Is at Romancing the Blog. Come and talk mush with me.

In other news, check out this recent Publisher’s Marketplace announcement:

Doesn’t that sound fascinating? That Kerri Buckley sure has exquisite taste. I wonder how I can get my hands on an ARC. Congratulations to Bantam Dell, and to the writer for scoring such a talented (and cute) editor.

More Bantam Dell developments:

Yay, more Demon Hunter books! Way to go, Jaci and Deidre!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

No, I did not watch the Oscars last night. I didn’t watch because I’d actually only seen one film that was nominated for any Oscar at all (unless you count Pirates of the Caribbean 2, which was up for makeup of special effects or something) and that was Little Miss Sunshine. I am slowly becoming aware that, movie buff I am, Oscar-type movie buff I am not.

That being said, I am glad that Scorsese finally brought it home.

Speaking of film… so there this television show out there that everyone, but everyone, has told me that I must watch. It’s supposed to be brilliant and groundbreaking and political and so much deeper than one would expect of the channel that hosts its broadcasts (to which I say, whatever. TV networks aren’t the ones truly responsible for show quality. There are good shows and hack shows on every channel.). My friends are aghast that I don’t already watch it. Several of the more erudite magazines I read are similarly persuasive. The creators of two of my other favorite shows call it the best show on television. My brother thinks I’m nuts. The hype? Huge.

And it is the type of show I’d probably watch, if I had television. Historically, I love shows of this genre. I actually tried to watch it once, a few years ago, but the first episode was so unremittingly bleak that I didn’t know if I could do this particular show. And I watched Carnivale, so that pretty much means I’m up for anything.

But when it came out on DVD, we put it on our Netflix queue and now we are finally watching it (halfway through season one) and… I don’t get it. Does it not find its footing until later? Other fab shows, like Buffy, took a while to figure out where they were going, so I’m willing to give this supposedly brilliant show the benefit of the doubt, but… Rather than being blown away by excellent writing, unique plots, and intriguing and difficult philosophical and political questions, I am aghast that these characters stay alive from episode to episode, since pretty much all they do is act like idiots. I mean… idiots. For instance, say you are in a situation where you are alone with another person and discover that they are a spy. An evil evil evil spy. Do you:

A) Say, “Hey, you’re a spy!” and wait for them to kill you,
B) Say, “I would never think you are a spy,” and leave it at that, or
C) Say, “I would never think you are a spy, could you excuse me for a moment?” and then high tail it to your boss and go, “I’ve found a spy.”

I think that C would be the obvious answer, especially if you are supposedly the smartest person in the world, which this character is described as being. But the show posits not only that this smart person would not choose C, but that the only options are A and B. And though I’m totally willing to buy the usual stupid decisions that this character makes because of his or her pathological narcissism, nymphomania, and borderline psychosis, in this case, there was nothing to lose from option C.

In another episode, a couple committing a minor indiscretion accidentally allowed a major tragedy to occur, and instead of saying, “whoops, we are so sorry, we won’t let it happen again, please give us the appropriate punishment for our minor indiscretion, keeping in mind of course that we are two rare, highly trained technicians in our field and you need our expertise under these dire circumstances” which is, you know, logical and appropriate, they denied that the minor indiscretion took place, leading everyone to suspect that they’d actually purposely and maliciously caused the tragedy. You know, folks? It’s better to admit that you flouted some office-romance rules than to be branded a terrorist. Just saying.

In the end, the couple’s staff, loyal to a fault, actually chose to lie and say that one of them was the terrorist. Yeah. I almost stopped watching the show right there. And then, when one half of the couple’s boss says to him that he should think long and hard about how this other dude is now in major trouble because of him, and the guy agrees, does he tell the girl he’s doing it because they have more things to worry about, because they were responsible for the tragedy and they should learn from that, or any of the other very rational reasons that the relationship should end, not least because of all the rule breaking, or does he tell her that he doesn’t care very much about her? Well, if your this show’s character, you pick the latter.

