Laurie Boris's Blog, page 43

My First Video Review!

I was hunting for something on Google when I found this lovely surprise: a young lady posted a video review of Drawing Breath. She just makes me smile! And Husband was happy she liked the enhancements he made to the back cover.

 

He’s Dead, Jim…

This has been one of the most difficult things I’ve had to admit to myself in a very long time. Harder than the realization that I’ll never be a child prodigy, that my bikini years are probably behind me, or that no matter how often my chiropractor attempts to relieve the compression in my spinal disks, I will never grow tall enough to become a Radio City Rockette.

The novel I’m working on has met an unfortunate end.

It coded a few days ago. I attempted to revive it through extraordinary measures, gave it CPR, a few jolts with a defibrillator, every lifesaving modality known to modern literary science. Time of death: 6:21 p.m.

This was not an unexpected loss. We’ve been to this point before, just on the brink of disaster. While the dialogue tried to fake its usual perky insouciance, the prose had not been looking well for a good few months. Privately it complained of fatigue, an unredeemable protagonist, and a plotline too predictable to survive. So I took it to a specialist. My suspicions were confirmed. “It’s a foregone conclusion,” one intoned, shaking her head. Another suggested organ donation, seeing particular merit in a first chapter that could breathe life into a decent short story.

But we have come to praise Caesar, not to bury him. Or, as my Unitarian friends and family are wont to say, “We are here to celebrate the life of Unnamed Manuscript #7.”

It started with the best of intentions. A conflict. A notion of where I thought it would end up and how I might get there. But I now know that the deadly flaw was that instead of going with my instincts and letting the characters lead the story, I tried to force them into a plotline designed to be a mouthpiece for my own opinions. I didn’t want to believe I couldn’t make it work. But I persisted. I’ve been taught persistence. To keep banging my head against the wall, trying to make the pieces fit. I could have continued, shoving these unfortunate characters hither and yon, even finished the damned thing. But I’d always know that it was rotten at its core, and readers would know. They always know. Can’t you tell a passionless read when you stumble into one?

So what have I learned from this Lazarus of a novel that twice rose from the dead? That persistence is an admirable trait, a vital one for an author. We need to be persistent to survive the process of learning our craft. We need to be persistent in creating a finished, quality product for the marketplace. And beyond, we need an extra bit of stubborn to sell the product and have the courage to start a new one.

But maybe part of that persistence, part of that discipline of learning the craft is in knowing when to walk away from something that can’t be saved. Letting this one go was a hard decision. It hurts like hell, but I have to do it.

Have you ever had to abandon a project? What did you learn from it?

Boomer Lit Friday!

Happy Boomer Lit Friday, where once again we show you bits and pieces of our baby boomer books. Check out the lovely Shelley Lieber’s blog to see what my compadres are up to.

Here’s a smidge from Don’t Tell Anyone. Estelle, at the stove making chicken soup for her sons and daughter-in-law despite their protests that she’s still too weak from chemo, has just passed out.

—–

It was nothing, Estelle said, as Adam and Charlie helped her onto the sofa. No need to call the doctor. She’d just been feeling a little faint, a little light-headed. It was probably because she hadn’t eaten today. Since nothing tasted good, she didn’t want to bother.

But sometimes, her senses of smell and taste returned, not evenly but in rushes, like a breeze through an open window when the wind changed. They came with memories. They came with no warning. The soup did it to her this time. She’d put in the water and the cut-up chicken, skimmed off the fat, dumping spoon after spoon into the coffee can next to the sink. Still she could smell nothing. She added the quartered root vegetables, the salt, and the dill. Nothing. Then she looked over and saw Adam’s face, and Charlie’s face, and the different ways they looked like Eddie and like her parents, and it was as if someone had broken down a door. She smelled the simmering chicken, parsnips, and onions and saw her mother’s sickly face, the hollowed eyes and the skin stretched tight across the bone. Estelle saw her father’s hand raising the spoon to her mother’s lips. And then Estelle felt weak all over as the floor rushed up to meet her.

—–

A List of Things Scott Turow Doesn't Care About

Reblogged from David Gaughran:

Scott Turow woke up from his slumber recently to bark nonsense about Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads on the Authors Guild blog, before being thoroughly eviscerated in the comments.

Undeterred, Turow sought out the considerably larger platform of the New York Times’ Op-Ed pages on Monday to decry The Slow Death of the American Writer.

On reading the latter, my first thought was: if Scott Turow didn’t spend so much time hating Amazon and pretending self-publishing didn’t exist, maybe he wouldn’t be so depressed.

Read more… 1,325 more words

I wanted to share this interesting and rather pointed post from David Gaughran. Clearly shows that Scott Turow and possibly the Author's Guild have their heads planted firmly in the sand when it comes to self-publishing. What do you think?

The Writing Hat

In three months and one day, Husband and I will celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. And we were together for six years before we made it official in the eyes of New York State and a rabbi who spilled wine down my dress. Anyway, that’s a heck of a lot of years to live with the same person. It’s made me kind of lazy about some things. Grooming. Watching my language. Putting away laundry. Whose turn it is to toss the dead mouse into the back woods. But one thing I’m trying not to get lazy about: defending my writing and editing boundaries.

