Laurie Boris's Blog, page 33

Responding to reviews, and other handy points for authors in general…

laurieboris:

And now for something completely different…

Originally posted on Balls Deep and crying like a baby...:

Since some asshat authors who have been attacking some friends of mine for leaving less than glowing 5-star book reviews on their work, here’s this helpful list on

How to Deal with Bad Reviews on Your Book

:

1. Take a deep breath.

2. Read the review.

3. Exhale.

4. If there is valid criticism, take heed of it. Think about it and perhaps use it to better your style of writing.

5. If the review is a rant by an apparent lunatic (or loonie, for short), spam for another book, or an attack by a detractor, identify it as such and confine said review to where it belongs: Oblivion. Forget it exists. Insanity breeds insanity, and being a writer, you don’t need more madness than what you’ve already got between your ears.

6. If point #4 is in effect: In certain instances, when a review is touching or right…

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Happy Birthday, Carol Burnett

Carol Burnett is one of my favorite comedians and a master of combining wit, timing, and physical comedy. I tried never to miss her show when I was a young pup, and I’m sure some of her influence found its way into my early writing. And she’s still performing. In tribute to her eighty-first birthday, I’d like to share one of my favorite bits…the parody of Gone with the Wind that she did on her show.

Happy Monday and enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Genre Bender

I hate genres. No, put down the torches and pitchforks; I don’t mean genre fiction. Genre fiction is fabulous. But fitting into one of those slots? I’m having a harder time there. It’s been a problem ever since I finished my first novel and someone asked, “What’s it about?” Oh, I could have told her all day long (and I may have) about the hero’s quest to find his biological father, the inconvenient romantic entanglements, things he learns about himself along the way. Then, as the silence drew out, she finally asked, “No, I mean…is it a romance? A mystery? A comedy? A thriller?”

“Yes,” I answered.

Exit one potential reader.

I have often wished to be one of those lucky writers whose work slots neatly into a category. “Cozy mystery” or “historical romance” rolls off the tongue (and is probably easier to sell) than “contemporary realistic character-driven fiction with sparky dialogue and usually romantic subthemes.”

Yeah. Try to find an Amazon category for that.

So I end up pissing some people off. When I even breathe the word “romance,” I repel readers who immediately equate it with formulaic, boy-meets-girl-and-even-though-complications-arise-they-get-together-in-the-end stories. [FYI, here’s an excellent and enlightening post by author Donna Fasano on modern romance novels.] Or I manage to disappoint readers in the other direction: they love romance, and I don’t give them enough of the formula, the happily-ever-after payoff (known as the HEA, in the biz), so I end up on the “delete” shelf.

Not that I’m complaining. Okay, I’m complaining a little. Some stories I write are just hard to categorize, and modern life sometimes defies and craves categorization at the same time. It reminds me a bit of adolescence. We want to be individuals, dammit, so we’re doing it by all wearing the same horrid clothes and hairstyles.

Anyway, enough about the ’70s. I’m just glad we didn’t have Instagram then.

See, I write what falls into my head. A character comes along and wants his or her story told. Yes, I’m a pen-monkey mercenary to my characters, so I listen. Charlie came into my life when I wrote Don’t Tell Anyone. He wasn’t a point-of-view character, because this wasn’t his story. It was Estelle and Liza’s story, a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law who had a few issues to work out. Charlie is Estelle’s younger son, the son who didn’t marry Liza. Mainly because Charlie is gay.

When the book came out, Charlie developed a bit of a fan club. He has a story, too, one that only played out in the background of DTA. He was patient, or as patient as Charlie knew how to be. He waited until I finished the next novel. Then he wanted his own book. People start checking my medication dosage when I tell them this, but yes, he hung around and badgered me, usually starting at ten thirty or eleven (I am not a night person), to start making with the typing on the keyboard. And put on some Sinatra, while I’m at it.

These characters can be so bossy.

But the more we talked, the more he told me, the more I realized that I might be at a disadvantage. Okay, I told him, I’ve lived with and been friends with more than a few gay men in my years on this planet, but have you noticed that I’m a straight female old enough to be your mother? Do you trust me to write this story?

Fuck, yeah, was his reply. [I keep transcripts of our interviews. That was exactly what he said.]

Okay. He trusted me, and that was all I needed.

