Uggh....So. Many. Words.

A fellow writer, after listening to some samples at Critique times I attended, frequently and succinctly had this to say about individual readings that had been presented: 

"Too many words!" 

Ninety percent of the time he said this with a smile, so you knew he was doing his best to be constructive. Unfortunately, his brief assessment rarely specified exactly which words there were too many of, so that could be a frustrating exercise if you were the person trying to figure out where to edit your excesses. A lot of the time that person was me. I like words. A lot.

A couple of weeks ago I was working on a project that made me wish he was sitting with and coaching the project's author, on exactly what had to go, with his heroic catchphrase. Here is a small sampling of some of the interesting turns of phrase used: 

"The flames of the fire reached almost to the ceiling on top of the walls." 

"I was too afraid and scared to talk."

"His eyes fell to the ground."

"He turned his back to her so he was facing away from her."

"It was probably possible."

"She watched the steam rise up from the kettle."

"We noticed as we got closer the skyscrapers got larger and bigger."

"His thighs and ankles ran hard against the pavement."


Sometimes I had to get up from my desk and think about how to say "too many words" constructively, because I know, I really know, that writing something clear and connective and interesting can be really fucking hard. I had to suggest a more concise sentence, pace around the story without stepping on meaning, without imposing my own voice and structure upon the author's own. 

That's what a copy editor is supposed to do -- I'm supposed to make it better without figuratively grabbing the manuscript and slapping it around until it fits what I think will work. Because sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes the author really wants the redundant "larger and bigger",  or "probably possible" is a voice-ism of a first person narrator. Personally I assume ceilings are at the tops of walls so the phrase isn't necessary, or I'll delete "up" because what other way would something go if it's rising?; and I get the most comical imagery in my head watching eyes hit the ground, or thighs and ankles running without the rest of the body in play -- kind of like those Irish step dancers whose top halves are almost perfectly still while their legs and feet snap precisely, a thousand steps a minute, across a hardwood floor.

But because of my friend Harris, I carry that mantra -- when I work and when I write -- not because you should always use the least amount of words possible, but because you should choose the words that mean something, that make sense and beauty and story, only using the words that count. And you really don't need any more. 

And for him, I have only these three: We'll miss you.

No Thank You Does Not Mean You're No Good

(This was recently published in Shorelines, the newsletter of the Long Island Romance Writers. With extremely minor adjustments, I'm re-running it here.)

When I was in my twenties, a boyfriend broke up with me because he said he wanted to spend more time drinking Budweiser with his friends rather than hang around with me. I suppose I was upset at first, but really, who can compete with that? Budweiser is, after all, the King of Beers, while I am a mere descendant of humble Italian and Irish peasants.  Over time, I have come to think of this as my most fortuitous rejection; shortly after he left me I met my husband, and I have been happily married for nearly 25 years. All functioned as it should in my universe.

                I have decided to keep the ridiculousness of that rejection in my mind as I go through the process of submitting my manuscripts for publication. It is sometimes difficult to keep perspective – last week I received two rejections within twenty minutes of each other, about a week after an agent who had offered me representation withdrew the offer when I asked if we could possibly negotiate the terms of the contract. The terms would have me agree to relinquishing 20 percent of everything I owned and thought of, including random ideas and possibly one or both of my kids. I didn’t have a problem with random ideas, since most of those involve matters like where to plant the beets and what might make an awesome color combination for hair clips, but I did have a problem with turning over twenty percent of my kids – one of them cooks and the other occasionally can be badgered into mowing the lawn. Long story short, I remain unpublished and unrepresented. 

                In the midst of my brief self-pity party, I made a snarky remark to someone I felt was a smidge overly optimistic about submission prospects, and found myself agreeing to write something about rejection.  And while I’m sure further details of my experience with Mr. Still-An-Alcoholic would be incredibly engaging, it seemed more prudent to discover what other writers had gone through instead.  A sampling, for which you might want to sit down:  

                Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, was rejected 38 times. Kathryn Stockett of The Help was rejected 60 times. Thirty-one publishers turned down James Patterson – he has since had sales of over 220 million books, spearheaded literacy projects for children, and had nineteen consecutive number one New York Times bestsellers. Stephen King received thirty rejections for Carrie, which was only completed after his wife retrieved it from the trash, where he’d thrown it after being rejected for an earlier project.  He’s done okay for himself since.

                J.K. Rowling was told “No thank you” by fourteen publishers before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was picked up.  Alex Haley worked for eight years on Roots only to be turned down a whopping 200 times for it – the book later sold over 8 million copies (1.5 million of that in the first seven months!) and was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize. Even the Diary of Anne Frank was rejected – fifteen times.

                Most of my rejection letters have been along the lines of “Thank you, but it’s not something we feel is right for our list” or “Thanks for your submission but it’s not for us. We wish you the best,” or my personal favorite (and my first rejection letter), “Please remember I am only one person and while the book may not be right for me, I’m sure you’ll meet with success elsewhere.”  Nobody’s ever been hostile or rude.  But consider these comments:

                “Stick to teaching.” Louisa May Alcott was given this feedback in response to Little Women. The book has now been in print for over 140 years.

                “An endless nightmare. I think the verdict would be ‘don’t read this horrid book’,” was one opinion given to H.G. Wells for his classic War of the Worlds.