And if you’re the girl in question, do you respond with, “You’re right. I’m sorry to lose you, but we’re all in a really, really dire situation here and we need to behave more responsibly?” Of course not. You fly off the handle and get all girly and pouty and refuse to even pause for a moment and think about the person in jail because you needed to get your freak on. (Though maybe I should give this girl a break, because I know that she’s not necessarily acting under a pure agenda, and besides, she appears to be incredibly, exhaustively oversexed, much like her, uh, sister. To the point that she has, in the space of a few episodes, gotten cozy with two main characters on the show, not to mention at least one dead/inanimate object.)

Yeah, that’s the other thing. The only woman on the show who is not portrayed as a total sexpot or sexless placeholder is supposed to be in a developing romantic relationship with a personality-free pretty boy that doesn’t act like he goes for the girls. I really wish they’d cast this other main guy as the pretty boy’s character, since he’s about ten times more heroic and has been since the very first scene I saw him in (even if he is sleeping with that weird chick above).

It’s getting to the point where I’m waiting for the bad guys to just come out and say that the real reason for their jihad is that the good guys are clearly TSTL. I mean, they have been making a similar point, but I’m looking for the catchphrase.

Now, all that being said, the last episode I saw was really good, mostly because we finally got screen time with the one bad guy whose major weapon isn’t the sexual weakness of the good guys. It had its weaknesses as well, but I did catch a glimmer of all supposed brilliance and philosophical mindbenders. Though perhaps I would have been more impressed by the theology if I never saw Joan of Arcadia. This isn’t the first show to talk about God, though it may be the first in its genre.

In conclusion, SB and I remain unsold, though we’re willing to keep going to the end of the season in hopes that it gets better. I’m really disappointed, whereas SB is only mildly so. He thinks that our expectations might have been set too high to start.

Ironically, there’s another cult fave show of this genre that once played on the same network. I loved it and found it groundbreaking and innovative and fabulous, while SB condemned it for not being as smart as he wanted it to be.

(I’ve tried to remove as many identifying details of this show as possible, because I don’t want to dissuade people who haven’t yet seen it. though let me tell you, it was hard, given the show’s premise. But if you have seen the show, you probably know what I’m talking about.)

I am giving away ONE book this week. Guess what it is.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I *know* there is something I have to do on February 24th, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. I feel like it’s a party or some other event. Does this ever happen to you? If one of the readers of this blog knows what it is, can they please contact me? It’s driving me crazy.

Regular readers of the blog know how annoyed I get by the whole “statistics” method of career planning. My go-to quote on the issue is care of Tor editor Theresa Nielsen Hayden:

Aspiring writers are forever asking what the odds are that they’ll [sell their books]. That’s the wrong question. If you’ve written a book that surprises, amuses, and delights the readers, and gives them a strong incentive to read all the pages in order, your chances are very good indeed. If not, your chances are poor.

A few days ago, agent Kristin Nelson (who is not blogging anonymously, despite what certain newspaper articles recently insinuated) posted about how many authors don’t sell their first manuscripts. More often than not, they don’t sell until somewhere around their fourth manuscript. (Or, you know, their 36th.) The point of the post is, as she said, “you shouldn’t give up or lose faith if novel number one doesn’t go anywhere.” But a bunch of folks in the comments thread took it to mean (and I quote): “So, in other words, it’s not even worth my time (or anyone’s time) to even bother shopping novels #1 through #3 around. Just write them and move on and forget ever trying to shop them.”

