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I can be a squeamish reader. And a picky one.  I’ll give anything a whirl (particularly if it’s a book recommendation from someone I respect.)  But sometimes I don’t stick with a book; there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to plow through novels that don’t suit me.  I’ve compiled a list of things that bother me in novels and find that they’re things that I also avoid like the plague when I’m writing.

Topics I personally avoid:

Brutality towards children:  This is a big deal-breaker for me when I’m reading.  Before I had children, I was able to easily read books like Stephen King’s It and other books that portray children in dire straits. As a parent, it’s become too nightmarish for me.

Brutality towards animals: Same concept.

Anything overwhelmingly depressing for most of the novel. Maybe it’s today’s tough economic times and my need for an escape, but if I feel more unhappy reading a book than I was before I picked it up, then I can’t usually slog through it.  Give me a ray of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel.  A ‘this too shall pass.’ I can read 200 pages of depressing text if I know there’ll be a pleasing payoff, a redemption at some point.

Techniques I personally avoid:

Too many characters.  Or too many characters without enough tags to remind me who the heck they are.  Because of my busy lifestyle, I’m picking up and putting down a book sporadically.  If a book has thirty characters and no context to remind me of their identity, I’m irritated.  Do I need to leaf back through the book and figure out who this bit-part person is? Why not just say something like:  “Carol sighed. ‘What a day! I must have permed a dozen heads of hair today.’?”

Too many cliffhanging chapter endings. Don’t get me wrong—I love being forced to read a book past my bedtime. But don’t have cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, for Pete’s sake.  Makes it more like an episode of Dynasty or something.

A meandering plot.  Is it a mystery?  Where’s the dead body?  Give me a body pretty soon, if it’s a mystery.  General fiction?  Then what’s the plot conflict?  What’s the internal/external conflict for the book? What’s the point?  Lovely descriptions of setting are all well and good, but I don’t have time for the book to rhapsodize prettily on the locale.

Too much internal dialogue. Sort of like reading a self-obsessed teenager’s diary entry.

These are just my pet peeves. And there are exceptions to the rules, of course.  Lord of the Flies, for instance. Breaks many of my tenets and I enjoyed the book immensely. What are some of your pet peeves as a reader? Do your peeves influence your writing?

This post serves as a shout-out to all those parents out there who write.  All writers face obstacles to writing,  but this post specifically addresses the unique problems faced by moms and dads with kids still living at home.  Like me.

What I’ve learned (and believe me, people ask how I’m juggling this stuff):

Write first.  Do it early.  Get up before everybody else.  Get up before the chickens.: I hate to say that for all the late sleepers out there.  But the silence of the early morning, plus the relative disconnect from the outside world (no one is on Facebook at 4:45. Trust me…I know. And no one sends you emails then—except for retailers) creates the perfect environment to write.

Get the kids’ school stuff ready the day before. Or earlier.  I find that it’s easier for me to keep up with packing lunches, putting stuff in backpacks, etc. The kids have plenty of their own responsibilities; this is one I don’t mind taking over and doing in record time. I make 5 little sandwich bags of pretzels for school snacks, 5 days’ worth of allotted chocolate chip cookies, 5 days of chips at the beginning of the week.  The night before I put grapes or a banana in the bag.  The morning of, I do make the sandwiches (don’t want them to get stale in the fridge.)  The kids’ papers are signed as SOON as they get home the day before. I have a checkbook in my hand as soon as they come through the door because there’s always a yearbook to be ordered, Scholastic book orders to be sent in, field trips to pay for, donations for the school, etc. that need payment.  I do these right away and just turn those suckers back in.

Make the coffee the night before.  This one is essential.

Have breakfast ready before you wake the kids up.  And after you’ve done a bunch of writing already.