                Vladimir Nabokov was told, “I recommend it be buried under a rock for a thousand years” in reference to Lolita, which went on to eventually sell 50 million copies.

                And finally, keep this in mind: It took Agatha Christie five years of submitting her work before she was published. The only other author to outsell her to date is William Shakespeare.

                  

Feel any better?

Me neither, actually. But knowing that my dinky total number of rejections so far pales in comparison to the quantity of “No thank yous” and other less kind responses these giants received does inspire me to keep trying.  On a grand scale, think of it this way – What were the opinions of 200 publishing professionals against Alex Haley’s eventual 8 million readers? Or the 14 individuals who didn’t “get” Harry Potter against the 450 million and counting that did?

I'm going to persevere. Eventually that one agent or publisher or distributor is going to come along and we'll have a nice discussion about my random ideas and how they're just what they've been looking for. Maybe we'll talk over a beer.

When Does It Count As Writing?

"I feel like a poser." 

This came from a friend who is an aspiring author, who's so far had a very difficult time finishing something she's been working on. She's a good writer --imaginative, careful, determined to learn her craft -- and she'll get there, but someone recently told her that unless she sat down every day and wrote a certain amount of words every day she was never going to get published and she wasn't ever going to be a real writer.

So I suppose I am not a real writer, either. At least by that hack definition, that is. Like everybody else, I've been up to a few other things for a while. I've attended weddings, helped one kid lease a car and another get into college. I've sent out one book proposal and one follow-up query letter. I've helped my husband ship out books and volunteered at a health fair (where I lost a kid, but don't worry -- they found him). I celebrated International Turtle Day (May 24) and July Fourth, and done all of the other crap that comes with being the person who works at home.


I did not sit down at my keyboard and write a pre-determined amount of words every day. I did write, but I tend not to be able to force out words on a daily schedule. I tend to mull, research, talk out dialogue, hash out scenes with my husband or with another writer or two, put things down on sticky notes or on my nook or index cards (but not on white board, ever since the stomping puppy debacle). I hear I also stare into space a lot. Then I sit and write about 4 or 5 thousand words at that sitting. In between editing assignments. And they have to be good assignments, since I'm absorptive -- if I'm reading badly done romance I will spout out badly done whatever-I'm-working-on.

What happens to white board plot notes when there's a toddler with fur in the house.

Recently a writer friend said she always expected her first draft to be terrible. That works for her.

I once heard Anna Quindlen tell an audience, at a Random House open house, that she sometimes just thought about a book for ten months before she put a word of it to paper. That works for her.

Someone else I know says she writes a certain number of pages every day, with the goal of having a book in six months, based upon her page count.

Some people do NaNoRiMo, which  -- wow, a book in a month. That takes my breath away. But that works for them.

Some people write right through a manuscript indicating where they'll figure out the details later, and some do their research and get their facts straight as they go. Some people need to do their research ahead of time.

The point of this is that it's a process. Writing is Discovery, Invention, Planning, Researching, Drafting, Talking to Yourself, Talking with Others, Journaling, Assembly, THINKING, Typing, Scrawling, Reading, Wondering What the Point Of It All Is, Seeking Depth, Seeking More Depth, Editing, Re-writing, Seeking Even More Depth, Deleting, Inserting, Crumpling Up What Doesn't Work and Yelling "Aha!" When It Does. Writing is having that little idea come from something as simple as a picture in the paper or pulling up a weed or nearly having a car accident or inadvertantly eavesdropping at a restaurant -- taking the inspiration where you find it and turning it into something cohesive and compelling that gives others pleasure or makes them think and feel.

It's a process. And that process is determined by the person doing the work. Having a similar goal to others in your profession doesn't mean you all take the exact same path to get there.

I told my non-poser friend if she wanted me to, I'd lure her judgmental frenemy into a dark alley and give her a talking to. Then I told her to get back to work.

What's your process?

Trouble With the Pitch

In a week my writer's group will have its biggest annual event: a luncheon with over one hundred twenty attendees. Each year several agents and editors are invited, and the many writers there network and acquaint themselves with them, hoping to generate interest in their latest works. You mingle among the crowd and speak with prospective future publishing partners, and during this time you can make your pitch, which is what it's called when you present an extremely brief summary of a project, making it intriguing, coherent, and somewhat memorable. 

I do not do well with the pitch. Anyone who's read any of my blogs or my nearly complete (I swear!) novels will tell you I am not exactly what you'd call succinct. So, in the interest of not going on and on and on, what usually happens is the opposite: Someone asks me, "What do you write?" and I open my mouth and go "uhhhhhh...."

I also do not do well in big groups. I don't think of myself as shy, exactly, but I have never been comfortable with drawing too much attention my way. My favorite colors are grey and blue. If I haven't had at least one gin and tonic and I don't know you, I might just let you do all of the talking. Tell me I've got to speak with a stranger about something I've struggled to write and still feel I could make better -- completely sober and while meeting their eyes -- and basically I'm going to need to pee really badly. Even if I'm already dehydrated from sweating nervously for a couple of hours.