But there comes a point where the storytelling hat is replaced with the marketing one. Mr. Charlie Cool is nowhere to be found when I ask, “What the heck category do I put this in? Romance? Gay fiction? Contemporary fiction? Does it matter? I can’t really call it M/M fiction, because that’s usually sexually explicit and this isn’t. But if I don’t mention that my leads are gay, will readers feel like I’m hiding the fact? If I blast it all over the place, will I get hate mail?”

I guess there’s only one way to find out. Choose some categories and jump into the pool.

What do you think? If you write, how do you decide on categories? Readers, what do you like to read? What do you think about stories that fall in-between?

If a Blog Tour Falls in the Forest, Does Anybody Read?

Happy Monday! I’ve been invited to join the “My Writing Process” blog tour by the wise and witty Lynne Cantwell, an author with a background in journalism and a compelling interest in Native American cultures, mythology, and knitting cool things that look like star maps. If you don’t know Lynne, you should. Please visit her website to learn more about her and her books.

Okay, I like to do these blog thingies once in a while. They’re fun. But lately I’m three steps behind and a half a buck short, so by the time I get to them, everyone already has a dance partner and I’m left standing next to the bleachers, a cup of lukewarm punch in my hand, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Especially that kid who used to hide in the back of the room in third grade and read Harriet the Spy while chewing her hair. Oh, wait. I was that kid.

So I’ll answer the questions. Authors, feel free to answer them on your own blog. Or don’t. That’s the awesome power of having a piece of Internet real estate. Even if you lease it from WordBloggy or wherever.

1) What am I working on?

Right now I’m working on a sequel to my contemporary novel Don’t Tell Anyone. I wanted to explore what happens next in the lives of these characters. Plus, many readers contacted me and suggested that Charlie (Estelle’s younger son and Liza’s brother-in-law/best friend) needs his own book. I asked him, and he vehemently agreed with me, as long as Liza came along for the ride. Then he bugged me to add a Frank Sinatra station to my Pandora list and said I should keep some good single malt in the house. I did the former, but not the latter. That stuff’s expensive. So the adventures we began in The Picture of Cool, just released, will continue in this next novel.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure. My genre borders are kind of wiggly, from women’s fiction to contemporary to romantic with a touch of suspense. I do like focusing on character development and dialogue, though. Most reviewers have mentioned that my characters feel like real people.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I’ve always been drawn to character-driven fiction and maybe that’s one reason why it appeals to me so much as a writer. Humans are fascinating and so beautifully flawed and idiosyncratic. I think I write to try to better understand why we do what we do.

4) How does your writing process work?

A lot of writers I’ve spoken with about this say that they see the scenes in their heads and write down the details, sometimes getting so much that they have to pare it down later. I hear the characters first. I hear the dialogue and write that. Often this results in first drafts that are more like screenplays and need to be fleshed out in subsequent drafts. I try to run with the first draft all the way to the end without editing, even though the plot doesn’t always make sense and the scenes might be out of chronological order. That’s why Anne Lamott calls them “shitty first drafts.” My goal is to get the story out and then start shaping it in the second draft. Imagine Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze clinched together working on the potter’s wheel in Ghost. Yeah. It’s just like that in my writing room. Except without Demi Moore.

If you’re a writer, what are you working on? Readers, what’s your reading process like? One at a time, or a book for every mood?

I Blame Eleanor Roosevelt

When my routine gets, well, too routine, I have to challenge myself to get away from my computer and do something big and scary. Not bucket list scary, necessarily, so you’re not going to find me ziplining over a flowing lava field any time soon. (Maybe next year.) I just need something that gets me out of my comfortable little space.

Usually that involves talking in front of strangers. I figure that if I do enough of it, I’ll get better at it, or at least I’ll feel less like a small hippopotamus is sitting on my chest. One of the good things about publishing books and promoting them is that it gives you chances to stand in front of people (on purpose!) and say things they might find entertaining.

So let’s talk about our dear Eleanor. I admire her greatly. She didn’t take any crap. In some of the darkest days in US history, she got up and put on her little hat and sensible shoes and did what needed to be done. I’d bet on her in a cage match against any of the Real Housewives in a New York minute. And since I am an occasional doer of big scary things, this quote from her resonates with me: “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Also, since I am employed several days a week in a building where her portrait hangs in the hallway between my office and the ladies’ room, I get to see quite a bit of Mrs. Roosevelt, with her brave smile and marcelled curls.

