Joan Sween's Blog

Playwrights Urged To Unite In Protest

2011-06-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Ninety-nine percent of theatres who consider original, scripts or who sponsor play contests, stipulate that submissions must be previously unproduced--- in that one requirement laying down an insurmountable barrier to play development.
These theatres claim to support emerging playwrights, but they, in fact, do not.
Most play publishing services will not consider a play unless it has been produced multiple times. Most nationally recognized theatres will not consider a new play for their season unless it has been produced several times.
This is not an unreasonable requirement. Publishers and prominent theatres are looking for plays that have had multiple trials by fire and have come through those trials with all dross burned away and only pure gold remaining.
A serious playwright's goal, therefore, is to have his or her play produced multiple times, hoping to advance from smaller venues to larger ones, each time making those adjustments that will clear the dross and polish the gold.
How can this happen when almost every theatre or contest limits submissions to only those that have never been produced? If a playwright achieves production in one contest, boom, he is done. Under current standards, by winning once, he has eliminated himself from further production elsewhere.
The time has come to send a unified voice of reason to theatres and contests. I recommend that whenever you encounter submission requirements that allow for only unproduced plays, you send this letter:

Dear Theatre,
For a new play to successfully achieve publication, professional production, and artistic prominence, it first must be produced in multiple venues until it gains perfection and recognition.
When theatres limit submissions to only unproduced plays, they prevent further development of a script, and fail in their support of emerging playwrights.
On behalf of all playwrights, may I respectfully urge you to change your submission requirements to allow previously produced plays? Perhaps your submission requirements could say that only plays "previously published, produced by a professional theatre, or produced within 100 miles of" your theatre, would be ineligible.
In that way you would be supporting the multiple production development of new plays while still insuring that your theatre presents hitherto unseen material in your audience area.
Respectfully,

If play contests and theatres that accept new plays begin receiving this request from playwrights throughout the U.S., they will eventually effect a change in their submission requirements, and developing plays will not be dead in the water after one production.

This Blog Is Going On Hiatus

2011-05-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Frankly, there is not much that I can say that would be fascinating to others. I suppose I could treat this blog as a journal, but my daily thoughts and feelings go into the actual "works" that I write and email conversations I have with my friends, which are somewhat privileged. My journal entries would be something pitiful, such as, "Rain today. Planted radishes." So many experts say one must have a blog in order to sell books. Believe me, what I have been blogging so far--to 14 people who never check the blog anyway--is nothing that would sell my books. Nor, do I intend to write over and over again how wonderful my books are. So, this blog is officially going on hiatus until such time as I have fascinating things to say on it.

Frightened by my own inadequacies

2011-05-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

Slowly over the past few months, I have written a narrative play titled SLEEPER. It wasn't as immediate as other projects, and so I picked it up and laid it down often, adding to it in random moments.

I finished it a week ago and laid it aside to let it gain a little distance. The manuscript sits in a neat pile, every day reminding me of its existence. I should read it now, and get to working on rewrites. Of course there will be rewrites and rewrites are always an improvement, but I am frightened of picking it up and reading what I have got on paper the first time around and discovering that it's no good.

I'm mostly a humorist. I usually write light, funny stuff. SLEEPER is not funny. Not only is it not funny, but I intended it to have an emotional build to a highly dramatic climax. Will my attempt to write something serious and dramatic proves to be inadequate? What if there isn't so much as a kernel of what I want it to be? Nothing there that even several rewrites could fix?

It sits there looking at me. I wonder if it's got any potential? I wonder when I'll get around to reading it.

Defining Discourtesy

2011-05-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

I posted on Facebook recently, "Courtesy trumps all." The post garnered a number of comments from people who agreed with me. Without exception then mentioned that "please" and "thank you" always were best for people to remember.

That's certainly true, but I find that many discourteous people hide behind a smoke screen of please and thank you and get credit for being polite people.

The discourtesy I dislike has to do with what people actually do--or don't do.

I think I wrote about this recently, and I'm repeating myself. I'll have to learn to deal with it. Is dealing with it simply ignoring discourtesy, telling a person they're being discourteous, or shunning the person in the future?

Courtesy trumps all.

2011-05-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

I think many of my friends fool themselves into thinking their friends are good friends.

Take, for example, a person who never answers emails or returns phone calls. Let's call him John Doe. When I express the opinion that John does not think much of me because he does not give me the courtesy of responsiveness, these friends will say, "Oh, no, pay no attention to that. He's really a nice guy, he just isn't good about responding to anyone's emails." I beg to differ. John IS like that. He doesn't bother to answer emails; what's nice about that?

Or take the lady who is habitually late for meeting with her friends, sometimes as much as 45 minutes. When I remark that she is not very polite and apparently has a low regard for her friends, I get, "Oh, no, Jane isn't like that, she's an extremely polite person; she just has trouble getting places on time." I beg to differ. Jane IS like that. She has no problem making friends cool their heels and wait for her. What's polite about that?

People like that get away with being discourteous because they have friends who insist they "aren't like that." Why are these friends fooling themselves? What people do is what they're like.

Who is the better man?

2011-05-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

This puzzles me: Take two brothers, Pierre and Alphonse, both artists.

Pierre painted charming pictures of his picturesque seaside village, and sold hundreds of them a year for a goodly price to tourists. His charming paintings sold so well that over the years he and his wife lived in comfort in a nice home. Their children grew up and married and Pierre knew the satisfaction of using his painting income to help give them a start. Pierre finally retired to a comfortable leisure of fishing and taking his grandchildren to the beach.

Alphonse, on the other hand, refused to paint "charming" pictures for the tourists. He had a vision and he followed it on canvas after canvas--all unappreciated for their lack of prettiness and meaning. Undaunted, Alphonse painted his vision with a frenzy. He never married, never worked at gainful employment. When he was close to starvation, he crawled to Pierre's door, was taken in, fed, clothed and brought back to health, whereupon he would leave the stultifying bourgeoise atmosphere of Pierre's house to continue painting his vision.

They are both dead now. Pierre's grandchildren are prosperous, well-settled, and have fond memories of the old gentleman, whose charming paintings may still be found in second-hand stores. Alphonse has no grandchildren, but he has been discovered by the art world, and art dealers are making huge amounts of money selling his paintings. He is famous. Books are written about him.

Who is the better man? Are we judged by the life we live while we are alive? Or if our life was miserable, can all of our poor choices be disregarded if we leave a legacy? And what legacy? Pigment on canvas or loving descendants?

Now this is the true Joan thinking: Why can't the Alphonse's of life paint charming pictures half the day and "visionary" images the other half? Should a writer who writes advertising copy during the day and "the great American novel" at night, loathe the work that gives him heat, food and security to write at night?

What's help worth?

2011-04-27T16:26:00.001-07:00

I was reading something today that reminded me of an opinion I have long held (also reminded me of a "what if?" situation for a novel plot) for some time.

You know when there's a death in the family or someone's been in an accident or in the hospital or some such, and everyone calls and says, "What can I do to help?" If things are not too bad and you can cope, of course you would rather do things yourself. But if you're really strung out, you grab for kind offers.

So you say, "Yes! Thank you, Helma, you can help! If I shoot you a list of telephone numbers, can you call all these people right away and tell them Uncle Henry died and when the funeral is? We have only two days until the funeral so they have to be notified right away. And can you ask Jim and Hank if they will be pall bearers? Thank you sooooo much!"

The next morning, after spending the night helping Aunt Minerva select a suit and take it to the funeral home and visit the pastor and reserve the church, you call Helma and ask if she had any trouble contacting anyone, and she says, "Oh, you know, I had to drive the girls to their ballet lesson and Herman got home late from work so supper was late and by then it was 9:30 and I thought that was too late to call, but I'll get on it right away this morning."

So at noon you call Helma (between ordering flowers, finding soloists, and contacting the Church Circle for lunch) and you ask her how it went, and Helma says, "Oh, my, I'm sorry, you hit me at such a busy time. I'm on it right now, though; I've set aside time."

You tell her forget it, you'll do it. Your voice is grim. And five will get you ten she is offended and says something like, "Well! That's the last time I offer to help!"

Something like this has happened to me several times and I've learned my lesson. Let people view me as someone who won't accept help from her friends; from now on I'm only accepting help from what? overachievers? true friends? non-morons?

Organization is Tough

2011-04-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

I, who value organization above many other things, have an organization problem. It's the reverse of what many writers deal with. My muse hands me inspiration and fantastic ideas for novels, short stories, plays, columns, every time I turn around. I can't seem to stop thinking "what if" when I drive past a lady standing on a boulevard with too many packages, or see ladies in the grocery store intent on displaying their canteloupes, or watch two feisty robins chase a hawk, or see a squirrel cross the driveway, or..... Yes, of course, I jot them all down. I have masses of jottings and mini outlines. But they pile up. And sometimes I feel as though I am spending too much time jotting when I should be writing. Worse, when I select a jotting to be fleshed out, I am torn by all the other jottings that are just as interesting and I sometimes start to work on two of them--an hour on one an hour on the other. What I really want is to be locked in my nice warm cave with my computer with no interruptions, no cats, no need to clean myself, and a little conveyer that sends in food every once in a while.

What's the play about?

2011-04-17T06:19:00.000-07:00

I came across a playwright who could not respond to "What's the play about?"

"It's about traditions," she said.

