00

Spring. Spring. Spring. News of the spring. I've found my lawn. It's a mess. There's quite a lot of dog poop to clean up. When the heck did the pooch do all that? I suppose it slunk down through the snow as it melted. (Yes, she's a mountain pug that prefers to climb the snow banks and do her business atop mount stinkmore.)

In other bummer-ific news, I didn't reach the quarterfinals of ABNA. The feedback consisted of one exceedingly positive review, which I'm guessing would have been a vote to stay on the island, as well as one middling review, which was likely a vote that cast me off the island. At least I know my pitch was solid enough to get to the second round. Moving on.

Querying wasn't a focus for me recently. I dabbled in the odd contest over the past year, queried a couple of times and then jumped into ABNA. Most of the time was spent researching agents and writing Ghost Fishing. Now I'll jump in, head first. The thing about "head first", is if you're not careful where you jump, you wind up with a headache or worse.

In any event, it's spring, right? I think I might have mentioned that. I took my kids and my daughter's three best friends to Rita's for ices on the very first day of spring. The four girls sat at the picnic table and slurped up their various flavors, two of which left them crimson mouthed. My mint oreo cream ice, which looked not entirely unlike cold split pea soup, tasted precisely like icy mint oreo ice cream. Yum.

Did I mention we're getting somewhere between three and seven inches of snow tomorrow? Although I'm beyond tired of winter weather, given a choice between more snow and an earthquake/tsunami combo, I'll take the former.

Four Things on my mind

2011-03-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

As I write this, four things are on my mind.

First: it's Friday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Second: Japan. The images I see every morning and night on the news are terrifying, horrifying and saddening. Earthquake. Tsunami. Nuclear Disaster. I'm not going to comment on nuclear energy here. It's horribly ironic, though, that we've taken two sucker punches from mother nature and then cut ourselves off at the kneecaps. In the process, we'll likely have dealt not just humanity, but mother nature a severe blow. I'm not a big prayer guy, but I'm sending them to all the people

Third: A little less than four days from now, I'll know if Urban Mythos made it to the quarterfinals round of ABNA. I'm curious about when I'll see feedback on my excerpt. Will it be when the quarter finalists are announced on March 22nd or prior to that?

Fourth: After much research and discussion, I'm applying to get into one specific MBA program this weekend. Presuming I get in -- there's no reason I shouldn't -- the program will start in April. Yikes!

I will leave you with Steven Tyler's excellent quote from American Idol this past week. When asked about rocker contestant James Durban, he responded:

That man right there has a rich vein of inner crazy.

Moving on and moving up

2011-03-10T21:37:00.000-05:00

I recently came to the conclusion that I needed to go for a masters degree. Why, you ask? I guess I'm at that point in my career where I realize I won't be satisfied with doing the same fundamental job I've been doing for the past, I don't know, let's say fifteen years. As some of you may know, I'm what they call an IT Professional.

Here's the relevant definitions:

IT = Information Technology
they = the all knowing, ever present "they"
Information Technology = Computer Geek stuff
Professional = someone who gets paid to be a Computer Geek.

I'm going to date myself now, and by date myself, I don't mean take myself out for dinner and a movie. Nearly twenty-two years ago, I graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton with a Bachelor's Degree in Management.

*Pauses to shudder at the realization it's been that long*

When I left school, I accepted a job at Morgan Stanley, a brokerage firm in New York City, where I was paid to work for twelve hours a day: eight hours as an amateur computer geek performing mundane tasks such as loading reel-to-reel tapes and/or cartridges into the data center tape drives, unloading six-inch thick reports from twin-bed sized Siemens printers, staring at a computer monitor for hours on end to ensure that the monolithic stuff was working, and calling professional computer geeks in the middle of the night when said stuff of theirs wasn't working.

Nine months later, I was deemed a professional computer geek and set loose upon the commercial world of Morgan Stanley. Okay, so basically I was a computer programmer. Some folks like to call it software developer, while others prefer the self-satisfying term, software engineer. However you looked at it - programming computers, developing software, engineering software, or geeking out... I was an IT professional.

About six years and a couple of companies later, I moved on and moved up and into the world of management. I was a HGIC. Head Geek in Charge. That, by the way, is entirely different from the title we have at my present employer - HMFIC. I'll leave the definition of that acronym to your imagination. But, know there is only one correct answer.

As an HGIC, or development manager, it was my job to ensure other geeks wrote software by whatever random date somebody else chose. And frankly, I was still one of the geeks, so I continued to write software, and still do to this day, sixteen years later. Sure, I don't code*** nearly as much as I used to, but I've still got the heart of a programmer.

***Missing definition
code = write/develop/engineer software, program a computer, geek out

Okay, so this brings us to present day. I've been managing my kind for fifteen years. I'm quite sure I was awful at it to begin with, but over time, I think I've become somewhat competent. Hopefully, more than that. But as much as I enjoy the occasional programming diversion, I'm once again ready to move on and move up. Despite my many years of solid experience, it looks like an advanced degree is, while not required, certainly helpful in moving on and moving up.

MBA - Masters of Business Administration. That's the degree I'm going after. It'll be part time, possibly online or a mix of online and on-campus. I'm researching schools now. It's going to take a while - probably three or four years at the pace my home and work life can handle.

What will this do to my writing? Heck if I know, but something will have to give. I'm thinking of ways to balance work, family, friends, education and writing. I think the community aspect of writing may need to diminish if I'm to keep on writing novels, at least when school is in session. I can't stop writing. My brain just keeps pumping out strange and wonderful story ideas, and I need to put them on paper.

*Sigh*

A Little Planning Goes a Long Way

2011-03-03T20:00:00.001-05:00

I just finished listening to the audio book version of Scott Westerfeld's, Behemoth, the follow up to Leviathan. You can generally find me reading one novel while listening to another on the daily trip to and from work. It takes me a while to get into Steampunk novels, but I jumped right into Behemoth. It's a fascinating genre, one that requires quite a lot of planning. Westerfeld must have done a serious amount of outlining for this series, because it offers a richly detailed alternate history of the events leading up to World War I.

Now I'm waiting for the audio book version of Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel to free up at the library. But as I often do, when I'm waiting and I'm in the mood, I'll pop in a Harry Potter CD for the drive. So, in went Deathly Hallows. And you know what? J.K. Rowling must have outlined the heck out of the series.

Seriously! When she wrote the Order of the Phoenix, did she plan for Regulus Black's locket to be thrown out with the trash, knowing full well that it was actually Slytherin's locket, which, as one of Voldemort's horcruxes, held a piece of his damaged soul? Did she do so knowing the prominent role it would play in the end of Half Blood Prince and a huge portion of Deathly Hallows? Or, when she set out to write the sixth book, did she look back over her earlier novels, looking for anything she might use? Did she say, okay, I need a little something that one of the kids might have seen. Oh, a locket! Hmm. Yeah. Locket. They'll find that locket. And ... and... I'll make it Hufflepuff's locket! Wait. No good. Riddle was in Slytherin's house. It'll be Slytherin's Locket!

Maybe she didn't even think of it when she wrote Half Blood Prince. Perhaps she just said, it'll be a locket, and then when she set out to write the penultimate book, she had to give it a back story. And then she looked back over the previous novels and said, hey look! A locket! They threw out a locket. I need a locket. Let's make up a story about that locket. Really, it could have been anything. What if it wasn't a locket, but an old chocolate frog wrapper in Ron's bedroom? If I wrote it, yeah, probably, and then Sorcerer's Stone wouldn't have been published, and then where would Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson be? (Maybe they'd have done just as well, but...)

You see, it couldn't have been a chocolate frog wrapper. I think Ms. Rowling planned out almost every last detail, and that's why the novels are so freaking brilliant. It is 100% clear that terrific series like Westerfeld's Leviathan, Clare's Mortal Instruments and Dashner's Maze Runner were not written organically, with events, plot and characters simply unfolding as they might. Do I know this for a fact? Heck, no. But it sure smells like it.

ABNA - Happy Relief

2011-02-24T22:22:00.001-05:00

Finally! Amazon updated the ABNA page on their web site today, and my pitch for Urban Mythos enabled me to reach the second round. You can find the complete list of the YA entries that made the second round on the ABNA page. So, now I'm one of 1000 YA novels whose excerpts will be critiqued and scored by Amazon editors and at least one Amazon top reviewer. I'm not sure if the YA group had completely filled up to the 10,000 entries that were permitted, although the General Fiction group had.

So now I wait until March 22nd, when Amazon announces the Quarter-Finalists. Big shout-outs and congrats to my fellow writing buddies Kate Larkindale, Louisa Clarkson, and Tamara Heiner (and hubby) who also made the cut!

Here's the pitch that got me into the second round.

Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill uncovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. Two years since his own transformation from griffin to human, he's been attending clandestine meetings of the city's ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor's office.

As other mythos vanish from the city's streets, the deputy mayor demands Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their kind. His initial resistance causes the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won't be long before they're served up as chimera-chow. While trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco must rescue his friends and step-mom. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio's help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

At 80,000 words, Urban Mythos is a young adult urban fantasy novel that blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and assimilation. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne's Breathers: A Zombie's Lament and Catherine Jinks' The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

Maybe I can breathe now and get back to Ghost Fishing.

Melancholy Music

2011-02-21T20:22:00.002-05:00

It was a very strange weekend. My daughter had her guitar lesson at 1pm on Saturday. Rachel has played guitar for about 18 months and as it turns out, is kind of a natural. In fact, music is really her thing. She plays flute, tried out and made jazz band in 6th grade (not all that common for 6th graders to make it), has written and performed her own songs on both guitar and keyboard, took voice lessons a couple of years ago and stood up in front of a packed restaurant to sing. It blows my mind, because she's always been an exceedingly shy child. But music is her way of connecting.

The elementary school band teacher was her guitar teacher for the eighteen months leading up to early January. After a while I noticed she was floundering a bit, and not as enraptured with her guitar. I felt strongly that she needed to be in a situation where she might perform in an ensemble. She needed to be pushed in order to get to the next level. The community newspaper had an article about a place nearby called the Academy of Modern Music, in which they had exactly what I thought Rachel needed. Private lessons as well as ensemble performances.

I spoke with Pat Cerello, the guy who ran the Academy, and subsequently brought Rachel over one Saturday to get a feel for the place. He spent fifteen minutes listening to my shy girl play and said she wasn't quite ready for ensemble work, but he'd be glad to take her on in private lessons. We decided to go for it, and believe me, it wasn't an easy decision because Rachel was extremely attached to her current guitar teacher, who'd also been her elementary school band teacher the previous couple of years. The transition from elementary school to middle school isn't always easy, and this, for Rachel, was one more break. Still, she really wanted to do this and was excited at the prospects of working with Pat.

Her lessons started six weeks ago, and I was amazed at how quickly he got Rachel playing more advanced music. He focused and challenged her in an extremely short period of time. The guy was full of great stories, having played with a huge number of people over the years, while also teaching music at NYU and here in New Jersey. My daughter remarked that he was giving her a ton of hard stuff to work on and that she was enjoying it a great deal. By the second week of lessons, Pat told me she was much farther along than he'd realized and began to challenge her even more.

This past Saturday, we arrived at the music school to find a hastily scribbled note on the door that said lessons were cancelled indefinitely. While we stared dumbfounded at the sign, a man walked up the street and asked us if we were there for lessons with Pat. When we replied that we were, he told us that unfortunately Pat had passed away earlier in the week (the Monday after Valentine's Day). Despite being only 56 years of age and in good health, he'd had a massive heart attack, and left behind his wife and two daughters.

This man, Pat's landlord and friend for many years told us that the family was going to continue on with the music school -- Pat had many friends who would take over lessons -- and that they hoped people would stay with them.

Rachel and I stared at each other, completely at a loss. We'd only known Pat for six weeks, and then, for only about 30 minutes or so each week. But the loss struck hard for some reason. I feel awful for his family, and for his friends and students who had come to rely on this talented musician and teacher.

While working with her on a Taylor Swift song (Taylor Swift is my daughter's idol), he would always try to get Rachel to sing because he didn't feel like he could carry off the nineteen-year-old girl voice. He was teaching my daughter bar chords and and explained that while Taylor Swift would play certain chords, she needed other musicians in her band to play slightly different chords. He asked her to consider what would happen if Taylor Swift hired the two of them for her band. Then he paused, and said that, well, Taylor Swift was more likely to hire Rachel for her band. Pat's wife called from the front desk, "You got that right!".

He made Rachel giggle. He made her laugh. He challenged her. Pat made her a better musician in an extremely short time -- too brief a time. The suddenness of Pat's passing shocks me even now. He'll be missed. My deepest sympathies to his family and his many friends.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

2011-02-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

Tom Petty had it right. ABNA judging is underway, and all I can do is wait. Thousands of entrants with just a pitch to differentiate us all. It'll be another couple of weeks until I find out if I make the first cut, which I haven't done before. Of course those previous tries were with a different book.

Meanwhile, I soldier on. I've been spending a lot of time reading and critiquing the revisions on Alex Lidell's terrific YA fantasy, Service of the Crown. It's on the slate to be published by Dial Books, and was a finalist in last year's ABNA. She's done a great job with these changes. When this book comes out - buy it! Hmm. Now I need to find out exactly when it will be coming out.

While that's going on, I'm plugging along on Ghost Fishing, my middle grade adventure. I just finished writing the chapter in which the protagonist encounters a somewhat grumpy chimpanzee poet who wears a suit and fedora. The next chapter is going to be fun to write because I get to introduce the antagonist and some spooky bits. And then it's on to the next location. I've got a bad feeling, though, that my word count is going to be completely over the top for middle grade. Ah, well. I'll deal with that during revisions. For now, the words must fly.

And I've been getting to know my Nook Color quite a bit more. I bought a couple of eBooks from Borders on New Years' Day - they had a big sale - $5 books. And yes, you can buy an ebook for the Nook from everyone but Amazon. But I haven't read them yet, because all the eBooks I reserved at my local library suddenly became available. I was bombarded with eMails listing all the eBooks I initially reserved because, well, I wanted to read something. But I've read The Hobbit and The Stand too many times to count, so I let those reservations expire. However, Seth Grahame-Smith's, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was a total blast. And now I'm in the middle of Sara Gruen's, Ape House, which is equally terrific, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Did I mention that the Nook Color is the best-selling item in Barnes & Noble's nearly 40 year history?

Back to waiting!

Ice and Other Life Moments

2011-02-02T17:31:00.000-05:00

courtesy of ThisWhackyNation.com

Two days of snow, slush and now.... ice. Schools were closed today - a very good idea - and I wound up working from home because the driveway was under an inch of ice. I worked from home yesterday because the storm which began yesterday left accidents all over New Jersey, making it extremely hard to get out of my neighborhood.

The groundhog did not see it's shadow, so they tell us we're not getting six more weeks of winter. Somebody might want to tell the meteorologists about that. Oh, I'm sorry they already know, but they're predicting more nastiness for Saturday.

Still, I know spring and summer will be here soon enough, and I'll be complaining about how hot it is. Life is like that. Cold one moment and warm the next.

We're heading to my wife's uncle's funeral on Friday, which is sad enough. On top of that, the father of my childhood best friend (and later on my best man), passed away suddenly yesterday. His funeral is on Thursday, but I won't be able to make it. I'll probably pay a visit on Saturday. All this brings back painful memories of when my own father passed away six years ago.

Work has been as stressful as I've ever known in my life. The f-bomb has escaped my mouth quite a few times over the last couple of weeks. But in the end, real life and death puts it all in perspective. When my daughter plays her flute or guitar in the living room while I'm working nearby, instead of wishing she'd keep it down, I'm loving every note. Every note.

Life is short. Savor every moment.

Snow, snow go away

2011-01-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

Who thought this whole snow thing was a good idea? I was happy to see that first snow fall in December. But now it's nearly February, and there's been some kind of storm every few days. Wednesday, it's some kind of wintry mix that turns into a snow dump. Thursday, it's a it's a Nor'easter. Saturday, it's a clipper system from Canada. Does that make it a Canadian Clipper? Maybe the Los Angeles Clippers should move to Winnipeg?

Every day, the early morning hours turn into a mess of automated phone calls from the kids' schools telling us about a closing, delayed opening or early dismissal (if they didn't call us the nigth before). Then, there I go, out onto the driveway blowing snow every which way, but invariably back into my face, before clearing the sidewalks and the accursed six metric ton packed mound of ice and snow the plow drivers so graciously crammed into the end of my driveway.

I'm ready for summer - no matter how hot it gets.

Did I mention the large swath of lawn I shovel out so that the little black pug should have a place to leave her business? Oh, yes, that's key, because pugs are not long legged, nor do they have much fur on their paws. All my efforts are wasted, though, because Tink turns out to be a mountain pug. She prefers to climb atop the 24 inches of packed snow, her toes/claws spread out wide like eagle talons as she maneuvers her way across the arctic tundra. Whereas it would be quite easy for me to clean up after her in the dug out area, she leaves me a steamy pile sitting atop a distant peak of the Himalayas. I am NOT getting my jeans soaked for that.

Which brings me to my writing.

Hey - don't judge the quality of my segue.

There hasn't been a whole lot of time for my writing because of my current work load. I entered Urban Mythos into ABNA, finished a chapter of Ghost Fishing, and am spending quality time helping out Alex Lidell (ah, the pen name) by critiquing her editor-driven revisions of Service of the Crown. As much as I might be helping her, I'm learning an awful lot about the editing process for an honest to goodness soon-to-be-published novel. It's amazing to experience the transformation of this book's story, which I read and reread along with a select group of other wonderful writers in our writing group. This is going to be a terrific novel. Okay, it already was, but it's going to be, as they say, awesome-sauce.

Wait a minute. Did somebody say more snow this weekend?

