It's Friday; It's a Good Thing: Randomness

I didn't want to leave this weekend with such a sad aftertaste on the blog, so I'm going to do a quick round up of random good things this week.

1. Barnes and Nobles has updated the software on the Nook and I can now browse the internet, get email, and play games in addition to reading! It's like an iPad, only not. :)  I think with this new technology it now really is the best eReader out there (apologies to Kindle lovers, but what have you got on us now??).

2. My Dad (along with several other people I know) were traveling overseas last week and got stuck by the volcano. It feels very B.C. and Pompeish, being stuck because a volcano erupted. This is not the good thing. The good thing is that my dad, in typical dad fashion, has turned this into a advertising opportunity for my book. When our local paper called him to find out what his situation over there was, he moaned about how he was missing his daughter's debut book signing. Well he, his picture, and my book made the front page of the newspaper today. It's not like I live in a small area either. This is a huge suburb outside of D.C. So way to go Dad!

3. My photography blog is still going. I've managed to post a pic a day, and inspire a few other people to start taking photographs of ugly suburbia as well. This week I had a theme: the celebration of the book signing. (Yes, I promise this is the last time I'll speak of this...today). So if you want to see some "artistic" photos that don't involve books or signings or Barnes and Noble stores, you can head over. Next week's theme is going to be "Looking Up." I'm excited about what I'm going to find!

4. The store I shop at is carrying sugar snap peas again!! YAY!!  Now I have something to munch on while I write!

5. Writing is going really well. And the rewriting, too, since I'm doing a lot of that. I worry, of course, that I won't be able to pull this one off, but little by little I'm getting there. Writing perfectly is really hard and takes a ton of time. Writing not so perfectly is a lot more fun....and then I get to rewrite, which I LOVE!  So it's a win/win.  :)

6. I can tell the book is "the one" because I'm thinking about it all the time now. I feel like I know the characters - like they are friends. And some not friends, because they're not that nice. But I think about them a lot too...dreaming up situations they can ruin. So fun.  I'm not sure why it takes 100 pages for me to get really settled into a book - that seems excessive to me - but that's what it is. Now the fun begins.

7. The sun is shining. The air is warm but not hot. Pollen is abating somewhat. The flowers are out and gorgeous, and the leaves have filled the trees so we can no longer see any neighbors. The puppy alternately chases squirrels and bees, hopping and leaping and running, or lays and naps in spots of sun. Right now he's at my feet in a patch of warm sun looking totally and utterly adorable.

happy weekend all! I hope you find some good things in life today too!

Heartache

I'm heartsick tonight.

Right before bed, my daughter started crying and proceeded to tell us that her best friend, the little girl we've loved and taken to baseball games and had to dinner and over to play, has been demanding she give her money to be her friend.

She took money out of her own piggy bank for who knows how long, a quarter at a time. And then, when her friend told her to take it from her brother, she snuck into his savings and took two dollars from him.

It finally crushed her. It crushed us.

I had to call the mom, a woman I completely and utterly adore, who I think is probably one of the best moms I have ever known, to ask her if her daughter had taken money from mine.

8:45 at night is not the time for this. There is no good time for this.


It is heartbreak for all of us. For the kids, who may or may not ever have that special friendship they once had. Us moms, who may or may not have the special friendship we once had. The kids, utterly broken because they know they made some very bad choices. Us moms, utterly broken wondering where we went wrong.

I don't think there was malice on either of the girl's parts. I don't think my daughter's friend is a bully. I just think something that started fun ended up very badly, in a situation that spiraled out of control. Part of what makes me heartsick is how easily is spiraled that way, and how young they are for such a thing.

If they had been older....

If it had been something even more serious...

It is the reason I can never find it in my heart to judge another mom or child. In even the worst of cases, I never think, That couldn't be me.

It is the reason I live on the teetering edge of worry: because that could always be me. 

One small decision. One bad choice. One friend who makes a bad choice.

