A Month in the Life: April 1, 2010 -- April Fools Day

I've always though it was bizarre that April would being with April Fools Day. It's kind of like April is giving you the finger while sticking out its tongue at you.

And, as is usual, I got the biggest bird.

Let me explain.

Two years ago, on April Fools Day, I took a header down the stairs of our house.  I think there might even be a blog entry about it.  My ankle rolled on me--which is a side effect of the serious back injury I had resulting in weaker ankle muscles and neurololgical response. It wasn't a pleasant experience; I lay on the floor for eight hours waiting for someone to get home and help me.  Ended up in the ER for a long night of xrays, tests and dehydration IVs.  Needless to say, that header accelerated the degenerative disc disease that's had its way with me since the car wreck eight years ago.

So today, I walked across the street to the convenience store.  And while I was coming home and talking to my older daughter on the phone, my ankle rolled on me. Sunny day, dry, level concrete, in new tennis shoes--and my ankle rolled. I hit the concrete hard, cell phone flying.  For a minute, all I could do was cuss and rock back and forth.  But when the jackass in the seventies' Nova almost ran me over, I figured it would probably be a good idea to get up and hobble home. I picked up my cell phone (the daughter was still talking non-stop, unaware that I'd almost lost my life) and realized almost instantly that not only could I not put weight on my ankle, but that when I'd hit I'd blown out the knee on the opposite leg. 

And somehow I had to cross four lanes...six with the turning lanes--of busy traffic without using my legs or my feet.  Great.

I managed to make it across (barely), got up the steps and into the house, where I promptly collapsed on the couch and reached for my emergency pain meds.  Within an hour, both ankle and knee were swollen and turning ugly--but what was even worse was that I could now no longer manage to either stand or sit up straight.  I was pretty much done, immobilized on the couch without any way of getting anything I needed.  Shannon (the husband) came home early to help me out.  After arguing for a couple of hours whether we should go to the ER or the doctor, we finally agreed on the doctor in the morning if I was worse or, at the very least, not improved.

Since I was going nowhere, the schedule went out the window for the day.  I stayed on the couch, switching out ice packs and working off and on on Defying the Covenants, the solo conclusion to the Vampire Covenants trilogy.  Between 4:29 and 8:00, I got 6k written on it, answered emails and headed off problems online, edited some blurbs and excerpts and sent them back to the writers and started my organizational list for the RT convention later this month. After watching Survivor & Project Runway, my normal Thursday night TV routine, I worked for a couple of hours on Terella, reading through what I've written so far and doing a sketchy mini-edit for typos, misspelled words and almost every instance of 'that,' 'suddenly,' and dialogue tags in the WIP.  Not a very productive day--albeit a lot of fun.  I helped the moderators with their annual AW April Fool's joke and was somewhat more credible than normal owing to the screaming pain and the effect of extra narcotic assistance.

Not quite a total loss.

Taking A Step Back

You know, I think writers need to take a step back every once in a while.

Hold on--before you get all riled up and think this is a pronouncement from the muses or whatever, let me explain myself a bit.  This has been coming up a lot lately, both in my editing work and my writing so I think it's worthy of exploration.

One of my writers (yep--I have the editor hat on at the moment) and I were talking about her latest WIP.  She was ready to bang her head against the wall (figuratively) because she felt the manuscript needed some major revisions but couldn't figure out exactly where.  Now, I've been there.  I've been there a lot.  Hell, I bought property there, so I could makes those moments more comfortable with some plush furniture and a few well-chosen but soothing pieces of art.  Oh, and a margarita machine. Margarita machines make everything better.  At any rate, I told her to send the manuscript to me and forget about it for a few days. I would look at it as a reader not an editor (the distinction there is important) and get back to her with my thoughts on it.

So then today, a thread shows up on Absolute Write about turning off your inner editor.  My response was simple--the inner editor (a mythical beastie if there ever was one) doesn't need to be involved in the act of creation.  If you get distracted by all those squiggly WordPerfect lines in your first draft, shrink your window down to only a few lines and just keep on writing.

This is easier said than done.  There's a lot of pressure on writers these days to be better technically. We need to know our grammar, spell words correctly (and according to common usage in your native form of English), punctuate appropriately and avoid passive tense.  We have to keep from head hopping, keep our narrative voices distinct and precise and for God's sake, avoid all those darned adverbs and exclamation points!

In other words, we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to write perfectly...erm...well. 