The conversation did not get any better after that. She assumed my literary IQ was room temperature and went into a long artistically overblown song and dance about people who expect a plot. A plot! Good heavens no. I expect an arc. I expected her to have sufficient literary IQ to describe her play, plot or not. For instance: "Richard examines his toes for two hours and concludes that Amanda left him because they were ugly." Or how about this? "Three men reveal their empty lives while waiting for a fourth, who never shows." Or this? "Marianne goes slowly insane while locked in a pink room with nothing but memories of her failures."

Is My Book Worth It!

2011-04-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

I'm on a humor discussion board at Amazon, and so many of the posts are self-promoting. Well... yeah... why not? However, the problem, in my estimation, is that we authors may say our book is hilarious, laugh-a-minute, the height of humor, totally enjoyable, and so forth. But is it? (Sure it is. I'm the author and I say so.)

My books have gone through a certain amount of editing and rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite, but are they good enough yet? This is e-publishing folks, and e-publishing is SELF-publishing. Many inexperienced and untutored writers write "the end" on their dashed-off novel and launch the puppy the next day, complete with all it's warts. How is a potential reader to know crap from pure cream?

Potential Reader has no way of knowing. So my solution is to put my ebooks up for sale at 99 cents. Surely I will get more readers that way, because I'm assuming a reader's attitude will be, "Well, shucks, it's only a buck; what have I got to lose?"

Writing a Children's Play

2011-04-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

I finished the second rewrite of THE MAGIC FLOUNDER this morning. It's a one-hour children's play based on the old tale about the magic fish.

An interesting stylistic decision comes with writing children's plays based on old tales--how archaic is the language going to be? The playwright can commit to very modern dialogue idiom, which makes for a jazzy play, but in some cases can destroy the original tone of the story. Or the playwright can commit to a certain "once upon a time" dialogue style, but in some cases that can make the characters seem artificial and unbelievable.

In THE MAGIC FLOUNDER, I kept to older style, but tweaked a few noticeably dull phrases closer to this century.

99designs

2011-04-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

The web site 99designs is an absolutely wonderful place to solicit and receive all sorts of design submissions for a book cover project. I've used it twice now, and have been very satisfied with the results.

What an author does is pay money upfront (usually $295.00 for a decent contest) to 99designs. Then you describe what you want and your particular preferences and wait for the design submissions to roll in. It takes 2-3 days before you see much. After that, as designs are submitted, you may comment on them. Feeding off your comments, designers will often submit new versions of a design with changes as you suggested. At the end of seven days you declare a winner and the designer sends you the design in the format you need, and 99designs pays the designer. And no, you do not have to declare a winner. If you get nothing you like, 99 designs will give you a refund.

The only drawback, and this isn't really a drawback, is that some of the designers are not as connected as they could be. You could say, "this design is nice but it won't work because you have pictured an elegant slim lady and the book is about a fat sloppy lady." And so they put up a new design with some elements changed, but still an elegant slim lady. And you say..... and so it goes through many repeated fat sloppy comments and elegant slim re-submissions.

When To Stop Writing

2011-04-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

So many writing advice gurus advocate plugging away, getting words on paper, working through a "block." I wonder if that's totally the right thing to do? Doesn't it depend on what a person is writing? If one is writing a book on the life cycle of grub worms, then I can see value in plugging on. If one is writing comedy, well, maybe pushing it is okay. But if one is writing serious stuff where every word on paper matters and should have a gem-like quality, I wonder if the best course of action isn't to stop and put it away the minute mental fatigue sets in. Is something--anything--on paper good when next session you have to scrap and rewrite it?

Formatting & Writing

2011-04-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

I finally finished formatting DEALER'S CHOICE for Kindle and CreateSpace. That's a tedious process. Worse, every time I go over the text, I find another few typos. Let's hope I finally got them all.

After owning a Kindle for six weeks, I finally decided to use it to download a couple interesting books--and found that it doesn't work! There's a flaw in the screen; only a little corner of it responds. I did the suggested resets, but nothing worked, and now I have to call in and talk to a real person. What I like about that service is that when you click that you want a response by phone, your phone is ringing. Right. Now.

Writers' Festivals

2011-03-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

A writers' festival in my town, which was to happen in ten days, has been cancelled by the sponsors due to low registration. First of all, what a terrible thing for them to be forced to do, after all their planning and organizing which must have been going on for close to a year. No doubt there's some financial loss there, too. And then there's the effect that a cancellation will have on future plans by the group. Most alarming of all, however, is why? Why would a festival with fulsome reservations for two years running have next to no reservations for the third year? Timing of the festival? Appeal of the presenters? Choice of seminar topics? Promotion of the festival? Registration difficulties? Cost of attendance? Venue? Murphy's Law? As an area writer, I am concerned for finding the why. The answer could point to a problem that is affecting our entire writing community or it could be a learning situation for us all. Opinions from my watchers or my Amazon friends are invited.

Inspiration

2011-03-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

While working on my notes for my presentation at the Rochester Writer's Festival I find that almost every point I make brings a flood of inspiration for more things I could write. The title of the presentation is "Write The Children's Play That Theatres Are Looking For." I don't stop and write down every zinger of inspiration, but I have stopped and written out two detailed outlines for children's plays.

Contractors

2011-03-29T07:03:00.001-07:00

This thought is entirely out of the range of writing, but.... We've dealt with a significant number of contractors in the past ten months--tree removal, fence replacement, shingle replacement, new concrete driveway, floor sanding--and we do decide which one to deal with based on estimate, experience and all that, but it's interesting that both my husband and I will immediately reject any contractor bidding for a job if he or she interrupts us when talking about the project. A lot of it has to do with good manners, but there's also the fear that if a contractor can't hear our questions out when making an estimate, how much will he or she listen to us come the time to actually do the work?

MWA Newsletter

2011-03-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter for April is going to be a great issue. Many people have contributed an opinion on how to find the time to write, and the variety of suggestions is especially worthwhile.

A Book-selling Dilemma

2011-03-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

I'll be going to an indoor flea market within the hour, where many dealer friends and acquaintances will have seen the front-page article in "The Old Times" about my book, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. I was thinking of taking along a small number of copies of the book in case anyone wanted to buy one, but.... As I said, these are fellow antiques friends and acquaintances; do I have the nerve to say, "Sure I can get you a copy, that'll be $7.00 please." Besides, is it correct to sell a product at an event where one has not registered and paid the vendor fee? So I've decided not to take any books along.

I will, however, register and pay the fee to sell NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE and DEALER'S CHOICE at the big humongous indoor/outdoor flea market in August. If I'm sitting at a table with signage and prices prominently displayed, I won't have any compunctions about saying, "That'll be $7.00 please."

Inspiration

2011-03-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

As I'm working on my notes for the 2011 Rochester Writer's Festival, in which I am presenting a seminar titled, "Write the Children's Play that Theatres are Looking For," I keep getting flashes of inspiration. In fact, twice now, while I was refining what I would say about where to find inspiration, inspiration itself zapped me, and I had to sit down and write a quick outline for a children's play. Twice.

The good news, under the heading of be careful what you wish for, is that I now have four plays, two novels, a collection of humor columns, and a collection of short stories all on the burner in outline form and the decision of which to get to first. This isn't because I can't finish a project, but rather because new ideas keep rolling in and to keep them from disappearing in my memory, I must write an outline.

Good Plays & Bad Plays

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

I find myself being critical of certain types of plays, and it makes me wonder. For instance, I have a low opinion of schlocky "high school" plays full of sophomoric humor and I have a serious antipathy for plays that are derivative spoofs on another form of theatre. Okay, that's a flat statement. Now, what gets odd is that I tolerate, even appreciate, the same thing in skits. For instance, if I saw a six-minute take-off on "Saturday Night Live" of "The Good Wife," I would probably enjoy it. A full-length 1 1/2- to 2-hour play that was a take-off on TGW, however, I would not sit still for. I wonder if it's a case of a joke should be brief, or a case of how dare you charge money and my time for such a low-class offering? And to take this discussion one step odder, I write farces, so is it a case of the pot calling the kettle black? I hope not. My defense is that only some of the jokes or sight gags in farces are cheap shots, and they don't owe their existence to being a monkey on the back of a better creative work.

Promoting My Book

2011-03-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started promoting my book, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. I was waiting until the printed version was available on Amazon, and until we were close to the release date for the April issue of The Old Times.

The Old Times says they're planning to do a cover spread of me. It will be distributed March 29. So I sent all the information they had plus some extra biographical material to the Post-Bulletin, the Daily Herald, and KTTC. For the P-B I made sure to mention that I had written their humor column "Bittersweet" for some years. For the Daily Herald I mentioned that I had directed theatre a lot in Austin and also wrote Austin's Bicentennial play. For KTTC, I think fellow writer Tom Overlie will look out for me. If Tom ever does an interview of me, I think he may be pleasantly surprised to discover that I am a voluble subject.

Just yesterday Shari Brandhoy, a long-time theatre friend, did my first review on Amazon. Yaaaayyy.

At any rate, all this should hit between March 23 and 30. During that time I will have to construct a direct email release. Busy girl.

The Pitchfork Behind the Throne

2011-03-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

"I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition," Shakespeare had Macbeth say. I feel a kinship with that. I have the vaulting ambition, speaking of publication and promotion, and I'm working on it, I'm working on it. And it is fortunate or unfortunate that I actually have the pricking spur, in the form of my Sweetie. He wields the dread Pitchfork of Reminder. "Shouldn't you be contacting newspapers by now?" "Shouldn't you have your book on Nook by now?" "Have you finished the mail list for...?" "Should you call so-and-so and ask him to write a review?" Actually, he's okay. I'm okay. It's Mother Nature who isn't okay. I seriously need 36-hour days!

