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Today I’m over at the Midnight Ink blog, Inkspot. I’m sharing some thoughts on a movie about writing that I thought was interesting, and I’m sharing some regrets about having murdered a few of my characters. Hope you’ll pop over.

Thoughts on flying:

Security, post 9/11, was a lot tougher than I’d realized. Wow.

They don’t make coach seats for tall people. And, I have now come to the conclusion that I have monkey arms. When I was finally allowed to pull out my trusty laptop on my flight, I had to hunch up my shoulders to be able to fit my hands on the keyboard. And I had my pointy elbows jutting out on either side of me. I should have been labeled as a sharp object.

If you sit in the middle seat and are writing about killing people (especially a scene involving a poisoning, which I was revising), some people read your text and look at you and read and look. So I pulled up Windows LiveWriter and started writing my blog for today, instead. The topic of my blog? “Murdering Characters.” Didn’t seem to inspire any more confidence in my co-passenger. It’s amazing how well I can block things out, though, when I’m typing.

Does the airport food seem more expensive to you? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such an expensive meal for one at Qdoba before….

There are interesting characters in airplanes. One of them was furious at not being allowed to use the first class bathroom and plowed through 1st class, loudly, in protest, cussing all the while. (I was in coach, and it was interesting seeing the flight attendant trying to block him.)

I don’t think an airplane is a good place to loudly make out. Just me?

The book signing yesterday went well and I sold about a dozen books.  The staff was great, the customers were nice, and I got to visit with my parents! So it was a successful trip all round.

Now I’m in the airport, getting ready to board a flight for Orlando. My sister has a conference at Disney World, and I’m going along for the ride. The thought is that I’ll write during the day while she’s at the conference, then I’ll go out with her to the parks in the evening and have fun.

I’m in the middle of my trek to Orlando (connecting flight thing.) This morning was the first time I’d flown since 2000.  There’s been no need to fly before now—Charlotte is 3 hours from the beach, 2 hours from the mountains, and our family is all within easy driving distance.

Of course I’d read about all the airline changes.  It’s very different  flying in a post-9/11 world.  I used to take my son to the airport when he was a toddler and he’d be fascinated watching the planes take off and land.  I’d bring a book to read and we’d happily kill a couple of hours at the airport and then drive back home.   No flight, just a free toddler-entertainment activity.

So this morning I had no idea what I was doing.  The security people were smiling a whole lot at me—but not, I think, in a nice way.  I’d done the taking off of the shoe thing, and I took off my watch and a metal necklace I had on.  Then I put my bags on the conveyer belt.

“Ma’am.  We’ve got to take your laptop out, put it in a separate tub, and run it back through again.”

“Oh, okay.  Of course.  Whatever we need to do.”  I start tugging on my laptop.

“Ma’am! Do not touch your laptop! You’re not allowed to touch your laptop.”

“Oh.  Okay.  You were saying ‘we’ but you meant ‘I’.”  I’m not trying to be a smarty pants, I’m just trying to explain why I was violating their security protocol.  I didn’t want to be  detained or anything. He had a pronoun usage problem.

Harsh look from the security man.  He pulls out my laptop and runs it through.

Finally I get to my gate. An elderly lady and I start talking to each other.  She needs to go to get something to eat and asks me to watch her bags…I must look trustworthy.  So I watch her bags….then stern announcement comes on about not watching other people’s bags.  I’m in trouble again.

I get on the plane and open up my laptop.  NO!  Bad Elizabeth! No computers during take-off.

I’m looking forward now to getting on this flight to Orlando and making the final leg of my journey there.   And writing.  I think that will help calm me down. 

And on the way back home….well, now I know the ropes.

Love them or hate them, book signings have become a necessary part of what it means to be a published writer.

I think that even if you’re an extrovert (not that many writers are—which is why we spend hours at a solitary activity), there are stressful aspects of book signings. How many people will be there? Will people give you the cold shoulder or come up to your table? Will it be worth the gas money you spent getting there?

