One Downside of a Long Writing Career

I had a conversation with my oldest daughter the other day that made me look at my world in a whole new--and not entirely pleasant--way. We were talking about re-releasing the very first mystery series I ever wrote, the Fred Vickery mysteries. When I wrote those books, I created Fred as a mixture of my dad, who was in his 70s at the time, my maternal grandfather, who had passed away years before, my next-door neighbor, Fred, and me.

When I pictured Fred, I saw him as an elderly man, at least a full generation older than me. I based his speech patterns on those I'd heard my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents use. Fred was elderly. No doubt about it. If I imagined the books being made into a movie or a TV series, I pictured actors of the day taking the role of Fred -- Andy Griffith, maybe. The older Andy, not the younger Andy of Mayberry version. Andy in his 70s, just like Fred.

Even though I created Fred in 1992, which means in the real world he would have aged a good 20 years, in my mind he was still Andy-Griffith-in-Matlock-esque.

But the other day my daughter said something that blew me right out of the water. "Ooh!" she said. "If they made a movie now, Kurt Russell could play Fred."

Excuse me!?! What??? Kurt Russell?  No! No way!

To begin with, Kurt is my number one go-to hot guy. Kurt is not old enough to play Fred in a movie. Kurt is Wyatt Earp in Tombstone tough (and have I mentioned hot?) Kurt isn't 70-ish and slowing down. Kurt is timeless.

When I wrote my very first published romance, Call Me Mom, the hero, Kurt Morgan, was based on Kurt. Kurt was Kurt. Kurt still is Kurt. When I reworked Call Me Mom to be republished as Picture Perfect by Harlequin Heartwarming, Kurt was still ... Kurt.

But, as my mother always says, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry." I can't change reality just by refusing to acknowledge or even accept it. The fact is, I've aged. Kurt has aged. And the hot guy who was the hero in my very first romance novel probably could now play the septuagenarian in my very first mystery novel. I'm still not okay with it, but I'm not okay with a lot of things that show up in my world--like the fact that I'm not 30 anymore.

But I'll tell you one thing--if and when I write more books in the Fred Vickery series, I'm going to be looking at good old Fred in a whole new light!

Does the Race Really Go to the Swiftest?

In a world where the race goes to the swiftest, do you ever feel as if you're lagging behind? Struggling just to stay in the pack, never mind moving into the lead? Do you feel as if you're peddling as fast as you can and getting nowhere? Don't worry. You are not alone.

With all the advice out there, it's easy to get overwhelmed. It always has been, but now, with all the social media and the quick exchange of information from hundreds of thousands of people (dare I say millions) all at once, all the time, it's both better that it's ever been before and, somehow, worse.

Back a billion years ago, right after I sold my first book and became eligible to join the Published Author Network (PAN) of Romance Writers of America (RWA), I received a booklet containing advice about what to do after my first sale. The problem was, the booklet didn't arrive until just a few weeks before my first book was set to hit the shelves, and most of the advice was stuff I should have done weeks and months before. I remember staring at that booklet and feeling completely conflicted. I was exhilarated because I qualified to have the thing in the first place and but I also felt overwhelmed and a bit hopeless because it seemed to me that the advice had arrived too late to do me any good.

Yesterday, as I scrolled through the thousands of posts, tweets, and pictures and tweets, I found myself feeling much the same thing. I was exhilarated because, after years of living with an undiagnosed illness and the utter debilitating fatigue that came with it, I'm finally starting to feel well enough to make an effort to get my career back on track. But I'm also overwhelmed by the sheer volume of advice that's out there and feeling a little hopeless because in my weaker moments, it feels like too little, too late.

Part of my current issue, is that the publishing world has changed so much from when I first signed up for the race. Back then, it was all about getting your work in front of an agent and/or editor and what the Big 6 publishing houses wanted. Now, with the advent of independent publishing, there's so much more to learn it's mind-boggling.

