Guest Posting on Gwen Mayo's Blog Tonight

I did a guest blog for "Thursday's Thugs", a regular feature on Gwen Mayo's blog. The focus is usually on mystery, but I take a slight genre departure to talk about a double standard one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's most famous villains benefits from.

Read my contribution at:

http://gwenmayo.blogspot.com/2011/03/thursdays-thugs-double-standard.html

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Social Media: Setting up your #FF list for Twitter

I get a double dose when it comes to dealing with social media. I have a personal Twitter account where I talk with friends, interact with people who share my interests, and promote my writing. I also have a 'business' Twitter account for my job, where I represent my department and promote its programs.

My first Twitter account was the personal one, used to stay in touch with  political contacts and swap information as it became available. Later, as my fellow Sisters in Crime moved to Twitter, I began adding friends who were writers. We engaged in chats, Retweet blog links, shared news of recent sales, etc. Now that I have a book coming out, I'm also using the account to announce updates in its production and places I will be appearing and guest blogging.

My second Twitter account was set up as a public 'face' for my department, which offers continuing healthcare education. In other words, we offer educational programs for doctors, pharmacists, etc. From that account, I forward articles I think our customers will find interesting, Retweet posts from other Twitterers (I prefer the terms 'Tweeps' and 'Twits'), make comments on the posts of others, and, of course, occasionally post a link to one of our programs. An aside: no one is going to follow you for long if all you do is plug your own product.

On Fridays, people suggest Twitterers that they think their friends might also want to follow. This is referred to as "Follow Friday" or by the hashtag #ff. People send out #ff posts to promote their friends, but they also do it as a sign of their friendship with others. I can tell you that I look kindly upon people who #ff @saraheglenn. Follow Friday can be genuinely useful - I've found lots of new Tweeps this way - but it's very, very easy to begin with a few friends and wind up, in a matter of months, sending over ten posts of nothing but Twitter IDs plus the #ff. If you follow as many people as I do, Friday is a day of many recommendations but little commentary.

What can help?

Suggestion 1: Make a special shout-out post to a few people. Marian Allen, for example, saw my blog earlier in the week and posted:

#ww @SarahEGlenn because she's photogenic.

You bet I'm going to remember that, and will be much more likely to Retweet her blog and book announcements as a result.

Mark Souza posts his "100 Best Writers on Twitter". This is a great idea because a. you know his list is finite, b. the people named are nominally part of an elite group, and c. he's included me.

Suggestion 2: Weed out your #ff list if it's gotten too large. I did this recently with both my personal and office Twitter accounts. I pulled up each account and found several that didn't exist any more. I also noticed that others only posted new material every two or three weeks. Those got cut. I looked over the content of posts as well: did they ever share useful information, like blog links? Get involved in group chats? If so, I kept them. Naturally, there was one more criterion: did they ever #ff me? Automatically a keeper.

Suggestion 3: Set some standards for the people you #ff. Once again, this will not be useful if you only have a few friends, but once you're following over 300 people they will come in handy. I follow over a thousand people on each of my accounts, but I can only #ff a small fraction of them on Fridays. Below are mine, subject to revision as needed:

My personal account:
Did they ever #ff me?
Do they represent some important group, like the SFWA?
Are they great bloggers, like Pam Spaulding or Joe Sonka?
Are they real-life personal friends, spouses, or relatives? Yes, nepotism counts with me.
Are they cool? I met Jacqueline Lichtenberg about twenty years ago, but she's still one of the best things since sliced bread. I also love BurbDoc, whom I came across during my work, but his posts are too vulgar for me to promote them as a representative of my office. However, it works fine for my personal account.
Do I just plain flat like them?

My office account:
Did they ever #ff me?
Do they represent a major healthcare body, like the AMA or the American College of Chest Physicians?
Do they provide news of interest to healthcare providers?
Are they connected with the institution I work for?
Are they popular bloggers, like Kevin MD?


Your standards may not ultimately match mine. You may have a more relaxed system for choosing people. You might even go with a weekly shout-out to a couple of friends, and rotate the people you pick each week. The Follow Friday, though, is a good way to confirm friendships and promote one another, and I hope you won't be intimidated by it.


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Author Pics, or Straight Eye for the Queer Gal

All photos by Christy Mayo McMillen

The time has come for the all-important author portrait. You know, the one that goes in the back of the book with the author's bio. I wrote the bio, but I called in professionals for the photo.

Straight women.

