A Tale of Paper Plates and Bassoon Lessons

by Elizabeth

So my dishwasher is broken, which kind of sucks. Oh spoiled woman of the twenty-first century, right? But my life includes a dishwasher, and a lot of dishes, which makes the dishwasher extremely convenient. Sure, I realize it's all new-fangled and that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived her whole life without one, but before you judge me for my dependence on this handy device, recall she also lived probably forty years without the benefit of toilet paper, too. Judge not, right?

Anyway: dishwasher. Generally I run it in the middle of the night (durn thing is a brand famous for its silence but it fails in this, as well as in many of its other supposed merits), and a week or so ago, I got up in the morning to discover the dishes still icky and two inches of brownish water in the bottom of the machine, and no power to the thing at all. A plumber's visit later, it is revealed I'll need a new control board. Which will take two to ten business days to get in. (Really? Two to ten business days? From a plumber!?) Fine, fine. I went out, got paper plates galore, figured I'd wash the silverware by hand and whatever mixing bowls and pots I was forced to use. The microwave would be a closer buddy than usual. I could survive.

Look! My dishes! O I miss you...

It happily took less than ten business days, and Monday morning the plumber came back, installed the new control panel, and: ta! da! Dishwasher still dead. "I'll have to order another part," he said, and you guessed it: two to ten business days.

So here I am over a week later, still no dishwasher, scrubbing the flatware by hand and running low on the paper goods. Standing over the sink with a fistful of suds, it occurred to me that we generate a lot of cleaning. Should I give in and just use plastic forks and spoons? Or give in and not bother washing until every eating utensil in the drawer has landed in the sink? Let it pile up? But no: that would be daunting. Because it does pile up, and fast, and if I wait until even lunchtime, much less until night, to tackle the dirty bowls and knives, my sink and counter are cluttered up with them more rapidly than I can believe.

Which of course, got me thinking about writing. Those yogurt spoons and jam knives and salad forks, little as they are, little as they require to get clean, are something. And a day's worth of them is more than a little something, it gets to be quite a lot. Just as a little word scribbled in the carpool lane, or while waiting for the bassoon lesson to end, add up to quite a lot, too. Sure, a few words here and there are not much, but when compiled over time, even not very much time, they are something.

So tonight I threw away the paper plates and aluminum pan I cooked the potatoes in, ran the soaped up scrub brush over the grill pan and silverware, rinsed off the colander and set it all out to dry, and then I sat down and scrawled a few words in my WIP. Just a little, enough to feel satisfying, I got out what it was I felt moved to write tonight. And even as the pile next to the sink, now dry and back in cupboards and drawers, is dissipating, so the notebook with my current project is fattening up, little by little. It won't be done in two to ten days, nope, but it will be done, bit by bit.

The dishwasher? Man, it had better be fixed soon. Or that plumber is going to...I guess nothing. Or maybe be an unfortunate victim in my book. That'll teach him to misdiagnose my appliances.

Author Event: Let there be cake balls and scones

by Joan

Julie Kibler on Calling Me Home

I love book signings. I love meeting the authors of my favorite books, hearing the stories behind the stories and, yes, dreaming of a time when the one at the podium might be me. 

Long before our own Julie Kibler’s book came out I told her I wanted to host a signing at my house. Though I’ve only been in Dallas for eight years, I’ve made pockets of friends here and there and wanted to get a chance to spread the word about Calling Me Home. Plus I love to entertain, especially when there will be sugar involved.

Dallas friends at the Mora's house

We had a nice turnout, great conversation and just the right amount of books. Julie told the rapt group about the seeds of the story, her grandmother’s doomed relationship with a black man in a sundown town, and about her journey to publication.

Pamela's scrumptious cake balls

Pamela made gorgeous cake balls, Elizabeth made decadent scones and clotted cream, and my husband graciously agreed to shoot the photos.

As writers, we gravitate to book events. In fact, over the next month, at least 3 or more of us are going to see Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Strout and George Saunders at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Over the past several years, several of us have seen KathrynStockett, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Chris Cleave, John Irving and Jamie Ford to name a few.