I know what a pitch is supposed to be. I know how long it should take. I've been told it should be something you could present if you found yourself with the agent/editor of your dreams in an elevator. Just hit the main points. Give the hook. Make it interesting. Know your characters. Know your conflicts. To that I say: 

Well, okay. Just how long is this elevator ride? Are we talking small suburban medical building, or Empire State? Am I allowed to hold down the "close door" button if I'm not finished, if I even work up the ability to say something introductory beyond, say, "Nice shoes"?  If only my story had something to do with footwear.

It does not. 

A few years ago I had an assignment to proofread the memoir of a supposed hero, about a horrific event he came through. The book was already out; I was just working on a new version, and I found several disturbing inconsistencies. I wondered if he was lying about many of the episodes he described. I mentioned seven different points to the publisher, who told me they'd fix them, which disturbed me even more. I wondered if the author would be told about my findings, if anything I'd said would make him upset enough to seek me out. He was certainly capable of being dangerous. 

Around that same time, we had a visit from a uniquely outgoing, comfortable-in-his-own-skin guest. He stayed with us far longer than we initially expected. The BHE and I are generally quiet people and this person threw us for a loop. Now we laugh about it but at the time we were at a loss how to handle the situation. 

These were the seeds for Frannie Buckets -- a quiet, slightly uptight freelance editor who simultaneously takes on what initially appears to be a straighforward project and an unexpected visit from her obnoxious half-uncle Walter, in town for a friend's funeral. The project is the memoir of an unsolved murder, and in no time Walter's decided they're going to solve it. He manipulates Frannie into helping him and his ragtag veteran buddies --driving her to distraction while he's at it -- and inadvertently their notes, which tie all the clues together, make it back to the killer. 

Not too bad on paper, right? Now if only I can get past "Nice shoes" or "uhhhhh..." 

Wishing good luck and successful pitches to all of my wonderul, braver writer friends!!

Good Things in All Kinds of Packages

At the beginning of the year, Child Two announced she was going to look for something good that happened to her every day. I thought of this conversation last night when I was watching the very last episode of "How I Met Your Mother", which had a funny bit about the character Marshall only saying positive things about work despite the fact that he had a horrible boss. When Child Two mentioned this in January, we talked about the kinds of things she meant.

She could point out things like "Got a great grade on a test", or "Friend brought me an extra cookie", or "My hair looked fantastic". I asked her what she would resort to on days when things didn't go so well, and we had a really funny time coming up with ideas, the penultimate of which was "I didn't catch malaria today." That would be reserved for extreme occasions, when something like "At least my underwear weren't inside out" wasn't good enough as a positive point.

Things have been more than the usual crazy in our house these days. The BHE is in the midst of shipping out hundreds of copies of a book he's produced that has buyers all over the world -- the printer has made every mistake possible along the way and he's still, after nearly four months, waiting for the third form of the finished book to arrive. My work schedule has been so busy that my own writing is done in odd little spurts that leave me bleary-eyed and leaving notes everywhere. There's a second puppy, and he's like a toddler on Red Bull. We got him to keep the first puppy company, thinking if she saw him getting along with my son, she might get along with my son, which she has not for oh... six months now. She is, instead, on what I think of as Doggie Pot, which isn't helping. So we have one sort of stoned dog and one dog who acts as if he's been sneaking shots of espresso from the Keurig (Note to self: Move the Keurig machine away from the puppy's crate...).

So I've decided this blog is to remind myself of all the good things that have happened so far this year, to maybe help to cope with the bits of chaos:

1. I discovered two new wines. A friend brought over Badger Mountain Reisling in January, which was crisp and clear and made me happy. Then we had dinner at the Red Fish Grill in New Orleans in February, where I had a wine with a kick-ass name: Kung Fu Girl Reisling. Also fresh and simple and awesome.

2. I got an assignment to read a book by an author I hadn't heard of before and it was AMAZING. The story was "Wolf" by Mo Hayder, and it was complex and scary and I couldn't tell how it was solved by chapter three. It's not out until May but when it is and if you like mystery, run. Run like heck to the bookstore and plan on not sleeping.

3. There was a trip to New Orleans, during which my daughter's culinary leanings turned into a personal tour of the kitchen with the executive chef at Emeril's. Then there was... well, New Orleans. We walked (a lot), we ate, we listened to street music, we bought hats, we went to ComicCon. My husband's neighbor at the show was Vera Baby, and you have no idea how much a man loves you until he is seated near Vera Baby and is not gaping at her and her very (ahem) interesting costumes. She and her assistant were really nice, too.

4. We had a ghost hunting weekend. Not so sure about finding ghosts, because we were ghost hunting with about 80 other people, but I was on a road trip with one of my best buddies and there were Twizzlers. Who wouldn't have a good time?

5. I reconnected with a LOT of old friends in March. I was reminded that the best friends of all are the ones you might not see all the time but that when you do, you pick up right where you left off because it's always been that natural, that close, that good. I've been friends with the Nancys (yes, that's how you plural Nancy; don't give me grief because I get paid to know stuff like that) for 37 years and I love them both more now than ever. And the Laura, of which there is only one, which is really all I need.

6. I was cleaning out the linen closet (to avoid dusting, actually) and found a whole bunch of old letters and cards from friends, old boyfriends, and family members, and they reminded me why it was good to be alive, good to laugh, and good to love. If you ever want perspective on your troubles, find letters from when you were 17 or 25 or even newly married, and realize that troubles come and go, and change, and sometimes you can laugh about them after, even if you might cry a little bit first.

