Hit Me With Your Best Quote

My mind is a-scatter with things to talk about. Which basically means I have no focus. Which is all right, except I need to write about something, right?

Well, this week maybe not.

I want to springboard a couple of subject dives from last week’s comments, but I really should put that in the comments of last week...only I don’t seem to be able to be everywhere at once. So diving into this pool:.

Jessica’s comment on The Running Dream being required reading, but that none of her recomendees have taken her up on her recommendation.

I can so relate!

As my dad always said, “You can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.”

Along the required reading line, I’ve thought for years that Flipped should be required reading for anyone thinking about getting married.  It should be the bridal shower gift. The bach’ party present.

Read this, dude. If you still think she’s the one, okay, then. Get hitched.

Or, Honey, open your eyes. You seeing what I’m seeing?

‘Cause brides often don't.

But somehow Flipped helps.

Moving on: The other thing that really got me was some commental exchange regarding shoes.

Was it shoes?

Yes. I think so. (But you guys bounce around so much [which I love, but excuse me, my already muddled mind gets mixed up]).

Anyway, I remember going, GASP. And then thinking NO! THEY’LL THINK I STOLE THEIR IDEA, when, in fact, I’d already written the idea in Killer Cruise.

Which just goes to show that Sammiacs are perceptive, astute, tuned in, and awesome.

So I've decided that the best course of action is to just TELL YOU SOMETHING OUT OF KILLER CRUISE (sorry, not yelling, really):

Casey gives Sammy a pair of (presently gray) high-tops with (presently black) Sharpie’d sayings written all over them.  Stuff like “Shortcut Sammy rides again!” and “S&C Forever”

I actually got the idea because years and years ago, my younger son gave me a pair of white Converse as a gift which he’d written quotes from my books all over. Stuff from Swear to Howdy, Runaway, and Sammy Keyes mostly. I thought it was the coolest present, and so thoughtful.

It was also such a Casey thing to do.

(Please, don’t get weird on me here.)

Anyway, Killer Cruise happens over Sammy’s b-day and I’d decided that Casey giving Sammy a pair of custom high-tops for her Graduation From Thirteen birthday was perfect.

Only someone ACTUALLY GUESSED IT in the comments and I’m, like, NOOOOOOO!

(Man, do I sound like Stephanie here, or what?)

Anyway, I’ve decided that instead of agonizing about it I should include y’all. So my question for the week is: What would you want Casey to write on Sammy’s shoes?

Hit me with your best quote!  (Fire awaaaaaaaay-yay-yay-yay)

I’ll put as many as I can into the book

Which brings me to ANOTHER (not shouting, really) random thought relating to last week’s comments:

Putting in scientific info (re: The Running Dream) is HARD because in doing research you learn so much and there’s a huge temptation is to include everything you now know in your story, only what that does is totally bog down the plot and make it BORING (not shouting, really) for the reader. So balancing information sharing and storytelling is definitely a delicate art.

My advice: Go for minimalist art.

Okay, so that’s my riffing on last week’s comments.  

I also had random thoughts about balding men and big noses, but I’ll save that for another time.

Is that enough random thoughting for one week?

NO!

(Not shouting, really.)

Are any of you going to ALA?

I’ll be there next weekend to receive my (happy sigh) Schneider Award for TRD.  I’m doing booth signings on Saturday (3-4:00 PM) and sometime Sunday (morning I think?). It’s in the convention schedule. I may be a day late (and definitely a dollar short) next week with the blog post because Sunday’s packed. But I should have something interesting (and potentially less random) to tell you about.

Meanwhile, hit me with your best shoe quote (but only if you don’t mind it appearing in Killer Cruise).

Looking forward to seeing what the comment conversation morphs into this week.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds!

Wendelin

Turn Up the Background Singers! (a post for writers)

After the request for writing tips from last week's comment section, I went back and reread my Writing Tips posts (mostly found in October 2009) to refresh my memory about what I'd already covered. I wish I had a treasure chest of secrets to share with you because I certainly would, but I can only come up with a couple of things to add to what I already wrote.

Keep in mind I'm the Accidental Writer and may not be the best source for these types of things...but I'll still try to help, and I'll still share what I can.

For starters, it didn't look like I'd addressed theme in the previous Writing Tips posts, and theme is very important. It's like the framework and invisible substrate which is then artfully concealed by the drywall and stucco and architectural detail of your story. For a story--especially a mystery--to hold together, the hidden stuff has to be really strong, and what helps strengthen any story is a defined theme.

