Winner announced, and a blog hiatus

The winner of the contest to win a signed copy of Homefront is Shannon Kinney – congratulations, Shannon! (If you missed the contest and the interview introducing it, you can still find it here.) Thanks to everyone who entered – it was a lot of fun to answer your questions.

More great interviews will follow at Backword Books, including this week’s interview with R.J. Keller, questions asked by the Johnny Denovo mysteries author Andrew Kent. Get thee to the interview not only to read the interview, but also to find out how you can win a copy of Keller’s Waiting for Spring.

I’ll now be taking my leave of all things internet (twitter, facebook, this blog…all things [well, except for email]) until December 1 to do some serious, focused, and long-procrastinated writing. I leave you with these pictures of fall. I hope you’re enjoying yours.

P.S.

Win a signed copy of “Homefront” – and more

Visit Backword Books to read Threshold author Bonnie Kozek’s fun and revealing interview with me, and to find out how you can win a signed copy of Homefront.

CONTEST ENDS THURSDAY, OCT. 29.

Some of the questions she asks:

1. The subject of military separation lends itself to gravity and heartache.  Yet, you’re funny.  And the book is darkly humorous. I think you need to explain yourself!

2. Is there a particular scene or sentence in the book that gives potential readers the essence of what’s in store for them?

3. Homefront has received tremendous critical acclaim.  Has it gone to your head?

4. Is there a question that’s too private to answer? If so, what’s that question?

Visit Backword Books for more, and good luck.

Something someone said over lunch

…has convinced me to break guilt-free from writing Dan Palace for a few days. Starting Oct. 27, I’m going at it full force.

(Will this be the first time I’ve said “I mean it”? If not, I really do, this time. I’ve given myself a deadline of Dec. 30 to finish writing and revising the first draft, and I’m pretty good with deadlines.)

This short break means I can do other things, like build my Zazzle page. A few days ago I received an email informing me I’d made a whole $0.51 from the sale of one of the postcards I made, and nothing inspires false confidence quite like a sale. So, I spent all day today uploading images and making cards and postcards.

Want to see?

A short story to suck up space for a few days

Another piece that originally appeared at Six Sentences:

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“Killing people is an art, he said”

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Jenny, drunk, slid to her knees and clutched and groped at his thighs, her chin raised so that she could look up into his face. “You’re embarrassing me,” he said, and he apologized to the other couple still sitting at the table with half-formed game clay molded around their fingers. “Aw, c’mon,” Jenny said, her hand sliding toward his zipper. “This is why you love me, ’cause I’m crazy, remember?” She curled herself around his legs and whispered, Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, I know you’re leaving me. He used her shoulder to shove her away, onto her back, where she flailed like a toppled beetle.

Interview with Henry Baum – and a chance to win his book

Look for instructions about how to win Henry Baum’s novel, The American Book of the Dead, at the end of my interview with him at Backword Books.

It is the easiest contest ever.

Tune in tomorrow

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Henry Baum (interview to post tomorrow, the 16th) about his new book, The American Book of the Dead.

The interview is one that does not approach him from the perspective of a writer or someone interested in the literary elements and yadda yadda yadda, but from the perspective of a reader. I asked Henry questions any reader might have before picking up his book. After all – books are for readers, and readers like knowing what they’re getting into before they spend the money, yes?

BONUS:

At the end of the interview, readers will have the opportunity to ask their own question in the comments section (which Henry will answer), and one lucky question-asker will win a copy of The American Book of the Dead.

Come one, come all! It’s a fun interview, and it promises to be even more fun when readers add their own random questions.

Short Story Saturday

In the spirit of this month and all of its Halloween-y-ness, I thought I’d post the story that, thus far, has given me the most writing fun. (It’s quite possible I’ll post it every year, unless I write something else having anything to do with Halloween.)

“Becoming an Oates Girl,” 599 words and one of the stories in Carol’s Aquarium, was the winner of an Edifice Wrecked short fiction competition judged by Ellen Meister.

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Becoming an Oates Girl

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Lunelle had spent her life a buttercup, slender and bright and cheerful and light, her happiness smudging the men who held her.  They reveled in her gaiety, smiled “I’ve-found-her!” sighs at her movie-girl mood that never changed and ever pleased, at her baby lotion soft (and deceptively youthful) skin.  They, the men, licked her buttercup dust from their fingers until even their nails were clean.

She, Lunelle, was the kind of girl (before him) who—in the meat-freezer cold of Fargo winters—refused to ride in a car or a bus from the college where she taught compassion for Oates’s broken Beasts and Solstice women. She walked, thighs flaming fire-cold, without complaining or grumbling or cursing the goddamn Midwestern winters the way the others did.  She, Lunelle, ran ahead—skipped, even—and giggled, swinging her hair around to smile and rub-rub-rub her silly-cold thighs and say, “Brrr!”  She, Lunelle, picked up snow and tossed it high, raised her face, closed her eyes, and collected soft powder on her lashes.  She laughed, then, and skipped back to him (more specifically, to him) and took his hands and led him forward and onward, saying, “Oh, grumpy-grump!” when he complained he couldn’t feel his toes.  Once inside her cozy and well-lit apartment (sunlight hit her hair just so in the afternoons), she offered hot chocolate and peeled off their clothes and sat naked atop of him while water heated on the stove.