That's okay. Really it is. Because while I have thoroughly enjoyed a 20+ year career working with a couple of the Big 6 publishing houses, and will continue as long as it's mutually beneficial, I'm also really excited by the freedom that going independent offers to authors. But going independent means that there are five or six other full-time jobs I need to take on to produce and promote my books in addition to the writing itself, which we all know is a more-than-full-time job.

And much of the "advice" available today doesn't come across as advice at all. It's demanding. It's delivered in the form of orders and rules. It's black-and-white, no questions asked dictates: 10 Things You Must Never Do or 25 Things You Must Do Immediately! because current wisdom says we must be bold, authoritative, and confident and we must never show weakness. (Oh what I wouldn't give for a touch of honest vulnerability!)

Much of this bold, authoritative, confident advice is worth listening to and considering, and even trying. But some of it doesn't make any sense at all (at least not to me). Some of it is counter-intuitive (why should it matter to my tweeting schedule how many people are following me on Twitter? Isn't the real factor that affects how many times my tweet will appear in their feed based on how many people they follow?) And a lot of it is conflicting: Don't use social media to promote your book is immediately followed by Always use social media to promote your book.


So maybe in this overloaded, overwhelming world some of the old rules should still apply:

• Be open. 
• By all means, listen. 
• Consider. 
• Especially if you're not exactly where you want to be in your career, be willing to try new things.
• Then keep what works 
• And discard the rest. 
• And write the best book you can

Ultimately, I'm not convinced that the race goes to the swiftest. I think the race really goes to s/he who doesn't give up. 

Uptown Funk (Oldtown Cover)

I've been a fan of Alex Boye since the first time I saw him performing in The Civil War, a musical production at my local community theater a few years ago. He came back a year or two later and starred in the production again, and I was hooked.

This video came across my Facebook wall early this morning and it made me want to get up and dance. I thought it was only fair to share it with the rest of you!

Enjoy!

I Stand Corrected

Last fall while driving to dinner in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, some good friends and I fell into a discussion about TV shows we liked (or not). It soon became clear that I was the odd woman out. Everyone else seemed to love The Big Bang Theory. I told them that I used to love it, but lost interest when the female characters of Amy Farrah Fowler and Bernadette were added to the show. We talked about a few other shows, I think, but that's the only one I clearly remember. What I remember most was when one friend (whom I dearly love and deeply respect) said that it was clear she and I could never watch TV together.

That comment didn't shatter me emotionally or anything. I thought it was kind of funny, actually. But I didn't forget it, either. It's not as if it weighed heavily on my mind or filled me with guilt or made me regret admitting how I felt. It just came back to me from time to time, usually when I saw an ad for an upcoming episode of  The Big Bang Theory. 

I've never been one of those people who forms an opinion about something without feeling as if I know what I'm talking about. So when everyone around me decides to boycott a particular show based on what they think it's going to be, I watch a few episodes to find out exactly what it is before I start acting as if my opinion has merit. I try not to mindlessly follow trends, get caught up in the latest fad, or watch a show I think is poorly written, sloppily edited, and/or badly acted just because "everyone else" is watching it. I will confess to being irritated by trailers and ads telling me that "all of America" is talking about or watching something that clearly "all" of America is neither talking about nor watching. (Channeling my inner Sheldon here.) 

Because I'm not much of a joiner, I'm usually the last person I know to see a popular movie or read a bestselling book just because it's popular. I doubt you'll ever find me first in line to get tickets to anything. 

But I digress . . . 

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my youngest daughter during which she asked if I was caught up on Big Bang. I told her I was anything but caught up and, in fact, had missed several years of episodes. But again, the conversation with my friends loomed up in my memory and I decided that maybe I should try a few episodes to see if I really didn't like the upgraded cast or if I might (gasp!) have been wrong to quit watching so quickly. 

It took me a few episodes to really begin to appreciate the "new" ladies in the group, but I have to admit that after watching a couple of episodes after my writing day is finished, I actually like them quite a bit. I'm really not sure which relationship I like most.  A few days ago I watched an episode in which Amy Farrah Fowler referred to "Boyfriend/Girlfriend singalong night," and I've giggled about that on and off for days.  

