Stephanie Gayle

A very astute reader (the only kind I use) pointed out that my manuscript for book #2 seemed a bit off. She didn't understand the ending in the context of the character's emotional and narrative arc. I understood what she was getting at. And I knew what the problem was: I had written the ending alongside the beginning. That is, when I was writing scenes before I began writing the book, I had two that I quite liked: the opening and the ending. I edited the beginning quite a bit but the ending not as much. I should have, because, as my reader noticed, it seems incongruous given all the events that lead to it.

That's the danger in artifacts. You can grow attached to them and lose sight of what they are supposed to represent. I've noticed I'm always much more receptive to suggestions such as "change the ending" or "remove that major character" when I haven't seen the story in a long time (several months). Physical distance somehow begets professional objectivity. I trust the first reader's eyes, perhaps even more than my own, because they're seeing the story new and I never can at this point.

So I'm looking forward to destroying some artifacts...

Posted by Stephanie at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The writing is not going so well lately. All my words seem insufficient. Really. They're not doing the job I'm setting them to do. Worse, I have a conversation that just is not the tense, crackling exchange of wits it was meant to be. I find myself arguing with my characters. "Why are you suddenly being likeable? I did not cast you to be charming. Be a curmudgeon, damn it!" The characters then turn around and say I'm the one who wrote them, so it must be my fault. It's a good point. The kind of point that pliable characters would not make. They would apologize for the error of their ways and start acting the way I expected.
You would think that as an author I would have total control over my work, that the prose would flow from mind to keyboard in a tranquil stream of genius. You would be wrong.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I found myself looking about my room thinking, "My, this area could use tidying." No doubt it could. But what my clever inner-self recognized was that the cleaning urge was a procrastination attempt disguised as a good impulse. I only want to clean my room so that I don't have to do the somewhat daunting writing work I have before me to complete.

While it would certainly be nice to move those ice skates out of my room (the same ice skates I had when I was a teenager and cannot fit my feet inside now--super useful) I think it might be nicer to have some of the work I've been agonizing over done.

And to sweeten the deal I'll only allow myself lunch if I go work on the book. Yup. Carrot and stick. But not carrot sticks. That, friends, is no lunch for a working writer.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I watched the cinematic trainwreck "I Know Who Killed Me" starring Lindsay Lohan as both demure student Aubrey Fleming and potty-mouthed stripper Dakota Mars. Never mind the agony of seeing Miss Lohan play parts that reference her first great role, as freckled twin moppets in "The Parent Trap," in such startling and heatrbreaking contrast: this film is terrible. I knew it would be, but I was hoping for entertainment-level awful of the kind afforded by such masterpieces as "Deep Blue Sea" or "The Wicker Man." Nope, this is run-of-the-mill lazy awful.

But it made me think (that's more than we can say for much of the cast and crew). Specifically, it made me think about crime suspects in regards to mystery novels. When the suspects barely make it onto the page and their identity(ies) revealed, readers feel cheated and with good reason. Now, I could see who the villain of the film was a mile off but it was still annoying that he didn't have more than eight minutes on film. That there was no investigation so to speak. And there really wasn't. The cops? The federal agents? About as present and useful as the fricking tooth fairy when you're thirty years old.

This made me realize that my novel's cast of suspects has to be more than mentioned and revealed. And my cops? Going to have to be more present than I had planned originally. Why's that? Because I was planning on being somewhat lazy. It's always interesting when I catch myself out in lazy-writer mode. It involves me scolding myself, resolving to do the right (write) thing, and then bitching about my naggy ass self to myself. Yup. It's a regular carnival in my head.

So thank you, Jeff Hammond (writer) and Cris Sivertson (director) of the worst movie I've seen in a looooong time. You taught me something. How to ruin a story, and, hopefully, how to avoid doing so.

Posted by Stephanie at 06:06 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)

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 just paid money for the privilege of being locked down for seven hours on a Saturday in June at Grub Street's headquarters in Boston. The idea is to encourage writers to write for seven hours (with food-provided breaks---you know I wouldn't participate if food were withheld). I'm quite excited about it, despite my strong suspicion that the day will probably be the most beautiful day of all summer in Boston simply because I can't go outside for most of it. This will give me a chance to get started on book #3, a project I've been looking forward to and made some small forays at, but haven't had time to really get into. I want to roll about in the prose, muddy my hands with too many adjectives, and then peel the unwanted verbiage from me like so many blood-sucking leeches (how's that for a word picture?)

Seven hours sounds amazing. I could write a chapter in seven hours. Only one chapter you ask? One good chapter, I say. Or one that doesn't suck. Sometimes that's the same thing, especially in the land of first drafts.