He was the dashing dapper-doll she’d spotted one fall crossing the street with a parrot on his shoulder, its feathers boasting vibrant rainbow shades.  He—he—wore a sleeveless t-shirt and handed sunflower seeds to the beak hovering cheekside.  Lunelle had waved from her side of the street and said, “Hi, there!” Giggling, she’d asked the parrot’s name, and from then and on they were together.  For their one-year—her first long-term—he’d planted a patch of sunflowers in the soil under her kitchen window and she’d clapped her hands and kissed the air.

Today, now, the sunflowers peak, now in full autumn, Gillian’s season since three years before when, parrot shouldered and one uprooted sunflower dragging, he—he—left under a ghost sheet.  “Getting candy corn,” he lied.

He left, he later sighed, because she was too perfect. (She didn’t argue the impossibility of being “too” perfect.) He flipped her hair, said, “Thick and bouncy!”  He spat in her eyes. “They sparkle, for Christ’s sake!”  But also, she was too optimistic, too chipper about “goddamn everything.”  To prove him wrong she, Lunelle, had said, “No, it’s not true, baby blue.   Listen to this, to what I was thinking, and you’ll see I, too, am some days sinking into the depths of sadness and gloom, and that I am—hardly!—like a…flower…in…in…bloom!  Listen,” she said. “Sometimes?  Sometimes I think my heart could just break from autumnal beauty that’s too much to take, the rusts on brown trees—I could fall to my knees!”  But she knew.  That was too beautiful, too.  “You make me fucking crazy,” he said.

So she, once Lunelle, became an Oates woman, because they—damaged, imperfect—are loveable, sickly adored the translated world over.

She, Gillian, breasts shaved to Beasts nubs and hair permed curly, buys lipsticks called Tangerine Tango and Mazetlan. Her students snicker at the bold smears coloring her teeth and at her pronunciation of “Rastafarian” (Ra-sti-fay-rien), roll their eyes when she uses words like “stichomythia” and “brackish” for their ugliness.

She is Lunelle only on Halloween nights when, gold-lit under the porchlight, she drops dried buttercup buds in children’s cheap plastic pumpkin buckets.

RIP, little Ashley (a.k.a. Quick Paw McGraw a.k.a. LittleBear)

I’ve had this cat, and her brother, since I was 19 – and I’m now 35. Ashley was a licking fool and truly had the quickest paws in all the land. A sweet cat, but she’d kick your ass, too.

On one hand, it feels silly to make a post about this. Who cares about someone else’s dead cat, after all? But, because this is my blog and I do what I want, I do this. I don’t pretend cats are child-substitutes (animals and children, as we all know, are completely different creatures…for one, cats stay little and never learn to talk), but they are living creatures with their own personalities and their own individual value. I didn’t expect to have to put her to sleep today – it was a sudden thing. Before bringing her in, I’d thought she was relatively healthy. So, forgive an extreme animal lover’s single post about her recently (within the last hour, actually) departed cat. (I’m not gonna lie – any time one of my animals dies, I’ll probably post a little picture gallery. They’re worth it – they’re all so sweet!)

Afterward, I bought a bottle of wine and came home and poured a glass, and I’m sitting in the chair where, every day for the last several months, she would be sitting behind me. Between my butt and the back of the chair. Not always comfortable, but she insisted on being there, so whaddya gonna do? Anyway – cheers to Ashley. A smart, affectionate cat who knew which chair not to sit on, whose vocal chords proved quite healthy and powerful and, on more than one occasion, startled people in an otherwise quiet room, and whose affectionate licking wet many an earlobe.

P.S. She may also have been a closet alcoholic. The glass she’s drinking from are the watery remains of a Jim Beam & Coke Ian poured one day after work. We never confronted her about it…we just let her have those few sips that one day.  If she sneaked a drink when we weren’t home, we had no idea and take no responsibility.

A book’s stages of growth – in pictures.

Everyone probably has their own way of going about writing a book, but I would bet there’s a general, and fairly common, series of steps.

1. The Writing Journal

Practically essential (for those who are into writing journals, anyway) for initial ideas and ongoing notes. I can’t have enough of these things. The one you see to the left has about 1/3 of the pages unused, but once I finished using it for Homefront, I figured I’d need a new one for the next project. (Yes, need. And then I needed another one for the project I imagined I might someday work on years from now. What? Writers need journals like chefs need good knives!)

The unused pages don’t go to waste, though. They’re good for jotting notes to Ian or folding in half and turning into bookmarks.

