I had a blast last night at the official book launch for The Lies We Told at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. Here are some pix.
1. Chatting about the book.
2. Yum!
3. my writing buds, Sarah Shaber, Brenda Witchger, Margaret Maron, Alexandra Sokoloff, and Quail Ridge Books owner, Nancy Olson, who brought us together.
4. I don’t know what I said but it must have been funny!
5. One of my very favorite book clubs! Thanks for coming out!
6. With faithful reader, Doreen.
I just returned from a reunion with my old critique group. We all lived near Mount Vernon–George’s home–when we first got together, so we named ourselves the Mount Vernon Writer’s Group. Our first meeting was a very long time ago. As a matter of fact, it was the day I sent my first full manuscript to my first agent. I was so young and nervous! I think we were all young and nervous about our writing in those days. (That book became my first published novel, but not until four long years later).
We were all working on novels back then, and we’d read and critique each other’s writing every week. We were a diverse group in terms of age, backgrounds and interests, but we had writing in common and that drew us together. Over the years, other writers have come and gone and members of this core group have moved away, but we’ve never lost touch. We’ve had varying levels of success, but we all have talent and we truly helped one another hone our skills.
This week, we met at one of our member’s homes at beautiful (if rainy) Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, for a reunion. We read from our works-in-progress, caught up on our lives, ate gumbo, went out for Italian food, played Cranium, and got wet puppy kisses from Wally, one of my favorite dogs in the world.
We can still remember bits and pieces of our work from twenty years ago, especially the parts that made us laugh. The only negative was saying goodbye again. Can’t wait until the next time!
The Mount Vernon Writers’ Group at dinner. Ann Allman, me, Linda Rainwater, Jane Drewry and Jeanne Van Dusen Smith.
Wow, was I young.
I was looking through the scrapbook I kept during the early years of my career and found this old article from a Richmond, Virginia newspaper. For the first several years of my writing career, I maintained my private practice as a clinical social worker. It was so hard to make the choice between my two careers, but as I began writing my fourth novel, Keeper of the Light, with its painfully tight deadline, I knew I had to choose one career over the other. No regrets, although I loved working with my clients as much as I love working with my characters.
Speaking of my characters, what is this headline all about? I’ve always devised ways to get to know my characters better, and throwing parties for them was so much fun. I’d put myself in a mini-trance and imagine my characters together at a party. Did they arrive on foot, an SUV, a convertible? What were they wearing? Were they comfortable approaching one another or were they painfully introverted? I loved learning more about my characters by observing their interaction.
The first time I threw a party for my characters was during the writing of my first book, Private Relations. In my imagination, I eventually showed up at the party myself to find that none of my characters would talk to me. I was hurt and a little miffed. I finally approached one of the guys and asked him why. He gave me a nasty look and said, “You expect us to talk to you after all you’ve putting us through?” Chastened, I slunk out the door.
Okay, so now you probably think I need a therapist myself. I admit that in my early days, I overdid everything related to my writing, consumed with the rapture of creation. Things are different now, primarily due to the fact that authors must do so much more than “just write.” We must maintain our websites, write our blogs, keep up with our Facebook pages and on and on. Yet, I spent today revising my work-in-progress and I can tell you, many things may have changed, but the rapture remains the same.
I think I’ll go out on the porch and throw a party.
A few readers have asked me what’s happening with my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told, due to be published next June, so I’m here with an update. I’ve shared with you the synopsis process, the outline process, the writing process, the revising process and the torturous rush-to-deadline process. That was followed by two weeks of waiting as my editor and agent read the manuscript. Now I’ve received the feedback from both of them, and I begin revising again.
Both my agent and editor loved the book, and that’s excellent news. You never know if you’ve done good work until someone other than your very biased self tells you so, so I was relieved. Of course they each had ideas to share. My editor’s suggestions relate to one of the story threads. The book is about two sisters, Rebecca and Maya. Without giving anything away, I can tell you that they are in different locations doing different things, so their stories are, obviously, very different. Maya’s story is Gripping, with a capital G. My editor had some ideas on how to make Rebecca’s gripping storyline also worthy of a capital letter. My agent, on the other hand, focused more on Maya’s thread, suggesting that I nudge her character a bit more in one particular direction.
As I’ve mentioned before, I usually need about 24 hours to digest editorial suggestions and get over my knee jerk defensiveness to them. That didn’t happen this time. I could see both my editor’s and agent’s ideas were good ones right away and now I’m happily toying with ways to make the changes. It helps that the weather is fabulous, and I’m alternating my workspace between Starbucks and the porch. Revisions are due September 28th. Unfortunately, I have two trips between now and then, so I’ll have to cram a lot of work into a few days, but that’s what makes the life of a writer exciting!
One of my fellow writers asked this question on Facebook today: If you could be anywhere, doing anything, where would you be and what would you be doing? I responded that I’d be on my porch, writing.
Am I lucky or what?
I write many, many drafts as I work on a book. Recently, someone on Facebook asked writers to share different drafts of a single paragraph. I thought this would be an interesting exercise for me to share with you, my blog readers. I want to give credit to the Facebooker who suggested this, but I don’t recall who it was, so I hope that person will read this post and step forward. Until then, here are three drafts of the same paragraph of my work-in-progress, currently titled The Lies We Told. We are in Maya’s point of view here. I hope that seeing the first draft will encourage those of you who think you have to write something perfectly the first time!