I'll be holed up with other writers, all looking to pound out more words in one day than they probably do in most weeks. It's hard to find seven hours to write in unless you're willing to forego sleep (not usually) or eating (never) or the day job (it pays my bills). The strongest lure of pursuing a MFA was, for me, the time it provided to write. The strongest repellent? Um, the money it was going to cost me. So I chose day job and carving our time to write when I could. And I was fairly good about it, what with the timer and all. But I've been feeling a bit guilty lately about not spending enough time amongst the words, and I think this lockdown is just what I need.

I'll let you know how it goes once it's over. Until now, it's just something to look forward to. Internment never sounded so sweet...

Posted by Stephanie at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sometimes it's tough to be a writer. Such as when your royalty statement appears and you realize you sold negative books (it can happen!) or you get a rejection slip from an esteemed magazine addressed to someone other than you (I suppose an acceptance note addressed to someone other than you would be worse) or you're asked yet again, "So how's the book coming?"

What's with the third-degree inquisition? Do I show up at your job and demand to see the latest spreadsheet/hairstyle/auto repair/surgical scar? Et cetera and et cetera. No, I do not. But once people know you're a writer they'll ask how's it coming, how are sales, when is the next reading and it's great that they want to know. Except when you're not writing and sales suck (or you don't know--this is also very possible) and the next reading is never.

Sometimes (this weekend) I just want to eat foods grilled over firey charcoal chips (because the very handsome boyfriend does not believe in the blasphemy that is gas grills--don't get him started). Sometimes I want to go hiking through the woods and commune with Nature. Sometimes I want to go to the farm and buy lots of lovely food and watch movies and make drinking glasses from wine bottles and do anything but write. Sometimes. Those times, inevitably, are when people ask me, "So how's the writing coming?" I'm quite certain my agent is not paying them to ask (are you?). But it does keep me honest.

I say, "Right now, it's not really coming. But I plan to write more soon."
And I do.
Right after I finish this burger.

Posted by Stephanie at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When people ask me what I do I have two answers:
1. I'm a writer
2. I work at MIT (If I feel like playing, I tell them I'm a nuclear physicist--just to scare them.)

I rarely told people I was a writer until I'd sold my novel. That made me legitimate, or so I felt. But when they'd ask about my day job I'd be vague. I might mention finances or admin work, but I wouldn't offer many details. I figured it wasn't that interesting. When confronted by someone who says, "I'm in insurance" do you really press to hear the details of what type of insurance? Okay, you're more polite than I am.

My current job is interesting--it's in a very unique space known as "The Cube" in the MIT Media Lab. I do a lot of things, from balancing budgets to getting travel visas to ordering food for meetings. It keeps me busy. Very damn busy. But I like seeing the amazing work "my" graduate students (I often refer to them in the possessive) are producing. Being around smart people is stimulating. And I don't attend unecessary, boring staff meetings, which I've had to do for prior jobs and which drove me mental.

Today on the way to work I thought of Wallace Stevens. Wallace Stevens won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and was offered a faculty position at Harvard. He turned it down because it would have meant giving up his vice-presidency at Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company where he had worked as a lawyer for nearly forty years. I thought of Wallace because I sometimes think of what it would mean to quit my day job and write full time. It isn't financially feasible yet, and it may never be, but more than that, I'm not sure it would suit me.

There is something satisfying in the work I do between 9-5 (and sometimes beyond). There is often human contact. As a writer I possess that splendid tendency toward escape. I worry that an all day opprtunity for fiction might lead to few (if any) human interractions on a daily basis. Not to mention I'm an absolute pill when bored. Sure, there are times I curse having to rise in the morning and abandon my work-in-progress for the daily commute but there's also something nice about working toward the return to home and story.

Posted by Stephanie at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I was reading a post on the Ward Six blog called, "Why I don't read mysteries anymore." It struck a note because recently all I have been reading are mysteries. Chandler, Hammet, McDermid, Evanovich, Rankin, etc. Lots of mysteries. I agree with some of Rhian's objections to the genre listed in the post. I don't care for serial killers and in-the-mind-of-a-killer stories tend to fall flat. But mysteries represent some of my earliest young adult reading memories. Phyllis Whitney, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey (Brat Farrar, people! Oh, how I loved that book!) And there's lots of early, built-in tension. Will the puzzle be solved? Will the killer be caught? Of course, not all mysteries follow this narrative path. Thomas H. Cook writes mysteries that are more psychological in nature. They're more about how people react to a violent death or kidnapping. The tension has much less to do with 'who did it' than with 'is someone going to irreparably damage their family because of this'?

Having just reread Chandler's Lady in the Lake I was struck by how much his humor appeals to me. Sure, there's tough guys and sordid situations featuring loose women. But it's Marlowe's wry humor that brings me back time and again to those books. What a wiseass.

I myself would like to write a mystery, and not just because I want to hang out with other mystery writers. Though they do seem like fun people. I mean how can't thinking about murder for lots of days out of the year not translate into fun loving. Right?