So that quote has been pulsating stronger and stronger in the back of my mind. It was poking at me a while back when I saw that the Woodstock Writers Festival was having a story slam, and I still had an opportunity to sign up for it. A story slam is sort of like those poetry slams from back in the days of black nail polish and spiky hair. In this one, you get three and a half minutes to tell a story. Twenty contestants perform, and a panel of judges decides who wins. I heard it was fun and that there would be wine. Okay. Fun, wine, ten bucks, Woodstock, and I’m there.

The sign-up page on the website told me that if I purchased a “contestant” ticket, I would only be entered as such if I were among the first twenty to register. Otherwise, I’d be a spectator.

Then my ticket arrived in the mail. Gulp. Contestant. I had two weeks to write, edit, and rehearse a personal story on the theme of the late Maggie Estep’s “I Am an Emotional Idiot” poem. If you have not seen this brilliant piece, it’s here:

I’ve read in public before. I’ve done timed readings before. But it’s all been fiction. Novel excerpts, short stories. I’ve never really read anything personal, at least to a group that large. I knew it would be large because of the venue the festival had chosen—a gallery with a lot of floor space, versus the restaurant across the street where it was normally held.

Which became standing room only. I wondered if it wasn’t too late to slip out the back door. But that wasn’t happening. First, the wine was in the back so unless I yelled out that I was going into labor or that I’d seen Bill Clinton, those seas were not gonna part. And second, a couple of the women running the thing had already seen me. Ack. So I elbowed my way to the wine, found a seat, and prayed to the gods of everything not to give me a hot flash while I was on stage. As soon as the first writer read, my nerves eased. She was fantastic and powerful and hilarious. I was enjoying everyone’s material so much that it became like a big party. I nearly ran to the stage when my name was called. People laughed in the right places and it was all good. I didn’t win, but I didn’t much care.

Would I do it again? Yes, yes, YES! Next time I see Eleanor, I’ll give her a little wink, and maybe cook up something a little bigger and a little scarier for next time. Okay, maybe not the lava fields. At least not yet.

(Here’s a link to the piece I read. FYI, adult content.)

A Sort-of Poem

I’m not a poet. Don’t worry; I won’t do this to you that often. Just a few Saturday-night thoughts on a Sunday.

——

Walt Disney’s Legacy

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

He got lost trying to find the bus schedule and landed in a strip joint in Newark.

He saw something shiny in a store window and what’s twenty bucks, anyway?

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

He had to tie his shoelaces and got distracted by a crack in the sidewalk.

He’s rescuing a kitten planted in a tree by the Wicked Witch of the West.

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

He tried to see how many Oreos he could fit in his mouth and then he needed a Heimlich.

He’s in the back row at the multiplex, eating red vines and considering Botox.

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

He’s doing the nasty with Goldilocks but thinking about Sleeping Beauty.

He’s trading your phone number for magic beans and a player to be named later.

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

He’s playing foosball with his old college friends for beers and bragging rights.

He’s stuck in traffic and searching the net for that girl he knew in Memphis.

Prince Charming isn’t coming.

Sneak Peek: The Picture of Cool

I’m so excited to share an excerpt from my soon-to-be published short novella, The Picture of Cool. So let’s get to it…

During a commercial break, Charlie popped into the green room for a refill on his coffee and caught one of the show’s upcoming guests mid-pace. The press kit photo, in his opinion, didn’t do the man justice, but the well-cut suit did. They looked about the same age—early thirties—and stood almost exactly the same height, a whisper under six feet, although this guy was broader across the shoulders. And he had that twitchy vibe Charlie had seen so many times before. An underling in the mayor’s office probably didn’t score too many live interviews on national daytime television, but according to the network’s grapevine, he was being groomed for bigger things. Charlie smiled at him. “Adam Goldberg, right?”

He nodded.

“Charlie Trager. You okay there? Can I get you anything? Water? Something to eat? A fistful of Valium?” This got a bit of a laugh, but Adam still had a death grip on the cardboard cup. “Maybe you should lay off the caffeine.”

“I’m good.” Adam put the cup down and ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair, mussing the previously perfect coif of short dark waves. “Jeez. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

“Angela will fix it before you go on camera.”

“Good.” He huffed out a breath. “I’m sorry. Just kind of new to this. I don’t look too nervous, do I?”

He did. It was kind of cute. “You’ll do great.” Charlie checked his watch. This break included a prerecorded promo, which gave him three more minutes until they needed him back on set to run the next segment. “So tell me about this program the mayor is doing.”