Early Draft:
A guy walked into the restaurant. She noticed him the second he walked in. there was something about him. the way he scanned the restaurant. unsmiling. a flare to his nostrils that reminded her of ___. His eyes came to rest on the two men at the table next to her and Adam’s he walked toward the table with a deliberate stride, and she watched him pull a gun from his jacket pocket and before she could scream or duck or even widen her eyes, he’d shot the man at the table in the head. Everyone screamed then. She had a lot of company.
————–
Middle Draft:
Adam said something to Brent and Rebecca, but I didn’t hear him. My gaze was on a man who had just walked into the restaurant. He was dark-haired, wearing a white t-shirt and beige pants and he stood in front of the door, looking from table to table. There was something about him that sent a shiver through me.
He started walking toward us–or at least, I thought he was heading toward us. Then I saw that his gaze–his ice-blue eyes–was on the two men at the table adjacent to ours. Adam said something that must have been funny, because Brent and Rebecca both laughed, but I’d set down my fork and was beginning to tremble, my heart thudding beneath my breastbone.
I knew how quickly these things could happen. He reached behind his back, then whipped his arm out straight, the gun a gray blur, and I saw the small symbol tattooed on his finger as as he pressed the trigger.
————–
Final Draft:
Adam said something in response, but I didn’t hear him. I was watching a man who had just walked into the restaurant. He was Caucasian, dark-haired, wearing a white t-shirt and beige pants, and he stood in front of the door, shifting his gaze quickly from table to table. Something about him sent a shiver through me.
He started walking toward us–or at least, I thought he was heading toward our table. His stride was deliberate, his nostrils flared. Then I saw that his eyes–his ice-blue eyes–were locked on the two men at the table in front of ours. Adam said something that must have been funny, because Brent and Rebecca both laughed, but I’d set down my spoon and was gripping the corner of the table, my heart thudding beneath my breastbone.
I knew better than anyone how quickly these things could happen. He reached behind his back with his right hand, then whipped his arm out straight, the gun a gray blur as it cut through the air, and I saw the tattoo of a black star on his index finger as he pressed the trigger.
————–
Even as I look at the final draft of this paragraph, I see things I want to change. Imagine 400 pages of this! No wonder I’m so tired. My deadline is next week, so soon I’ll have to stop tinkering and send the finished product to my editor. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my world.
Here we go again!
Last year I asked you to put on your thinking caps to help me title my work-in-progress. Frequent commenter Denise came up with Secrets She Left Behind, which my publisher, agent and I all agreed was a winner. (Look for it in your bookstores on May 26th).
Now it’s time to give the new book a title, so I’ll give you a small peek inside the story (without giving anything away, I promise), and I’ll tell you the titles I’m thinking about.
(Note: A while back, I told you the setting was Beaufort, North Carolina and Ecuador. Scratch Ecuador. Scratch Beaufort, too, but leave North Carolina. The book will take place somewhere near the NC coast).
It’s the story of two thirty-something sisters, Maya and Rebecca, both doctors. They have a very loving and supportive relationship, although they’re very different from one another. Maya is serious and cautious. She longs to have a baby with her husband Adam, but is not able to. Rebecca is a risk taker who works for a Doctors Without Borders type organization and who sleeps with whatever guy happens to be available (well, almost). Their parents were murdered when they were 14 and 18, after which Rebecca essentially raised and protected Maya.
Since I don’t want to give anything away, but do need to give you some ideas to help your thought process, here are some elements in the story:
Does that help? Here are some titles I’m playing with:
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts, and I can’t wait to actually finish this manuscript. It’s a clear case of a story veering wildly from my carefully planned outline, but what else is new?
I started writing as a hobby when I was a hospital social worker a looong time ago (think typewriter and carbon paper. ugh). I thought that working on a novel, the idea for which I’d had in my mind from the time I was twelve years old, would be a fun pastime. After about six months, I decided to take an adult class on novel writing so that I could do a better job with my “hobby.” The class was huge–probably thirty or forty people, all working on the story of their hearts. At the first meeting, the instructor said “I’m going to assume that all of you are here because you want your books to be published.” Wow. It changed the way I felt about my little hobby. Then he gave us our first homework assignment, and it took nearly all of us aback: write the end of the book. It didn’t have to be neat and clean, but we needed to know how the story would end. I’d never thought about the ending of my novel before, and once I did, I understood why he’d given us the assignment. Suddenly, I had a focus for my story and a goal to aim toward.
Fast forward about a zillion years. I was working on the outline for my work-in-progress this morning, struggling a bit with the “flabby middle,” when I suddenly realized I didn’t know my ending. I spent a half day thinking about it, and voila! Everything else fell into place. If you’re working on a novel, I highly recommend starting at the end. You’ll be amazed at how it focuses the rest of the story.
However, I do have a teeny tiny problem. After zipping through the draft, I came up with an entirely different way of reaching the same ending. Entirely different. Now what? One approach to the story would be more “suspensefully emotional”. The other more “emotionally emotional”. So I think I’m going to write it up both ways and see which moves me more. Nothing like doubling my workload!
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