So tell me: What do you count as something that makes a day good? What have you discovered -- new or old -- that makes you happy? Surely there's something you can think of, right?

Or if you can't, if you're really just having a bad day, just go with: "At least I didn't get Malaria."

***

OH! DAMN IT! I almost forgot! Best thing of all -- I have finaled, inexplicably, in the New England Romance Writers' First Kiss Contest. That quirky scene in the closet made it past the first round. So there you go. Another thing to be happy about.

When Would You Walk Away From The Hero?

Let's get this out of the way: I am not a Feminist. I believe in equal rights and self-esteem and basic mutual respect between the genders (and that means all of them). I believe in holding the door for the person after you, no matter whether they are male or female, young, old, hairy, bald, snooty or friendly. I think it doesn't hurt to be nice to other people on a regular basis, because maybe they'll pass it on to someone else. Maybe you'll change their day for the better with your little gesture. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, an aunt, a niece -- and I don't want to pass on any negative "-isms" if I can help it.

I also happen to think that people learn from what they are exposed to. I do not mean this as a generalization -- surely not everyone who watches horror movies decides to turn into Freddy Kreuger just as not everyone who reads a biography about Mother Theresa gives up their corporate position to go take care of the poor in third world countries -- but I think, in the absence of seeing different aspects of different subjects, impressionable people might feel certain behaviors are normal and what they should aspire to or expect from life. 

Recently I've encountered some "romance" stories with couples -- the hero and heroine, and sometimes even the supporting characters -- who made me cringe. I thought, "Would I want my niece to read this? My son? My daughter?"

The answer was a resounding NO.

This made me wonder -- have any of you ever encountered, or read, a character or even a real person you just had to walk away from? Someone you wanted to tell the heroine/hero to run like hell from? Someone you wouldn't want to introduce to your friends or family? Someone you wouldn't want to be with? And if someone you loved was exposed to this person, how would you deal with it? What are the boundaries that would have to be crossed in order to make you take action?

Real life example: I was dating someone a long time ago that seemed funny and warm. He had a decent job and a home and southern gentleman manners. One day I walked in on him, after being invited over, to find him beating his dog with a bat. I never found out what the dog did to enrage him, but it had no impact on him at all when I shouted for him to stop. On an upswing, I reached out for the bat and grabbed it, and he turned and growled at me to let it go or I would be next.
I do not know where it came from because at the time I was not the most confident person. Those of you who know me personally know I'm not exactly linebacker-sized. I'm more the opposite of linebacker-sized. Maybe it was that I was terrified and upset for the dog. I looked him right in the eye and bluffed. I growled back, "Oh, you really don't want to do that."
And apparently, he did not. Maybe he suddenly worried that I had some inner ninja he hadn't counted on. Maybe he thought with a growl like that I would be willing to act physically and kick his scrawny (okay, at the time I didn't think it was scrawny, but in retrospect...) ass. That was it for us. Everything that had come before was null and void and that sort of cruelty, that threat -- wow. I just got out.
I heard the dog went to his ex-wife. I will never, ever, forget the look on his face when I grabbed the bat. For a long time I wondered how I'd missed signs in how he'd treated me before that. For months I had nightmares about letting go of the bat, and what could have happened when I did.

The heroes that have recently put me off have controlling, demeaning tendencies that their authors have somehow packaged as romantic. Characters do have flaws and secrets, and sometimes those elements drive the story and make you feel for them. But when does behavior go over the line and make you want to sit down with your niece, for instance, and say, "Look. Don't ever let someone treat you like this. It is not romantic and it is not respectful and it is not an example of how people who love each other should treat each other."

Examples extracted from text:

"Shut up and just take off your [article of clothing] like a good girl."

"I am not giving you the key (this said to a newlywed about their home) until I can trust you to behave."

"Why are you so fat?"

"You're going to wear what I like and you're not going to give me any [expletive] about it. And I will know if you take it off and you will be punished."

Heroes insist on carrying their heroines everywhere, and not always because they've been injured. Or they have the heroine's friends spy on her and report back. They begin as attentive and overwhelmingly romantic, too good to be true. The story becomes so focused upon the couple that friends and family are slowly eliminated from the picture.

Does anyone know the classic beginning signs of emotional, physical, or sexual battering? Would you want someone talking to you, or your friend or family member, that way? What would you do?

So there are things I want to know:

Have you ever encountered a character that you could not stand? Are there characters in classics or bestsellers that you couldn't believe other readers thought were wonderful but that you wished had never been published?

Have you ever encountered someone like that in real life and what did you do about it? Have you encountered someone like that and not done anything?

I am truly curious about how people feel about certain kinds of actions within relationships, both real and fictional. I wonder how we help or teach those around us to understand that some forms of behavior -- negative, disparaging, physically or emotionally uncomfortable or hurtful -- are just not right.

Please let me know what you think. 

Making Lattes out of Language

Years ago, part of my training at a major coffee retailer was to understand coffee as a process -- how it went from bean to that seemingly essential liquid that many of us need to get through any given day.  From its early harvesting, as a bean from a plant, or (ew) as digested material from an animal that had eaten the beans from the plant, it went through several steps until it became the processed grind that is now the root of all lattes.

