Counting all the votes on my blog and Facebook page, it looks like this cover is the winner for the e-book reissue of The Escape Artist. First, I’ll play with it a little–soften the focus and tweak a few other things to make it more to my liking. But I do love this little guy. He is perfect for Tyler in the book.

Second place was this one, which I love as well, but she needs to have a little boy holding her hand and I couldn’t find any great stock images that convey both the feeling of this image but also have a mom and a little boy–plus the wonderful colors of her dress and suitcase.

Most of us agreed that this cover was just plain inappropriate to the story and the character who is a young and scared mom, not a slut.  When I spotted this stock image with the paintbrushes, though, I was smitten. It’s wrong for the book, however, so I’m tossing it.

Finally, several of you liked this one, which was my favorite but again wrong for the book. A couple of you mentioned the Goth/Twilight look of it and that’s an accurate assessment. I saw the timelessness, the pensiveness, the romance and the artistry. I just think it’s a pretty cover. Again, though, it’s wrong for the book, so out it goes.

Therefore, the worried little boy is the winner. . . unless I find the perfect mom-and-son-on-the-open-road picture. Thanks for helping me make the decision!

I believe this is draft #8 of The Midwife’s Confession.

Yes, all of you who are trying to write a book and believe that once you’ve typed The End you’ll have a publishable novel, you are 99 times out of 100, wrong. You have to do it again until you get it right. I think I now have TMC almost right. Because I made some huge and dramatic changes to the story, I know my editor will want some tweaking, so there will be a draft #9, no doubt about it. But here’s the good news: I loved the story before, and now I love it even more. Lots more. I also love my editor for zeroing in on exactly what the story needed, and that was more from the midwife herself, as I mentioned a few blog posts ago.

How could I have missed the need to make Noelle, the midwife, more central to the story? It was really a case of not seeing the forest for the trees and I think this happens often with novelists, which is why they need editors. (Even if you plan to self-publish, hire an editor, please. One who can see the big picture and not just the misplaced commas).

Writing Noelle’s backstory turned out to be the most enjoyable part of writing this entire book. I suddenly understood why she became a midwife, how complicated her connections were to the other characters, and just how many things she had to confess! She was a far richer character than I’d thought. She was also really annoyed with me for giving her short shrift in the original story, apparently, because just as the character Sam tormented me during one of the early drafts by changing all the character names to his, Noelle did the same thing to me a couple of days ago when I was down to the deadline wire. I was merrily typing along when suddenly I realized that every proper name in my Word document had been switched to “Noelle”. That included city names, high school names, and all capitalized “Buts.”  Example: “Noelle,” Noelle said. “We need to go to Noelle and pick up Noelle.” Yeah, that was fun to fix. Not. (Side note: if anyone knows why Word is doing this and how I can fix it, email me please!!)  It’s more than a little spooky that both Noelle and Sam are dead and they are the only characters who have pulled this stunt on me.

So I’ve turned in the book once again. I wept while writing it, and not just because Sam and Noelle were giving me a hard time, but because I found this story of mothers and daughters and best friends moving. I can’t wait till May to see if you all feel the same way.

Well, I’m bummed! I only now found out that today is National Ice Cream Day. It’s nearly 9 pm and I already had my Breyers light brownie ice cream sandwich for dessert, which frankly is no substitute for a bowl of Edy’s Slow-Churned French Silk. If I’d known it was National Ice Cream Day, I would have run down to the nearest store (which happens to be one of those little stores connected to a gas station. Not pretty.) and bought a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s and not felt guilty about it, but now I’m full and it’s too late. 

My curiosity was piqued. What other holidays are coming up? I checked out this week and here’s the lineup: Tomorrow is National Daquiri Day, but since I’m a non-imbiber, I’ll sit that one out. Tuesday is lollipop day. Did you know that lollipop machines make nearly 6,000 lollipops a minute? Wednesday I’m definitely going to celebrate! National Junk Food Day! I am unbelievably neurotic about food safety in my kitchen. I drive John nuts with the hand washing, the not-using-the-same-utensils-on-raw-and-cooked food, the sniffing of the milk, etc. But put me in a Taco Bell (burritos!) or Bojangles (biscuits!) or Wendy’s (taco salad!) and I’ll never give their kitchen a thought. (Please don’t tell me horror stories. Let me live in blissful ignorance!)