Thanks, Julie, for treating my friends to a great day!

Tell us about your favorite author events. 

photo credits, Rick Mora

A Week of Aprils

By Julie

I've been in a nostalgic mood this week. Tuesday night, Susan and I and my friend Gail went to hear Anne Lamott speak on her first stop of her tour for the paperback of Some Assembly Required. Later, Gail and I tried to remember which of us blogged about seeing her several years ago. I was curious what I'd said if it was me, or what Gail said if it was her. What were we thinking about then? It was five years ago, almost to the day, in April 2008. It really does seem like just yesterday. That's not just a cliche here.

I never found a post about that night from either of us, though I'm almost positive one existed. But the search led me to scroll through lots of old posts on my blogs, current and past. I wondered what I was thinking about in April 2008, then in other Aprils. It was strangely affirming to come across these thoughts and to see the progression of seven Aprils:

April 2007, I wrote:

Something interesting we are talking about in my voice class this week (Barbara Samuel's online class). We are getting down to the last few weeks and one of the questions she asked today is (something like) "What question is it you're trying to answer in your writing?" In other words, what motivates you to write most everything you write—what question is answered when you get to the end of every book you write? I think I know my big question, and it's been apparent in each of the adult manuscripts I've worked on so far, but I want to narrow it down a little more. More or less, I'm writing stories that ask the big question, "How far do you go for the people you love?" As a subset, "When do you let go, and when do you hang on, and HOW do you hang on, no matter where it takes you?"

April 2008:
I was in a rut with the manuscript I was writing (that did not sell, though I tried). It didn't appear I wanted to talk about writing much—it was all I could do to actually write. I began keeping a log each day of "Five Beauties"—five things I observed that tickled my senses, hoping, I'm guessing, that these simple observations would jar me out of that rut.

April 2009:
I wasn't blogging at all, anywhere. I was about to query the manuscript I'd finally finished. I must have been full of hope and big dreams and hugging that information close, afraid to jinx myself—never dreaming that a year later, I would have mostly given up on that story and started something brand new.  

April 2010, I wrote:

So, here it is April 21, and I'm [only] up to about 10K new words on my story. But I'm not crying. In fact, I'm pretty excited about those words and how they're flowing, even if they're flowing rather slowly. Sometimes, I think, a lazy river runs the deepest.This story is kind of a different genre for me. It's still all about relationships and families, but I threw a historical element in there for the heck of it (well, and because it's the story that's been gnawing at me for about three years!). I never dreamed how much that would slow me down, though I'm not complaining. I've had many stops and starts, fine tuning the settings and time periods and voices.

April 2011:
I'd finished writing Calling Me Home, and was closing in on revisions. I blogged about query comps—what to use as "comparable works" in query letters to catch an agents attention. I was all business again, but I can detect the optimism behind my words--full of hopes and dreams again, that Calling Me Home would indeed be the story that landed me an agent, and then a book contract. I worried about using comps that were too "big," or not quite the right genre. (The irony now is that one I rejected—The Notebook—shows up in my most commonly quoted blurb. It's everywhere!)

April 2012:
I interviewed Jacqueline Luckett on the blog. I'd sold Calling Me Home, it was already in production at St. Martin's. But it turns out that simply selling your book does NOT automatically silence those voices in our heads. We still wonder and worry. I asked Jacquie this:

Something I deal with as a debut author—more than I probably even care to admit—is fear and self-doubt. You can worry about so many things as a writer: how your books will sell; how they will be accepted by the media, by readers, by … ; whether everyone will wonder what the heck you were thinking when you decided to write the book. Have you experienced this, too? How did you deal with these emotions? Any advice for newly minted authors you wish someone had given you? 

She shared her own struggles with doubt and fear and had some good advice.