Fortunately, I have a door that closes. Unfortunately, I don’t have a door that locks. Also, I need to get out of said room from time to time, to attend to certain vital functions like recaffeinating and grabbing snacks. Husband is a sensitive and intuitive guy, an artist as many of you know, but it’s only natural that he, well, forgets once in a while that even though I might not be actively pounding keys at the point when he chooses to interrupt me to tell me something funny he just saw on the news or that he’s going to get the mail, THERE’S STILL A BOOK GOING ON IN MY HEAD AND YOU’RE NOT INVITED.

Maybe I need a hat of some sort. Nothing fancy like those silly things Fergie’s daughters wore to Prince William’s wedding, but just a particular accessory to alert Husband that I’m not mentally present. So when he surprises me with the fact that I need to get in the car because we have to be at such-and-such’s house in fifteen minutes because I TOLD HIM IT WAS OKAY and even that I’d make a side dish, I can avoid further argument by hat default.

Yes, hat default. Was I wearing the hat when you asked about it? Yes? Okay, your protests are now null and void. Have a nice day. And don’t forget to put black olives in the pasta salad.

And There’s This…

My sincerest apologies! I’ve been so busy thanking people that I forgot to put it on my actual BLOG, where you all have been so supportive and lovely. Thank you for helping to choose Drawing Breath as a winner in the contemporary fiction category. Considering what this award meant to Hugh Howey, who won for Wool, I’m humbled. Most likely the only virtual stage I’ll ever share with him!

I haven’t heard who won the gift card, but I’ll let you know. Again, thank you.

Martin Crosbie: The Blog Nobody Wanted to Publish

I’m sharing Martin Crosbie’s post from Indies Unlimited today (in case you missed it) because I wanted to applaud when I was done reading.

Enjoy.

 

Seized by Lynne Cantwell: a review

I expected to enjoy Seized, the first book in Lynne Cantwell’s Pipe Woman Chronicles, because I am a fan of Ms. Cantwell’s direct, journalistic writing style and wry wit from her Indies Unlimited blog posts. What I didn’t expect was that Seized kept me up late several nights in a row because it was so hard to stop reading. The story started easily in the realm of the familiar, with Naomi, a smart mediator who seems to have it all: the powerful job, the handsome boyfriend, and the best friend who understands her better than she understands herself. But wait…we know that nothing comes easily in fiction without consequence. So things twist up a bit when said best friend urges her to tag along on a New Age adventure. Several rounds in a sweat lodge release more than perspiration, including a visit from White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, a mysterious Native American spirit that weaves in and around Naomi’s life, tasking her with a near-impossible challenge for a mediator…no, for anyone. Lynne’s writing style (and choice of first-person narration) is key here. I became deeply invested in Naomi’s future, and the author rides a nice, believable, and relatable line between the protagonist’s cynicism with the happenings around her and her faith that it’s all for a greater good. The story is smart and thought provoking, the fantasy element sophisticated and well integrated into the storyline. Never did I feel that this was fantasy with a story attached or vice versa. It just worked so well. I’m eager to read the rest of the series.

It’s Boomer Lit Friday!

Hi, everyone. It’s Boomer Lit Friday, the Passover edition, where we explore books about…yes, you guessed it. And no, I don’t mean matzoh balls. Please pop over to Shelley Lieber’s website to catch snippets from the other twenty-some authors participating in this week’s Boomer Lit Blog Hop. What the heck IS Boomer Lit? Glad you asked. You can learn more about that here.

Meanwhile, here’s a bit from The Joke’s on Me. Frankie’s sister, Jude, has already left to attend Seder at her third ex-husband’s weekend place in Phoenicia [just up Route 28 from Woodstock]. Frankie intends on meeting them there later, after the suspiciously familiar local kid they’d hired to do yardwork gets picked up by one of his parents. The parent who shows is also suspiciously familiar.

—————

“Dad, this is Frankie. Jude’s…I mean Ms. Goldberg’s sister. She lives in Hollywood.”

I literally could not move or speak. Of all the ways I imagined seeing Joey again, this scenario didn’t make the list. I was always fresh and beautiful, coming to congratulate him on his perfect game. We’d go back to my place for drinks, and I’d show him my Oscar, my Emmy, and my pair of Golden Globes. Our reunion was not supposed to be in my mother’s house, with me coated in dirt, sweat, and grass clippings, and introduced by the son who should have been ours.

Joey’s eyes crinkled amusement at the corners. “Really,” he said. “Frankie, huh? Cute name. Short for something?”

“Something.” My muddy knees turned to jelly. The road map of his years had begun to etch into his skin, gray feathered his temples, but I saw the boy in the man’s face when he smiled.

I saw the boy remembering the girl.

—————–

Special April Fool’s Day contest! Dream up an April Fool’s prank and enter on this post. Best prank wins an e-copy of The Joke’s on Me.

A Little April Foolishness

Ever play a great April Fool’s Day joke? Switch the contents of the sugar bowl with the salt shaker? Stick down all the desktop items in your office mate’s workstation with double-sided tape? Pfheh. Amateurs. Let’s get serious. I’m giving you a fictional unlimited budget. Punk away in the comments below.

You have until April 2 at 5:00 p.m Eastern time. Best idea for a prank wins an e-book copy of The Joke’s on Me for either Kindle or Nook.

Have fun!