Thursday is National Hammock Day and I wish I had one. When I need to go to my Happy Place in my head, it’s in a hammock hanging under tall green trees. Instant relaxation. Friday is National Hot Dog Day, and I have to admit that’s another edible that I eat without thinking about what’s in it and how long it’s been rolling on those long, hot metal tubes at Target.

I just realized that Wednesday–National Junk Food Day–is the day I’ll be part of an event at the Silver Coast Winery near Ocean Isle, North Carolina, so I think I’ll be sipping club soda and nibbling something very non-junky there. You’re all invited to join me! I understand it’s a lovely location. There’s no cover charge, just a chance to meet and chat and sip. There will be a few other writers on hand and the Pelican Bookstore will supply books for a signing. If you’re anywhere near the area between 1-4 on Wednesday July 21st, I hope you’ll stop by.

Right now, I’d like to proclaim this evening “National What Are You Reading Evening”. As for me, I’m enjoying Karen White’s On Folly Beach. Now I know how to answer when people ask who I write like! I feel as though I’m reading one of my own books, probably because Karen and I both love mixing past and present and we love to keep our readers guessing. Also the beach setting, of course, and dipping back into coastal Carolina history during World War II. I think Karen and I must have been separated at birth. Obviously, I’m enjoying this book a great deal and highly recommend it.

How about you? What are you reading now?

It’s been fun having Secret Lives available as an e-book and I’ve enjoyed hearing from those of you who are reading it for the first time. Now I need to figure out which of my out-of-print books I should make available next. Whether you read e-books or not, I’d love your help in this decision. If you’ve read my early books, which was your favorite? Or if you haven’t read them, which sounds most intriguing to you? I apologize to those of you who only read print books and wish I could accommodate you as well. I hope they will be reissued some day by my publisher. Thanks so much for your help.

 The choices (with the original bookcovers) are:

 The Escape Artist: A young woman, about to lose custody of her eleven-month-old son, takes the toddler and escapes to Annapolis, Maryland to start a new life, leaving behind the man she loves. In Annapolis, she’s befriended by a mural artist with secrets of his own. When she stumbles into a dangerous situation that could cost people their lives, she’s unable to turn to the authorities because she’s on the run.

From Library Journal: “. . . a moving tale of parental love and desperation.” From Kirkus Reviews: “A sure-fire grabber.”

Reflection: Twenty years ago, a tragedy struck the Pennsylvania town of Reflection and everyone holds one woman, Rachel Huber, responsible for what happened. When Rachel returns to care for her elderly grandmother, she discovers she has only one person in her corner–a Mennonite minister who was her childhood friend. As the story shifts between past and present, secrets unfold, a romance blossoms, and both the town and Rachel are put to the test.  

From the Richmond Times Dispatch: “. . .  as the plots interlock, the reader is swept into the town’s emotion and suspense.”

Fire and Rain: The tiny southern California town, Valle Rosa, is withered by drought and ravaged by wildfires when a stranger appears, promising he can create rain. He asks only for total privacy while he works, but he becomes the center of two women’s worlds–Mia, who falls in love with him, and Carmen, who vows to learn his true identity at all costs. Neither woman realizes that their involvement with him can jeopardize far more than the future of Valle Rosa.

From Publishers Weekly: “Nearly every chapter finishes with the sort of emotional jolt that keeps the pages turning.”

Brass Ring: Claire Harte-Mathias tries unsuccessfully to save a woman who leaps from a bridge in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. As she tries to understand the reasons for the woman’s suicide,  Claire is jarred by frightening, half-hidden memories. Torn between the love and support of two men–her husband and the brother of the woman on the bridge–she tries to make sense of the images that haunt her, discovering that the past, present and future are intertwined in a way she is powerless to change.

From the Chicago Tribune: “You’d think there’s nowhere for a story to go after a distraught woman plunges to her death in an icy river, but Brass Ring will prove you wrong.”

I turned in The Midwife’s Confession, my May 2011 book,  about a month ago and then waited a few weeks to hear what my editor thought about it. That’s always a nerve-wracking time.  A writer’s career is full of waiting to hear what other  people think — agents, editors, reviewers, and most importantly, readers.

I finally heard from my editor, and although she loved the book, she had some ideas. She always does, and they’re invariably good ones. Her idea regarding TMC was particularly good. The midwife, Noelle, is central to the story, of course, but she remains quite a mystery to the reader because she is not a point of view character. My editor’s suggestion (suggestion being an under-exaggeration of her feelings on the subject!) was to give Noelle more of a presence in the story. That should be easy, right? Just add one more point of view? Well, it would be easy if only Noelle didn’t kill herself in the first scene.

