Sorell Says...

Ooh baby, baby!!

2011-10-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

Well, that big project that I mentioned a few back is here...our beautiful baby! He is amazing and my hands are full, leaving very little time for anything else. Alas, I am putting up my "Gone Fishing", or rather "Gone Mothering", sign and saying see ya later alligators for the next little while, until we have found our rhythm.

I'll still post from time to time, but if you want any new updates, I think it's best to subscribe, so that you don't have to check back and see if I have made it out from under a pile of diapers!

Ciao for now!!

The wait continues...into the New Year

2011-09-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Sigh. More time is needed with my latest revision. More distance, more space, more opportunity to discover new things and see familiar words with new perspective and clarity. I am being forced to recognize that everyone works at their own pace. And that my pace may need some reconsidering too. Some people I know take 4 years to write a book, others a year. A screenwriter friend of mine makes huge changes in his drafts in 48 hours getting them into the production team that wouldn't accept them a minute later. A successful namer I know can name a company with the first name that comes to mind, but will still do due diligence and submit an additional 150 names, spending a week or two stewing over choices, only to routinely have the first name be the winner.

Me? I write slowly. Very slowly. I wander in the dark and doubt myself and don't map until much later and think and rethink and wait, and try and listen to my novel whispering to me and telling me where it wants to go and what it wants to be. But when it comes to revising, I am fast! Once I know what I want to say, I say it. I see problems and changes and remedies very easily. I am able to come up with alternatives and chuck pages without sentiment or attachment. It is a skill that has been used to great advantage on numerous writer collaborations. When it comes to revising I am an idea girl-full of them!

Some people like to take weeks, months off of their revisions. They like to go away for long enough that the writing seems new and like someone else's when they return, they need to do that in order for the words to seem fresh once more.

As I have a very big project coming up that will take me out of the loop and off of the web for a few months in a week or so anyway, I have been asked to try a little experiment. To not revise, but to just think and let my manuscript turn itself over and over in my brain, speaking to my sub conscious, whispering to me late at night and telling me what it would like its final self to be. It will certainly be a big change, and I am curious as to what it will be like and yield.

I'll keep you posted!

The wait is almost over...

2011-09-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I have a much anticipated meeting with my beloved literary agency about the latest draft of my manuscript. I can't wait! I am so excited to hear what they thought of the extensive changes. This latest version was the one where I restructured the novel, changing the order of some scenes, grounding flashbacks back in the present when they were over and adding new scenes for characters whose motives needed to be more clearly fleshed out. It was a big revision and I did it at break neck speed, as I have a lot going on in my personal life, all good, but demanding none the less.

Apparently I wasn't the only person who tried to get my novel in before the summer, as it turns out that my agent's right hand gal, had 15 manuscripts that arrived at the same time, all ready to be read. Wow!

Now that it is September and all the publishing world is back, things are busy once more, and the race against the clock continues. Soon things will go quiet for the Jewish holidays, then we have just October and November before American Thanksgiving, before everyone goes on holiday again. Of course I am hoping that these latest changes are the last, and that my debut novel can go out into the world soon in its quest to find a home...but we will see. I'm looking forward to the next round of waiting, the kind where I wait for editors at publishing houses to read my book...and then decide they have to BUY it!

Fingers and toes and eyes are crossed!

Amazing Author: Carey Wallace

2011-09-06T17:52:00.001-07:00

Another Amazing Author Interview, courtesy of Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Carey Wallace talks about singing, inspiration and The Blind Contessa

I first heard Carey Wallace at the fabulous Word bookstore in Brooklyn, where we were doing a group reading. Not only did she read from her exquisite new book, The Blind Contessa's New Machine, but she sat in front of a keyboard and she sang. I was so gripped, I forgot my own stage nerves. I could have listened to her read and sing forever. I'm thrilled to have Carrie here.

I had the rare pleasure of hearing you sing at Word in Brooklyn and I came up and told you afterwards how haunted I felt listening. So tell me about crafting songs. How is it different for you than writing a novel?

Songs and books come to me in almost completely opposite ways. In both cases, I have a strong sense that I’m discovering something, rather than building it – that the process is one of searching for something that’s already there, rather than gathering pieces, laying plans, and hammering it all together. But because books take such extended concentration, I’ve followed a practice of discipline in writing for all of my adult life: I write for two hours every working day, whether I have any desire to or not. Songs, on the other hand, tend to arrive unbidden. I don’t go looking for them, I just take them as they come, and when they do, I write them anywhere I happen to be, over the course of several days, mostly by singing the pieces I’ve got over and over in my head until the missing lines or sections emerge. Once the writing process is finished, the reaction you get to songs or books is also really different: even people who’ve loved you for years tend to blanch when you mention you’ve got a novel they might like to read, but total strangers want to hear your new song.

Each song in your gorgeous CD refers to a literary work. What made you choose the books you chose?

Since my songwriting process is so mystical, the books actually seemed to choose me. When I wrote them, last summer, I was living in Michigan, caring for my mother in the small town I grew up in, as my first novel came out. The songs, and the books, that emerged from that time were about family, especially mothers, about hope for a world beyond this one, and about how the worlds we’ve left behind haunt us. The books all in some way intersected with these themes, and I mined them for images as I explored those themes in my own life.

The Blind Contessa, your novel, is this achingly beautiful novel about love and imagination. What sparked the idea for this novel?

Carbon paper. I was actually writing an early draft of a noir novel set in Detroit, and wanted to make sure that the carbon paper I planned to use in it wasn’t an anachronism. When I looked up the advent of carbon paper, I discovered the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was invented at the same time by the same man (carbon paper was used in the original machine to make the image of a letter on the page). The elements of the story: a blind woman, an eccentric inventor, the hint of love triangles, and the typewriter itself seemed clearly the foundation of a novel.

What was it like writing a first novel? How is it different from your writing life now?

There are a number of candidates for my first novel: a fifty-page tome, heavily influenced by Dumas and full of flounces and French names, that I produced in the fifth grade; a full-length novel about a kid who sells his parents house, and takes the money and four of his friends to Disneyland that I wrote in college; and Choose, a forking paths novel about predestination and free will that was printed in an extremely limited run by a now-defunct press in Detroit in 2006. By almost no definition but the commercial one is The Blind Contessa’s New Machine really my first novel. Interestingly, in the golden age of American publishing, publishers generally recognized that it took three full-length novels for a writer to come into their own, and, because those publishers didn’t face the same financial constraints as publishers today, they were committed to nurturing their authors through that process. It’s stunning to see how many significant novels are the third book of an author who was nurtured through this process, among them The Great Gatsby and A Farewell To Arms – and how little resemblance these mature books bear to the first novels that preceded them (This Side of Paradise and Torrents of Spring). I get quite sad about what great books we may be losing today because writers are now expected to accomplish their apprenticeships on their own. In some cases, the fight sharpens us and makes us stronger. But I believe many of the literary treasures that emerged from previous generations might never have seen the light, or perhaps never have been written at all, in our current climate.

What's obsessing you now?

Hydroelectricity in Paraguay. A good friend of mine is about to defend her brilliant dissertation, which I’m now editing, on the topic, and it’s actually incredibly fascinating: Paraguay shares the world’s most productive hydroelectric dam with Brazil, which is something along the lines of New York state damming Niagara Falls and then trying to split the electricity equally with Rhode Island. The story has all kinds of other amazing details—a priest who becomes president, hidden caches of torture records—but also wide implications for the pressing question of what it means to be a state in today’s shifting global world, and the future of negotiations around borders, energy, and the economy throughout Latin America.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

How can your readers get a copy of Songs About Books for themselves?

First of all, Songs About Books isn’t for sale – it’s a gift, part of the celebration surrounding the paperback release of The Blind Contessa’s New Machine. Anyone who wants to can download all the tracks for free athttp://www.careywallace.com/songsaboutbooks/songsaboutbooks.html. And if they’d like a super-beautiful actual CD, which is full of antique photographs of people holding books, they can send me something in trade. So far I’ve traded CDs for everything from translations of Italian poetry, to a box of pasta and homemade marinara sauce, to a single perfect rose from my favorite flower-shop owner. (Trade directions can also be found at the address above.) In September, I’m going to begin posting the trades in a gallery on my website, to share all the beautiful things, but also to create connections between the people who made them – so if you’re an artist yourself of any kind, be sure to include your website with whatever you send, and I’ll make sure to link to it.

Amazing Publisher!

2011-08-31T15:20:00.001-07:00

This amazing article brought to you by Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Lou Aronica Talks about The Fiction Imprint

I've already run a piece about two writers who are now going to publish with the Fiction Studio Imprint, but now I have the man behind the The Fiction Studio Imprint, New York Times bestselling author, former publisher of Avon Books and Berkley Books, Lou Aronica. An invitation only imprint, The Fiction Studio publishes books in paperback and e-book format and it represents a revolutionary new way of publishing. Aronica,created this new frontier, a gathering of “ambitious wildly creative writers.” To read the whole story, look here.

I'm thrilled to have Lou here.

You have a fascinating background, coming from the world of traditional publishing. Why don’t you think this model works anymore? And can you tell readers something about the way Fiction Studio Imprint changes the rules?

I'm not saying that the traditional publishing model doesn't work anymore. What I'm saying is that it doesn't work for enough people any longer. I'm going to sound like an old codger with this, but back in the day, when I was a publisher at a big house, we offered writers a decent up-front income, careful editorial attention, and appropriately scaled marketing support (after having walked six miles uphill in the snow to get to work). When a traditional house is still willing to do this, it works very well for a writer. However, that combination of financial, editorial, and marketing is increasingly rare.

Meanwhile, the market has shifted in the writer's direction. Manufacturing and distribution – huge barriers to entry in the past – aren't an impediment as long as you can accept the online bookselling world as your marketplace. Many writers have visions of their books in bookstores all over the country. That's a very appealing vision, but you need to be willing to accept the baggage that comes with it in the form of heavy returns, pigeonholing, and publishers turning down your next book because the previous one didn't sell enough to keep the booksellers interested.

When I started Fiction Studio Books, I established a relationship with our distributor, National Book Network, that allows for bookstore distribution. I knew I was going to hold that in reserve, though. Because the focus of the program is on developing audiences for writers, I felt that the development had to happen on the digital side. Having the ability to distribute into the physical retail market means that if a book takes off to the point where we would feel comfortable with a physical distribution, we can do it, but we've had some very successful books already and I still haven't hit that point. By focusing on the digital side, Fiction Studio can publish a much wider range of fiction and take the time necessary to build an audience for a book.

The most significant way in which Fiction Studio changes the rules is that it is essentially a writer's collective. I'm the curator – I need to love every book we publish – and I make my thirty-plus years of publishing experience available to every writer on the list, but the writer remains in control of the publication and keeps the overwhelming share of the publishing income. I set it up this way because I wanted Fiction Studio to be a community of writers working together and sharing ideas. We've already gotten some nice results from that.

You published your novel Blue yourself—and made it a bestseller. I speak for every writer out there: how, how, how, did you do this???

The reason I wanted to publish Blue myself was that I knew it wasn't a novel that publishers could easily position. It's a father-daughter novel, but it's also a fantasy novel. One viewpoint character is a man in his early forties, another is his fourteen-year-old, largely estranged daughter, and the third is the twenty-year-old queen from the bedtime story world they created when the daughter was much younger. It's about the affect of divorce, but it's also about the value of imagination. I'd spent six years writing it, and I could imagine every publisher saying, "Yes, it's a nice story, but where do we put it in the store?" I knew there was an audience for it, though, and I felt that I needed to try to find it for myself.

Because I wasn't concerned about physical distribution, I didn't have to worry about the book selling in the first two weeks, and I didn't have to worry about where the book was going to be placed. That allowed me to be more patient with the publication and to cast a wider net in trying to draw attention to it. The first step was getting blog reviewers to take it under their wings. I pitched three different markets – the general fiction readership, the sf/fantasy readership, and the teen fantasy readership, and I got very encouraging review attention from bloggers in all three areas. I received about seventy reviews for the book and only a couple of them suggested that I consider a career in the fast food industry.

Once I'd established the novel's credibility, I decided to drop the e-book price dramatically. I couldn't do anything about the print price because those books had to be printed, but I realized that I'd already spent all the money on e-book production that I needed to spend (copyediting, proofreading, cover design, conversion, etc.). If I looked at that expense as a "sunk cost," everything I made thereafter was profit. That's the thing about the e-book business: it doesn't cost you any more to sell twenty thousand than it does to sell twenty. If I could take price out of the buying decision for the reader, maybe I could sell many, many more at $2.99 than I was selling at $9.99. That's when the book took off. I think the combination of the great reviews and the low price made it easy for readers to download. I don't think either by itself would have done the job.

Essentially, I used a very old technique. I saw the first life of the e-book as the "hardcover" to gather reviews. I then used the cred those reviews offered to sell the lower-priced edition, the "paperback reprint" if you will.

One thing you said, which I loved, was that writers are now getting second and even 10th chances to get their work out there in front of the public, which means there are a lot of sharks out there. Do you have any caveats for writers who want to go a non-traditional route?

While the barriers to entry are much lower than they've ever been, publishing is still a foreign experience for most writers. Many of them will seek help, and some people will try to take advantage of them. My feeling is that a writer should never pay a fee for publication. There are genuine costs involved in getting a book into the market. You might need a professional editor. You will definitely need a professional copyeditor. You will need a professional proofreader. You will need a professional cover designer (notice the repeated use of the word "professional" here; this isn't a cute literary device – there's an enormous difference in working with experienced professionals). You will need pages designed and composed for the print edition, and you will need a conversion house to create the e-book file. You will need to print copies for marketing purposes and spend the money to mail those copies out. You may need a marketing professional to help you promote the book. All of those are legitimate expenses and there are many excellent freelancers out there providing these services. However, any publisher charging a fee beyond the cost paid to the freelancer isn't, in my opinion, a real publisher. If a publisher is making money on a publication before the author sells a single copy, it's difficult to believe that this publisher is working in the writer's best interests.

Your imprint is by invitation only. How are you finding your writers? And what should a writer who wants to be noticed by you do?

The reason the imprint is invitation-only is that I don't make any money on a publication unless the books sell. Therefore, I need to believe that the author is going to be an extremely active partner in the publication. This isn't something I can identify simply by reading a manuscript. Therefore, I look for recommendations from people in the industry, writers who strike up a correspondence with me, tips from the guy at the farmer's market, that sort of thing. I'm going to go over my title target for the first year, so this method seems to be working (and thank you, Caroline, for sending two fabulous writers in my direction).

If someone wants to get my attention outside of these methods (I've heard that the guy at the farmer's market isn't above taking a little "seed money," if you know what I mean), they need to show a real interest in the process. I want to work with writers who are interested in writing and publishing. You can't really be a valuable member of the collective if you don't care about how things work in this industry. Then, of course, you need to get my attention with the writing itself. I'm far more interested in characters and character evolution than I am in plot or setting.

What’s next on the horizon for the Fiction Studio? In other words, what’s obsessing you about the book business?

I'm hugely optimistic about the business right now, more than I have been in a very long time. Digital publishing is liberating in so many ways. Still, the publishing world is changing daily, and what's working right now will seem quaint in a few months. My real obsession at the moment is sustainability. How does a writer find an audience and keep that audience? Much of the energy in the business right now is coming from pricing and the growth of the user base (all those people getting their first Kindles, Nooks, iPads, Sony Readers, etc.). That allows for a certain level of success to come simply from seizing opportunities. However, sustainable success is going to come from staying in readers' minds. How do you capture the moment while working for the long-term. That's what gets me up very early in the morning.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

I think you nailed it.

What publishers and critics and editors really mean...

2011-08-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

This hilarious post comes courtesy of One Minute Book Reviews. I first encountered it on Twitter, and just had to share it! A hilarious, terrifying and not to be taken too seriously, decoding of what the publishing industry really means.

Enjoy!! And Click the link to see more from this blog!

One Minute Book Reviews

40 Publishing Buzzwords, Clichés and Euphemisms Decoded

Ever wonder what editors, publishers and critics mean when they describe books as “lyrical,” “provocative” or “ripped from the headlines”? Let industry veterans explain it to you. I asked experts on Twitter to decode common publishing terms and attach the hashtag #pubcode. Here are some of their answers:

“absorbing”: “makes a great coaster” @DonLinn Don Linn, publishing consultant

“accessible”: “not too many big words” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant

“acclaimed”: “poorly selling” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“breakout book”: “Hail Mary pass” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“brilliantly defies categorization”: “even the author has no clue what he’s turned in” @james_meader James Meader, publicity director of Picador USA

“captures the times we live in”: “captures the times we were living in two years ago” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“classroom-friendly”: “kids won’t read it unless they have to” @LindaWonder, Linda White, book promoter at Wonder Communications

“continues in the proud tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien”: “this book has a dwarf in it” @jasonpinter Jason Pinter, author of the Zeke Bartholomew series for young readers

“definitive”: “could have used an editor” @kalenski, “Book Babe Extraordinaire”

“an eBook original”: “still no proofreading and bad formatting” @mikecane Mike Cane, writer and digital book advocate

“edgy”: “contains no adult voices of reason” @wmpreston William Preston, English teacher

“epic”: “very long” @sheilaoflanagan Sheila O’Flanagan, novelist (Stand by Me)

“erotic”: “porn” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“ethnic literature”: “stuff written by nonwhite people” @elprofe316 Rich Villar, executive director of Acentos

“frothy romp”: “funny book by lady” “Funny = funny book by a man” @jenniferweiner Jennifer Weiner, novelist (Then Came You) and television producer (State of Georgia)

“gripping”: “I turned the pages fast but didn’t read them” @sarahw Sarah Weinman, news editor of Publishers Marketplace

“gritty street tale”: “Black author from the hood. Run.” @DuchessCadbury, graduate student in literature

“I’ve been a fan of Author X for a long time”: “I slept with them regrettably, in MFA school.” @Weegee Kevin Smokler, vice-president of marketing for Byliner.

“lapidary prose”: “I did not know what half of these words meant” @jenniferweiner Jennifer Weiner, novelist (Then Came You) and television producer (State of Georgia)

“literary”: “plotless” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant

“long-awaited”: “late” @janiceharayda Jan Harayda, novelist and editor of One-Minute Book Reviews

“luminous” or “lyrical”: “not much happens” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“magisterial”: “long” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“meticulously researched”: “overloaded with footnotes” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“memoir”: “nonfiction until proven otherwise” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“the next Elmore Leonard”: “This books has criminals or Detroit or maybe Florida in it” @bryonq Bryon Quertermous, fiction writer

“novella”: “short story with large font” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“a real tear-jerker”: “writing so bad it makes you cry” @DrewSGoodman Drew Goodman, writer and social media analyst

“ripped from the headlines”: “no original plot line” @jdeval Jacqueline Deval, author (Publicize Your Book!) and book publicist

“rollicking”: “chaotic” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“sensual”: “soft porn” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“stunning”: “major character dies” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“provocative”: “about race/religion” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“promising debut”: “many flaws, but not unforgivably bad” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“unflinching”: “has a lot of bad words” @isabelkaplan Isabel Kaplan, novelist (Hancock Park)

“visionary”: “can’t be proved wrong yet” @IsabelAnders Isabel Anders, author (Blessings and Prayers for Married Couples)

“voice of a generation”: “instantly dated” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant

“weighty”: “I had to lug this dense historical monster all over town and I still can’t bring myself to finish it” @emilynussbaum Emily Nussbaum, writer for New York magazine and other publicatons

“wildly imaginative”: “wrote book high on mescaline” @simonm223 Simon McNeil, novelist

“a writer to watch”: “as opposed to one you are actually going to want to read” @janiceharayda Jan Harayda, novelist and editor of One-Minute Book Reviews

The tongue-in-cheek explanations of common publishing terms are still pouring in at #pubcode on Twitter, and I’ll update this list if warranted.