Arrival of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE

2011-03-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

The heavy carton full of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE arrived yesterday. The book will be on sale at the April 9 Rochester Writer's Festival.

Funny, the arrival seemed almost anticlimactic and I have yet to open the carton. I've already moved on to hoping for other things to happen. Not that I'm not excited about this, just that it was a sure thing.

Standing in Front

2011-03-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

I timed my children's theatre presentation for the April 9 Rochester Writer's Festival and it was too long. I'll have to take a mean pen to some of my topics.

I'm my own worst enemy as far as timing. I am so comfortable talking in front of people that I spread myself out and give fun examples, further illustrations, comments on the main points.... don't forget I work at being charming as all get-out. I'm just a stage pig. I should go back to teaching; no one fell asleep in my classes.

Newsletter Responses

2011-03-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

Opinions on how to find the time to write are coming in to the Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter, and they're really great inspirations/helpful hints!

This response is mind-blowing for me, because..... In the past, for several months running I asked a selection of three writers to give their opinion on a particular subject, and got little to no response--often not even the courtesy of a response with an excuse. So then I upped my odds and asked six people for an opinion--got one response, begged for more and got one more. The others? Mostly blew me off with no communication. So this time I sent the request to everyone---all 250+ writers on the MWA net, and am getting a nice handful of really relevant responses. Yaaayyyy!

The Power of the Written Word

2011-03-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

March 15. Every year when that date comes around, my brain shouts, "Caesar, beware the Ides of March." A line that was written by a playwright over 400 years ago. And Shakespeare is probably the most quoted person in all of history. Now that's the power of the written word. Of course he had good plots and recognizable characters, but he sure got it right when he put it on paper.

Looking Ahead

2011-03-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Busy yesterday. Proofing SOUTHERN SURRENDER, signing a contract for MURDER BY ACCIDENT, working on notes for the April 9 Writer's Festival here in Rochester.

Funny, isn't it, no matter how busy we are, we spend our lives anticipating what's next? Looking forward to good things coming? I'm eagerly anticipating a new radio in my car, a play I'll be seeing tonight, when my two plays will actually be offered to the public, when my web site will get those last little decorative tweeks, when a new design for DEALER'S CHOICE will arrive, and WHEN I can quit all this anticipating and get down to writing again!

Proof Copy

2011-03-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

Got the proof copy of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE Wednesday. Looks pretty good. There are a few small things I could have corrected, but they were all my short-sightedness and I didn't feel like holding up availability while I uploaded a corrected version.

Small things such as I should have used one more or one less page in the prefacing material to make the text start on a right-hand page. Such as a chapter end mark that just went over and wasted a whole page. Such as an indented quote that went to odd line layout when I re-formatted to a 6x9 page size. Nothing that will wreck the whole book.

Photos for newspapers

2011-03-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of yesterday getting photos of me for a newspaper article about NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. I probably dashed my hopes for becoming a model by having one taken of me in rollers and bathrobe, sitting at the computer, eating potato chips while I write. (No, I don't really eat chips, but I do write in rollers.)

I write humor columns. NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE is a funny book. So, why should I rest on author dignity? What fan base I do have (readers of "The Old Times"), would expect nothing less than something goofy from me. So I gave them goofy--bare feet, big blue hair rollers and all.

Murder By Accident

2011-03-09T06:22:00.000-08:00

I got the notice yesterday. My farce, MURDER BY ACCIDENT, will be published by Eldridge Plays & Musicals--look for it in the fall catalog. As an added bonus they suggested a very small change to the ending, which was an excellent suggestion, and which made the end of the play even funnier.

When I become wildly successful at playwriting (notice I said "when," not "if?"), like the second Neil Simon, I hope I never get to thinking I know everything there is to know. There are so many neat moments in my writing that are thanks entirely to someone's else's bright suggestion. I claim them all as my own inspiration, of course, Mama didn't raise no stupid daughters.

Defining Theatre

2011-03-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

More work today on my children's theatre presentation. It's amazing how theatre has specific genres & styles, and we all recognize them. But try to define them for people not totally oriented in theatre, and you find there are more exceptions than definitions!.

Just for example, define children's theatre. Easy, theatre intended for children to enjoy. But then you have to explain those theatres who do shows with lots of kids in the cast (Annie, Oliver, The King and I, etc.), and call themselves children's theatres. Not really. And the Junior Series of musicals now offered by many of the publishing companies, wherein the roles of adult scripts (Fiddler on the Roof, Hello Dolly, Oklahoma!, etc.)are simplified for children to perform. And they call it children's theatre. Not really.

Theatre. You gotta love it!

Festival Presentation

2011-03-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Today I'll be doing some work on notes for my presentation at the Rochester Writer's Festival this April 9. I'll be teaching a seminar titled, "How To Write The Children's Play That Theatres Are Looking For."

I've been doing work on it bit-by-bit over the past month. My outline keeps growing. Just when I feel I have covered a subject well enough, I think of more information or more exceptions that should be noted. My game plan is to cover the necessary information in a concise fashion, leaving enough time at the end for questions. I may be my own worst enemy--I delight in giving examples of everything.

Web Site

2011-03-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

I've been working on putting stuff into a revised web site that a writer friend of mine is helping me with. I'm having a great time fulminating about the software, learning, revising, having second thoughts, and generally making a mess. My poor friend is no doubt being driven crazy with emails ranging from panic to ire to total confusion.

I will eventually arrive at a good web site. Said friend will no doubt weather the storm, too. When things seem to be FUBAR, his reaction is, "Hmmm, how can we fix this?" My reaction is to explode straight up and come down spitting. I think we both get satisfaction from our reactions.

Publishing an ebook

2011-02-26T06:23:00.000-08:00

Whew! I put a novel, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, up on Amazon as an ebook. It won't actually show on their site for 2-3 days.

Launching it was actually quite easy. That being said, it took me four tries to do it right, but it wasn't their fault. I misunderstood a few terms (contributor = author's name) and I accidentally clicked on the wrong thing in my directory and I thought I had completed the full KDP account information, but I hadn't. The third time, when I thought I had totally done it right, I hadn't, and finally resorted to the help line. I got an answer and the right help within half an hour! And the answer was written in English!

You know what I mean if you've ever received a help response that goes something like this: "Time happens 'Save' not be nice, return two times to option recipe and once time more execute empty cartons."

Outlining

2011-02-22T06:13:00.000-08:00

I'm outlining the sequen to NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. Working title is NICE GIRLS ARE ANGELS, but that's a little passive, so it will surely change.

Outlining is rough going. You have to conceive the whole novel. No sooner do I get the events lined up with explanations of what's happening, than I go back and discover D has to happen before B or it won't make sense, and L is actually two different events, needing to be split, and M is actually the inciting incident and should be moved up, and then I have no seque between P and Q and will have to think up another scene between the two. And THEN, just when I think I'm done, I go back for one last perusal, putting a time sequence to events, and discover that things will have to be moved around again because K has to occur before Thanksgiving and R has to happen after Christmas.

And meanwhile, through the whole process there are moments when I say, "Wait, wait! The police can't rule this a suicide; they have to immediately suspect the son of murder if the plot makes sense." And back I go to rewrite and adjust.

When I get to actually writing, it will be soooo easy!

Getting A Play Published!

2011-02-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

Good news! One of my plays, SOUTHERN SURRENDER, is going to be published by Eldridge Plays & Musicals. It will appear in their fall catalog. It's a one-hour farcical melodrama placed in Civil War times. The nice EP&M people said they fell over laughing.

This play was written close to 30 years ago. It was originally a full-length melodrama. I dug it out of the trunk recently and read it with eyes and a mind that had gotten 30 years more experienced in writing. I discovered that it still hung together and remained quite funny. It was, though, in the ways that melodramas can be, very wordy.

So I took a "mean pen" to it and re-wrote it to conform to an hour's production time, losing a lot of the melodrama, but keeping the farce. I feel it turned out well.

Back in the day, there were two productions of it that still stick fondly in my memory. Lyle High School's over-the-top delightfully funny Gardenia Galsworthy, and Pacelli High School's athletically comic Beauregard Burnside.

What am I? Chopped liver?

2011-02-16T06:44:00.000-08:00

I'm disappointed by my theatre friends and acquaintances who ask to read copies of my plays and then--nothing. Several have done that to me. There's an investment of about $8.00 in materials and postage to send a script anywhere. That's just a fact, not a whine. The cost is nothing when compared to my desire to get the play known and my hope for maybe a helpful comment. But--nothing? Not a peep? People don't have to like my plays. In fact, if they don't and can express why, the comment is immeasurably more valuable than compliments. And from theatre people? Hoy, chihuahua, their opinions would be the best! But nothing? Even a responding email that said something like, "Sorry, I think it's pretty boring; there's no real conflict." Or maybe something like, "I think you need to sharpen up your dialogue skills." Those comments would be helpful. To my way of thinking, common courtesy demands some reponse, even a lie if that's the best a person can do. But nothing? So I'm left with... What am I? Chopped liver?

The Job of a Book Cover

2011-02-15T12:19:00.000-08:00

For my book cover contest for NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE on 99designs, I was focusing on a cover that had bright color contrast and could be easily read in a tiny Amazon icon. A writer friend of mine wrote that she thought none of the submissions said, "Pick me up and read me." Hmmmm. Food for thought. I was satisfied with a cover that was readable and reflected that the book was a hoot, not a horror. I was assuming my "compelling description" would say, "Pick me up and read me." Anyone have any thoughts on that subject?