So I’ve been spending some time trying to figure out how to give Noelle more of a presence. I thought about the fourth book I wrote, Keeper of the Light*, in which Annie O’Neill dies in chapter one yet is undeniably the central character of the story. She had no point of view, but I made sure the reader knew her very well through the eyes of the other characters. Maybe I could make Noelle more central to the story through the eyes of others as I did with Annie? That wasn’t good enough for my editor, though. She really wanted Noelle’s voice in the story.

Then I thought about Kate in Secret Lives**. Kate is also dead in the beginning of the book, but she becomes a central character through her journal. Could I give Noelle a diary, perhaps? While it worked beautifully in Kate’s case, I thought it would have felt too contrived in Noelle’s.

Finally, I bit the bullet and did the only thing possible: I’m giving Noelle a point of view through her own chapters as I–and the reader–dig back into her past. As her creator, I knew her intriguing past and what led up to her confession,  but now the reader will get to be intrigued along with me.  As I write, I can’t believe I didn’t think of giving Noelle a more powerful presence myself. Sometimes we’re too close to our stories to see what’s obvious. This is what a good editor is all about. 

So now, it’s back to the storyboard (inspired in its current three act form above by my writing bud, Alexandra Sokoloff.) Changing a novel always reminds me of my days as a family therapist. When you change one part of the family system, it changes everything else. It’s no different with a story. To make room for Noelle’s voice, I first needed to cut some other threads and subplots. If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you might remember there were four Galloway Girls in The Midwife’s Confession–four women who lived together in the Galloway Dormitory at UNC-Wilmington. Well, now there are only two. I’m still in the process of killing the extraneous two off (figuratively speaking). Frankly, they were not serving nearly as good a purpose as Noelle’s story is going to serve. Yet it always hurts a little to cut off the heads of people you’ve nurtured and gotten to know, even if they are getting in the way.

At the same time as I’m ditching those subplots, I’m developing Noelle’s backstory. She’s in third person because I need to make some concession to the fact that she’s dead. I’m enjoying getting to know her even better. I’ve always liked her and now I like her more. Of course, she’s going to do something not very likeable eventually. Will I be able to keep the sympathy flowing for her? I can’t wait to find out!

* Keeper of the Light will be reissued in 2011

** Secret Lives is now available as an e-book for Kindle and all other e-readers.

The year was 1989 and I was about to be published for the first time. I was at the notoriously exciting Washington Romance Writers conference in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia where  I gave a workshop on Innovative Characterization Techniques, something I still teach, albeit with modifications. Back then, I identified myself as a psychotherapist and still had my private practice, since I hadn’t yet made a dime off writing. (Not quite true. I’d made $150 for an op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times and I’d received an advance on my two book contract, less my agent’s 15%.  So as of that conference, I’d made $4,400 and wasn’t exactly ready to quit my day job. Nor did I want to. I loved my work).  But getting back to the conference.

I wasn’t nervous as I presented that workshop even though the audience was quite large. I’d been making presentations for years as a social worker and felt at home “on stage”. When I went to bed the night after my workshop, I was happy and relaxed. When I got up the next morning, though, anxiety hit with a vengeance. Why? That morning I was going to have an event writers both crave and fear: a pitch meeting with an editor.

I was now contractless after turning in my second book, but I had an idea for a third that I was completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love with. I also had a problem: I was, and frankly still am, a terrible pitcher. I can never seem to sum up my stories in a neat package for an agent or an editor or even for a reader. I’d rehearsed what I would say, though, and was as ready as I could be.

   I waited in the ballroom for my appointment and soon it was my turn. The editor (I have absolutely no memory of who she was) and I met on the long glassed-in porch that runs along the side of the old Hilltop House where the conference was held. We sat across from one another at a small cloth-covered table overlooking the spectacular view of the rivers. Harpers Ferry is where the Shenandoah River and the Potomac River come crashing together. It’s one of my favorite places. But looking over the cliff from our table, I felt a wave of nausea.

   I began pitching.