Yet, the whole purpose, the raison d'etre of a first draft isn't to write perfectly, it's to tell the story. Plain. Cold. Simple. Tell the story. Not tell the story while minimizing participial clauses, but to take a character or set of characters from the beginning of the story (better drop them right into the action) through the conflict to the ultimate resolution of the plot and, if you're me, killing a few Elves along the way for fun and profit.

Nowhere in the directive "tell the story" is there anything mentioned about grammar or point of view. You know why? Because those issues are addressed in revisions. Because the first draft is not the final draft. Most writers (at least the ones I know) revise and edit obsessively after their manuscript is born.  It may only take me a month to write a 150,000 word manuscript, but it'll take me at least half a year to get it done. When it's done, it will have lost a ton of words--mostly adverbs. I confess.--and the words on the page are *hopefully* better than the original ones.  All those dialogue tags with adverbs?  Those become sentences of action. Instead of "he barked angrily" after a snippet of conversation it's "He slammed his fist into the trunk of the closest tree, oblivious at first to the nasty mixture of bark and blood on his knuckles." There's nothing really wrong with "he barked angrily" but in order to give the story more life, the active sentence is better.

Writers are stressed out enough as it is.  Few people will ever understand the sense of accomplishment one gets from typing the words "The End" on the final page of a hundred thousand word novel. Unfortunately, writers think that all one hundred thousand of those words have to be perfect at the moment they are written instead of at the close of an exhaustive and thorough revisionary process.

That's simply not the case.  It doesn't matter what the words are in the first draft. No one sees that draft but you, the writer, and maybe a really trusted beta reader.  What matters is that the first draft tells the story, from beginning to close, in such a manner as to engage the reader.  You don't get cast in a play and open the next day; you have a lengthy rehearsal process.  What writers need to realize is that the first draft is the rehearsal process for a novel.

So take a step back. Ignore the little voice that's arguing with you about the best way to write that sentence. Just get the story down. Then, when the first draft is done it's time to catch your breath.  Close down that file (save and back it up first!) and take a few days off. Then, and only then, go back to it, read it all the way through and then--and only then--whip out the trusty red pencil and rip it to shreds.  Trust me. You'll be happier and probably healthier if you remove the pressure for perfection from that first draft.

An Author Spotlight for Me and the Absolute Write Day of Listening

Gee golly gosh whillikers! They want to interview me? Love Romances and More wants to spotlight me on their blog on December 19th. Ever wanted to read an interview with me? Next week is your lucky week! The Absolute Write Day of Listening is on December 14th, where I was interviewed by my dear friend Ed Pahule from Upon Reflection and on the 19th, I'll be interviewed by Danny at LR&M.

In case you're interested, I also interviewed three outstanding writers for the AW Day of Listening. You should all stop by and check it out on the 14th, even if you're not members of Absolute Write. you'll get to hear the stories of writers at all levels of success--some of the interviews are oral histories, while others are feature stories/interviews. If nothing else, it will give you a fascinating insight into the minds of writers and how differently all of our minds work.

I feel all important and stuff. Don't miss it!

Another Book Release Friday

I've never had a book release on a holiday weekend before. I find it kind of interesting that the darkest book I've written to date is being released on Black Friday. All kinds of implications there...

So, tomorrow I'm hanging out on my Facebook page all day for my book release, as well as a few of the readers' loops I frequent on Yahoo and, of course, Absolute Write which is the best writing forum on the web. If you're trying to track me down, Facebook is the best place--especially as I'll be giving away copies of my books all day long.

For those of you who are AWers, I'm doing my darnedest to declare tomorrow a moratorium for myself in the politics forum.

You're welcome.

You know, the first time I had a novel published, I wondered if it would become blase' by the time I hit this point in my career. I finally have the answer: no. No, it doesn't feel normal, it doesn't become familiar, and it doesn't get old. Every new release comes with a new set of questions.

Will they notice what changed?

Do they see where I'm taking them?

Is the story getting more involved, more interesting or just bad?

Yeah, those fears never quite go away. Every time I having a book coming out, I break off half my nails making sure they are edited correctly and then chew off the others in the first week after it's released. So, once again, I find myself on the night before a little nervous, more than a little apprehensive and very, very excited.

But sleepy. Yeah, I'm sleepy this time. Darn turkey.

Blogging From The Bar

Nothing quite as much fun as a Sunday afternoon at the bar.