You can follow Jan on Twitter at www.twitter.com/janiceharayda.

Amazing Author: Melanie Benjamin

2011-08-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I am still doing the waiting game...and it looks like I won't get any feedback until September. Egads! I am terrible at waiting. Good thing I have these great interviews, courtesy of Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Melanie Benjamin talks about Mrs. Tom Thumb

I first interviewed Melanie Benjamin for her exquisite novel Alice, I Have Been, about the real Alice in Wonderland. When I was on my book tour, and in the middle of the worst blizzard in Chicago, not only did Melanie come out to hear me read, she drove me back to my bed and breakfast AND she waited until I got in, which was a good thing, because the door would not open with my key. That's an amazing person! I couldn't wait to read Mrs. Tom Thumb, because I had loved Alice, I have Been so much, and I was completely knocked out by the story. (It's already an August Indie Pick.) Lush, beautifully written, filled with drama and one one of the most vividly interesting women around, Mrs. Tom Thumb is just spectacular.

I'm honored to have Melanie here--she's just a wonderful writer, and a terrific friend.

Where did the idea for Mrs. Tom Thumb come from?

I was half-way through the 2nd book of my contract when I knew it was a dead end; I couldn't finish it. Yet I had a deadline mere months away! Before I told my editor, and gave her a heart attack, I knew I'd better come up with another idea and maybe a chapter or two. So I started Googling like mad, paging through lists and lists of historical events, figures, women - I did know the time period that I wanted to write, as well as the setting. Since ALICE was set in England, I wanted my next one to be an American story. On one of those lists I saw the name "Lavinia Warren Stratton - aka Mrs. Tom Thumb." It rang a bell and I remembered that she was in a small scene in one of my favorite books, E. L. Doctorow's RAGTIME. She was feisty, even in his book. So I started researching her and was immediately enchanted by her story and her voice.

As far as what she has to teach us - it's both an uplifting, and cautionary, story. Uplifting in that she truly never saw any limits, any obstacles - but cautionary in that she started to believe her own hype, in a way. She very willingly traded on her stature in order to see the world, but then somehow deluded herself into thinking others didn't see her, first and foremost, as a dwarf.

Can you talk about your writing process?

When I write, I really try to "become" the protagonist; it's the only way I can capture the voice. So Vinnie's voice was entirely different from Alice's, and thus, the book has an entirely different quality. ALICE was more lyrical, more dreamy - befitting the ALICE IN WONDERLAND books. MRS. TOM THUMB has a verve, a pulse - I think it's a uniquely American story, written in a uniquely American style. As Vinnie herself would have told you, she was a proud patriot, and I truly tried to capture something of that in the book. As far as what surprised me - her relationship with Barnum. That became the driving point of the book; I began to understand he was the only person in her life with a personality as big as her own. And I'm never consciously aware of "deciding" on a structure - I just let the book appear to me as it wants to.

As someone who was drowning in research this year, I have to ask you, how do you do it?

Research is fun! I love immersing myself in history books, finding amazing websites (and there are so many, as this book takes place against a rich panoply of American history). The only pitfall of research is spending too much time in it, and forgetting to tell the story! The characters and their relationships have always to be the main focus of the book; the historical details are important and rich, but they can't overwhelm the characters and their stories.

Come on, tell us about your writing life!

My writing life, now that I have one book out (ALICE I HAVE BEEN), one just out (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. TOM THUMB), and one I just turned into my editor (for publication next year), is much more difficult than it used to be! I have to be much more disciplined, giving a certain amount of time over to paperwork, busy work - work, in other words! Which means I have to carve out my writing time, whereas before, my entire day was devoted only to writing. So in the mornings I usually do the busy work; in the afternoons, I write. Many of my evenings are now taken up with calling or SKYPING with book clubs, which is a joy.

What's up next for you?

Right now, I'm drawn to a couple of eras; one is pre-Civil War America, the other is the early days of Hollywood. I'm going back and forth, but keeping an eye open for anything else that might inspire me. I have a bit of time before I have to start the next book - the one that will be out in 2 years.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

You should have asked me what my favorite part of being an author is - because I would have answered, "Meeting fellow authors like you!"

Pretty paperless stationary!

2011-08-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I got an invitation to a bridal shower on this gorgeous stationary that arrived via email. Now, I love stationary, always have. I adore pretty paper and journals and printed notebooks, but I am aware of the environmental cost of all this paper, and so I try to buy paper that is at least partially recycled and send internet cards whenever possible. The problem is that up until now, those internet cards have been a sorry substitute for gorgeous stationary, and the experience one gets of opening a letter. Enter Paperless Post, a beautiful online stationary service that allows you to put together lovely notes, invites and letters and arrives in your email box in an envelope, that opens. I just sent a thank you card to a friend and she LOVED it! It is free to start and then offers a really reasonable 'stamp' purchase price. Writing emails, just got a whole lot prettier!

Check it out!

2011-08-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Keith Scribner talks about professional noses and The Oregon Experiment

It's Tuesday and I am waiting impatiently for feedback on my latest novel revision! In the meantime, freelance work awaits as does another Amazing Author interview from Amazing Author, Caroline Leavitt. Enjoy!

Keith Scribner’s third novel The Oregon Experiment is irresistible. Trust me. His two previous novels include The GoodLife and Miracle Girl. The GoodLife appears in translation, was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers series, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. I loved The Oregon Experiment and am thrilled Keith agreed to let me pepper him with questions. Thank you, Keith!

I love the fact that you have a professional "nose" in the book. That brilliant element did what the best works of literature do--it made me see and feel and experience the world differently. So tell me about the research you did for this. What did you find that surprised you?"

I read at least 8 or 10 books about the nose and how we smell, about perfume making, and about anosmia. Then I was very lucky to be introduced to a perfume maker in San Francisco, Yosh Han. She invited me to her studio and I spent the day making (with her help) the perfume that Naomi is trying to make in the book. It was really fun, intoxicating, fascinating. She lined up all her nastiest smelling Northwest essences to make the frog juice. I told her about the frog and the auto body putty. As I describe in the novel, it's a process of selecting then editing. Although many perfumiers use dipsticks (as Naomi does in the novel), Yosh lines the vials up on her worktable and sniffs them in order from base notes to top, then back down. In one long breath, you try to take in the full essence. Just this week I wrote a blog on this subject for Powell's Books.

I think what surprised me most was to learn how many people never think about smells and claim they can't smell at all, AND that people for whom smell is important (like Naomi) who lose it are so completely devastated. Also, that the relationship between smells and tastes is even closer than I'd thought, and that certain things, like basil and mint, are actually more smell than taste although we perceive them as tastes.

I also adored the whole secessionist movement in the novel. It seemed both divinely inspired and highly plausible at the same time. Where did this come from?

There's a long and continuing tradition of secessionism in Oregon and the Northwest generally. And as you say, its plausibility--the fact that the arguments for it are so sensible--yet the fact that it's so unlikely made it appealing to me. All my characters are idealists--or at least are struggling between their ideals and the realities of the world--so a very unlikely yet plausible movement seemed like an enterprise they should be involved in. Secession also acts metaphorically throughout the book--Scanlon and Naomi separating themselves from the east coast, Sequoia separating herself from her father and her past; the secessionist movement for her is both deeply personal and political. The rejection of the patriarchy for all the characters is alive in both the personal and political.

In general, secession, or moving from a state of union to separateness, is all over the book. I'm sure you know the experience of latching on to an idea like this and then seeing it in everything.

The writing is so dazzling, and the plotting so assured. What's your writing process like?

When I started the novel--for about the first two years of writing--it was all in Scanlon's point of view. As the characters of Naomi, Sequioa, and Clay came to life for me, I was too constrained just staying with Scanlon. As the story opened out, the points of view had to, too. One thing that helps me with plotting is that I note each scene on a card after I've written it and stick it up on a bulletin board. I usually start the board going when I hit about page 100 of a novel, which is the point at which I begin to have trouble keeping the whole thing in my head. With the note cards, I can see in a glance what follows what; I can move scenes around; I can pull something out and see all the implications. I'm not sure I could write a novel without this big visual representation of the structure, especially when I'm nearing the end and it's so hard to hold the entire thing in my head at once.

As for dazzling writing--thank you. All I can say is it's hundreds of passes over every sentence, many of those reading aloud so I can hear the language. And my phenomenal editor Gary Fisketjon deserves a nod, too--from big picture elements of plot and theme to his line-level genius, he's as good as they get.

What's obsessing you now?

My new novel is set partly in Oregon but mostly in Connecticut. As you might know, Connecticut shade and broadleaf tobacco are the best cigar wrappers in the world. When I was a kid, growing up in East Granby, Conn, lots of my friends worked tobacco. (I didn't; there was a truck farm near my house where I worked.) Shade tobacco is grown under cheesecloth nets (now synthetic). Local kids and migrant workers have worked the fields since the late nineteenth century. For now, the novel is set in the 1970s as well as the present, and I've become obsessed with researching the delicate process of growing, picking, and drying the very valuable leaves. I think tobacco will be for this novel what perfume and scents are for THE OREGON EXPERIMENT. I've made contact with a tobacco buyer who's going to get me under the nets this summer or next. And I aim to enjoy a cigar before I'm done writing the book. So far, I love the smell of cigar smoke from a distance, but smoking one makes me a little sick.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Let's see....Since smells can be the most direct path to memory, in a novel that's so much about how our pasts can define us and haunt us, the emphasis on smell worked to my advantage.

Related to this, I'm interested in how each character engages the world differently--Naomi's engagement is mostly sensuous, through her nose, and in this way she acts primally. Clay too acts primally, and instinctively. Sequoia engages the world through her body; Scanlon is motivated cerebrally and also by ego. Although I began with much neater ideas about each character in this regard (and they became complicated in the writing), they each do engage the world in different ways, which helps to define them, lead to conflict, misunderstanding, trouble in general and, I hope, the different perspectives that are one of the pleasures of a polyphonic novel.

Amazing Author: Elizabeth Searle

2011-08-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday! Time for another Amazing Author interview courtesy of Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!!

Elizabeth Searle talks about life, art and Girl Held in Home

Elizabeth Searle is as warm and funny as she's talented. The author of four novels, including Celebrities in Disgrace, which was produced as a short film in 2010, as well as her forthcoming new novel, Girl Held in Home. Her novel, A Four-Sided Bed is being developed as a feature film. her theater works have drawn national media attention and her show, Tonya & Nancy, The Rock Opera, has had productions on both coasts. She teaches at Stonecoast in the MFA program. What really intrigued me is that she's been able to move from the world to fiction to the world of short film, so I asked her if she'd write about it.

Thanks to Caroline, a real star, for giving me this chance to talk about my ongoing adventure in the world of short film: an actual do-able 'way in' to movies for starstruck fiction writers.

Little did I know when my novella Celebrities in Disgrace was first 'optioned' back in 2005 that on a hot summer day in 2010, I would be gobbling M&Ms outside our 'closed set' while listening breathlessly to the heavy breaths of our film's talented stars Julian Brand and Patrice Bunch, as they brought a sex scene I'd written to passionate life. It was fascinating and a bit freaky to watch the scenes I'd imagined in my head so vividly performed.

The resulting film is CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE, a fifteen minute glimpse of one aspiring actress's quest for her fifteen minutes of fame and of the troubled young man who gives it to her. It's produced by Bravo Sierra Pictures, an upstart film company whose motto is 'Micro Budget, Macro Attitude." The film premiered at the longrunning Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod in August of 2010. Our 'short' was lucky to receive coverage on WBUR Boston and in the Boston Herald. The film was most recently accepted as an official selection of the Hoboken International Film Festival (with screenings in between in Las Vegas, Maine, Boston and Hollywood FirstGlance shorts competition, so far.

How did my little book, published by Graywolf Press, become a little film? While it took years to get the film made, I found that entering the world of film festivals is easier than my shy fellow scribes might think-- and can offer a chance to make fledgling film world connections. Festivals are open to the public, tickets are cheap and even the big-deal parties are crashable. (One tip on that is to hang out with members of the press, who might just let you tag along on their Press Passes!) At Nantucket Film Festival, I met producer Paul Boghosian of Harborside Films, who is now producing a theater work of mine. Through working on scripts for Harborside, I learned the basics of script writing. My Celebrities in Disgrace novella was first optioned by Seattle-based short-film maker Paul Ramsay, who I worked with in writing an initial version of the script. Unfortunately, the economy collapsed and his option lapsed.

Cut to 2009. As a teacher in the Stonecoast MFA program I was impressed by a scriptwriting seminar led by a student I had never worked with, Matthew Quinn Martin. Matthew already had a feature film to his credit: SLINGSHOT starring Julianna Margulies and David Arquette, released by the Weinstein Co. I told Matthew about Celebrities in Disgrace and he gamely took a look at the script.

Matthew helped me shape that initial script into a 15 minute version that focussed on the central sex scene from the novella which I'd often performed at readings, so I knew it had dramatic potential. In it, my aspiring actress character (who longs to play the role of Nancy Kerrigan, ice princess) 'acts out' the infamous Nancy knee-attack-- all while being filmed by a young 'fan' who has talked his way into her home. Mayhem and 'disgrace' ensue.

Once we had our script in hand, Matthew and his Bravo Sierra partner Mark McNutt raised funds and called in some favors to make a high quality film on a low budget, all at Mark's lovely home in Pennsylvania. I got to play the role of the 'bad mother' in blood-red lipstick, looking scary and coming across, Matthew told me, 'very David Lynch.' On the 'set,' I helped as best I could, mainly assisting in making lemonade for our sweaty hard-working stars and crew. Unlike many directors, Matthew-- as a writer himself-- welcomed me into the process. I felt I'd been magically thrown back to the days when my sister and I shot our own 'movies' on our family's ratchety Brownie camera.

I was teary-eyed weeks later at my first online viewing of the intense 2 minute Preview Matthew put together, which made me think in audience reflex: Hey I want to see that film. The filmmakers set me up on a Celebrities in Disgrace 'blog'. At our film festival premiere at Woods Hole, our film appeared with an especially well-matched set of shorts, including Alysia Reiner's accalimed Speed Grieving.

Now I am working with Matthew and Bravo Sierra to develop my novel A Four Sided Bed as feature film, and we're proud to have our short film getting our collective foot in the door and making its way around the festival circuit. I've noticed benefits to my fiction too. As I wrote my forthcoming novel, Girl Held In Home, my first book to be billed as a sort of 'literary thriller', I was mindful of what I'd learned about pacing and dialogue while writing scripts.

So fellow fiction writers, check out film festivals and indie film events near you. Withoutabox on Facebook makes submitting scripts or films easy. With luck and a bit of movie-mad moxxy, you will get to watch your own secret writerly vision come to life as a small film on the 'big screen.'

Just stop!

2011-08-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I just love Los Angeles, like when I was driving down the street with my husband and saw these great stop signs. They immediately made me smile. I actually have a big issue with stop signs, or rather with people not stopping but rolling through them. It makes me crazy. It doesn't take more than 2 seconds to stop and as a pedestrian, I really resent having to watch out for drivers, texting, talking, only looking one way, running stop signs, when I step off the curb alone, or with my sweet pups, not to mention someone gunning it past me, while I am still crossing. Come on folks, you're in a CAR, you can really do some damage, which on foot, I can not. I always joke with my husband that I'd like my own siren to wail whenever I witness one of these daily (ten times daily!) infractions.

But for now, I'm just glad that someone out there chose to make the STOP SIGNS, a little more interesting, so that who knows, people might just stop at them, and read them, and think. And if anyone can do a "Stop. Really.", sign, I'd be grateful for that too.

Amazing Author: Emma Straub

2011-08-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

As I wait on feedback from my latest round of novel revisions, I have to say that I am finding inspiration and comfort in reading about other writer's process. I hope you do too! Here is another amazing author interview by Amazing Author: Caroline Leavitt!

Emma Straub is frankly amazing. Her first novel Flyover State was named one of the best books of the year by the Courier Journal and just try to find someone who isn't raving about Other People We Married, her extraordinary collection of stories about love, loss, and the ties that bind and sometime strangle. She's also a bookseller at BookCourt and she runs a graphic company M. & E. with her husband. I'm thrilled she's here--thank you, Emma!

So, when did you know you wanted to be a writer? Were you encouraged?

I have always been horribly unsuited for most real jobs. After college, I worked as publicity assistant for six months, and that was the last time I had an office job. It's the pirate's life for me! My parents always encouraged me to do what made me happy, and because my father is a writer, they both understood this wacky endeavor. I think what's nice about having parents who really understand the publishing industry is that they're extremely well-informed about the entire process. They certainly understand it better than I do. That also means that they know the drawbacks and pitfalls and potential disasters better than most parents, which I suppose could have made them like those Hollywood parents I always read about, the ones who swear they won't let their children follow in their footsteps, but they remain my biggest supporters.

What's your writing life like?

Oh, much like yours, I'm sure. I sit down, grunt at the computer screen, get up to find snacks, sit back down, grunt some more.

Some of the images in Other People We Married stopped me in my tracks, so much so that I had to underline them. The hair that was crashing like waves on a rocky shore, the pool that's like a giant eggplant. The stories are so funny and weird and filled with a uniquely quirky vision, and your characters very slowly unpeel like onions to reveal their deeper selves. So where do you think that vision came from? Why do you see the world the way you do?

You are so nice, Caroline. Thank you. I don't know why I see the world the way I do-- I'm sure it has to do with having parents who always told me stories, and found joy in making things up, and being a younger sister, and going to all the wonderful schools I went to, and having smart, funny friends, and finding the right husband, and all that. My voice on the page-- at least in these stories-- is very much me. I think if I wrote a book of essays, the voice would be much the same.

What's the new novel that's coming out about? Is it a departure from Other People We Married?

Indeed it is! The novel I'm working on-- Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, which Riverhead is publishing in 2012--is a novel about a movie star in the Hollywood studio system. It starts in the 1930s and follows an actress for several decades of her life. It could not be more different than my stories. I think I needed a break from things that were so close to myself-- even the stories that are the farthest from my personal life could have happened to me, in some way, shape or form. I wanted some distance, and boy, did I get it. Hollywood! Historical fiction! Who knew? It's been a lot of fun to work on the book.

How has working at a bookstore impacted your writing life?

I read more than I did before, and I'm more aware of the marketplace. Honestly, I think every writer should work in a bookstore, at least for a little while. Even though I grew up knowing writers and editors and publishers, I never understood the role of the bookstore in the scope of the publishing world. I will be grateful to BookCourt for the rest of my life for letting me be a spy. (I mean, I do actually work, and sell books, and open boxes, and all that good stuff.)

What's obsessing you now?

The idea of free time. I've been working non-stop for the past couple of years, on writing and at the store, and at a host of other jobs, and though I am extremely, monumentally grateful for all the work I have at the moment, I am very much obsessed with the idea of a proper vacation. I don't know when such a thing will happen. I'm not very good at taking breaks. Unless of course I need a snack, in which case, I don't mind if I do.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

You might have asked about the wonderful teachers I've had (Dan Chaon, Lorrie Moore, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Judy Mitchell), or if I've always liked to bake (yes), or which yoga poses I find physically impossible (crow, handstand), or how many hours I day I spend on Twitter (a thousand). Other than that, I think you covered it all! Cheers!