   “It’s called Secret Lives and it’s the story of a young woman named Eden, she’s an actress, who wants to make a movie about her mother, who was a famous children’s author. She was odd. Her mother, I mean. Her name was Kate and she lived in a cavern, like the Luray Caverns near here, because she was agoraphobic. Or not agoraphobic exactly, but. . . Well, anyway, Eden wants to humanize her, make her sympathetic. But she has to live with her aunt and uncle while she’s researching her mother’s life and she hates them because something happened when she was living with them when she was a teenager. . . ”

Here, I had to pause because I was having some sort of panic attack. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly. I was swallowing in all the wrong places and the words sounded strangled as they rushed of my mouth. The editor was smiling kindly at me, nodding her head a little, but I could tell she was not catching my passion. I continued.

“But now the uncle is an archaeologist in the Shenandoah Valley and he has a partner, Ben, who Eden falls for, but Ben’s been convicted of molesting his daughter, but he swears he’s innocent and. . . ”

   Again I stopped. This time I was so freaked out that I had to excuse myself and get a glass of water, which I brought back to the table. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I seem to have something caught in my throat.” Like, the story, I thought. It wasn’t coming out right at all.

   “No problem,” said the kind editor.

   “I forgot to mention the journal! The uncle has the mother, Kate’s,  journals and they tell the story of her life, and–”

   “I’m afraid we’re out of time,” the editor said–words I’d said many times myself to my therapy clients. “I have another appointment.” She leaned toward me and spoke sincerely. “I can tell you love this story and that it means a lot to you on a personal level, but I think it’s too complex for the sort of book I’m looking for right now. Maybe you could simplify it, although I really don’t think it’s for us either way.”

Drat.  I’d blown my chance, plus made a fool out of myself in the process. When I told my agent about my failed appointment, she said I would have to write the whole book on spec. There was no other way, because every time I tried to describe the complexities of the story that were so clear in my mind, I failed, even with her.

So that’s what I did. I wrote the entire five hundred pages on the weekends and in the mornings before I headed off to work. I started with Kate’s journal, writing her story in first person, my heart breaking for her the whole time. I wrote her entire journal first so that I didn’t lose her voice. Living inside her head, I became so close to her that I could hardly bear to let her go.

Then I created Eden’s story, and Ben’s, and I filled them up with a complicated blend of love and anger toward Eden’s aunt and uncle. Yes, the characters’ stories were complex. I gave them a hundred and one obstacles to happiness. Then I threw them all together in the Shenandoah Valley and let them work it out.

   When I was finished, my agent sent the manuscript to Karen Solem, who was then an editor at HarperCollins, and I had my offer the next day. Karen saw what I saw in the book but had been unable to express to that editor in Harpers Ferry: a story too complex to easily describe, but not too complex to fall in love with.

I had a very small readership when Secret Lives came out in 1991. It sold a few copies in hardcover and a few more in paperback. Then it quietly disappeared, as so many books do. Although my current publisher is doing a nice job of reissuing my older books, Secret Lives and some of my very early books may never get to see the light of day again unless I take action myself. So that’s why I’ve arranged to publish Secret Lives in an electronic format. I apologize to those of you who prefer print. Creating an e-book is an inexpensive, relatively easy experiment. Self publishing in print is another matter, one I’m not yet ready to tackle. (You may be able to find old print copies of Secret Lives on ebay or used on Amazon or other Internet booksellers). If you are an electronic book reader, I hope you’ll try a free sample of Secret Lives on your Kindle or any other E-reader. And please let me know what you think. I’m sure you know by now that it’s one of my favorite books. Just don’t ask me to describe it to you!

I’ve spent the past two days in New York at the Book Expo, meeting the booksellers and librarians who sell (and read) my books. The BEA is absolutely wild, filled with your favorite authors giving away signed copies of their books by the boxload. It’s a wonderful way to alert booksellers to the books that are coming to the market soon. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the ABA luncheon since The Lies We Told is an Indie Next Pick for June. Awards were given to those 2009 books voted the best by Independent Bookstores around the country, and I was excited to see my favorite, The Help, win for best debut book. Kathryn Stockett (at right) was there to accept her award. Then I was interviewed for Sirius Radio, which is what I’m doing in the pic above. Today was the big signing day at my publisher’s booth. I flew through a couple of boxes of books and met so many lovely people. (I’m the teeny person in coral in the center).  I adore getting to give books away!

Now, John and I are back in New Jersey for a visit with my sister, and if I never have to take a cab anywhere again it will be too soon!

I know I should wait until The Lies We Told is available before sharing the video with the world, but I love it so much I can’t wait! I’ll tuck it away after this blog post and bring it back when the book is released, but I thought you might enjoy hearing how John and I created it, thus my excuse for this blog.