Posted by Stephanie at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was falling a bit behind on the whole, um, writing thing for a while. I'd finished a major editing project and decided to reward myself with time off. Then I got sick. Then Maclappy got sick (requiring an uninstall and new install of Office). Then I got...doldrummy and wasn't sleeping well. In part, as I came to realize, because I wasn't writing. When I'm not writing it's like a valve closes and all the crazy bits and stories and dreams and dialogue gets bottled up in me and...it leads to me not sleeping and other unpleasant side effects. Generally, I'm just less delightful when I'm not writing.

So I put myself back on the clock. KitchenAid timer rather. An hour a day...keeps insomnia away. Plus, I'm working on something new. New stuff is fun. I've got 38 minutes and 34 seconds left. Writing here doesn't count on the timer. It has to be my fiction I'm working on. I'm tough, but fair.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 38 minutes and 34 seconds to fill.

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

Two recent stories in The New Yorker got me thinking about tension and story structure. This week's "The Lie" by T. Coraghessan Boyle and "Great Experiment" by Jeffrey Eugenides, published on March 31st. Both stories start with men in ruts: ill-paying jobs and family pressures. Both men end up taking advantage of their jobs: one by embezzling and one by lying about a death in the family to avoid work. As the tension increases you find yourself thinking "this can't end well." And it doesn't. Both stories end with discovery (or the verge of it). Both leave you thinking about what will happen next. Coincidentally both seemed very locale-specific as well. Eugenides picks Chicago, Boyle chooses Los Angeles.

I was struck by both stories because they represent the tension ending I myself never write. I write stories in which some big tense event has just happened. I enjoy exploring the fallout. What happens after a small boy finds a dead body? How does a women react to her husband's leaving her? I could have written them inverse: end on the body floating face-down in the water or the woman's face watching the UHaul pull away. I tend not to because it confounds my admittedly traditionalist take on story narrative.

When I was in middle school we were made to read Guy de Maupassant's "The Lady, or the Tiger." I'll never forget it. At story's end we are asked: what door did the lovely, jealous princess send her lover to: the one with certain, bloody-toothed death or the one with a pretty bride? We aren't told. We're asked. Choose your own adventure books had more resolution. I hated "The Lady, or the Tiger." Supposed to guess the ending? Oh, my sixth grade anguish!

I was used to stories that ended happily ever after or at least ended with a resolution of some sort. Despite having read more widely and having learned that Guy's name is pronounced Gee in his native tongue, I still have to work to bend my mind to stories with less than traditional structures (though ocassionally I fall hard for them. For evidence see my deep admiration for Paul Aster and David Mitchell.)

Did I enjoy the two New Yorker stories? I did. I've been thinking on them long after I finished transcending the arc, and considering what happens next to the narrators. Hell, I even tried to imagine ways by which the embezzler character might escape his inevitable doom. What can I say? I've managed to transcend my sixth grade opinions. Well, some of them.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oy. Sorry it's been a while, but after a grueling work week I came down with a hellacious head cold last Friday. I'm now in the hacking up a lung recovery phase. As a result I've not been writing much. This is not good for several reasons but the most important is this: it's ruining my sleep schedule. Every night I tumble into bed, physically exhausted, and oddly I don't fall off to sleep immediately. Then, at least twice during the night I wake up from a dream and start altering it (but by now I'm half-awake and then full on awake). Last night I realized I was writing. My little "Let's fix this dream" is really my poor writing brain screaming "Hey! Pay attention! I've got things for you! And if you're not going to bother while you're awake--consumptive cough or no--you'll pay attention now!" So I waste two hours each night writing mentally (but never on paper) while in bed. Bullocks to that. Starting today I'm going to write on paper and hope that my damn brain gets the signal and lets me sleep.

By the by, the sheer awfullness of this cold makes me suspect I may have somehow contracted a Man Cold. See below for explanation.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems I haven't posted any erudite lessons on writing as of late. Since I'm sure you come here for more than my thoughts on botox (bad) and pandas (awesome) I'll help you out with some thoughts on why you should take your carefully worded story (or novel) and stick it in a drawer. No, don't send it out to The New Yorker or The Paris Review. Not just yet. Why? Well, I have some hard truths, friend. The story you just finished, the one you're quite proud of and that your mother has declared "Nobelable" may not be quite done.

As a frequent offender of the put-it-aside law, let me tell you a few things I've learned.

1. First drafts are just that. First fucking drafts. Not gold. Not Nobelable. You will need to rewrite and edit.
2. You notice mistakes more easily when you haven't looked at something every five minutes for the past week. Remember all those terrible clothes you wore decades ago that you look back at and say, "God, stirrup pants? Why?!" Those fashion mistakes are to your story mistakes what pandas are to awesome. You need time to see them. Give yourself time.
3. Waiting is hard. True. But there's something really annoying about rereading an old story you sent off too soon and that by some odd miracle got published and thinking "Why the hell didn't I stick that in a drawer longer before I let the whole world see this?" You can't take it back once it's published.
4. Every writer has stories about setting aside their stories or books for months or years. Now you can join that club of writers!