First was Nancy, my hairdresser. I scheduled my haircut on the same day as the photo shoot, which was by accident - but a fortunate one. Nancy did her usual great job, but suspected that her good intentions might go awry before that evening. My hair isn't known for its good behavior. She made me cover my eyes and hold my breath while she sprayed the hell out of it. It worked; the 'do set up and stayed put, even through the clothing changes.

That evening, the tag team arrived. One was Gwen's daughter, a fantastic photographer with a huge honking camera that she normally reserves for the grandsons' sports events. She took Gwen's author photos and graciously agreed to take mine. On Saturday, she came to Lexington with her friend, a former Miss West Virginia. High-powered help, indeed!

I showed them the wardrobe and jewelry options. Once they'd decided how to dress me, they draped a towel around my neck and began their work.

Strange substances, some very expensive, were sponged and brushed over every square inch of my face. The smell of cosmetics, a scent I am normally unfamiliar with, filled the air. I sat there clutching my seat, trying not to act nervous. When they reached the eyes, though, I let out a high-pitched whine and they got tickled. Gwen's mother said I sounded like a puppy whimpering.

Naturally, I was not allowed to wear my glasses until after I was through having pictures taken. Gwen sat in the front of her daughter's car to give directions. First stop: the cemetery. No, I am not kidding. My novel has vampires, doesn't it?

The vampire novelist requires night photography.

Christy had great fun telling me to turn this way and that. It was like being a model, but dressed much more sensibly. We moved to indoor locations when we got cold. The shot at the top of this post was taken in front of a fountain at Lexington Green. I was much happier there because we visited Joseph-Beth's. Lack of glasses didn't stop me from peering at books! They had to tell me to move along, we weren't there to shop.

Christy knew which book I should hold.

The only confusion came when she asked me to do the 'cheerleader' pose. I'm afraid I had no notion of what that was. They had to move me into the proper position, which is a bit like an iliotibial band stretch without the pain. I am not posting a pic here because I have suboptimal talents in the cheerleader department. I should have paid more attention at those football games when I was in band.

Once the ladies were tired of posing me, we went home. I was happy to get my glasses back and, with the magic of cold cream, return to my secret identity as a woman in comfortable shoes! If the book sells well, though, I may have to become more familiar with feminine skills.

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My Novel Has a Cover!

Every day, my dream is becoming more and more solid. Soon, it will be a reality I can hold in my hands.

State of Horror: My Lovecraft Tribute

I am pleased to report that Rymfire's latest release, State of Horror: Louisiana, contains one of my stories. "Voter Base" is a little tribute I wrote to H.P. Lovecraft's body of work. I have read most of HPL's stories and played Call of Cthulhu for several years.

On the fifth anniversary of our civil union, I even took my wife to Providence and did the Lovecraft's College Hill Walking Tour. I viewed this as proof of her true devotion, especially since everything was uphill. Lovecraft's notions of non-Euclidean geometry were definitely spawned in his home town.

I have a few other Lovecraftian notions bouncing around in my head, just looking for opportunity and a promising outlet. It was a lot of fun to write.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/state-of-horror-louisiana/14862271

UPDATE: This book is also available on Kindle!

http://www.amazon.com/State-of-Horror-Louisiana-ebook/dp/B004NNV2MK

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Review: Ice Cold

Ice Cold by Tess Gerritsen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read several of Tess Gerritsen's novels, but I've never been able to get into her Rizzoli and Isles books. I'm a sucker for a survival story, though, and was intrigued enough by the description on the flyleaf to give it a try. It did not disappoint in that area. Maura's struggle to live through the punishing cold early in the book and, later, eluding would-be killers with the boy Rat were both compelling to me.

I also found myself connecting with Maura on a deeper level than my previous experiences. She begins the book at an impasse with her current lover (Isles seems to have a bad track record in choosing lovers). Her impulse to do something, anything to break out of her life's pattern is very understandable and, naturally, leads to trouble. Her experiences help her clarify what she wants to do with the relationship - mostly by blasting her out of her love-angst.

I don't want to give any spoilers, but the book starts with a 'garden variety' polygamous cult with a charismatic prophet. You think you know what happened to his followers... but you don't. You also think that the boys raised in this patriarchal cult would be greatly valued and groomed to rule... but they're not. The ending holds a final twist that truly did surprise me... but made sense at the same time.

This was a great read. I plowed through it within 24 hours - it was that enjoyable. I think other non-Rizzoli and Isles readers might enjoy it, too.

View all my reviews

Review: Snow Blind

Snow Blind by Lori G. Armstrong

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was my first experience with Lori Armstrong's work, but it is the last in the series with Julie Collins. I don't know what the other books were like, but I would describe this one as bipolar.