Um, no. What she said (and again, I quote) is: “you shouldn’t give up or lose faith if novel number one doesn’t go anywhere.” Yes. I’m repeating it, as many times as it takes for it to sink in. I can tell you that it was most definitely worth my time to not only write and revise, but to shop all four of the novels I wrote before selling my first contract, and not only for the obvious reason that they may have sold. Quickly:

MS #1: Formed a relationship with an editor who invited me to submit to her again.
MS #2: Further cemented relationship with that editor, gave me experience handling editor-requested revisions.
MS #3: More editor-requested revisions, in-depth work with an editor, taught me the value of marketability in pitching, helped me hone my query-writing skills, showed the agent I’d later sign with my writing chops, garnered request to submit to said agent again
MS #4: Formed relationships with several agents, some of whom eventually passed but invited me to submit again, taught me more about synopsis and pitch-writing.

And that’s not even including the rejection I received for a proposal where the editor kindly suggested that though the writing was great, maybe I wasn’t exactly a romance writer. Brilliant woman, she.

So it was worth my time, and I learned a lot from it, and I don’t think I would have known exactly what to do when I had written the proposal for Secret Society Girl if I hadn’t formed these contacts. Because I’d dealt with certain agents before, I felt comfortable writing them and saying, “Hi, remember when I pitched you that other project and you said if I ever had anything else, to contact you right away? Well, here it is.” It’s all worth it. It all teaches you something. And, when you publish, it makes no difference whether it was your first manuscript or your fiftieth. It’s still your debut.

So! No more useless stats. Your first book is no one else’s. Neither is your fourth. Neither is your agent, or your publisher, or your enormous film deal with Steven Spielberg. Write your books.

And if you don’t believe me, because you’re one of those lovely people who think all published authors are out there lying to you* (or you just don’t believe me because it’s hard to let this go, and as I say here, there’s a good chance you feel that way and I sure as heck did), my friend Erica just posted a fabulous pep talk on the subject as well. Everyone should go read her blog post right this very minute, because it’s brilliant and inspiring, and Erica (a Miss Snark Crapometer Winner) is not going to be unpublished for long.

Plus, she’s really cute.

Okay, let’s give away some books. I thought I was going to have special news today, but I don’t, so blah. Maybe next week? And, in the meantime, the winner of this week’s giveaway is…

HEATHER HARPER

Wow, Heather. You tend to get lucky on my blog. Or are you just playing the stats?

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Or, The Kangaroo that Loved Me…

Cute, huh? when I first sent this picture around to friends, they all exclaimed, “Wow, aren’t they dangerous? How did you get that close to one?”

Actually, the real trick is getting away from them. Yes, you hear all the stories about the boxing kangaroo and blah blah blah. I read that somewhere too. I also read that those kind are the big (huge, giant, monstrous) western desert kangaroos, which I only saw one, once, living alone in Carnarvon Gorge with a bunch of normal-sized eastern grey roos, and it’s like seeing an camel next to a herd of golden retrievers. As Justine said, roos are actually really gentle. Like marsupial deer.

But they still scare the crap outta me. Let me explain…

So Sailor Boy and I are hanging out in this park in Australia that was also the home of a severely spoiled kangaroo (pictured). Oh, so gentle, oh so cute, oh so manipulative when it looks up at you with those big brown eyes. I can imagine every picnicker in the park gave our buddy here a nip from their basket. Yogi had nothing on the roo. It was hounding us from the moment we stepped out of our car. It followed us around. We had to watch our billy can that evening, since it tried to steal our curried lentils and couscous.

Cute, right? Harmless, right?

Hardly.

Like victims in all horror flicks, we were oblivious to the signs until it was too late. Far too late to escape from

Late that evening, I was headed down the darkened path to the lavatory, all alone, my little headlamp and it’s weak, bluish LED light my only companion, trying not to think about the many, many poisonous creatures that, thanks to Bill Bryson and Steve Irwin (bless his soul), I knew called this large, arid continent home. I was also trying my best not to think about the rather significant chance of finding a deadly Cane Toad waiting for me in the toilet. The Cane toad is so deadly that if something makes the mistake of eating it and dies, then soemthing else makes the mistake of eating that corpse, it also dies, and so on and so forth and etc., until you get what is called a “death pile” and no, I’m not making that up.