I like when I have a theme from the get-go. Something I what to say or explore or present to my reader as food for thought. The theme is what I'm passionate about. It's the purpose for taking a year or more out of my life to tell a story. All my books have a theme. Some are stronger (or more obvious) than others, but they all have one. For example, in Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf, the theme was forgiveness--the power of, the benefit of, and the cost of bitterly resisting.

Now, I've found that the trick to making your theme work powerfully is to give it some backup. Subplots are great for this. (I feel like I've already talked about this, but maybe I've just talked about it at schools during workshop presentations, not here. So I'll just go on like I haven't typed about it. Forgive me if this is a boring redundancy.)

Anyway, subplots. In most Sammy  mysteries you'll find three threads--the mystery, Sammy's home life, and Sammy's school life. Most people say the mystery is the main plot and the other two are subplots, but I sort of view them as all vying for that #1 position.

To me subplots are as important as the main plot. They're like the backup singers who are sometimes better than the star singer. (For example Merry Clayton--whom you've never heard of--kicks Mick Jagger's tush in Gimme Shelter...and Mick lets her, which makes the whole thing work fabulously.) And for the subplots to contribute to their full potential, they must be in harmony with the theme.  So in Runaway Elf, the motivation behind the actions of each subplot's main characters is found within the theme--forgiveness.

Subplots will save you. When you're stuck in your plotting, when you're sagging in your novel's middle, subplots will save you. I believe if your novel is sagging it's because your character needs a job. Or a dog. Or a scary neighbor. Mess with their lives a little more. If your protagonist's life is too linear (or too smooth or becoming boring), add a thread. But then follow that thread through to the end! Don't leave us dangling with your little subplots to nowhere! And ideally, when you tie up all your subplots they should each contribute to the story as a whole...which means that--if at all possible--they should somehow hearken back to the theme.

I wish I had something to show you. Some visual to illustrate my process, but I don't. Partly because I don't think of it as being worthy of sharing. I do what I do, and with each book I'm re-amazed that it all turned out well. It always feels like an accident, even though I know it's not (entirely). I always feel a little like a fraud, even though at nearly 30 books, I know I'm doing something right. And it's somewhat comforting to know that this is apparently universal with writers. I've learned from reading what other writers say about themselves, that we're all a bit bemused by how we do what we do. At least the writers I like are. And I think that's partly because we dive in and hold our breath, hoping, praying we can swim well enough to make it to The End.

It's also because my outlines consist of crude diagrams, random words, and cryptic notes about possible events. Just enough to remind my brain what it was thinking. I don't have a chapter-by-chapter outline. Half the time I don't know who's going to answer the door Sammy's just knocked on. But I do know that whoever answers had better support the theme or I'll slam the door on them and knock again.

Has this been at all helpful? There are probably hundreds of books on writing. Maybe thousands! You can read them all and still feel unprepared. So stop. If you've got the basics of your story down, if you've got a theme, some subplots and an ending in mind, it's time to quit reading books about writing and start writing.

Stages of Agony (or...Rewriting Exposed)

I didn't have a chance to add my own comments to last week's interesting comment discussion, but it has influenced my post for this week. (Feel your power, commenters!)

I will not be talking about the Irish language or viral research, but will, instead, share something I do know something about, and that's rewriting.

(By the way, some of your comments about me last week were very generous and kind and made me feel like all the work that goes into my writing is noticed and appreciated, which was SO nice!)

I know I've done a previous post about rewriting, but this will give you a bigger, broader picture, and I think writers (or appreciators of writers) will find this interesting (and hopefully not too daunting).

What follows are different stages of the first page of Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City.


Here it is as initially submitted to Nancy (my editor, for you newbies). Keep in mind that this page is the result of the initial writing plus about 15 rewrites to get it "perfect" before submission to Random House. (Click image to enlarge.)

What follows next is my "perfect page" after Nancy weighed in on it and I reworked it. (Some of the pencil is her. The red pencil is what I did in response to what she did. And then, to confuse matters, I also wrote in regular pencil. If you're someone who's going to study this, you'll figure it out. If not, just see how my perfect first page has been brutalized.)

Next (below) is that brutalized page reworked again before being resubmitted to Nancy.

And finally, here it is again after two copy editors ("J" and "A") and Nancy have weighed in on the "REV 2" copy. (Those of you who follow the Sammy Keyes series will bust up at the electronic comments.)

Keep in mind this is ONE page. There are about THREE HUNDRED of these to agonize over in each book I write. (And believe me, some of it is agony!) I can spend half an hour debating the replacement of a word or the placement (or removal) of a comma by a copy editor. (Commas drive me crazy!) And then there's the maddening eleventh hour plot revision suggestion that requires analysis of the entire book to make sure one "little change" here doesn't mess something up elsewhere.