The situation Julie and her partner Kevin are hired to investigate isn't an uncommon one for a novel by a woman writer with a female detective: find out if an old man is being exploited by the nursing home he lives in. We meet the various characters at the home, everyone from paid 'volunteers' to the requisite spunky old lady. The investigation begins...

...and then Julie is called out to her father's ranch. She battles a blizzard and painful memories while trying to save her father from a murder charge. Dark family secrets surface, some from her family, some from other families. The difference between this and the first part of the book is night and day. I was going "uh-huh, uh-huh" up till the trip to the ranch, after which things got interesting.

Eventually Armstrong takes Julie back to her assigned case, which is now only a pale distraction in comparison to the dark drama we were plunged into. Julie gets to the bottom of the case, but for me the good part of the book had already ended.

I hope the author will do more novels that focus on stories as dark and gripping as the subplot in this novel. I found it much more interesting than the more predictable 'real case'.



View all my reviews

The Bio. NOW what do I say?

Everyone who read last week's post will be glad to learn that I finished the edits in good time. Once I got into them, I remembered how much I liked the characters and it really wasn't that scary.

I'm almost ready to ship the edits back to Pill Hill Press, but I'm lacking something important: an author bio. I'm at a loss for words.

Now, let me make it clear that I've done bios for short stories. They're brief and often have pop culture references. I'd like to stick with brief, but I don't think I should make my usual confession that I wanted to grow up to be Kolchak, except smarter (the idiot hunted vampires alone at night). Wouldn't the Kolchak people try to sue me for that?

My bios are usually tailored to fit the story. For example, in my bio for Fish Tales, the SinC Guppies' first anthology, I mentioned that I had been born in Asheville, NC and had deep family roots there because my story was set in Asheville. I worked an NCIC terminal at my local police department for seven years, so I mention that in stories with central characters that work for the police.

My novel is about a lesbian vampire that moves into a gated community. What the hell do I do with that? I'm a lesbian who played Vampire: the Masquerade about ten years ago. Not quite the same thing. If I'd planned ahead for my writing career, I would have been born about ten years later with a higher metabolism. Then, I would have been young and thin enough to join one of the vampire cults. Instead, I was an old, boring nerd when that became the rage.

Sadly, I am more qualified to write about the New Ager the vampire dates for a while. I know quite a bit about astrology, crystals, and Tarot. When you meet my vampire, Cynthia, you will know why this is not a compliment. I am more qualified to write the science geeks she interacts with, after living in the engineering dorm at OSU and dating the people I gamed with. I'm also better equipped to write about the pettiness of bureaucrats, after years of working for the city, the University, and volunteering for my political party.

None of this boils down to the thumbnail sketch I'm hoping to create. I probably should mention the degree in journalism. It makes me sound like I've been trained in writing, at least. The rest is going to require more thought.

Any suggestions for useful things to include in a bio for someone who's written a vampire novel? And please, no 'blood bank employee' suggestions. I've studied dead languages... does that count?

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The Thrill of Victory... The Agony of Delete

A short time ago, I discovered that I could look up the stats for this blog. Among the information listed, I discovered that someone found my site by asking, "Is Pill Hill Press a vanity press?" I can attest that, having recently received their edits for my novel, that they are nothing of the sort. What little vanity I have took a serious blow.

Comments in red, blue, and purple ink fill the margins throughout the book. I overuse certain words, and they're longer than four letters. Entire paragraphs have been flagged as 'wordy' or 'unclear', so it's probably time to STFU about James Joyce. I've also been asked to delete a few blocks of writing as unnecessary to the story. Ouch!

These are common errors, though. Em dashes and new word choices just need to be 'fixed'. It gets worse. My editor found contradictions of logic and inconsistencies in my vampire physics. I've had a couple of real "Oh, s--t!" moments. This stuff will require serious thought and rewriting.

I feel like an utter idiot. How could I have managed to leave so much stuff screwed up after four drafts? I have to remind myself that my editor, who is also my publisher, saw these same pages, errors included, when she decided to offer me a contract. Despite the amount of ink decorating the margins, she must have thought that these problems were surmountable.

I must also remind myself that I can get my characters and plot to do the things needed because, in the words of Donald Maass, they are "a work of fiction". This is made up stuff, and I am a writer. I can do this.

So, I picked up my yelping, whimpering manuscript, and began revisions. I'm proceeding one step at a time, untangling its words, making it stand up straight, and putting its shoes on the correct feet. Solutions have already begun coming to me. I will get this done... and the book will be better for it.