Ebook Cover

2011-02-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

I'm running a contest on 99 designs for a cover for my campy paranormal mystery, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. So far I have 50+ design submissions. There are some truly good ones and the decision will have to be carefully thought out. On the other hand, there are a large number that miss the boat---some even getting the title and/or my name, wrong. Mostly though, I wonder why, when I have explained over and over in the comments for all to see, that I'm looking for bold color contrast, big title, and a sense of fun, I don't get that. Don't give me dark and murky, I say, this book is funny. It's a hoot not a horror. But still I get serious, dark, murky and bloody submissions with titles that blend into the background. I assume that some designers think that despite what I think I want, when I see their out-of-the-box design I will be won over.

Kindle

2011-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

After researching the differences between Kindles and Nooks, I bought a Kindle. Got it straight from Amazon as local stores didn't have the version with global reception. I look at it this way: I go through maybe six books a week--tossing aside three after 80 pages, reading three totally. I pay $2.50 each for those books at a second-hand paperback store. Assuming I buy cheap books on Kindle (I look for genre classics, not new bestsellers), I could hypothetically recoup the price of my Kindle in six months.

And actually, that isn't why I bought the Kindle. I bought it simply because I wanted to experience the new technology. A nice afterthought is that I could promote my friends' ebooks by reviewing them.

Opposites

2011-02-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a tech support guy yesterday who mentioned that his weather was uncomfortably hot. He was in Manila. I was in Minnesota, ten below. You know how it is when you're a writer? That immediately made me think of characters in a novel. If I write one character as being thus-and-so, how exciting it would be to make another character the total opposite--but neither one of them totally good or bad. Or both totally bad? Now there's a concept. What's the difference between a gang of violent muggers beating a prostitute to death and a gang of loving Christians stoning a whore to death?

Poetry Out Loud

2011-02-06T06:38:00.000-08:00

---I judged a Minnesota State Arts Board Poetry Out Loud regional competition yesterday. Seeing the extraordinarily talented readings was wonderful. It's a tough challenge. Competitors must put full meaning in their selected poems, without sliding into dramatic interpretation. There are two rounds, the contestants delivering a different poem in each round. For the first time in my life I heard someone do Poe's "Annabel Lee" without being trapped by the poet's horrible doggerel and without making it sound like a total dirge. It wasn't all roses, however; one competitor missed the boat on Frost's "Mending Wall," seeing it as a very sad occasion as opposed to a wry observation on long-held customs.

Whoa! What's this?

2011-02-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

I paid $45.00 for a one-year subscription to a writers' trade magazine. Although it looked slick and colorful on the web site, my first issue was 15 stapled pages of black print on white 8 1/2x11 paper. I'm hoping the material therein is solid gold. It may be, I say to myself. After all, I've been to all-day multi-session writers' festivals which were almost not worth my time.... except for that one little thing a presenter said that opened my mind to a world of possibilities. So... for a while I'm not going to judge the book by its cover... er, the magazine by its cheap, photocopied, unimpressive look.

Kindle covers

2011-02-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

While going through NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, tweaking out the little pieces of over-writing, I find a few word choices that aren't right. Isn't it amazing/wonderful that after leaving a work alone for a while, when you come back, the "wrong" words leap out and smack you in the face? "Whoa! Did I write that? Louise would never use that term!"

I'm shooting for a Kindle launch and just got word from my potential cover designer that the four weeks I calculated for his design services may be more like eight weeks. What to do about that? Patiently wait because he's very good? Or switch over to 99designs?

Another Farce

2011-01-31T07:08:00.000-08:00

Finished my 2nd farce, ULTIMATE GLAMOUR. 5 women, 3 men. A hotel room, 2 ladies in the "personal entertainment industry," a bellhop in the pool, a Girl Scout leader, a disguised bakery investor, a philandering corporate exec. a suspicious wife, a mousy secretary with an eidetic memory, and a nice guy caught up in the middle. I'm looking for theatres to give it a shakedown performance. Spread the word.

Yes, I'm still working on the narrative play, SLEEPER, but that's on the back burner while I finish other projects---the Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter for one.

Always getting better.

2011-01-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

I'm going through a novel I finished two years ago, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. Good news is that I've gotten better at writing and can immediately spot and kick out the over-writing. Bad news? Although it was re-written many times back then, it still has spots of over-writing. Really good news? It still hangs together as a campy funny story.

I ask myself what writer fault is the most certain indication of amateurishness. I don't think it's grammar, spelling and the like. Those are merely indications of lack of education. Over-writing is certainly one of the top nominees, including its twin sibling, data dump. Perhaps lack of variety in sentence structure. And, oh my aunt Tilly, let's not forget unnecessary dialogue tags!

e-books

2011-01-28T05:44:00.000-08:00

All right! ---I probably sound like such a weinie at times, but... I just discovered that one could pay people to configure a book for Kindle, etc. Whew! I read the Amazon instructions and was boggled. AND.... pay a really good professional to design the cover. Life is good!

Appearances

2011-01-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

We checked out Trader Joe's, the new "different" grocery store yesterday. Interesting reactions. My hubby saw nothing different than what we can get at the usual supermarket; I noticed many different choices. However, both of us agreed that much of the... um... ambiance... came from same old product but very different packaging. Which makes me think of what the experts say about having the "right" book cover.

Fourth Tuesday

2011-01-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

I had a good time at the writers' Fourth Tuesday meeting last night. Fourth Tuesday is an informal writers' meeting established by Michael Kalmbach, facilitator of the Rochester Library Writers Group. It meets in various coffee houses and is open to any writer. There is no structure, just whatever comes up. My husband is starting to call it, "Rochester's answer to the Algonquin Club." It's amazing how many fertile "word drops" (as one of our group says) can happen in what is ostensibly an informal conversation.

E-books

2011-01-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

More and more I am intrigued by e-book publishing. A friend is urging me to get with it and get NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE launched as an e-book. Well, I'm studying how to do it. Although Amazon's instructions are step-by-step clear, they are still sometimes daunting to a user. Hypothetical example: "Next, save your text in FLUB.dub format." And I'm sunk. What's a FLUB.dub format and how do I do it? I'm afraid of getting halfway through a launch, screwing up, and having a half-book out for people to laugh at.

Where I'm At

2011-01-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

Hello, Blog.

I've been gone for some time. Maybe my first re-entry should be a clarification of where my writing has taken me.

NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE (campy paranormal mystery novel, has been making the rounds of begging for an agent.) DEATHBLOW (police procedural novel, has been making the rounds of begging for an agent.) MURDER BY ACCIDENT (farce play script, is looking for a few theatres to give a shakedown performance, four community theatres are reading it.) ULTIMATE GLAMOUR (farce play script, in process of its third polishing.) SLEEPER (a three-woman narrative horror play script, one-third written.)

I switched to writing plays a) because that's where my degrees and training are and b) I was getting grumpy about taking a year to write a novel and having no success getting an agent, let alone seeing it published. A play can be written in a much shorter time, and one deals directly with producing and publishing venues--not with an agent first.

Starting to Query

2010-08-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

DEATHBLOW is finally finished. 73,000 words read, re-read, corrected, re-written, every flaw ferreted out. I have sent a query to my four top choice agents. Those who say they are (a) looking for crime fiction, (b) they encourage new authors, and(c) who have a sales list of the sort of authors that I would like to become some day.

So, just when I thought my manuscript was flawless, and I'm sending the first chapter to an agent, I notice a typo! Give me strength.

Now that I have my third mystery novel done, The Man I Married zings this thought at me. My strong suit, he says, is humor, and instead of police crime, I should seriously write funny crime or funny detective novels—whatever. He's got a point. I have written humor columns for newspapers for years, and I crack myself up. It's something to consider.

Common Writing Mistakes

2010-08-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

I find the most common "stupid" mistake I make in writing can be titled the I Knew What I Meant mistake. For example, my alpha reader will say, "What's your detective talking about? He's referring to his notes, but notes from where? From whom?" I say, "From the people at the fireworks, of course." And he says, "Well, maybe you know that, but you've got to tell your reader that." And my mind says to me, "Duh!" because he is absolutely right and I have made that stupid mistake again.

I use "stupid" mistake to distinguish this type of error from my other "careless" mistakes, "inaccurate" mistakes, and "bad writing habits" mistakes. To name only a few of my mistakes.

The big lesson in this post is that a person should always, always have readers. Bless them!

Self-publishing

2010-08-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I have been reading various justifications regarding self-publishing recently, written by self-published authors. The points I see made most often are: (1) Self-publishing does not have to mean lack of literary quality, because authors who strive for excellence often self publish. I will admit this is true. (2) Self-publishing is a viable option in the face of increasingly picky agents and publishers. I will agree that agents and publishers are becoming more selective.

I have quibbles, however. (1) As a reader, I can trust that traditional publishing guarantees that I'm not going to pay good money for absolute dreck, whereas with self-publishing there's no artistic winnowing---it's a crap shoot. (2) As a writer, I ask myself, if no literary professional thinks my book is good enough to invest money in, why would I, a literary amateur, invest in its publication?

What To Do While I'm Waiting

2010-07-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

I finished the re-write of DEATHBLOW yesterday and have it out to a few readers of varying interests and critical styles, so I should get a good cross section of comment. In the meanwhile, what to do? I think I'll take a week off and catch up on all sorts of roundtoit administrative things that have been piling up. (Including tornado pick-up.) After that, I may go back and add some to SLEEPER. The idea being to keep myself busy until feedback on DEATHBLOW comes in.

Short Observations

2010-07-11T11:09:00.001-07:00

A short piece I wrote two years ago about fairies at the bottom of my garden keeps popping into my head. I wonder if someday it becomes the first chapter of a fantasy book.