It gives me time to blog. It's a lovely day; I have all the windows open to let the spring in, which in a place that's smelled of beer and whiskey for 80 years is a good thing. I had my Sunday morning regulars here, as always, bitching about their double bogeys and the price of eggs. I had my pre-Poker-run bikers in here, informing me, as always, about how cold 60 degrees really is at 55 mph.

Life at the Fairview goes on.

A gentleman came in yesterday afternoon with his wife. After seating himself at the bar, he said, "I haven't been home in eight years; I've been living in Cincinnati. We're on our way home after our son's graduation from Pitt, and I had to stop in Lancaster and show my new wife my old stomping grounds."

He then proceeded to tell me, as everyone else does when they come back to town, that "I had my first beer in the Fairview when I was sixteen."

(the ages range from fifteen to eighteen in other homecoming tales)

Life at the Fairview, evidently, is just the same as it ever was--except for the sixteen year old drinking beer thing. I card. I promise.

Darkshifters is about to head out for its first retrial in the world of agent-seeking. I had my tarot cards read the other day and evidently this is the propititious time. *grin* Always good to know that the cards are in your favor. Without all the mysticism, however, I have to say that this last version of Darkshifters is worlds better than the poor mutilated draft I sent out previously. I scrapped every single word and rewrote the darn thing from my old plot outline. (well, not exactly--I still have that version saved to the hard drive of the desktop) It's amazing to look back and see exactly how many changes you've made in your writing style over the last few months--or, as in this case, years.

So here I sit, surrounded by beer I can't drink, liquor bottles that I can't serve from (legally on Sundays), blogging for all that I'm worth while the sun pours its strengthening joy into the spring air. Life, for all its turmoil, is still good.

One month left until Asphodel 2 is released--get ready for The Gift of Redemption! You can find out anything you want to know about The Asphodel Cycle at my website Shoot The Muse! or at my publisher Aspen Mountain Press.

Oh, and I'll be doing the Absolute Write May blogchain! Follow it to find other great writers at all stages of their careers and find out how we all think. You'll love it, I promise you!

I Swore I Wouldn't Post About This But...

...I can't help myself. I swore I'd leave the Cassie Edwards plagiarism quagmire alone. I swore that I wouldn't jump back onto my unheeded soapbox and shout my disguat to the uncaring crowds on the sidewalks of cyberland but I can't help it.

Smart Bitches (God, I love that site) broke this news last week. Now it's all over the web and the AP and various other news agencies. Cassie Edwards, Queen of the Savage Whatever Indian romance novels, plagiarized her research material. Although almost all writers research, very few that I'm aware of lift research word for word from an academic tome and insert it, with a few comma changes or maybe a word or two, wholesale into their fiction. I'm not going to rehash all of that here; head over to the Smart Bitches for the full 100% lowdown on the allegations surrounding Ms. Edwards. What I am going to talk about evolves from a post I had at Absolute Write.

So how exactly does the industry punish plagiarists? This isn't the first name author whose world has collapsed under this allegations; there was a notable case of Janet Dailey plagiarizing from Nora Roberts a few years ago. I'm not talking about the legal actions one author can take against another, I'm talking about the publishing industry at large.

Do authors get asterisks? Do they get their awards pulled? Are they blackballed from the Writers' Hall of Fame? How will the industry penalize Cassie Edwards, a woman who's had more books published than I care to think about? Will they pull all of her books from the shelves? Nooooooo....that would cost them money.

So you tell me: what will happen to Edwards and all the other uncaught plagiarists out there? What is the societal penalty for the wholsesale theft of intellectual property? Anyone? Any thoughts?

Yeah, I heard the crickets too. You see, what makes it so easy for plagiarists to get by in this day and age is that it is an unpunishable crime. Ever hear of someone going to jail for plagiarism? Nope; me either. Janet Dailey is still writing and still making money despite the settlement of the lawsuit in which she admitted she stole from Nora Roberts. Think Cassie Edwards will have a book come out later this year? Although Signet , a division of Penguin, is 'reviewing' the situation, will their review encompass true penalties? Or, will the overwhelming pull of the all mighty dollar keep Cassie Edwards, Plagiarist Extraordinaire, on the bookshelves of stores across the world? Will her agent drop her? Will her readers drop her?