Amazing Author: Jennifer Haigh

2011-07-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author Interview from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!!

Jennifer Haigh talks about FAITH

Jennifer Haigh has long been one of my favorite writers--and I have the dog-eared, oft-reread copies of Mrs. Kimble, Baker Towers and The Condition to prove it. Mrs Kimble won the 2004 Pen/Hemingway Award for debut fiction; Baker towers was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2006 Pen/L.L. Winship Award for an outstanding book by a New England author. Faith is an astonishing novel about family, loyalty, and what we choose to believe and why--and there is also a fascinating book trailer that goes along with it. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for being here.

Let’s talk about the narrator in Faith. She’s not sure what to believe about her brother, or her church. Why did you decide to have her be the one to tell the story?

I found Sheila’s voice by accident. I’d never written a novel in the first person. I’d always considered it too limiting: in my experience, it’s rare for any one character to know all the interesting parts of a story. But when I began reading about priests suspected of abusing children, I was struck by how difficult it is to get to the bottom of the story. There are never any witnesses. The only people who know the truth of the story are the priest and the child, and often neither will talk about it. The rest of us can only speculate about what went on behind closed doors. That’s exactly what Sheila does in Faith. She’s neither a devout Catholic nor an atheist. Instead she is a seeker, a person who’s still figuring out what to believe.

On the surface, Faith is about sexual abuse and the priesthood, but it’s really about so many more deeper issues about the faith we have in our clergy, in each other and in ourselves. It’s also, to my mind, about connection and love. What’s the backstory behind the writing of this novel?

Like a lot of writers, I write to make sense of the world, which sometimes means writing about things that disturb me. I moved to Boston from Iowa in 2002, just as the city was reeling from revelations that Catholic priests had molested children, and that the Archdiocese had covered up the abuse. Like everybody else, I was horrified. I was raised in a Catholic family, spent twelve years in parochial schools and had extremely fond memories of my interactions with Catholic clergy. It’s no exaggeration to say that nuns and priests were the heroes of my childhood. As I read about what had happened in Boston, I found it impossible to square it with those tender memories of my Catholic childhood. Faith was my attempt to explain the inexplicable, to understand what I couldn’t make sense of in any other way.

Without giving anything away, what I loved was how often expectations were reversed. I thought I knew where the story was going, and it almost always veered in another direction. How carefully do you map out where you want to go? When you started writing this novel, did you know whether you wanted Art to be guilty or innocent?

I wanted Art to be innocent, but suspected he might be guilty. Like Sheila, I figured it out gradually. All of the surprising events in the story were surprises to me too. I never write with a fixed idea of how the story will end. The suspense is what keeps me going. Basically, I write novels for the same reason I read them: to find out what happens next.

What was the writing of Faith like? Your last novel, The Condition, was this wonderful expansive novel, but Faith seems leaner and tighter on some levels. Was this a deliberate choice?

Not deliberate – it came about organically, probably as a result of writing in the first person. The Condition is told from multiple points of view; and the same event is often seen through different characters’ eyes. The story lies in the contrast: how differently Paulette and her ex-husband remember their marriage, for example. In Faith everything is filtered through Sheila. There’s none of that interplay between perspectives, and the result is a tighter structure. We are limited by what she knows and what she understands.

What’s obsessing you now in your work?

I’m nearly finished with a collection of short stories I’ve been working on for seven years. They’re all set in Bakerton, the western Pennsylvania coal town where my second novel, Baker Towers, takes place. A few of the characters from Baker Towers actually reappear: Miss Peale, the schoolmistress; Joyce Novak and her mysterious younger brother Sandy, who runs off to California and is rarely seen again. Readers have been asking me for years what became of Sandy Novak. The story collection will finally answer that question.

Writer friends you can trust...

2011-07-25T17:44:00.001-07:00

I think that one of the most important things a writer can have is someone, they trust to read their work. I don't mean a fan, or a relative who loves you no matter what you do, or even a harsh critic who hates everything anyone does and is always sure that he/she can do it better...but never does. I mean a talented writer, who knows your work, what you are trying to say, and how you want to say it. It may not sound like a lot, but it really is a tall order. This person has to be able to give feedback based on the work that you wrote and not the novel they would've written. They have to be able to put aside personal taste, and feelings for subject matter and offer guidance that will help you, the writer, get to where they see, you are trying to go.

I am lucky, so incredibly lucky to have someone like this in my life...and a terrific agent and assistant who fit this bill too! As a result, I think that my manuscript, after 6 revisions, is pretty close to done. It is stronger and richer than it was when it started, and it is even longer too! Which is also nice, as it was a little on the short side. I have spent days and nights revising and this week, will polish, tweak, and polish some more, and then send to my fabulous agent with the hopes that they too, will love the changes.

Fingers and toes are crossed...eyes too, at this point! But that's from all the time on the computer!

New office!

2011-07-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

I am always trying to make room in our place. It's a great size, but we often have family visiting and an extra bedroom would be amazing. Unfortunately we can't build one, so I decided to bring my office out into the dining room, and I love it!! Everything fits perfectly, and my dogs have already taken to sleeping under my desk or resuming their rightful place on my lap. I am loving the coziness of it all, and just the fact that it is different is shaking things up for me, right when I need an extra jolt of energy. It's amazing what you can do with just a little space and some editing! Love it.

Novel Surgery...

2011-07-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks, I have been doing surgery on my novel. As a result of some editing, I have been playing with the order of things; rearranging chapters, moving paragraphs, and flashbacks, all while trying to maintain the integrity of the story. As my cousin who is an architect noted when she heard me say that you change one thing, and everything changes..."just like a building". And it's true. A novel and a building have a lot in common. Both need a solid structure, both require skilled and solid framing before you can start putting up walls and decorating. And both are a result of inspiration and careful planning with meticulous execution.

Right now, my novel, or building is under going a major renovation, and I am exhausted. But I am starting to see my way through it, and that is a glorious thing.

Hot days...cold lunch

2011-07-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

I am so grateful for air conditioning. The first few years that we lived in Los Angeles, we didn't have any, and I found it so hard to get anything done in the afternoon heat! Mind you, we also had sun beating down on us on all sides of the apartment, all times of the day. Now I blast the a/c in the middle of the day and am actually able to stay working at my desk, rather than nap! Even with all that cool air, I still need a cool lunch. Lately I am loving all things quinoa, like this dish, made with nectarines, mint, lemon, white beans, and tomatoes. Fresh and delicious!

Loving Lonny

2011-07-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

When I am writing as much as I am these days, all I want to do on my break is look at pictures. Although the idea of actually tearing myself away from my desk to flip through a magazine, gives me hives and pangs of guilt that I should be working harder. Alas, this was all before I discovered Lonny... a great on line home design magazine. Lonny stands for London and New York, and it is gorgeous eye candy all the way. It also provides some great inspiration and shopping help, as you can click on a picture and link to where that item is available. Fabulous! I spent today's break looking at their office reno, and imagining how I could improve my new office-in-the-dining room. I think I now know how. And I think it's a good thing that Lonny only comes out every two months, as I have way to much work to do, to be drooling over its pages!!

Amazing Author: Thelma Adams

2011-07-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

A day late from holiday weekend jet lag...but here it is! Another Amazing Author interview from amazing author, Caroline Leavitt!!

Thelma Adams has been the film critic at US Weekly since 2000, following six years at the New York Post. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah magazine, The Huffington Post, Marie Claire, the New York Times, and more. Her debut novel, Playdate, is an Oprah pick, and I'm honored to have her hear on my blog. Thanks, Thelma!

As a former tortoise owner myself, I was in love with the box turtle in the book. Why a turtle in the book?

When we first lived together in Chelsea, my husband always had turtles. He is a turtle-lover, and we have a very turtle-and-the-hare relationship. (I’m the rabbit, always leaping.) What this means is that I spent a lot of time with turtles – red-eared sliders, box, but nothing bigger than a breadbox. We had an Asian Box Turtle that we named Buckethead. And, amazingly, if we played Stevie Winwood’s “Higher Love” the turtle would actually dance, moving his bucket head back and forth to the music. Because of that, we played “Higher Love” a lot. Now, we live in the country, and there’s an ancient one-eyed snapping turtle that lives in our stream. We’ve named her Cyclops. She doesn’t dance that we know of, but she does lay eggs. We’re very protective of her without getting very close.

But why a turtle in the book? Because, as clever as they are, you can’t get affection from a turtle the way you can from a cat or a dog; they don’t hop onto the bed and curl up beside you. Belle, the daughter in the book, wants that connection from a pet, the uncritical affection. And it just wasn’t going to come from “Boxy,” or even from the mother that allowed her to get a turtle, but said “no” to a puppy.

The wildly comic ride of your novel’s been compared to Little Children, but where would you say your inspiration lies?

My inspiration lies in P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh (think Scoop), in creating a surface lightness in dialog that belies the darkness, or the complications, beneath. Or acknowledges the darkness playfully, with a sting, like the Jewish humor I grew up with – The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks (think his wonderful song and dance “The Inquisition”). The fiction writer Paula Bomer compared Playdate to Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, and I liked that, and felt honored by the comparison, because Roth’s early writing was sexy, funny, and painfully honest. He broke new ground.

I loved the whole backdrop of the wildfire, which gave your novel this incredible cinematic quality, which brings me to your job as film critic for Us Weekly. Does being a novelist inform being a film critic and vice versa?

It runs both ways. As a critic, I think I always look at story first. Does the script deliver? Does the dialog pop? Are we moved to laughter or tears? Does it have narrative drive? And, as a creative writer myself, I also recognize that the movie is an artistic collaboration, and even the worst movie was somebody’s baby at one point.

On the other hand, the first kernel of this project started as a script idea: a cross between “Shampoo” and “Mr. Mom.” But then I realized that I knew nothing about writing scripts, and it was an entirely different skill set. So I fell back to what I knew and wrote a book. In “Shampoo,” the movie is set against the backdrop of an election. I wanted this book to be set against the backdrop of a larger event. Enter the fires. But it wasn’t until a much later revise, after the Witch Creek Fires, that the Santa Ana winds became a much larger determining force in the book.

In the final draft of my novel, my editor Katie Gilligan at St. Martins/Thomas Dunne Books pointed out all my cinematic transitions that began chapters – meanwhile, over at the playground – and suggested (only suggested) I try another way in. I hadn’t realized that I was doing that, that I was wasting an opportunity to go deeper at the beginning of chapters, and I appreciated her fresh eyes. And dug deeper.

From the “playground fabulousness” to the kiddie diner with gourmet food, you skewer the pretentions of upper class suburbia with gleeful aplomb. Do you think there’s a solution for this kind of living?

Yes. Love your children and don’t turn them into status objects. In my book, I call it the Disneyland Syndrome – the misconception that if you take the kids to a theme park, and buy them every thing they want, and go on every ride, they will remember that as their childhood. Childhood is also in the rest between beats. It doesn’t take any money to have a real connection with your kid, just an open heart and a willingness to listen to them, really listen.

Tell us what your daily writing life is like?

Because I’m a film critic, and movies get scheduled on a very short lead time that the studios control, every day is different. Two or three days a week, I take Metro North to NYC to see movies. Seeing new movies remains a pleasure for me, and I think always will be. I love that moment when the lights come down in the theater, and the screen lights up. But my schedule’s unpredictability makes it hard to get a fiction-writing routine together. And I love a writing rut. I’m a morning writer, and write best in a few compact hours of very high concentration, without internet if I can control myself. What I’m trying to do now is string together three or four or five days running – including weekends – when I can get my head in the novel and keep it there. Writing for Us Weekly always comes first, and interviews for Marie Claire. That’s how I pay my way, and it’s a lovely way to do it.

The biggest break for my writing life (after publishing my first novel) just happened: after years of putting my kids on the school bus and getting them ready, my son is now at boarding school and my daughter suddenly this week began to get up and dressed and out the door by herself. That means when I wake up, I can just caffeinate and go without the distractions of lost homework, missing socks, sleepy children and scraping ice off the windshield.

What’s obsessing you now?

My next book. I’m writing a novel about Upstate New York mothers. I have an outline, and a string of incidents, and I’m trying to get it to cohere. Really, I’m just trying to write from beginning to end to see what I have without judging it along the way.

When you’ve completed a book, there’s a tendency to see it as a finished product, and forget all the many, many drafts that got it there. So, it can be a challenge to start afresh, and write through the crap, and the indecision, so that later you can cut back and dive deeper and play with the prose. It’s a marathon – and it helps to have marathon buddies to remind you that the large overwhelming project is put together in a string of days spent with your butt in the chair and your fingers racing. And that every day you get your butt in that desk chair, every 500 words chipped away, is a small triumph.

What do you wish you knew five years ago?

That I would get a novel published. Whew! If I had known that five years ago, I could have discarded all the time spent and wasted worrying that I was writing fiction into the void, rather than taking the kids to sports activities or getting my house in order or just plain chillaxing.

And, secondly, that even though my wish would come true, that I would publish a novel, life would go on with all its ups and downs, births and deaths. Becoming a published novelist wouldn’t change every thing like a magic pill, and it would even create some new problems. But nothing could knock the giddy happy feeling to see my hard work realized: my book in print and lined up with its gorgeous blue cover beside my desk; and strangers across the country (Ok, mostly in NY and LA) laughing at my jokes, and seeing the world through my eyes.

Amazing Author: Sheila Weller

2011-06-28T18:08:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author interview from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Sheila Weller Talks about Girls Like Us, the MOVIE!

Didn't you just love Girls Like Us, the groundbreaking bio of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon? Exuberantly told, this book explored the lives of three of music's most important women in a way that was so irresistible that I was carrying around my copy until it was dog-eared. Sheila Weller is equally amazing. The writer of six books, two of them New York Times bestsellers, she also writes about social history for Vanity Fair and is a contributing editor at Glamour. Plus, frankly, she's one of the coolest and most interesting people I know. Thanks so much for being here on my blog, Sheila.

I absolutely adored Girls Like Us. The women in the book were such heroines to so many of us. I've read that the book is now going to be a film. Will Joni, Carole or Carly be a part of that at all?

Caroline, thank you so much! I am so gratified by the nerve the book seems to have struck. As someone who has been a writer since --- well, forever (I've never done anything else!)..., this was the thing I did that I want on my tombstone. I often say, "I wrote a family memoir, but this book is even more autobiographical than the memoir." Because I used Carole's, Joni's and Carly's lives and songs to probe the common journey so many of us took -- the women of the '60s generation.

As to your question: The producers and the studio will certainly want to use their songs, so, yes, the three women (or at least their representatives) will be a part of the process. I hope everything goes happily and smoothly in that regard. It's certainly an opportunity for these amazing icons to be deeply known to younger generations. When you think about it (and I do think about this...), it's still (sigh) the guys who are "ageless" and the women who are..."older." Paul McCartney plays to rave audiences of kids in their 20s, and President Obama and his wife and the entire Kennedy Center sang along with him to "Hey Jude" to bring the last Kennedy Center Honors to a raving close. Keith Richards had a critically and commercially acclaimed $7 million # 1 bestseller memoir. (And Eric Clapton a few years before.) James Taylor (the "boy" among my girls) just got a prestigious medal of honor from the president, performed at the inauguration, just played Carnegie Hall to unbelievable reviews, and, in the documentary -- Troubadours -- in which he and Carole were featured, it was he who was hagiographed. Then there's Bruce, Mick and Sting. Not to mention Dylan! Yet these three women are absolutely every bit as significant -- and beloved. And, in turning the big ship of the culture and in taking personal risks to create, they did, and risked, more than the guys! (How easy was it to be a rock n roll star-and-songwriter in the '60s and '70s and have loving, supportive girlfriends who made your life easy? VERY. How easy to be a -- well, just switch the gender and answer the question.) So I'm so very excited that the book will be a movie, and that the movie will bring their magic, their guts, and their beautiful, culture-defining music music to younger people who don't know them well, and who, apart from Mad Men, didn't know how young women had to stumble and then push through in some pretty emotionally and socially crimped circumstances.

I want people who weren't even born when they were creating Blue and Tapestry and "You're So Vain" (and we're talking 39 and 40 years ago) to walk out of the theater singing their songs, and appreciating those songs' triumphs and costs.

Whom do you envision playing each--if you had your druthers?

Well, of course, next to goofing around on Facebook and checking my Amazon numbers, what is more obsessive fun than "casting" this movie?! I've had a lot of different casting ideas, but here is what I've settled on and I'm sticking to it. (Please understand: I have absolutely NO say in the casting. NONE. Nada, zip.) But, anyway:

As Carole: Michelle Williams. She has a gravity, a solemnity, which was an ineffable part of Carole's resonance and appeal. Like Carole (who was a wife to a difficult, haunted, talented guy, Gerry Goffin; a mother, and a bill-paying # 1 hit writer before she was out of her teens), sensible, older-than-her-years Michelle's love affair with the haunted and excess-prone Heath Ledger left her young with a child when he tragically died -- and wiser and more responsible than her years. She wears that quality of premature adulthood; you can't miss it in her. She's a terrific actress, and doesn't play characters who suffer fools lightly (because she doesn't seem to in real life). When she is shocked by her own naivete and heartbroken (to wit, the scene in Brokeback Mountain when she understands that her husband is gay), she never seems shnookered or should-have-known-better. We are on her side with her broken heart. As it was with Carole, whose love choices were often the Achilles Heel of her otherwise prematurely mature decision making and competence, Williams has an easily-empathized-with dignity, in her life and her movie roles, that makes us take her side. She is never frivolous.

I just -- dearly! -- hope she can play a piano, and really play it. Because, more than voice, that's what Carole is and did and does. Piano -- gospel piano pounding -- is her first language.

As Joni: Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is a huge star among young audiences, and, having just moved to Beverly Hills, she is obviously working hard to turn her music stardom into a film equivalent. Like Joni, she has written famously guessed-about songs about her boyfriends. She is tall, lean, feminine, projects charisma/exhibitionism AND shy, ladylike decorousness...that was Joni in the mid-late '60s and even early 70s. Joni is the easiest to cast, in that, as complicated as she was and is (and, man!, she was and is), on first interpretation, she fills the archetype of the lovely, sensitive, long-blond-haired girl singer (Maybe because she created that archetype), so "indication" of that now-well-understood type goes a long way; the idioysyncracies can be filled in. There are more obvious Joni's than Caroles or Carlys among young actresses today. (Amanda Seyfried, Mia Wiakowska, Jennifer Lawrence, etc.) I'd like Taylor Swift -- a superstar and a lovely girl -- to embrace her Inner Joni (and what girl singer doesn;t have one?), take a ton of acting classes, and run with it, providing the highest-glow wattage for the ensemble, which will shine over the whole project. And, for those who say: But Taylor Swift's a country singer..., well, she's actually from Pennsylvania.

As Carly: Evan Rachel Wood. Carly, in my mind, was always the hardest to cast. For Carly, one needs a long, lean, strong-featured actress who can sing really well (Carly has the classically best voice of the three) and who oozes sexuality, wit, and a certain wacky, highly privileged, genially neurotic, predatory mischievousness. Three things qualify Evan Rachel Wood for this unique mix of prerequisites: (1) her singing in Across the Universe; (2) her years with Marilyn Manson (high points, Evan, for relishing the public's "ewww"-ing of that unexpected love affair). And (3) her a-fucking-mazing performance as Veda (the snooty, scheming, sex goddess daughter from hell) in Mildred Pierce. Case closed.