I am excessively fond of Robert B. Parker for many reasons. One is his style of having Spenser use pantywaist words to describe his huge manliness. It's a lovely author's device.

While researching current definitions of "high concept," I was reminded that the most egregious example of a high concept statement was the title of the movie "Snakes On A Plane."

Offered a Contract

2010-07-08T09:54:00.001-07:00

I was recently offered a contract to publish NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE---and turned it down. After all the querying and fussing, it seems like an insane thing to do, doesn't it?

From time to time one can find advice on the Internet insisting that no agent is better than a poor agent. I guess now I'm here to tell you that I think no publishing contract is better than a poor publishing contract.

There were so many aspects of this contract that hit me negatively, and I don't want to be boring with all the details. Generally speaking, the publishing company wanted to buy the copyright outright, the book would not be offered in any retail outlets, the novel would have to be trimmed by 15,000 words to fit the publisher's eBook format, and eBook copies would be offered only from my and the publisher's web site.

Actually, I'm about ready to tuck Nice Girls away for a few years. So may of my queries have yielded requests for more pages, and then nothing, that it's about time to wake up and smell the coffee. The book isn't good enough.

First Draft Finished

2010-07-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished the first draft of DEATHBLOW. Now I'm eager to get to re-writing. I have a nice fat list of things I want to correct, watch for, tighten, revise, improve and add in. The first draft is a little over 67,000 words. When re-writing is finished, I'm guessing it will end up around 70,000.

I started writing on December 13, and gave myself a deadline of July 24, my birthday, to complete the first draft. Twenty days ahead of schedule. I hope finishing early is good.

I'm reminded of an old Shelley Berman routine where he's on a plane flying to the west coast and the pilot announces that they'll be landing 20 minutes early. The comedian says, "That fills me with terror. We could land two hours early if he puts it down in Grand Canyon."

Accepting Criticism

2010-07-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

This past month I have been unsuccessfully trying to advise a Beginning Novelist. She is searching for someone who will read her completed novel and give opinions about the plot development and inherent appeal. Several people have read the first chapter and discovered she is not at all at a point where that sort of assessment is needed. Obvious from the first 30 pages, her writing is filled with inconsistencies, lack of transitions, confusing descriptions, inaccurate word choices and out-of-character dialogue. I, and other writers, have communicated to her that she needs to solve many basic problems before she worries about finding someone to assess her novel overall.

Our Beginning Novelist's reaction is that she will solve these "minor" problems later on, and those who have pointed out the places in her first chapter that need work need to learn how to give proper feedback. She continued to challenge our writers' network regarding someone to read the whole novel.

We finally found a fellow writer who volunteered to read the whole book and we put Beginning Novelist in touch with her. BN asked this Volunteer Reader for her qualifications, editing experience, and publishing history before things went any farther. Volunteer Reader abandoned all interest in the project.

Beginning Novelist is being as foolish as many beginning writers can be. She's very aggressive for what she thinks she needs. It is hoped that someday she will wake up, smell the coffee and become just as aggressive for improvement.

My Own Voice? Style?

2010-07-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

So many agents and writing advisors urge us to write in our own voice. I haven't the foggiest idea what "my own voice" is. I don't consciously write in a particular "voice," I just write what I want to tell.

I have, however, figured out what my own "style" is. It came about when a writer friend of mine read something of mine with no name on it, buried in a pile of other somethings of others. She said she recognized my style immediately. That got me to thinking, because I also didn't have the foggiest what my own style was. After much thinking, I believe I have nailed down a definition of my particular style. It's heavy on dialogue, light on descriptions, and is broken into short pieces--much as a screenwriter would write, I assume.

Yes, it may sometimes leave the reader filling in the blanks, but I feel that's what a lot of really sharp writers do. Writers of genre mystery, anyway. Mainstream may be different.

Close To Finishing A First Draft

2010-06-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

06-28-10
I'm three-and-a-half chapters from finishing my first draft of DEATHBLOW. I'm excited about the writing I am doing now. I'm heading for the climax and my foreshadowing is coming to roost. It seems to me that it's good stuff. No cynical smiles, please; I've finally gotten to the point where I can recognize pure dreck in my writing, and I can recognize pretty good stuff. It's the in-between that still needs work. I wish there was a "Find" function in my software that could ferret out my dread habit of overwriting.

At any rate, I am excited about once finished, going back to the beginning and making sure the novel starts as excitingly as I think it ends.

Oddly enough, the goodly number of near misses I had querying NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, give me hope for this novel, which is better writing. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Rewriting & Seminars

2010-06-26T11:43:00.001-07:00

Yet another agent has asked me for more pages of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. My query letter continues to get requests for additional pages, but nothing ever goes farther. I suspended my work on DEATHBLOW and reviewed Nice Girls. I found I could tweak a word here and there, but basically it is the best book I could write at that time, and it will have to stand. If I were to take my main premise and write the book all over again, it might be different, but much would remain the same. It is a campy humorous cozy, period. Perhaps if I am ever well-published otherwise, an agent will find it more attractive.

I've been thinking about all the seminars many of my writer friends go to. While I don't deny that I have much to learn yet, I shy away from seminars. I don't want to spend my time doing writing exercises about subjects in which I have no interest, listen to comments on the thing I wrote without interest, and listen to others read the thing they wrote on a subject for which I have no interest. I would much rather spend my time writing my novel and find people to make comments on it. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Writing After A Tornado

2010-06-21T09:27:00.001-07:00

A tornado went through our yard Thursday night. It came out of nowhere. The weather guessers were saying it would just be a good strong rain storm in our area. It dropped 15 of our trees, took out 400 feet of six-foot stockade fence, damaged the pool liner, played havoc with shingles and gutters, but with the exception of a couple minor issues, completely left the house alone. It was very loud, but lasted only 12 seconds. All of that I can cope with. As a writer trying to concentrate, however, I am terminally fatigued by the four-day noise of chain saws, cranes, wood chippers, and stump diggers. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Finding The Word & The Niche

2010-06-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Technology has made it much easier for writers. I use the "Find" function on my word processing program very often. Today I was writing, and had someone's eyes twitch as he thought of a lie. Twitch I said to myself. It sounded familiar. I was in chapter 45; had I written of people twitching all over the place? Was my police procedural full of twitches? Guilty twitches? Geriatric twitches? Smoker's twitches? Compulsive twitches? Yikes. But, knowledge was at hand. I asked "Find" to locate all the twitches in the manuscript and made sure the word was not overused.

Today I also, for what reason I know not, began to wonder if I was writing what I should be writing. I had finished a campy paranormal cozy, had written half of a horror/haunting novel, and had a charming one paragraph treatment of a lady who found a fairy in her garden. And here I was, writing a police procedural. Did I know what I was doing? Had I found my niche yet? Was I wasting my time killing people when I should be writing about little winged creatures? Should I make a stab at a mainstream novel? I decided the issue by asking myself what I liked most to read. Well... John Sandford, P.J. Tracy... Also, most mainstream novels put me to sleep. So I'm keeping on with this current book, DEATHBLOW, and never mind these niche fantods.

It did give inspiration for the next Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter, though. The newsletter focused on finding one's niche, deciding what to write. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Starting A Writers Network

2010-06-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Back in August of 2009, a writer friend and I got to talking about the lack of connection among writers in Southeastern Minnesota. We decided to start something. The Loft in Minneapolis was held up as a role model by my friend. We needed to wait three weeks while my friend cleared a conflict from her schedule. Then she had another conflict, and another. February of 2010 we were still waiting for this Renaissance woman to clear her schedule, so I lit out on my own, forming Minnesota Writers' Alliance, a nonprofit corporation whose main purpose is to network all writers in SE MN. We started by advertising for writers to identify themselves, then started a monthly newsletter, then started an Editing Network of people wanting to exchange their writing for comments. Our next gambit is to set up a play reading event. So far things have gone well. We have about 100 contacts in the 11 counties. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Making It Real

2010-06-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

I just had another "breakthrough!" My breakthroughs are small and mostly realizations, and I have a new one about once a week, but still they're valuable to me. I go leaping and enthusing to The Man I Married to tell him all about it, and often it's such a trivial (or obvious) realization that he has to work at keeping a fascinated look on his face and say, "That's good!" when I pause for breath. However, knowing all that, I'm still excited, trivial or not. I was reviewing a paragraph I had just written, and it was clunky. I had rewritten it many times, and it was still clunky. It just wasn't "real." It was "writerish." I mentally smacked myself across the chops several times, and said to myself, "Okay, doofus. Forget about what you've got written. Pretend you're telling a gossipy anecdote and give us the sense of what you're saying. Out loud. Just the way you'd gab to a friend." And so I did. I fell over in amazement, then clawed my way back to the keyboard and got it written down. The sense was there and the paragraph was "real." The office cats will be hearing a lot of out loud gab from now on. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween.

Agent Responses

2010-06-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm still catching up with my tale of growing as a writer. This incident happened in April.)
This week I have had 3 agents ask to see more pages of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. I'm getting to be a tricksy old dog, though. The agent I heard back from this morning, asking for the first 50 pages, was quoted in a recent interview as saying she was open to mysteries, but no vampire books, please, because they had been done to death. So.... do I have nerve or what? This is the first paragraph of the query letter I sent her: "Dear Ms Smith; If the reading public sees one more book about vampires, they're going to barf. Unless, of course, its a campy cozy and the vampires are batty middle-aged antiques dealers in Minnesota who refuse to play the game. Cheerful bumblers, these ladies may be undead, but they're going to be nice about it." Well, it worked. Let's see what she thinks of those first 50 pages. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Improving Both Novels

2010-06-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

I just went back and kicked 550 words out of DEATHTRAP'S Chapter 6. From 1,779 to 1,228 words. Actually, once I got into the mind set that I was removing ugly fat, it wasn't too much of a wrench. And the final product reads MUCH better. What I did was go through the chapter and highlight the few pieces of information that absolutely had to be conveyed to the reader at that point in time. Then I went back to see what could easily go without changing the inclusion of that information. Often, I found whole chunks that could just be deleted, or that could be replaced with a short phrase. In the end the novel is probably going to run to 85,000 words.