After the kids go off on the bus or carpool, do a 15 minute pick-up.  You know it’ll drive you crazy if you don’t.  This is not the time to dust the ceiling fan blades.  Just pick up stuff that should be thrown away, put in a desk, or taken to another room.  If you stay at home, you can write much easier.  If you go to work, you won’t be greeted by chaos at the end of a long day.

Start a load of laundry.

Remember the fact that at some point, everyone will need to eat at the end of the day. I’ve rediscovered my crock pot. And found these sites: http://www.a-crock-cook.com/ and http://tinyurl.com/3xnjj . I throw the meat, vegetable, and sauce in and pray that it resembles supper at the end of the day. 

Cram in more writing at some point during your day (lunch break, etc.)

Whatever you do, make sure your mind is focused on your kids when you first see them after school.  This is not the time to be inventing cool dialogue between your two favorite characters. Because kids know when you’re not really listening.  Believe me: my daughter nailed me on it yesterday.  “Why did you say ‘umm-hmm?’ You weren’t at recess today!”      

Do the signing paper/check writing thing again.

Put that load of laundry in the dryer before it mildews.

Feed everyone. 

Make sure your kids put out the outfit they want to wear the next day.

Do you need to put some chicken or beef from the freezer into the fridge to defrost for supper tomorrow?

Collapse in bed.

Oddly enough (and with many different variations on this theme: insert sick kids, sick parent, upchucking dog or cat, errands to run, grass to mow) the basic structure of it seems to work.  For me, anyway.  How do you parent and write and run a home?  How do you deal with any other obstacles to your writing goal?

“From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”

Groucho Marx

“Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.”

George Orwell quotes (English Novelist and Essayist, 1903–1950)

“A real page-turner! I couldn’t put the book down…”

How many times have we read that type of book blurb (or a variation on that theme)?  But the fact that it’s a well-known or established author giving their thumbs-up makes the book suddenly more appealing.  I’m including myself in that statement; I find myself saying something like, “Oh…well I really like this author.  So maybe I’ll have to give this new author a go…”

Book blurbs are primarily useful for up-and-coming or unknown authors.  And the author giving the blurb is generally at the top of their game.  What are they getting out of it?  Obviously, they’re getting a little plug for their own book/series in.  But I really feel that many authors enjoy giving a helping hand to writers who are just starting out.

Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen says in her blog that her book blurbing is an attempt to “pay it forward.”  She also addresses the downside of blurbing: if you blurb for too many books, you’re branded a blurb-slut; readers might blame the endorsing author for a read they purchased but didn’t enjoy; and the time it takes for the author to read the galley (for Gerritsen, five hours of time away from her current project).  But she remembers with gratitude the authors who gave her first book an endorsement when she was an unknown writer.  And she enjoys returning the favor by helping out other new authors. 

Michelle Gagnon’s blog post mentions the importance of finding an author whose books match “your tone and subject matter.” Her concern is that a fan of the blurbing author might be dismayed to realize that instead of a sci-fi fantasy, they’ve got a thriller in their hands, or vice-versa.

A New York Post article on book blurbs references a publicist and best-selling author who garnered enthusiastic reviews…the Post implies….via her many publishing contacts.  But the author, Crosley, disputes that the book blurbing business is under-the-table.  She comments: “”The clues are generally there all along, ‘lurking’ in plain sight via the acknowledgements page.”

A recent Publishers Weekly article is entitled “Reforming the Book Blurb Bull: This Dehumanizing System Has to Stop.” The article’s author, Courtney Martin, proposes a requirement for big-name writers: “Maybe each author informally agrees to read (at least in part) five new manuscripts a year by unknowns, thinking of it as their dues for succeeding in a difficult industry. Even better, maybe we throw a big party, get some whiskey company to sponsor it and do short readings from new manuscripts. Authors who’ve heard something special can follow up right then and there with their genuine praise. Everyone interacts face to face. Everyone gets a shot at the literary dream of having random readers like my mom find their book on a shelf, flip it over and say, ‘Wow, if Zadie Smith likes this, I’ve definitely got to pick it up.’”