This is a lesson I have to teach myself on a regular basis. I've been enamored enough of a first draft to think it publishable (ha ha!) That's called delusion. Do better than I've done and go stick that story in drawer. (Closets, attics, cartons, under the box bins, and safety deposit boxes are all acceptable substitutes for drawers)

Posted by Stephanie at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my Maclappy is back in action. I brought it to work so one of my genius MIT grad students would fix it for me, but that proved unnecessary. After a software update it seems to have resolved its ongoing issues with Word. So no sacrifices (animal, human, or chocolate) were required. Now I can work on the story I began while I was in Los Angeles. It starts with a dog. Why? I happened to be sharing a sunny deck with a white Labrador retriever. Sometimes I write about what I happen to be starting at. Inspired, no?

Posted by Stephanie at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My laptop seems to have caught a flu. Or some such disease. It won't let me use Word. Or rather, it will let me open a document and use it for approximately 15 seconds before it crashes, again and again. I'm a writer. I don't ask for much in the way of applications. I ask for Word. Take PowerPoint! Take Quick Time! Take Final Draft! Anything but Word.

It's on days like this that I parrot my friend Maggie and say, "Ugh. What have computers done for me lately?"

Come back, Word. Please?

Posted by Stephanie at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, did you get around to reading all the hyped books of 2007? Then We Came to the End, Run, On Chesil Beach? No. Don't worry. I won't tell. My reading list is often far behind the popular tide. I have a hard time reading what everyone is reading. It's pure and simple snobbery. And I have a real problem reading anything tagged with Oprah's big gold "O" though I did read The Road after the Oprah seal of approval had been affixed to it (and how mad was I to discover the stupid sticker with her name on it peels right off? Pretty mad, given that I didn't discover that until after I'd finished reading it). I hate reading books adapted for film that then use the movie's image for the front cover. Yes, I apparently live in fear of being labeled a Philistine.

Now that we've covered why I'm behind the curve, let's discuss how to amend it. Powell's Tournament of Books. Powell's applies the much beloved NCAA basketball competition system (bracketed teams) to books. They select some bookish judges, give them two books, and make them pick which book was better. The reviews are great because often the judges explain not only why they liked said book better but maybe what prejudices they had going in, or how they view genre. It's a delicious bite-sized review system I wish I saw more of, frankly. And fun! Did I mention fun?

The idea of two books paired off in a fight to the...um...win is excellent. The execution has thus far been terrific. It's most fun when a book not expected to do well rises through the ranks in a series of surprise wins. Last year Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn got a lot further than I expected, in part because it was pitted against such heavy (weight and weight-wise) candidates. If I recall, one of the judges last year confessed she didn't finish reading one of her books. Awesome!

Following the Tournament of Books always helps me decide which of last year's literary darlings I want to read. In their first tournament Cloud Atlas emerged as the winner and it's one of my favorite books. So check it out. Today's match pits The Shadow Catcher against An Arsonist's Guides to Writers' Homes in New England. Can you predict the winner?

Posted by Stephanie at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over a year ago our landlord died. He was in his mid-90s and not in the best of health, though he still drove to the track to bet two or three times a week (down from his once a day habit of younger years). The man was deafer than a post. I got locked out once and stood at his back door, pounding on his door. I could see him (he was ten feet away from me) but he didn't hear me. I worked that door like it was my mortal enemy before he heard me (more likely he felt the vibrations). Holding conversations, as you might imagine, was difficult. By and by, we coexisted peacefully. He didn't mind the rare late-night party and we didn't complain when our kitchen was suffused by the smell of pizza and smoke on poker nights (yeah, he was a character).

But then he died, and younger relatives moved in downstairs. I think they might be deaf because the levels at which they converse and listen to music indicates hearing loss. Severe hearing loss. The teenage boy living below me makes mystifying very loud, room-shaking noises. It sounds as if he is hurling himself against his walls. He may be. I don't pretend to understand the inner workings of a teenage boy's mind (though I imagine sex takes up a lot of room). The upshot is that it's not creating a conducive writing environment. Hell, not a conducive living environment.

I think when Virginia Woolf wrote about having a room of one's own, she knew that room should not be perched above a heavy-footed teenage boy.

Sigh. I miss my dead landlord.

Posted by Stephanie at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's possible to write oneself into a corner. I did that in book one by making Natalie qualified to practice law before she could be (I fixed that, after three teeth-grinding days). Today I found another corner. Actually, it's less a corner and more a tight turn. Having changed the dialogue in a previous chapter I found myself stumped at the beginning of my current chapter because suddenly the revelation happening, well, wouldn't. Humph. Moreover, the scene following lacks any reason for existing. Aces. So I did what any self-respecting author would do. I whined. Albeit, to myself.