ABNA - The Final Pitch

2011-01-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

Thank you all so much for you excellent feedback. I think I've got what I'm looking for in my ABNA pitch. For some reason, I had it in my head that ABNA started this coming week. Fortunately, it's not for another week. Or maybe that's unfortunately? I don't know. It depends on how my Jets do today against the evil empire. It's always appropriate to be in a good frame of mind when entering a contest.

Here's the pitch after all the wonderful critiques.

Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill uncovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. Two years since his own transformation from griffin to human, he’s been attending clandestine meetings of the city’s ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor’s office.

As other mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their kind. His initial resistance causes the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. While trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco must rescue his friends and step-mom. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio’s help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

At 80,000 words, Urban Mythos is a young adult urban fantasy novel that blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and assimilation. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and Catherine Jinks’ The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

ABNA 2011 - Going for it

2011-01-08T16:04:00.000-05:00

I have made up my mind. I'm going to submit Urban Mythos to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest next week (or the week thereafter). So now, I've got to tune up my pitch. I've queried it a few times, but the pitch is a little different - not much, but a bit. What do I have to lose, right?

Without further ado, I present to you the first iteration of the ABNA pitch for Urban Mythos. I would love to get your opinions, advice, critiques, comments, or jokes, so please, please, please, let me know what you think. What's the comment box for anyway?

Sixteen-year-old Zydeco Hill discovers a plot to capture former mythological creatures and expel them to a barren world filled with hungry beasts. You wouldn’t think a city kid like Zydeco would care about their plight, except he’s one of them. Two years removed from his own transformation from griffin to human, he’s been attending meetings of a clandestine support group for the city’s ex-mythological creatures. When the police raid one such meeting, he discovers that the conspiracy goes all the way up to the mayor’s office.

As other mythos vanish from the city’s streets, the deputy mayor demands that Zydeco turn in Octavio, the missing leader of their local support group. His initial resistance results in the disappearance of both his stepmother and best friend, and it won’t be long before they’re served up as chimera-chow. Still trying to keep the mythological truth from the girl he adores, Zydeco decides to rescue his friends and step-mom rather than betray Octavio. Along the way, he unearths critical information about an even larger conspiracy to rid the world of his brethren, but he needs Octavio's help to put it to use. The only problem is he has no idea where the guy is hiding.

Urban Mythos, an 80,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel, blends action and romance while dealing with issues of trust and fitting in with mainstream society. It will appeal to readers who enjoy the distinctive voice and humor of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament and Catherine Jinks’ The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

A Surprising Direction

2011-01-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

I finally got my butt back into gear over the last few days of the holidays and worked on the alternate chapter one of Ghost Fishing. On a recent post, I ruminated over the style and voice of my Middle Grade WIP. This is the curse of voraciously reading the genre. I set out to write it one way because I was enchanted by the fairy-tale-ish style and voice of Frank Beddor's, Looking Glass Wars. So I wrote.

And then I set my WIP aside to pay some heed to Urban Mythos, which needed some revising based on agent feedback. While I was away from my MG-that-could, I read a few Rick Riordan books whose attitude made me smile and laugh. This gave me pause, and I wondered if my new story would be better served in a slightly more active/snarky/1st person-ish style. I'd had some success with this style before.

Therefore, I crafted a new opening, told in 1st person and with a very different style from the original. Now, I'd also spent some time outlining the plot and character throughlines before I set to work. As a result, the opening chapter had a very different opening scene than the original. Regardless of my style choice, I planned on keeping this new scene. I had a hunch - not so much a preference - just a very strong feeling that if I put the two chapter ones in front of my eleven-year-old daughter, she'd go for the newer version.

It was time to put them to the test. I sat her in front of the computer, with both versions open, and awaited her reaction.

Boy (or should I say girl?) was I surprised. Hands down - the original won. My daughter, Rachel, is not partial to this style of book. In fact, she's as comfortable with Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games, as she is with the Sisters' Grimm and the Mysterious Benedict Society. Like I said, it's not that I felt strongly about one style versus the other, I just had a feeling. I was wrong.

As a result, I took that new first scene and rewrote it into the original version's style. In the process of doing so, I think I've arrived at a third style - which is mostly the fairy-tale feel, with a bit more attitude. This style lent itself extremely well to the scene I wrote last night. So far, I agree with Rachel's opinion. That little girl (okay - she's pretty much 5' 5" or 5' 6" so not so little, but she's still 11 yrs old) knows her stuff!

And now, fueled on some Starbucks, I'm off to write some more!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

As my Nana used to say, have a healthy and a happy! And now, a 2010 video.

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

Rethinking Voice and Style

2010-12-21T22:12:00.000-05:00

The one on the left is voice. The other guy is style.

I wrote the first two chapters of Ghost Fishing, my middle grade boy adventure, a couple of months back then got sidetracked with some other projects. When I returned to it a few weeks ago, I decided I needed to put together a somewhat coherent outline for the events that were to play out in the novel. Each chapter was to be almost its own mini adventure. At the same time, I wanted to ensure my characters were well fleshed out, unique, interesting, and had clear motivations.

While this was going on, I also decided I needed to take a fresh look at the style and voice with which I was going to write the novel. So what if I'd written a couple of chapters I might throw away. I reasoned that these were exploratory in nature. When I began conceptualizing Ghost Fishing, I'd just finished reading the first two novels in The Looking Glass Wars, Frank Beddor's series inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The fairy-tale voice and style in these novels really struck and inspired me, and that's the direction in which I wanted to take Ghost Fishing.

But as I began to fill in the details behind my new novel, I began to pay attention to other middle grade fiction. Some of this I read, some of this I listened to in the car. There's really nothing like listening to a good book read by a talented actor or actress. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, it was in these novels that I found other styles that equally inspired me.

Rick Riordan's, The Lost Hero reminded me of what fun I had reading the Percy Jackson novels, and although this novel isn't written in first person POV like the Percy novels, the voice and humor are all there. Eoin Colfer's, The Eternity Code, and Artemis Fowl novel, dished out the joy, cleverness, outlandishness and laughs, while sticking to third person, omniscient. Both novels share pacing, humor and heart, even though their voices are entirely different.

I dug into Will Hobbs' Ghost Canoe because, well, my novel is entitled Ghost Fishing, so I had to see what this was all about. It shares nothing with my novel or the two above. It's historical middle grade, has quite a lot of fishing, and the tone is pretty much straight forward boy adventure that reminds me of some of the novels of my very early youth. I gave Michael Spradlin's, The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail a shot. This is middle grade adventure set in the middle ages, but told in first person POV, which seemed kind of unique for something set so long ago.

Having read each of the above, I began to lean back toward what I enjoy reading most -- a fast-paced story laced with humor, told in perhaps first person POV or third person limited. The third person limited buys me the ability to get a bit deeper in other characters' heads, and there is one character in Ghost Fishing -- the impact character -- into whose head I wouldn't mind dipping. On the other hand, the benefit of staying in first person with my main character is that I can keep the impact character's story a bit more mysterious for a while.

As for the fairy tale style, I'm somewhat afraid I won't be able to carry off the style with as much humor and snappy pacing as I'd like. However, I've returned to the third book in The Looking Glass Wars series, ArchEnemy to see what inspired me to go with the fairy tale approach in the first place. Maybe I'll change my mind back again. I plan on wrapping up my initial outlining this week and jump back to the writing next week.

Oh, and for those organic writers out there -- you know who you are -- I'm not outlining the entire novel from front to back. Yes, I've done a fair bit of work on characters, overarching plot, and motivations, but my chapter outline only goes about five or six out. I like to map out where I'm going for a period of time so I can simply drive without worrying if I'm headed in the right direction. Then I'll reach a rest stop, where I'll map out the next part of the journey before I get back behind the wheel.

My Nook and I

2010-12-14T20:42:00.000-05:00

See that device over there on the left of the page? That's a Nook Color from Barnes & Noble. It's based on the Android O/S. I got me one of those the day it came out. This is a big deal for me because I am most definitely NOT on the bleeding edge on technology purchases.

Witness this conversation between my older brother Lee and yours truly more than fifteen years ago.

Lee - "This is my computer."
Me - "I've heard Intel is coming out with a 386 chip, but you'll never need anything more advanced than the 286 you have there."

I wound up with the Nook for two reasons. One - While I purchase loads of book, I also am a huge user of the public library. The Kindle doesn't do that. Two - it's got a color touch screen (Did I mention Android O/S?) which makes it like a mini poor-man's iPad without any of the caché. I fiddled with the Nook as soon as it arrived at my house on 11/19 (was that Fedex or UPS? Can't remember.) from B&N dot com. It's slick. Pages do, in fact, turn quickly. The print is easily read. The wireless connectivity is flawless. I was enjoying it.

And then?

It sat for a couple of weeks because I was in the middle of another book - Rick Riordan's, The Lost Hero, which was for some reason taking me a long time to read, despite how much I liked it.

Now, however, I've loaded a couple of books on my Nook: Frankenstein, which I downloaded for free from Google Books - it's in the public domain; Alan Furst's Dark Star, which was one of the very few interesting e-books available for download from the virtual public library that did not have a massive waiting list. Yes - downloading e-books from your public library is NOT a gimme. There is this whole digital rights management deal. If the library purchased one e-copy of the book, then only one person at a time may download the e-book for a given loan period. This seems to result in long wait times. Also, my local public library is part of a county library system that is networked with a third party that actually offers the e-books. This means there's that many more people from all over waiting on virtual line to download an e-book.

I imagine this whole process will improve over time as more and more folks go the e-book route, and libraries stock their own e-copies of books. I'm hoping to join the NYC Public Library in a couple of weeks -- they let us New Jersey folk do so if you show up in person. They've got a massive e-book catalog. I've got a few books on my list I'll be purchasing for my Nook as well.

My new toy and me.

I'm feeling a little verklempt

2010-12-09T21:57:00.003-05:00

One of the toughest challenges we face as writers is rejection. Rejection by our peers, both published and otherwise. Rejection by publishing professionals - agents & editors. When you write a book, unless you plan on never showing it to anyone, you run this risk. Somebody is going to read it, and either they will tell you how they feel about it or you will nag them until they ultimately do. Good or bad.

Positive feedback is always welcome and quite the ego boost. Unless it's tempered with constructive criticism, however, it won't help you improve. So when you put your novel out there for everyone to see, for everybody to critique, well, it takes a badge of courage.

Earlier this year, I submitted the first 250 words of Urban Mythos to Authoress's awesome Secret Agent Contest - July Edition. I got plenty of feedback from my peers, mostly good, some bad, but almost all of them had an element of constructive criticism. I came in runner up and won a partial submission to a fabulous agent, who later rejected the partial but offered to have another look should I revise. (I did, and I did.)

This month, Authoress sponsored an absolutely unbelievable contest called the Baker's Dozen Agent Auction. First, you had to be among the first 100+ to get your logline and first 250 words emailed. After that, your logline and first 250 words had to pass muster and make the final cut of 40 total entrants. Then, and this is where it went from fantastic to other-worldly, thirteen agents bid on the entries they liked. Bidding ranged from a five page submission to a full. Not every entry would necessarily receive a bid. In addition to that, one of three published authors provides a critique for each entry as does editor Stacy Whitman.

This was a big big big contest with lots of people watching. The feedback was, shall we say, illuminating. Some of the same folks who read my excerpt before commented again, but there were many others. The critiques were more wide ranging, anywhere from "love this" to "hate this". Generally, it was quite positive, with bits of advice here and there that I take to heart. Whether I agreed with some of the more brusque comments was immaterial - I most definitely took something constructive out of each and every word people wrote and I sincerely appreciate it.

The hardest part this time was sitting by during the day of the bidding and not receiving one nibble. The Patriots had slaughtered my Jets the night before on Monday Night Football, and the day of the auction was my birthday. Alas, there were no agent birthday gifts. I got to feeling a bit melancholy about things. I must admit that three of the thirteen agents in the auction either already have my novel or have rejected it. And these same agents might have been the only three in the auction who would have bid in the first place.

I'll never forget two things that occurred during this contest, though. First, toward the end of the bidding, someone posted... and I quote, "Okay, I just have to say I can't believe no one has bid on this entry yet. It's so original and funny. Hang in there, author!!!" I still didn't receive a bid, but that made me feel pretty darned good.

The second item of note was that many of my writing.com buddies provided their comments as well. I thus name them here:

Louisa

Dawne

Kurt

Annie

Kate

Rachel

What I will most remember is that some of these fine folks took umbrage at one or two negative comments and posted their well conceived and incredibly well crafted rebuttals. I never asked for it and their efforts really weren't necessary - as writers, we all have thick skins.

But it's just the best knowing these great folks have my back. They should know I read their comments with a smile plastered on my face, and as my family would say, I got a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island. Discuss.

The Return of Ghost Fishing

2010-11-29T20:49:00.002-05:00

It's back to work on my Middle Grade WIP - Ghost Fishing. Last I left it, I had a rough outline, about two chapters done (about 6000 words), and a desperate need for "coastal locations" up and down the Atlantic coast of the United States.

I read the rough outline and those two chapters and decided I like where it was going, just not how it was getting there. Also, after a lengthy revision of my YA fantasy, it struck me how weak my preparation was for this MG. I'm pretty sure I was lining myself up to write a protagonist to whom no reader could get close. Jacob's a great kid, but I just didn't know as much about him as I needed to.

What to do? What to do?

First, I'm switching from 3rd person-limited POV to 1st person, past tense. My original intent was to give it a kind of fairytale vibe, which IMHO 3rd person-limited does justice. Now, I'm thinking less fairytale and more of a fast-moving, hip style. Okay, maybe not hip.

Of course a POV switch doesn't solve everything. Some time ago, I picked up a copy of Dramatica Pro, and fiddled with it off and on. The reason I never stuck with it is that I am a Gen-X'er, which means I have zero patience and require immediate satisfaction. I am part of that original MTV generation (as in one cable channel with music videos, VJ's Martha Quinn and JJ Jackson). It's a handicap, especially when it comes to writing.

Well, I stapled my butt to the desk chair, fired up the software and gave it a whirl. What's good about this thing is that it forces you to methodically work through the preparation. It's not really an outline, per se, although I believe I'm about to head into that last section of the storyguide which is something like an outline maker. It forced me to think of the logline up front, which is basically that elevator conversation about your book. It's probably good to know what that is before you write the story. It also really helps you nail your theme - to narrow down the elemental issue at the heart of the story, something I never quite figure out until somebody asks me what my theme was and I'm left with no choice but to make something up on the spot.

I walked through the characters - all of them - what they're like and what they do. Then, I identified the main and impact characters. The main is easy - in my case, it's Jacob, the protagonist (although it can be someone else). I like the idea of the impact character, though. Usually, the impact character is not the antagonist. This person is actually somebody who has a wholly conflicting world view from the main character over a central issue of personal interest to them both. In the end, either the impact or the main character will give in and change their view. The term "impact" is appropriate because this character will have the greatest impact on your main character.

Early on, I discovered I was missing this character. I had someone in the back of my head that I'd never written down. But as I dug in and experimented, this character jumped off the screen at me, yelling, "Pick me! Pick me!" This character (Mila is her name) belongs in this story. She's the impact character and is perfect in that role. I can already see how much more depth she'll add to both the story and to Jacob.

The more I went through it - illustrating the various perspectives of the overall story as well as the main and impact characters - the deeper I understood my characters' motiviations, where they're going to go, and what the goal of the story really is. I didn't need this for Urban Mythos, but it seems to be doing the trick for this novel.

So, yeah. That's moving along. At the same time, I'm actively researching "locations" that will help fill in the details of the several adventures that will occur along the way. I've found a very cool sight in Delaware Bay, involving a totally bizarre and potentially haunted light house. I'm also considering Chincoteague, Virginia (mostly because that's where one of the ghosts in this story died a hundred years ago), as well as Jekyll Island, Georgia. I mean, c'mon. Jekyll Island? That's an awesome name!

If you have any ideas for coastal towns with any haunted and/or peculiar history, especially small islands just off the Atlantic coast of the U.S. let me know!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-22T21:42:00.000-05:00

It's that kind of week. Food. Family. Wine. Food. Black Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving from New Jersey.

Literary Intermezzo

2010-11-16T22:31:00.000-05:00

Intermezzo - a short movement coming between the major sections of a symphony

It's an odd time for me. I'm not actively writing anything at the moment except this blog post. The world building revisions to Urban Mythos are done, and I've got my query on the awesome YALITCHAT's Query Kick Around. I've received some excellent feedback so far and I continue to revise it. At the same time I'm researching agents, most of whom I already list on the YA Pubs and Agents list. There's so much to discover about these literary agents - interviews, tweets, blog posts, etc.

I'm reading quite a lot right now, having just finished The Scorch Trials, the phenomenal sequel to James Dashner's The Maze Runner. In the car, Libba Bray's Going Bovine has got me thoroughly intrigued. I've begun reading the first novel in Rick Riordan's new camp halfblood series - The Lost Hero. This guy is amazing. If you're looking for the pacing blueprint for Middle Grade adventure fantasy, read any Percy Jackson novel.

Speaking of Middle Grade, my MG WIP - Ghost Fishing is just sitting there, waiting for my return like a lonely puppy. The Lost Hero has me motivated to go back to the beginning and change things around. The opening chapters are too slow. That's got to change right away. Yes, the book starts where things change, but it's kind of debatable. Does the tale of the Titanic start when Leonardo DiCaprio's character boards the ship or when the ship hits the iceberg? I think Ghost Fishing has begun when he boards the ship, whereas I might need to start somewhere in the North Atlantic.