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Voices of Mystery: Molly MacRae

Ball State professor Nancy Carlson interviews Molly MacRae about her newest novel, Lawn Order. The interview took place at the last Magna cum Murder.



When you're through watching this interview, why not follow up with Gwen Mayo's?

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Quantity and Quality - Not What You Think

In a recent exchange on the #amwriting thread on Twitter, I said that I had only written about 400 words. Someone responded: "Quality, not quantity!" When I thought about those words, though, I realized that this axiom doesn't quite work with my approach to writing.

Quality? I hope I eventually get there with everything I write. My method of getting there, though, is to sit down and force myself to write the scene, even if I'm not sure where I'm going or what's going to happen later in the story. I brazen it out, feeling foolish and seeing the clumsiness of the words.

Then, I fix it. I go back and forth, changing redundant words, seeking the perfect way - or at least a clear way - of saying what I want to say. I may have only had 400 new words on my computer screen, but there were probably another 300 I deleted en route to better phrasing. Like Penelope, I weave and unravel. Unlike her, my objective is to finish the job.

After I have a washcloth or face towel of writerly fabric, I smooth out the phrasing, add details, and take out all the "reallys". Sometimes, I shift whole blocks of words because I've gotten ahead of myself and the material needs to be put into chronological order. With novels, I write the scenes as they come to me and then list them on calendar pages. Once I know 'when' everything is, I reorder the scenes and fix them, reweaving the golden thread of continuity, until they fit together again.

But before all those repairs comes the moment of throwing the words down on the page: the "Well, here goes!" moment. I learned that from journalism. We'd come into class, which was set in a room with typewriters and reams of papers (yes, I know I'm dating myself by admitting that). The professor would have certain facts written up on the board - the famous "Who, What, Where," etc. He would tell us: "Write a page and a half on this. You have X minutes." Naturally, this led to a lot of panicked typing. When the time was up, we had to turn in our work, finished or not. I wondered then why we so rarely got our work back with grades. Now I know why... the point was to get us to write, to set aside our fears of being imperfect.

These days, I occasionally hear people complain: "They don't teach you how to write in journalism, they just teach you to write to deadline. You don't learn anything about the art of it."

You can talk about the craft of writing all day, but you won't learn that craft until you actually write. The same with painting, playing music, dancing, sports... you develop skill and craft by doing. Later, in the higher level classes, our instructors did talk more about the skills and approaches to different types of articles, but first we had to learn to write. Imperfectly, of course, but... to write.

The art comes in the rewrite. At least it does for me.

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Guest Post on Austin Camacho's Blog Today!

Austin Camacho is the author of the Hannibal Jones series. If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting him at Bouchercon or Magna cum Murder, he is a great person. I'm the featured guest today at Another Writer's Life, his blog.

http://ascamacho.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html#6259530527804702729

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Please go VOTE for my wife!

Preditors & Editors is doing their Best of 2010 poll. If you're familiar with their usual work, I want to assure you that this is a positive poll.

Gwen Mayo's book, Circle of Dishonor, is in the running for Best Mystery Novel. Gwen is my wife, in case you didn't know... so I am imploring everyone to go over to the poll and vote for her. While you're there, you might find some other books and authors you want to support. Pill Hill Press is making a very good showing in several categories.

The slate for Mystery Novels is at:

http://www.critters.org/predpoll/novelmys.shtml

Please consider supporting Gwen's first novel... if not, support someone. Writers need all the encouragement they can get.

Your friend in nepotism,

Sarah Glenn
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I May Have Super Powers! So May You!

Unfortunately, they only work on flu. According to 'recent research', some people (okay, nine people) who got swine flu in 2009 developed super-powerful immune systems that are hell on wheels as far as the flu is concerned.

The power of the H1N1 immune response is extraordinary. According to the researchers, five of the types of antibodies isolated in their research would be enough to fight off all seasonal flu variations, the Spanish flu virus that killed as many as 50 million people in the pandemic of 1918, and a potentially deadly bird flu strain known as H5N1.

Guess who came back from Bouchercon 2009 with swine flu? You guessed it! I may have a super-duper immune system now, rendering me immune from all major flu strains plus the scary avian flu, too! Not only that, my wife was with me and caught swine flu also! What a relief to her supervisors, who now know they can call "bullshit' on her if she ever takes off work for 'the flu' again. Her employability just went up.