Book videos are hard to make. Movie trailers are easy (by comparison) because movies are visual and you can simply take carefully selected scenes from the film. You don’t have that luxury with books. It’s tempting in making a book video to try to interpret the story literally, using narrative either typed on the screen or in a voice over. She was beautiful and good hearted. (Cue image of beautiful, good-hearted woman). Until the night He appeared. (Image of scary looking but very handsome dude. With a couple of tattoos. Nice ones). On that night (Image of dark night, clouds drifting across a crescent moon) her young brother disappeared.  (Image of young boy slowly fading to black).

Okay, they’re not all that cheesy, but you get the idea. They’re hard to do. I like my two previous trailers, one for Before the Storm and its sequel,  Secrets She Left Behind, but I think I like this new one best. In my opinion, it gives the feeling of the book and the central themes (our family stories are not always what they seem and the powerful relationship between sisters) without actually trying to tell the viewer the story.

We toyed with a bunch of approaches to the story, which is about two sisters working for a Doctors Without Borders type of organization after a hurricane demolishes Wilmington, North Carolina. We pulled stock images of hurricane destruction, helicopters (a helicopter crashes in the story), doctors (yawn), and all sorts of other photographs. Then I came up with the idea of using the first page of the book (if any of you have an ARC–Advanced Reading Copy–the first page is missing, so don’t bother looking for it!). Even though I’m no professional narrator, we decided I’d do the reading. We added a sentence to help the viewer understand a bit better what’s going on. I recorded the narration about ten million times with long gaps between each sentence so that John could use the best take of each one. You can tell by the way I’m gripping my thighs how comfortable I am.

Then we began pulling stock images and video to fit the narrative. John found most of these. I think my favorite is Rebecca. Whoa, did he ever find the right clip for that woman! John put together the rough cut and we reviewed it and made a couple of changes. Then he assembled the finished program, and voila! Here it is.

I hope you enjoy it and look forward to your thoughts.

Is your name Sam? Probably not. Neither is mine. Neither are six of the seven major characters in my work-in-progress, The Midwife’s Confession. But last night, my Word program suddenly decided that if the name Sam was good enough for the guy who really is named Sam in the story, well then, it’s good enough for everyone else, too! While Word was at it, it also decided that the town of Wilmington, North Carolina should be named Sam. Also, the fictional Hunter High School. And the fictional babies-in-need program I’d dubbed Stork Village? Word thought the name SamSam sounded much better.

But wait! There’s more! Like many of my high school English teachers, Word didn’t think I should begin any sentences with the word “but”, which I’m afraid I do all the time, so to punish me, it decided all capitalized buts should also be named Sam.

Yes, this is how I spent last night. I was happily working on a scene when I noticed that I seemed to have written the name Sam instead of the name Shannon. I scrolled back and discovered that somehow, all my Shannons had been changed to Sam. Very weird, I thought, but I could deal with it. I would simply do a “find and replace” function to carefully select the Sams that needed to be replaced with Shannon.

That’s when I discovered the terrible truth. Shannon, Noelle, Emerson, Ryan Ann, Tara and Anna–all of them were now Sam. Wilmington, But, Hunter — all Sam. Stork Village — SamSam.

What to do? I back up my documents religiously and in many different ways (thumb drive, Dropbox.com, emailing them to myself, etc), and I have Word set to save every single minute that I’m working. But my last backed up copy had been from an hour earlier and I’d written a ton in that hour, so I decided I would simply have to change the Sams back to their original monikers. If I had this to do over again, I probably would surrender and go back to an earlier version, because the path I chose took nearly two hours of utter torture. 

What to do with a sentence like the following?  “What?” Sam asked, and Sam and Sam both leaned across the table toward Sam. That ripping sound you heard last night was me tearing my hair out!

The problem is solved only for the moment. I don’t know what caused it (a friend believes it’s a virus in the Word program itself, not in my computer which appears to be clean) and I don’t know how to fix it. Knock on wood, it’s behaved itself so far today, but to say I’m a little nervous about what might happen next is an understatment.

In the meantime, I’m thinking of changing Sam’s name. I’d like to never read that word again.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. It’s been two years (at least) since my last photo shoot, so John and I headed to his studio for an hour of torture. . . er, fun. The new photo will be up on my site in a few weeks and on the cover of my June release, The Lies We Told, though I think I’ll keep these other two out of the public eye after this post!