I wondered on a semi-regular basis who had come up with these steps and how: at what point did someone say, "hey, let's take this mountainside bean, dry it in the sun, sort it by size, color, weight, origin, then mash it up, then put it in not-quite-boiling water for a certain amount of time, then add cow juice and sugarcane, then ...." Coffee's been around a long time -- how did it go from something chewed on as a stimulant to being combined, in its liquid form, with caramel syrup and whipped cream?

The process evolved over years and years, from the first guy who experimentally gnawed on a bean and found it made him feel more energetic, through many stages and many people later -- all the way to the eventual group in a conference room discussing the addition of pumpkin spice or peppermint syrup for the holidays.

Sometimes I feel that way about words. Lately in my profession, I see a lot of words that are simply not in any dictionary I have access to. People are making stuff up, changing the way words are used, making language evolve.

Admittedly, sometimes I get an education. Lost in Brooklyn on Sunday, we drove through some pretty sketchy areas. We wondered about "tenement". For the record, it's a 14th-century word. It's Middle English from Middle French from Medieval Latin, the Latin term "tenere" being the root, and meaning "to hold". "Tenement" came to mean "property held from one person to another".  Last week I had to copy edit an historical romance, where one of the heroes complained of his "bastardy". Since "bastard" is still a fairly common term, you might easily derive the meaning: This is a 15th-century word, indicating the quality or state of being of illegitimate birth. 

But what about more recent additions to our language? Here are three I've encountered: 

Badassery -- this refers to when someone is tough, full of bravado and able to back it up with physical or psychological superiority. "His badassery was legendary: he could take on any guy in the bar with his right  hand and win without even spilling the beer in his left."

Defecacious -- this term basically means one is full of feces, or the state of being a bullshit artist. "Dude, you are such a liar -- that's totally defecacious!"

Ballin' -- Now I know that some people will say this term has been around for a long time. It has; but it is the evolution of its usage that causes me to list it here. Rather than its implied sexual indications, the term is presently used as an adjective to mean something that's interesting, relaxing, or just great to be a part of.  "It was a ballin' party, especially after they handed out the Jell-o shots."

In our house, we've recently made up one or two: There's "frenchtoastinated", which is the pleasant state of being after you've been served some delicious, hot, egg-battered toast, usually on a weekend, with or without syrup and butter or jam or cinnamon. This is similar to the joy of being "waffleinated", except it's better because you don't have to clean the waffle maker afterward. 

I also sometimes use the word "shdrool", for which I must credit my ex-boyfriend Steve, who wore Capezios (so you know how long ago that was) and liked to name lobsters and let them "play" together on the kitchen floor before tossing them into a pot of boiling water and then serving them whole. I still have an aversion to eating anything in a shell, previously named Spike or Lucy, that might make me feel guilty about it by seeming to be looking at me, but I kept this word. It means, in essence, "extraneous stuff". He used it most frequently to tell me, when we got into his battered Mustang, "There's plenty of room for your feet if you just push the shdrool to the side." 

Usually that "shdrool" involved discarded and smelly coffee cups. 

So, language evolves and changes and adds on. What words have you discovered lately? What words have you just plain made up?

Addendum: I have been reminded, off-post, of the word "scrudja". I've asked my reminderer (yes, I made that one up, too -- take that, etymologists!) to give me his definition. But what do you think? Prize to whoever comes closest in a comment, and to whoever comes up with the most unusual guess. 
 

Romance Writers, Look... Just... Please... Don't.

Okay, I'm going to start with the disclaimer that I've recently cut my hair short and all of these cowlicks I didn't have two weeks ago are now making me look like a rejected Muppet. So it's possible I'm just having a bad hair day and I'm cranky.
That being said, I wanted to mention some things that I've noticed a few Romance Writers doing that are driving me, and a few other editors from whom I gathered a consensus, up the metaphorical editorial wall. We've come up with a couple of topics:

1. Quit with the hair tucked behind the ear thing already. It's a tender gesture, and many heroines have unruly gorgeous hair (without f-ing cowlicks, I bet). But probably more than 30 of the 40 romance stories I've worked on this year have had a moment where the hero tucks that stray strand or lock of the heroine's hair behind her ear. To this I must say: There are other gestures you could use! How about that little brush of the backs of his fingers against hers, or the gentle nudge of a knuckle to her chin, or the way he tips his knee forward to tap hers? How about he leans in and just whispers by her cheek? I had a boyfriend who used to tuck my hair behind my ear (he also liked me to tilt my ankles a certain way and he later became a shoe salesman, but that's a different story...) and it drove me crazy. So maybe this one's just me, but then again, maybe not...

2. Location, Location, Location, or Sex on a Horse. Second disclaimer: I have honestly only read of people having sex on top of moving horses three times, and of people having sex on a camel once. Personally, however, I think that many times is really too many. If you ride horses, you know that there's a certain rhythm to the different gaits, and two people in the midst of lovemaking will have to really concentrate to match that, not to mention staying balanced and holding on to the horse, since it's a long way down. Having never tried to "go equestrian" myself, I could be wrong, but I do have a friend who damaged her lover just by being overly vigorous on a downward move, and they were on a completely non-moving bed. If nothing else, think of the poor embarrassed horse, having to face his horse friends' snickers the next day. How would you feel if two horses were entangling themselves on your back? 
The point is that if you are going to put lovers in unusual situations, please think about the logistics. I read a story where the desperate lovers were robbing a bank and got carried away back in the vault. I couldn't focus on the romance because I was worried they'd be locked in there by the quick-thinking bank manager and suffocate. One love scene placed the couple on a boat in the windy Puget Sound in early Spring -- I kept thinking "Not on the deck! Not on the deck! Go into the cabin, for heaven's sake, before you freeze off your important bits!" I read one fantasy where the lovers were riding off on a unicorn-like creature. Fine, I thought, maybe he floats. That could work. 
Let's not even discuss camels. 