I'm also debating what to do with the POV. When I started writing the book, I'd just finished reading Frank Beddor's Looking Glass Wars, and decided that's the style and voice I was aiming for -- third person, limited, kind of fairytale tone. The other option on the table is 1st person, and then within that POV, I might go past or present tense. I had a great time writing 1st person in Urban Mythos. The humor really flows more naturally and the character developed easily. That said, you kind of lose some of the fairy tale nature of the story. Clearly, I'm of two minds on this. I wonder if I can combine the fairy tale element with the 1st person POV and the immediacy of present tense. Any ideas? Anyone? Ideas? Bueller?

The End of the World (Building)

2010-11-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, I finished my world building expedition in the realm of Urban Mythos. Initially, my mission was simply to get the reader grounded in the mythological world much earlier on--move the bits of world building toward the beginning of the book.

HAH!

I shall repeat. HAH!

Much like the star ship Enterprise, I set my course, but like Captain Kirk, I found a need to beam down to several planets littered with green-skinned babes, tribbles, Apollo, and a few sentient rock creatures. In other words, I had more stuff to do than I originally thought.

First, I needed to delve deeper into the society in which Zydeco Cashcan and the other Mythos live. How do they get along in our world? Why is it no humans have noticed they're a bit ... off? Is there some kind of social pecking order for these former mythological creatures?

Second, I wanted to give the reader better insight into Parable, the mythological world from which our characters arrived years before. This was a bit tricky, because the novel doesn't take place in Parable. It called for a liberal sprinkling of information throughout the book, without appearing to be an information dump.

Third, how and why did our friendly, neighborhood Mythos find themselves exiled on earth? In the context of developing Parable as a society, I had to ensure it all made sense. The absolute best part of doing this was it gave me an opportunity to introduce the council of Parable as a malevolent "presence", not just in the past, but in this book and hopefully going forward. *winks* Also, this really helped me with the bad guy's motivations. Phineas Malice has a much more plausible reason for doing what he's doing, and boy he needed it.

Fourth, and probably closest to the original aim, I needed to do a lot of this much earlier on in the novel.

While revising, I watched the word count creep, then shoot up. Fortunately, I was able to cut some of the less important, and frankly more confusing storylines. In the end, the total word count increased by only about 5000 words. It's at 80k now, which is on the high end for a YA fantasy, but still within the realm of reason. I'm off to resubmit the first 50 pages to an agent who offered to take a second gander after I revised. Fingers crossed!

Pacing and Suspense - Keep it Moving

2010-11-04T20:05:00.002-04:00

I'm a slow blogger these last couple of weeks, but as promised, here's the next entry about pacing and suspense, and some of the many ways I've noticed writers achieving excellence in both. Here's what I stated on today's topic:

Keep it moving. This should be pretty obvious. If scenes don't advance the plot, cut them. Whether it's commercial or literary, please don't spend a chapter in which nothing happens except the examination of a character outside the context of advancing the story. This is crucial to excellent pacing.

One of my favorite books in recent memory is Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey. The novel has no chapters, which kind of seduces you into immediately wanting to read it from cover to cover. It's this rambling, machine gun of a story. Of course, bookmarks are critical if you need to stop reading - say the house catches fire, or you need to bring a kid to practice. It's like a Quentin Tarantino homage to B movies. I am a huge fan of the Kill Bill series, so proceed at your own risk from here on out.

James Stark was a magician, but his jealous friends betrayed him, causing him to spend eleven years in hell as Azazel's slave and ultimately an assassin. That's back story. The novel starts with him having just escaped to a super-seedy Los Angeles. Did I mention he's pissed off? Stark hunts his betrayers across a demon-infested city of angels, all the while taking and dishing out completely over-the-top violence. All he wants is to take his revenge on his betrayers, and then die, leaving everything behind forever. As the novel progresses, he discovers there's something strange going on in L.A., and wouldn't you know it? He has to save the world in the end.

Sure, he comes off like one of those flawed super heroes--the Dark Knight only without the funding. However, we don't spend a whole lot of time analyzing Stark outside the context of advancing the above plot points. This is what he's about, it's what he wants, and so that's where we learn about him. Every bit of detail regarding the former assassin is revealed in the context of constant plot motion.

To quote my GoodReads review, this novel grabs you by the scruff of your neck from the start and yanks you straight through to the exhilarating end. Seriously. There is no good point to set the book down on your night table. The tension you feel as you read is relentless, but it's kind of a wave. There are moments where you get to breathe - just. And then bam, the car is off again, and you're hanging onto the rear bumper for dear life.

How can I best describe what the author has done regarding pacing? The story moves because important stuff is always happening. Even those quiet moments, of which there are few, seem essential to plot progression. It's a matter of perception, but in this world of Sandman Slim, what passes for a quiet moment is a bit unnatural. There are many two-way conversations with a severed head. Every last paragraph grabs your bottom lip and tugs hard. The pace is incredible, but not exhausting - quite a fine line, I might add.

Stark spends half of the book seeking vengeance--not plotting vengeance, mind you. He carries it out. So many books have a character plotting vengeance--usually the bad guy--for chapters on end while other theoretically interesting bits of stuff happen. Want people biting their nails to the nubs? Make vengeance acted-upon a constant presence. On top of that, bad guys are after Stark, and we don't have to watch them plotting either. They have some success, too, so Stark doesn't just get to go around grabbing a pound of flesh from every traitor he meets. The tension is there -- all the time. There is nothing else, nothing extra, nothing that seemed unimportant.

What novels have you read where the plot is in constant motion?

Pacing and Suspense - The Opening

2010-10-27T21:20:00.002-04:00

About a week ago, I blogged about pacing and suspense and some of the many ways I've noticed writers achieving excellent pacing and edge-of-your-seat suspense. My buddy, Annie suggested I expand on each of my points in a separate post. Great idea! Here's number one. Let's begin with what I talked about last week.

Open with tension and suspense. Do you want to grab your readers' interest right away? The best writing lesson I ever had, told me to begin the story when things change. What better way to change things for your characters than by sticking them in a stressful situation? Leave open questions, but not eight million of them.

Please note that from now on all examples I ever give will include zombie vampires, because I'm reserving zombie mermaids for my WIP. And also because I'm beginning to wonder if you can be an undead undead person, and if the two undead natures sort of cancel each other out.

Okay, onto the example. Your novel, Blood is Good, Brains are Better, features a mild mannered tax accountant named Reg. There's all sorts of information to be learned about Reg, apart from his occupation, which you can come right out and "tell", although "showing" is better. We can learn about his mild mannered nature by watching him deal with some of his more aggravating clients, or seeing him shrug his shoulders when, with nothing more than a bird flip, a Biff Tannen type character cuts him off on the highway, clipping the front of Reg's eight-year-old subcompact Chevrolet. Perhaps we'll witness Reg awkwardly, but endearingly deal with women, with whom he has zero success. We might also learn he lives with his clinically insane mother in a rundown apartment in the seedier part of town. We might see how he deals with crazy mommy, refusing to put her in a home, even though she continues her habit of collecting strays, both feline and puzzled human, but is unable to discern the difference.

There's a lot about ol' Reg that sounds intriguing, and chapter one could show us all that. The problem, though, is that what you'll end with is a chapter just chock full of back-story. Sure, it'll be interesting back-story because Reg has a fascinating home life, and seedy neighborhoods sometimes promise dark and bizarre happenings. In the end, though, the reader hasn't much clue as to how blood and brains fit, and given what genre this sounds like, they'll be expecting something to happen. So far, nothing has happened.

What if the chapter began with Reg finishing a conversation with a client whose lost all her savings, and he tells her not to worry about it. Good. We like him. Now he arrives home from work to find his mom introducing him to one of her strays--a man--who she calls Mr. Skittles. Reg is obviously concerned, but he's so used to his mother's actions, he does not protest, and after all, Mr. Skittles is extremely polite, despite his strange accent and piercing eyes. After dinner, in which Mr. Skittles does not partake, mother-nutter goes to bed, leaving Reg alone with Mr. Skittles, and Reg explains how he'll never put his mother in a home. Good. We like Reg even more, but are perhaps a little concerned for him.

The mysterious Skittles, of course, turns out to be a vampire, and he bites the bejeezus out of poor Reg. Our hero staggers out of the apartment, dazed and confused, and into a bar. There, he meets some lovely women and perhaps a Biff Tannen type who all know him and make fun of him slightly because he's acting his normally awkward and shy self. Now we feel empathy for Reg because he's nice and Biff and the ladies are mean. The inner vampire is just starting to take hold, however, and he's feeling somewhat randy. Then one woman in a dark corner of the bar comes onto him. With promises of untold pleasures and maybe a spot of blood, he follows her outside and into a dark alley where a pack of zombies attack and kill him before he's gone full vampire.

Just imagine what he'll be like when he wakes up at 4am.

That right there, my friends, is starting the novel where things change. Things move rapidly, yet hopefully we care about Reg along the way. Think of the suspense you could harness in the scenes with Mr. Skittles, at the bar, and in the alley. If the chapter ends there, your readers might just flip to chapter two. And that's what you are aiming for.

Which E-Reader?

2010-10-21T20:31:00.000-04:00

The time has arrived, or it will in a few weeks. It's a big wedding anniversary coming up and Rona's going to buy me an e-reader. Or, I should say, I'll pick one and order it. But I'm torn. Originally, I just thought I'd get a Kindle. Why not? Every literary agent apparently has a broken one they're replacing or maybe they've just bought one for the first time.

Me and Amazon go back a long way. Back when they were simply the earth's largest bookstore, I was a devoted customer. Jeff Bezos and I are such bosom buddies that I actually have an Amazon travel mug-- a good one, too. I never even paid for it - they just sent it to me one day a long while back to go with some refrigerator magnet. Just for being me. Ho Ho Ho. I still have it.

So, there I was all pumped up about it's wireless capabilities, it's built in 3G access, when I uncovered the fact that I could not borrow e-books from my public library in a format the Kindle could handle. Yep. No library books for the Kindle, which supports a MOBI based proprietary format as well as PDF and some others. The rest of the world supports the open ePub format, which is how most libraries offer electronic media managed through Digital Rights Management (DRM).

So then, I began to wonder if I should consider the Nook, from Barnes & Noble. The Nook does support the ePub format, but then I can't buy books for it from Amazon, which, as far as I can tell, only offers media in its propriety format. You can get ePub from B&N, Borders, wherever. And now apparently B&N has reached an agreement to sell the Nook at Walmart as well as its own stores in advance of the holiday shopping season.

I've been staring at review after recent review, and these two e-readers always ride the top of the charts, with the Kindle generally on top, but not by much. There's also the Sony eReader, Kobo (becoming the house brand of Borders if you ask me), Velocity Micro and others. And of course don't forget the iPad, but that's not really a dedicated eReader. For books and such, I'd rather have E-Ink display, which is incredibly easy on the eye, as opposed to the brilliant iPad display.

I am so confused. I'm leaning toward the Nook, but I don't know if my ePub concern is particularly valid. Everyone keeps buying Kindles! (or getting replacement Kindles). Does anyone have any recommendations? Ideas? Predispositions? Biases?

Pacing and Suspense

2010-10-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

I was just reading an article on The Hunger Games in Entertainment Weekly -- this is my official source for all things pop culture, and by the way, Stephen King writes a column for it, so nanner-nanner-poo-poo. The overall topic was related to the movie adaptation. Lionsgate has the film rights and the scriptwriting process is well on its way. Nicole Sperling made this striking observation.

The books (which hide a compelling antiwar message behind the veneer of a tween thriller) are exceptionally well written and expertly paced, with near-constant suspense.

In particular, two phrases jumped off the page at me: "expertly paced" and "near constant suspense". I would certainly agree that in the first book, especially once they're in the arena, the suspense is nearly non-stop. The tension in the second book starts immediately because of President Snow, and then jumps through the roof when they're called back for the Quarter Quell. And if you haven't read Mockingjay, well, it's pretty much a non-stop ride on a runaway train. Nobody I know was able to put any of these books down without some form of dire threat.

So how do you manage expert pacing while keeping the reader in a near-constant state of suspense? This is tricky business because if your reader's heart is constantly pumping you run the risk of wearing them out. Here are some ideas, the basis of which require that your characters have excellent voice and are just plain interesting. You won't have much suspense if nobody cares about the people in the book.

Open with tension and suspense. Do you want to grab your readers' interest right away? The best writing lesson I ever had told me to begin the story when things change. What better way to change things for your characters than by sticking them in a stressful situation? Leave open questions, but not eight million of them.

Keep it moving. This should be pretty obvious. If scenes don't advance the plot, cut them. Whether it's commercial or literary, please don't spend a chapter in which nothing happens except the examination of a character outside the context of advancing the story. This is crucial to excellent pacing.

Every chapter needs a little tension. That's right. Every single chapter you write should have a little edge to it, except perhaps the epilogue. I'm going to mention this again later, but tension levels should read like a healthy EKG. Great big pulsating scenes followed my moments of quiet. There's nothing wrong with quiet moments, but they can never flat-line, or your patient's dead. All can seem well, but it's always good to have an undercurrent of some emotion, such as fear or hatred. Let it simmer and occasionally boil over a bit.

Cliffhangers. Often, you think of a cliffhanger in terms of the "To Be Continued" byline at the end of a book, movie or television show. Here's the challenge. Think smaller. Conclude your chapters with a cliffhanger. Clearly, you can't end every chapter that way, nor do I think you ought to. Sometimes, it's nice to end a chapter on a positive note, giving the reader some amount of closure on one particular issue. However, cliffhangers are critically important to adding suspense, especially early on when you are still trying to bait your readers (yes, they are fish, and you are trying to land them). These suckers are so important to getting your readers to turn the page rather than setting the book back down and either going to bed, or coming home from the book store or library empty-handed.

Tension in bunches. They say life's challenges occur in multiples. Stress can happen to your characters three chapters in a row. Three stressful situations can happen to your characters in one chapter. Or, if you want to go for the trifecta, beat your characters about the head by having three stressful situations occur per chapter, three chapters in a row.

Give 'em a break. Everyone needs to take a breath. Your characters. Your readers. After a solid week of battling evil creatures with mixed results, everyone's sitting around the campfire with their age appropriate beverage of choice. Take advantage of that time. Spill a little back-story. Add some emotion. But make it interesting. Let it serve a purpose. But don't forget a teaspoon of tension. Let it be ever present. I'm also a big fan of ending one of those scenes with a major disruption. It's a great way to let the reader know that they've had a moment to catch their breath, but they better saddle up once more.

Take everything away from your protagonist(s). This works if your main character is a protagonist that appeals to your readers. Take away what they love. Leave them with nothing. Make their lives as wretched as possible. Why? Suspense. Huh? If your protagonist resonates with your readers, they're going to want to see what happens. Will Katniss overcome and survive the Hunger Games? Against all odds, will she save Peeta too?

Mix up your sentence lengths. This is such a nit, but it makes a difference to how your story reads. If every sentence is about seventeen words, joined together with a conjunction, then your reader will start to nod off. If every sentence is about six words, your reader will become irritable. Mix it up. Break up your longer sentences with the occasional short one to make a point. The short ones have a greater impact that way.

Place foot on neck, don't remove. a.k.a. Climax. This is the EKG where the patient is undergoing a stress test. They're jogging on a tread mill, working like hell to keep up. I like big, multi facted, multi-chapter climaxes. The tension should be high. The resolution shouldn't be easy. You need more than one mountain to climb. Once your characters reach the zenith of one mountain, they should discover that there's another bigger one, this time with irritated and generally peckish cannibals waiting halfway up. Even better, they should discover that one among them is a spy for the evil king of the irritated and generally peckish cannibals, and has been leading them to their slaughter since day one. Finally, once they get past those guys, it might be a good time for an asteroid to burst through the atmosphere and set fire to everything. By the way, this is a great time to think in terms of plot twists or the big reveal. Hence, the spy.

Satisfying Resolution. Don't cheat your readers. How you resolve everything--if you resolve everything--needs to make sense in the context of your book. If the reader says, "Sorry, I'm just not buying that." You've missed something. You don't want them feeling like Clark Griswold arriving at Wally World to find it's closed. Do you want to be taken on a roller coaster at gunpoint?

And there you have it: my recipe for pacing and suspense. I could have sworn there were like eighteen more concepts I wanted to raise, but they were probably boring and didn't advance my point.

Pantser Problems

2010-10-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

I'm more of a pantser than a plotter (thanks, Authoress), meaning I write as I go -- no multi-page outlines setting forth the entire novel where I just have to connect the dots. Outlines are like those friends with whom I love to hang out, but if they don't shoot me an eMail asking me to have lunch, it'll be three years before I see them again.

For each story concept, the big picture is up in my noggin, floating between my ears. If you were to look at my outline at any given time, you'd find perhaps the next three to six chapters laid out, each with only four or five bullet points describing what I expect to happen. Because I'm a pantser, not all those points will wind up in their designated chapters. My imagination, my muse, my whatever-you-call-it takes the book where it needs to go -- the journey. While pantsing my way through a novel (I now have a vision of a dog dragging itself across the carpet by its butt for some reason), the two things I keep in mind journey-wise include developing my characters the way I want, and getting those crucial plot points to occur, even if they don't happen when I'd planned.

I've often wondered what suffers because of my seat-of-the-pants writing style. The most obvious weakness for me has always been weak setting in the first draft. The focus is still all about characters doing and saying stuff so that the following occurs (in no particular order):

a) the plot moves
b) we know who they are
c) we know what they want
d) we know why they can't always obtain their hearts' desires.

Do I care if you can see and touch the scenery? Do I care if you know what the location smells like? Do I care if you know what color jacket somebody's wearing? I'll be honest. Not right away. I should, of course, but in the first draft I am so busy trying to get the nuts and bolts of the story into words before they fly out of my brain forever. I'm better than I used to be, mind you. As I've become more experienced and developed my writing muscles, setting comes more naturally and winds up in the first draft.