After a few, "This is hard!"s I sat my butt down and began tinkering. I'm not done yet, but I've an idea that might make this crazy jigsaw puzzle fit together again. All well and good until I get a few chapters further in where my current rewrite creates future sorting-out issues. But that of course is just something to look forward to, for now.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you watch the Oscars? I watched about half. Every year I yell at people, especially the people who get seated near the back (designer, art direction folks, writers) and who win awards because they never hurry to the stage. Hurry to the stage people! Hurry! You are not a celebrity so they will cue the walk off music faster than you can say "Thanks Mom." Oy! Don't these people know anything?

My thoughts have been drifting to Hollywood lately as it looks as though I will be traveling to LA next month. All pleasure, no business, but who knows? Perhaps some studio exec will overhear me dispensing wit and will think, "That lady sounds like she'd make a crackerjack screenwriter. Let's hire her for gobs and gobs of money!"

Then I could be like William Faulkner, typing in the sun.

Only I think I might choose different socks.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I did something yesterday I wasn't supposed to do, inasmuch as multiple trained professionals have told me never to do it (again). I trimmed my bangs. They were hanging in and past my eyes and I wasn't feeling patient enough to make an appointment with my stylist and then pay $55 for a half inch trim. So I went at them with little scissors. I have tricky bangs. They have a little curl toward the middle so if you're not careful you end up with a very uneven, cringe-inducing fringe of hair. I think I did a good job. It's a little blunt but not bad. Certainly not, "Stephanie, we talked about this. Never trim your own bangs." talk worthy.

How does this pertain to writing, you ask? I'm so glad you did! Often, in writing classes or books you hear or read advice on the craft. Some of that advice begins, "Never" followed by an action. I've heard never begin stories with dreams or flashbacks. Never end a story with a surprise for the sake of surprise. Never write outside your gender, race, experience. Never write using dialect. Never write while slicing onions (that's just practical, folks). Now some of this advice can be useful and some of it can be, how shall we say, limiting?

Understand that you can write whatever you want, however you want. A lot of these old chestnuts were constructed by people tired of reading bad stories that began the same way or contained the same terrible similarities. They figured if they told aspiring writers never to do these things then they might avoid reading stories with those gruesome elements. But you're no chump! You know that you can write amazing stuff that violates any and all of these rules (except the onion one: safety first!) Heck, sometimes you can even trim your own bangs with success!

Posted by Stephanie at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Guardian Unlimited ran an interesting section on writer's rooms. Click here to check them out.
There's quite a variety in spaces, desk configurations, and decor. But what matters most is that it's a spot where the writer can write. I remember reading that Stephen King, after years spent writing on a crappy table, purchased a beautiful desk and found that he couldn't work on it. It intimidated him. So he went back to his former set up. Some days I find myself ogling beautiful long tables of solid gleaming wood, but most days when I'm actually writing, I don't much notice. Unless something, such a mug or set of keys, is physically inhabiting me (to the floor!) I don't notice it. So my desk is a little cluttered and not, I'm afraid, very stylish. Unless you consider a bottle of vitamins, a box of tissues, and a Kitchen Aid timer de rigeur. The one thing I've added to my desk recently is a little stone gargoyle a friend gave me for a birthday a few years back. He's hunched over and when I look up he stares at me with his inset eyes and seems to say, "Eyes back to your work, missy." I think of him as my taskmaster. But I know I'll probably only keep him on my desk for as long as book two is in progress. He's serving a very specific purpose.
Perhaps later I'll post a picture of it, so you can see for yourself what my deskmate looks like.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been a fan of John Green since February of last year, when I stumbled across the video blog he was running with his brother, Hank. It was called Brotherhood 2.0 and it was all flavors of awesome. If you have a week of spare time I recommend checking it out from start to finish.

John is a YA author whose award-winning novel, Looking for Alaska, has recently met a challenge in an upstate New York school community. His defense of the book says it best. Plus, as most of John's videos are, it's articulate, funny, and dead on.

If you'd like to support John and his book you may write a letter in support and send it to: sparksfly up at gmail dot com.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently I had occasion to borrow and read a little book called The Battle of Dunbar, published in 1900. The book's prose wasn't particularly engaging, but its construction was of interest. You could feel the typed letters with your fingers and the pages smelled a little moldy but the best part came when I reached the middle of the book and discovered unopened pages. This means that the edges of some pages were sealed together and hadn't been cut. I had to open them using a sharp implement (though I've just discovered you're supposed to use a playing card and run it along the inside of the pages. Oops.) If you'll recall, in The Great Gatsby, Nick discovers Gatsby hasn't read any of the books he owns, because none of the pages have been cut. So what my discovery indicated was that in over one hundred years no one had read this entire book (and it was by no means long--40 pages perhaps). It felt awesome to be the first person to separate those pages and see those words. And this is why I'm a writer: because I adore book moments like these.