The book tied together these three lives so brilliantly, but I'm wondering if the film will be structured differently?

Thank you. I think they want to keep the alternating, layer-like quality of the book, where the stories are woven together. The producer-director, Katie Jacobs (the showrunner and often-director of TV's often Emmy nominated and hugely successful House) was give the book, shortly after it came out, by her sister, MIT History professor Meg Jacobs. So, from the first, she saw it as social history, not just entertainment. So does Amy Pascal, the co-head of Sony-Columbia Pictures, who is overseeing its production at the studio. The third in the production team is Lorenzo Di Bonaventura. (Lorenzo is one of the most accomplished and successful producers in Hollywood. When you saw the red-carpet pictures of Angelina Jolie at the Salt premiere and there was this...unknown but self-possessed big guy...in the picture with her -- just the two of them: that was Lorenzo.)

But I'm most excited about the selection of John Sayles to do the adaptation. Aside from being the original American auteur and the most respected, puts-his-money-where-his-mouth-is independent filmmakers in the country, he has such a deep, personally experienced sense of and respect for the '60s and '70s (among many other things, his Return of the Secaucus Seven was the template not only for The Big Chill...but, in a very real sense, for Carole's Tapestry circle of friends; and he did girls-at-[Carly's]-Sarah Lawrence in Baby It's You). And his work -- films and novels (by the way, he has a huge historical novel coming out...now) -- is invariably about the intersection of social-cultural moments with complex human beings who let us see, and sympathize with, all sides of their dilemmas and choices. I'm thrilled that he is adapting. Thrilled and honored.

How involved in the filmmaking process are you and has it been any sort of revelation for you? Does it feel like a new story you are telling now?

I don't think I'm going to be very involved, alas. Sayles, Jacobs, DiBonaventura, and Amy Pascal:They're all real pros, the top of their fields -- they know how to make movies. It's up to them to consult me if they want or need. They know where to find me -- and: I'm pushy, so if things go too long without me being consulted, I'll find a way to knock on that door. Happily, I'm secure -- and they're secure --- with the fact that I did so much original, source- attributed journalism on these women's lives, we have that part under control. ("Life rights" permission/acqusition for "public figures" has a legally lower bar than for non-public figures.) (Music rights: now, that's are another issue... and I will breathe a sigh of relief once that's taken care of.)

Do you think there's an appetite for this movie?

This may sound self-aggrandizing but...I really do. There was a magic, sexiness, integrity, and historical significance about that era and these women and their music that hasn't really been tapped. (Lisa Chodolenko's Laurel Canyon didn't have the expected magic. Todd Haynes's I'm Not There was too abstract. In its own way, I think Factory Girl came close, but critics unfairly panned it. For my money, Across The Universe hit it out of the park, but the young people in the audience I saw it with made snarky remarks while I nostalgically sobbed.) When we lift the veil here and there and see bits and pieces of the specialness of that time -- in Carole's and James's phenomenally successful summer 2010 concert tour, for example -- it's like, "Why have we been deprived of this for so long??" When a great musician biopic comes along -- Walk the Line or Ray -- it's an emotional experience like little else; it's a high. If that movie presents not just an era and a rise to success, but also real characters the audience can approvingly root for (and, unlike Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, these women were non-drug-abusing, consistently productive middle class girls) -- then that's an added bit of popcorn power.

As I said, I think people will walk out of the theater singing.
Now: We just have to get to that part!
Thanks so much for talking to me, Caroline. Readers can visit my book's website -- www.girlslikeusthebook.com -- and / or its companion music / media site:
www.girlslikeusthemusic.com

The dirty R word...

2011-06-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

Revisions. I've lamented about them before, and I am doing so again. I just got back notes on my manuscript, a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh perspective, and am looking forward to discussing them at length with the editor today.

It always takes a while to process new information and opinions about the work, especially when I have been living with it for so long. It's a delicate process, sifting through someone else's thoughts, feelings, taste and opinions. I spent the weekend transcribing every note on my manuscript, re-reading what I wrote, and looking for ways to satisfy the desires of all involved. As my husband and I like to say around here, it's a 'high class' problem, ( we stole that line from our friend Jud!) polishing your manuscript so that your dedicated and supportive agent, can start shopping your debut novel with the intention of finding a great publisher!

I'm lucky to have so much support around me, great writer friends, a fabulous mentor, an amazing agency on my side and an editor who is really looking to help me make this book the best it can be.

Now, I'd just love 2 more months of uninterrupted writing time, and for time to stand still. I know, give me an inch...

Happy Monday!

Where does the time go? And Tayari Jones

2011-06-21T13:16:00.001-07:00

I've been nutty and computer averse lately, so apologies for the week delay! I am about to start another revision, have a manuscript to read, a script pitch to develop, and a new novel that I need to figure out. Alas, it no time to be wanting to avoid my computer and office!

In the meantime, please enjoy another Amazing Author Interview, by Amazing Author, Caroline Leavitt!

Tayari Jones talks about Silver Sparrow

I first met Tayari at an Algonquin reading at AWP. To say I was enthralled listening to her read is putting it mildly, but what I loved even more was how spirited she was, how generous (this woman sets off sparks.) I took an instant liking to her--and to her novel, Silver Sparrow. Her debut novel, Leaving Atlanta, about the child murders in Atlanta, is being made into a film and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post. Silver Sparrow, about a bigamist, about daughters, about love and loyalty, is the number one indie pick for June. Tayari is also an associate professor at the prestigious MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University.

Thank you so, so much for being a part of my blog, Tayari.

I love the secret that is at the heart of Silver Sparrow: two daughters share a bigamist father. What’s the backstory behind this idea? What sparked the writing?

I feel like I should always start by saying my father is not a bigamist. But that said, I do have two paternal sisters who didn’t grow up with me. I have always been interested in this idea of sisters who don’t grow up together. Me and my sisters are ten years apart in age, and they are not secret, but there is still this divide. I have recently realized that all my novels involve a sister who is far away. In a way, isn’t that the fantasy—that somewhere our there, you have a sister, an ally, but you just don’t know it. Of course, in this story there is so much between the sisters that the idea that they will be friends is unrealistic, but the impulse to try.. Or the burning curiosity to know.. who can resist that?

The structure of the novel is as complex as it is riveting. What made you decide to tell the novel from two voices? What problems did you encounter in the writing process?

Since the sisters have two different worlds—one lives in the shadows and one lives what she thinks is a normal life—there was no way a single narrator could get the job done. My idea was to use FOUR narrators. I wanted both wives and both daughters. But then I decided that the daughters could tell their mothers’ stories. The biggest challenge as a writer was making the voices different. The girls have SO MUCH in common that they have a lot of the same speech issues. And they even have the same dad so they share a lot of references. I wanted it so when you turn to the first page of Chaurrisse’s chapter, you immediately know that you aren’t with Dana any more. I had to revise and revise and revise to get it right!

Silver Sparrow has this indelible sense of time and place—so much so that Atlanta seems to be a character itself. What made you choose Atlanta during the 80s as your setting?

Well, first off—I am a Georgia Peach! I was born in downtown Atlanta and most of my work is set in my hometown. The city is changing so much with “urban renewal”, etc. So writing about the city as it was, feels sometimes like an act of preservation. Many of the settings of the novel aren’t even there anymore. And many of the places aren’t the sort of settings that would be immortalized in literature; I mean who cares where seventeen year old black girls hung out in 1987? Who would erect a commemorative plaque? Me, I guess.

Besides being an incredible writer, you also teach. How does teaching inform your writing (and vice versa?)

Teaching really cuts both ways. The plus side is that always talking about writing, means I am always thinking about writing. Working out the kinks in my students stories really helps me be more conscious in working out the challenges in my own work. But the down side is that talking about writing is not the same thing as writing. I get hardly any work done in the school year. I feel so lucky though—next year, I will be at the Radcliffe Institute on fellowship. No teaching for me, just writing.

The ubiquitous question: What are you working on now and how is it a different challenge than Silver Sparrow?

The new book is historical and I have never written anything that has happened before my lifetime. It’s set in the 1930s. I don’t want to say too much because I am superstitious, but I am so nervous about this challenge. I worry that my ambition may be greater than my ability. When I was in high school, there was this huge sign in the lobby that said, “Not failure, but low aim, is sin.” I am trying to keep that in mind.

What are you reading these days?

Pictures of You, of course.

Refilling the well...

2011-06-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

This past week I have been itching to write...something. I got my 7th revision of my romantic comedy script approved, my novel is in the hands of a great editor and ready for a fresh set of eyes to give it the once over and after helping several of my writer friends with their projects, (always a pleasure and an honor), I wanted to work on something new. So I returned to some pages that I had started for my new novel. I have about 10 that I really like. I like the voice, I like the tone, I like the innerlife of the character whom it is about but I don't like that I have a sinking feeling right now at the beginning that it is not enough. I know that it is too early to judge, but at the same time, having written 2 novels and deciding to lead with one, and leave the other in a drawer for now, and having done the same thing with my screenplays, I am painfully aware that good writing, even great writing is not enough.

What is the plot? What is the hook? What is obsessing me enough to sustain me through the next 2-3 years of writing, through all the revisions and debates over story and structure and what it is that I am trying to say and why it needs to be said and sent out into the world to be read? It is a huge task writing a novel and it is also a monumental responsibility to write one that deserves a big life outside of my office. Alas, I find myself on familiar, yet shaky ground, and know that I need to press pause and allow my well to be refilled. I have to read and watch and listen and allow my mind to wander to places that are murky and muddled and trust that somewhere in there, a line, or character or image will surprise me and light the tiniest of flames that will lead me out of the writing darkness.

Sigh. This is the hard part. But it is infinitely easier than getting 100 pages or 300 hours in and realizing that I need to go back to the drawing board. Deep breaths.

Breakfast for lunch...

2011-06-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

We had dear friends visiting from Toronto over for Brunch today and enjoyed oatmeal, homemade vegan scones, greek yogurt, berries and coffee! Everything was really yummy, but the company was the best....Jessica Tinkler who wrote The Plan (featured on this weeks amazing authors) and her husband Rob were our guests.

Jessica is an AMAZING cook, and she really liked my scones, which is a huge compliment!! I was so happy that she liked them, that I gave her what was left to enjoy on the plane.

Keeping the breakfast theme going I had it again, for lunch- Steelcut Oatmeal, blueberry greek yogurt and fresh berries. So delicious! Although I must admit that even though I spent lunch at my desk, I have spent most of my day reading outside...glorious. A much needed day off to recharge my batteries.

Have a great weekend!

Pure Love

2011-06-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

I am loving these products lately. One of the bad things about sitting at my desk writing all day is that I am always in front of my computer. And the more I stay inside, the harder I find it to tear myself away from my computer to do things like run errands and just basically leave the apartment. As a result of a lot of deadlines, I've been reluctant to leave my office and have started to explore the world of online shopping...dangerous! Although I am happy that I did, because I found this great website! My sister had given me one of their products for my birthday and I loved it. They are all natural, vegetarian, organic, smell delicious, feel great and are really reasonably priced...and they DELIVER!! Check them out, at 100% Pure .

I'm hooked. Now if only Trader Joes would deliver, I may never have to leave my office!

Amazing Author: Jessica Tinkler

2011-05-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

Today's Amazing Author book was written by my friend Jessica Tinkler.

Jessica's book is exactly the kind of book about healthy eating and living that you want to read; honest, straight forward, sensible and inspiring. Real plans for real people, written by a real person who has all of the demands of real life and meets them without the aid of an assistant, chef, and unlimited funds and resources. She's not a celebrity author with an entourage, and for me that is what makes her book and her blog, (shown above, click it to see her link) so great! I've posted some information from her site below, along with links to her great new book. Check it out! You'll be glad that you did.

About Jessica...

I’m a certified personal trainer with National Academy of Sports Medicine and Can-Fit Pro, a certified Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant with The American Council on Exercise and a certified SPINNING instructor. I have a passion for health and fitness. I know how great it feels to be doing something good for yourself, but I also know how hard it is sometimes to get yourself on the right track. Nothing makes me happier than helping someone feel stronger, healthier and ultimately happier.

THE PLAN; Shop, Stock and Serve

I’m thrilled to announce that The Plan; Shop, Stock and Serve is now available at all online retail locations! Get your copy today!

To purchase in Canada CLICK HERE

To Purchase in the USA CLICK HERE

Here’s a sneak peak:

It’s easy to understand the concept of eating lean protein with vegetables to lose weight, but if you don’t normally eat these foods and don’t have the time to prepare them, following a diet is challenging. The Plan: Shop, Stock and Serve, not only addresses this issue head on, but it provides the answers.

Food is social. It’s front and center when we get together with friends, family and loved ones. We celebrate with it, laugh with it and sometimes even cry with it. How can you expect to come off of life’s emotional rollercoaster without turning to Ben and Jerry’s? Stuff happens! The dinner parties are not just going to stop. Your busy life will not just go away. In order to change the way you eat and drop those pounds for good, you need a plan.

With The Plan:
* You won’t have to follow a restrictive diet. Your plan is made for you, by you!
* All your favorite foods can go on your plan, and yes, you will still lose weight.
* You will only have to hit the grocery store once a week.
* For once, healthy eating will actually simplify your life.
* The Plan is something you can realistically do for life.

Any book can tell you what to eat in order to lose weight. Implementing those changes into your lifestyle is the tricky part. Unlike any other book on the market, The Plan focuses on providing you with the right tools to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. It’s the essential map to healthy eating and living.

The Plan: Shop, Stock and Serve includes a cookbook with over 120 recipes, meal and snack ideas, as well as an exercise and activity guide with over 30 basic strength-training exercises that are easy to do at home.

Amazing Author: Clea Simon

2011-05-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author interview from Amazing Author, Caroline Leavitt!

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Toronto and trying to catch my breath! But first a snuggle with my girls. I have freelance work, and a naming job and just sent off my manuscript to some fresh eyes for a good critique. As I try and come up for air, let me give you this great interview with Clea!

Clea Simon talks about Dogs Don't Lie, writing, and animal speech

I first met Clea on a writers' site. She was so smart and so interesting that I immediately went out and got her book, Fatherless Women, and we began to email back and forth. Then we met. Then our spouses met, and before you knew it, we were all friends. Clea's one of my best friends on the planet and a fabulous writer, and I'm honored and thrilled to have her guest post on my blog. Thank you so much, Clea!

What would your pet sound like if she (or he) could talk to you? What would his or her voice be?

These are the questions that are at the heart of my new mystery, Dogs Don’t Lie. I mean, we know what our animals sound like in their real state, their natural state, their barks and meows and hisses. But what if we could understand them – if they spoke to us in our language, with human voices? What would those voices be like?

For some reason, it has always amused me to imagine my cat talking down to me. Sometimes, I imagine her scolding me – usually when I’ve done something that I assume must be annoying, like moving her toys to vacuum, or stepping over her when she’s sprawled in a doorway. “Must you?” I hear the disdain in her voice. “Oh, please.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m neither psychotic nor self-hating. This voice just seems right somehow, and truly, when she comes up to me afterward all purry and wanting to be petted, this pseudo-scorn makes it all sweeter.

But the questions remain, and that eventually led me to create the unwilling animal psychic Pru Marlow. Pru can “hear” what animals say, telepathically, and she is continually surprised not only by what they say but also by how they say it. What their voices sound like – and, by extension, how they view themselves. (I’m not giving anything away, I think, when I reveal that the animals Pru meets in Dogs Don’t Lie often have very different opinions about themselves than their tone-deaf humans do – and often different names. It seemed quite natural, to me, for a neutered bichon frise to reject the name “Bitsy,” for example. In his mind, he was “Growler,” and acted accordingly.)

The voice of my protagonist Pru was another challenge, a bigger one. I was already writing one series when Pru came to me. My Dulcie Schwartz mysteries – which continue this month with Grey Zone – feature a bookish graduate student. Dulcie is sweet, a little naïve, and extremely earnest. When I write her, I become her, to the point of adopting her mannerisms to some extent. (Not a bad thing: she’s much neater than I am normally.) But when I started with Pru, I’d been reading a lot of the new female-centered noir (books like Megan Abbott’s Queenpin). And so Pru burst out tough and mouthy. Promiscuous, a little dangerous. Not the kind of heroine you’d expect in a mystery with talking animals, and not the kind of character I’d written before. It was a little scary, but also fun – and the more I wrote, the more her personality developed. Pru’s a cool character. Maybe that’s why her cat, Wallis, had to be even tougher, a take-no-prisoners tabby who isn’t afraid to read Pru the riot act when she steps out of line – or steps over her to leave a room. These characters declared their voices, and I had to fall in line.

Voice, of course, is always intriguing to writers. Questions around voice are key. What tone do we chose? What point of view? Voice is what makes a writer, makes a book. Voice is vital. The funny thing, I’ve come to learn is that in my chosen genre it is often ignored.

Crime fiction, after all, is known for its plotting. The biggest crime fiction names, in particular, ride on action-packed storylines. Boom boom boom – the hero is up and running, taking bullets and felling bad guys. In some ways, it is plotting that separates these big thrill rides from the more old-fashioned classic or cozy mysteries that are more or less what I write. Jack Reacher is never going to puzzle out the clues, just as Miss Marple never broke a collarbone and went on to tackle her suspect. And since these big thrillers are what earn the big bucks – and get made into movies – plot is seen as all important: the driver of series, of sales, and of readers.

This isn’t a complaint exactly. I do love plots and I admire page-turners. I read almost all of Dan Brown’s oeuvre at one point, just so I could learn his structures. Believe me, if I could end every chapter with “and then she saw the gun,” I’d be happy.

And yet, character – voice – keeps coming up. In fact, there’s a funny discussion going on in the world of crime fiction. You’ve heard of Stieg Larsson, the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” author? Well, his books have lots of action, sex, and violence, but what the critics have been commenting on is his heroine – the feisty Lisbeth Salander. It’s like they’ve just discovered characters.

Maybe it’s that they don’t expect them. Maybe, despite the evidence of Dorothy L. Sayers and Donna Leon, Agatha Christie and Denise Mina, they think crime fiction – mysteries – aren’t up to interesting, fully realized characters. But readers do, and we writers are readers. Maybe that’s why I’ve been obsessed by characters recently. Possessed by them. It’s their voices.

Amazing Author: Sarah Jio

2011-05-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday and I have been traveling! Time to catch my breath and bring you this amazing author interview from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Sarah Jio talks about The Violets of March and authors who help other authors!

Guest Post:

The Jodi Picoult Effect: Why Big-Time Authors Who Help Newcomers Rock!

Caroline, thank you so much for having me here! As a debut author, it’s so lovely and encouraging to be supported by successful writers (you!) who have also been in the same shoes, which is what I want to share a little about today. Being a first-time novelist is both exciting and nerve-wracking (as I’m sure you remember!), so thank God for veteran authors who stick their necks out on behalf of newcomers.

My first novel, The Violets of March [LINK: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452297036/craforboo-20], is out on April 26 from Penguin (Plume). I sold the book last spring, and after the contracts were signed, I realized that I had a pretty steep learning curve ahead. After all, book publishing was a whole new ballgame for me. I came to fiction from the world of magazines, where I’ve been a contributor to publications like Glamour, Redbook, Health, SELF, Real Simple, O, The Oprah Magazine, and many others. I knew my way around the magazine industry, but books? There was so much to figure out. Blurbs! Marketing! Sales! Book buyers! Publicity! Um, yikes!