So what else suffers? If the plot is sufficiently complex, character development may suffer. I may be so busy trying to make the plot hang together, I forgot that the overall story arc requires a certain number of deeply developed characters. If you don't know the cast very well or care a whole lot about them, that they're in danger or that they overcome obstacles just won't resonate with you.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I might spend so much time with my characters that the plot does not, in fact, hang together. I can't just have the characters evolve throughout the book for no coherent reason. People don't change without some impetus. Events must occur to kick inertia in the pants. And those events - those crucial plot points - have to make sense. Conversely, events can occur because of the character as opposed to the character changing because of those events. In the end, it all needs to fit.

As a fantasy writer, world building is important. I do not pen richly detailed high fantasy, so I've no need to invent languages and complex societies. However, even in contemporary fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism -- all the genres that take place in the familiar world, there's a degree of world building required to get the reader grounded in the time and place, and above all, the RULES. I'm going to follow up with another post on "retroactive world building", but another weakness of being a pantser is that the elements of world building suffer. World building requires a high degree of planning and attention to detail. Depending on when the story takes place, you may need to introduce the world as the story unfolds, through back story or a combination of both.

More to come.

Mythos, Fishing for Ghosts and the query kick-around

2010-10-04T20:24:00.001-04:00

Revising. Writing. Plotting. Research. Revising. Writing.

As soon as I post this entry on the pen, I'm whipping out my sasquatch notebook and laying out my firm plans for revising Urban Mythos. I touched on the essential points in my previous blog entry. There's some trepidation about these revisions, but enough people seem to agree they're needed, so it's the real deal. Off I go.

I'd been holding out on the revisions until I completed the true "opening" for Ghost Fishing, my current middle grade WIP. This weekend, words and story flowed and the first two chapters are done. It's in a good state - the story is now launched. It probably took a little longer than it should have to get to that point, but I'm pleased with the bit of character development that's included.

I've also got some heavy location research to do for this middle grade adventure. I'm after small islands off the east coast of the United States with some unique scenery and local flavor. Mind you, I'll create the flavor if I don't find it, but my preference is for the concoction to taste somewhat authentic. If you have any ideas - preferably south of New York's Long Island - please drop me a note, either here or by email - eckertnj at gmail dot com.

For those of you who have enjoyed what you've read of Urban Mythos, or if you're just checking it out for the first time, it would be so cool of you to swing by the YALITCHAT Query Kick-Around contest, where I've got a query for my YA urban fantasy entered. Simply search for "Urban Mythos", and if you think my query sounds promising and you can find it in your heart, soul, or just your fingers, I'd be thrilled if you voted for it. Thank you!

The World Building Off Ramp

2010-09-28T22:56:00.000-04:00

While I was busy cultivating the ideas behind my next novel - Ghost Fishing - I received feedback on a partial and full manuscript of Urban Mythos. Additionally, during the awesome WDC YA Forum's Review Frenzy last week, I received additional critiques from three fellow writers. What came out of all this commentary is that I need to really get the reader more tuned in to the world in which Zydeco lives as well as the world from where he traveled. And I need to do it sooner in the novel.

In short, I need to slam on the brakes, and take the world building off ramp.

I owe a huge debt of thanks most especially to two amazing women on the other/under side of the globe -- Louisa and Kate -- who gave me unbelievably detailed feedback. Thanks, ladies. Australia Rocks!

Based on the collective feedback of agents and writers alike, I've settled on the following plan of attack:

Elaborate more on Parable, the land from which Zydeco and his Mythos mates came. I'm not going to go too deep or too far here, but I'll provide more detail early on about the place and why certain creatures were banished.
Show how it is that these recovering mythological creatures, a.k.a. Mythos, in my fictional city just get by without we regular humans realizing they are there. I'll illustrate more of the social ecosystem in which they live on earth.
Although Zydeco has been a human teenager for a couple of years, he needs to occasionally act and think like a Griffin might. Kate and Louisa gave me some brilliant ideas here.
Clean up Phineas Malice's motives. This may be the easiest bit.

I've got some notes on other changes I might make, but the above items are the biggies. That said, I've got a bit more to do on Ghost Fishing before I jump back to my Mythos children. I'm trying to wrap up the opening that sets the plot in motion, but should wrap that up quickly.

I'll be hopping off the middle grade highway and pulling on to the YA service road any day now.

Getting past the exhaustion

2010-09-20T20:53:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, you get home from work and feel like a walking zombie. You just want to sit on the couch, rest your head on your hand and close your eyes. Or if you're a little black pug, maybe you want to rest your head on your fluffy and squeaky multi-colored, fairly slobbered and dirty looking plush toy.

Either way, you need to make yourself a cup of caffeine laced drink of choice, grab a slice of sugar infused pastry of choice, and get writing. This is where I am.

Some time later, I did manage to churn out about 800 words. It's all about getting through it. And having caffeine and sugar to help.

Is boy friendly YA the kiss of death?

2010-09-14T20:37:00.001-04:00

There I was, working on a query letter for Urban Mythos. This particular query required that I sensibly compare my novel to others on the shelves. I'm generally no good at this particular task, because while I devour YA fiction, there's just so darn much, and I rarely find something quite like what I've written. Not being completely foolish, I don't compare my books to other books, but I instead focus on the target audience and what they're reading/buying today.

In other words, when I pop over to the local Borders, what's on the shelf to interest those special someones who, upon noticing Urban Mythos decide to carry it to the register instead (or as well)?

And herein lies the problem. This novel is a YA urban fantasy. The protagonist is a teenage boy ... sort of. Okay, he's a former griffin, but nowadays he's a teenage boy. I've been told based on the query and first 250 words that this is -- *GASP* -- a boy friendly YA. I'll explain the gasping in a bit.

Armed with this information I reach into my memory banks (and my "read" shelf on goodreads) to see if I've read a YA novel with a boy protagonist, preferably an urban fantasy. The most recent boy friendly YA novels I've enjoyed of late are James Dashner's, The Maze Runner and Lockdown: Escape from Furnace, by Alexander Gordon Smith. Hmm. These aren't exactly urban fantasy. Okay, there's The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (the 2nd book in the Last Survivors series, which features a boy protag). But that's not urban fantasy, it's post-apocalyptic. Digging some more, I find quite a bit of Rick Riordan, with the Percy Jackson series and the Kane Chronicles. Technically, that's Middle Grade. In fact, the more I dig for boy-friendly, the more I find a load of Middle Grade novels.

Time to do some research, right? Off to Borders and Amazon venture I. And I am disappointed to find a dearth of boy friendly YA. Ugh. It's Google time. The results weren't pretty. They basically say that boys don't read YA. Younger boys read Middle Grade, but then something happens when they enter high school and they supposedly don't read YA. We are told that the market essentially backs up this theory. And because boys don't read YA, publishers focus primarily on girl-friendly YA.

This made me sad, and just a little worried, especially because once I entered high school seven hundred years ago, I stopped reading for pleasure, and only resumed in college. This may have had something to do my slow reading pace, my busy schedule, and the assigned reading from my high school classes which preoccupied me. But I did like my books. In fact, it was Daniel Pinkwater's Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars that really got me hooked in middle school.

My son is a sophomore in high school. He also loves to read, but doesn't do so at a rapid pace. His schedule is nuts between athletics, marching band, friends, and tons and tons of homework. The only reading time he has is for the books his Lit teacher assigns. This all occurred once he hit high school. He found more time to read in middle school, but he did read more middle grade. Even now, when he does get a chance to read for pleasure, I'll more likely find him curled up with Percy Jackson or Harry Potter than with the Mortal Instruments series.

In my research, I stumbled upon many excellent resources, but two in particular interest me. Hannah Moskowitz, author of Break and the upcoming Invincible Summer, wrote an excellent blog post entitled, The Boy Problem. She writes boy-friendly YA and believes the debate is about boys who loved to read until they became teenagers.. She pins a good deal of the blame on writers for basically stripping down boy characters. They've become stereotypes or shallow. In the end, Hannah says, they're not real enough. She also begs agents and publishers to stop saying they're seeking "boy friendly" unless they mean it. She asks boys to shut up and read YA. Did she ever get a lot of feedback on this post! There was a huge amount of debate, and all healthy.

The other interesting post I found was from Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Literary Agency, entitled Boy Protagonists in YA. She makes a few interesting points. First, when anyone says they're looking for boy friendly fiction, they generally mean Middle Grade. She's also heard from publishers who make it very clear they have very very VERY few slots open for boy friendly YA in any given year. One publisher had, in fact, just one slot. But the news isn't all bad. Just because you have a boy protagonist and your novel is boy friendly doesn't mean it can't also be girl friendly and sell to what the primary market is for YA. If your male protagonist appeals to teenage girls in one fashion or another, you've got a leg up. A bit of romance certainly helps.

Before I close, I wanted to highlight some additional research I've done that emphasizes the market we "boy-friendly" YA writers face. I took a gander at the New York Times Best Seller lists in Childrens' fiction as of September 9th. This will include both Middle Grade and YA. Here's the rundown of the top seven.

1. The Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare - YA, girl protagonist
2. The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan - Middle Grade (MG), boy and girl protagonists
3. Dork Diaries 2, by Rachel Renee Russo - MG, girl protag
4. Halo, by Alexandra Adornetto - YA, girl
5. Linger, by Maggie Stierfvater - YA, girl + boy protag, girl friendly
6. Unraveled, by Gena Showalter - YA, boy protag, romance=girl friendly
7. Paranormalcy, by Kiersten White (go, Kiersten!) - YA, girl protag

I also took a gander at the top "series" books, and of the top ten there are six YA novels, all of which feature a girl protagonist and are decidedly girl friendly: Hunger Games, Twilight Saga, Pretty Little Liars, Private, House of Night, and Mortal Instruments. The remaining four are all Middle Grade: Percy Jackson, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Artemis Fowl, and The 39 Clues.

This paints a picture, doesn't it?

Despite all that, if you are a writer, keep the following in mind. I've read and personally received this advice countless times, by the way. Write the story you want to write. Don't write for the market because it will have changed (possibly more than once) before your novel reaches the shelves. And even if the market isn't in your favor, if the story is that good, it will sell. I really believe the market changes because of the books being written and published. Was there a market thirteen years ago for ten-year-old kids reading about an orphan going to a strange English school to learn how to perform magic? Harry Potter's done well since. Dracula was published in 1897. Who could have predicted that 108 years later, a YA vampire novel would turn into a phenomenon.

Write the story you want to write. If it's that good, a market will find it.

Back in ye ol' saddle

2010-09-12T22:24:00.001-04:00

It's thoroughly shameful that I haven't blogged in over a week. Good gravy, what's wrong with me? Many things, my friends, many things. However, I am back and probably not better than ever. The good news is that I've been busy hatching ideas for my next novel(s). The first one is a true middle grade adventure/fantasy going under the working title of Ghost Fishing. The second is the sequel to Urban Mythos, tentatively entitled Suburban Mythos.

I left open the very real possibility of a sequel in the epilogue of Urban Mythos. My ideas at the time had been somewhat generic - stories about Mythos in an urban center, a suburban center and a rural center. However, the more I thought about it, the more I began to see more compelling possibilities. I see motivation in concept if not genre by Susan Beth Pfeffer's Last Survivors series. Throw in a little X-Men, and a direction has presented itself to me.

Ghost Fishing, on the other hand, is a boy friendly adventure that starts off in a small Long Island fishing hamlet and wends its way through various strange locations along the Atlantic seaboard. This novel is solid middle grade, and a boy friendly adventure. The voice is going to be interesting - I'm aiming for a fairy-tale-ish feel -- it may take a lot of tweaking until I get it right. For those who've been paying attention, this is the book in which zombie mermaids make an appearance.

Believe it or not, I've been dying to write scenes that take place in winter -- not the cold, dry variety, mind you, but the snowy, holiday-time flavor. I was so enamored of the Godric's Hollow scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I love that feel. The book will also have a number of elements I've never touched before, including divorce/separation, lost faith and trust, as well as mixed marriage -- Dad's Christian, Mom's Jewish. I'm looking forward to touching on the Christmas/Hanukkah thing. This will be especially interesting because the protagonist's family is quite poor.

I don't know that I'll do another Birth of a Novel series, but here's the first draft of the opening line.

The night Jacob Keener first noticed the schooner shimmering in the moonlight on the Great Peconic Bay, his mind was on his father, lost at sea and presumed dead eleven months earlier.

I just wrote the opening scene tonight. It feels great to be writing something new. I love Zydeco, Blaine, Tameina, and all my kids from Urban Mythos, but it's time to hang out with some new characters for a little while.

If Rihanna and Eminem were in grade school together

2010-09-03T20:16:00.000-04:00

This is great. I like it quite a bit better than the original.

Harry Potter - The Experience

2010-08-31T17:21:00.001-04:00

I have returned from Florida in August to a swampy heat in Northern New Jersey that matches the Orlando and Boynton Beach sweat levels. We hit Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure this time, with one a la carte day in Disney's Magic Kingdom because the family was seriously Jonesing for the mouse. But this isn't about the mouse. This isn't about the Simpson's or Mummy ride at Universal. This is about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. All I can say is ... dude. They paid some serious attention to detail when they built the place.

When you walk in the joint, you first find yourself in Hogsmeade station. You must provide your own posing kids, however.

The Hogwarts Express

The station timetable

Once you're in Hogsmeade proper, there's loads to see.

Zonko's Joke Shop

Hogsmeade Shopping

Zonko's has a mix of their traditional items as well as some of Weaselys' Wizard Wheezes, but I suppose since they only had room for Hogsmeade, and not Diagon Alley, where the Weasely boys' shop exists, I won't complain. There were supposed to have been Pygmy Puffs, but it appeared as if they were fresh out.

Puking Pastilles - yum

The ol' extendables

More shops. Even the simple storefronts had living window displays, from quills that magically wrote on parchment themselves, to self playing cello's.

Just a storefront, but the window displays were alive

Honeydukes - Yum

And inside Honeydukes!

We got a Godric Gryffindor card

Pepper Imps

Yes, you read that right.

Cauldron Cakes!

Then, we have Dervish and Banges. The deal is you can either go in the backdoor, or head into Ollivander's first, which is connected inside. And just outside is the Owlery, where you can mail your letters, Hogsmeade postmark included.

The back entrance

Wizard Chess, anyone?

Neville's Gran apparently shopped here

It seems wrong to be able to buy one

Need a quidditch set?

Inside Ollivander's

The Owlery - Owl Post, don't you know.

Somebody got a howler!

And then there's both the Hogs Head, where the beer is cold, and the Three Broomsticks, where the feast is hearty, and the butterbeer comes in two types - frozen and frosted. There are owls and house elves about, so keep your eyes on the shadows.

It's a Hogs Head

It's an actual non-animatronic Hogs Head

A feast at the Three Broomsticks

We are getting very, very close to Hogwarts now. Let's go for a quick ride on a hyppogriff first, and see what we see.

Hagrid's Hut

Buckbeak, a.k.a. Witherwings

Hoggy Hoggy Hogwarts.

Mirror of Erised

Potions classroom down in the dungeons

Keeping the mandrakes under lock and key in the greenhouse

The portraits move and talk!

The Sorting Hat

The house points hourglasses seemed a bit lame, though

What the pictures don't show you are the headmaster's study, where Dumbledore warns you about the differences between what is right and what is easy; nor the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, where Harry, Ron and Hermione explain what's about to happen. These holographic images are amazing, but don't appear on camera, likely due to the flash. Curses, you flash. My son snagged a picture of the Fat Lady portrait on his phone, thought. As for the Forbidden Journey ride through the castle... it breaks a LOT. But we rode twice, once after waiting 90 minutes, and once after 30. It's really, really cool. You sit in this bat-like contraption with your feet dangling, and zoom through the castle and then outside through the castle ground, into the middle of a quidditch match, and then every which way, trying to avoid dementors, while not losing your lunch.

There are also some performances going on outside.

The girls of Beauxbatons performing

These folks can sing. So can the toads

What a great experience. It would naturally be even better if it wasn't ridiculously crowded, but at least it wasn't the opening month. My son got himself a snitch and a dragon, and both kids purchased their very own wands at Ollivander's. I snagged a Gryffindor scarf. As Ron would say, "Seriously good haul this year."

We're off to see the wizard

2010-08-21T15:52:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to say we're heading down to Universal Studios Orlando tomorrow. I cannot wait to check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I can almost taste the butterbeer ... think I'll have mine frosted while waiting to procure a wand at Ollivanders. Lunch at the Three Broomsticks should be good, and maybe a morning pastry at Honeydukes. I wonder what the kids will buy at Zonko's or Dervish and Banges. Methinks mine own wallet will be lighter.

I'll take loads of pix, and post some up here when I get back. Until then... Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.

A Vacation is Indicated

2010-08-17T21:27:00.002-04:00

Last week seemed to race by, and this week is dragging. I mean, seriously dragging. The day job, a.k.a. the thing that pays the bills, is a pressure cooker at the moment. We spend about eight or nine months preparing for and recovering from three months of insanity. Those three months get underway in a few weeks.

I can't decide if the build up is worse than the actual busy months themselves. It sure feels like it this year. Of course, thinking this way will jinx it up real good, and as bad as I think it is now, it's about to get worse. A lot worse.

Knowing how crazy thing are about to get, and with the kids about to go back to school at the beginning of September, we usually pile into the family truckster and head off to Wally World. Forget eMail. Forget the Blackberry. It's time to recharge ye ol' brain. We're splurging this year and actually jetting to Florida. Jetting sounds so much snootier than flying, doesn't it? Then again, we're going on JetBlue, so it's not exactly hoity-toity. Hopefully, we won't have a flight attendant lose his or her mind. But, if we do, it'll be exciting!