The best part? We caught it at Bouchercon, which had over a thousand attendees. This means that many mystery writers and their fans were exposed to super powers, too! Since Sisters in Crime held a workshop the day before, perhaps we should rename ourselves "The Wonder Women".

The now-super-powered Ohio River Valley Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

It's nice to know that my favorite mystery writers are safe from the flu forever. It's also nice to know that there will be plenty of bookbuying fans to come back year after year after year.

I only have one burning question...

Will it protect me from the common cold as well?

Setting Your Goals for the New Year

Okay, now that I've blathered about my own goals for the New Year, you probably got bored and thought about something more interesting: your goals for the New Year. As a compulsive list-maker and goal setter, let me offer you some suggestions.


I do strongly suggest that you think in terms of goals rather than resolutions. So many resolutions involve "don't" behavior. Every time you think "Don't do ___," you're thinking about ___. In fact, you're starting to obsess about it. How can you stop without doing ___?

Phrasing can be very important in the case of goals that do involve stopping certain kinds of behavior, such as overeating. Losing weight is especially challenging, because you have to keep eating, while trying 'not' to eat too much. Try thinking in terms of eating 'enough' rather than 'not overeating'. It might help.

When you set your goals, be realistic. Be realistic in terms of what you think you can accomplish, not what you've heard other people can or did do. Sure, the fat people on those TV weight loss shows did lose a remarkable amount of weight in a relatively short time. They also had coaches and cooks helping them out. We're also learning that sometimes more time passes between episodes than a real-life week. Measuring yourself by those standards will make you feel like a failure every week you lose less than five pounds.

Speaking of realistic, be sure your goals are about you. Getting your husband to stop smoking isn't under your control, it's under his control. You may have an obedient child who wants to please, but if she's not a 'morning person', this is unlikely to change. Some goals, by definition, do involve other people. If you're trying to get better performance ratings at work, or peddle your book to a publisher, a good portion of the outcome is in other people's hands. In this case, being realistic means you must accept that you might fail despite your best actions. Sometimes your boss just has it in for you.

Be specific. What is the most important thing you're trying to accomplish? "Reduce debt" sounds good, but is sort of vague. You might consider paying the minimums on your credit cards 'reducing debt' (FYI: no, it's not). "Retire my VISA card" or "Close my Dillard's account for good" are clearer goals.

Prepare to stick with it. Weight Watchers has a successful program. So does SparkPeople. Frankly, there are a lot of diet systems that really can help you lose weight - if you stick to them. Ask yourself how serious you are about your goal before ponying up time and money for a gym membership, new running shoes, etc. Paying off that MasterCard? You're probably going to have to do without some indulgences to make those higher payments... every single month.

Look for tools to help. Educate yourself. I mentioned there are a lot of diet systems that can help you - there are also a number of financial advice sites that can steer you towards better credit or reduced debt, if that's your goal (look for advice columns, not people who want you to pay them money to 'repair your credit'). MSN Money's Personal Finance isn't a bad place to start. Trying to stop smok- uh, live tobacco-free? Look at the American Lung Association pages. Educate yourself, then work from there.

Finally...

Don't make your list too long. Cut yourself a little slack, will you? You need downtime. You're starting the New Year with plenty of energy and zeal (or bloated regret), but both will wear off by the time January is over. Set a few really important goals and pursue them. If you accomplish some other stuff, great, but don't schedule every minute of every day for working on yourself. The brightest guy I know, a mathematician, takes time off to watch the Simpsons. If his brilliant brain needs time off from weighty issues, so does yours.

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Planning the New Year

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans”

- John Lennon

Some people make resolutions for the New Year: I make lists. Each January, I used to make long lists of what I wanted to accomplish that year. I set up goals for my health (read for this: lose weight), finances, employment, spirituality, and, of course, for my writing. When I married, I expanded the chart of goals to include my wife's goals as well (not sure how she felt about that, but I'm a little OCD). We bought a house, so I added a new category for work around the house (painting, fixing stuff, etc.).

Every December, I reviewed the list to see how I'd done. Gentle Reader, I'm sure you're intelligent enough to guess that I was lucky to get half of my goals anywhere near accomplishment in twelve months. My goals were set up for blue skies, not the changeable climate of real life. Why not aim for the best?

Oh, well.

A couple of years ago, I decided to do something simpler: a short list of things I thought were really important. Since then, December hasn't been nearly as brutal.

My goals for 2010:
Lose weight. Finish rewrite. Get an agent. Please note that I dropped 'Get out of debt' from the list after taking out a loan to replace our central air. A house is a money pit. We're just lucky we don't have children to raise.