Perhaps most daunting was the task of reaching out to other authors and shyly asking them to read my book in hopes of getting an endorsement for the cover. I fretted about this for a long time. Frankly, the whole idea of sharing my work with other authors made me feel so vulnerable (something I needed to get over quick if I was going to be any good at this novel thing!). I thought about the authors I admired and respected and wondered if they’d ever—in a million years—be interested in reading my fledgling debut. Sure, I was proud of my novel, for sure, but there’s something very frightening about sending an early copy to an author you love. But, with great anxiety and trembling hands, I composed an email to Jodi Picoult (you know, the bestselling author of a zillion books, including Sing You Home). I told her about Violets, shared the book trailer, and held my breath as I clicked send.

And guess what? A few minutes later, she wrote back. Just like that. And I nearly fainted.

She shared that she’d already received five other blurb requests that day alone and couldn’t make any promises. But, she said if I still wanted to send a galley over just in case, she’d do her best to have a look. Yep, I sent a galley out that very afternoon, with fingers and toes crossed. And, several weeks later, I nearly fell out of my chair when she wrote to say she enjoyed the book and had written a blurb for me [LINK: http://www.sarahjio.com/?p=1128]. I was 9 months pregnant at the time, and promptly began having labor contractions. (True story.)

Here’s the thing, Jodi has an insanely busy schedule. She’s one of the top-producing authors in the world. She’s basicallysuperwoman. She didn’t have to give me (a total stranger with nothing to offer her in return but insane amounts of gratitude) the time of day, but she did. Her vote of confidence for my novel meant so much to me, as did the support from Allison Winn Scotch, Claire Cook, Sarah Pekkanen, Beth Hoffman, and Kelly O’Connor McNees—all of whom prove that the book world is filled with plenty of terrific, warm and generous souls. If I’m ever so fortunate to be in a similar place of success, I vow to be just as generous to new authors as these wonderful women have been to me.

About me:
Sarah Jio is the author of The Violets of March, out from Penguin (Plume) on April 26, a Target Emerging Author selection and Costco buyer pick. Her second novel, The Bungalow, will also be published by Plume in April 2012. She lives in Seattle with her family and is at work on her third novel. To learn more about her, visit www.sarahjio.com.

Amazing Author: Anne Lamott

2011-05-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author interview from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Now in Paperback! Anne Lamott talks about Imperfect Birds

To say I love Anne Lamott is putting it mildly. She's funny, warm, witty, and more than a few times, she has saved my emotional life, both with her books and with her spot-on advice. She makes you see the world differently (and she makes you laugh.) Her fabulous novel Imperfect Birds is now out in paperback and it's just wonderful. To celebrate, I'm buying copies for my friends AND I'm reprinting an interview with Anne.

Anne Lamott should be a national treasure (complete with a holiday named after her.) Her book on writing (Bird by Bird) is required reading for any budding writer (or anxiety written pro), her book on having a child (Operating Instructions) should be tucked inside every diaper bag, and her novels simply soar. Her newest, Imperfect Birds, returns to one of her earlier novels, Rosie, to tell the story of teenage drug culture and parents being terrified for their the safety of their kids. It's as remarkable as she is--and thank you, thank you, Anne for answering my questions.

Of all your books, this one was the one that absolutely terrified me. It was so raw, so real (plus, I’m the mother of a 13 year old and I worry about the future endlessly) and yet, it also was, to me, the most spiritual of your books, too. Would you say this is because in those dark, scary moments, that’s when there is light (if you can notice it?) Or that being tested give us an opportunity to reveal our best (as well as our worst) selves?

When we are faced with really frightening developments in our lives, like loss or a bad diagnosis or a lost child, we get stripped down to what is true and essential--and this is the most spiritual place we can arrive at. And then to be deeply loved in such a raw and undefended state--without armor, routine, and the ability to Fake it--is the absolute definition of Spiritual.

Knowing Rosie (from your novel Rosie) as a child and then seeing her as a teenager here also made this book more nerve-wracking for me. Because Rosie was the child of an alcoholic mother, I was sure Rosie would never want to have anything to do with substance abuse. Is this usually the case?

There's no such thing as "usually the case". Kids with alcoholic parents have a genetic predisposition to be alcoholics or substance abusers. I really have not observed a "norm". What I've observed in Marin is high-achieving kids with seemingly ideal family circumstances, who have lost their lives, minds, futures, to high risk behavior. We just lost another gorgeous 17 y.o. Marin girl last weekend, about to graduate, who got drunk with her girlfriends about 20 minutes from my home, fell off the cliffs into the ocean, and washed up near Muir Beach.
Elizabeth doesn’t believe in God, though she does seem to have a belief in some things, and there was that powerful scene in the sweat lodge where she feels a glimmer of something larger than herself. Do you think it matters whether you do or you don’t believe, as long as you are open to the moment? And that being open to one moment, like in the sweat lodge, might make you open to more moments?

Yes, I do think there an many many ways to opening our hearts and awakening to the present--and Presence. To seek this presence, of a deep rich reality, the shimmering Now, is to find it. And then some commit to developing this sense of Life, and other people keep hitting the snooze button via workaholism or multi-tasking, which is absolutely life-destroying
For me, the novel was about the reality we create for ourselves—i.e. Rosie’s reality is that what she is doing isn’t so wrong, but James and Elizabeth reality about what she is doing is really something different. Rosie lies, but so does Elizabeth to James. You nail the fierce love parents have for their kids, and the pain when those kids start to pull away into their own lives (as well they should) and their ignorance of the pain it causes their parents. How do you think it’s possible for anyone to really know the truth and reality of someone else’s life? And is there a way we can be better at it?

I don't know that we can really understand what it's like to be another person's, but we can see when people are exhibiting self-destruction and deceit. Parents have to be willing to risk not being the coolest parent on the block, in order to set healthy boundaries, and to impose appropriate consequences for lying, stealing, smoking, etc. A lot of parents so desperately need their kid's affection that they (maybe unconsciously) don't see what their kids are up to--don't see the cries for help, the out-of-controlledness. They don't want to fight with their kids, or have their kids pull away, and so they keep their heads in the sand, or get it to come out OK in their minds--ANYthing that will keep the appearance of closeness: anything to avoid making waves. But as I said, another 17 year old died this weekend.

I’m intensely curious about process, so can you talk a little bit about yours in writing Imperfect Birds? And can you talk about what you are working on now?

Well, novels as you know are a lot harder than stories or essays--it takes close to 3 years, and you never quite know what you're doing. I really try to commit to my characters, and capturing each one's voice and truth, instead of committing to a finished novel. It can be a nightmare for a lot of the process, because you're trying to keep so many plates spinning in the air. So I just to get a day's work done everyday. I let myself write incredibly shitty drafts. I ask one or two cherished writer-friends for feedback. I read novels, to see how other people handle tough stories of being human, and in families, and community; how we survive unsurvivable loss, how we grow, how we age, how we heal, how we keep our senses of humor. And I write everything over, and over, and over; and rely DEEPLY on great editing.

What question didn’t I ask that I really and truly should have?

You could ask how Sam is doing! He is 20 now, a student of industrial design at an art academy in San Francisco, and he and his girlfriend have an 8 month old baby boy, who (along with Sam) is the apple of my eye. His name is Jax; my grandma name is Nana.

What a week!

2011-05-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

Since last writing, I submitted my novel changes, heard back that they won't be read for about a month, (some distance is needed for a fresh perspective), took the novel back to fuss over, wrote new pages, had those looked at, and am getting ready to go over the entire book all over again to resubmit to fresh eyes in June. Whew! Add to that my fourth round of revisions on my romantic comedy screenplay, a tough call on another script that I am working on, and sleepless nights with a dog that has hot spots! It's finally Friday, and I am properly knackered.

One thing that I have realized though is that I am always more tired when I have things to deal with that are stressing me. Who isn't? I want to avoid them because I am tired, but in avoiding them I feel badly and even more drained. So I've decided that no matter how tired I am, or how little sleep I get, when I wake up, I have to just get up and get on with it and tackle that mountain of work. Hence being at this desk since 5:30am.

This weekend, I am going to knock a few more things off my list in...I will enjoy it more if I do!

Have a great weekend!

Off she goes!

2011-04-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

I just submitted the latest changes on my novel. It is why I have been M.I.A. from this blog! I have been reading, and rewriting and tweaking and editing, and staring at my manuscript non-stop for 2 weeks, and 18 pages and countless hours spent at this desk later, I have sent her off and will begin the waiting process. I hope that the feedback is good and that the changes are loved!

I won't be idle for too long though, Thursday I get back to my 2 screenplays; both of which are in the need of some major revising, and that should keep me busy!

Until then...nap time!!

Amazing Author: Laura Kasischke

2011-04-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author Interview courtesy of Amazing Author, Caroline Leavitt!

Laura Kasischke talks about The Raising

Booklist compares her to Donna Tartt--and very rightfully so. One of her brilliantly haunting novels, The Life Before Her Eyes, became an eerie film. Laura Kasischke teaches in the University of Michigan MFA program and the Residential College. The author of seven collections of poetry and seven novels, she's also one of the warmest, most wonderful people you'd ever want to meet. I got to share coffee with her at GLIBA book conference and immediately wished she lived next door to me. (Hey, Laura, why don't you?) Her latest, The Raising, is about ghosts, death, and the subversive nature of college. Thanks, Laura, for another spectacular novel, and for answering my questions!

I was unsettled and fascinated by this novel--particularly with the material in Mira's undead studies. What was researching this novel like? Did you also suffer any bad dreams or qualms while researching ghosts, zombies, and stories about death?

The information Mira shares in her course, “Death, Dying, and the Undead,” is all factual—in other words her lessons are either actual facts or the established folklore of a time and place. The story of Peter Plogojowitz, for instance, with which she begins her semester, is one of the earliest vampire stories. It spoke to me, when I first encountered it, of some of the concerns of my novel, and as I continued to write, the tale became a kind of phantom tale within the events of my novel. Plogojowitz was a peasant who died in a German village in 1725. He was buried, but within a few days he returned home and asked his wife for his shoes. After that, he appeared to many of the villagers, and several of them died soon afterward. The village became obsessed, and they exhumed the body, drove a stake through the heart, burned it to ashes, and the peasant walked no more.

In my novel, it is a sorority girl who ‘walks,’ and it was my thinking that a college campus is its own village, full of folklore and traditions and initiation rituals. Like a village, it has its haunted places, its ghost stories, its rituals related to the death of villagers. This is what I explored through my research as well as the development of the plot.

And, of course, there is the sexiness of the dead, so readily available to us in the culture of vampires. But not only vampires. During the writing of this novel I discovered that googling the words “beautiful dead girl” yields ten million hits—and so many of them tell the same passionate, tragic, and often semi-supernatural tale. It’s the tale of my novel: the way young death amazes, attracts, terrifies, poeticizes, and changes those around it with its strangeness.

What sparked this novel? And how do you write? Are you an outliner or a seat-of-your-pen/pants kind of writer?

In this novel I was most interested in exploring the differences in the ways those who are young and those who are older consider the subject of death. The romance of death for teens and twenty-somethings seems particularly potent and in the air at the moment—the popularity of vampire lit being testimony to this. Death attracts the young. Why? Further, there is attraction to the romance of the young who’ve died. Only a few miles from my house there is the kind of roadside shrine I write of in THE RAISING: In this case the shrine was erected at the site where three teen girls were killed years ago in a car accident. The stuffed animals and flowers are continually replenished, and the photographs of the girls on placards never change. The girls in those photos are frozen at the ages of their deaths, and something about this seems to me to be as much about their deaths as it is about their eternal lives. This was on my mind continually as I wrote THE RAISING.

I used to have many superstitions and rituals related to writing. I had to write at a certain time of day, in a certain place, with a certain kind of pen, in a certain kind of notebook, etc. Now, since having a child, I can’t even remember what those rituals were. After I had my son, I learned to write when I could, where I could, with whatever was handy. Now, my only consistency is that I try to write every day. I don’t write every day. But I try.

In all of your books, you jar reality. You make readers see things in new, and often unsettling (there's that word again) ways. And you mix genres. This particular book is both a chilling read (your promo calls it part Stephen King and part Donna Tartt) and also a smart, literary novel that delves deeply into character. Do you think that by making the readers' ground a little shaky, that you gently nudge readers into looking at life differently--even things they might have taken for granted before?

I don't actually set out to do that. To me, the ground just seems shaky. And if my writer evokes that, well, that's, in my opinion, just the shaky ground...

Can you talk about how teaching (you're a college professor) impacts your work?

This novel was particularly inspired by my teaching, and by my students. I'm not sure the writing itself is any different from the writing I'd be doing if I weren't teaching, but certainly in this case my students and my environment were all-important. The story told in THE RAISING began for me several years ago when I (erroneously) believed I’d seen a former student of mine on campus. I had to hold myself back from tapping this young man on the shoulder in the moment I remembered that he’d died of an undiagnosed heart condition years before.

Of course, this was another student—but so similar in appearance, in manner, in clothing and age (the age my student was when I knew him, which was several years younger than when he died) that I felt anyone would have made the same mistake.

The incident caused me to think about the particular age of this student and his double. Of that time of life, and the experience of a college campus. How interchangeable the students looked to me that day. They looked like one another, and they looked like the people I’d gone to school with myself, two decades earlier, long before I became a professor at the university I attended as a student, in what sometimes feels like another life.

The campus, then, seemed like the perfect setting for the events that occurred to me then. A college campus is full of ghosts and their stories. Suicidal ghosts and homicidal ghosts roam college campuses freely; Greek ghosts and residence hall ghosts, lover’s ghosts and theater-major ghosts may stick around to haunt the places where they died. The fact of death doesn’t skip over a college campus just because its inhabitants are mostly healthy and young, but one could also say that college campuses are haunted not only by the dead. Being, as they are, inhabited by young adults who stay only a short time, and who, for the most part, don’t return, there’s an endless parade of souls through the place, and not much but fading memories of them left behind after their diplomas have been taken away. No matter how vivid those years seem at the time, they’re brief and liminal. It’s a threshold time. A time between times:

A ghost is someone who is there, and not there. What better definition is there of those years between childhood and adulthood that so many spend in college? Return to your college campus decades later, and see yourself as a ghost on every corner. Every year someone new takes your room in the dorm, and wanders the hallway as you did, hurries down the stairwell, waits for the hot water to run in the shower stall, stands in line outside the cafeteria. Here, to be a ghost you don’t necessarily have to be dead.

You've also had films made form your books. Though I really loved the film of The LIfe Before Her Eyes, I didn't love it half as much as I loved the book, which seemed to me to go much deeper and to be much more unnerving. Did you ever want to write a script yourself?

I did try to write a screenplay once, but since what I like to do most in writing is to describe the details of a landscape and the sensory experiences of the characters--well, it was a pretty awkward screenplay.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Have you ever actually seen a ghost?

Well, I saw something/someone! An old hag in the doorway who ran toward me, and disappeared in thin air when I screamed. I was five at the time, and when I told my mother and grandmother, instead of saying what most adults would say to a five year old, that there's no such thing as ghosts and that I was dreaming, they both nodded and agreed that they had long suspected our house was haunted. I tried to explain to them that I was probably just dreaming, but they thought, no, I'd seen a ghost.

Adding an extension...

2011-04-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to flesh out my novel a wee bit more for this latest revision. The feedback has been great, the revisions have been well received and there is much love for the novel the way it is, and I am grateful to have had such incredible guidance to get it this far. But, I have learned that at 263 pages it is a bit on the uncomfortable side of the desired 250-300 page length. It could be a bit longer. It would be ideal if it was. Sigh.

I know it's true. I get it. It's not like I think that there is anything missing from the book, I don't, but people's expectations and they way that a book gets marketed demands a slightly longer novel. It reminds me of when movies used to be 90 minutes. Nobody thought anything of it. Then movies became 120 minutes, or even 140 minutes, and suddenly that 90 minute movie seemed a little short, and movie goers were wondering if they were getting their money's worth. It's kinda the same thing with books.

The tricky part is finding those areas where I can breath more life into the story, without making it seem like filler. Expanding those areas that may have been a passing mention in backstory and giving them their own spotlight. Maybe I shouldn't just write..."we had a big fight", maybe I should write the fight. The fact that I need to do this now, when I have been doing the exact opposite in screenwriting, is challenging too.

And so all last week, I have been rereading and looking for those places where I could seamlessly add. It's kind of like building a house and then realizing you need one more room, but you don't want anyone to notice the extension. It is challenging. But it is possible. And most of all, it's necessary.

Back to the drawing board!!

Bed rest...

2011-04-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've been on bed rest for the last two days, all is well, but it was the doctors orders. I must admit, as someone who always loves to be busy, I was really concerned about how I would adjust to not being able to get up and go whenever I wanted. Even if it was only for two days. But the truth is, with pals like these, it has been pretty easy. My husband has been amazing! He has cooked for me and set me up in sunbeams with blankets and snacks and my laptop. He has bought me frozen yogurt and kept me company watching dvd's, he has run my baths and made sure that I am doing as little as possible. And he has done all of it without any fuss. THAT is love. And my constant companions Mabel and Lily have stuck to my side like glue. More love. I have been showered in love and well, that is probably the best medicine of all.

All this good rest will put me in fine form for my latest novel revision. I just got my notes back yesterday, and things are looking good! A few more tweaks, and maybe a new scene or two and I hope that it will be good to go. One thing is for sure, I will be busy once again, writing away like a maniac. I have 2-3 weeks to get these changes done and I can not wait to get started. But before I start rushing around. I have a little more resting to do. Lucky for me, I get to hang with these guys.

In between time...

2011-04-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

I am still doing the waiting game, and have decided to fill that time with binge fiction reading, (loved THE HELP), and series and film watching. Now I know it sounds like I am just lazing about, but honestly I am doing research. I am watching romantic comedy's for my one script and psychological thrillers for my other script and finally starting to see what my much admired screenwriter friends see...structure. The seams of the stories are more noticeable than they were before. The devices, introductions of new character and plot points are showing more than they were before. I am watching more as a writer than I am an audience member and it is a revelation. Of course I still have so much to learn and still need tons of structure work and guidance but it doesn't seem as impossible to master as it once was.

I have a 2 day vacation coming up, and I plan on just watching movies, the first season of In Treatment and reading a Douglas Coupland book that has been stacked next to my bed for way too long. I am immersing myself. And hopefully when I emerge, I will have news on the things that I am waiting for.

Friday!

2011-04-08T17:25:00.001-07:00

It's Friday...already. This week has flown by and left very little time for blogging! I had 2 great freelance jobs, with super quick turnarounds, a couple of commercial auditions and callbacks. Usually this is my happy hour Friday celebration, but today I am already in my sweats and going to take a nap before dinner. I am pooped! I am not even cooking and baking like I usually do, so my meals have gotten a wee bit lazier.

This desk meal was easy and delicious. I made a big chopped salad with pepperocinos and fako-baco-bits and then put a little angel hair pasta salad with artichokes, lemon and lots of black pepper and parmesan on top. It was delicious, and I'd definitely do it again.

Looking forward to a weekend of reading and relaxing and script revisions. Have a great weekend!

Waity, wait, wait...