Also, this time it's not Wally World, but Universal Studios Orlando. The Harry Potter lines notwithstanding, I can't wait to ride Forbidden Journey, taste a frozen Butterbeer, and maybe get lucky and have a wand choose this wizard. The Simpsons ride looks to be mighty cool as well. I know I'll ride Spider Man and Men in Black about a million times and then Poseiden's Fury at least once. Actually, having read the entire Percy Jackson series since I last went to Universal, it'll have a whole new meaning.

Writing-wise, well.... While Urban Mythos is out with a couple of agents (one partial, one full - yay me!), my creative mind is slacking off a bit. I attended WriteOnCon, which was brilliant. I've been spending a lot of time on YALITCHAT (another awesome thing), and have put myself on vacation from the WDC YA critique group until September.

My sasquatch notebook will be traveling on vacation as well. This trusty composition notebook is the bed upon which Urban Mythos was conceived. I'll be fleshing out my next novel on the plane and by the pool at the hotel. Soon, trusty green notebook, soon we'll be together again. And yes, one way or another, this next novel will have Zombie Mermaids.

What I learned at WriteOnCon

2010-08-15T21:39:00.003-04:00

WriteOnCon is a fantabulous kid lit writing conference hosted by Jamie Harrington, Elana Johnson, Casey McCormick, Shannon Messenger, Lisa and Laura Roecker, and Jennifer Stayrook. The 2010 version (and they say there will be a 2011 version as well) featured numerous writers, illustrators, literary agents and editors, with some terrific panels, videos and live chats. The things that were wicked cool for those of us lucky enough to participate included:

a) It didn't involve luck at all. Just register
b) It was free
c) You didn't have to travel anywhere. Actually, this might have been even better for the agents and editors who normally have to hall themselves across the country.
d) You didn't have to choose between events. All the videos, chats and articles are still there today.
e) Critiques!!!!! query critiques. 1st 250 word critiques! 1st five page critiques!!!
f) Contests. Seriously good ones, too.
g) Awesome content.
h) Networking opportunities with folks from around the world

Probably one of the most equal-opportunity critique opportunities was the Live Chat from literary agent Natalie Fischer, where ripped through a pile of queries and gave live feedback on each. When she ran out of time, she continued on Twitter. I must say that 140 words on Twitter was a perfect way to obtain concise feedback on my query, and it helped me an absolute ton.

So what did I learn? Let's see if I can remember. It is Sunday night after all, and I got about three hours sleep last night.

Literary agents and editors have a pretty well defined list of genres they universally cringe at when reading queries: vampires, werewolves, angels, and dystopian governments are among them. By the way, I critiqued an interesting five page excerpt on WriteOnCon that involved a dystopian government run by vampires. My guess is that the related query will engender strong feelings one way or the other -- double cringe or "wow, that's unique."
There is a saying. "RTFM" a.k.a. Read the F&!k*ng Manual. This applies to querying. Follow the submission guidelines and you will, surprisingly, position yourself well ahead of many queriers. Yes. You will have made it to the starting gate without shooting yourself in the ankles.
Never give up.
Voice is probably the most important part of your novel.
Plot can be fixed.
Voice is equally important to your query.
If you've submitted your first draft, they will know.
Write your own queries.
Gerbils should not write queries.
Don't write queries from your character's point of view.
If the agent or editor does not understanding your query ... that's bad.
Support the publishing industry. Buy books new. Borrow them from the library. (Libraries buy more of a book if the circulation for said tome is high.)
Book trailers should be short.
As an author, having thousands of followers on twitter is great. But following thousands of people makes it obvious you aren't interacting personally with your audience.
Everything you do on the internet - blogs, tweets, facebook, etc. - is public. Your potential audience includes literary agents, editors, librarians, and the book buying public. Don't be negative.
Snarky for snarky sake misses the point.
Voice = Tone + Style + Audience
Honesty is critical. Kids have an acute BS-o-meter.
Like it or not, kids curse and have sex. You don't like it? See #18.
If your novel makes the agent or editor think, I can't put this down. I need to know what happens. -- You will likely find success.

And the Awesome Explanation Award goes to Jennifer Laughran from Andrea Brown Literary Agency, for defining the difference between urban and paranormal fantasy.

"Demented fairies roaming around in the subway shooting drugs and putting spells on people is urban fantasy. Some psychic chicks in a boarding school is paranormal."

*Gets down on knees and bows down in appreciation*

As I said, all the good stuff from WriteOnCon is still posted. Check it out.

It's Tuesday and I've been interviewed

2010-08-10T20:45:00.000-04:00

There isn't much going on today beyond hellacious times at work. Is that how you spell hellacious? Hmm. Anyway, WriteOnCon kicked off and I'm busy playing catch up on all the posts and chats of the day. The content is phenomenal. So far, I've read a number of fascinating items, but I especially loved this post on revisions from Kendra Levin of Viking. I'm also in the midst of catching up on the transcript of a live chat with Suzie Townsend from FinePrint Literary.

The other bit of news today is that the awesome Dorothy Dreyer interviewed me for We Do Write, a blog that interviews aspiring authors on their journey to publication. She did a fantastic job asking me questions that make me look good (or at least better than I usually do!) You can check it out here. There's even a picture of me with my eyes open. Gadzooks! Odds Bodkins! That'll do for the archaic expressions for today. Back to WriteOnCon!

Rachel's composition

2010-08-08T21:45:00.041-04:00

This is my daughter, Rachel, who will one day accept a Grammy or Tony award. She's seen quite a few Broadway musicals and we recently took her to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Ford Theater in Washington D.C. During intermission, she pointed to the musicians up on the elevated platform at the back of the stage and said, "That's what I want to do."

Rachel is all of eleven years old, and she composed the music and lyrics to Library Song. She performed it at the Rockaway Township Library Talent Show last week.

Many thanks to Mr. Mazzarella, her guitar teacher for helping her tweak it. She does have a "big finish" to this song, but as she herself stated, chickened out at the end. I personally like, "Thank you Boston!"

I'm awful proud of her.

The Creative Mind is Occasionally Deranged

2010-08-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

Sometimes my imagination gets away from me and visits odd places. I've begun thinking about my next book, you see and my subconscious has conceived some interesting stories. More than once, I've mentioned my desire to write about zombie mermaids, and although I'm not sure I could sustain an entire novel on the subject, it could certainly form a part of some book. This is, as many have told me, downright weird. Guess what. I know. And I don't care.

Now and again, I consider writing a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel. Well, the ol' noodle got a smidgen out of control this time, and ventured into some dark recesses. What if... Oh, did I mention that all excellent stories begin with, "What if". So, what if some time in the future, people are living underground, in caves, or some other subterranean locale, because of a catastrophic nuclear war in which humanity tried to defend itself from an invasion by powerful and quite hostile aliens hell bent on setting up shop on earth. Sounds reasonable so far, right? Good. You're still with me.

Now, let's complicate things some more. The aliens are humanoid, and in general look very much like us. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. They live above ground, sheltered from the effects of nuclear winter through some neato technology. And ... there are actual humans living among the conquering aliens -- the rich, the powerful, the complicit. Naturally, the folks living under ground are the less privileged folk. Getting interest? Okay. Has this been written before? Maybe. Don't know. I haven't checked. It's all me, at the moment.

All right, this is where Mr. Imagination checks into the psych ward at Bellevue.

As a result of the war, there is little or no vegetation, and there is zero animal life, except for the well-off humans living above ground, and the less so underground. All the animals that had provided food for humans died off before the aliens could fix things up. Yet, topside, there are farms raising a form of animal upon which both the aliens and their human accomplices may dine. Periodically, the farmers descend underground, or wait for the poor folks underground to emerge looking for food, and then WHAM! Can you say, "Soylent Green is people!"

When I mentioned this idea to Rona and Rachel, they looked at me. Well, I was driving, but I could feel their eyes drilling into the back and side of my head. Rachel (my daughter), put it simply, "No, Daddy. You can't write that." Rona just said, "Uh, no."

I mean it is a combination of post-apocalyptic and dystopia, right? Right? Anyone? Hmm. Maybe I could slip in some zombie mermaids.

Getting ready to query

2010-07-29T20:49:00.000-04:00

Now that Urban Mythos has been birthed and revised, I'm starting to focus on query letters and such. As a result of coming in as runner up on the July Secret Agent Contest over at Miss Snark's First Victim, I've got a partial manuscript out as well as an "invited query"+10 pages from an agent who only accepts queries by invitation. So, that's good news.

I focused like heck on getting a two page synopsis together (Thanks, Frankie!!!) and then a reasonable query letter (Thanks everyone on WDC!). After several revisions, I'm happy with the results. However, I've got another query letter on YALitChat's Query Kickaround for further critique. The good news is that the early word is quite positive. Some tweaking was required, but nothing major.

While repaying the critiquing favors and/or paying it forward, I noticed a lot of writers making the same mistake I made with my initial query letter. (the first draft). It looked and read like a mini-synopsis. Since I wrote my synopsis first, the transition to query letter took a few tries, and as evidenced by what I read on YALitChat, the same thing probably happened with some other writers. The queries suffered from too much detail and too many characters. They didn't focus on the hook, the character and the conflict.

Also, the last few nights I've been doing more agent research. If you click on the Pubs and Agents tab atop this blog, you'll note that I have a very deep list of YA and Middle Grade publishers and literary agents. I've developed this list over the years and add to it periodically. I've been going through my list, cross checking with some other excellent resources, such as Casey McCormick's Literary Rambles, where she spotlights numerous agents. Check her blog out. It's amazing.

I've got some criteria I can share for what would make an agent a match for me:

Represents Young Adult
Has sold Young Adult
Is interested in genre fiction, specifically fantasy, and especially urban fantasy
If I met them or heard them speak at a conference, what did I think of them?
Do their tweets, blogs, interviews give me a positive impression.
Based on interviews or anything else I can find, make sure there is nothing subtle to make me think Urban Mythos would not be for them.

Here's a great example of this last bullet point. A certain agent for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect was quoted as saying he/she did not like books that opened with the narrator introducing themselves by name. Urban Mythos opens with the following dialog: "My name is Zydeco and I am a recovering mythological creature." Technically, I don't think this agent was referring to how I opened my novel, but I'm not taking any chances.

For each agent that seems like it's a possible fit, I add them to my list on querytracker, and if I've got interviews or other research I've done, I'll add links to those findings in the notes. Lots of agents are not taking submissions until the summer is over, so querying will be light this August. I'm going to post the query on YALitChat's Agent Inbox to see if there are any nibbles.

And that's about where I am. The journey continues.

Another Paint Job

2010-07-26T19:49:00.000-04:00

I couldn't help myself. There I was fiddling with the blogger designer, and the next thing you know, here's this shiny new layout. Darn those distractions! The only tricky bit was getting the tweetme button just right.

Primary revisions complete

2010-07-24T13:52:00.000-04:00

I meant to post this a while back, but things have been a bit hectic around here, what with spending every night working on a synopsis and query letter for Urban Mythos. Now that's out of the way, I can finally focus a bit more on sharing overall progress. As the title says, the primary revisions of the book are done. I've been following my revision process for the most part. And like any "process", it changes over time. That's a good thing. You can't just invent something and expect perfection off the bat.

You can't set off to create any sort of framework, be it writing, revisiing, software development (my day job). If you do, you'll fail every time. These kinds of things have to develop over time. They come about organically through experience.

Great. So now that I've rationalized not following my revision process verbatim, let's check the progress.

Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball.

It took a few weeks to get through this round and when I finished, I realized that after the decrap-ification of round #1, this was probably the most important bit of revising I'll do. If decrap-ification ensures that the book is sensible and consistent to the author, this round catches almost everything else. The most important piece is the reading out loud. I used ReadPlease this time, and that android in my computer helped catch any number of issues:

Misspellings (the easy part).
Run-on sentences.
Awful dialog.
Pacing issues, both within a sentence-- when to add or drop a comma--and spanning a scene--when to chop up long sentences or combine short ones.
Repeated words and phrases.
A milieu of misses

I read along while the computer speaks, and I cannot begin to tell you how this helps. Issues jump off the page as do ideas on how to fix them.

After completing round three, my confidence in this book is absolutely brimming. The feedback I've received from my critique partners at the YA forum on WDC has been equally positive. When I compare this book with my first book and the feedback I've received, especially around voice - let's just say I've traveled light years.

When I look at the remaining rounds of my revision process, I hesitate.

Revision Round #4 - The automaton editor - bring on the pain

This is where I take the book chapter by chapter through manuscript editing software. I've used AutoCrit and been quite happy with the results.
This isn't so much about grammar or spelling, but more about finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability, etc.
This is tedious and painful. The Terminator is not kind.
Revise appropriately.

I'm thinking of giving round four a miss primarily because of how deep the revisions were from round three. A lot of the benefit of the automaton editor above: finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability... Heck, I've gone through that in detail already in round three and I feel excellent about it. I think I may run a couple of chapters through, just to see what it finds, but it's otherwise coming off my list for now.

Revision Round #5 - One last look - one rule - no MAJOR changes allowed

Gather any additional feedback and revise as needed (see round #2)
One more MS Word spelling & grammar check.
Final read through and tweaks.

Obviously this round goes on until the book is published. I'll continue to solicit feedback from my critique partners, and my immediate family and very close friends who will get a look at the book. When an agent discovers the book and my general delightfulness *WINKS*, the feedback will continue. And then when the book is sold, there will be an editor as well. So, round five's definition will change a bit. Also, the "no MAJOR changes allowed" rule will need to depend on who is giving me said advice.

Meanwhile, it's awfully hot out. I've finally cooled down from mowing the lawn this morning. It's time to get some reading done in the A/C and maybe play a half hour of Simpson's Road Rage on the Wii.

Frantic!!!!!

2010-07-20T22:49:00.000-04:00

I submitted the first 250 words of Urban Mythos to the July Secret Agent Contest hosted by the awesome Authoress. Lo and behold, I won Runner Up!!! The secret agent turned out to be Danielle Chiotti from Upstart Crow Literary Agency. And those magical 250 words have drawn interest elsewhere as well.

Which means....

I am in a frantic mode of polishing up my queries and synopsis. I am synopsifying! Yeesh.

Mythos is now Urban Mythos

2010-07-16T15:02:00.000-04:00

The first bit of interesting news for those that follow me is that I've retitled Mythos as Urban Mythos. It's a kind of catchy play on words. The key revisions will be completed today (a neat trick, considering my daughter and six other eleven-year-old girls will be occupying my house during Rachel's birthday sleepover). I'll definitely post an update on this, but suffice to say, rounds one through three of my revision process are complete.

At this point, I'm convinced the book is in the kind of shape where I can now divide my time up between writing and refining the core of a query and a synopsis, while spending some time on revision round four. There is nothing quite like having your book read to you, even if by a deranged robot living within your computer. If only Jim Dale would donate his time.... *sighs* With experience comes a keener eye (and ear) for some of the less obvious issues such as repetition, cliche, pacing, etc. In years past, I relied on tools like AutoCrit.com to help me there, but right now, I'm feeling less obliged because of how pleased I am right with the book in its current state.

The book is still up for my critique partners at the YA forum to continue providing me the most excellent feedback a writer could ever receive, and so I will continue to tweak here and there, until such time as I must stop.

So, wish me luck with the tween girl set giggling, singing Karaoke, and generally being eleven year old girls as my son and I try to avoid being covered in nail polish. Of course, I did pop Sweet Caroline on their Karaoke DVD. I may need to join in.

The tree of death bites its master

2010-07-13T20:35:00.005-04:00

My glorious post on my neighbor's evil cottonwood tree has a just, if not happy ending. Shortly after I piled a whole bunch of cash back into my two year old central a/c unit because of the spawn of the neighboring tree, the tree stopped cottoning. Two days after the repairs, I put a filter/cover on my outside condenser unit which, I am sure, had a direct correlation with the tree completing its cycle of terror.

But that's not the really excellent news. This past weekend, my neighbor had an air conditioning repair truck in his driveway. Here's hoping this ends with my neighbor cutting down his own tree of moral turpitude.

In a strangely related development, I found the video for Christopher Walken sanitizing Greased Lightnin' on Saturday Night Live a few years ago.

My neighbor's cottonwood tree must die...

2010-07-07T20:58:00.000-04:00

Let me preface this post with the following soliloquy:

ARGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Here's the deal. My neighbor has a giant and theoretically gorgeous cottonwood tree in his backyard. Certain cottonwood trees "cotton", meaning they spread what appears to be little balls of seedy, sticky cotton nastiness. If you were to stand in my backyard in late June, it would seem like wintertime, what with the white stuff gently falling from the sky. The sky, in this case, is my neighbor's yard which is several feet above mine.

This process is occurs in late June and lasts up to two weeks. When we bought this house five years ago, there was no cotton and I could no more identify a cottonwood tree than the different varieties of plums without a sign in the supermarket.

Starting the following summer, I discovered the "joy" of cotton wrecking my backyard. This mutant tree from the lower bowels of Hades cottons for a heck of a lot longer than two weeks. I can't use my backyard for about a month because the gook gets all over everything, and it's not easily cleaned. It gets in EVERYTHING. The grass, the garden, the house, the deck, the dog, the barbecue. When I cut the lawn through the white stuff, it flies up in the air and gets in my eyes, thus ticking me off further.

Three years ago, I discovered the cotton was getting into the air conditioning condenser unit and within a year, despite my frantic attempts at cleaning it, the AC died. One year later, I forked over a massive pile of cash to replace the old central air conditioning with a fancy shmancy new unit of total efficiency.