Posted by Stephanie at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I dreamt that I was reading an email from my agent and editor. The gist was this, "Your new book is terrible." I still remember certain phrases of the nightmare email including, "you made a horrible decision to continue on this path" and "fair to middling at best." Um. Ouch. I think my anxiety is showing.

While my writing process has sometimes interfered with my sleeping (sometimes my characters don't understand my need for sleep and they'd much rather I think about them ALL the time and sometimes my idiot brain obliges and that prompts my very tired body to threaten my brain with divorce, or whatever the alternative is--decapitation?) I've never before had nightmares about the publishing/critical reception. Worries? Aplenty! Concerns? Barrels of them! But nightmares? No. Not until last night.

I hope this was an isolated incident.

Posted by Stephanie at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So it was Friday that I finished the manuscript of book #2. Remember how excited I was to have time to relax? Chill out? Do fun things (and necessary things like buy groceries and clean my damn room)? Yes, well, guess where I found myself at 12:15 PM today? Um, in the library, researching a new project.

What is wrong with me?

Am I categorically incapable of not working (two jobs) for more than three days? It would appear so. But on the bright side I found the *best* quote ever for the new project.

And anyway it's twenty degrees outside and the sidewalks are frozen so it's not as though I can enjoy myself out of doors. If I'm going to be indoors why not have ten reference books at my elbow and be jotting notes? Doesn't that sound almost cozy? It does if you add cocoa (with Fluff).

Okay, yes, I'm crazy. I'm also a work addict. Are there steps for me? Preferably less than twelve. I don't really have time for twelve. I'm busy.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Draft two is done! I repeat: draft two is done! I just printed the manuscript (HEAVY) and now it's time to relax. I'm not sure I remember how, but I look forward to exploring the idea. I'm starting with a glass of red wine. Let's see where it leads!

Posted by Stephanie at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dear friends, you probably think I fell into a puddle of gravy on Thanskgiving and am only now just crawling out given my lack of posts. Not true! I have been consumed with editing. I'm truly putting the mental pedal to the metal here. And if it weren't for that thing I do every day that sucks up nine hours of my time (but provides health insurance and a salary) I'm quite sure I'd be done by now.

But no matter. The end is in sight. Eighty pages to go (give or take a few). And tonight I had a moment of inspiration. I sometimes think the general public labors under the false impression that we writers are just chock o'block full of inspiration. Not true. We're full of other things.

Anyway, as I walking home this cold evening I caught a whiff of body gel scent that punched me in the solar nexus and dragged me back in time eight or so years. Yes, I'm susceptible to scents. What amazes me is how my brain knows smells and actually makes me feel as I was when I smelled the scent originally. The best example I have is smelling something and actually feeling as if I was standing in the woods with my mother as a child (about four years old). I felt small, close to the ground. The smell was mud, but a very particular mud. I've smelled mud since and not had that reaction.

I decided that my character should smell dirt in an upcoming scene. It would help her remember something and, as a result, she'll reach a decision that was lacking in the text before. I think it's a good idea. It's almost inspired. And what's best is I know it's real, in feeling.

So there you have it. Inspiration. Now if only I could find a way to squeeze more hours out of the day...

Posted by Stephanie at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lately I've been spending my lunch break at Hayden Library at MIT because I've discovered that I am capable of writing as long as I'm not in my office. If I'm in my office the temptation of the Internet or of doing more work while munching and the risk of interruption is strong. But if I physically move across campus and plop myself down at one of those long wooden tables whose surface is smooth like sea glass then I can write. It's been a great discovery. I feared I was a bit too attached to writing at my desk at home and becoming incapable of adapting.

At the Midwest Literary Festival I heard Deb Olin Unfurth say one of the best writing lessons she has learned is to be flexible, to be able to write anywhere. She put her money where her mouth is by attempting to write inside Walter Peyton's Roundhouse (adjacent to the Walter Peyton museum!) where she was accosted about four times by various guys asking her what she was doing. Oy vey. But she persisted. Whereas many of us threw up our hands that weekend and said, "No, we can't write. The distractions of Aurora are too plentiful!" Or some such.

I don't know that I'll ever become so flexible that I can write inside a smoky bar/restaurant with people interrupting me. but I aim to become better at it. The library is, of course, made for writing. Quiet. Lots of books. The soft rustle of turning pages. So it's a baby step. But it's a baby step that's increased my daily output by about 33 percent. Not too shabby.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just spent four hours rewriting my first chapter. It's five pages long. It was six. At this rate I should finish in, oh, three years.

Did I say I hoped to finish by Thanksgiving? Bwahahahahaha. Oh, foolish optimist!

I rarely question my decision to pursue my writing. But today? Is a very hard writing day. Made more difficult by writing-associated deadlines related to promotion and events. I think I need a patron of the arts. And maybe a glass of Lagavulin. After all, nothing makes me feel more authorly than a Scoth, neat.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am tired and on the verge of a cold, I fear. Three days of attending and holding forth on writing workshops/panels at the Midwest Literary Festival takes a lot out of a person. But the weather was lovely, the people very congenial and I got to met so many amazing writers that it's a miracle I didn't wet myself like an overexcited puppy. (I didn't!)