The perfect world we try to create for our children is a fragile and precarious one.  Just like our own.

The Signing! The Party! The Food! Oh My!

You know what I'm doing right now as I write this? I'm drinking a glass of champagne left over from the signing party on Saturday. It's left over because I drank almost nothing – ate almost nothing – at the party, such a fabulous time I was having!!

Can I back up and say it felt a bit like being a rock star the whole day? Well - a very small rock star...one that no one's heard about. But still, a rock star nonetheless. :)

I won't give the blow by blow, but I will say the day was hugely fun. And successful.

When I arrived at Barnes and Noble, the table was already set up with books and a sign announcing the signing. I was sandwiched between a table with Mo Willems books, which my seven year old thought was totally awesome, and the hardback bestsellers.

Highlights:

A guy with MS came up to talk to me about the book and the similarities with what diabetics face and what people with MS face...and the hopes and futures of both. A genuinely nice guy I loved talking to!

A couple stood off to the side for a while watching me sign books and talk to people, seeming very hesitant to approach. (I promise I don't bite!). When the crowd cleared a little they moved up and the husband kind of pushed her and said, "Go ahead. Just say hi." She was actually nervous about saying hi!! I wanted to tell her, "Seriously? Trust me, I'm more nervous than you!" I loved standing and talking to her for a few minutes.

I was within spitting distance of the Nook display, where I spent 30 minutes watching a salesperson trying to sell a Nook to a guy who clearly was interested but hesitant. I finally couldn't keep my mouth shut and started talking it up to him. He was so fun to talk to, even if he said he didn't care that much for fiction. I think I did get him interested in the development of adult stem cell therapy, and though I wasn't even going for a sell with him, I think he's downloading my book into the Nook I convinced him to buy. (and no, I didn't get a commission for it, although I tried to talk the rep into giving me one).

I sold out.

That was my favorite thing.

Even though the store ordered twice the amount of books as they usually do, I managed to sign and sell them all.

(Look! All but one of the books are gone! And that's the couple nervous to talk to me. I loved them!)

When I left, the check out clerk said, "You did really well!" and the representative invited me to come back another day for another signing, promising he'll order more books next time.

I didn't say anything too stupid, although the pictures might look otherwise, so I count it a raging success.

Then the party afterwards, which I don't have pics of because the house was too crammed with people and I spent so much time talking and chatting that I didn't even have time to drink the glass of champagne in my hand let alone find my camera. But it was fun. Lots and lots of fun.

It was supposed to end at 9:00. The last of the people left at 11:30. You know it's a good party when it goes twice as long as it was supposed to.

I'll be eating strawberries and drinking champagne all week, though. Which isn't a bad thing. Especially when accompanied by chocolate cake.  :)

The Journey

I'm down to a mere hours now before my first big book signing, and although the book has been out a few months already, this feels like it's the biggest moment since I started this journey towards publication. There are about 75 people that I know will be coming, along with a whole host of others that I don't. There are confirmed 50 that are coming to the party tomorrow night, and still some up in the air (and some grounded, literally, in Europe by volcanic ash).

When I woke up this morning I started thinking about what a long road it's been, and how this all started. And how far it's come. My life is not the same as it was at the beginning, and not just because I've written a book.

Two and a half years ago I knew nothing about publishing. I'd nearly finished my first book, one which I'd started two years prior to that, began with a vague outline and strong characters and then ended up pantsing the rest with dubious results. But as I neared the end of writing, I began thinking, "What now?" How in the world do you go about getting published?

So I did what any eager writer does.... I googled. Specifically I think I googled, "How to get published."  The first entry that came up was something called a blog (I'd never heard of one before) written by someone named "Miss Snark."  I figured I'd skip over and mosey through it briefly, find my answer, and be on my way.

This is the moment I found the addictiveness of blogging. I think it's also where I learned what voice meant in the writing world. Not because Miss Snark wrote what it was, but because she had such a strong one.