2011-04-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

As all who know me know, waiting is one of my least favorite things to do. I like being busy, I like getting things done, I like moving forward and progress. But all good things must come to wait. Once I have done my part; my writing, contributing, collaborating, I must send my pages out into the world to their respective bosses and...wait.

It's amazing how waiting can also make me wistful. I find myself pining for things that I could be doing in my 'down-time', and that usually leads to dreaming of house reno-ing, or traveling, and then invariably I am frustrated that I am not doing either of those fabulous, but not so affordable things and then I feel badly that I haven't earned more/done more/made more...which always brings be back to thinking of what else I could be doing to keep moving forward.

It can be a vicious cycle, and in my case an old story of what came first the work or the workaholic? The need or the drive? This spring I am already thinking ahead to the summer, when the waiting gets really bad, and have vowed to give myself a big fat project that I will work on with patience and diligence and care. Something that can not be rushed or judged for speed... a new novel.

In the meantime, I will organize and bake and plan, and try to fill in the waiting time, with dreaming of new ideas time as well.

Wish me luck!

Daffodils and this vase...

2011-03-31T17:29:00.000-07:00

I've been holed up in my office for days. I've got deadlines and conference calls and the normally lovely sun that I let shine in my windows, I have had to draw the blinds on as it was insanely hot today! Alas, my sweet husband bought me these daffodils from Trader Joe's to bring some sunshine, without the heat, into my office. I love them, and at $1.29 a bunch, and there are 2 bunches in this picture, I love them even more.

Of course, these flowers look even better in this gorgeous vase that was a birthday gift from my sister. I ADORE it. A great way to bring some cheer to a long work day. What about you? What do you do to bring a little levity and light into your work space?

Amazing Author: Meg Waite Clayton!

2011-03-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author Interview from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Meg Waite Clayton talks about The Four Ms. Bradwells

Bestselling author Meg Waite Clayton is not only the creator of a fascinating and riveting new novel, she's also one of the most generous writers on the planet. I was thrilled to read her new novel and even more honored that she's here on my blog to answer my pesty questions.

Both the Wednesday Sisters and The Four Ms. Bradwells deal with the bonds women form with one another, but this new novel also has this riveting line of tension throughout because of the secrets they've kept from one another. Did you have everything mapped out before you started writing or did it come as a surprise to discover you were writing a mystery? Tell us about your writing process.

The dreaded writing process… People often think of writing in terms of “inspiration,” but for me it’s more like going on a mad hunt in the hopes of uncovering something that I can beat on until it makes some small yelp that might turn into words on the page. I read and research endlessly in the never-ending quest for material to shape into story.

My invariable answer to the question of how an aspiring writer should start is Any way you can. That’s the way I start myself. I tend to start writing in my journal on the pretense that it’s nothing, then move to a computer when I have some kind of start.

I don’t often step back and outline or figure out where the story is going until I have something that feels like a decent beginning, because that step toward shaping the novel and finding the ending is often when the whole mess starts to feel like it’s splattering me. If that happens before I’m committed to the story, it ends up in the recycle bin.

I do outline, though, and make character scrap books, too. I use note cards. Lots of note cards. And I do try to find the ending before I get too far along. I can spend a long lot of wasted time writing to a dead end if I don’t map things out.

There is the quote, "what would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?" Do you think women more and more are doing this? Do you think societal pressures keep that from happening more?

There was a lovely piece in the New York Times this morning – in the business section – titled “Keeping Women Safe through Social Networking,” about two online sites where women can report and share stories about harassment they’ve experienced. It’s such a small thing in a way, but I remember as a twelve-year-old – twelve! – having men make comments about my breasts as if my body were public property that everyone had a right to scrutinize. To this day, I’m self-conscious about my body.

As I read the piece, I thought, yes, that will get our stories out there, we’ll feel less alone, but then what?Then I thought of Anita Hill stepping up to challenge Clarence Thomas about sexual harassment. It wasn’t a word we even knew, really. It was just what we put up with to survive as women in a man’s world. We talked among ourselves, gave advice about who to avoid being alone with in elevators and the like, but we didn’t make fusses for fear of what it would do to our careers. When Anita Hill went public I at least was horrified she was destroying hers. Instead, though, her speaking out started a dialogue that resulted in laws to prohibit behavior we all knew was wrong but thought we had to endure.

The end of the quote – from “Käthe Kollwitz,” by Muriel Rukeyser – is “the world would split open.” I think that is what’s happening if you look back over the stretch of the history of the last 150 years or so. But it sure is taking its time. And I do think that slowness is largely due to societal pressures on women.

I love it that you wrote about such four accomplished women and that wonderful line, "Change starts with us," which I wish could be an anthem for every young woman on the planet. All of them grapple with the past and make an important decision about it. So, do you think that the meaning of the past changes when it is brought into the present? Or perhaps it's simply we who change in the way we look at it?

Was it Winston Churchill who said history is written by the victors?

I think the answer to your question, Caroline, is a little of both. We certainly look at, say, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech at the first convention on women’s rights these days as the beginning of the fight for a women’s right to vote, which we no longer question but rather applaud. But at the time it was called “the most shocking and unnatural event ever recorded in the history of womanity.”

One of the things I think is changing the way we see things – the change in the role of women – is that more women are writing the history. Does that mean we’re winning the battle? Maybe.

Publishing careers are often a surprise to us writers. Your first novel was a finalist for the Bellwether prize, but it wasn't until your second novel, The Wednesday Sisters, that you really broke out and fame found you. What was that like and how did your writing life change because of it?

“Fame found me” – I like the sound of that! If so, it’s a very modest fame. Let’s just say I’m rarely stopped in the grocery store for my autograph. I was wondering the other day if there was a level of fame at which one could no longer go to the grocery store oneself. And wishing for it!

Honestly, though, the success of The Wednesday Sisters has been glorious. When I started writing the novel, I was despairing of ever getting a second novel published because The Language of Light was selling so “modestly.” I decided if nobody else was going to read what I wrote, anyway, I may as well write exactly what I wanted to read. Having the result be so enthusiastically embraced by readers has allowed me the psychological freedom to write without worrying quite so much about who will read my writing and whether they will like it.

Well … except for my friends at Ballantine. That is another very nice thing that has happened: I now have Ballantine on board to publish before I start writing a novel. That kind of support from a publisher is an amazing boon.

But the biggest change has been all the direct contact I have with readers, and how delightful that has been. It requires time: answering emails, social networking, and visiting book groups in person, by phone, or on skype or googlechat. I also get asked to do charity fundraisers quite a bit, often for causes to benefit girls and women and/or literacy; I accept whenever I can as my small way of chipping in to making this world a better place. It’s an amazing treat to get to connect in person with readers. That has been the biggest surprise for me, how much readers reach out to me, and how delightful interacting with them is.

What's up next for you?

I’m working on a sequel of sorts to The Wednesday Sisters. No doubt there is a line in some earlier interview in which I state unequivocally “never,” but I got so many request from Wednesday Sisters readers for one that I started noodling the idea. I found I was quite interested in following some of their daughters, specifically Kath’s oldest Anna-Page, Ally’s Hope, and one of Linda’s twins. The novel focuses on the daughters, but their stories can’t be told without reference to their mothers.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

You should ask me what my main writing fuel is. That would be chocolate. I’m partial to Sharfenberger extra dark.

Or what I’m wearing on book tour? Pearls! (In honor of the gorgeous Four Ms. Bradwells cover.) Also a stunning silk scarf by designer Camilla Olson, who also designed a suit Ginger wears in chapter one of The Four Ms. Bradwells.

Whether I lived in the same room at the University of Michigan law school as the Ms. Bradwells did? I lived in N-32 – the smaller one that Betts and Mia live in. My law school boyfriend lived in one of the suites like the one Ginger and Laney share.

Or who designed my amazing website. The answer is Ilsa Brink, and you can see what an artist she is at www.megwaiteclayton.com.

Manic Monday...

2011-03-28T18:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy start to the week. I am working on a new freelance project that is all tech savvy and challenging for my mildly tech savvy self, and I've been making major changes on my script outline, while putting the finishing touches on my rom-com script.

Thankfully the sun is shining again in L.A. and my energy is buoyed a bit by the blue skies. I mean I love the rain for writing, but that felt like a lot of rain.

Lately I have been starting to think about the new novel. I know, I know, my debut novel's latest revisions are still being reviewed, but I also know that for me, when a project ends it is good to have another one lined up. It is hard right now to even imagine going back to those beginning pages of a novel, where I have no real idea what it is that I am writing, just that there is a phrase or image that keeps whispering to me to follow it. Especially after all this structured screenwriting, to venture into the wild unknowns of the novel is more than a little terrifying...and thrilling. I think I will just keep my ears open to the whispering and see where it takes me.

Writeboard...

2011-03-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is something that I am loving right now. It's a handy writer's tool called Writeboard. Writeboard is part of a larger program that I often use when working as a freelance copywriter with clients, called Basecamp. These are software programs that create a place for you and your collaborators to work together in cyberspace. You can dialogue back and forth, upload documents, make to-do lists and set time lines and goals that have built in reminders, to one another. You can mark up each others documents, you can log on and work anytime of the day, and you can keep it organized all in one neat space. I love it, because it is so organized, and it keeps things professional. There is no need to write an email every time I have a question, and if an idea comes to me later, I can simply add on to it, without resending the entire document. I also love that I don't have to pester anyone about looking at my work. Basecamp will send an email to all involved letting them know that changes have been made and to go and see them.

If you are someone who works online a lot or who collaborates, I can't recommend this program enough. And no, I didn't get paid to advertise it, it just makes my life so much easier, and anything that makes writing easier, I have to share!

Amazing Author: Jodi Picoult

2011-03-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Another Amazing Author Interview from Amazing Author: Caroline Leavitt!!

Jodi Picoult talks about Gay Rights, Infertility, and her new novel, Sing You Home

I can't tell you how thrilled and honored I am to be interviewing Jodi Picoult here. A number one New York Times bestselling author of 18 novels, the prolific Picoult tackles hot button issues by giving them a distinctly human face. In the sublime--and important-- Sing You Home, she writes about infertility and gay rights--which couldn't be more timely. A multimedia experience, the book also comes with a CD of songs that Jodi cowrote. I also want to say that Jodi is one of the most truly generous writers on the planet, with a heart the size of Jupiter, and she's also hilariously funny to boot! (Plus, she has amazing hair.)

Thank you, thank you, Jodi for taking time out of your crazily busy schedule to answer my questions.

You're an author who truly seems to inhabit your characters, and you create arresting, sympathetic portraits of people we might not initially be so sympathetic to. How difficult was it to create someone like Max, a fairly intolerant member of the Christian Right? Can you talk a bit about the process?

It was really hard to create Max. He had to be a sympathetic character but his views are (to me personally) abhorrent. I had to make him almost befuddled, so that he truly believes in what he's saying without realizing how hateful it is to some of the people who hear it.

That also meant doing research with an evangelical Christian group opposed to gay rights. I interviewed representatives from Focus on the Family,a group that supports the Defense of Marriage Act, opposes gay adoption, and (under the umbrella of Exodus International, which has since taken over) offers seminars to “cure” gay people of same-sex attraction. Like Pastor Clive in my novel, their objection to homosexuality is biblical. Snippets from Leviticus and other Bible verses form the foundation of their anti-gay platform; although similar literal readings should require these people to abstain from playing football (touching pigskin) or eating shrimp scampi (no shellfish). When I asked Focus on the Family if the Bible needs to be taken in a more historical context, I was told absolutely not – the word of God is the word of God. But when I then asked where in the Bible was a list of appropriate sex practices, I was told it’s not a sex manual – just a guideline. That circular logic was most heartbreaking when I brought up the topic of hate crimes. Focus on the Family insists that they love the sinner, just not the sin – and only try to help homosexuals who are unhappy being gay. I worried aloud that this message might be misinterpreted by those who commit acts of violence against gays in the name of religion, and the woman I was interviewing burst into tears. “Thank goodness,” she said, “that’s never happened.” I am sure this would be news to the parents of Matthew Shepherd, Brandon Teena, Ryan Keith Skipper, or August Provost – just a few of those murdered due to their sexual orientation - or the FBI, which reports that 17.6 percent of all hate crimes are motivated by sexual orientation, a number that is steadily rising.

One of the great joys about Max is that he, as a character, espouses a journey I hope that some people also take when they read my book. He begins with an opposition to gay rights because of what he's been told to believe by others. But when he tries to hold these beliefs up against the reality of the gay people he knows - and has loved - he sees that disconnection, and ultimately makes a decision not based on religious dogma but on personal ethics.

You seem to have your finger on the pulse of America in the topics you choose. Infertility and gay rights could not be more timely. Was there a moment when you knew this was the next novel? Or was there an image that jumpstarted the story for you?

It was the gay rights angle. I really think that’s the last civil right we have last to grant in the US and I wanted to explore the issue, and to see why those still opposed to gay rights are opposed. I'm a little stunned, given the previous controversies I've written about, that this one is the most offensive to some readers - who without even seeing the book, have said they refuse to read it because "of what it's about." Really?? Someone else's sexual orientation is more upsetting than, for example, the sexual abuse of children by priests?? But I like stirring the pot and getting people talking. However, this subject became a much more personal quest for me when my oldest son came out to me during the writing of the book. Suddenly, I wasn’t just writing something theoretical; I was hopeful the book could open minds enough so when Kyle wants to marry and have a family, it’s not a struggle.

I find it amazing and wonderful that you are always pushing the envelope, and Sing You Home is your first multimedia tour. Can you talk about how the idea of writing songs to go along with the novel came about? What was it like writing songs? And if every life has a soundtrack, what's yours? And wait--one more question--what other creative avenue might you be exploring next?

People who oppose gay rights often don’t know someone gay very well. If you do – if you have a relative or teacher or butcher who’s gay, you know they’re just ordinary people. I wanted readers to get to “know” someone gay – and Zoe’s the one I picked. I wanted readers to really listen to her. I could have given her a first person narrative (and did) but I wanted to go one step further. I wanted you to literally hear her voice, hear her pour her heart out to you in her songs…and THEN see if they can still dismiss her dreams of marriage and a family. My friend Ellen and I have collaborated before on original children's musicals that are performed by a local theater troupe to raise money for charity every year. We've done over 100 songs together, with me writing lyrics and Ellen writing music. So I asked her if she might be interested in a different kind of project, and she was very excited to be part of it.

My playlist? Great question…I’d say “Deathly” by Aimee Mann, “Jesus Etc.” by Wilco, “Rhythm of Love” by the Plain White Tees, “Beautiful Life” by Charlotte Martin, “Wreck of the Day” by Anna Nalick, “Never Saw Blue Like That” by Shawn Colvin, “Skin” by Rascal Flatts, “Taylor the Latte Boy” by Kristin Chenoweth, “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson, the Ragtime soundtrack, my son Jake singing “On the Street Where You Live,” and every single song on the Sing You Home soundtrack!

Next creative avenue? I don't know yet! It would have to be organic, the way The Tenth Circle took you into a graphic novelist's head and this book takes you into the heart of a musician. These aren't bells and whistles - they're different ways to take in a story, and they enrich the knowledge of the characters on the page.

Has being famous changed the way you write? Obviously, money is not a concern, but I'm really interested in the creative process.

Yeah - I have less time!! I have a really hard time saying no. I'm getting better, but still...I get about 25 requests a week to speaking engagements. I receive over 200 fan emails a day and I read and answer each one - I don't have an assistant or anything. But then I also get people asking me to send a letter to their grandma for her birthday, or to come to show and tell at their daughter's classroom -- sometimes it feels that fame is just another way of saying that everyone wants a piece of you. Don't get me wrong - it's a nice problem to have - but it still infringes on the time I have to write. For example, I'm doing so much advance media for Sing You Home that the "writing hours" are being eaten up...and that means staying up till about 2:30 in the morning writing each night so that I can finish a draft of the 2012 book before I leave on book tour.

I love your "What the heck do you mean by the end of..." questions on your blog. As someone who loves books that have a sort of never-ending story quality to them, I love it that your books don't tie things up or have easy answers, that readers are pushed to question what they think they know. Has any ending of any of your books stunned you by its unexpectedness? Did you ever start out having a definite viewpoint on one side of a topic only to find yourself on the other side when you had finished the book?

I've never changed my point of view about a controversial issue, but I have changed my reasons for believing what I believe. That happened when I began to research the death penalty for Change of Heart. And although I've never changed an ending, I am CONSTANTLY surprised by the way I get there. In Sing You Home, I had no idea that Max had a crush on his brother's wife until I started writing him. The whole time I was typing, I was thinking, "No no no, Max. Bad idea!" But of course I couldn't wait to see what trouble he got into.

What question didn't I ask you that I should have?

Do you expect backlash from people because you are writing about homosexuality?

And my answer: Let me tell you a little story that happened last week! I am doing a literary salon event in NYC that will be broadcast live. A website called Premiere Collectibles was going to sell autographed books to anyone who watched and wanted one. They offered to donate $2 of each sale to a charity of my choice. Great, right? I told them I wanted to donate to the Trevor Project, which provides support to gay teens. Well, all of a sudden they called my publisher and said they’d be happy to cut me a check to make a personal donation to the Trevor Project…but that they are an evangelical Christian company and worried about offending clients…so they couldn’t put that info on the website. Immediately, my publisher told them they could not sell my books, and that I wasn’t gonna be happy. I started tweeting about this, and my fans wrote emails to their customer service people about how it’s not a particularly Christian attitude to ignore suicidal gay teens – and all of a sudden, they called back the publisher. They had had a change of heart due to all those emails, and decided we were right, and they are now proudly supporting the Trevor Project on their website as a partner for donation. I think that Sing You Home will unfortunately alienate some readers whose minds are too narrow to let in light (to quote the lyric from one of the songs on the book’s CD). However, if even one mind is changed – if even one person who was anti-gay rights suddenly decides maybe there’s a point to equality for all – well, then I know I’ve succeeded.

Birthday week!!

2011-03-21T09:30:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged in a week! Why? Well, my folks came to visit and celebrate my birthday, and our building was in the middle of renovations for a week in anticipation of the city inspector and I had no office...and well, I was playing some serious hooky!

But today is Monday, and I am back at it. Revising, re-outlining, returning correspondence and getting back to my normal schedule!!

Scones and scripts and more scones...

2011-03-11T18:05:00.000-08:00

I baked so many scones the other day, that I thought for sure I'd have to freeze them. Alas, no such luck. When I am this busy at my desk, I get pretty single minded about my food and will eat the same thing for lunch as I did for breakfast. In other words...scones...with yogurt and fruit.

I am up to my eyeballs in script revisions, and am trying to get as much done as I can before my folks come for a visit next week, and before I got back to outlining my other script. For the first time ever I think, I am doing all the easy revisions first and saving the harder major rewrites for later. Normally I would go in sequence, but I decided that I just don't have the time to get hung up on trying to fix something. I need to keep moving. So, if I didn't have a fix for something, I made a note and of it and moved on. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner.

Alas, I am still at my desk, but calling it quits soon for dinner. Although I am going to make myself cook something. I mean I can't have scones for dinner too...or can I?

Revisions are in!

2011-03-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

It's late...almost 10:30, and with the exception of a dinner break, I have spent the entire day at my computer. My latest round of revisions are due tomorrow and I needed to get them in before the morning, as I have a crazy Tuesday ahead of me. Tomorrow I get to rewrite and revise and basically redo, my script outline. That means that this whole crazy process starts all over again! But at least tonight, I can celebrate with a piece of cake and some sugary sweet dreams. And I can feel good about all the changes that my novel has gone through. It is so much sharper, so much clearer, and so much better for all the hard work that I have put into it. Two and half years ago, I didn't know where the story was going when I started, but I can honestly say that I love where it ended up. I am excited to see what happens next!