Goldberg started talking about the administration’s plan to help at-risk kids. Charlie prepped his usual nod-and-smile routine of putting the waiting guests at ease. What he didn’t expect was to feel moved by what the man was saying, especially as Adam’s confidence grew, reminding Charlie of a young Jimmy Stewart. He looked a bit like Stewart, too, with that earnest, intelligent charm. Then it hit him. “This program, it’s your baby, isn’t it?”

He looked crestfallen. “It’s that obvious?”

Charlie waved a hand. “I’ll never tell.”

“Should I maybe downplay it?”

“And lose that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington appeal? Hell no.” Charlie resisted an urge to straighten Adam’s tie. “Viewers are gonna love you…um, I mean it.” He stifled a yawn. “Sorry. I need to start taking up sleeping as a hobby.”

“I hear you. Three, four hours tops and I’m wide awake. My wife thinks I’m part bat, but my kids worry. If my daughter happens to wake up in the middle of the night, she’ll fix me a cup of warm milk and tell me to go back to bed. Eleven going on thirty, I swear. Anyway,” Adam shrugged, “I get a lot of work done when the house is quiet. Your makeup person shook her head at me when she saw the bags under my eyes and told me I need a vacation.”

Either he was exaggerating or Angela had done an especially good job, because Charlie couldn’t see anything wrong with Adam Goldberg’s face. He smirked as if dismissing the woman’s concerns. “She tells me that all the time. That the baby blues need some R and R.”

Charlie’s cell phone went off and he grabbed it. “Yeah, hon, on my way.” He ended the call and turned to Adam. “Gotta run,” he said. “Apparently, they can’t survive without me.”

The man’s brown eyes, which had grown wistful as he talked about his daughter, looked suddenly like those of a lost puppy. It was so sweet and pathetic that Charlie wanted to take him home and make him soup. “Okay,” he said, giving Adam a gentle smile. “You’re on after the action hero plugs his new movie. Not the smoothest of segues, but something tells me our viewers will be sticking around. One of the PAs will fetch you in about ten and mic you up.”

Adam nodded back, his expression firming a bit, his gaze holding Charlie’s. “Thanks. I really appreciate the opportunity.”

Charlie stood transfixed for a moment. It could have been sleep deprivation or the caffeine overload, but he swore he felt something then, a familiar ache. Why were the good ones either married or straight? Or, in this case, both?

“Just doing my job.” Charlie started to leave but stopped and set down his coffee. “I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind, but this is bugging the hell out of me.”

He reached out to straighten Adam Goldberg’s tie, taking great pains to touch nothing but the silky fabric. Adam’s chin dropped, seemingly to watch Charlie’s hands, and when he raised it again, his eyes fell even with Charlie’s. Only for a second. Which was just long enough.

Undertow by Lynne Cantwell – A Review

It seems fitting that I post this on Thursday, because Lynne posts a review each week for her “Rursday Reads.” Here’s my review for her just-released Undertow, the second book in her new Land-Sea-Sky series.

The second book in Lynne Cantwell’s Land-Sea-Sky trilogy digs deeper into the characters introduced in the first installment. (And if you’ve missed it, or if it’s been a while since you read the first, she includes a really helpful recap.) The tension between and among Tess, Sue, and Darrell in the aftermath of the events of Book One is palpable. Sue’s jealousy that every man she meets seems to like Tess first is poignant and well drawn. I could really identify with her. Tess has her own insecurities, especially the inability to accept the guidance of her goddess, Morrigan. Darrell tries to balance his Potawatomi medicine-man background and his new warrior persona after an attempt to reconcile with his ex-wife fails. I especially like Darrell’s journey in the series so far, with his trickster god Nanabush by his side giving him…well, sometimes advice that makes sense, and some Darrell can only scratch his head at as he tries to do the right thing.

Among the many reasons I liked this book is that the humans are so wonderfully human and so well portrayed. They aren’t always sure of themselves. They try to do what they think is best; they have doubts. So I felt relieved along with Tess and Sue when a new assignment in Virginia Beach pulls Darrell away from the house the three share, giving them all some much-needed space. But the human interaction is only one layer of this story. With her journalistic and precise writing style, Ms. Cantwell twists together a possible terrorist crisis (and a powerful hurricane barreling their way) with the personal lives of three engaging main characters and the divine entities who assist them. Well done, and I’m looking forward to the conclusion.