3.  Just stop talking and do it. Communication is good. Especially between two people who are intimate with each other. Sometimes dialogue can make a love scene, or even just a quiet private moment, explicitly hot or passionate. Good stuff. But speaking during intimate encounters should not derail the tension and intensity a good love scene should have. If your characters are lovers in a romantic suspense, for instance, and they're in the midst of that driving force that takes their breath, neither of them should be thinking, or talking, about the terrorist or murderer they're trying to thwart: "pant, pant --'I really hope we catch Marko the Devilish tomorrow' -- moan, pant..." . If your heroine is a hometown girl working things out with that long lost sweetheart and everything depends on the success of the fund-raising picnic the next day, don't have her express her distracted thoughts, in the middle of their doing something spectacularly hot, of having enough sandwiches on hand in case his grandmother brings her knitting friends along. Even if Gran's sweet as pie and the reason they've been thrown together in the first place -- here's the Golden Rule: No Granny in the Bedroom. Ew. 

4. You said that already. I know this one's hard to avoid, especially since it's virtually impossible to write an entire novel at a single sitting, and also to remember every word you put into your story. But many writers have a tendency to re-state the back story, or elements of their characters' descriptions, again and again. Please remember to re-read your work, from beginning to end, after you've let it sit for a week or two, or have someone you trust read it, so they can tell you if you've written phrases like "He was doing it all for the men in uniform, who deserved the best he had" or paragraphs that start "She had always wanted to help the children of the town by ..." over and over, or even if you've just repeatedly described a character as having "piercing/intense/sparkling (choose your adjective) blue/green/hazel eyes." 

5.  You could have finished this thirty pages ago! She loves him but there's a Big Misunderstanding. He loves her but there's another Big Misunderstanding. She apologizes, and even though he loves her he can't forgive. Then he apologizes but even though she loves him she can't forgive. Both of them spend pages regretting how things turned out. They want each other like nothing else, but then they avoid each other like the plague. There are at least three black moments.
Look. People have conflicts. Resolutions make for stronger relationships. The bigger the comeback from the deeper the black moment, the happier the ending. But don't make your characters bounce too much-- don't make them so intractable or clueless that their actions become implausible, or worse, so repetitive they become frustrating to the reader. You never want a reader to think, "Jeez God, Jake's/Amanda's/Luke's/Chloe's so stupid! How many times can they go back and forth? Why don't they just talk about this?!" Try seeing the highs and lows of your story, keeping in mind whether the peaks and valleys in the relationship help the story progress or just put your hero and heroine through a tangled up obstacle course.

And finally:
6. Stop naming your heroes Luke and Jake. What. You think I'm kidding? You try reading 40 romance novels a year and you'll see what I mean.

Do you have any pet peeves that you've noticed when reading certain types of stories? Are there any plot points or too-often-used character traits that make you cringe or groan? 

Oh my expressive prowess, or, um, something like that....

One of the biggest problems I find I'm facing lately, as a person beyond a certain age and also as a person who seriously doesn't get enough sleep, is finding the right words to speak or write. This may seem like no big deal to some people. It happens. You say 'dishwasher' when you mean 'washing machine' or you call your kid by your dog's name. You find yourself staring into space in the middle of a conversation, completely at a loss as to how to finish a sentence, because you can't remember how you started it. 

Most of the time, for many people, this isn't really an issue. Both the dishwasher and the washing machine use water to clean stuff, and sometimes if you're lucky, the person or persons you live with will switch the words in their heads too, corresponding with your mistake, so you don't find you've put the Lenox wine goblets through a heavy duty spin cycle. And screwing up the kid's name with the dog's isn't so bad -- you can tell the kid you love the dog just like you love them and they (nine times out of, say, thirteen) get over it. The dog, honestly, doesn't care what you call her as long as you're still feeding her and letting her out on a regular basis.

This is an especially big problem for me, however, since words are my job. I have to know their proper use and forms, spelling, definitions, and sometimes even their origins -- and I have to be able to retrieve them from the multitudinous file cabinets in my brain with relative ease and speed, since time is money. (No, really. I generally get paid by the hour so there's no slow-poking when I'm on the clock, and yes, that's why I sound grumpy when you call me to chat during work hours. You know who you are.) The problem I seem to be facing lately is that some of the drawers on some of the file cabinets are getting a bit stuck.

So, hoping to remedy this situation, I have decided to do three things:

1) Ingest more fish oil. I understand fish oil is the WD-40 of the brain, and hope this might loosen some of those rusty spots. I promise to avoid breathing on anyone without carefully brushing and flossing first, however, since I hear fish oil has a few unattractive side effects. Look, do you want me smart or do you just want to kiss me all the time?