Some authors claim that final draft flies from their fingers.

I'm not one of those.

Some authors have editors who don't really edit.

Thankfully, I'm not one of those, either.

To be good at this craft you need to be willing to work and lucky enough to have an editor willing to do the same. I work very hard and I'm willing to weigh the advice and perspective of my editor and work some more.

Am I talented?

If so, I've worked very hard for that 'talent.'

Tenacious?

That's more like it.

So yes, your comments from last week mean a lot to me. And I hope that showing you part of what I go through to be a writer worthy of those comments will inspire you to see the process through in your own writing. Be dedicated. Be tenacious.

That's how to make your talent shine.

Sneak Peek At Sin City Art

Just a picture this week.

There may be some minor tweaks, but this is pretty close to final and you're the first to get a sneak peek.

There's a mini-Elvis in the story, so the Elvi in the art make me laugh (since the bottom one looks mini to me...even though I don't think that was intended).

Like the one-armed bandit? Cha-ching!

Enjoy your holiday tomorrow!

The Cheshire Sun

I hope you found a way to watch at least a little bit of the solar eclipse tonight. It was very cool!

A lot of people were out catching a glimpse, but there were also people out washing their cars or walking their dogs, seemingly oblivious. But...how can you be oblivious when you walk your dog past a decrepit old man in a collapsible wheelchair out on the sidewalk with a funny blinder held up in front of his eyes? How can you not ask yourself, huh? Or ask him, Hey old man, what are you doing out here on the sidewalk in that wheelchair that looks like it's about to dump you on the sidewalk holding that funny blinder in front of your eyes?

Obviously dog walking is a priority for some, living long enough to see a solar eclipse a priority for others.

Anyway! We were on our way down to the park to get a great view from the rocky perch where people around her go to catch the fireworks on the 4th of July. (Or poison oak, depending on where you walk.)

And this was truly great fireworks!

Well, firework.

My favorite part about it was actually noticing my shadow as we were walking. First, I noticed the fuzziness, then I noticed that I could make my hands look like Edward Scissorhands' hands!

Or at least, Barnabas Collins's hands.

The point it, the shadow thing was fun and unexpected and I snipped away at Mark's shadow (which seemed impervious, but whatever).

But the eclipse was interesting.  Mark had fashioned some "lenses" out of an old black Mylar drumhead--seven layers taped together--which made viewing easy. and the sun crimson. My favorite stage was when the sun looked like the grinning mouth of the Cheshire Cat.

Wonderland!

(And shoot. There's Johnny Depp again.)

On our walk home, our neighbor was washing the third of his family's four cars, and the decrepit old guy (whom I'd never ever seen out of his house before tonight) was still watching the eclipse. And  it struck me that while the sun and the moon were sneaking around up in the sky, half of us were fascinated, and the other half either didn't know or didn't care.

So, I have two questions: One--were you lucky enough to see the eclipse (because it wasn't visible everywhere), and Two--what in your life do you find fascinating that other people seem to walk right by?

Looking forward to your comments! (And  no you don't have to tell me how Big Bang my homemade drum lenses look, okay? I already know!)

Mother's Day (or, Remembering The Day The Whippets Became Risky)

Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are moms.

That said, I will now confess that I don’t care for Mother’s Day. I feel sorry for the husbands and kids who are expected to send flowers and make breakfast and provide chocolates and clean up. Clean up! There are all these expectations swirling around an arbitrary day where we’re supposed to remind ourselves that mothers are special. I believe the intention of the consumer (never mind the financial beneficiaries of this Day of Appreciation) is sincere. But the whole thing just feels so artificial, and for the last few years I’ve really felt sorry for my kids as they try to figure out how to stay out of trouble.

Yes, trouble.

Because if you do nothing on Mother’s Day, you are in trouble.

If you sleep in past when Mom is hungry, you are in trouble.

If your dad rouses you at an ungodly hour and makes you set the table while your mom is pretending to be asleep but isn’t and can hear that Dad is the one making you do all the things you’re supposed to intuitively do even though you haven’t done them since last year when he roused you from bed at an ungodly hour and made you do them, you are in trouble.

It’s a very unnatural “holiday” with high expectations and misunderstandings because boys will be boys and moms don’t know how to be gracious about breakfasts delivered with a still-sleepy grunt.

Maybe your Mother’s Days are nothing like this.

Maybe you are (or have) a girl.