Goals accomplished? Well, I didn't lose weight, but I maintained the weight I've lost (although the jury is still out until after I escape my mother's clutches). I did finish the rewrite. I didn't get that agent, but I got a publisher, which was better!

Goals for 2011... Hrm. Lose weight (perennial goal). Promote book. I was working on a separate book with a new character when I got the good news. Do I try to finish it, or restart work on the sequel for All This and Family, Too?

Lots to plan for... I may only accomplish the first two goals. Or... maybe only the second goal. I'll be satisfied if it comes off well.

I hope everyone has a great New Year. Try not to get too hung up on resolutions or lists.
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Recipe: Mom's Avgolemono Soup

The finished product.

Today, I'm posting something you will rarely see here: a recipe. I rarely cook, and when I do it usually involves boiling water and some sort of powder or item in a can. However, I am visiting my mother, who is Greek, and she makes the best avgolemono soup in the world. All cultures seem to have some form of chicken soup; this is the Greek version.

Although I first posted this on Sparkpeople.com, this is not a 'healthy' recipe. This is the way my mother, a real Greek, makes it... although the bouillon is a recent addition. Restaurants often just use the egg whites; my mother uses whole eggs.

Ingredients:

Chicken Broth, 10 cup (8 fl oz)
Egg, fresh, 5 large
Lemon Juice, 4 lemon yields
White Rice, medium grain, 4 cup
Chicken bouillon, 3 cubes
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Boil a chicken for two hours. Remove the chicken from the pot, and use for chicken salad or some other purpose (you can add some of the meat back to the soup later if you want).

Add 1 and 1/3 cups dry rice to the pot. Let the rice cook. TURN DOWN THE HEAT.

Squeeze the 4 lemons. Beat the eggs, THEN add the lemon juice. Beat together.

Slowly add a LITTLE bit of the broth at a time to the egg-lemon mixture until the mixture gets very warm. Dump into the broth and stir.

Let the broth come to where it begins to boil again, and take the pot OFF the heat. I cannot stress this part enough; you don't want the egg to 'break'. The only reason Mom lets it boil at all is because of salmonella worries.

Side note: some people use orzo instead of rice. My mother is a purist. Also: don't add onions of any sort. Trust me on this one.

I added this to my repertoire at SparkPeople because I needed a calorie count (the vat above comes out to about 16 servings at 137 calories each, if you're curious). Since I shared it, I have received several responses from people who tried making it and loved the results. Guess I give better directions for cooking than doing the actual cooking.

If you try it, I hope it turns out well.

Traffic Tribulations

I apologize in advance to all Tennesseans reading this blog. I do not mean to cast aspersions on the state, at least not now that football season is over. I lived in Alcoa and Maryville for a few years during my childhood, and they were pretty good years.

However: Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge is a growing fistula on the state's backside, spewing road rage and concrete droppings of tourist traps from Sevierville to Cherokee, North Carolina. If you live there, I feel sorry for you. You seem like nice people, but I think your blood pressure might drop if you relocated.

When I was a child, we visited Gatlinburg a few times. We parked, got out of the car, and walked around to look at the tourist attractions. Finding a parking place was the only problem. Things have changed a lot in the last -um- twenty-five years.

The layout of the area probably 'just happened that way', but could not have been better planned by an anger management counselor looking for customers: Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville is one huge mall with four to six-lane service roads. There are precious few sidewalks, and nothing is close to anything else. Signs and lights are everywhere, telling you that you're simultaneously on a northbound and southbound road. That's not all: U.S. 441 splits at a right angle for north vs. south, too. Methinks someone didn't have a compass.

I drove through Denver during the Democratic National Convention. Every morning, I left from Aurora and entered its construction zones and rotating lane closures. They changed the lane closures every day for security reasons (malice, more likely). Denver earned its listing as a horrible town for traffic fair and square.

Surely I, a Denver Convention veteran, wouldn't get lost in Sevierville, a 'small town' in Tennessee..? Yes, I did, and lots of fun was had by all (NOT). It was even more 'fun' later, when we needed to take someone to the emergency department (I will not relate that story here because I've received death threats). Did GPS help on that trip? No, it didn't, not when they'd moved the hospital!

Oh, you're planning to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Drive into NC from I-40 and approach from Cherokee. Mapquest told me that a drive from one resort to another would take 10-11 minutes. It took 45 minutes to an hour each time we drove it. We tried driving through the park from the Tennessee side during warmer weather (FYI: Xmas is the busiest season), and it took three hours to get anywhere close to the park. Biggest use of the park's welcome center: to pee. Incidentally, we took the faster route. If you want to take a slower route, try the 'Gatlinburg Bypass'.