Having never done a festival like this before it was all very new to me, but the highlight truly was getting to hang out with other writers. Because famous writers are a lot like non-famous writers! And we tend to talk about the same things when you put us together. Come along and I'll share what writers such as Andrew Gross, Megan McCafferty, and Camille DeAngelis discuss in the privacy of the super secret "Author's Room" or in a very loud Mexican restaurant:

Writing
Agents
Editors
Publishing perils
Book covers
Book titles
Royalties
The New York Times Book Review (see related: sexism, genreism, classism)

Wow, you're thinking. Writers are boring! Yes, yes, we are. But in addition to talking non-stop about our work we also discuss:

Rap music (particularly the deft wit of Kanye West)
Collecting creche figurines
Getting drunk
Pop culture magazine covers
Places we'd never live
Which absolutely hoochie mama outfit we'd choose from the hoochie mama clothing emporium
Casinos/gambling
Fear of clowns

I was sad to leave this stimulating talk behind, but very happy to be going home (alas, home needs a serious cleaning). And if I can find the business cards people gave me perhaps we can continue these and other fascinating dialogs.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, um, there have been difficulties, of a technical nature. We lost some blog posts. But don't cry. If memory serves they weren't terrific. Mostly all about my planned rigorous writing schedule, which I'm happy to announce has begun!

So book #2 moves apace and I spend lots of time in my room at my desk, typing. In fact my day is pretty tightly constricted into boxes of time, with little to none left for things that don't involve: eating/showering/working/putting clothes on/changing clothes/exercising/reading/writing/writing/writing/thinking about writing. In some ways, this compact schedule is almost liberating in its, you know, lack of freedom. Sort of how I envied kids in private school who wore uniforms because they never had to deliberate about what to wear in the morning.

Plus it's a lot easier to focus on your characters when your interactions with real people are limited. Of course I work 9-5, so it's not as though I'm holed up at home, seeing no one. Never fear. I haven't turned all Nicholson in The Shining just yet.

And yesterday, somewhat out of the blue, I had an idea for a new book. Even if it comes to naught it's good to have ideas and I was very mildly worried, because I've honestly had no ideas about what will come after I'm done with this one. Whereas the idea for book #2 came right on the heels of finishing book #1. Sometime I think half of this writing game is worrying. I suppose that's good news, because boy, am I good at that.

Okay. I'm gonna hit save and publish. Let's see what happens.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day I was (admittedly) whining that revising book #2 was hard. So freaking hard. Was writing book #1 this hard? Then it struck me. Much as mothers forget how difficult, gory, and altogether painful childbirth is so they can do it all over again I must have managed to forget that writing/editing is not so easy! Huh. My crap memory is actually protecting me. Or not. Suppose it depends on how you look at it.

So here's a note to my future self: you don't loved editing your first drafts. You never have. There will be moments when you're contemplating chapter cuts and character removals and you will want to hand it all to someone else and say, "Please fix this. Please." But you won't do that. Instead you'll stare at your pages and think "I have no idea if I'm improving this." But take heart! Occasionally you will have moments of genuine insight or clarity. Those moments are good, very good! And the editing will get done, though not as fast as you hoped. It never happens quickly.

For a great post on revision, check out Maureen Johnson's blog entry on the topic. Not only does it have good tips, but it also has pics of Cary Grant. Oh so dreamy.

Like pregnancy, after the labor pains you have a baby (of sorts). Even better: if the baby is handsome enough, you can sell it for money and acclaim. Whereas the world generally frowns on selling real babies.

So there you have it: writing is like pregnancy, sort of. Only better.

Posted by Stephanie at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As previously discussed in December, thus far all my writing deadlines have been self-imposed (editing deadlines not so much--there I've been told by the publishers when to have the manuscript ready and returned). This, however, doesn't keep the deadline from assuming significance in my mind and causing me pain when I realize there is now way that I'll meet said deadline unless someone manages to create a wrinkle in the time-space continuum. Anyone? Anyone? No? Okay.

This brings me to missing deadlines. I don't like missing them. It makes me feel that I've failed, even though my writing instructor, Stratis, once told me that deadlines are guidelines and are supposed to serve as motivation, not punishment. I'm sure he's right. I just have a very hard time accepting that.

This brings me to the fact that I'm going to miss a deadline. Big time. I had hoped to have half the manuscript for book two edited by the time I leave for vacation in two weeks. Um...er...huh. That was ambitious of me! At the time I made that deadline I was, to be fair, cranking along at a good pace. I was also less busy with book promotion and other things.

So I'm not going to make it. Right now I'm 1/8 done with the manuscript. In two weeks' time I might be able to make it to 1/4. Might.