I'm sure nobody has lost sleep over my opinion here, but when I'm wrong I like to say I'm wrong. So this is me, admitting that I was wrong. 

photo credit: Funky64 (www.lucarossato.com) via photopin cc

Book Review: Celebrations

Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer by Maya Angelou

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Maya Angelou is a genius, plain and simple. Her words are like honey. They trickle down into the soul, little by little, slowly, soothing pain and lifting the spirit on their way. Every piece in this collection marks some special event, thus the title Celebrations. "On the Pulse of the Morning," read at President Clinton's inauguration; "Amazing Peace," presented at the 2005 lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House; "A Brave and Startling Truth," which marked the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, a poem for Oprah's fiftieth birthday, one for the bar mitzvah for Angelou's nephew, and several others.

As I set this book aside, a few stanzas stay with me, working their way through the maze of my mind and finding their permanent place in my soul. Definitely recommended.



View all my reviews

What Makes a Book a Wallbanger?

I'm a writer, but I'm also a reader and every year when contest season rolls around, I'm reminded of that fact. I try to judge the books and manuscripts I'm sent as a reader, not as a writer. Your job, after all, is to create an emotional ride for readers, not to please other writers. So today, as I'm dragging myself through one of the books on my contest stack, I started asking myself what makes a book a wallbanger for me. 

Let me stop for a moment to say that this particular book isn't one.

But I've read a few, as I'm sure we all have. 

In my mind, there's a big difference between a book that's just okay and one that inspires me to throw it at the wall. 

I've read countless books over the years, and I can only think of a handful that I've actually tossed away in disgust. There are a whole lot more that I've put down and never come back to. I think there are 3 or 4 on the floor by my bed that fall into that category.

But we're talking about wallbangers here. What makes a book a wallbanger to you?  

The first book I can honestly remember flinging away in disgust is one I picked up about 30 years ago, while I was going through a divorce and struggling to support my daughter on my own meager income and sporadic child support payments. Life was tough. I was emotionally raw, spiritually battered, and struggling financially. Every day I had to worry about how to feed my child and how to give her enough time and attention, not to mention what was happening to her at the really lousy day care I could afford.

So I picked up this book about a wealthy woman going through a divorce. Life got a little unpleasant for her, so she decided to go to Europe for six months or so to "heal." 

Bang! 

I literally threw that book across the room. I don't remember ever doing that before, but I couldn't get that book out of my hands fast enough! I can tell you in all honesty that in 30-plus years, I never bought another book by that author. At that time in my life, at that moment, when life was so hideously painful and I was too poor to have any options at all, that book felt like a huge betrayal. In that moment, I realized that I don't read to escape my life. I read to make sense of my life and, for me, The Big Disconnect is probably the #1 wallbanger for me. 

What's top on your list?

Editing Mark Twain

By now I'm sure most of you have read and discussed the decision to publish Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, replacing the "N" word with "slave." I waited a few days to post on this topic because if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's to not go public with a statement while emotions are running hot. Were my emotions running hot the day the news about the new version broke?

You betcha.

I'm an author. Words are my medium, and I don't take kindly to the notion of mucking about with anyone's words, even that the person who wrote 'em has been dead for a while. Even if the words make me uncomfortable or offend me. I may not like what you say but, like Voltaire, I defend your right to say it.

According to my grandmother, I'm also a distant cousin of Samuel Clemens. I suspect it's true because she was heavily into genealogy and she wouldn't have made something like that up. So even though I haven't personally seen the genealogy chart that links my family line to old Cousin Sam's, my blood was boiling out of sheer family loyalty.

But now that I've had some time to think about it, I've changed my mind. Now I say, by all means, make the change!

If there's one thing this country doesn't need, it's an old, tired book reminding us how horribly African Americans were treated in this country just a few generations ago. Nobody wants to think about slavery, but if we must, at least let's take some of the sting out of the subject.