This brings me to yesterday, the hottest day on record - 103 degrees in my little oasis of Northwestern New Jersey. I woke up and thought, jeepers, it's warm in here. After wandering over to the AC vent, I noted with several choice words that the air flowing out was warm as heck. It wasn't the circuit breakers. It wasn't my imagination. The two year old, freaking expensive condenser unit outside wasn't running.

So, I call the guy who installed the unit two years ago. Because it's about to be the hottest day on record and my AC is broken, the guy and his company are on vacation this week. This, I later found out, is entirely common in the world of AC contractors. They go away during July 4th week.

Eventually, I got somebody else to show up. They opened up the unit and found a shopping bag's worth of cotton inside the darn thing.... AGAIN. As I said before, ARGGGHHHH!!!! Naturally, cleaning it out wasn't enough, I had to sweat (figuratively and actually) while the guy tried to figure out why the condenser wouldn't start up again. Perhaps I needed to fork over another paycheck? Please no.

Eventually, he figured it out, and replaced a burned out part (from overheating due to the cotton) that probably cost $1.50 to manufacture, but cost me $350. Between the site visit, the cleaning and the repair, I wrote a check for nearly a thousand bucks. *GRRRRR*

In some states, cottonwood trees are considered "nuisance" trees and you can forcibly have them removed. Not in New Jersey, of course. So, I've ordered a filter to wrap around the condenser unit, which I'll have to clean weekly.

If you are in the hills of Northern New Jersey one night, and you hear an axe chopping wood, followed by maniacal laughter and police sirens, you may have found me.

Revisions - Incorporating Feedback

2010-07-05T10:43:00.002-04:00

Last night, well after the fireworks were finished, I completed revising Mythos based on the many critiques of my wonderful friends at the YA Club on Writing.com. These folks have been reviewing chapters since the very first one I posted last fall. As they came in, I read each one, thanked the reviewer profusely and, many times, commented on one or two salient points they made. That was it, though. I filed the critique away, refusing to look back on what I'd written until the first draft was complete.

After finishing my second draft about a week ago (see my decrap-ification post), I broke open the folder of reviews. There were sixty-nine of them. Yes. 69. Inappropriate comments aside, let me just say that I felt a strange mixture of delight and horror. I had a ton of feedback on nearly almost every chapter I'd written! There's going to be lots of grammar corrections! Woo-Hoo! People are going to tell me if the characters and plot held up! Yay!

Yes, that was the "delight" portion. Onto the horror.

Sixty-nine reviews? That's a lot, isn't it? Have you ever decided to walk somewhere instead of driving, thinking, This won't be bad at all, only to find out about 60 minutes into your walk that you're not even a tenth of the way there? Yeah. This is a lot of feedback and advice to sort through, and often it feels like you are miles from your destination. You may get on a roll where a couple of reviews are primarily grammar related, with some easily fixed plot flaws or unrealistic dialog. And then you get to the killer review -- the one that points out a horrific and difficult-to-fix plot flaw, requiring you to rewrite five chapters. Or the one pointing out that your characters, who have been so consistent for ten chapters, suddenly act completely out of character. I mentioned this in my Triangle Effect post on The Crew. It's right then that you put your head on the desk and wish the teacher would just say it was nap time.

As far as revising based on critiques, like I implied, grammar is the easy bit. Loads of people are better at grammar than I am. It saves me so much time. Fresh sets of eyes always seem to find the repetitive use of words, the adverb misuse, etc. It's a huge help. As for comments on characterization and plot, well, these are the bits that sometimes cut deep. Let's review what revision round #2 is all about.

Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points.

If I agree, revise appropriately.

If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately.

If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

Each time an excellent reviewer pointed out a "big issue" as stated above, I immediately struggled with what to do about it. After a few moments of mental anguish and indecision, I returned to the three bulleted "rules" above. Obviously, if I agreed with their point, I revised, no matter how difficult. Review number sixty-nine offered one such colossal "big issue" (thanks Laura), but I concurred with the assessment. It required quite a bit of work to redress, and hopefully I've done a reasonably good job.

As for the reviews I disagreed with, well, emotion tends to get involved. The "rules" are meant to help you avoid emotion. Still, as writers, we tend to be a smidgen, um, protective of our babies.

Across the many reviews, there were a number of issues with which I disagreed. However, when multiple people raised the same issue in one fashion or another, I forced myself to revise. Heaven help someone if they tried talking to me while I was making that revision. *winks* All is fair in writing and revising, however. So, if only one or two people raised an issue with which I disagreed, I merrily passed it by, not even waving in my rear view mirror. When (not if) my fellow writers whose chapters I've reviewed disagree with my comments, they should philosophically run over my foot as they drive off, leaving my comments in the dust at my squashed shoe. I'd expect nothing less.

I can't thank these wonderful people enough: Laura, Airdale, Dezi, Tania, Vicky, Kurt, Ralene, Richard, Frankie, Mireyah, Annie, Dawn, and Ceri. Each of you have helped me make this novel better in so many ways. Thank you!!!

Now, I'm on to revision round #3! The good news is that I took care of step 1 already.

Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball.

The Very Latest Harry Potter Trailer

2010-06-30T20:04:00.000-04:00

I got chills. They're multiplying....

Decrapification Complete!

2010-06-29T20:13:00.003-04:00

I made it through the first round of revisions to Mythos today, my son's fifteenth birthday. Happy Birthday, kiddo. I blogged about my revision process a few weeks back, and as many of you know by now, completing round number one means that my novel is officially:

Yes, that means it no longer smells like a dog park before the cleanup crew arrives. Let's check the scorecard.

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification

Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
Read it and take copious notes all over the page. Can't put the check here yet. I'm halfway done.
Make all the changes from step #2.

As a result of these revisions, the word count has ballooned from nearly 71k to just north of 75k.In and of itself I'm cool with that. Out went passages that didn't advance plot or characterization. In went an epilogue to tie things up a bit and leave open the possibility of a sequel. This is a pretty good example of what happens in my second draft -- as I write my way toward the end of the novel, I discover more and more bits of back story, plot points, or characterizations I'll need upon revising. Hence, the initial increase in word count.

During the second round of revisions, I expect to remove more than add. Speaking of which, let's revisit what round #2 is all about.

Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points.

If I agree, revise appropriately.
If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately.
If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

It's an exciting time. Being my own worst critic makes round #2 far more appealing and less painful to me. Plus, I promised my family they could read the second draft. Once Rona finishes Catching Fire (yes, I finally got her to read Hunger Games, so now she's hooked), she'll jump on Mythos.

I think I'll start round two tomorrow. I owe my YA writing buddies some reviews tonight.

The Chronicles of Narnia - Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-06-24T22:32:00.001-04:00

I keep pushing the Harry Potter thing, but how can we forget C.S. Lewis?

Chronicles Of Narnia 3

Decrap-ification Defined

2010-06-21T22:36:00.000-04:00

Recently, I talked about my revision process, in which I coined the term DECRAP-IFICATION. Some folks who didn't read that post have since asked me what I meant by this semi-vulgar term. It's quite simple, really. Your novel is like a lawn you spend all sorts of time cultivating, trying to make it a lush, green paradise.

As many of you know, I've got a little black pug who goes by the name Tinkerbell. Tink, our four-legged friend, does not use the toilet. Being a good little pooch, she uses the great outdoors to relieve herself. When we walk her around the park or down the street, we carry a baggie to dispose of her "doings" properly. (Darn, I love the use of "doings", almost as much as "leavings".) But at other times, her doopity-doops find their way onto our lawn. Guaranteed that if my son walks her, they will remain there until such time that I wander the yard, plastic bag and pooper scooper in hand.

As I make my way around our property, I am very clearly DECRAP-IFYING the lawn. Head down, eyes scanning a 180 degree area before me, I carefully step from one spot to the next, looking for that which sullies the lawn. In other words, I need to get the crap off the lawn before taking a carefree stroll about the yard, laying down weed killer, proper fertilizer and additional seed.

It's the same process with a novel. This may be crass, I realize, but my first drafts are littered with crap, and until I scoop that nasty stuff off the pages, there's not much sense working on the finer points. I'll just wind up stepping in a pile of my own "doings" and losing the attention to detail I need for the later revisions.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

2010-06-19T13:13:00.001-04:00

Yes, I'm on a Harry Potter roll now. Here's the grand opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter from Universal Studios in Orlando. Can't you just taste the butterbeer? I've got my trip set for August.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Clip #1

2010-06-15T20:20:00.000-04:00

Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait.

Mythos Revision Update

2010-06-12T22:51:00.000-04:00

An update to the Mythos revision process. a new checkmark goes to step #2 of the Decrap-ification round. Tomorrow night, we move on to step #3.

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification (in progress)

Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
Read it and take copious notes all over the page.
Make all the changes from step #2.

I've taken loads of notes and have given myself a lot of work to do. This includes a small epilogue as well. I'm really excited about this, however, because I love revising. The hard part - giving birth to the story and characters - is done. Now I've got to groom the unruly little beast.

As a side note, I'm debating whether to combine step #3 of this revision round with Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback. That's where I take all the critiques I've received so far and make those changes as well. I've got mixed feelings. Combining will actually make round #2 easier, because the critiques are based on the first draft. The critiques won't always sync up with a revised draft. On the other hand, I need to give my own concerns priority over my critique partners.

Procrastination on this decision sounds like a good idea.

Library Activities plus Contests!

2010-06-07T21:51:00.000-04:00

I'm still knee deep reading Mythos and scribbling various insulting comments to myself all along the margins, so I don't have much to say about writing process today. Well, except that a writer is his or her own worst critic. Until somebody else gets a chance to criticize.

On another note, I swung by the library with my daughter this evening to get her signed up for the summer reading club and to have her check out the requisite "massive" pile of books. This kid reads at a frightening pace.
She grabbed a mix of middle grade and YA books, like she does, including Matilda, by Roald Dahl, The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, and The Absolute true diary of a part-time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.

The parking lot was over-full, and I wound up parking quite far away. It turned out there was a book signing and presentation this evening at the Rockaway Township library, for the book you see on the left, by the authors, Eleanor Mason and Patricia White. The line was out the door.
I've seen many books in this series cover our surrounding towns, and now our town finally has its own. Had I realized, I would have picked up a copy, but I think I'll grab one on my next trip to Borders.

On another note, here are some cool contests!

Literary Agent Natalie Fischer will judge a 5-round "Line-by-line" contest for Adventures in Children's Publishing starting Thursday 6/10. Polish up the first sentence of your YA or MG novel and be ready to enter at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday! They're taking the first 50 entries at 8:00 am ET and the first 50 entries at 12:00pm ET. Top prize? A 25-page critique by Natalie Fischer, and more prizes for top placers.

Over at Market My Words, there's an Agent Pitch Contest with Bree Ogden of Martin Literary Management. 1st Prize is a full manuscript submission, 2nd prize is a partial, and 3rd prize is a query critique. Sounds good, no?

Good luck!

The Revision Process

2010-06-02T21:15:00.000-04:00

Elana Johnson had not just one great post but a second great post on Getting to 100%. Her first blog entry was thoroughly rah-rah, sis-boom-bah about getting your novel and your query to 100% before even thinking about shipping them out. Her second post elaborated on the original premise by stating that getting to 100% was more about an emotional state -- are you confident enough to send your babies out into the publishing world?

This is a fascinating premise, because we writers are not always the most confident bunch. Cold rejection for our query and manuscript waits behind every rock in the big, scary world, ready to spring forth and say, "Boo." Actually, it's more likely to be a jack-in-the-box with copy paper stapled to its head, the word, "Boo" printed in Times New Roman. Naturally, we will try to interpret the meaning of "Boo" and make ourselves neurotic.

Since I'm in the first round of revisions of Mythos, I began to wonder at what point I might be confident enough to say that this urban fantasy of mine is 100%. So, let's see. What are my revision plans?

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification (in progress)

Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
Read it and take copious notes all over the page. Can't put the check here yet. I'm halfway done.
Make all the changes from step #2.

Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points.

If I agree, revise appropriately.
If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately.
If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball.

Revision Round #4 - The automaton editor - bring on the pain

This is where I take the book chapter by chapter through manuscript editing software. I've used AutoCrit and been quite happy with the results.
This isn't so much about grammar or spelling, but more about finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability, etc.
This is tedious and painful. The Terminator is not kind.
Revise appropriately.

Revision Round #5 - One last look - one rule - no MAJOR changes allowed

Gather any additional feedback and revise as needed (see round #2)
One more MS Word spelling & grammar check.
Final read through and tweaks.

I have that rule in round #5 to ensure I actually finish. I've heard of artists who keep going back to the same painting, and never finish. There's always something to fix, to touch up, or to re-do. Life just isn't long enough, and I have too many other ideas for me to allow that to happen. If I were to reach round #5, and the book still had major structural problems not fixed in an earlier round, shame on me, and I'd have to change my plans.

However, it's at the end of round #5 that I expect to cross that emotional hurdle, where I can say, "Yeah, this is good." I won't go back and read the manuscript again, except to help building the synopsis and query. *shudders* Okay, let me just get through the revisions before worrying about the query and synopsis.

Revision Time!!!!

2010-05-27T20:37:00.000-04:00

I was planning on spending some time with Elliot and the rest of the Children of Midian, polishing it up based on some recent agent advice, and then querying. However, after a long week away from Mythos, I've made the executive decision to return to the Knucklehead City. *snorts*

Knucklehead City, you say? When I began to write Mythos, I had absolutely nothing in mind for a title, so I figured, let's just throw a working title up there on the first page, you know, for chuckles. And the working title was Creatures of Knucklehead City. Or, Creatures for short. It wound up as Mythos much later on.

In any case, I printed the manuscript yesterday - double-spaced, double-sided - loads of recycled paper. And last night, while listening to a combination of fawning over Simon Cowell and numerous performances on American Idol, I started reading. I made it one and a half pages in, before completely re-sequencing the opening paragraphs. So I guess I can say I'm now in revision mode.

Wicked cool. Can't wait till I'm done.

Birth of a Novel, Part 17 - The End

2010-05-24T21:30:00.000-04:00

This is the twenty-second and final entry in my Birth of a Novel series of posts, where I talk about the development of my new YA urban fantasy. Yes, twenty-second, even though the post is entitled Part 17.

As when I started writing Mythos, I end the first draft with the little black pug sitting on my lap. Whoops - she just jumped off. Okay, start again...

As when I started writing Mythos, I end the first draft with the little black pug having stepped on my crotch as she leaped off my lap. There. Actually, that's good.In the last few chapters, Zydeco felt the perpetual sting of a paw to the crotch. I will of course not say how I wound up the story. Is it Rocky or Rocky II? Does our hero lose the fight, but prevail nonetheless? Or does he beat the champ? Jeez, this book is nothing like Rocky.

Man, oh, man, was I ever afraid I'd never get to the end of the story. My brain just wouldn't stop coming up with new ways to prolong the action, to figure out more torture for Zydeco and his friends. But I persisted and prevailed like Rocky did against Clubber Lang in Rocky III. *hangs head in shame with yet another Rocky reference*

As I closed in on the end, on resolving the conflict, I couldn't decide if I would have a follow up chapter where you see life returning to a semblance of normalcy a week later, or if I would go for the epilogue and show life a year later. However, when I got past resolving the key conflict(s), it just organically.... ended. I didn't answer every question in its entirety. I think I tied up the loose ends, but didn't provide concrete solutions for everything - and this is what happens to him, and this is what happens to her, and happily ever after, and there will never be another problem again, etc. etc. But life's like that, I think. Ah, well. Technically, there's room for a sequel, but I have no intention of writing one at this point. The story stands on its own.

Now, the whole point of this series of blog posts was to describe the experience of writing the book. I've hopefully articulated some of my moments of exhilaration, frustration, horror, and glee. Occasionally, I shared a snippet of a chapter for everyone to peruse, at least early on. Whether that's drawn any further interest in the book remains to be seen.

My wonderful writer friends in the YA Group on writing.com have provided me helpful critiques all along the way. More are coming and rather than incorporate those critiques as I wrote the first draft, I just filed them away for when I was ready to revise. I've read each and every one of them, and now have to decide what to incorporate.

There have been a couple of common themes, and those will almost certainly get a lot of attention. For one, I realized my author's view of Tameina through Zydeco's eyes hasn't translated well enough to the page. It's a lot more intense than I wrote and I need to fix it. I occasionally suffer from the dreaded writing illness - Well, I know that's how they feel, why doesn't the reader? It's a chronic thing, but with aggressive treatment, I'm way better now than last year and more so than the year before that.

There's also a list of things I just want to add. I love the judicious use of dreams in fiction, and while draft #1 has none, rest assured the second draft will. The sleepy-time dreams will be foreboding and entail a voice from Zydeco's past.

A couple more days off from Mythos, and then I'm going to read it from start to finish and make lots of notes. I'm not particularly afraid of what I'll find, and that's not because I think it's so awesome. It's all kinds of crap -it's a first draft. No, you see as first draft's go, it's better than any other one I've written to date -- something to do with experience, I think. I hope. I hope I've learned something along the way.

Well, that seems like a pretty good note on which to end the Birth of a Novel chain of posts. And so I will.

Mythos - DONE!!!!!

2010-05-19T22:02:00.000-04:00

The most awe-inspiring two words a writer can write.

Mythos is complete.

Birth of a Novel post to follow.

The "Finish Writing the Book" Experience

2010-05-17T20:40:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you a little about my "finish writing the book" experience I'm having. I've been writing the closing chapters of Mythos for weeks now. Whereas I allowed my characters to drive much of the earlier part of the book, yours truly has directed events leading up to and through the climax. And it's an odd thing. I see how it ends more and more every day, and my fingers are tap-tap-tapping furiously on the keyboard to get the story there. The more I see, the more prolific the writing becomes. Yep - at the end, I have received "total consciousness", which is nice. Thanks for that riff, Bill Murray.