The trick now is remembering that speed does not equal quality and that, in two weeks, I will be on a beach, staring at an ocean, and missing deadlines will seem a much smaller thing.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it just me? Or have literary magazines become, how shall we say, crazy? Last week I got a slip of paper from the North American Review. What I like about NAR is that they send you a postcard verifying that they received your submission and assigning it a number (sort of like at the deli counter, only you never get luncheon meats or cheeses). Anyhoo that's well and good.

What's not well and good is that the second part: the slip of paper I received, was the front page of my story, with a number written just below my word count. I thought they were telling me my story's word count was wrong. My word count was 4990 and the number they had written below was 3995. So I double-checked. Nope, my word count was right. Then I remembered the assigned number thing and put two and two together. They'd written that number on my page. Okay.

There was nothing else in the envelope. No tiny scrap of paper saying, "Sorry. Not for us" or "We liked it, but not this time. Please keep us in mind." Nothing. I'm not saying I crave rejection, but I do like the process to be simple, to be obvious. Even a big old "NO" in red pen across the top would've been better. Are literary magazines so tired of rejecting pieces that they've stopped sending rejection notices?

Posted by Stephanie at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I was nuking another frozen dinner I realized something: my life is a seesaw. One on side we have writing and on the other side nutrition. When I'm writing a novel the seesaw tips down and oh look! There's nutrition, way up on the other side kicking her legs and shouting, "You need vegetables!"
"Nah, you don't," writing says, pushing his feet around in the dirt.
"Let me down. She needs vitamins."
"No doing. She likes it the way it is," writing says.

Sadly, writing is correct. When the writing is moving along in a steady, satisfying way, I'm more than happy to eat meals that take 3 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to consume. Any more time and I get antsy, anxious to return to my characters. My breakfast and lunch patterns don't change, because those are structured around my day job. But dinner definitely gets sacrificed. In the past week I think most of my dinners came from the freezer and there may have been one that wasn't dinner so much as several mini-grazing trips through the pantry.

I wonder if other writers do this, or perhaps they have people that take care of them and feed them healthy meals.
Hmmm. I should get me one of those.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am predictable, terribly predictable. In times of stress or when I am feeling dissatisfied and bored I dye my hair. Not every time, of course, or my hair would change color like a chameleon. All this is a preamble to saying that I dyed my hair last night and I am no longer a redhead. I'm a brunette.

You know what? Brown hair dye is a lot less messy than red hair dye. Don't ask me why, but it's true. While rinsing the red dye the shower always looked like a scene from a gruesome horror film. Not so much with the brown. It also rinsed faster, much faster.

I read somewhere that you shouldn't change your appearance drastically when you're promoting a book (or people won't recognize you from your author photo?) Then I realized that my author photo is black and white. It gives the impression of dark hair, but the red was okay.

I also had a realization yesterday: it's a good thing I pursue my stress with hair dye and not tattoos. My mother would freak out and I'm not sure I'd have much space left for fresh ink.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The other day I realized that all my problems with works in progress relate to time. It's damned difficult to manipulate. I had a two-day breakdown during draft #1 of MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT when I realized that Natalie couldn't practice law in Georgia. Why? Because there was no way her fitness certificate could have cleared in time. That was a bad epiphany. It involved me saying "Fuck" a lot and clenching my hair in my fists. I worked around it, but man, those were a shaky two days.

Similarly, while working on some research for book #2 I was playing with the birth date of the father and realized that if I wanted a plot element (the Dustbowl) to be present I needed to adjust his age. This impacted the age of all the children, one of whom I'd drafted to Vietnam. Then I panicked, afraid I'd thereby made him too young to be draft eligible. Never mind that this is all back story. It makes my heart race. clench my hair and mutter obscenities. Damn Time.

I don't expect this will be the last time I battle Time. I just wish it didn't always have the advantage.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a tool called gender genie. You copy a swath of text, insert it into the genie, and it tells you the gender of the writer. It has key words it defines as female or male, and bases the gender on the number of times you use these words. I've used it before and been greatly annoyed that most of the time it gets me right, whether I'm writing fiction or a blog entry.

I get annoyed because I don't like the idea of being defined as a "male" or "female" writer, especially not on the basis of preposition use.

But then I had the brilliant idea of using the genie for a new purpose: to 'discover' the gender of Hilary Tamar. Hilary features in Sarah Caudwell's mysteries and throughout the series his/her gender is never revealed. I always admired the trick. Caudwell did a damned fine job of never tripping up. So I inserted a lengthy passage from The Sibyl In Her Grave, a scene narrated by HilaryTamar, and the verdict was: writer male!

Of course, technically, Sarah was the writer, but she died in 2000 without revealing her the secret of Hilary's gender, so this is the best I can do.

Now go ahead and play with it.

P.S. If you like espitolary novels or old school British mysteries I recommend Caudwell's Thus Was Adonis Murdered. Plus the cover art is done by Edward Gore