All that ugliness has caused a lot of bad feelings over the years. And all those bad feelings have caused a lot of trouble. So, forgetting entirely about the sensibilities of the world's sixth graders, I say that the very last thing we need hanging around is a reminder that race relations weren't always perfect, the way they are now.

The very best thing we can do is to shave off the sharp edges and produce a much gentler history for posterity. To hell with the truth! (Sorry Cousin Sam.) Let's make sure the past looks pretty so future generations will look upon us more kindly.

On second thought, maybe Cousin Sam would approve of this change. After all, he did once say:

"Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it." -- Mark Twain

We can economize truth right now with the removal of one horrendously offensive word. We can soften the blow so that that this generation will grow up not knowing how bad things really were. By the time these kids grow up, they'll be ready to remove "slave" and substitute it with "servant." Or maybe "friend." Why stop short?

In two or three more generations, we'll have softened the truth so much, our posterity will be able to recycle the stuff we've removed from history and start all over again. And the best part of that is, they'll think they made it up!


While we're discussing the subject, let's forget that Twain wrote political and cultural satire that wasn't intended for sixth graders in the first place. So let's dumb down the books a bit further and remove all the other poky-out parts that might jab somebody else in the conscience. No sense letting the old man get a dig in now that he's not around.

And maybe when we're finished with Twain, we can take a swipe at Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. I'm pretty sure there are some things we'll want to soften in the history of the holocaust, as well.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. 

It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." 

-- Mark Twain

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." 

-- Mark Twain 

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word 

is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." 

-- Mark Twain

"All right, then, I'll go to hell." 

-- Mark Twain

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from the blog On My Mind Today

Stony Stratford Strikes Back!

In between sentences in my current work-in-progress, I've been wondering what to blog about today. Yeah, I've been working on my list of 100 Books I Want to Read, but I don't plan to subject you to 100 uninterrupted days of me thinking about my massive TBR stack. I swear!

I was having a little trouble coming up with a topic that knocked my socks off ... until I saw this article scroll past.

First, major kudos to the folks in Stony Stratford for caring enough about the library to do this. It's amazing. At first, when I saw the image of the completely empty library, my heart sank. I thought the shelves were empty because the library was closing. But as I read on and realized that the library was completely empty because people in that village checked out all 16,000 books in the library to protest the possible closure, I experienced a huge feel-good moment.

I love the library, and have since I was a little girl when my mother took me there. I still remember the thrill of climbing the metal stairs into the Bookmobile when it came to my school and the joy of walking up and down the stacks, looking for books I wanted to read. The library meant that no matter how much money we had or didn't have, I could always get a book. The library meant that I could read thousands of books if I wanted to, and the only thing standing in my way was how fast or slow I read the books I had.

Librarians knew and understood the books. If I liked this, they could recommend that. If I couldn't figure out the Dewey Decimal System, they showed me where to find the book I wanted. As I grew older and my book needs changed, I discovered that the library meant even more than just good books to read. It means research materials, access to old newspaper archives and past issues of magazines. And if I needed a book that I couldn't find on the shelves, all I had to do was request the book and my library would get it from another library.

Sadly, that service is no longer available to me due to budget cuts. I'm not pointing fingers here or trying to place blame. There's entirely too much of that in our society already, and my thoughts today aren't about who's responsible and who's not. I just wish that more people valued books. I wish more people would realize how amazing the library is. I wish we'd put our money where our mouths are. When we claim that education of our children is important, let's not take away their ability to find a book to read, even if their parents don't have money or their parents don't especially like to read. (That's another thing that makes me sad, but it's a topic for another day.)

Everyone I know is struggling in this economy. There's not as much money for entertainment and travel. Food budgets are being slashed and people are downsizing. But at the library, you can always get a book to read. Even in my small community, where services are being cut, I can still access any book in the county-wide system, and they still provide monthly e-mails about the new books they've put on the shelves every month.  And that's a good thing.

Have any great library memories or just thoughts about their status in the current economy?  I'd love to hear what you think.


_______________________________
from the blog On My Mind Today

Honor our Military Families

This is too important not to share. Read the full text of Dr. Biden's blog post

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from the blog On My Mind Today

I’ve Finished my RITA Books!