2) Sleep better. That may sound grammatically incorrect, but I meant it exactly the way I said it. The truth is I spend a lot of time on the couch -- it is the best horizontal cushioned surface in our house, and napping is freaking awesome. However, napping for two hours at night, working for two, then napping for two, then working for two, then slipping into bed hoping the BHE* won't notice I haven't been there until forty-five minutes before I have to get up to get my daughter ready for school is really not the best way to experience restorative REMs. Also I hear I look a little like the Wild Woman of Borneo and have frightened my neighbors when I come out in the morning for the newspaper after a couple of nights of that. I am going to go to bed at a reasonable hour and stay there and sleep -- um, just not tonight. I have to get this blog out first.

3) Rely more frequently on external reference sources, such as dictionaries, thesauruses (thesaurisi? See? I'm going to have to go look that up now), and various grammatical and structural style guides. In truth I've always done this, but now I'm just going to have to do it more often. I have already gradually increased this practice, and guess what? I'm actually learning new stuff and re-learning stuff I'd forgotten! And I love to learn stuff, so it's okay. I can swallow my editorial pride for the greater good, that being learning and continuing to do what I love -- defending the English language. Semi-colons especially.

I don't know if all of this will fend off the inevitable -- I hear as we age it becomes more and more difficult to retrieve details and vocabulary and short-term memory -- but I'm going to give it my best shot. I would hate to have to re-name the kid and only use paper cups.



*BHE= Best Husband Ever, copyright 2012 Various Milliner, Ltd., an extremely small publishing services firm based in the northeastern United States. All rights reserved.

Don't Judge a Book (or a Dog) by Its Cover

I have one of the best assistants in the world. Her name is Ginger.

Since I run an extremely small publishing services company, there really isn't need for a large staff. I can sharpen my own red pencils, and for the most part there isn't much need for an IT department or even a commercial shipping account. I have a relatively quiet office space and rarely have the need for anyone other than Ginger to step in and help.

Let me tell you about her:

She's dependable. She has never called in sick, and even on days when her arthritis or a stomach ailment might be bothering her, she shows up on time and ready to go.

She doesn't gossip or use the phone for personal purposes. We eat lunch together almost every single day, and I can honestly say I've never, ever heard her utter a bad word about anyone. You'll never catch her chatting it up with her mother-in-law when she should be doing something else, and I've never seen extra charges on the bill for horoscope lines or even to check movie listings.

She lets me know when packages arrive the very minute the FedEx or UPS delivery person is heading up our street. There's never a delay in my mail, no sirree.

I can depend upon her to listen to my troubles patiently. She never walks away in disgust and never tells me to get over myself. She unfailingly greets me with a smile and is rarely more than four feet away.

She works cheap. Breakfast at 6:30, a couple of cookies in the mid-afternoon, dinner at 5:30 sharp -- she is, after all, a senior citizen. Otherwise, I cover her healthcare benefits and she's fine if I throw her an occasional bone. She only takes a few bathroom breaks during the day, but honestly that works for both of us, since I should really get up from my desk more often.

 I just wish she had thumbs and could read.

Ginger is a Pit Bull. We adopted her when she was six months old, at a shelter where we'd gone even though I thought I wanted either a beagle or a chocolate labrador. We knew nothing much about pit bulls except for their reputation, but she was adorable so we took her anyway and educated ourselves.

It wasn't easy to keep Ginger. My daughter lost most of her playmates on the street because one of their mothers pronounced Ginger (who was sickly and under 30 pounds when we got her) a dangerous animal. Suddenly several people around us, some dog owners themselves,  claimed to have a fear of dogs. We had to put up a fence in the middle of our back yard to keep her from hurting herself running through the rose bushes on one side when the next-door neighbor's dog used to tease her. And while Ginger loves humans (there's only ever been one she didn't like -- and I got a real creepy feeling from him myself), she didn't like that neighbor's dog. There was a day when the police were called because both dogs got loose, and the neighbor's dog bit me in fear once I'd disengaged his ear from Ginger's mouth. Ginger came out of that badly too, with people beating her with sticks and shovel handles. And I won't try to absolve her here -- but when it's in the nature of a little dog, even a tenacious terrier, to go after something, the outcome is likely to be far different from when a dog of Ginger's breed, at 70 muscular pounds, does. The neighbors who owned the other dog, by the way, understood. They loved her too.

She is the smartest animal we have ever shared a home with, and that's saying a lot -- because of her breed we were required to take her to obedience classes. Ginger not only learned those commands; she understood "Go Home", "Wait", and "Walkies?", and pretty much anything else we'd say. (So when I say she doesn't gossip, that's a very good thing.) The few times she got out of the yard, I discovered that it was far more effective to yell "Carrot!" rather than her name, since she will pretty much look for them, even if she seems to be in a coma, in the next room, in the middle of the night, if you open the refrigerator door. You could be up at three a.m. and Ginger could be upstairs and (you think) out like a light, and when you open the fridge to put together lunch for the next day there's suddenly a large square head under your armpit trying to nose open the vegetable drawer.

Why am I telling you this?

I don't know, really. I still burn over that ignorant woman convincing other parents to completely exclude my then four-year-old child from playing with theirs because of a puppy. I get incensed over irresponsible and hateful people who abuse these dogs and condition them for their own sick purposes -- and just plain dumb people who let their own pets run free and untrained. My pit bull won't jump on you or the furniture, and she doesn't bark at you from the car window or strain off the leash to run after cars or joggers.