Writing Whilst Disabled: A Guest Post by Joey Paul

I’m pleased to turn my blog over to Joey Paul today. Welcome, Joey! She writes YA crime, paranormal and general fiction. Hope you’ll give her a read and start a conversation in the comments.

——–

One of the things a lot of people will tell you when you’re newly diagnosed with a chronic illness, or suddenly finding yourself identifying as disabled is that you shouldn’t let it define you. They say that your illness, condition or disabilities are not you, and while that is true in part, it’s also true that it’s part of your identity. It contributes to who you are, whether you want it to or not. I’m finishing up a degree in health and social care and a number of my courses have dealt with self-identity. What I’ve taken from those lessons is that how you, as an individual, choose to identify is made of the labels you apply to yourself. For me, one of those labels is that I’m disabled.

When I became ill at nineteen and was retired on medical grounds from my government job, I didn’t want to accept the disabled label. Despite the fact that for the majority of my adult life – in fact most of my whole life actually – I had been in and out of hospitals with my lung issues, and then was diagnosed with M.E and Fibromyalgia, I still didn’t really see myself as disabled until I finally faced that it was a part of me. I don’t see it as a bad thing. It’s just part of who I am. Just as I am a writer, and a student and an amateur musician, I am also disabled and I see nothing wrong with embracing that.

A lot of the world view on disability is negative. There are fairly few disabled characters in mainstream media, books, TV, movies and usually when there is one, they’re painted in a negative light. They’re the bad guy. Or the poor person who lost all the good in their life and would be better off dead now that they’re disabled. It doesn’t really give the disabled children and young people growing up these days anyone to look at and see that actually, being disabled can be empowering. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing when to be honest; there is already a lot of negativity around it already.

If anything, becoming disabled and allowing myself to see the good in it, made me who I am today. Yes, I admit, I had other plans for my life. I was going to be a doctor and help people. I was on track until I left secondary school and went to college. When my health started to get bad, I dropped out and decided to try my hand at working for a living. I went through a string of jobs, but I made ends meet and had I not fallen ill with M.E and Fibro, then I would probably still be working at the same job. I never saw writing as anything other than a hobby. I never saw it as a way to make money, or a way to spend my time constructively. Sure, my diagnoses and conditions changed the course of my life forever, but I can’t honestly say that it was all bad.

I’m thirty-two now and was first published in 2005. Now, I have six books out with a seventh due out in the summer. I am writing the final chapters of my eleventh and twelfth books and although I have met many bumps in the road, I’m happy. I love what I do. I love writing and while I wish I could have come to this point without the pain and fatigue, hospital appointments, stays and all the other crap that comes with being disabled and chronically ill, I did come this way, and it did bring me onto this path.

Life is a series of paths, all with their own outcomes and their own stories. My life was headed in one direction and then it changed. It moved onto the path it’s on now. Sure, I wish that this path made it possible to keep normal hours (like sleep at night and not during the day!) and to maybe do a “normal” job. However, I have never really known anything but this and although it comes with its own challenges, I can’t say that it’s all bad. I get to do a job I adore. I get to write about gifts and magic. I get to explore worlds that I create and bend characters to my will as it were. You don’t get to do that when you work at the local magistrates’ court, or at least you didn’t when I was nineteen

My point is this: Disability and chronic illness carry a lot of bad and negative things along with them. However, I see nothing wrong with saying that yes, I AM disabled and I DO see it as part of my identity. I’m not allowing my conditions to control me or to define me, but they DO make up part of who I am and who I will always be. I’m Joey, what’s wrong with that?

——

Joey’s Bio:

Joey is 32, disabled, a writer and part time student studying towards a degree in Health and Social Care. She loves to write and is at the moment working on her eleventh and twelfth books, as well as preparing her seventh book for publication. She started writing when she was medically retired from her job at the age of 19. Her first book was released in 2005 and after a brief time away, her second one was released in 2011. In addition to writing books, she also enjoys reading them and can often be found resting in bed with a good book, a cat and an ukulele.

You can follow Joey and learn more about her and her work here:

Blog: www.joeypaulonline.com

FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/BugBooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MsJoeyBug

Sliding Past Vertical Wins…

The votes are in, and Sliding Past Vertical wins a 2014 B&P Readers’ Choice Award! Thank you so much for your votes and your support. I really appreciate it. There were so many great nominees this year. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already snagged a few of them, and I’m looking forward to reading. Thank you also to Big Al & The Pals for supporting indie authors. Congrats to all the winners and the nominees!