I never got back to my google list. I spent the better part of three weeks staying up until two in the morning reading through every one of her archived posts, along with every one of the comments. If you want to get published, everything you need is there. If you don't want to get published, but you enjoy an enthralling diversion, she's good for that too.

Through her I learned about query letters and agents and revisions. I found Janet Reid, Jessica Faust, and Nathan Bransford, the blogging agents that would become my staples over the next year. When I started to submit, these are the first three I chose. Within three days all three would request my manuscript.

Those would also be my first three rejections.

Instead of pressing on, I stopped to look at what I'd written in light of what the agents said (mostly that it was too slow a start), and decided to rewrite the beginning. So I rewrote. Then I rewrote some more. Which necessitated rewriting some of the middle stuff. Then the beginning had to be changed again. Finally it all got so muddied and I couldn't tell if any of them were better or just different, and I put the book away.

Then I started on Some Kind of Normal. This one took me six months to write, mostly because my fabulous writing partner and fellow author Jen Blom challenged me to a word-a-thon. In the summer of 2008 we both finished. I waited a few weeks to let the book sit, take a vacation, have crit partners read it, and then started back in September with the revising. By the end of October 2008 I was ready to query.

Unfortunately, the publishing industry was imploding with the rest of the economy, and whole publishing houses were completely suspending acquisitions. Some agents, likewise, began to stop taking queries. It was a rough time to break into the industry, I reasoned that, like other agents said, a good book is still a good book, and it will sell no matter what the economy.

I sent out over 100 queries over the next five months. Every time a rejection came in, I sent another out. Unless an agent specifically said not to, I sent the first five pages with my query. I knew this might cut down on requests, since an agent would be able to get a feel for the voice and writing before requesting, but I reasoned that would be less disappointment down the line.  I had 15 or 16 fulls requested out of that, and a number of partials that turned into fulls.

There were some high hopes in there. I received some tremendous feedback. Nearly every agent said they liked the story and thought my writing was very good. Two said they weren't taking debut authors in this environment because no one would buy them. Many said they just didn't know how to market  it to an editor. One clearly didn't like the Southern voice, which stumped me a bit because I'd send the first five pages to get that hurdle out of the way.

I sent my last query in February of 2009. I was done. I still had a lot out and not responded to, but I was done with the highs and lows, and ready to move on. Over the next few months a few more requests trickled in, and the first week of June I got the rejection to my last outstanding full. I'd lie if I said I wasn't heartbroken.

I decided to take a break from writing. I'd take the summer off at the least.

Then, out of nowhere, an author wrote me and said his publisher had seen my pitch on a forum next to a comment of his, and they were very intrigued. They wanted me to send on a proposal package. I sent my synopsis, first 50 pages, and a market analysis, and days later they sent me a contract.

It wasn't easy going a path that diverged from the mighty Miss Snark's path. No agent. Small publisher.

I hemmed and hawed. I had long conversations with the owner of NorLights. I had long conversations with my father, who is a contract-specialist lawyer. I had long emails with an agent I've kept in touch with who was still very interested in representing me on a different project than Some Kind of Normal. I had long conversations with my husband, myself, and God. It wasn't a quick or easy decision.

What I learned in all this is that there are lots of ways to get published. There are lots of valid ways to get published. And no one should tell you there is only one right way, or only one legitimate way. And sometimes the path you choose is not the path that chooses you.

I now have a book that is sitting on bookstore shelves.  A book people who I don't know are buying and reading. I didn't pay to have the book edited, published or marketed, and I get royalties. I have a book that is being considered for a national book club, a book that has been read and endorsed by people high in the medical field as well as other authors. I have a book that has landed on the Amazon bestseller list with Jodi Picoult and Michael Crichton.

I have a book.

And sometimes, like today, after all this time, I marvel at that. The ups and downs, the depression and elation, the determination and the frustration....

I have a book.

It's been a heck of a journey.

I hope this is only the beginning.

Would you like a side of irony to go with that champagne?

True Story.