And here it is now, April 2013:
Calling Me Home released almost two months ago. Talk about time flying. It's been a fun ride so far. In fact, I am finding I'm much more relaxed in the months since the book released than I was in all the months building up to it. This is a good thing. But I'm also starting to feel the very real tension of having a new book inside me that wants to be released, and in the process, I'm finding myself cycling through many of these same emotions. It's helpful to look back and see how many times I was able to rebound and recoup after periods of fear and doubt, and how I was by turn optimistic and introspective, waxing and waning.

It's also encouraging to realize that, in the midst of all those changes, I'm still working at answering the same big questions—questions I wrestled with in my first full manuscript, the one that didn't sell, and in Calling Me Home, the one that did.

"How far do you go for the people you love?"
"When do you let go, and when do you hang on, and HOW do you hang on, no matter where it takes you?"

Writers, have you found your big questions? Are you trying answer them?
 

Keep Your BIC Out of My Erogenous Zones

Guest post by Donna Ison

Today, we welcome author, blogger, and playwright Donna Ison, who tackles a subject we've all stressed, sweated, and giggled about, but have never gotten on paper quite like this. Donna lives on a houseboat on a Kentucky lake and is a long-time friend of our own Susan Ishmael-Poulos. (We admit it! We went to high school together!)

When I initially shopped Twenty Men in One Night around, I quickly heard from a representative in the romance division of a popular publisher. The conversation went something like this:

Donna Ison

"We really love your manuscript, but we just feel that it’s missing something."

"Really, what would that be?"

"In a word, sex. The title implies sex. We want you to add some erotic elements. Make it steamy."

"But, it was written to be funny, not steamy. It’s really a social satire about the unrealistic nature of romantic love in our culture and how we end relationships before they ever begin. It’s not about sex."

"Everything is about sex."

He hung up and I headed to my laptop. I explained to my muse that we needed to pen some “make you tingle in your private parts” prose. She called me a pervert and suggested I implore her slutty sister, Nympho, to inspire me instead. But, apparently, Nympho was already busy lending her services to E. L. James, so I was left to my own devices.

In my first attempt to spice up the book and fog up the monitor, I poured a glass of champagne, lit candles, and put Bryan Ferry’s "Slave to Love" (what I consider to be the sexiest song of all times) on the stereo on repeat. I thought if I could get myself in the mood, it would automatically translate to passion on the page. For a minute, it worked. I could see it all playing out in my head. I could feel it. I could smell it. I could write it!  Then three paragraphs in, I ran out of synonyms for penis. I am fanatical about not using the same word twice in a chapter unless it is absolutely necessary. There are only so many terms for the male anatomy that don’t fall into the ridiculous range. No way was I going to use any of the following: man meat, Johnson, wiener, love shaft, passion pole, joystick, and the list goes on and on. There are also very few verbs one can substitute for intercourse. Attempt one—fail.

Next, I tried a different approach and rented porn. These people were professionals. I’d let them do the work and I’d just jot down what I saw and heard. I’d just be detailed and objective like an anthropologist studying the mating habits of hyenas. Later, I would imbue the vignettes with character and emotion. I sat down with a new notebook and Uni-ball pen and pushed “Play.” It should have been simple. But, I quickly realized I was more interested in the human condition than coitus. I couldn’t focus on the sex. I was too busy wondering how the baby-faced blonde ended up as an adult entertainer. Where did she come from? Idaho. I decided Idaho, where her father was an insurance salesman and her mother a piano teacher. She got pregnant behind the bleachers at a homecoming dance in high school and was labeled “white trash.” It had all gone downhill since then. Attempt two—fail.

As a last resort, I decided to actually try to document one of my own erotic encounters. Since trying to type and reach a climax simultaneously would require far more coordination than I possess, I opted to put a mini tape recorder under the pillow. Perhaps having the audio version of a voyeur present might even add a little kink factor to our lovemaking. All I had to do was narrate what I was experiencing and then dictate my notes into the appropriate chapter. To cut a long and humiliating story short, I got neither a decent sentence nor an orgasm out of the evening. However, poor Frank, got the idea that he might have married a schizophrenic. Attempt three—disastrous fail.

What I realized is that even though I would have sex with my husband on the back of a flatbed truck going through downtown Lexington, smiling and waving at gawkers as we passed, I just could not write about it.