Food Truck Fest!!

2011-03-03T15:34:00.000-08:00

Revising means I spend a lot of time at my desk and little time moving. This also means that I am often snacking and when not snacking, looking at cookbooks and dreaming up new recipes. Needless to say, revising may not be good for my waist line, but it is an exciting time for my taste buds!

Well, then this email from Daily Candy, couldn't have arrived in my mailbox at a better time! 40 Food trucks will gather this Sunday, in downtown L.A. 40!! Just think of the options! Better yet, sample them. Check out www.truckitfest.com

Amazing Author: Ellen Meeropol!

2011-03-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

Another Amazing Author interview by Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!!

Ellen Meeropol talks about House Arrest

Ellen Meeropol's House Arrest is well...arresting. Heidi Durrow calls it "a compelling debut" while Julia Class raves that it is “smart, provocative, and moving." I want to thank Ellen for answering all my pesky questions here.

What particularly impressed me about House Arrest were all the moral choices going on. Both Emily and Pippa have to make a choice about whether or not to break the law, for their own reasons. How do you go about crafting a character?

The spark for this book was a short article in the Boston Globe about a nurse who was assigned to monitor the pregnancy of a cult member. Her patient was under house arrest pending investigation of the death of a child living in the cult. It captured my interest so I clipped the article and put it in my “ideas” folder. A few years later, I still occasionally found myself wondering what it would be like for a nurse to build a therapeutic relationship with a cult member, with some whose health beliefs were so different from her own, and decided to explore the story. In my imagination, the nurse and an Isis cult member became friends and the novel’s ethical dilemma developed from that friendship. I had no idea where the narrative would go, but I knew the conflict had something to do with the care-giving relationship and with prejudice against the cult.

When I’m crafting characters, I often imagine them Thumbelina-sized, sitting on my shoulder and whispering their secrets into my ears. Perched on one shoulder, reserved home-care nurse Emily told me about her childhood in Maine, how she lost her parents because of their political activism, and how she believes that living by the rules will keep her safe. On the other shoulder, Pippa revealed what she discovered about her father, and why she had to leave Georgia, and how the Family of Isis welcomed her.

A sense of place and the natural world are important to the way my characters grow. House Arrest is set in the Forest Park neighborhood of Springfield, Massachusetts, where I lived for many years, and on an island off the coast of Maine, where most of my fiction takes place. I work surrounded by hand-drawn maps and elaborate family trees, grounding my characters in our shared imaginary world.

You come from a background of nursing which infuses this novel. How different is Emily from you?

I worked for many years as a pediatric nurse and nurse practitioner, particularly with children with spina bifida, the condition that Emily’s beloved cousin Zoe has. I never did home care, so I had to learn from colleagues in that field. I have worked with patients from different cultural backgrounds, people who have wonderfully varied ways of looking at health and illness, and I’ve always been fascinated by those differences.

Emily is not based on me (for one thing she’s half my age) but aspects of her character are drawn from young people I have known whose activist parents made choices that had terrible consequences for themselves and their families. Emily is haunted by her parents’ actions and frozen in her own life. Nursing is a way for her to connect with people and she’s good at it.

I read that you didn't begin writing fiction until your fifties. Why not? And what jump-started your desire? What was that like?

Some days I wish like anything that I had started writing much earlier. That way, maybe I wouldn’t be publishing my first novel and applying for Medicare at the same time! I’ve always read a lot, and I often thought about writing fiction. For many years I scribbled ideas on napkins and corners of the newspaper and collected them in that “ideas” folder. But it wasn’t until 2000, when I was planning a two-month “sabbatical” so that my husband could write his book, that I realized that it was a perfect time for me to jump in too.

We rented a cottage on that island off the coast of Maine that I mentioned before; there I met my muse and she literally changed my life. I wrote all the time. Three years later, I entered an MFA program and then I took early retirement from my nurse practitioner job. Re-inventing myself in my fifties was both humbling and exhilarating. Regardless of my age and my past life as a competent profession, I was a beginner again, free to experiment and make lots of mistakes. It continues to be a terrifying and liberating experience.

The novel talks a lot about forgiveness, and how whether we actually should forgive. Do you think there ever is anything that is unforgivable? Should compassion rule us more than our laws?

I don’t really have an answer for that question, Caroline. Whether or not to forgive something that feels unforgivable is such a personal decision. If I wanted to tell people how to live, I’d write essays or self-help books. As a person and a writer, I’m fascinated by situations in which well-meaning people make questionable decisions that have awful consequences and novels let me explore those stories, with made-up characters. For my characters, sometimes forgiveness is the only way to heal.

Can you talk about your writing process?

I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer. I start with a character, or a scene, or sometimes an image, and follow it to see where it takes me. I write at the computer, in a very messy office strewn with books and papers and magazines and folders and notes and maps and photographs. I’ve never made an outline, although I’ve often wished for one. I once heard E.L. Doctorow say that for him writing a novel is like driving on a dark road at night, with only your parking lights for illumination. You can only see ahead a short distance, but that’s all you need to keep going. I’m working on my third novel manuscript now and am just beginning to trust the process.

Another part of my process is having multiple narrators. I love reading books that offer the story from several points of view, and that seems to be the way writing narratives develop for me as well. The stories that fascinate me often involve complex perspectives. I enjoy developing my novels by alternating between four or five characters, taking turns sitting on my shoulders and opening their hearts to me.

What's obsessing you now in your work and why?

No matter what I’m writing, my obsessions tend to poke their nose into my characters’ business. In general I am obsessed by the way family legacies shape our lives, and by the interplay between our actions, especially relating to political activism, and the consequences of those choices.

Right now I’m working on a manuscript about a university professor who is kidnapped and taken to a civilian detention center on an island off the coast of Maine for interrogation. This is new territory for me and this book is frightening to write. One of the multiple narrators is a guy who believes that torture is warranted to protect national security. It’s enormously challenging to try to inhabit this character in order to write his scenes.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

You didn’t ask me what the biggest surprise has been so far in the debut of my first novel. My answer would be the generosity and bigheartedness of other authors (like you!) and by readers. Publishing literary fiction is such a difficult business; there are so many books and so little space for “success.” But I’ve been amazed by the welcome from established authors, by the support, the blurbs, the suggestions, the camaraderie, and the generous response by readers. Thank you!

Soup...

2011-02-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

Rainy Friday full of revisions...and soup. I always try and make a big soup at the beginning of the week, something with farmers market veggies, lots of cilantro, tomatoes, maybe a little hot sauce, all pureed and ready to go with a little parmesan and fresh pepper! Yum! It's fast, it's easy, and as I usually wait too long to realize that I am hungry and want to eat right away, it's necessary.

I must admit that after lunch I snuck off for a matinee. Finally got a chance to see THE FIGHTER and LOVED Christian Bale. I think he will definitely get the Oscar for it. And if you get a chance, listen to David O. Russell talk about the film on KCRW's podcast THE TREATMENT. Great interview!

Happy Oscar weekend everyone!

Deadline Mania

2011-02-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

Apologies for a whole week to go by in between blog posts! I am swamped with deadlines. My novel revisions are due in two weeks, my script revisions are due, like yesterday, but I am going to get them in by the middle of March, and I break script on a new project this weekend. Add to that auditions, and callbacks, and I am knackered! My emails are piling up, my facebook is even woefully neglected, and I opened mail for the first time in weeks today! I got behind, or rather I got stuck in revisionland. I made a weeks worth of changes on my novel, and then decided that I didn't like them and had to start over. But a couple of days ago, I finally managed to crack a problem in my novel that has been troubling me, and now there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Today I am chaining myself to my desk, turning off the phone and finishing the rest of the macro revisions that I need to make. After a day off yesterday from writing, I am actually feeling excited about the mountain of work that is waiting for me. Let the revisions continue!!

Rosy Outlook

2011-02-17T18:59:00.000-08:00

I am loving these gorgeous two tone roses from Trader Joes! I got them on Monday, and they are still going strong. And I love the price, $9.99 for a dozen. Not bad at all!

I also have another bunch of pale peach ones on my desk, and I must say they are an amazing distraction/break from my grueling revisions. I am struggling with this character detail that I never really meant to cause so much grief or draw so much attention, but it has, and it does, and I can't seem to lose it or fix it or make it work! I find myself wanting to scream, and then I make myself stop, take a deep breath, and yup...smell the roses.

Amazing Author: Jonathon Evison

2011-02-16T13:41:00.000-08:00

Another Amazing Author interview, brought to you by the Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt!

Jonathan Evison talks about West of Here

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be asking Jonathan Evison questions on my blog. First, you have to know that he's a knockout, genius writer who has written THE book of 2011. (Don't take my word for it, look at the starred advance reviews from PW, Booklist and Library Journal. Look at how Vanity Fair raves and he's the number one indie pick.) But even more importantly, you have to know what an incredibly funny, kind and truly generous guy he is. I personally would like to bottle him and sell him if I could. (How about, it Johnny, we could make a killing.) So thanks, Johnny, for both the incredible book and for the personality that goes along with it.

I read somewhere that you wrote this before All About Lulu? I loved Lulu but this book is so much larger in scope I’m trying to figure out how one evolved from the other. Why didn’t you publish this one first?

Nah, I was researching West of Here while I was writing Lulu. Lulu being a first-person voice novel, practically wrote itself. I knew with West of Here I really wanted to push myself as a craftsman. I wanted to use every tool in my belt and a few I didn't have. It's rather shocking to me--after the fact-- that the novel has enjoyed such a broad appeal. With 41 limited points-of-view, and a hundred odd years to cover, i was afraid I might lose a lot of readers.

You also told me that part of why you have such thick skin is that you wrote six novels before All About Lulu that no one wanted. I find this incredible, both that no one wanted them, and also that you were able to persevere and keep writing and remain incredibly cheerful. Was this out of need or belief in yourself or both?

If you'd read most of them, you see it wasn't so incredible that nobody wanted to publish them. The first three were all out stinkers. As far as what keeps me going, it's the process of writing itself. I need it to distill all the stuff life throws at me. Not that it's always a barrel of monkeys--writing West of Here probably took a couple of years off my life. And writing the book I just finished, literally broke my heart. But I always feel like I come out the other side a better person.

Where did the whole idea for West of Here come from and how did you manage to seemingly effortlessly juggle all the story and time lines?

Well, I wanted to bring the history of the Olympic Peninsula--the history of America, really--to life on the page. But I didn't want to write a historical novel, per se, rather a novel about history, about footprints, who makes them and who follows them, etc. And rather than employ a wide-angle lens to historicize the material, I wanted my lens to be a kaleidoscope of overlapping limited points-of-view, so that the living history which I sought to create, was democratic. In my experience, most "histories" only tell one side of the story. As far as juggling all those POV's, it wasn't effortless--it was a big fat pain in the ass, but in the end, exhilarating.

Gertie, one of my favorite characters in the book, says that a “person is made up of choices”, an idea which keeps playing out through the book. But how much real choice do you think we have in our own choices, especially when we are hurtling through the forces of history?

Well, for starters, you have the choice to complain or make lemonade, as it were. I think this fundamental choice in outlook has a far-reaching effect on any life, and also on all the lives that touch that life. Determination and optimism are choices, and from what I've observed, they can pay big dividends. Or not. Either way you feel better, and the people around you feel better.

The line “we are haunted by ourselves” links the past to the present (at least it does for me), Do you think it’s ever possible to escape our past, all that has come before us, or do you think it is coded into our DNA?

Absolutely it's possible to escape our past. It may be hard as fuck, but it's possible, and we all know folks who have done it. I don't think you can outrun your past, I don't think can hide from it, but I know for a fact you can turn around, look it in the face, accept it, and move on. That's what Port Bonita is trying to do, and that's what America ought to do. The world, really.

I deeply admired how the tone and the writing changed in the historic parts and present day. How difficult a hire wire act was this? Did you ever feel discombobulated?

To write these two epochs in American history in the same voice would have been a disservice to the narrative, I think. We don't speak the same language we did in the nineteenth century, figuratively or literally. Manifest destiny, for instance, is no longer a commonly accepted ethos. We know longer think anything is possible, not without without paying a few fiddlers, anyway. Cynicism is far more common these days. And the government's not giving away land to anyone with a shovel, anymore.

OK, tell me what’s coming up next for you besides richly deserved fame and glory and maybe some more rabbits?

Well, I'm done with my next novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which will pub sometime in '12 or '13. Again, it's a departure from West of Here, which is a novel of big themes and ideas. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving is a novel of the heart. I think it is at once the saddest and funniest thing I've written. At present, I'm deep into a new novel, The Dreamlife of Huntington Sales, which is possibly a more ambitious narrative enterprise than West of Here. IF IF IF it works-- but the real joy, is finding out.

Happy Valentines Day!!

2011-02-14T16:42:00.000-08:00

I celebrated Valentine's day with a super long walk with my sweetie, and a trip to the park with my girls. After a wonderful week of hanging with my sister who was visiting, I am taking it slow today. It was wonderful to have my sister here and the timing of her visit was perfect! Just at the end of her trip I got notes back on my latest revision of my novel, which were well received, and it looks like there are a few more things to polish and then I am going to go through the whole thing with fresh eyes and see how all these changes have come together. Seamlessly, I hope.

I feel like writing is a labor of love. A long and often solitary labor of love. And even when I am lucky enough to collaborate on a writing project, like I am now, there is a lot of love and patience involved for the work, for my fellow writer, for the entire process and the privilege that I feel getting to do what it is that I love to do.

I have a few weeks before our next guest arrives and I am going to spend it up to my eyeballs in novel revisions, script revisions, and finishing an outline on a new script that is based on adapted work. I LOVE that I can not wait to dive into all this writing. It will be like Valentine's day every day...except without all the chocolate. But I can have always have flowers!

Happy Valentine's day to all of you, and here's hoping that you love what you do too!

Amazing Author: Alice Hoffman

2011-02-08T17:23:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday! And that means another Amazing Author interview brought to us by Amazing Author, Caroline Leavitt!

Alice Hoffman talks about The Red Garden

Alice Hoffman really needs no introduction, but I want to give her one anyway. A bestselling author for adults and young adults, a screenwriter, and humanitarian (she does great, great work for breast cancer), she's also beloved by her legions of readers AND she knows and loves NYC's City Bakery, renowned for the best hot chocolate on the planet. I took the arc of The Red Garden with me everywhere, from the NYC subways to a book convention in Michigan. I'm thrilled Alice agreed to answer my questions. Thank you so much, Alice!

What I really loved, beside the shimmering language, was how strong and powerful the women were, something that kept being passed down through the generations. Could you comment on that?

The Red Garden is very much about survival – in the natural world, in the world of loss and love. The women in the book all have the will to survive, even in the most extraordinary circumstances, and I think there is a sense of knowledge and experience being passed down throughout the history of the town.

The Red Garden had so much of a magical fairy tale quality to it, but by that, I mean The Brothers Grimm—the real, dark fairy tales that haunt you, rather than the happier Disneyfied versions. Would you agree? And where did that love of fairy tales come from?

I grew up reading fairy tales, and always felt they were the stories that didn’t talk down to me as a child-reader. The darkness inherent in Grimm’s’ Tales, and the Russian fairy tales my grandmother told me, seemed “true”. I think children understand that fairy tales are often journeys that chart growth – growing up, finding oneself or one’s true love. Real fairy tales are often brutal, and beautiful as well.

The Red Garden, explores the threads that link people and places and memories together from the 1700s to the present. You’ve explored before, in Blackbird House, how a place can become a character and a catalyst, and how the natural world can influence or impact our choices. Do you feel that we can ever escape our pasts or our places—and should we?

In Blackbird House the focus was a house, and the ways in which an old house can contain many stories, many lives. In The Red Garden I think the complications are more complex --- it’s the story of a town, but also of the complicated relationships and personal histories of the residents. I made a “family tree” after the book was completed and was surprised to find how inter-related everyone was, and how many secrets were never discovered.

I loved reading about Johnny Appleseed in The Red Garden, and truly, the novel is filled with history. I was wondering how much research you did or if you let your imagination take over?

I did quite a lot of research, and I was surprised at how my vision of Johnny Appleseed was formed by Disney. He was a truly remarkable character – a precursor to the hippie movement, a true believer. For each story, I researched the time period and my characters grew out of the time periods in which they lived.

I’ve been reading your work since Property Of. It seems to me that your earlier works feel and read differently than your later ones, which isn’t to say they allaren’t terrific. I’m wondering how much of this is organic or conscious or a little of both? Do you feel that as you yourself change, so does your writing?

I think most writers have themes or obsessions, but I agree that a writer’s work changes with life and work experience. What you write at a very young age reflects who you are as a writer in a particular moment in time. It makes sense that as you experience the world your vision evolves. Hopefully, we get smarter and are more compassionate as time goes by.

People talk about how difficult it is to translate good books into good films. Obviously the forms are different. It’s funny, but Independence Day (a wonderful film that you wrote), feels like an Alice Hoffman movie, but Practical Magic, though enjoyable, did not. Maybe it’s that word “based on a novel by”, which changes the story for filmic purposes. Or maybe it’s simply because you didn’t write the script. So, I’m curious. Had you ever envisioned Independence Day to be a novel or was it always a script, and do you think that’s why it felt like such an intrinsically Alice Hoffmanesque film? Is there a way to solve this problem of better translating a book onto the screen?

I wrote the screenplay of Independence Day so it was “mine” in a deeper way – I wasn’t the screenwriter or involved in the production of any of the films made of novels. Independence Day was never envisioned as a novel; it was always meant to be a film. I think a novel can make for a great film, but it has to be a unified vision. The practice of having three or four writers on a film is a mystery to me – how could there be a voice or a vision?

What is obsessing you now?

For the past five years I’ve been working on and researching a novel set in the distant past in the Middle East. I’m currently obsessed with the time period – finding out everything from how cheese was made, to what sort of snakes lived in the wilderness, to the habits of leopards.

Lemonade

2011-02-04T18:11:00.000-08:00

Today's lunch wasn't exactly at my desk, but it was on a paper plate! Jeff and I snuck out for lunch today at Lemonade, a great salad/soup/sandwich/crockpot lunch spot that I adore. In addition to the spaghetti squash, roasted brussel sprouts and farro and mushroom salad, (my faves) I tried, the mini pasta and mozzarella, root veggies and basil, and arugula salads. I'd add the arugula to the list, and try two new ones next time. Of course I can not pass up a mini red velvet cupcake for $1.00, which I shared with Jeff, along with a cucumber mint lemonade, that was just the right blend of sweet and refreshing! Lunch was 6 hours ago, and I am still full! And after a big week of writing, outlining, and getting notes on my script...it was nice to play hooky a little, and let someone else do the cooking!

Have a great weekend!

Amazing Author: Lily King

2011-02-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

I meant to post this yesterday, but had an amazing writing day myself, working all day on the outline for a new screenplay. Alas, here it is, another Amazing Author interview, from Amazing Author Caroline Leavitt. Enjoy!

Lily King talks about Father of the Rain

As you can see from the rave reviews above, Father of the Rain is a knockout novel. And it's no surprise, really. Lily's first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, aChicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Father of the Rain, her third novel, was published in July, 2010. Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Award. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines includingPloughshares and Glimmer Train, as well as in several anthologies.