2. The Writing In The Writing Journal

It’s not enough to carry it around – it should be used. You may not remember all of your notes…in fact, while taking pictures of this today I found some notes I had no idea about and was glad I didn’t follow…but there’s always sure to be something really, really valuable in there. Having it with you most of the time is a good idea for the person who has a lot of ideas while they’re doing other things. I used to think I’d remember my brilliant ideas because, well, how could anyone forget a brilliant idea? But invariably, ten minutes later, *poof.*

(I don’t think I was serious about War and Peas…at least, I hope I wasn’t…)

Journals are also fun to have because, years after you’ve finished your book and you can’t imagine it any other way, you see all the other ideas you had. These pages seems to suggest not only a few bad titles, but also that I was going to have Jake come home for R&R at the end, and then have Mia’s behavior contradict her actual psychological state. I know why I planned to do that, but that’s not something to get into here. Moving on!

Once the book is “done” (that is, once the last page is written), it’s unbelievably helpful to print every page and read it through, beginning to end. I don’t know why, but there are things I caught on paper that I never would have caught looking at it on the screen. It’s just different. Period. (More on the kinds of things you notice a little further down.)

3. The Binder

I kept Homefront in a binder, and with my rough, at-home-designed-and-printed-on-regular-paper cover on the front. I’d printed a couple versions of a cover while writing, and I kept each incarnation of the cover taped to a set of shelves next to my desk so I’d see it while I was writing. It helped to imagine it being finished. A real, complete book with a cover and everything.

(I really should do that for the one I’m writing now…)

The binder held (and still holds) all things Homefront related.

Such as…

a. Notes by helpful readers, to whom I am forever indebted

Yes, I know that says “dumberer,” but I think an earlier page had said “dumber” and the reader was being funny. Or, it’s a typo. In any case, this person’s feedback was absolutely invaluable. I met him on an online writers site and he read every

single

chapter

and commented on each one. Unbelievably generous. That he’s an exceptional writer, and also a former editor, was a bonus, too. He wasn’t the only one to offer feedback, and I have to say…I’m incredibly fortunate to know so many people with such a keen grasp on writing and literature. Ian, my husband, is one of the best critics to have given me advice about Homefront. Never underestimate the value of readers – without them, I know without a doubt Homefront would have been a completely different book – or,

b. The book

Exhibit A (of A) showing the “completely different book”: The original first page

This page is actually the first run at the second draft. The first draft was in third-person and had a character named Terri before, 80 single-spaced pages into it,  I started over from page one. I think I deleted the original 80 pages.

(I don’t recommend deleting 80 pages in most cases, but they were just wrong. I had no use for them.)

Things you notice when the book changes form:

1. word choice and unnecessary details

2. uh…all kinds of other things

All right. So, once the first paper draft has been carefully dissected and corrected, the whole thing is pretty much done.

(HA! Not really. At least, not in this case. Because, at some point, the 8.5 x 11 pages will turn into a book, which is a whole different form to be read. And what’s amazing about reading the book as a book is how many more things stand out.)

Things that stand out when reading a book that now looks like a book:

1. unnecessary details & dialogue, and unnatural sounding dialogue

2. the importance of having just the right insult

Once that version has been picked at a few times, it’s probably safe to say “done.”

Pictures make it look like nothing, and talking about it makes it sound like nothing. But it’s really such a process, and one that was too easy to forget. Writing Dan Palace, I keep thinking, “This should be easier. I should be able to get it all down, do it all right, the first time. Homefront was so simple. There was no second-guessing or stressing or mulling or hair-tearing. Why isn’t this one like that!?”

Yeah…clearly, I’ve forgotten a lot (everything?) about that experience. It was pretty much the exact same thing I’m going through now.

Writing a book must be like childbirth (or, the way they say childbirth is): you forget the pain once it’s over. And then, like a crazy person, you want to do it again.

A Tuesday short.

[The following originally appeared in Six Sentences]

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THERAPEUTIC WRITING IS FOR JOURNALS

I certainly don’t like the stories about the critically ill, no – not in the New Yorker or the Sun Magazine, not in the web ‘zines you find on the internet, not in Reader’s Digest.

Trite, the descriptions of tubes and programmable beds and all the words never said still locked in the lungs of visitors standing bedside, or stuck in the sputum sliming a trach balloon. I don’t care what anyone learns or doesn’t learn, who is sad or who isn’t and why, what the needle sores look like on the arm that was once flesh-healthy. At the first mention of “feeding tube” or “bright, sterile hospital,” I flip or scroll or click forward – those stories tire me. They always have, yes, as have the Diseased Children and Cancer Women movies on Lifetime.

Even now, I won’t read one of those hospital stories, because even now, I’d be insufferably bored, but I do, now, understand the compulsion to write one.

Just don’t expect me to want you to read it.

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[*Note: this isn't based on anything currently happening in my life, or in the life of anyone I know.]

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