Sorry to be sexist, but it’s just different.

Anyway, my forget-chocolates-and-flowers-and-trying-to-cook,-all-I-really-want-is-a-homemade-card-where-you-tell-me-why-you-appreciate-me phase ended a few years ago when I told my husband to NOT DO ANYTHING or make the kids do anything. They were old enough to do something on their own and anything they were forced into wasn’t something I wanted anyway.

Mark had to work that Sunday and he was very nervous about this.

“Don’t say a word” I told him. “They know.”

So off to work he went.

And in they slept.

Until noon.

Because who was I to wake them up and tell them to fix me breakfast?

And then…well, whoops. They hadn’t made me a card. Or bought me chocolates. Or flowers.

“Uh…where’s Dad today?”

“At work, remember?”

They recovered not so quickly by offering to take me out for sushi.

It was 3:00.

Not wanting to be the Mother from Hell, I put on a smile and said, Great! So we piled into the minivan, and I drove us to the restaurant.

But I knew.

Neither had brought their wallet.

Before we went inside I asked, “You sure you have enough to cover sushi?”

They looked at each other and slowly an Uh-oh spread across their faces, fingers pointed at each other, and finally my younger son said, “But sushi’s expensive!”

Right.

Next door, was Taco Bell. They raided the change drawer in the van and managed to scrounge up about four dollars. Enough for some bean burritos.

Not wanting to be the Mother from Hell, I agreed to consume a gross bean burrito and I did it with a smile on my face.

It wasn’t easy.

On the drive home I tried to have a gentle talk with them about the small things that make a big difference to a mom. They said they got it.

And then we arrived home.

The first clue that this really was the Mother’s Day from Hell was the puddle of dog pee in the entry hall. It was pooled all over and around the beautiful antique petticoat table that I wrote about in an earlier post.

The dogs—Bongo and Jazz—who are sweet, wonderful whippets (and on this day became Risky Whippets), are only bad when they’re desperate. And since the boys hadn’t put them outside before we left for sushi (they are the boys’ dogs and have access only to the laundry room, the boys’ rooms, and the kitchen—they’re cordoned off from the rest of the house by a ‘baby gate’), and since they became desperate in our absence, they jumped the gate and raced around looking for an exit so they could do their business outside.

There was no way out.

And male dogs being leg-lifters proceeded to tag the entire house with their ample supply of stinky yellow liquid.

And, no, they weren’t just desperate to pee.

They laid logs.

And when I found some on an antique couch by a big window (which was as close to outside as the poor dog could get) I screamed. Like in an old fashioned movie, I held my face and screamed.

But wait!

There’s more!

In the process of cleaning up this disaster, my son, completely wigged out by what had happened and frantic to help fix the situation, accidentally sprayed me in the eye with Lysol.

Yes, I screamed again.

It’s been a few years, and although it will live on in infamy we now laugh about the Mother’s Day from Hell. But it served to create a shift in our family. I want daily hugs. Daily thanks. And on Mother’s Day, I want to go out for brunch (which we did today) and have nothing more than my boys beside me, happy to be with me.

Here’s hoping your Mother’s Day involved lots of hugs, love, and absolutely no Lysol spray.

Sammy’s Birthday

Thanks to everyone who sent in answers for the Second Chance Contest. There were a lot of close-but-no-cigars.

And six right-on-the-money!

Or, you know, date.

At first I thought there would be no problem having only 2 ARCs to give away because on Wednesday there was only 1 correct entry. Silly me! There was a big flurry of correct entries the last two day so once again we had to resort to drawing names out of a hat. 

So get on with it already?

Okay, okay.

From the day that Halloween landed in Skeleton Man and the day that it landed (the following year) in Night of Skulls, it could be deduced we were not dealing with a leap year.

So the descriptions of days in Psycho Kitty Queen (between Halloweens) which gives the day of the week and the week in April of Sammy’s birthday allows you to figure out that Sammy’s birthday falls on a Monday this (her 8^th grade) year and that her birthday is…

April 6^th

Mark your calendar, ‘cause next year we’ll celebrate!

Of the 6 correct entries, 3 of you will receive signed ARCs (I got my hands on one extra). The extra is going to the first person to submit a correct entry, the other two were drawn from a hat. I have sent e-mails to winners, so if you haven’t already, check your box! My sincere apologies to "empty boxers"…especially since I checked and saw that all 6 correct entries were from people who'd also tried the Elvis contest.

Congratulations to winners, and thanks to everybody who tried!

See you next week. (Or, more likely, in the comments!)