Yesterday I was standing in the champagne aisle of the store on the phone with my husband. "How many do you think we need? And do we get the kind we can afford and risk looking cheap, or go big and go broke?"

He answers – no kidding – "Buy a few of each. We'll start with the plastic corked ones and then we'll move to the screw caps when it's late."

Ummm.... I don't think the plastic corks are considered the good ones, hon.

Anyway, I assumed he was serious about the first sentence and joking about the second. And so I loaded my cart for my first ever official Barnes and Noble Book Signing party on Saturday.

Yes. I am officially an "event" at Barnes and Noble. On the official national website. Like I'm a real author and everything.

So Saturday afternoon I'll be in Manassas, Virginia signing copies of Some Kind of Normal. (If you're in the area, come by!!)

It seemed, then, like a good time to have a party.

Okay, it's always a good time to have a party. Except when the book actually came out. Which was two weeks before Christmas and two days after two feet of snow. When we dug out and recovered from the holiday, another two and a half feet of snow dumped on us. By then, I'd arranged to do this book signing, so instead of doing a big book release party, we're doing my first book signing party.

In the interest of keeping it easy, especially since we're doing it on the same day, we decided to do just a dessert and champagne open house rather than a full-on dinner or appetizer thingy.

You know, because nothing says irony like toasting a book about a dying diabetic with cheesecake, chocolate, and champagne. :)

So now I have two days to wait, and my dining room table is loaded with enough champagne, cakes, pies, chocolate, etc. to throw me into a diabetic coma, and it's driving me to crazy temptation.

If you'll excuse me, now, I think I need to go order myself a few more vials of insulin. I think I'm gonna need it.

What Every Writer Should Read

I read this on Amazon today. It's written by Anna Quindlen, pulizer-prize winning writer and author of the new bestselling novel Every Last One. Every writer should read it.

    The best preparation I could have had for a life as a novelist was life as a newspaper reporter. At a time when more impressionistic renderings of events were beginning to creep into the news pages, I learned to look always for the telling detail: the neon sign in the club window, the striped towel on the deserted beach. I learned to distinguish between those details that simply existed and those that revealed. Those telling details are the essence of fiction that feels real. The command of those details explains why Charles Dickens, a onetime reporter, has a byline for the ages.
    I learned, from decades of writing down their words verbatim in notebooks, how real people talk. I learned that syntax and rhythm were almost as individual as a fingerprint, and that one quotation, precisely transcribed and intentionally untidied, could delineate a character in a way that pages of exposition never could. And I learned to make every word count. All those years of being given 1,200 words, of having the 1,200 pared to 900 at 3 o'clock: it teaches you to make the distinction between what is necessary and what is simply you in love with the sound of your own voice. The most important thing I ever do from an editing perspective is cut. I learned how to do that in newsrooms, where cutting is commonplace, swift, and draconian.
    That’s where I learned about writer's block, too. People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently. That's not the way it works, and one of the best places to learn that is a newspaper, which in its instant obsolescence is infinitely forgiving. Jacques Barzun once wrote: "Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper, not eternal bronze: let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. No one will rush out and print it as it stands." Journalism is the professional embodiment of that soothing sentiment.
    Of course, it is also the professional embodiment of fact-finding, and that, more than anything else, is why the notion of a journalist who is also a novelist perplexes readers. "I could never make it up," one of the very best reporters I've ever known said to me. But that notion of untrammeled invention becomes illusory after a while. If you manage to build characters from the ground up carefully, make them really real, your ability to invent decreases as their verisimilitude grows. Certain people will only behave in certain ways; certain behaviors will only lead to certain other behaviors. The entire range of possible events decreases as characters choose one road, not another. Plot is like a perspective drawing, its possible permutations growing narrower and narrower, until it reaches a fixed point in the distance. That point is the ending. Life is like that. Fiction is like life, at least if it is good. And I know life. I learned it as a newspaper reporter, and now I reflect that education as a novelist. --Anna Quindlen