Every year, members of Romance Writers of America donate hours of their time to judge RWA’s two major contests – the Golden Heart and the RITA. This year, I ended up with 7 or 8 books to read for the RITA (I’ve lost count) and I’ve been reading up a storm trying to finish every book and turn in my score. Last night, I finished the last book in my stack, and I’m deliriously happy.

Unlike past years, this year I ended up with a bunch of books that I probably wouldn’t have picked up to read if they hadn’t been sent to me in my contest packet. I get a few of those books every year. We all do. After all, what are the chances that you’re going to get a package filled only with books you’d pick out for yourself to read?

Like past years, this year I discovered a couple of treasures – books that surprised me for one reason or another. Books I enjoyed much more than I expected to. I also ended up with a couple I didn’t enjoy at all. That’s no surprise, either. It happens every year.

I enjoy the experience of judging books in the RITA contest, even if it is time-consuming and takes me away from my own TBR stack for a few weeks. But I’m also happy to get back to it when I’m finished :)

Houston: We Have a Problem

Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area more than a week ago, and most of the country has moved on to more pressing matters. It's to be expected, I suppose. After all, there are a dozen other things out there hovering over the entire country, threatening storms of a different kind. But I have friends in Houston, and the corporate office of Romance Writers of America is located there, so I receive updates several times a day. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Houston still do not have electricity. At last count, the number of individual accounts still without power was 757,000. That's accounts, not people. Put just 3 people in every location, and we're talking about well over 2 million people still without power. In many locations an "open grocery store" means that someone will walk you through with a flashlight while you grab a few things (what things there are) from the shelves. Yesterday, my friend Allison saw a sign at her local grocery store that announced they now had fresh meat and dairy. People are still cooking on camp stoves outside and living on whatever they had in their cupboards when Ike hit. And now, to add to the power outage issues, the temperatures are rising and mosquitoes are infesting the area. My friend Donna sent me some pictures this morning of the devastation. I wish I could share them with you, but they're copyrighted and I respect other people's copyrights the way I hope people will respect mine, so I won't be posting them here. Some of them were too disturbing to share anyway. And most of us probably don't want to know what happened in the cemeteries, anyway. I suppose we might all be paying attention to what's happening in Houston if the economy weren't crumbling right in front of our eyes. We'd all pay attention if the people of Houston had climbed onto their roofs and waited for us to rescue them. And I'm sure the media would be tossing footage of the economy and the election into the trash can if this had happened in NYC. But Houston is our country's fourth largest city, and what happens there is going to impact all of us in the very near future. If the human aspect of the story doesn't move the media, then perhaps the economic impact will. Because if power isn't restored so that people can return to work soon, we're all going to wonder what happened to our gas supply.

Time to Vote!

If you're a member of Romance Writers of America, you should be aware that voting has begun for next year's Board of Directors. I received an e-mail from the national office this afternoon, providing me a link and an individual election pass code so I could access the ballot. Once you're there, you can view the candidates' bios and vision statements, cast your vote, change your vote, save your vote and come back later. Just please don't forget to vote!!!! For the first time in 4 years, I'm not part of the election process. I have to say I'm having mixed feelings over it. I'm going to miss serving on the board. I'm going to miss the camaraderie with the other board members, I'm going to miss working with the incredible corporate staff that Executive Director Allison Kelley has put together. I'm going to miss being an integral part of what's going on in the organization. On the other hand, I'm going to like having a little more time to call my own. Time to spend . . . oh, I don't know . . . writing, maybe. To be fair, I can't say that my (ahem) slow writing schedule over the past few years has been board related, or even board caused. It's mostly been due to health issues that were misdiagnosed for about 3 years. But it looks as if the docs and I are finally on the right track, and now that we are, it will be nice to call my time my own as I get back into the swing of doing what I do. I'm also giving some serious thought to relocating during the coming year. I know it will come as a huge surprise that I've set my sights on Florida where Vanessa and Ian are making their home, along with the World's Most Incredible Grandbaby and, if the counter up at the top of my blog didn't give this away, the World's Other Most Incredible Grandbaby, who's on his/her way and should arrive in March. I know that people live on opposite sides of the country from their grandchildren all the time, and they survive quite nicely. Well, I've tried it, and I'm surviving it, but let's be honest here -- I don't like it. It's wrong. Sick, twisted, and very wrong. And since I can do what I do from anywhere I choose, there's no reason except fear of the unknown for me not to move. Well, there's also the lack of money, but getting back to work should take care of that issue. Which I can do since I'm not running for election this year! It's amazing how everything comes together, isn't it?