A reward for NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE being in the running in the second phase of the Amazon Breakout Novel contest is that the 3 readers make brief comments. My comments are very interesting. Most of them have to do with the fact that the judges are looking for mainstream novels and don't have much respect for plot-driven genre efforts. However, beside that issue, they still said that my pacing was slow and my writing was still "writerish." So.... work for the future. I am always happy to get critical comments; they point the way to improvement. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween.

The Amazon Breakout Novel Cut

2010-06-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

On the day of the announcement for the second cut of the Amazon/Penguin Breakout Novel, I was all set. My novel NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE had made it through the first cut, when they narrowed entries from 5,000 to 1,000. Now we were waiting for the cut that would narrow 1,000 down to 250. To honor this day I bought a new frozen pizza that looks to die for. It has a thin, thin crispy crackly crust, no tomato sauce, lots and lots of white garlic cheese, and spinach! True, the spinach is applied to the cream-colored cheese base in what you might call splorts, and looks mostly like pigeon poop, but I'm not going to let that deter me. If I make the cut, it will be a celebration pizza. If I don't, it will be a consolation pizza. On the home culinary front, it's a win-win situation. Alas, come the announcement, I had not made the cut. Consolation pizza. P. S. This was the first time I had tried this type of pizza. It wasn't all that good. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Chapter Time Sequence

2010-06-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

I never realized until now that being a mystery novelist can sometimes mean re-arranging time. I recently spent four hours trying to figure out a proper arrangement for my chapters. You remember in algebra when we had those story questions--Train A leaves Station A at 6:40 heading east on Track A traveling 40 mph and Train B leaves Station B at 10:00 heading west on a parallel Track B, traveling 60 mph. If the stations are 83 miles apart, at what time will the trains cross paths? My book is like that. I've got two groups of people whose actions start five weeks ahead of the first murder, but I cannot reveal their existence until after the third murder happens. So some of the chapters leap backwards in time. Then, when the trains finally cross paths, I have to speed the time up for the two groups that started early, so their actions now parallel the cops/murders. Got that? Neither did I. I thought I had it figured out three times, but each time when I finished re-arranging chapters I would see the flaw in my reasoning. I thought I had solved some of my problems by moving one of my groups into "real" time, but after sleeping on it, I concluded that my reasons for having their thread start way back were good reasons, so I'm going to change that. This explanation doesn't seem to make sense, but I think it will in the novel. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

The "Cop Chat" Rut

2010-06-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

I find that in writing my police procedural, it is so easy to stick in quite a bit of "cop chat" that serves no real purpose. I like doing it because I think I'm such a great one for coming up with fascinating and humorous remarks that my cops bounce off each other. But actually, it's a wannabe's device for making the book longer with stuff that is probably going to bore the reader to tears. My office floor is littered with the ghosts of really charming cop chat chapters that I have wept to delete. I'm trying to do better. What I do is take myself in hand and ask what new and substantive information is included in all that cop chat. Then I find a more action-filled way of presenting that small amount of necessary information, and delete the rest. I certainly hope the muses will someday reward me with publication in return for kicking out the boring cop chat. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

When to Use First Names

2010-06-03T12:01:00.001-07:00

I'm presently dealing in my police procedural with when to use first names and when to use last names. In some published works I have found it to be confusing when the author jumps back and forth between first and last name, especially in non-dialogue passages. (Huh? Who's that?) I finally made myself a sort of formula. I use the first names of my police characters only when someone they know well addresses them directly. Otherwise, all police are called by their last names without any honorific. Non police people (suspects, witnesses, etc.) always get an honorific when addressed directly, but just the last name without an honorific when spoken of outside their presence. The novel contains a group of homeless people who identify themselves to each other only by first name, and so they are called by their first names in every situation. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

When To Ask For Comments

2010-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have heard many discussions regarding when to let your work out for comment. Not too soon, people say, because a first draft is, well, a first draft. You don't want to be stuck saying, "Yeah, I know I have to fix that," "Yes, I intend to flesh that out," "Yes, I do intend to clean up the punctuation later," "Yeah, I know I need to look up the right model number for that gun," and things like that. And meanwhile this reader is concluding that I'm a no-talent doofus with a lot of defensive excuses. Nevertheless, I do want someone to point out, "Why was Anthony killed in Chapter 3, but helping with the investigation in Chapter 7?" long before I've done 28 rewrites! I finally settled down to a double standard. It doesn't bother me to let serious writers see my work after just a little rewriting, because I know they know the difference between an early draft and a polished piece. But I probably wouldn't let hobby writers comment on my work until it had 53 rewrites. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Do Colors Have Character?

2010-06-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

I'm reading something written by another author I know who is also writing a police procedural. When offering him comments, I ask about his habit of giving subjective qualities to colors. He speaks of eyes being a "rich hazel" color, for instance. I can see light hazel, dark hazel, speckled hazel, hazel with a dark rim, but how can the color hazel be "rich?" I assume he means a medium brown with yellow in the coloration. He speaks of a carpet being "lush green." Again, I see green as light, dark, blue-green, mottled, whatever, but not "lush." If a piece of slime were the exact same shade of green, would it also be "lush?" I think not. I think the carpet is lush, its color is green. His room also has "lush avocado" drapes. My old refrigerator was avocado green; was it also "lush?" This is such a minor point, and the reader still understands what the author means, but I wonder if it isn't the beginning of a slippery slope. If we do that little descriptive side-step with colors, what shortcuts in our writing will come next? Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Writing Has Its Ups and Downs

2010-05-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm still catching up on the story of my development as a writer, so although I'm adding this at the end of May, it actually happened the first week in March. It started with a Holy Cabooses moment. I sent an email query to an agent at 1:00, and got a return request for a partial before 2:00! Then at my writers group meeting in the evening, I learned the group would be going into hiatus because the others had life plans that would make writing and meeting very difficult for them. This was seriously bad news for me. Even though I chivvied them with my "bear went into a bar" analogy, these ladies were the best help I had ever had. Maybe I'd better amend that. These ladies were one of the best editing sources I had. My husband is cutting-edge accurate at strategy--pointing where a chapter should build, when to lay the da-bump-bump on the reader, and what's drivel. My writers group excels in tactics--where a sentence doesn't flow, when there's an illogical change in tense, what's the right word. I still have the wonderful husband, but I seriously miss those ladies! Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Cozies Gone South

2010-05-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

I think most of the cozy mysteries that I loved have gone out of popularity. The good old English plots that started Chapter 1 with a dead, but not ghastly dead, body in the library and Chapter 2 with a roster of suspects, are no more. Instead we seem to have a passel of homey ladies dishing out recipes and accidentally stumbling into a crime solution while they bake brownies for the Cub Scouts. I miss Miss Marple. Even the home-baked pie and home town murder books seem to be published in diminishing numbers. We have all been given too many apps and seen too many post mortems on TV. The not-ghastly dead body in the library that would have shocked Queen Victoria, no longer amuses us. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Jumping From One Novel To Another

2010-05-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

I was 10 or 12 chapters into SLEEPER and felt I was doing well. I was using third person limited point of view, but changing the person from chapter to chapter, while at the same time intermixing chapters of the events of 1938 which seemed innocent but ended horrifically, and chapters of the events in 2009 which started innocently and became increasingly horrifying until the people who actually lived through both--the ghosts--create destruction. At about that time I began reading the P. J. Tracy books with enormous delight, and realized that these ladies and John Sandford and Robert B. Parker were my all-time favorite reads. Why was I writing horror, I asked myself, when I should be writing what I loved to read? Suddenly a police procedural concept popped into my mind.

I have to explain the way my mind works. We've all seen an infinite number of movies and TV series where the cop sees or hears a little thing, and s/he stands frozen, usually with mouth open, while the people and sounds around fade into silence. After a bit of drop-jawed thinking, the cop snaps back to full focus and says "I know who did it!" That's exactly the way my mind works. Every now and then, seemingly from not much, a concept will occur to me, and if I stand still and let it come, it grows and grows, rapidly piling up detail and event, until I have close to a full-blown story. I rush to record the idea. I know this sounds a bit pretentious, but remember, I'm not claiming the ideas are any good, just that they come suddenly in a rush.

So... I wrote a lengthy outline of the police procedural concept, put aside SLEEPER, and started a new pp novel with a working title of DEATHBLOW. My writers group was not totally sure I was doing the right thing, but I assured them that the outline for SLEEPER was so extensive and detailed that I would have no trouble picking it up again in the future if I wanted to. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

Starting a Horror/Haunting Novel

2010-05-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

With NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE making the rounds of agents, I wanted to start another novel right away. Amanda Hocking recently interviewed me in her blog, one of her questions being what monster I feared when I was young. In the process of answering I mentioned that our house had a ghost who was not frightening. That house, its rural location, and that ghost had been perking in the back of my brain for some time. I determined to write a horror/haunting novel. The location descriptions would be easy because I had lived in that weathered two-story frame house for seven years. It had a ghost whom I saw often and named Oscar, but he was benign and occupied himself by walking from room to room and staring out windows. What did cause a little frisson of spookiness, however, was the name of the previous owners of the property. The family's last name was Sleeper. I would title my novel SLEEPER, it would take place in that old remote frame house, and it would have three malevolent ghosts rising from a bloody incident 70 years previous. I was excited by the idea and began by creating a 14-page, single-spaced outline. The outline is my way of knowing if my concept has meat on its bones and if I have enough arc to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. It's something like the way The Man I Married first builds a fully-detailed scale model before he begins construction of a stage set. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween.