What do you think? Do book blurbs influence your buying habits? What other things pull you to one book over another in a bookstore?

 

  I participate in a promotional group for mystery writers.  We have a great time, promote our books, and share ideas.  We talk about our books and answer questions about writing for readers.

One of the questions we frequently find ourselves answering is: “Do you outline?”  It’s probably the most divisive question for the group.

I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just that our rather large group is divided in half by those who are adamant about outlining, and those who couldn’t outline if you put a gun to their heads.

I’ve written both ways.  And I see the pitfalls in both. If you outline, you can feel bound to a structured plan. If you go off on a tangent, you have to fit your diversion or subplot in somewhere. If you don’t outline, you’re writing a book in a sort of loosey-goosey manner and may not know what direction you’re going in. 

So here’s my solution.  It’s not for everybody.  But if you find yourself divided between the clean, organized lines of an outline and the freedom of writing as you go, maybe it will work for you.

A mini outline:  There are different ways you can give this a whirl.

A plan for a scene. This is perfect for the non-planners in the group. You’re not bound to a huge game-plan, but you have written with purpose. You could write notes at the top of that page almost like script or screenplay notes: setting, scene (what characters are present and what they’re doing), time of day, mood.

A plan for that chapter.  For instance, in the mystery I’m writing now, I have specific goals for each chapter. It’s not good to have pages that don’t further the plot, so I jot at the top of the chapter what clues or red herrings I’m including, or what suspects my sleuth is questioning.

A plan for several chapters.  Sometimes I like to write three chapters, then edit or add subplots to those chapters before moving on to the next few. If I jot down a plan for what I need to get accomplished in those chapters (I need to throw suspicions on one character, have another seem very sympathetic, need to include an important clue while diverting attention away from it, etc.

This method is a way I reconcile my need for organization with my need to brainstorm freely.  How do you outline?  Or do you do it at all?

“Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.”

Jules Renard  (1864 – 1910)

”We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965)

If you haven’t yet read bestselling author Lynn Viehl’s blog post on the breakdown of her royalty statement, it makes for interesting reading.  For a variety of reasons, actually. 

I guess in most industries, people try to see how their compensation measures up to others’. I’m certainly not above that. It’s nice in some ways to know that our wages are on target with the profession as a whole.

But to me, the most interesting facet of the royalty statement was that it illuminated the fact that even best-selling authors aren’t making gobs of money in this business.  Don’t get me wrong—netting $26,000 for one book is good gravy for a writer.  But, if you’ve got a family, you’re not exactly quitting your day job over it. 

So why do we do it? 

I think most of us write because we absolutely have to.

Toni McGee Causey posted a very interesting blog post on Murderati entitled “How Do You Know When to Quit?” Actually, however, the post focuses on not quitting.  It references Christie Craig’s inspiring story of her long road to a published book. 

I love mysteries. When I read mysteries, I want to write my own.  The ideas fly through my head and I grab paper and pencil to put them down.

Writers who stick with the process, who put in the hours, who edit their manuscripts umpteen million times, who do all this despite the money—they’re the ones who’re dedicated enough to stay in for the long haul. 

So here is my own, personal Top Five list.  Top Five Reasons Why I Write:

1. It’s cheaper than therapy.

2. It’s cheap, period. Think about it—no other hobby or profession can match it.  If you can afford the dollar store, you can afford to write.

3. I need to express myself creatively. I’m a creative person who can’t act, paint, draw, sculpt, or dance. Writing is my outlet.

4. The voices tell me to do it.  Okay, I’m being funny here….sort of.  Am I the only writer who has 2 characters’ dialogue running through their heads?

5. I feel driven to do it. I write, not necessarily by choice, but from a real need to write. Even as a kid, I filled journal after journal. I wrote for school magazines and newspapers.  Then I graduated to getting signed up for internships, and sending packet after packet to publishers. 

How about you? Why do you write?

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