Don't try to do an entire drive-through of the Park via the other direction, either: the traffic backup to the Terrible Tennessee Trio begins while you're still inside the park in a section where you can't do turnarounds. Expect to creep for a couple of miles before you reach the park exit. Oh, and keep those windows rolled up. There are still bears in the Park, and they love potato chips.

I know, I know. All these complaints, and I've offered no solutions. I have one: create a public shuttle system that stops at the various resorts/hotels and malls/tourist attractions. Stick a giant Park n' Ride at the outskirts of Sevierville, too, so daytime visitors would have a legal place to leave their cars. Yes, this would require an enormous number of shuttles to cover the area effective. The system would be large enough, though, if everyone who wanted the shuttle to stop at their establishment had to pony up a few thousand dollars and pay an annual fee for maintenance. There are very few 'small' businesses in the area, and no one is selling anything on the cheap.

They'd all pay the fee to be included, to keep the customers coming in. It's not like you can just walk any more.

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Review: Full Dark, No Stars

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Stephen King is at the point in his career where he writes what he feels like writing, and publishes when he feels like publishing. In the Afterword to this collection, King states:

I have tried my best... to record what people might do, and how they might behave, under certain dire circumstances.

"1922" - 132 pages. This tale was the last one I read and required the most commitment to finish on my part. His inspiration was the photograph collection from the nonfiction book Wisconsin Death Trip. He hoped to capture some of the bleakness and isolation of the pictures in this story.

I believe he succeeded in doing this. Wilfred James certainly has a difficult life, made more so by a wife who wants to sell her land to a hog farmer, no matter the consequences to her husband's farm. Murder is the unsurprising result, with the somewhat reluctant assistance of James' son. This kicks off a series of events that culminate in an ending reminiscent of Poe, Lovecraft, or... er, Stephen King.

This story required the most commitment from me because I found it difficult to like any of the characters. King's portrayal of them isn't unrealistic or inaccurate; they are entirely believable. I just didn't like them, with the possible exception of the son's girlfriend. She was more sympathetic, but her existence and plight weren't really necessary to the core of the story. The interlude of her doomed romance with the son is more of a detour on the way to ruin.

"Big Driver" - 112 pages. This tale should prove very popular with female mystery readers and their fans. Tess, a cozy writer, is called to speak to a group after Janet Evanovich cancels. On a shortcut home through no-man's land, she is seized, raped, and left for dead. She finds her way back to safety, but she will never be the same. She cannot report what happened to her because of the damage it would do to her image as a cozy writer. The other option? Revenge, served Stephen King style.

I greatly enjoyed this story, especially with its salute to the writers' life and its nod to women mystery writers. Janet Evanovich is one of the most-read (and well-paid) living mystery writers, although the true mystery tends to center around whether she will hook up with Morelli or Ranger in the latest book. Tess outlines the presentation 'routine' of an author as she performs it. Later, she will talk to her cat... and the cat will talk back (an unfortunate occurrence in super-cozies). As she becomes increasingly not-cozy in outlook, she also talks to her GPS and the corpses of her victims. A fun read.

"Fair Extension" - 33 pages. This was the shortest, so I read this first. Yes, I am lazy.

Man dying of cancer makes a deal with Mr. "Elvid" to continue living. My comment: in Danse Macabre, King states that the horror reader has the moral sense of the average Puritan when it comes to who can (and should) have horrible things done to them. He did not invoke this rule when I thought he should. Not satisfied with the ending, but make your own judgment.

"A Good Marriage" - 103 pages. What do you do when you discover your husband is a serial killer? In the afterword, King cites the example of the BTK Killer: many people believed that his wife had to know what her husband was doing. King disagrees, and asks, "What if..."

I'm trying to think what to say about this story of Darcellen and her non-fun version of Dexter. I know it was a decent story, but I'd have to flip through it to come up with good or bad stuff. When I was trying to describe the stories in this collection to a friend, I had a mental block with this one: "And the other one, it was a good story, but... let me get the book. Oh, yeah... this is what it's about..." I think that tells me what I thought of it.

Time to assign some stars to this collection of novellas and one short story.

Overall? Four stars. I enjoyed the book overall and it gave me real pleasure to read it. Rating the individual stories...? Three stars for "1922", despite my complaints. If he meant to convey despair, he got what he wanted. Four stars for "Big Driver". Two stars for "Fair Extension". I would make it one for my dislike of the ending, but I save that for really crappy writing. Three stars for "A Good Marriage". It was a good story and it kept me turning pages. It just didn't stick with me.