As the words find their way on screen, the most bizarre ideas come to mind - roads along which I might take my characters, avenues with all sorts of twists and turns, and certainly littered with potholes. As this happens, I envision my characters looking up at me as if I'm in the stratosphere. They dutifully go about whatever business I set before them, but every now and then I catch them shaking their heads. For every unplanned direction I take them, for every shiny new obstacle I place before them, they've got to deal with it, and I need to help them. And in every case, this extends the story. This is why it's taken longer to get to the honest-to-goodness final chapter.

The last ten chapters of Mythos are the "big resolve". All the activity leading up to these chapters was a whole lot of simmering and the occasional bubbling over of conflict. The last ten are the rolling boil, and the foamy water is slopping over the sides of the pot. I knew where I wanted to be ten chapters ago, and with every chapter I wrote, I discovered even more details I needed to cover in the remaining pages. It's been a serious blast and is the sum total reason why I write.

So now, I can finally look myself in the mirror and declare, I am writing the final chapter. Truly. Well, unless I decide to do the epilogue thing. But that's it. Absolutely. There is this one loose end that might prove troublesome, so maybe.... No. It's the end.

Oh, and when it's all done, I'll combe the final three chapters into one last Birth of a Novel post. *sigh* What ever shall I do with my time?

The Robin's Reflection

2010-05-11T22:28:00.000-04:00

I came downstairs Saturday to find my wife and daughter staring out a the back window. Rona was waving at my son who preceded me down the stairs. "Get my camera, Scott. Hurry!"

Now, we've had some interesting wildlife saunter through the yard of this house and our last house--black bear, wild turkey, deer, rabbits, a rabbit slaughtering eagle--so I wasn't jumping up and down. "What is it?" I said. "Another deer?"

The ladies of the house gave their heads a vigorous shake as my son returns with a camera. As far as cameras go in my house, on the desk in the office lay three digital cameras. One is very old, has no batteries, and frankly should've been tossed a long time ago. Another one is a relatively cheap spare camera the kids sometimes use, but doesn't actually have a memory card in it, so it too is useless. Then there's my wife's tidy little camera. My fancy shmancy camera is not on the desk because, well, it's mine!

So, which camera does my son bring? The cheapo with no memory card. My wife sees him carrying the wrong camera and while I wore a bemused look, she shooed him away and told him to get the other camera. Mind you, he knows which camera is hers, but quite often teenage boy brains don't function properly. So he disappears into the office again while Rachel is squealing at the back window.

Despite my lack of coffee, I was about ready to demand to know what was out there, but Scott reappeared with another camera. As I said, teenage boy brains are not wired to actually find things in plain sight. He'd brought the very old and very battery-less camera nobody has touched since we moved into this house nearly five years ago, and that was only because we unpacked it.

At this point, Rona is nearly apoplectic with annoyance at his inability to find the right freakin' camera. Let me now cut to the chase. He finally brings the right camera, and I get a look through the window.

There's this big 'ol robin sitting on my Scott's old pitch-back (for practicing baseball pitching) in the yard. Without warning it takes off, heading straight for the me. It bumps into the window, flaps its wings as it bubbles up and down in front of the glass, then zooms off for a moment and lands again on the pitch back. The bugger kept on with this all morning. At one point, I went outside and shooed the thing away because I thought it might bend its beak on the glass and because the noise was getting annoying already.

But of course it came back. And it's been back every day since. Supposedly, this happens all the time - a bird sees another bird, which is just its own reflection and decides it's mating season. I'm told that the same bird might come back every year as well! It looks like I'm going to have to mount a scarecrow outside the window, otherwise we're going to be living with the daily knocking from the robin's reflection.

Birth of a Novel Part 16 - Emotional Climax

2010-05-06T21:03:00.001-04:00

This is the twenty-first entry in my Birth of a Novel series of posts, where I talk about the development of my new YA urban fantasy. Yes, twenty-first, even though the post is entitled Part 16.

I think the title of this post is pretty catchy. I'm actually three chapters along, but this is about the first two of them. Mythos is experiencing the big climax right now. And frankly, I should be on to the denouement, but I got a bit sick earlier this week, which rendered me thoroughly useless, disabled, unable to read, much less write. It sucked. Royally. Dude - I can't wish this on anyone.

Once again, I digress. So, yeah, Mythos and climax. This is one long sucker, the first two chapters of which I've decided are really the emotional climax. Zydeco experiences betrayal, which in and of itself is a tough thing for a person living or literary. Things are already pretty bad when he realizes what's happened, and you'd think this is the final "pile on Zydeco" wrestler move.

Not so fast.

As an author, I've learned a few things about the treatment of the characters I've created. You need to treat them not like a parent, but more like an unbalanced deity. I love them to death and take enormous pride in their accomplishments As my mother would say, I "kvell" when good things happen. And then I'll turn around, make their lives incredibly miserable, and rejoice and my evil accomplishment.

Where I'm going with this is that no matter how bad things get for your protagonist, you can always make them worse. A little creativity goes a long way. Think like an evil overlord. You'll do fine.

So, while Zydeco may feel like he's at the bottom of a Chinatown dumpster, it can and will get worse. A LOT worse. But not before I give him some false hope. You see, I am such a bastard, I amaze even me. Now this being a first draft, I'm sure it'll all come across as slightly contrived and Zydeco won't appear as fazed as he ought to. The structure is all there, however. And I think I've got a pretty sweet cliffhanger at the end of the first of these two chapters. My, oh my, I certainly believe it's true.

Now the next two chapters I'm working on -- which bring us to the end of Mythos -- are all about how Zydeco deals with these awful circumstances. Will he fail or will he overcome? Is it Rocky or Rocky II? Only yours truly knows the answer.

To read about the last chapter, journey back to the previous entry.

To see how it all ends, read the final post.

Why did it have to be a series?

2010-04-30T22:48:00.001-04:00

Last night, I finished reading Alexander Gordon Smith's dark and harrowing Escape From Furnace. And maybe I should have known, especially since it's right there in the YA section, but as I closed in on the last few pages and came to the realization this was a TO BE CONTINUED deal, I was less than thrilled. It was a good less than thrilled, because I'll be right there when the second book, Solitary, comes out later this year in the U.S. By the way, check out the unbelievably cool Furnace web site.

Actually, this was like James Dashner's, The Maze Runner all over again. I must be a moron, but I had no idea when I picked up that book that it would be a series. I only wish I had an effing clue when I started reading.

Man, am I dense. It's always the same thing. As I reach the final couple chapters, I start to wonder how on earth (or under earth in the case of Furnace) the author is going to resolve everything. Then, I hit the last chapter and with each page, I get that sinking feeling, until.... WHAT???? You're leaving me here? No no no no NO! Harumph. Arms crossed, feet stomping, I solemnly swear to never let it happen again.

But it does. I guess some of these series books stand alone better than others. Hunger Games and Catching Fire had complex, major plot-lines to resolve, and did so in each case. Sure, there is still a major story arc and character conflicts to deal with, but I know that's part of the series and will be resolved in the end. I came away from each of these two books satisfied. The same can be said for each of the Percy Jackson books. So far so good on the Bartimaeus trilogy. Christopher Golden's Veil trilogy worked well, too, almost like the Lord of the Rings, actually.

But these two. Maze Runner and Escape From Furnace. I love these books and the authors, but they are Lucy Van Pelt and I am Charlie Brown trying to kick the darn football. ARGH!!!!!

I can't wait for both sequels!

Award-athon

2010-04-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

As ever, I'm remiss in accepting and doling out blog awards. I'm catching up right now. First off, there's this spring-like Sunshine Award, courtesy of Harley. Her blog is really great for writers - check it out. Thanks, Harley!

I'm going to hand this out to some rays of sunshine.

Mary, who is eminently awardable.
Shannon, who seems to have every imaginable award, but not this one!
Rachel, because this will get her to update her blog more frequently.
Kristan, because her words raise flowers skyward.

Then, there's this way cool blogger buddie award from the eminently awardable, Mary. Love this pic. I hereby award this to my bestest buddies and big toes:

Kurt
Annie
Ralene
Tamara
Frankie
Mireyah - yeah, I can pronounce you now!!!

Pass 'em along, peeps!

The Long Running Apex

2010-04-25T19:24:00.000-04:00

I've been a bit quieter than normal on the sharpened pen. Every day this week I've been working on Mythos, either writing, scribbling notes, daydreaming, or having arguments with myself. On one or more occasion I've mentioned that writing pure action scenes is difficult for me. I need dialog to keep things moving. People need to say stuff about what's going on around them. I'm no big talker - okay, well, get me going on something I care about and I don't shut up so easy - but engaging me in the first place is a challenge. I'm also not accomplished at kicking off conversations because my mind is always wandering. I do not shmooze.

Yet, I need the rhythm of conversation in the chapters I write, otherwise I'm as uncomfortable as the family potbelly pet at a pig roast. (Yeah, I went a long way for that one.)

Here's the deal. Mythos reaches a fairly substantial climax, followed by a denouement you will count in paragraphs. I'm probably midway through that climax.

Hey you, stop that snickering!

As I was saying before the juvenile in you (and me, actually) interrupted, I'm halfway through the big, humongous, all encompassing, incredibly complicated, hard-to-choreograph, super-important, page-turning capstone of the book. It's a whopper! And I don't mean it's incredibly impressive, although I sure hope it is. No, what I'm saying is this sucker is huge. It's really a long, long scene. It's chapter-spanning. Holy mackerel, it's taking a lot of words to get it done.

So, that's why I'm not up here blogging that much, or up on twitter, tweeting, or visiting everyone's blogs, commenting. The good news is that when this apogee of apogees is behind me, there'll only be a couple of paragraphs I need with which to conclude the book, and then I'm done with the first draft. Then I can go back to publicly making a fool of myself instead of doing so only before family and friends.

Oh, and the picture has nothing to do with this post. I just quite enjoy it. And in case you wanted to know, Tinkerbell was not served the steak we were grilling that night.

Night off plus some contests

2010-04-20T21:36:00.001-04:00

Although tonight I'm taking time to read, blog, watch American Idol (Go Crystal & Lee) and Glee, I'm knee deep writing the final two chapters of Mythos. It's the climax and is all action, twists, and tension. The Evil Inner Editor has found himself encased in a lead lined box in orbit, and is unable to steal my mojo. The end is in sight and I couldn't be more excited.

I've received two awards I just haven't had time to figure out who to pass them along to as yet, but I'm definitely going to get to it. Mary and Harley - I still owe you thanks. People, follow them on the blogosphere and twitter and everywhere virtual... just don't stalk them. The supermarket is a private place.

In other news, a kitten/duck stare-off.

And of course some contests!

Over at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, they've got a first lines contest. If you win, you'll get a full manuscript considered by Jim McCarthy without even having to query. Hurry up, though, the contest ends Thursday, 4/22.

Check out Elana Johnson's blog for info on an agent judged contest at QueryTracker.net next Tuesday, April 27th. This is your chance to send in a one sentence pitch of your young adult or middle grade novel to Chris Richman of Upstart Crow Literary. There is absolutely no limit to the number of entries he's considering, so be sure and get your pitch polished and perfect!

Birth of a Novel Part 15 - Choreography Part I - Violence

2010-04-13T21:20:00.001-04:00

This is the twentieth entry in my Birth of a Novel series of posts, where I talk about the development of my new YA urban fantasy. Yes, twentieth, even though the post is entitled Part 15.

Two chapters later, and with American Idol and Glee on television tonight, it's clear I won't be getting much writing done tonight. Having readily admitted this weakness, I can move on to a BOAN post.

There I was, writing and writing and writing. This is the point at which Zydeco has to haul his cookies to "the site" for the big showdown. Approximately 183 ideas came to me as I began writing - all sorts of twists and turns - that I rapidly jotted down in my green sasquatch notebook. It's pretty cool, I have to say. I always love the "big showdown". And I find the choreography challenging and rewarding. Some of it is purely stage direction - get everyone to where they need to be to make the scene work. But it's also making sure everyone is emotionally where they need to be, which is a larger challenge, and often involves the entire book.

These last two chapters were about getting Zydeco and company to "the site". So, yes there was plenty of choreography getting him from Octavio's hidey hole, along with another character who reappears causing all sorts of tension. Along the way, they try to recruit Ted the Yeti and Alice the Sphinx, who were introduced a few chapters ago.

I looked around, catching movement in the shadows behind the doors and windows of the nearest buildings. Urgent whispers carried in the quiet, and broke only when Ted spoke.

"But I don't understand. Why does Phineas Malice care about us? Why does he care about any of us? Any of you?"

"I know he hates me, especially," said Octavio. "He blames me for his exile, which is actually quite accurate. When I was on the council, I saw to it he was sent away. He was a no good thief, consorting with the worst element. Goblins. The occasional imp or demon, too. Awful."

"More reasons for me to dislike the guy," I said. It also explained why he wanted Octavio so badly. "You're like the detective who puts the bad guy in jail, then winds up in the same cell with him. But I can't believe this whole thing he's doing--sending mythos into exile again, grabbing every one he can get hold of-is just because he hates you."

Ted cocked his large, furry head in confusion. If it weren't for the killer teeth and fangs hanging from his mouth, he'd be as adorable as an enormous, confused puppy. Behind him, Lex was hugging herself while keeping her eyes on Alice, who chose that moment to speak.

"There is a most elemental answer for that riddle, is there not?"

"That he's a tool?" I replied.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

I didn't like her very much at that point and shot a pleading look at Octavio.

As the gang of three approach the site, things go terribly awry, and his results in Zydeco finally getting an ass-kicking. I couldn't just have him wander into the site and save everyone (Blaine, Magenta, etc.) easily. He may be able to put a hurtin' on Hunter, but he's not invincible, especially when a well conceived attack takes place.

Here's what surprised me about the whole deal. It didn't bother me one bit to deal Zydeco some serious violence. I mean, I wasn't going to kill him or anything. The fun part was choreographing the one-sided violence. How was I going to bring him down? I needed an element of surprise. Given the setting at the time, how would I do that? And once Zydeco was surprised, what would I do to him to get him on the ground? And how would I keep him there? Broken rib(s) are nice and debilitating, and having someone inflict the breakage in a savage and planned manner should hopefully give the reader pause.

Now, about those scribbled ideas in my little notebook. I came up with a brilliant twist if I do say so myself. It's awesome-tastic because of my tendency to leave "stuff" in the chapters as I write, in case I think I can use it later. If you are in my critique circle and have read my first drafts, you have likely complained about all the open questions I've left hanging. By the end of the first draft, I've answered many of them, and by the end of the second and third drafts, I've hopefully eliminated most of the unanswered questions. Well this twist is so very cool because you won't see it coming (I hope) but there are hints along the way. I love it when things just sort of work out.

To read about the last chapter, journey back to the previous entry.

The next couple of chapters have their very own post right here.

I Don't Like Mondays (Tell Me Why...)

2010-04-12T21:49:00.000-04:00

It's Monday, don't you know, and I realized that the chapter I've been working on is approximately double the size of my standard chapter length. So, my evening has been spent on splitting the chapter up, and then thinking about what to blog. I could do the Birth of a Novel thing. Alas, I shall not do so. Instead, I choose to ruminate on how I don't much care for Mondays. Hence, the sad song with attached House video. Note who plays the piano with Dr. House!

And now to get some more writing done.

Happy Monday, and see you Tuesday!

Too funny

2010-04-08T22:00:00.001-04:00

Whether you like Lady Gaga or not, this is hilarious.

A Diatribe on Dialog Tags

2010-04-07T20:49:00.004-04:00

Some time ago, I posted an Analysis of Adverbs. While writing that entry, the notion of adverbial dialog tags kept coming up and reminded me of some of the more, um, flamboyant dialog tags I've seen employed. And this is funny to me, because I've received critiques from other writers who complain that I use he said/she said too much, and that I should mix it up with shrieked, argued, intoned, begged, demanded, pleaded, and I can't even tell you how many more.

Let's start with the two most fundamental points as regards dialog tags because if you buy them, everything else flows naturally.

1) Dialog tags should do nothing more than advise the reader who is speaking, in case it's not obvious.

When you watch a conversation between three people, you know who is speaking by sight, sound (tone and a spatial sense of where the voice is coming from) When you eavesdrop (don't lie now, you know you do), you rely on sound. When you read, you rely completely on context. I'll come back to this.

2) Dialog tags distract the reader from the story.

There. I've said it. Plain and simple. Stories are about your characters and what happens to and because of them. Your characters do stuff, see stuff, feel stuff. They don't do, see, or feel dialog tags. Authors do. If you want your readers caring about your characters, keep the focus on the stuff your characters do, see and feel. If you want your readers caring about the author, write an autobiography.

Right, then. Context. Readers need to know who just said those precious pearls of dialog on the page. Dialog tags work, but, IMHO, the best way to convey such a context is to have the character do something prior to speaking. Action beats. You can't always do it, and sometimes it's just silly if you do it for the sake of doing it, but when you can, you should. Check out this tedious bit of dialog.

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"Lovely day, isn't it?" asked Sally.

"Oh," replied Alfred. "Smashing. Truly."

"I wonder if we'll ever see the rains again," said John.

"I highly doubt it," replied Alfred.

"Oh, stop whining already," said Sally.

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Well, there's no doubt you know who is speaking. But this exchange suffers from a case of talking-head-itis. Nobody is doing anything. As far as you know, there's just some dismembered heads on a table babbling. How do I make it better?

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Sally leveled the pistol at Alfred's chin. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Alfred swallowed hard, casting a sideways glance at the barrel of the gun, while trying to keep the car from barreling off the road. "Oh, smashing. Truly."

