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I’m getting the most interesting reader perspectives from my new book club.

At first, I had no intention of joining this club. As a rule, I don’t join clubs. I’m not really sure how I ended up joining this one. This, actually, was the book club that I based the disastrous club in Pretty is as Pretty Dies on. The club disbanded around the time that I described it (I’m sure those things are not connected.) It was resurrected a couple of months ago and I (feeling a little bit guilty about my portrayal of the club, maybe?), joined up, at a friend’s invitation.

The first book we discussed was Those That Save Us. I’ll just say right off the bat that this was a dry clean only book for sure. It was set during World War II and its immediate aftermath. It’s not one of those books that I really enjoyed reading. But it engendered some interesting discussion.

The oddest thing to me was that there were two completely different interpretations of this book. I mean radically different. One group looked at it as a love story. The rest (including myself) looked at it as a tragedy. The discussion got very passionate as each group defended its position.

I really just wanted to listen in, but I did think that the author should have done one thing different in the plot. She made a particular event happen to one character when it should have happened to another character. The way she wrote it didn’t ring true—but was a plot device.

Thursday night we had our second meeting and read While I Was Gone, which was a bit more of a machine washable read.

No one liked the protagonist. Not a single person in the group.

This interested me very much because I have a crusty, crotchety protagonist. My agent recently advised me to soften her up in two scenes before we submit to Midnight Ink. I’m going to take her advice. For those two scenes. :)

I noticed that out of the probably 14 or 15 people there, only 3 of us liked the book (myself included.) I thought the ending was weak, but overall thought the book was interesting (not fantastic, but interesting.) The rest of the group did not like the book because they didn’t care about the protagonist. She could live or die as far as they were concerned.

The author, Sue Miller, also had a couple of plot devices in her book. Those parts didn’t ring true for the book club members.

What am I taking away from my book club experience so far? Be really careful about coincidences and other plot devices in my book. Be careful about unlikeable protagonists. Different interpretations of the same book make for lively discussions—it may be okay to keep your theme a little vague if you’re writing literary fiction.

And be careful when writing about book clubs. You might end up joining the club you were making fun of.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about problems that happen when we try to be perfect or apply Type-A standards across the board in our life.

I’m definitely Type-A. Sometimes perfectionism goes along with that (other times I can be more careless.) I have several methods of making my day more stressful than it would ordinarily have been. Before I leave the house for any reason, I go through a very complex routine of questions: Do I need to start a load of laundry before I walk out the door? How about if I load the dishwasher really quick and run it? Oh! Can I run by the library on my way to my meeting? And, if I’m going by the library anyway, I should drop by the bank as well—it’s right there.

Then I run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I leave the house on time, run the errands on time, but if there’s any bad traffic, I’m toast. And then I’m a total stress-bucket because I have to be on time. I’m the most punctual person around. If I’m not on time, I’m somewhere very close by, jogging frantically in your direction.

It would be better instead if I just did the laundry load and the minor errands later on. I’m not raising my blood pressure that way and I’ll end up getting the stuff done later on, anyhow.

Another problem? I’ll think I don’t have time to dust the house. Why? Because I don’t have time to do it the Type-A way. Which involves taking everything off the table, dusting the individual pictures and knick-knacks, and then rubbing the wood down with lemon oil. I want to put off the chore until I have the time to do it right.

But I DO have time to do a quick dusting with the feather duster. And it looks fine. I just have to repress the Type-A urge and the house looks fine and dandy.

Writing a book—the Type-A or Perfectionist way:

I was an editing- as-I-went writer. I wanted every page perfect before going on to the next page.

Honestly? Perfectionism didn’t work for me at all. It took forever to get anywhere. Frequently I’d lose my momentum, my train of thought, or the creative spark.

I learned to tune out my inner editor.

Caveat—not every writer has that problem. But if you feel like your self-editing is holding you back, consider trying a different tack.

Submitting? I was a perfectionist there, too. I must have read 200 articles on querying before I actually did it. I had a tracking program and I was very careful about submitting one thing before submitting another.

It’s good to do research before you submit, definitely. But not so much that you’re immobilized. I had better success when applied what I’d learned as quickly as possible.

I thought originally that writing a book was about inspiration…that the book wouldn’t be good without that creative spark happening every day. I needed to wait for the perfect moment of inspiration to strike.

I learned that it’s more about sitting down and plugging away and going from point A to point B.

There are some things that should be as perfect as we can make them: our grammar and spelling before submitting is one that comes to mind. But trying to make it perfect as we go is another thing.

When perfectionism is especially bad:

It keeps you from working on your book because you’re finding so many faults with your draft.

You’re frustrated at the slow progress of writing your first draft…because you’re editing as you go.

You aren’t submitting because you feel like your manuscript isn’t perfect enough.

Reading other author’s books in your genre makes you feel insecure or immobilized with your own book.

I used to feel that perfectionism had to be a good thing—that it meant I was trying my hardest to do a Good Job. As I get older, I see more of the dark side of perfectionism and am working to be more flexible with myself and my work.

Are you a perfectionist? Do you feel it’s helping you or hurting you?

I’d had a wild day but was on-time, no…early!…for a play that my daughter’s friend was in. I parked the car, opened the door, and—“Oh shoot! We were going to pick her up a little gift for after the play.”

We climbed back in the car and drove to a nearby store. We grabbed a little something, then I checked out at the cash register and swiped my debit card. “Do you want cash back?” asked the cashier.

“No thanks,” I answered, stuffing my card back in my wallet.

I was rushing out the store with my daughter in tow when she asked, “Mama! Why? Why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I what?”

“Why didn’t you want cash back?”