All I'm saying is, don't judge the book by its cover -- or the dog by its breed.

And to that former, ignorant neighbor woman? You're probably still in the same part-time job you've had for years. Ginger's moved up to executive assistant.

Completely Unofficial Yet Good Reasons Why Writing in the Autumn is Better Than Writing in the Summer

I have seven. If you have more, I'd love to hear from you.  Here they are: 

1. You can go back to covering your legs with yoga pants -- less of that "shaving in case I have to wear shorts" baloney wasting valuable minutes you could be using to write a car chase / edit a dream sequence / sort all of your index cards. 

2. You can wear sweaters again. Everyone knows that writers look smarter in sweaters. Cardigans especially. Unless we're wearing those corduroy jackets with the suede elbows -- those make everybody look smart. Although they haven't really made those jackets since the 1950s, and some of us just don't have the shoulders for them. Actually I have the best combination -- a 1940s wool cardigan with suede patches at the elbows. Itchy but oh so writer chic. Also, sweaters are warm when you're huddled over a keyboard because you'll be damned if you're turning on the heat until the end of October. Damned, I say. 

3. You can drink hot cocoa. This is a most efficient dietary staple. Not only does this liquid keep you hydrated, but the sugar and caffeine give you energy, so you gain fluids and energy at the same time! Also hot cocoa is yummy.

4. You can exercise off the hot cocoa calories and write (!) in front of Wii Fit with the help of your kid's music stand now that they're back in school. (This is not an actual commercial endorsement of Wii Fit; I just don't know how to work any of the other electronic devices we own.) Think of it as re-purposing something they're not there to use. You put your laptop or your manuscript on the stand (no, no, it's strong enough; just find a good angle and stabilize everything with duct tape like we do in our house) and try using Ski Jump. When you're in that jump position holding steady on your toes and hoping for the most air time, what better way to take your mind off the fact that your calves are killing you and you don't know how much longer you can hold this position without passing out, than by reading over those last edits you made on page 73? There'll be time between jumps to turn pages or make notations. The Wii will wait for you to get back on. Yes it will. 
NOTE: Do not try this with that Ninja Step exercise -- it will be hard to explain to the Geek Squad how your laptop fell off the music stand (again) when you lost your balance (again) doing step aerobics with angry-looking, fiercely disciplined cartoon characters.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Don't have kids? You know that annoying boy down the street who practiced the bassoon at 7 a.m. every day all summer when you thought you'd finally get to sleep in a little because there weren't other kids shrieking at the bus stop in front of your house at that godforsaken hour? He has a music stand. And his parents have got to rake the back lawn sometime this fall. And they never ever lock the front door. Just bring something to keep the dog quiet. What. It's theft with a higher purpose. Look, a healthy writer is a productive writer. You start doing major bestseller work and finally making those home improvements you've been trying to get to for years and their real estate value goes up, too. They'll forgive a little B&E.
AND ONE MORE NOTE: Do you know just how much bassoons cost? If they can afford to buy him a bassoon, they can spring for another stand. You may even get a day or two's bassoon-less peace out of it while they're out shopping for a replacement.

5. You can close the windows. This will be great, especially if that bassoon-playing little twerp gets his stand replaced right away. But it will also keep your neighbor -- the one who thinks "work at home" means you watch old Oprah episodes and eat bon bons all day -- from being unable to believe you just can't hear her when she's called you for the fourth time this morning from her patio behind your office to come "hang out". What did you say? What? Try it. Close the window. Turn your back. You might hear the mumble of a call, but do not turn around. Closed windows in autumn are perfectly justified. Now get back to writing that scene where your heroine rescues the orphanage children from her creepy ex-fiance who's turned out to be... wait a minute. It's your book. You take it from here. Your neighbor will go back inside. Eventually. 

6. You can more easily imagine wintry love scenes. You know the ones: a hunky yet sensitive and completely sexually skilled male and a vulnerable yet sassy female, trapped in a solitary cabin in the middle of a blizzard, with only candlelight, a blazing fire, a nice faux fur bearskin, and each other... 
I PROMISE THIS IS THE LAST NOTE: My advocacy of faux fur has nothing to do with animal rights. It's washable. Oh, come on. Tell me you've never read something called "erotica" and thought, "Jees, are these two ever going to take a shower or what?" Would you want your children or your kitten to play on that bearskin? Ever tried to wash real fur? It isn't pretty. And you can't imagine what it does to the lint bin in the dryer.

7. You can take long walks with your dog (in your sweater! and your yoga pants!) while you work out your next scene or dialog in your head, and 1) you won't need sunscreen; 2) it's exercise, in case the Wii (or XBox, or Playstation, whatever) sessions have gotten too embarrassing ever since your neighbor caught you at it because you forgot to close the blinds (oh. I didn't mention that you should do that, did I.); 3) you can rehearse your dialog out loud and people will just think you're training your dog; and 4) you probably won't die of heatstroke trying to get back up the hill to your house since it's not a hundred zillion degrees with three thousand percent humidity anymore. Probably. Depends, really, on the cocoa intake, and just how heavy that sweater is.