I think I know the answer. I'm sure you know it too. At every level of this business, I have encountered one plagiarist after another. I've seen the victims of plagiarism barred from sites while the plagiarist remained. I've seen plagiarists whine about their various ills and ghost writers who 'screwed' them after their stolen 'book' has been published. And now, this?

Don't you think it's time to lay some of the responsibility for plagiarism squarely where it belongs? How about an industry where, as best I can figure, the criminal is rewarded and the victim unheard?

Nah. A pipe dream. Hand me another syringe, Jose Canseco; I think there's someone needing a fix over there.

Goshdarn Scam Agency Rant Alert

Get ready. This is going to be evil.

So...my mother-in-law informed me yesterday that she had an agent.

After picking my jaw up from the desk, where it lay for some time in utter disbelief after hearing that she had queried one (1) agent and had been offered a contract, I started to think about it. Now, I've read some of her work and while it is good, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to find the perfect agent that quickly after one try. So I started asking questions.

Who was her agency? Although I thought she said Rider, it turns out she said Writer. Writers Literary Agency, to be precise, which has been discussed on numerous well-respected writers' sites: Absolute Write, Writers Beware, Preditors & Editors, and Making Light--among others. Although I didn't initially recognize the name, it did set off alarm bells. So, when I got home I googled it.

You've all heard me talk about the fine art of googling before. Use it. Embrace it. Revel in it. Because when you google Writer's Literary Agency, the very first thing that pops up is NOT their website. Oh no. It would be the sites listed above.

Never a good sign. More not good signs:

--Click here for a sampling of the positive emails that we receive on a regular basis. That's it? Emails? No, I want to see sales--whose books you sold, to which publisher, for how much. So let's go look there next.

--Ooooooooookay. Not a single NAME listed. Fair enough.

--Why don't we check out their marketing plan for their authors.

And that's where I get mad, because that's where my mother-in-law got snagged. What a lovely photograph of a green WL Literary sign at the 2007 Book Expo in New York. It's rather interesting though that all of the other signs are purple. And in not a single picture, which could have been taken by any casual visitor to an open event, was there ONE INSTANCE where you could see a WL Literary rep with an editor from any of the big houses....or an author....or even at the dinner...

So, she signed. She then paid sixty bucks for a 'critique' of her novel. Amazingly, in a 118k manuscript of a first-time, never previously published writer, there was only ONE misspelled word. The 'critique' was a rave, detailing how saleable the book was with a few cut and paste snippets from the manuscript.

So now I'm seeing red. I put all the pieces together and found myself in the unenviable position of informing my mother-in-law, business partner, and friend that she had been the victim of a well-tried and more successful than it should be scam. Let me just state for the record that this is NOT a comfortable place to be.

The public record on this company is long and it's discouraging. If you follow the links I've posted in this article, you'll be able to untangle it for yourself. I am posting this from Ann Crispin of Writers Beware--she added her full permission to copy and paste the alert wherever writers gather:

NEW ALERT FROM WRITER BEWARE: Writers’ Literary Agency & Marketing
Company (formerly The Literary Agency Group) The Literary Agency Group, a
business owned or controlled by Robert M. Fletcher of Boca Raton, Florida,
changed its name in February 2007 to Writers’ Literary Agency & Marketing
Company (a.k.a. WL Writers’ Literary Agency).
This umbrella group includes or has included the following agencies:
* Christian Literary Agency* New York Literary Agency* Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency, formerly Sydra-Techniques)* WL Children’s Agency (a.k.a. Children’s Literary Agency)* WL Poet’s Agency (a.k.a. Poet’s Literary Agency)* WL Screenplay Agency (a.k.a. The Screenplay Agency)* Writers’ Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Since this company began operating in 2001 under the name Sydra-Techniques, Writer Beware has received hundreds of complaints and advisories of fee-charging, editing referrals, and other questionable practices. We’re not aware that the company has a significant track record of commercial book sales under any of its names, despite its claims to the contrary. Writers who have had trouble with Robert
M. Fletcher or any of the above-named companies, and who are or were residents
of the state of Florida, please get in touch with Ann Crispin at anncrispin@aol.com (or beware@sfwa.org , if the AOL address bounces), even if you have previously contacted her. Please provide complete contact information.

And so now you know. I cannot stress enough how important it is to thoroughly research ANY agent or publishing company before you submit. Love your Google button and use it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to compose a lovely registered letter on behalf of my mother-in-law. It is a painful lesson for anyone to learn. Try not to let this happen to you.