In the back seat, John made a few more feeble attempts to free his wrists from the fishing line binding them together. He blew a mop of sweaty hair from his eyes and peered out the window. "I wonder if we'll ever see the rains again."

"I highly doubt it," replied Alfred.

Sally shook her head and smirked. "Oh, stop whining already."

--------------------------------------------------------

It's no longer a bunch of talking heads, is it? And I didn't put an action beat or full-on action around every bit of dialog. Tags are okay. One more note about context, before moving on. When there are only two characters having a conversation, context often becomes more obvious. If the conversation were strictly between Alfred and Sally, and you were relying on dialog tags for some of the exchange, you wouldn't need to repeat those tags because it would be obvious who is speaking as long as you observe the basic rules - new paragraph per speaker and such. For example:

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

Technically, could be rewritten as:

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Now, onto my favorite part. Dialog tags as distraction. Remember, these things are supposed to be utensils, not the condiments, much less the food. Once you get going with that knife and fork in your hands, you don't much notice them anymore. Pursuant to that thought, when you use dialog tags, if you stick primarily to the garden variety - said, replied, asked - like the knife and fork, very shortly the reader doesn't even notice them there. They somehow ... work. The diner remembers the meal. The reader remembers the story.

Rather than listing the eight million ways to say said, I will point you to Aaron Lazar's excellent post from last year. Here's a great line from his post, and I whole-heartedly agree.

Never use anything but “said,” “asked,” or an occasional “whisper” or “mumble.” Once in a great while, if you feel you really need it, slip in a “spat” or “croaked.”

I'm personally okay with a "replied". And if you want to throw in the occasional flowery dialog tag, that's fine, but keep it rare. The thing is that when you do this:

1. "I don't wanna," he whined.
2. "You bastard!" she shrieked loudly.
3. "Don't do that," he lectured.

It does several things. First, the reader stops and reads the dialog tag. It's a distraction. Second, we are telling the reader how to interpret dialog whose intent is self evident. Readers like to use their imagination at times. Third, it appears that the writer is a novice, which doesn't help get you published if that's what you care about.

Now let me dissect what bothers me specifically about each of the above and make a suggestion.

"I don't wanna," he whined.
The dialog sounds like whining. I don't need the tag to tell me.
Better - He hung his head and kicked a pebble across the sidewalk. "I don't wanna."

"You bastard!" she shrieked loudly.
This is, O M G, this is too much. And I've seen this exact line somewhere. First, there's an exclamation point. Definitely tread lightly there, but given that it is there, it implies the speaker is shouting. So, shrieked is unnecessary. On top of that it's an adverbial dialog tag that happens to be redundant. I'm not aware of anyone who can shriek quietly. There's not much wiggle room there. So, we have an implied shout via an exclamation point, a beauty of a dialog tag, and an adverb.
Better - Her face was red and her hands balled into fists. "You bastard!"

"Don't do that," he lectured.
First. like #1, it sounds like the speaker is lecturing. But second, and more importantly to me, if you are going to use a dialog tag, make sure it is a form of speaking. Whispering, muttering, mumbling - those are forms of speaking that imply the tone - quiet and/or unintelligible. Lecturing is something a person does, not how a person speaks.
Better - He waggled his finger in front of my face. "Don't do that."

So endeth the diatribe.

Tourists in D.C. and a Man Eating Plant

2010-04-04T20:58:00.000-04:00

We just got back from a whirlwind four day weekend in Washington D.C. I am BEAT! We went everywhere, getting around on the Metro, by foot (with a pulled leg muscle - ouch), bus, and once by car... I'll come back to that. Let me just say these two words before I continue: Cherry Blossoms.

'Nuff said. The place was as crowded as Manhattan during Christmas week.

We arrived Thursday, checking into our hotel in Arlington, then grabbed the Metro (D.C.'s very clean, very nice rail/subway system) to the Smithsonian stop. We hoofed it over to the Holocaust Museum, where we'd fortunately purchased our tickets to the permanent exhibit in advance for a buck each. If you are in Washington, this is a must-see, head-shaking, mind-numbing place to visit. It should leave you with these words in your head: Never again.

When we were done, we wandered over to the park around the Washington Monument and checked out the Cherry Blossoms. They are indeed gorgeous, and only in bloom for a couple of weeks. After meandering among the blossoms, we grabbed the metro across to Union Station where we boarded a bus for a 3 1/2 hour "Monuments by Moonlight" tour. We were able to get off and check out these national parks: Jefferson Memorial (breathtaking), FDR Memorial (stirring), Lincoln Memorial (doubly breathtaking), Vietnam War Memorial (sad), Korean War Memorial (equally sad and a little freaky), and finally the World War II memorial (huge).

We wound up taking the metro back to our hotel, getting there close to midnight. The kids were pooped. So were mom and dad.

Friday, we metro'd ourselves over to the U.S. Capital, where we got through security just in time to get on our tour. Having read the Lost Symbol last year, I couldn't wait to see the rotunda, particularly the Apotheosis of Washington. The entire place really blew my mind, and momentarily restored my faith in our elected leaders. Momentarily.

After the tour finished, we hiked over through the sculpture garden beside the National Gallery of Art, and then into the Natural History Museum. We saw dinosaurs. We saw the Hope Diamond. We were rammed in with a million other tourists there for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It wasn't entirely pleasant, but this is an excellent museum. After a brief respite with ice cream from one of a bazillion street vendors, we set out for the Spy Museum, which was AWESOME! This was so much fun, except for our feet aching like you wouldn't believe.

Saturday, we metro'd back into the city and took in the Air and Space Museum. The plan was to do this in the morning, then head over to the American Museum of History, because I wanted to see Archie Bunker's chair. Well, we were plumb tuckered, so we stayed at the Air and Space Museum for a while longer before checking out the sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Museum. The wife loves these things and they do have some interesting sculptures, including some by Rodin.

Saturday night was the most stressful and most fun. After dinner, we were going to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Ford Theater! Yes, the Ford Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated.

This.... is not from the Ford Theater.

We got down into the metro station below our hotel and waited. And waited. And heard the announcements that the Pentagon stop was closed due to a police situation. There was a shooting of some kind at that stop and that for the next 1 1/2 hours, no trains would be going through. So, we had no way of taking the train. The hotel told us not to drive to the theater, because it's the Cherry Blossom Festival!!!! We couldn't get a cab, so armed with the family truckster, we ventured from the hotel anyway. The directions were bad, and we went around and around in Arlington for quite some time until we found our way.

Let me just say this. Yes, there was traffic. But, I'm used to driving in New York City for pete's sake! This was nothing. In fact, I got the brood there just in time. I, meanwhile, parked and missed the opening song, but they sat me shortly after. The show was great - I highly recommend it. What a great time - great music, funny, beautiful little theater. The presidential balcony is still there, by the way. And, we found our way back to the hotel.

This very morning, we set off for home, stopping at the National Zoo for some Panda time. That was cool. They are cute and cuddly, are they not?

And now I am exhausted and my feet are killing me.

Looking Forward to the Close

2010-03-31T21:19:00.000-04:00

I'm getting quite near the finish line on the first draft of Mythos. It's an exciting time in every writer's life, especially mine. Everything I've spent the last months of my life working on -- the story that was itching to jump out of my imagination and onto the page -- is about to be fully realized.

Some of what I've written is brilliant, sure, especially if I do say so myself. Being a first draft, the content is dubious, however, and I fully recognize that there's a whole lot of stuff that will serve as nothing more than the fertilizer (read: crap) to be revised.

So as I close in on the end, I'm looking forward to setting the manuscript aside for a few weeks, maybe four. During that time, I'm going to focus on querying The Children of Midian, my MG fantasy adventure. The query is just about where it needs to be now, having received feedback from folks in the publishing/agenting biz. I'm putting it up on the YALitChat Query Kick-around group next week for one more look see. The synopsis needs some work, too, as does my target list of agents. I really need to do some more research and make sure I've got just the right folks picked out. There's already a short list floating around on my computer. It just needs some more fleshing out and expanding.

I am excited!!! To the point of three exclamation points. That's serious excitement, my friends. This'll be my last post until next week, as I'm heading down to Washington D.C. for a little tourist-y R&R.

Before I go, here's an interesting contest at Oz-Stravaganza for those folks who can't get enough of The Wizard of Oz. And a contest near and dear to my heart - the Dear Lucky Agent contest over at Guide to Literary Agents featuring Regina Brooks. The top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.

Birth of a Novel Part 14 - Dialog, Answers & Tension

2010-03-25T20:58:00.002-04:00

This is the nineteenth entry in my Birth of a Novel series of posts, where I talk about the development of my new YA urban fantasy. Yes, nineteenth, even though the post is entitled Part 14.

Have you ever begun a chapter and stalled? I did. I just sort of wrote some, then got stuck, then wrote a little more, then got stuck again. It was like driving my late 1978 Ford Fiesta, which by the way, was my first car. 800 bucks and a total piece of crap, but it moved.

I digress.

But then all of a sudden, last Sunday, I just had a massive spurt of productivity, and the chapter launched itself from my imagination onto the page. It was, as Peter Griffin often says, friggin' sweet. The chapter is a whole lot of dialog between Zydeco and Octavio, with our young griffin feeling a bit hostile to the old cockatrice.

It all sounds great when you write it, you know? But this involves a lot of dialog, and very little action. As I alluded to in my previous post, I'm most comfy and cozy writing dialog, especially if I know where it's going. The trick is to make sure it moves at the same time. Given that Octavio answers many of Zydeco's (and the readers') questions, it might help keep people's interest. Also, there's emotion and some level of tension.

Here's a snippet of Octavio monologue.

He strode in front of me and leaned in. “It’s important, Zydeco, because you are now human.” He waved a hand as I was about to protest. “You are human now. A mythos, yes, but human. You will continue to keep some of the griffin skills, if you continue to use them. I’ve seen your strength. You should be able to hear quite well, and your sense of smell … well, living in the city, you may want to avoid that particular … never mind. My point is, to survive and indeed thrive as a human, you must forget your past life. Those that have acclimated best are the ones who’ve given up dreams of the past. You want to be stronger than everyone else? You want to eavesdrop or use your super smelling power, or whatever it is you griffins have? Go right ahead. Although, some might consider those things a bit rude.”

Speaking of tension, a few chapters ago, I introduced a "timer", meaning that things have to be resolved by a certain time, one way or another. The classic, "Bring me the ransom by noon, or the hostage dies!" I decided that the timer I'd introduced had too much time on it. Malice set it for 3pm the following day. For a variety of reasons, plot-related and otherwise, I've pulled the timer back in to midnight. This should also raise the tension a few notches. I've received some feedback lately that the tension level in the story has gone down some, and while I'm going to fix that up in my revisions, I wanted to address it going forward as well.

I'm a big fan of Donald Maass' approach to building tension. I love his comments from The Fire in Fiction about micro-tension. He states that what keeps your readers noses rammed right into the book margin (my words, not his), is the constant worry about what will happen in the next few seconds of the book, not what will happen through the rest of the story. And that's micro-tension.

I want my readers on the edge of their seat during this chapter. While they read this dialog, I want it so engaging that they can't wait to hear what the next person will say.

How do you build tension?

To read about the last chapter, journey back to the previous entry.
The next post can be found by taking a zip line across the tree line to this spot.

Five by Seven - Likes and Truths

2010-03-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

Big ol' thanks to Annie for the awesome Circle of Friends award, and another heap of gratitude to Harley for the From Me to You award.

With the Circle of Friends award, I have to announce what five things I love to do. Annie, you made it look easy. Let's figure out something not so embarrassing, shall we?

1. I love to go to the movies and watch every single trailer!

2. I love to watch my New York J - E - T - S (Jets, Jets, Jets).

3. I love to talk about the world of Harry Potter.

4. I love to have good friends over for a barbeque (or really, it's more of a grill up here in the North).

5. I love to fiddle around with electronic gadgets - the "he's got a new toy" syndrome.

With the From Me To You award, I have to admit to seven truths. Wait a minute, Harley. I can't makes stuff up? Sheesh. All right, here goes.

1. I was a disc jockey on my college radio station, working the overnight shift at first. Those folks working the overnight shift at the Frito Lay plant were the only callers, but boy, could I play anything I wanted!

2. I've had dogs named Reggie (childhood pooch - English Springer Spaniel), Delilah (later childhood pooch - mutt), Whimper (Border Collie, but he was really my brother's dog who stayed with us for 6 months), Daisy (fawn pug), Libby Lu (beagle), and the infamous little black pug named Tinkerbell who is presently snoring on the couch.

3. I loved horror movies growing up, and had a subscription to Fangoria magazine. The dude loved the gore. I saw An American Werewolf in London three times in the movies.

4. My first computer was an Atari 800 in 1981 (?) It came with Atari Basic and a cassette drive from which I loaded some of my favorite games like Temple of Apshai and Crush, Crumble and Chomp! I wrote my first piece of software, Grok, a game where you moved a caveman around a grid with a joystick, picking up bits of food as it made crunching noises.

5. I attended Hofstra University for one year before transferring to the State University of New York at Binghamton. I majored in Management/MIS (computers) instead of Computer Science because I hated/stunk at science. I took several courses in theater, and would have minored in it had SUNY Binghamton offered the option.

6. I had just flown into Boston's Logan Airport from Newark Airport the morning of September 11, 2001, when the first flight headed for the World Trade Center took off. They evacuated all of Boston's financial district that day, and we had to rent a car from a Ford Dealer 45 minutes west of Boston so that we could drive home to New Jersey that night.

7. I am a child of the 1980's, and watched when MTV went on the air, playing the Buggles', Video Killed the Radio Star. Enjoy!

Now to pass along these awards.

From me to you goes to
The curious Jo Treggiari
The very English Kurt Chambers
The awesome Mireyah Wolfe who probably has every award known to human kind. (and mythical kind as well)
The funtastic Kristan Hoffman

Circle of Friends goes to
The Montanian Shannon O'Donnell
The fabulous and brilliant Rachel
The one and only Ashelynn Sanford

Shiny New Layout

2010-03-19T15:19:00.001-04:00

Shiny new blog layouts and sunny skies make for shiny happy people. Check out the Pubs and Agents tab up at the top. I've moved my YA & Middle Grade publishers and agents listing from writing.com over to the blogosphere.

And a quick note on an awesome contest over at Beth Revis' blog in honor of her book deal. It's for writers or readers and let me tell you, the prizes are pretty sweet! And I don't just mean the chocolate. There's a query letter and 1st three chapter critique, Elana Johnson's eBook, From the Query to the Call, among other things. Naturally, I'm in.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Word Count Wanderings

2010-03-16T21:22:00.000-04:00

Word count sucks. There, I've said it. Word count is a necessary evil. Word count makes the world go around. A couple weeks ago, I posted an entry on Frankie's blog about how word count matters. I've done research on and off over the last year or so on word count, and have come to this conclusion.

There is no one answer. I will use middle grade and young adult for my examples.

Chuck Sambuchino, editor for Writer's Digest Books wrote the definitive post on word count for novels and children's books.
MG - 20k - 45k
YA - 55k - 70k (add 5k for fantasy/sci-fi)

Colleen Lindsay from Fineprint Literary Agency, posted this entry on word counts and novel length.
MG - 25k - 40k

YA - 50k - 80k (longer for paranormal or fantasy)

Nathan Bransford from Curtis Brown, Ltd, posted this entry on novel word count. He's not a stickler for word count. In his words, "If it works, it works." His larger point was that agents will reject you outright if your word count is outrageously high.

Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency posted this entry on the word count question. She points out that it's the completely wrong question to ask. The right question is to ask how important pacing is in your novel. Length won't matter if the pacing of the novel makes it such that the reader doesn't care. Case in point: Harry Potter & Twilight. (among many others I can think of). She would know. She sold Helen Stringer’s Spellbinder, which my daughter, wife and I recently enjoyed.

On the flip side, Michael Bourret of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management posted this query critique on a relatively short middle grade novel. (28k words). He wasn't worried about the word count, thinking that they could expand the book in the editorial process if need be.

To complicate matters, in my research I found an agent or two that categorized some well known middle grade novels as young adult. These are definitely MG books - they're shelved with MG, the characters are middle schoolers, and the themes are very much MG. Yet, those novels had 80k word count. If you were to query such an agent with a middle grade novel of 40k words, would they think twice when reading the query letter?

In the end, I think you tell the story that's in your head. Then revise the heck out of the thing - lop off what doesn't move the plot along. Ensure the pacing is appropriate for your target audience. Get people to read it and make sure it's just right. When you're done and you think it's right, if it falls well outside the typical range for your genre and target audience, you have a decision to make. You can query anyway, but keep in mind that you're lowering your chances overall. As you can see above, some folks are less concerned than others. Remember that publishing is a business. And if the story is just right, decisions made based on word count are often driven by the business side of things, especially for debut authors.

Community For YA Authors

2010-03-13T11:21:00.000-05:00

I recently joined the YALITCHAT online community. This is an excellent community of young adult book writers, editors, agents, publicists, marketers, packagers, librarians, sellers and readers. As of this morning there are over 1000 members. I've joined four groups inside this community so far.

Does your query need work? Are you looking for several more opinions on it? Then check out the Query Kick-Around group.

You can get the latest news, scoop and insider info on agents who represent YA in the Agent Insider group.

At the Agent Inbox, you can submit to agents who have chosen to accept #yalitchat member queries along with your first 250 words. The moderator vets the submissions based on personal agent preferences and active relationships with each agent. You may receive feedback from agents.

I also joined the Queries that Work group to read about successful queries, including the actual results - the agent or deal, the release date, partial/full requests, etc.

There are so many other groups and activities you can participate in, such as blogging, discussion forums, events, contests, chat and more. I'm darn near ecstatic at finding it. Now I just need to more regularly participate in the weekly #YALITCHAT discussion on twitter.