So, I found a new publisher (which is now defunct—different story for a different blog) and a new name for the novel. My manuscript, sans sex, but with my own special breed of hilarity, can now be found on Kindle under the more appropriate title of Flirtini with Disaster: The Single Girl’s Guide to Self-Sabotage.

Readers: How many of you have written a sex scene and lived to tell about it?

Donna Ison is an author, blogger, playwright and career voluptuary. She has published two novels, The Miracle of Myrtle: Saint Gone Wild and Flirtini with Disaster: The Single Girl’s Guide to Self-Sabotage. Recently, she left her "big girl" job as the editor of skirt! magazine Lexington and moved to a local lake where she took up the mantle of Shanty Boat Queen, and lives full time on a pair of houseboats named Lakematized and The Muse with her husband, two dogs, and two cats. Her next work, Bourbonista on a Boat: From Glamour Girl to Off the Grid, a collection of outrageous essays chronicling the experience, will be available in early 2014. When not writing, she hosts all day champagne brunches; tap dances on the dock; argues politics & religion; and makes sure the Bluegrass State keeps its bourbon up to par. To learn more, read her Bourbonista Blog (www.thebourbonista.com) where she describes all the tipsy trials and tribulations of her lush life in Technicolor detail.

The Bible Inspires Fiction

By Pamela

My family and I have spent the past month eagerly awaiting each installment of The Bible--the five-week series created and produced by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. (Is it weird that my mind always hears "Jr." after her name?)

After last night's final episode, I started thinking about books I've read that have been inspired by biblical stories. Here are a few:

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Steinbeck's ambitious novel is chock-full of biblical references, mainly from the book of Genesis. In fact, the title comes from Genesis 4:16: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the east of Eden." Throughout the story, Steinbeck repeatedly ties together his themes of brotherly love, self-destruction, family struggles and strife with biblical references, particularly found in the story of Cain and Abel. In fact, most of the book's characters are named with the C/A pairing: Charles/Adam, Caleb/Aron, Cathy/Abra. Steinbeck also references the story of Jacob in Genesis 27, where Jacob and his mother trick his blind father into giving him his brother Esau's blessing--with Caleb and Aron vying for their father Adam's acceptance and approval. If you've never read East of Eden--or if it's been years since you did--I highly recommend you read it soon. Awesome story!

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Diamant takes a minor character in the Bible, Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister of Joseph, and tells a first-person fictionalized account of her life. I read this years ago and, while I didn't love it, I did enjoy the idea of taking a lesser-known biblical character and telling a story through her eyes. The main thing I took away from Diamant's book was that men, in that time, were considered robust and attractive based on how many teeth they had! Something I never considered but surely, in that pre-dental hygiene era, one would be lucky not to lose teeth to decay. I should probably reread it and garner a better appreciation for Diamant's deeper themes she obviously worked hard to convey.

The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth Berg and one of my favorite novels of hers is the imagined love story of Mary and Joseph. The Bible tells us little about how the earthly parents of Jesus met and fell in love. Fortunately, Berg's creativity lets us see what might have brought them together and how they forged a life as mother and father of the chosen son of God. I keep this short novel among a stack of Christmas books I reread during the holidays--not every year but as often as I can.

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

I read this book years ago--at the urging of a friend--and I'm tempted to reread it to see why it captivated me so. Way before the notion of texting and driving, I am ashamed to admit that I remember reading this book while driving. Apparently I couldn't put it down. Redeeming Love tells the story of Angel--a prostitute during the California Gold Rush of 1850--who meets a man named Michael Hosea who loves her in spite of her past. It's based on the biblical story of Hosea and his promiscuous wife, Gomer, and showcases the themes of unconditional love, forgiveness, redemption and self-acceptance.

I'm sure there are plenty of novels out there that retell classic biblical stories; these are a sampling of those I've read and appreciated. While it may seem ambitious to take a biblical story and create a fictional account of those characters or themes, it's certainly been done and done well by others. Are you up to the challenge?  

