Stephanie Gayle

As a writer I consider it my duty to pimp the work of my fellow writer friends.
So, without further ado, you should read this!

Former Boston Globe journalist Alison Bass tells the story of two courageous women who helped expose a giant pharmaceutical company's corruption.

How do I know Alison? We took a class together at Harvard called Writing the Novel. It's where My Summer of Southern Discomfort's first chapters were created.

Alison's book is non-fiction, but we won't hold that against it. Some very good stories are not made up.

I have a feeling this won't be the last you'll hear about this book. It's gonna be big, I tell ya!

Posted by Stephanie at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What have I got by the old bedside to read?
Aside from a stack of mysteries (now reading my first Lee Child novel) I've got Practical and Experimental Robotics, RoboSapiens and a charming article entitled, "Decomposition of buried corpses, with special reference to the formation of adipocere."
I sure do know how to have fun!

Posted by Stephanie at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some days I read what I've been working on and a twisty feeling of unease works its way through my body. I find myself thinking, "This isn't very...good. I remember it being good. Why is it not good any more?"

Tonight I found that I'd remembered chapter one as better than it is.

When faced with the dilemma of unexpected suck you can do several things:

1.Drink
2. Go to bed
3. Work on something different
4. Quit writing entirely and become a go-go dancer

Some days, option #4 seems like a great idea. But that's just nonsense. I don't own go-go boots.

Tonight's solution to suck is to work on smaller problems with the narrative and research details. Little tasks to distract me from my "everything I write is awful" moment.

And soon enough I'll rework the entire chapter so that the next time I read it the unease doesn't slither up my spine. Or such is the hope.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if there was a school where writing was taught with specific subjects (such as characters, setting scene, endings) and I were in said school I would fail Plot. Plot is not my greatest strength. In the past I've simply made nice dolls of my characters and then stuck pins in them to see what happened (metaphorically, of course.) That's worked, by and large, but it's not going to work on the current book project. Why? The current book project is a mystery.

Mystries demand plot in ways other novels don't. The very first book I wrote was a mystery. It was bad. The plot was okay but it had little twists the reader couldn't possibly predict because the author hadn't seen fit to think them through until the very end. Those twists ended up being the ribbon to wrap up the story in a nice neat fashion. Unfortunately, said ribbon was rather terrible in the ways just-tacked-on bits of story usually are terrible.

Lesson learned? Sort of. I'm smart enough to know I can't pull that trick a second time with good results. Unfortunately, I have a hard time thinking my story lines through from start to end. That may strike you as odd. It may be. Being weird doesn't worry me. Writing a bad book does.

So today I made myself go running because that has sometimes made ideas bubble to the surface of my mind. Why physical exercise=mental breakthroughs I have no idea. But the run did help. I've got a kernel of an idea that explains why the corpse is where it is and how it got there and who put it there. Let's hope I can grow this wee idea into a plotline. Because the running? It kind of hurts on hot, humid days.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good news!
Mom is out of the hospital!

Turns out the salt levels in her blood were critically low. Salt? Yes, salt. Lack of salt can lead to extreme fatigue and mental confusion, and the longer it goes the worse it gets. Not cool. Seems one of her blood pressure meds was to blame. Oy.

Having spent the first night in the hospital with her I can assure you that hospitals are no place to get any sleep or rest. It's a wonder anyone gets better in those places. I did overhear some amazing (and depressing) stories while there.

The highlight? Aside, of course, from Mom getting well, was using the ear thingy. You know that lighted scope doctors use to look into your ears? For years (truly) I've wanted to use one, but you can't use it on yourself, and I hesitated to ask my doctors if they'd let me look in their ears. For some reason I always suspeted the mere act of asking might lead to a psych consult. Anyway, while Mom reclined on a stretcher I asked if she'd like to indulge my dream. She agreed. Turns out ears look kind of pink and not very interesting. But still...I got to use the ear thingy.

And Mom is well. Huzzah to the nth power.

Posted by Stephanie at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Due to family issues? problems? trials? I've been incommunicado. Trust me when I say that I wish this were not so.
My Mom is quite ill, and so the blog may go without updates for a bit.

But for being such troopers I will share with you a birthday LOLcat that Andres (one of my grad students) made me.

I got a ton of personalized LOLcats plastered all over my office door and wall. They were amazing and all the participants: Annina, Adam, Karen, Ingeborg, Ellen, Noah, and Andres deserve mad props for the joy they brought me.

Here's hoping Mom gets better and that I'm back in the blogging saddle soon.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So despite the MBTA fire problem (just one of many this month) and the fact that I had to walk half of my commute in 90 degree sunshine and despite the fact that I worked until almost 8:00 PM and am still working (writing) I'm not tired! Not remotely. I think I know why.

I had three coffee drinks today. Usually I have one. Today I had three. That's two more than most days. And wow, I'm not sleepy. Not even a little. I'm a little scared that I'll never be sleepy again. Or that coffee will be my gateway drug to dieting pills (don't those have speed or am I remembering my after school specials wrong?) and then to real speed and then to cocaine and then to rehab and then to my triumphant career comeback on Dancing With the Stars. Oh man. That sounds sad.

Maybe I'll just have one coffee tomorrow.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Somewhere, some time ago I read a short piece by a writer on when, seasonally, he sets his books. I want to say it was winter. Hell, I will say it was winter, because the chances of me finding this piece are slim to nil. This wasn't a topic I'd thought much about, but when I read the essay I realized that both my books: My Summer of Southern Discomfort and work-in-progress we call book #2 begin in summer. Not coincidentally, that's also the season I began writing both books. This summer I'm beginning book #3. I don't know why it's always summer when I start books. Maybe I've just internalized that summer is when novels begin. The new project, however, starts in the fall, because it's based on an academic calendar.

This bubbled to the surface of my mind because the forecast here in and around Boston calls for four 90 degree days in a row. Yowza. Let me tell you, it's pretty easy to imagine a steamy summer Georgia when you're sweating it out in 90 degree weather. But imagining a crisp autumn day in which the color pallete runs to red, not green? I'll just have to use that imagination of mine. If I don't perish of heat stroke first.

Posted by Stephanie at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I get lots of spam comments on this site, as I'm sure most boggers do. Spammity spam, oh my is there a lot of it! Now most of the spammers are probably looking to make money through links . But maybe, just maybe, they are looking for something more. Perhaps they want a conversation. So, in the spirit of generosity, I'm going to answer their calls into the wilds of Internet. Here goes!

This one begins "Asteropeus discharged they cut". Ah, Homer. This is a classicist amongst spammers. Sadly, the story gets interrupted by a lot of cheap-drug links. To you, dear spammer, I say, "Yes, the cost of prescription medications in this country of ours with poor health care coverage is indeed criminal. You are a pioneer for calling this important issue to my attention. Now that you have done so, return to The Iliad, good sir. May the bloody tale of battle inspire you to continue on in your quest to bring low-cost medicines to the people!"

Then we have "Viagra relaxes muscles and increases blood flow to particular areas of the body." But what areas? And which muscles? Dear spammer, you have left me without crucial information. How can I know if I want this, how you say, Viagra? If you will not tell me more of its promised properties I will have to turn my attention to...."free sexy girl cursors." Huh. Imagine that. Sexy girl cursors. Now if you'd said "sexy girl cursers" I would have told you I'm all full up. Me and my sexy girl posse swear like sailors (when we're not busy sailing). But cursors, huh? That seems...distracting. I think I shall pass.

And that's all the spam I have time for today. My apologies to all those spammers kind enought to contact me that I simply don't have time to respond to with the sort of stabby personal attention I wish I could devote to them.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)