In My Opinion ...

Okay, I finally saw the segment the Today Show did recently on romance while covering the 28th annual Romance Writers of America's national conference in San Francisco. I'd heard some good things about the segment, and I'd heard some bad things about the segment, and I was eager to see what the show had done. I'm told that Nora had a good interview with the reporter who covered the conference, but she wasn't completely happy with the snippet of her interview that aired. This is, of course, mere rumor because I haven't actually spoken with La Nora myself, but I'm told that she wasn't happy because, as always, the media focused on how many books she'd sold rather than on any of the other things she said during the interview. Nora is one of the genre's staunchest supporters, and I'm sure she said a lot of things we'd have loved to hear repeated on national television. Maybe we'd have heard them if the piece had been longer. I don't know ... maybe Nora's incredible sales record is what people want to hear about. If so, I don't get it. (No offense, Nora!) But, then, I don't get a lot of things, like why the world is so fascinated by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, or by Tom Cruise (shudder) and Katie Holmes. Or why "we" felt as if we owned Princess Diana, or .... well, just lots of things. On the other hand, I was delighted that the show interviewed the award-winning romance novelist, Beverly Jenkins. She may have only appeared on screen for a few seconds, but it was an important few seconds. For decades, the romance genre has been portrayed as white books by white women written for white woman. Beverly is just one of the many African-American, Asian-American, Latino and other multi-cultural women who write romance and fill the ever-growing market for multi-cultural romance. If you ask me, it's way past time to set the record straight. The other grumble I heard about the Today Show piece centered on a comment made by one of the show's anchors after the piece aired. The offending comment was something like, "Well now we know what career we should be pursuing in our spare time." And yeah, I know, they don't have a clue -- but who does? The only people who understand how damn hard it is to write a novel are the people who actually write novels. And the reporter did just finish talking about how romance authors are intelligent, insightful women who also practice medicine and the law and who have Ph.Ds and raise kids, which makes it sound as if we're all writing romance novels in our spare time. So I really can't blame the anchor. We just have to find a better way to get the message across, I guess. So it wasn't a totally bad piece (although at times it did make us look a bit like over-eager fans at a Star Trek convention -- not that there's anything wrong with being an over-eager fan at a Star Trek convention!) but it wasn't a totally good piece, either. It wasn't entirely accurate, but it wasn't entirely inaccurate, either -- which makes it your typical segment on the daily news, doesn't it? And I do think that Ms. Jansing tried to include some of the important points, in spite of the unfortunate "Sex Between the Covers" tag line and the "Sex and the City" tie in that I don't quite understand. And hey! it was the Today Show. Which says something, right? So I don't really want to complain about the segment because I'm thrilled that RWA managed to catch the attention of such a high-profile, highly respected program. I just wish that while they let us speak to the world for that minute or so, they'd let us say a bit more about the healing properties of our novels, about the many women who turn to romance for hope in times of despair, or for escape in times of stress. Or that they'd given a moment's notice to our conference theme: Romance -- Bridging the World, and mentioned that we're not just talking about American women, or white women, but about women of all races, all religions, all backgrounds, all education levels, all around the world. Or that they'd explained that the part where excited fans were seen storming the Bastille in search of romance novels was actually our annual Readers for Life Literacy Autographing, at which RWA raised over $58,000 which it donated to Pro Literacy Worldwide to assist in its efforts to erase adult illiteracy around the world. Ah well . . . maybe next year.