Today I’m signing books at Books-A-Million in Anderson, SC (where I grew up.) Unfortunately, the publicity I carefully sent out in advance didn’t run (with the whittling down of news room reporters, the stacks of paper on individuals’ desks and emails in their inboxes has grown.) So…no publicity set up. I’m not even sure if the store has a sign up on their door announcing my signing or not.

Can this book signing be saved?

I think so. But I have to adjust my expectations going in.

Things I know:

Any buzz generated about my signing there will be carefully orchestrated by my parents, who still live in Anderson. Thanks, Mama and Daddy! It does help when you’re doing a signing in your hometown or a town where you were a former resident.

Most shoppers are not going to come up to my little table. I’ll have some bookmarks and other publicity info to hand out for them. Sometimes that makes people chat with me for a few minutes.

There will be several people who come up and ask me what my book’s about. I’ll have a snappy, quickie answer for them.

There will be several people who will ask me where the self-help/humor/children’s literature sections are. At least two people will ask me where the restroom is. But later on, they sometimes come back near me (in this bookstore, they usually have me close to the cash register.)

Still, there’s something exciting about being in a bookstore. I enjoy being in a bookstore at any time—I could cheerfully kill a day there. My biggest problem is staying near my little table instead of wandering around the store.

With my Myrtle Clover series, I developed a protagonist who is a very dominant main character. The characters alongside her are far weaker in every way. Even when Myrtle is pitted against a killer, she’s the dominant force in the scene.

With the Memphis series, I wanted a different kind of protagonist. I planned to create a solid center for the storm of activity that whirls around Aunt Pat’s Barbeque Restaurant. After all, someone needs to solve the murders.

The big challenge was the colorful cast of characters that surrounded my straight-‘man,’ Lulu. I have a bubbly group of docents from Graceland, a trio of retired blues musicians, and some really animated suspects. I worried a little that Lulu was going to fade in comparison, although she’s the book’s key player.

I’m hoping my editor at Berkley thinks I did a good job keeping my secondary characters under control.

My approach with this:

• If the secondary character is the focal point of a scene, make sure my protagonist is the one asking the questions and in control of their conversation.
• If a conversation takes place between several secondary characters, ensure my protagonist is making observations (even mentally) so that the reader views the scene through her perspective.
• Show the importance of the book’s central character to the secondary characters. If a secondary character wants advice, a shoulder to cry on, or someone fun to go out with, they call Lulu.

Do you have any scene-stealing bit characters? How do you wrangle them?

It’s Thursday! Today’s Heart Attack on a Plate is sponsored by “Southern Apple Cobbler.” Want to know how much sugar is in this recipe? Pop on over and find out! :)

Revision Notes:

So I’m working on this manuscript that I haven’t worked on since March. I did a quick read-through and didn’t micro-edit at all. My writing friend Jane Kennedy Sutton recommended I treat it as if it weren’t my manuscript. I did that, and it worked beautifully.

During my quick read-through to reacquaint myself with the manuscript, I marked scenes with a simple “weak, good, strong.” If I saw a real problem, I highlighted it in the Word program.

The second go-round:

I went back to the scenes I’d marked as weak and rewrote them. I kept my only vague impression of the old scene…I didn’t re-read it. That way, I had the gist of the scene but rewrote it in a fresh way.

I made notes for additions I’d like to make. New scenes, new subplots.

I realized I needed 20 more pages. I made some quick notes on areas that needed fluffing out.

I still haven’t micro-edited for punctuation, typos, etc. I don’t see any reason to until I’ve put the additional scenes in. Otherwise, I have to do it twice.

Yesterday’s schedule approach for the stay-at-home writer? I did hard writing first (tough revision, scene rewriting, new scenes). Then I did housework. I never did make it to the grocery store. Pros—I felt like I’d accomplished a lot with my writing. Cons— But I felt like I’d dropped the ball on other things. Oh….how long was this laundry in the washer? Oops. Supper planned? Oops. So far I like Tuesday’s approach of putting pressing household matters first before writing. Tomorrow I’m going to try to meld the two and see how that goes. It seems like that would work out best—but then I’m not doing either one 100% well.