View all my reviews

NaNoWriMo is Over: Now What?

Let me confess now: I am a huge cheater and rebel when it comes to NaNoWriMo. I did start my current WIP during NaNo, but I have used it since to force myself to work on the same book intensively for at least one month out of the year. 

Some other writers do this same thing, using the freedom and camaraderie of the event to get some serious writing done. I'm a serious introvert, but I love doing the write-ins. I get an excuse to drink coffee sweetened and creamed to shameful levels, swap war stories with other writers, and write side by side with other people.

There are a lot of true winners out there, though, people who began on 11/1 with zero words and had 50K written before 12/1. I've been congratulating them on Facebook, Twitter, and on the main NaNo site. You have a lot to be proud of, too! 50,000 words in one month is impressive. My personal best is about 14K, accomplished during NaNoWriMo (of course).

So... now what do you do with your magnum opus? Some people are content to write for themselves, but their numbers are a hell of a lot smaller than the numbers who want other people to read their material. If you're reading this blog based on the title, I know you fall into the latter category. Here are my suggestions and caveats for your new child:

Nota bene: The focus of NaNoWriMo, is quantity, not quality. They say so right in the intro material. This means it's time to work on the quality of your piece.

Not everyone gets this. A number of winners, flush with success and possibly an overdose of coffee, join AgentQuest immediately and start sending out their manuscripts as soon as they have some names and addresses. The NaNoWriMo blog addressed this last year:

In fact, several agents joke that December is "NaQuRejMo," which cruelly stands for "National Query Rejection Month." In all seriousness, though, we do see a lot of queries in December.

Take the time to reread and edit your work before sending it out. Once an agent has rejected your book, you  don't get to resubmit it. Agents always have lots of other query letters and manuscripts to read. Take the best shot you can the first time.

Okay, so I've convinced you to review your novel. What should you be looking for?

First things first: you need to make it longer. Fifty thousand words is really good, but publishers are generally looking for novels that run somewhere between seventy to ninety thousand. The good news: when you reread your MS (manuscript), you will spot places where you didn't give enough description or need to add a bridge scene so the reader will know what the hell is going on. Yes, you'll find them, even if you thought you did way too much description in that one scene (shorten that scene, BTW).

Next: there's a good chance your main character is a Mary Sue. You may find her adventures scintillating, but no one else will (because they know it's about YOU and not THEM). I read one story where the main character got a hot tub for Christmas. Several people died during the novel, all in connection with water, so I assumed the heroine would find herself in mortal danger from its roiling waters before the end of the book. Nope, all her dips were heavenly. She just wanted a hot tub, so she gave one to her character.

Finally: NaNo tactics don't always adapt well to the world of publishing: Unless your story is set in Japan, you really need to delete that Wall of Ninjas scene you used to boost your word count. Come up with something else. Like I said, you don't want to submit your manuscript during December anyway. If you can do 50K in one month, I am sure you can make up the word count before January.

Once you begin rereading your MS, you will begin to feel certain emotions. Remember all those pep talks from the NaNo folks about the way you would be feeling when you hit certain word counts? Excited during the first 15K words, in the doldrums at 25K, plunging down the hillside at 40K? The feeling you will get when really reviewing your NaNo MS will make you remember 25K as a joyous time.

Why? Because you're going to be thinking: "OMG! This is so disjointed and repetitive! It has all sorts of plot holes! This is the worst sex scene ever! I used the wrong character's name at least six times! I can't spell worth a damn, and look at all those typos! I thought I'd made a few in my rush to finish, but wow! I suck as a writer!"

No, you don't. In fact, you're thinking like a real writer.

NaNoWriMo is all about the joy (or, in some cases, madness) of creation. You've given birth to something. Like most infants, though, it looks like a squalling mess on arrival and it needs to be cleaned off and clothed before you introduce it to the world around you.

There are a few authors that - bang, right out of the box - can produce a marvelous story. Most of them learned how to do it through practice. Everyone else is doing what you did - brazening it out for the first writing, then berating themselves when they realize how many do-overs are needed. That's okay. That's normal.

It's also something you need to do before you send your MS to an agent. If you want them to take you seriously, you need to take the writing seriously. Not during the first write-up, but afterwards. If you decide that you really were doing it 'just for fun', fine. No harm, no foul. Please don't send it to an agent, though. The self-publishing industry can help you make great Xmas presents for your friends.
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