I was really interested in the structure. You present her childhood with her father and then take great leaps forward in time. Other writers might have started in the present and woven in the backstory, but this particular structure gives the novel a shimmering kind of immediacy. Was this intentional, or was it just the way the novel played out as you wrote it?

As an idea, the novel really started from the point-of-view of Daley at 11. The rest grew slowly out of that. I didn't even know there was going to be a third section, a third leap in time, until I was nearly finished with the second section. It didn't occur to me to change the structure, but I did worry that these great jumps wouldn't work. I love it when novels do that, Disgrace and The Reader come to mind, but I'd never tried it before and I worried there was a trick to it I didn't know about.

Why do you think the things that happen in our teens have such continued and lasting impact on our lives as adults—even things that we should know better about?

I think it is very hard to break out of emotional patterns with a parent that were fixed in childhood. It's hard to see things afresh. It might be easy to know the relationship is unhealthy, but it's hard to know exactly why, and how to step out of the dance. It's also hard not to recreate the same patterns in other relationship, unless you really break free. Which is what the book is all about, Daley's struggle to unlock herself.

One of the rave reviews (and there are many, many, many) I read mentioned the primal loyalty Daley has to her incredibly dysfunctional father, and it’s that word, primal that interests me so much. Why do you think we are so attached to the people who can hurt us the most?

I think we are attached to the people who raised us, and it can take a long time to identify whether those people are healthy or unhealthy, comforting or menacing, safe or dangerous. there are many ways to be hurt, and some are less obvious than others. I really don't think it's a natural instinct to be drawn to people who hurt you, but the people you love always have the ability to hurt you the most, because you are most emotionally vulnerable with them. The trick is choosing to love people who choose not to exercise that ability, who derive no pleasure from it. I think Daley's father, among his other issues, was drawn to that kind of power over the people who loved him.

The psychological impulses in the novel are both shattering and profound. Daley’s struggle to do right by herself and her father are never quite what you expect them to be

She does not make great choices, does she? i think she makes the decisions of someone who feels perpetually guilty, and has a burning desire to change the past. So she plunges in, much to the detriment of her own life and future.

I’m always fascinated by process so can you tell me something about yours? Do you outline? Do you write by the seat of your pen? And is every book different?

I write every book more or less the same way, by hand with a pencil in lined spiral notebooks. A whole novel is really only 2 notebooks' worth of writing. I leave about 20 pages blank at the back of each notebook for notes, so that when I get ideas for something that might happen later, I put them in there. And if I take notes in the middle of the night or in the car or while I'm reading, I transcribe them into that back section of my notebook. With the first two books, I wrote a chapter by hand then typed it up, three-hole punched it and put it in a binder, but with this one I couldn't look back. Once I got the words on the page, I had to keep moving. It was an emotionally hard book to write and sometimes I had to take long breaks from it. So there was a point when I had to type up about 180 handwritten pages. I'm a really slow typist and it took months. But I love that step, because you are literally rewriting the book. You are writing it all over again and you hear it differently and it makes for a good revision step. Add it's so pleasurable, because the blank pages stage is over. This time I did eventually create an outline—it was more of timeline—when my notes got too unwieldy and I wasn't sure where I was going next. It wasn't at all extensive, just a line across a page with a series of markers and a few words below suggesting a possible scene.

What’s obsessing you now?

My new novel. I'm only in the research stage, but already passionate and terrified in turns.

Working outside...

2011-01-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

I love taking the office outside. Normally tied to my desk, I have been taking advantage of the gorgeous weather, by heading over to a local coffee shop. There is something about hitting a cafe early, and finding camaraderie amongst the handful of sleepy headed under caffeinated writers like myself, who wake up with lattes and laptops, dappled sunlight on our faces and the sounds of birds in the background. Early, before the chatter starts, before all the delightful ways of avoiding writing take over, and the day still seems long, the time for writing unlimited, the promise of new and many pages laid out before us.

Writing is something that I need a lot of time to do. I need time around it, in it, and after it. I ease into my writing and then I like to get lost in thought and words and for hours, and when I call it a day, I like the luxury of letting those thoughts and characters linger. The problem is that there is so much to get done in a day these days and my calendar isn't always completely clear to write and do nothing else, and just knowing this makes me anxious. So to make the days seem longer, I am getting up earlier, and it seems to be working. I can't shut the world out and just write all the time, but I can do my best to get there before the rest of the world gets going. And there is something magical about doing that outside. Not to mention, it reminds me to be grateful that this is what my winters now look like!

Today's the day!! Pictures Of You hits the book shelves!!

2011-01-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

Today is the day that my beloved friend and brilliant author Caroline Leavitt's 9th book, PICTURES OF YOU, hits the book shelves. Why do I talk about Caroline so much? Well, she brings us fabulous Amazing Author interviews every Tuesday, but more than that, is the fact that she is truly one of the most gifted and amazingly kind and generous writers I know. Meeting Caroline changed my life as a writer. Reading her work, changed my life as a reader. And as a fellow author, she raises the bar for all of us and inspires us to be better!

Support a fantastic author, and read this incredible book! And read Caroline's great interview with fellow author Jennifer Gilmore below, as originally posted on the Algonquin Books Blog.

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt

Today is the official publication day for Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt–and to celebrate, we’re giving away two copies. Just leave a comment on our blog here or on our Facebook page to enter. And see at bottom of this post to read an excerpt from the book.

Pictures of You is a story about two women running away from their marriages who collide on a foggy highway, killing one of them. The survivor, Isabelle, is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life, but of the lives of the devastated husband and fragile son that the other woman, April, has left behind. Together, they try to solve the mystery of where April was running to, and why. As these three lives intersect, the book asks, How well do we really know those we love—and how do we forgive the unforgivable?

Learn more about Leavitt and her fabulous new book on The Nervous Breakdown website. Click here for an interview with Leavitt and here to read and contribute to the open discussion thread.

…

PRAISE FOR PICTURES OF YOU:

“Reminiscent of early-career Alice Munro … Most satisfying of all, with Leavitt’s careful steering, even the wildest coincidences in this brooding, beautiful novel sparkle with all the haphazard brilliance of broken glass upon the concrete.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Caroline Leavitt plumbs the depths of grief and forgiveness in the lovely Pictures of You.” —Vanity Fair

“Leavitt is superb at revealing the secrecy inside many marriages and the way children grieve … most impressive is how Leavitt deals head-on with well-meaning people who come to realize, too late, that even an imperfect life is irreplaceable.” —O: The Oprah Magazine

“This thoughtful novel brings up a problem all of us have to deal with in the course of our lives, unless we’re lucky enough to sneak through existence without encountering misfortune of any kind … This is a novel that invites us to look at our own imperfections, not the dramatic crimes, but the niggling little sins of omission that so often render our lives tragically undernourished and small.”—Washington Post

“Leavitt’s ambitious narrative examines the various kinds of love—uxorious, romantic, paternal—that can arise from or be transformed by unspeakable grief. These survivors bravely gather the fragments of their lives, which once seemed so safely wrapped up in habits and, it turns out, illusions. Their trials and triumphs remind us that however firmly we seek to root our perceptions in reality, some truths will always elude us in love.”—ELLE

Share and Enjoy:

On Writing:

Caroline Leavitt and Jennifer Gilmore

The lovely and amazing writers Caroline Leavitt (author of Pictures of You) and Jennifer Gilmore (author of Something Red) will read and discuss their latest novels in NYC at McNally Jackson on Tuesday, January 25, at 7:00pm. Today, as a sneak preview, Caroline and Jennifer have a mini-discussion about the writing process.

Caroline: I’m so happy to have this email chat with you, Jennifer! What I would love to ask you, since I’m suffering with this now, is how do you make the leap from the initial honeymoon stage when you start a new novel to the state you need to be in to get through the sloggy middle? For me, this is when you’re in too deep to give it all up, no matter how messy it seems, and the idea still is obsessing you, but you are at a loss how to push on.

The other thing on my mind of late is how you leave the novel you just finished to really fully immerse yourself in the new one–which is hard when you’re promoting the first!

Jennifer: I would love to be in the honeymoon stage of a novel! I’ve had a lot of false starts with this third book. It’s funny, but I have a honeymoon thought process about a book, but it wears off very soon. I love the sloggy middle as I know the characters are real, they’re moving, and there is some plot forming, I have the confidence to keep moving forward, but I don’t yet have to think about how I’ll revise. For me, I write a draft fairly quickly–in relation to how long a book takes me–and I spend the most time revising, often restructuring. The middle is a safe place for me.

So tell me: You are one of the most prolific writers I know. How DO you go from one project to the next so quickly? How are you able to just throw yourself into it again and again. I feel that I am far more gun shy!

Caroline: I’m totally obsessive-compulsive. I know I won’t be happy unless I am working on something new (and by not being happy, I mean cranky, peevish and impossible to be around), so I always try to have some idea in the future that is obsessing me, sort of like a carrot tugging me forward. It’s strange now to give my new novel the attention I really want to give it while I am promoting Pictures of You, and thanks to the amazing and incredible Algonquin, there is so much promotion to do! I have to say this time around is worlds different for me. It’s my 9th novel and the 1st novel, outside of my very first novel, where I had real and amazing support and attention from a publisher, and it’s made all the difference. It’s like I discovered Santa Claus is real (and he’s everyone at Algonquin!)

So, I want to ask you, how do you deal with reviews? You’ve received stunningly good ones, and you’re always on the top ten lists, but do you read and take your reviews to heart? My early reviews have been–and I am so, so grateful–tremendous, but a few mentioned that not all of my characters were likable, which surprised me. I never think you have to like all your characters; you just have to understand them. Would you agree? What do you think about this? Isn’t the notion of a strong character a really complex or even a difficult one?

Jennifer: I do feel lucky that my books have been reviewed seriously. I read all my reviews. And frankly anyone who says they don’t read any, well, I don’t know if I believe her. I think that’s one of the more interesting parts of being a fiction writer, when your book goes out into the world and readers–should we be lucky enough to find them (there’s that word again: luck, we use it so much in regards to being writers, don’t we?)–ask questions that I, as the writer, had not consciously thought about. In this way they teach me. I’m so happy your book is making its way so surely into the world.

But this likable character issues troubles me. The characters in my last novel, Something Red, are not always making good choices. In fact, they often make bad choices. While it’s a book about many things, at its heart, its about losing a grip on your dreams, or failing to live up to what you thought you’d be. And your characters are making very human choices. They are ruled by their hearts. The point is, as a reader, I don’t care if I like the characters; I just want to know them. I want to understand them. Some of the greatest characters in literature are not terribly moral humans. That said, I was on a plane last night and two women were talking about reading, which delighted me. And then they were saying: there was not one likable character in the novel. I had to put it down. I stopped myself from interjecting, but I did think to myself: what does that even mean? Because as soon as a character gets complex, certain negative qualities are sure to come through.

And while we’re talking about characters, can we talk for a minute about setting? I’m thinking of your book and the landscape of the Cape. And mine too: Washington DC is a character itself. I’m wondering how landscape plays a role in illuminating your characters, in setting your readers staunchly in the mood of a place?

Caroline: Landscape is definitely important–and so is the time period. Your last novel Something Red was so firmly rooted in the late 70s and in place–I was at Brandeis then and you got every detail so achingly right. The Cape was an area I hated as a child. The whole family went there every summer for two weeks and I always wanted to leave as soon as I got there, so I wanted to use that feeling of being caught, trapped, in a world of summer people–a place I surely didn’t belong.

Thanks so much for this conversation, Jennifer, and—here comes my shameless plug!– I so look forward to reading with you at McNally Jackson in NYC on January 25th at 7:00pm. I hope everyone will come—and bring friends!

STRIPES!!!

2011-01-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

Lately, I am seeing stripes everywhere! On the cover of the J.Crew catalogue, in Anthropologie, on great design blogs...my beloved stripes are tempting me, cheering me up with their nautical nattiness!

There was a time when I wouldn't wear stripes, when I was convinced that the horizontal direction of the lines made me look wider than I was. That time was a long time ago, long before I started living in comfy jeans and wide legged trousers, and striped t-shirts, my favorite writer's uniform. Even though I have a home office, I still get up, get dressed, powder my nose, and swipe some mascara and lip gloss on, to sit down at my desk. I've written about it before here, but I treat my home office like a real office, a place I go to 'work', meaning no pajamas after breakfast. Writing is hard and unstructured, and demanding, and isolating and anything that can help me to feel grounded, anything that can provide some sort of structure or stabilizing ritual, is really important to me. Like a uniform. A happy, stripey nautical uniform.

What about you? You do have a special kind of uniform for the work that you do?

Amazing Author: Summer Pierre

2011-01-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

It's Amazing Author Day! Thanks to Caroline Leavitt for another amazing author interview!!
Summer Pierre talks about Great Gals: Inspired Ideas for Living a Kick-Ass Life

Summer Pierre's first book, The Artist in the Office (how could you not adore that title) addressed how to stay creative while paying the bills. Great Gals is a compendium of of famous women who are down right inspirational, and best of all, they have Summer's quirky, wonderful illustrations.

You'll want to check out the cool trailer with music from Summer herself (don't you wish your name was Summer?) And also, here are some completed pages from the journal.

What I love so much about this book (and your last one, about being an artist in an office environment) is the quirky spin you put on things. Instead of giving us inspirational women to emulate, you tell us we're already there. That we are those women. Can you elaborate?

We all (men and women) have a story about famous people that says they are special, so that’s what makes them great. This does two things—it makes us want to be them, and paradoxically it discourages us when we our lives don’t seem to match up to this specialness. The truth is, even “famous” people are regular people. The poet Nikki Giovanni, who many would consider fearless and gutsy, started out self-published because she was afraid to try to be published elsewhere. I can relate to that. Susan Sontag sometimes would go see 3 movies a day. Because she is “Susan Sontag” people chalk that up to a voracious appetite for culture, which is part true, but she also did it on occasion for escapism. I can relate to that too. I am more interested in those human aspects than the glory of these lives because it makes me realize that I am in the same world with the same struggles, and I can STILL do what I dream of doing. So many people discount their own efforts and experiences in the shadow of what they consider “greatness” in the media and in history. We get inspired by people, but don’t ACT on that inspiration and leave it to the “experts” to live it for us. Screw that! Let’s all live it! A way to do that is to acknowledge that the lives we have right this second—not in the future, not in some mystical idea of accomplishment, fame, or otherwise—matter.

I'm curious how you went about writing this book, the whole process. I loved the quotes and was wondering how you decided which ones to choose. Could you talk about it?

For 6 years I created an illustrated calendar of great women. Many of the portraits in the book are from various years of that calendar. I have always collected stories and quotes of these great women and it was through that lens that I wanted to make an interactive book based on these stories. I wanted to include quotes that reflected themes that I found in these women’s lives, but also quotes that spoke to me directly, and that lit up the page. I love that Ingrid Bergman said that she had a wonderful life. I love that Lucille Ball likens her humor to bravery. Phyllis Diller’s inspirational spirit is also a punch line. It’s great! I also am a great experimenter of ideas and how to think of new perspectives—so almost all the exercises come from my own journals and questions I have worked through myself.

Why did you make this book just for women, rather than including men? (I know the answer, but I'm curious at the response.)

I think women are tribal people, who often look to other women to relate to, to talk to, to compare notes with, to work their own identities with. I see this book as part of a larger tribe’s conversation. I also try to make things that I would want to find—and as a woman, I would love a book like this that helps me feel grounded in the life I am living now. I hope that women come away with a sense of their own lives being of significance and that they also feel part of a larger tribe of women through history and the present. We’re all in this together.

Why do you think women don't follow their gut instincts? And what can they do to make this happen?

I think it’s because we are natural multi-taskers and that goes for emotions too. We are constantly multi-tasking emotionally—meaning that we are always negotiating how we feel and what we need with what others feel and need. But like all great skills—and this is a definite skill women have—it has a drawback. That drawback is that often we don’t immediately trust our first instincts in favor of trusting perhaps the second instinct to negotiate. I think this is something we can work on by practicing to trust ourselves. If we trust our abilities and our ideas we can use our negotiating skills for better uses, like tending to doubt and fear (ours or somebody else’s).

What's obsessing you now?

Mondo Guerra from Project Runway, how in the heck to make a thriving and extravagant living in the arts, the sad disappearance of bookstores, pie making, and my son’s neck chub.

What question should I be mortified I forgot to ask?

“How’d you get so cool?” Just kidding.

Everything's coming up roses! And a great deal...

2011-01-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

I just had to post a picture of these. They were a surprise gift from my husband and they are gorgeous! I was in a cranky mood after spending a lot of effort in the 'hurry up and wait' game that is in our business. Suffice it to say, there was a dire need of my attention on a freelance matter, that took up a lot of my energy only to be met with silence. It happens sometimes. But it happened twice in one week.

But delays happen, and as much as I know that to be a fact, it left me feeling a bit prickly. And a prickly writer is not a happy one to be around. Thankfully the one thing that always cheers me up is flowers! I love flowers and could fill our entire place with them! And thanks to Trader Joe's and Farmers Markets, you can get pretty great deals on them too.

I really love a good deal, in fact, I am one of those people that if you compliment me on something that I am wearing and I got it on sale, I will tell you how little I paid! A friend of mine told me I MUST stop doing this, I must let people think it cost a fortune, but I'd rather let them know how much I saved. For those of you who also love a good deal there are a couple of really great sites that I love. One is www.blackboardeats.com and another is www.livingsocial.com.

Just the other day, I got a 'spend $30.00 and get $60.00' at Lou's Wine bar, and another for Street. Street I adore! And Lou is a place that I have been meaning to go, for a really long time. A good deal, especially at the start of the year after all that holiday shopping is a wonderful thing. It makes me feel even better about rewarding myself after a long week of writing!

Check them out!

Two is better than one!

2011-01-11T07:52:00.001-08:00

Everything seems to be coming in two's this year...I was approached and worked up proposals for two naming jobs, I am working on two different scripts and I just handed in book number two for, what I hope are final revisions.

My two white fluffy gorgeous monkeys are following me everywhere, both wanting to always snuggle with me at the same time, I am now doing two dance classes a week, 2 days of pilates, and 2 power walks! It's double the work and double the fun around here!

One of my projects, is the adaptation of a literary work into a screenplay. This is the first time, that I have ever tackled such a project and I am really loving it. Lucky for me and my writing partner on this one (two writers!), have complete license and full blessings from the author to change the original text in any way we like. It is a fascinating way to work; creating something completely new while having a story to draw on when desired, kinda like working from a fictional memory, albeit one that belongs to someone else.

I have to say that I like doing double duty, it keeps both projects fresh, and if I get frustrated or hit a wall, I can switch to the other, and return with new perspective.

Now...double sales, and double rewards....that would be great too!

Let there be light!

2011-01-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

At last, my office is brightly illuminated and I love it! I ordered this great light on line from Alluminaire, and chose my fabric, my size etc, and am thrilled with the final product. Jeff wasn't so thrilled with how finicky the instructions were as we put it together, but in the end its beauty won us over.

I find I need the light, sunshine, or otherwise to really keep my spirits up and keep me focused on getting my work done. Although nothing is better than an overcast day for writing, I still need to be able to see what it is that I am writing, and my lovely Le Klint craigslist score only went to 60 watts. This baby goes to 150!

I wonder if that means that my productivity will more than double as well...hmmmmmm.