Bad Query

2010-05-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

It was at about this time that I was talking to another writer who had completed a mystery thriller. He wished me well in my quest, but bemoaned the fact that even though he had carefully researched how to send submissions to agents, he had gotten nowhere after three years of trying. I asked to see his query letter, and he sent it.

It was addressed to a literary agency, and started out, "Dear Audrey, Bob, Robert, and Adrienne." (Address one and only one agent specifically.) "I have wanted to be a writer since I was nine years old. My dream has always been to..." (Mention your few best writing qualifications. Do not go into your hopes and dreams; they don't care.) "You ask for the first ten pages, but to save time I am sending the entire manuscript...." (Send exactly and only what they ask, how they ask.)

I won't go on, but his query didn't get any better. The letter mentioned a title, but never exactly what the novel was. I hope that I never have brain freeze, thinking I have been careful about good advice when I haven't been. I read submission instructions 16 times before sending anything. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween

The Query Letter

2010-05-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

I was ready to start sending queries to agents. I researched how to do it. The advice was simple: (1) Only query agents who handle what you write, (2) Address one and only one agent specifically, (3) Describe your book as excitingly and briefly as possible, (4) Mention your few best writing qualifications. Do not go into your hopes and dreams; they don't care, (5) Send exactly and only what they ask, how they ask. This is the query letter I devised.

Dear Ms Smith;

There are thousands of batty middle-aged antiques dealers in Minnesota, but only two of them are vampires---and they refuse to play the game. They may be undead, but they're going to be nice about it.

In my campy mystery NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, complete at 85,000 words, Louise and Erleen return from a vacation in Romania to discover they can't see themselves in mirrors., they can lift cars, and can see in the dark. Horrified, they vow not to reveal what they have become, and to continue to lead normal lives.

The challenges inherent in their new lifestyle---really bad breath, makeup without mirrors, dining without biting, going to church, not letting on that they're you-know-whatses---are difficult. Wiping out a drug ring masterminded by a Norwegian crime lord from Minneapolis, and two drug dealers from Colombia is easy. After all, staying alive no longer seems to be a problem.

Some might call this a paranormal mystery, but it really isn't a vampire vampire book; it's a funny take on remaining "nice" despite the temptations.

I am a published columnist and an unpublished novelist. NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE is my second completed novel. I'm an MFA, former regional vice-president of Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas, and founder of Minnesota Writers' Alliance, a nonprofit support group for writers in southeastern Minnesota.

May I send you the full manuscript of NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE for your consideration?

Fixing The Novel

2010-05-17T12:13:00.001-07:00

I went back and rewrote much in NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. I made my villain unappealing and slimy, I added two heartless Colombian drug lords intent on killing my girls. I made my first MacGuffin a red herring, then added a second MacGuffin, which turned out to be a red herring, then added a final surprise revelation of what the prize was. I deleted my climactic chapter. In it, I had tried to keep my girls pure, but the only logical thing to do was for them to reluctantly use their vampire transformation and scare the main villain into a confession. They may have tossed him around a bit and gnashed their fangs at him, but they DID NOT BITE. I actually thought the new final chapter was a winner. When all was done, I was still hovering around 90,000 words.

Then I had The Man I Married read the book. You think, yeah, yeah, her husband; what does he know? Fortunately for me he is a voracious and somewhat omnivorous reader with a fine sense of timing. He's not the "I really liked this chapter" type; he's the "Okay, the tension is off in this chapter. You need to move this conversation closer to the end and have it happen just after they learn where the villain is going. Then you'll have a ta-bump, bump right at the end that should spring people into the next chapter." He's that kind of guy. Isn't he wonderful? This time, upon reading the entire manuscript, he gave some good pointers, but looking at the book as a whole, he said, "You're too in love with writing dialogue. Your ladies talk too much, too long, and it's boring. You've got to seriously tighten up the whole novel. I had another moment of clearly seeing what I should have been seeing all along. I went back to the beginning, and tightened that puppy up! I now had a novel that was much less boring and had slimmed itself down to 85,000 words.

The End

2010-05-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

I did it! I wrote the last word of the last chapter of my 90,000-word novel, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, and a pretty good chapter it was, I said to myself. I triumphantly sent the final chapter to my writers group. When we met, they went over the chapter bit-by-bit, as was their habit. Then, they leaned back, and said, "Let's look at the book as a whole." Their collective opinion was that (1) The book had no red herrings, no surprises, the desired object, the MacGuffin for you Hitchcock fans, was evident from the first, and therefore boring. (2) My villain was not villainous enough. (3) My climactic scene was unbelievable and unexciting. You know how sometimes you need someone to point something out before you can clearly see what you have been seeing all along? As they pointed these things out, my mind was flooded with thoughts of "They're right! They're right!" My next thoughts were "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I raced home with these concrete guidelines for making the book much better.

Using "Find"

2010-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

I was many chapters into "Nice Girls Don't Bite," thinking I was doing just swell, when I came upon that writing advice about amateurish verbs and word choices. I reviewed my writing. Yeeks! I wasn't doing well at all. I was up to my literary armpits in amateurishness. Thanks goodness for the "Find" function in my word processing software. Every new chapter, I have it search for "is, have, can, just, ly, ing, and" and "ould." That's not a typo. "Ould" gives me "could, would, should." When I have searched them out, I put them all in red, and then go back to the beginning and get rid of the red by re-writing better.

Alternate Writers Groups

2010-05-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

05-10-10 Alternate Writers Groups
There are two other writers groups in my area that I am aware of. "The Library Group" meets once a month, varies from 9-12 attending, and is open to all. Writers preferably send their work to each other ahead of time. It is the style of the group for Member B to comment on Member A's work in its entirety. Then Member C comments on Member A's work in its entirety. Then Member D comments on Member A's work in its entirety. And so on. Member A may be writing a historical romance, Member B poetry, Member C narrative nonfiction about the discovery of rubber, Member D children's picture books, but all observations are welcomed. This format works for many as the group continues to grow in membership and enthusiasm. I faded away because my output needed review more than once a month and I desired to hear only from people writing mysteries. Bear went into a bar syndrome.

The other group, sometimes called "Open Mic," sometimes "3-Minute Mic," meets in a town half an hour away. Once a month, between 10 and 25 writers gather. It is the style of the group for the first approximate hour to be a presentation by an area writer of some note, and after that, writers get up and read from their work for about 3 minutes. In the meetings I attended, I discovered no one observed the suggested time limit and no comments were made of the readings. I most certainly could see the value of reading aloud, however. I practiced my sections aloud to the cats many times beforehand to make sure I could read them smoothly and that they conformed to the 3-minute limit. The cats offered no comments, but my own ear did hear, and I corrected, several awkward spots.

Rewriting! Rewriting!

2010-04-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

I wonder if I'm weird or if other writers are like me. I can't just start writing, go to the end, and then worry about going back and shaping things up. I'm writing mysteries, for heaven's sake. Everything has got to fit all along the way. Every clue has to fall in a certain place. Every important discovery has to be foreshadowed. As I write, I get interesting ideas additional to my outline, and I write them in, but then I have to go way back to the beginning and rewrite in order to foreshadow and to make sure the logic is consistent. If, for instance, I suddenly decide it would be cool if a villain had a missing trigger finger, then he must have a missing trigger finger in all preceding chapters. And if, in those preceding chapters, I have to give him a different weapon because of the problem with the finger, then I have to go back and change the weapon. And if, while changing the weapon, I get a great idea about a physical habit he develops because of the particular weapon, then I have to go back and forwards and add in the interesting part about the habit. If I don't take care of it at the time, things get all mixed up. I often tell people that my books don't get longer, they get fatter.

Different Voices

2010-04-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

At one of our meetings, the members of my writers group pointed out that my two main characters, Louise and Erleen, spoke in the same voice and I should do something to distinguish them. Excellent comment, but how? They were of a similar age, both widows, both antiques dealers, both had lived in Minnesota for most of their lives. I didn't have the writing experience to make them have different (enough) voices, so I tried what I felt at the time was a cheap cop-out. I decided Erleen had been born and raised in the South and had moved to Minnesota right after college when she was married. I left her with a Minnesota speech style, but a habit of throwing in Southern colloquialisms as a sort of flirtatious device that had become a habit. I think it worked well. Later, when the book was finished, a reader told me that Erleen was the most delightful character in the book because of the way she talked. Isn't that just finer than frog hair?

Lengthy Character Descriptions

2010-04-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Many writing advisors caution against lengthy character descriptions, and when I started to write, I heeded them. As I introduced my characters in "Nice Girls Don't Bite," I tried to keep their descriptions to a brief simile. "She looked like a bright-eyed inquisitive kitten." The ladies in my writers group protested. "What is she wearing?" I heard repeatedly. I gave in a little. "She was dressed in the height of fashion." That wasn't good enough. "What is she wearing?" they repeated. Pointing out that the readership for cozies is primarily women, they insisted that clothing descriptions were necessary. Okay, I finally gave in, but I used the surrender as a springboard for characterization. My high fashion character was Erleen, so every time she changed clothes I made an item of apparel useful in other places. For example, fifteen thin silver bracelets on one wrist that quivered and clinked with her indignation in a police interview. Boots with Lucite heels that prevented her from running as far as Louise suggested in a panicky situation. I tried not to get too carried away with clothing description, but I have to admit that what Erleen wore became an interesting and sometimes funny aspect of the novel. (I hope.)