“Oh honey. It’s not like free cash. It’s like…well, it’s Mama’s and Daddy’s money. But it’s at the bank. And so, the store just…well, they…they get the bank to send over money…”

“How?”

“Well, it’s electronic! Yes. So….well…”

Duhhhhh.

My right brain had settled into play-watching, artsy mode and my left brain didn’t have a prayer. I told her it was an excellent question, but we were in a hurry so we’d talk about it later.

And we will. Because I certainly don’t want her to think that the Target hands out free money. But that wasn’t the moment where I was going to be able to connect with her. Not in a raging hurry and with a subject I’m not very knowledgeable about in the first place.

I’m like this with my writing, too. Some days it’s really difficult for me to write particular scenes—I’m just not feeling it.

Usually I can just write my first draft straight through. But sometimes I run into a block. For me, it’s better to just open another Word document, save it under a scene description, and write the scene I’m in the mood to write.

Fortunately, most books have as many different types of scenes as there are moods.

Am I in a melancholy, thoughtful mood? I’ll work on an emotionally-moving scene. Feeling energized? An action sequence. Analytical and precise? Work on revisions.

I definitely don’t have the luxury of waiting on my Muse to inspire me. Actually, my Muse and I aren’t speaking to each other. But there’s no reason I can’t write something that I can put more enthusiasm into.

It’s cookie week at the Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. If you pop over, you’ll find my recipe for a no-cook chocolate cookie. I’m Riley over at the Mystery Kitchen.

My son told me on Monday that he might “ask out” his friend Mimi.

Once I picked up my jaw from the floor (and tried to banish the mental image of me chauffeuring my son and Mimi around town in my minivan) I said, “Honey, you’re just too young to go out on dates!”

Uh-oh. I’d become infected with the condition I call “Instant Ancient” again.

“Mom! ‘Asking out’ is just what we call dating someone. We just wear each other’s sweatshirts and stuff.”

“Oh. We called that ‘going with’ when I was in junior high. You know…like ‘John is going with Amy’.”

Instant Ancient again. I wasn’t even going to ask him how he planned on surviving a middle school day while wearing Mimi’s pink Abercombie sweatshirt.

I try to carefully steer clear of words and phrases that put me in the older-than-dirt category, as far as my son is concerned.

Caution with dating ourselves is important for writers, too. And I thought of other things we should probably be careful with.

Being Careful with Slang:

I’m thinking about words/phrases like ‘swell,’ ‘groovy,’ ‘totally awesome,’ and probably ‘radical.’ If we’re not writing books that are based in older time periods, we shouldn’t use the words above. And, if we’re writing books set in the present, we need to tread carefully. What’s slang now may be dated when a reader picks up our library book in five years.

Those of you who write YA? I don’t know how you do it. You’re obviously a heck of a lot cooler than I am. :)

Being Careful with Profanity:

Here I think we should know our reader and know our market. Each genre has pretty set boundaries for what’s appropriate in regards to expletives. In cozy mysteries (my genre)? You’re just not going to see much of it.

Being Careful with Dialect:

I love getting a real sense of a setting that’s foreign to me—and I prefer it in dialogue instead of in description. But there’s a point where it gets to be too much. M.C. Beaton does it well in her Scottish-set books, but every once in a while the brogue will make me frown and try to translate the passage.

I think it’s best to go light on dialect and instead try using phrases, idioms, and word choices that locals of an area would use. For me, I’d rather stick with the rhythm of Southern speech than take a stab at phonetic spelling (which would be really tiresome for a reader.)

Are there other areas you’re careful about when you’re writing?

I was busily writing at home last week when my husband called me up and asked if I wanted to meet him for lunch. I hopped in the car and drove the 25 minutes over to his office to pick him up.

Usually when we have lunch, we eat at a sandwich shop or get some Chinese food…nothing fancy.

This time, though, my husband was interested in going to the City Tavern—a white tablecloth-type establishment.

It sounded good to me. But then my husband hesitated. “Do we look all right?”

I glanced over at him—blue jeans (he works in IT) and a golf shirt. I looked at myself and I was wearing something such as a person writing at home might wear on a warm day—flip flops, capris, tee shirt. “We’re good!”

I was driving us over to the restaurant and chatting away about my morning when he asked again if I thought we looked okay.

I said something like, “Sure we do!” and continued on my train of thought.

But the third time he said it, we were about to go into the restaurant. I said, “Sweetie, I don’t think they’re going to turn away paying customers. We don’t look that awful.” He seemed so reticent, that I finally realized that even though I rarely care what I look like, it was important to Coleman. He’s a professional person. He might run into people he has a work relationship with.

I peeked in. I saw other people in jeans. One person had flip flops. We were okay.

Just because it wasn’t important to me, didn’t mean it wasn’t important.

I think that’s why it’s vital for me to have first readers (my parents, mainly) before my manuscript goes to my editors. Sometimes there are book elements that I don’t spend a lot of time writing (I always need to fill in more setting). Just because it’s not important to me, though, doesn’t mean it’s not important to a reader.

My mother is a great first reader for me. “I can’t really picture the porch at the barbeque restaurant,” she said.

I could picture it plainly…in my head. But I hadn’t put my vision on paper at all. It was as if, if I could see it, I thought everyone could see it.

A content critique is vital, I think. Sometimes I think I’ve established the relationship between different characters very clearly—but, again, it might have just been clear to me and I didn’t share it with the reader.

And then, like at the restaurant, there are things that I just don’t enjoy developing in a book. But I need to know when readers need more information: on setting, on character description, on backstory. Those are things I don’t incorporate a lot of—but that sometimes are more important to readers than I think.

Do you have a first reader that you give your manuscript to before its submitted?