I Took the Dare

By Kim

A couple of weeks ago our own Pamela Hammonds dared our readers to take a few risks. Among the challenges was to enter a writing contest. It’s been many years since I’ve done so, and I might have shrugged off the advice had Joan not alerted me to Pitch Madness, a contest led by YA author Brenda Drake and hosted on her blog, as well as the blogs of authors S.M.Johnston, Shelley Watters and Summer Heacock.

The good news: All I needed to do to enter was e-mail the first 250 words of my manuscript and a 35 word or less pitch. If the “slush zombies” sent me to the final round, a panel of fifteen agents would see the work and potentially throw darts (requests) at it.

The bad news: I didn’t know about the contest until a few hours before the deadline. The idea of trying to compellingly summarize my book in one sentence made me feel faint.

I remembered Pamela’s dare, and went to work. Joan kindly critiqued both pitch line and the first 250 words. Off it went.

On Monday, I knew the agent round was a day away and I hadn’t heard anything, so I assumed I did not make the cut. Then I received an e-mail that linked to a Twitter post featuring the Pitch Madness logo. I’m not on Twitter much, but I decided to dust off my account and see what was going on. I happened upon Brenda Drake’s site where she listed her 16 finalists. I wasn’t among them, but I saw a reference to 64 total finalists. I clicked on S.M. Johnston’s blog, and there I was. If you want to see my entry, here is the link.

The agent round is going on as I write this, but all requests will be revealed by the time the post is published. Hopefully, I’ll be hit by a few darts. No matter what, though, I’ve learned a few things from this experience.

I CAN write a compelling short pitch, painful as it was to do.

My opening 250 words make people want to read on.

Many agents are active on Twitter and they do tweet about their preferences. At the very least I should follow and lurk.

Anyone else take a risk with their writing recently? Tell us about your experience.

Update 3/30/13: I got hit by two darts asking for sizable partials.

Who Did You Miss?

by Elizabeth

I thought I'd read everything by Bebe Moore Campbell, beginning with Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which I think I first read about ten years ago. I think my favorite is Brothers and Sisters, which I've read at least twice, and which I often think about it when I'm in the shower, actually. Don't ask. Sadly, Campbell passed away much too young in 2006, and hearing the news, I was sad there would be no  more works from her.

But at the library a couple weeks ago, I discovered a book of hers I'd not read, 72 Hour Hold. Of course I picked it up, and it did not disappoint. As with most of her other novels, the protagonist was a black woman (as was Campbell), and as with the others, the character lived in a world peopled with blacks, whites, Hispanics--in short, in our America. One reason I was a fan of Campbell was that she made her characters very real, and their complexity mirrored the world in which I live (or in the case of her first book, a world that once was and is thankfully no more). Reading about this woman struggling to help her daughter, it crossed my mind that Campbell would really enjoy Julie Kibler's Calling Me Home, and I hoped she would read it.

But she can't.

That got me thinking: I've been chasing publication for over half a decade, have queried two novels with positive reactions but no sales, and those are now tucked under the bed with a couple other half-written manuscripts even as I toil at my latest. Hopefully this one will be the one to fly. And thinking about Campbell and Kibler, it made me think: if it does, who won't get to read it that I wish would?

I'd like to think Jane Austen would be amused and appreciative of my main character, but since she was dead over 150 years before I was a glint, that was never an option. But earlier in my questing, there was still a chance that Maeve Binchy would be a reader, even (gasp) a fan. Since we lost her last year, that's no longer possible. I imagine she's a lost potential reader Joan laments as well.

I'm still not done with the first draft of this latest story, and once I am, there will be a period of critiquing and rewriting and then of course querying--if everything went gorgeously, it'd still be a long shot for this book to meet 2014. So, without being maudlin, it has been crossing my mind that there are some writers I admire, writers I would love to pay back with my own words, who might never read a word I wrote. Not to mention the writers who are already gone, my chance lost already.

If there was someone you could summon from the past, recent or distant, to read your work, I wonder who it would be?