Where Are We?

2010-04-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

I have small colored sticky notes taped around my computer screen that I try to read often as I compose. One of them says, "What time is it? What day is it? Where are we?" I have discovered that getting that information into each new chapter smoothly is sometimes easy, sometimes almost impossible, depending on the situation. Some day it might be fun to sponsor a contest to see who could write the best first sentence of a chapter that has time, day, and location in it. "It was a dark and stormy night," is, of course, already taken.

Snowbird--Wrong and Right

2010-04-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

Snowbird came back from her southern island and re-entered the critique circle, which I was quite cozy with by then. She looked at the first sentence of my week's output and said, "Cross this phrase out, you don't need it." "Get rid of this 'was' and the word 'never.'" "In the second sentence, why are you saying 'in the house?' Everyone knows it's in the house, delete that phrase." "Tighten this third sentence up by..." Sentence by sentence, word by word, she was re-writing my chapter. I was furious. Had the woman no sense of how to give constructive criticism? I gave her a glare that would have stopped a rhino. The next time she opened her mouth to re-write what I had written, I glared fiercely at her. Eventually, she got the message and quit re-writing. That was a year-and-a-half ago, and I have now matured enough in my writing to realize her corrections were exactly what I needed to do. I wish, though, she had said, "You're over-writing and it looks amateurish. You need to go back and pare this down to nice tight sentences that flow smoothly." Now THAT I would have understood. And now that I'm writing less amateurishly, I look forward to her return north. It is hoped that she will have fewer edits, and no doubt she hopes that I will quit glaring at her.

The Bear in a Bar

2010-04-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

One very minor drawback to my writers group was that the others were writing literary fiction and I was writing commercial fiction. "So what," you say, "good writing is good writing, yes?" Yeeeeess, but... I like to explain the difference this way: Imagine you're writing a joke book. You go to a meeting of my writers group, and say, "Here's my first joke. A bear went into a bar and said to the bartender---" You'd get that far before a barrage of questions came at you. "What kind of a bear is it?" "How old is the bear?" "Is the bear married?" "Does the bear regularly come into this bar?" "Are the bear and the bartender friends?" "Is the bear an alcoholic?" "You need a lot more back story before you go much farther." To the joke reader, "A bear went into a bar..." is all the back story you need. To a mystery writer, moving things along is frequently more important than back story. (You no doubt notice that I use the past tense quite a bit. That's because I'm going back to the beginning of when I started writing. Eventually I'll catch up and we'll be in the present.)

Finding a Writers Group

2010-04-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

I found a small group of writers willing to accept me into their circle. With me added, there were four-and-a-half of us (one was a snowbird with us only six months of every year). We met once a week at a coffeehouse and emailed our pieces a few days ahead of time. Cee-Cee was an exquisite writer. Everything she wrote was concise, every word a gem. She was writing a novel about a cancer survivor who goes to the World Poker Tournament. She gave my writing a flattering amount of attention, and a truly helpful amount of criticism. Dee-Dee wrote nostalgia pieces about young love. She was quiet, not offering many detailed comments, but when she did speak up, she made a thematic suggestion that instantly took root in my mind, grew like kudzu, and became almost a whole new exciting chapter. Mimi was an attractive young model who was writing a novel, short stories, and a play. Her special talent was portraying dysfunctional (air-headed?) young women. Most of her comments didn't speak to what I was trying to do and I tended not to pay all that much attention, except... Once in a while she would say, "You know, you have a habit of..." And, shazam! she would put her pretty finger right smack on a sneaky/lazy writing trick that I thought I was getting away with. I looked forward to every meeting because the group was doing me so much good. The exceptions were the Snowbird and the Bear. More about them to come.

My First Writers Festival

2010-04-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

I attended my first writers festival. Talk about mixed reactions! Most of them not good. The one thing worth the entire price was a seminar conducted by a Mama Cass look-alike with a no-nonsense, almost brusque, demeanor. She explained what a platform was, how important it could be, how to make one, and where to make contacts. She handed out lists of specific web sites, companies, blogs, and tricks of the trade. Other seminars, however, were disappointing in that the presenters were not organized, expecting, I guess, that if they simply stood up and talked, we would be entranced. I was not entranced. Most offensively disappointing was a seminar titled something like "How To Write Compelling Narrative." The presenter was a very well-known, often-published writer of mystery books with fascinating ethnic venues. I'd read his books; they were excellent. He started the seminar by saying, "Let's play a game. A woman enters a candy store, and...." He pointed to a gray-haired woman in his audience, "What happens next?" The woman said, "No one is there." He pointed to someone else. "And?" "She decided to look in the back room." Another point. "And?" That business continued for quite some time until he ended it by saying, "You have just created narrative." Next he pulled out a sheaf of papers and read a paragraph to us. "That's excellent narrative," he said. He read a different paragraph. "That's great narrative," he said. We finished his session that way. The final session of the festival was a panel discussion chaired by five published authors. The moderator had them go one-by-one and tell how they became writers. That killed the time. No one discussed anything. Thank goodness for the one seminar with substantive content.

Don't Murder Your Mystery

2010-04-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

As I got started again, this time knowing where my book was going because I had an outline for a GPS, I bought Chris Roerden's "Don't Murder Your Mystery." If you're writing mysteries, I believe it is the most helpful book you can ever read. Every page is full of valuable and practical information. Ms Roerden goes beyond explaining what's good and what's not-so-good, she gives examples every! single! time! I recommend the book highly. The only precaution I might make is you may want to fill it with dog ears or sticky notes or a trail of crumbs when you go through it the first time, because the Table of Contents is expressed in highly creative terms, and I had difficulty looking up what I wanted to re-read.

Following Stephen King's Advice

2010-04-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

It was at this time that The Man I Married heard a radio interview with Stephen King and repeated to me what Mr. King had said. What TMIM understood Mr. King to say was not to organize, outline, or solidify your novel ahead of time. Just start telling the story and let your characters take you where they will. As I considered Mr. King to be a genius and myself to be a former English teacher cursed with a pedantic style, I welcomed this advice. Yes! I would just start writing, and maybe what I wrote would sound natural and not heavily pedantic. About 12 chapters into "Nice Girls Don't Bite," I ground to a halt, impossibly snarled in what I had written, without a clue as to where to go next. I went to my best thinking place, the shower, and puzzled over my problem until the hot water ran out. I saw the light. Mr. King, still a genius, was talking about mainstream novels. I, still a pedantic doofus, was writing a commercial novel. Organization and plotting are the bedrock of mysteries. The author absolutely must plan ahead of time who the murderer is, how he committed the crime, where the clues have to show up, how many red herrings to plant, what order the detective follows, and a lot of other good stuff. I went back to the beginning, wrote a 12-page outline, and started the novel all over.

Finding A Hot Title

2010-04-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

I decided to name my humorous vampire cozy "Ladies Of The Night." I felt rather clever about it. Ladies of the night is a term that could be construed to mean prostitutes, and so there was a jokey double meaning there. Both working girls and vampires tend to come out at night, doncha know. Shortly thereafter I had occasion to read various magazine articles and blogs, all of which said you had to have a "hot" title, otherwise agents, publishers, and the reading public would refuse to recognize your existence. At the same time, other various articles and blogs told me not to worry about my title, because the publisher's hot-shots would change it anyway. Pfffttt. Well, anyway, after thinking about it, I decided "Ladies Of The Night," was sorta blah--didn't have an active voice. While searching for something better, I emailed my daughter, describing what the book would be, and my need for a hot title. She sent back, "Nice Girls Don't Bite." Yessss! I loved it. I had my hot title.

Writing A Cozy

2010-04-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

I knew a cozy mystery meant an amateur sleuth, usually a small town, and more often than not, humorous. We have all read time and again, that one should write about what one knows. I was just folding a career buying and selling antiques and the columns I write are humorous, so there was my backdrop. At the time, vampires were all the rage, glutting the market. I decided to write a cozy mystery about two widowed antiques dealers, Louise and Erleen, who unknowingly get made into vampires on a vacation trip to Romania. The twist in my book is that they are horrified and refuse to behave like vampires. They're from Minnesota, drat it. They may be undead, but they're going to be nice about it. I thought it was a great twist and something new--vampires who were going to fight it. There is a lot of advice written about starting a book in the right place. I decided to jump over all of the how-did-it-happen stuff and start with my main characters back in Minnesota, waking up with what they think is jet lag, and unable to see themselves in mirrors. I started with a funny, downright campy, opening chapter.

When I Began

2010-04-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

I began writing novels about three years ago when I decided I wasn't getting any younger. If I was ever going to write book-length material, now was the time. In the past I had written a handful of plays, a number of newsletters, a ton of advertising copy, news stories, and several series of humor columns, one of which was seven years old and still going strong. I also had a mystery novel written 20 years before which was deep in the trunk on a diskette that probably couldn't be read any more. With all that experience, I assumed I had the discipline and talent to write anything exceptionally well. I decided to write a cozy mystery because that was my favorite reading niche. Right there is where my career as a novelist started. I have yet to write a novel that any agent likes, but I have learned so many things about the craft of writing that my experiences are, I believe, interesting and valuable. I hope my readers will profit from them.