I was not, given all of these naturally deadly creatures around me, thinking of the other thing that could kill me, which was, of course, your garden variety campfire story villain, either hook-handed or full functional, who likes to lie in wait in secluded park areas to leap upon and attack cute young blonde foreigners who make the mistake of walking down dark paths without their boyfriends’ protection.

And, just when it occurred to me to consider this possible threat, I heard an ominous thumping behind me. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like the beating of a tribal drum. Were there cannibals in Queensland forests? How about scary Hills Have Eyes-style mutant serial killers? Thump, Thump THUMP! The sound got louder and louder and louder… it was right behind me! I whirled.

The kangaroo. Again. Following me INTO THE BATHROOM.

And that wasn’t all. When SB and I returned from our evening ablutions, it was to find that we were barred from the entrance to our home. The kangaroo had set himself up as a sentinel outside our tent.

And nothing would get rid of him. he wasn’t scared by loud noises, or bright lights, or even quick motions in his general direction. Here he is scoffing at our attempts to squeeze past him. the standoff went on for hours — but then again, anything seems like hours when you’re being eaten alive by mosquitoes and wondering exactly how many deadly Cane Toads are making that croaking sound in the vicinity of your left ankle.

Finally, I feinted right, while SB dove for the tent. In the confusion, we both managed to make it inside, but it was quite a while before the desperate pawing at the flap subsided.

We thought it was safe, but the next morning, when SB emerged, the kangaroo lay in wait on the other side of the car.

We barely made it out alive.

Later in the trip, we had another scary run-in.

We were out in the outback, checking out some cool lava tubes, and wound up in a park that had recently experienced a huge forest fire. The sight was breathtaking, especially as the road we traveled had served as a fire break. On one side of the highway, you had your average bush gum tree scrub as far as the eye could see. On the other, nothing but flat blackness, broken occasionally by glimpses of red earth.

When we checked into the caravan park that evening, the clerk told us that the fire had displaced many herds of kangaroos and other critters. At the time, I remember nodding vaguely and wondering how much daylight we had left at this equatorial latitude in order to set up the tent and cook our lentils. Which we did without much fanfare, and headed off to bed.

At dawn the next morning, I remember awakening with an odd feeling in my stomach. Worried that the lentils hadn’t agreed with me, I opened the zip of the tent, and looked outside.

Do you know how to close a zipper in complete silence? I learned to do so that very day. Wordlessly, I woke SB. Wordlessly, I poined out through the opaque flap. Wordlessly, he signaled to me that he hadn’t the slightest clue what I was saying.

What I was saying was, obviously, “In the night, we’ve both been transported into the closing scene of the little-known sequel to the Hitchcock thriller, The Birds. The sequel is called, The Roos.” I proceeded to mouth same.

There were about a hundred kangaroos standing around outside the tent. Given my hereditary inclination for exaggeration, SB merely laughed and undid the zip. The roos stirred. that taught him to believe me. SB proceeded to Rod Taylor it out of the tent and over to our friend’s cabin. I proceeded to stay frickin’ put. eventually, the equatorial sun rose over the desert, and the resulting heat drove them into the shade.

But I would never let down my guard.

And finally, because I’ve never quite found a reasonable excuse to show this to anyone before, but because I’ve now brilliantly managed to combine Australia AND Alfred in one post, I shall now share one of my favorite pictures from our Oceania Adventure, taken at the Brisbane museum, entitled, “Diana as Tippi Hedren”:

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This is not a craft post. It’s a lovely story of a girl and her pen.

In the comments section of yesterday’s post:
Do you have a dedicated non-internet computer? or even better a dedicated writing room?

Uh, no and no. I have one computer, named Pantalaimon. I bought it after my last iBook, Lancelot, went on its final quest. I also bought a nifty backup drive. You can read the whole saga here and here. Sometimes we think about buying a new computer, but I think if we did, it would quickly turn into a World of Warcraft machine.

My dedicated non-internet computer is known in the vernacular as a spiral-bound notebook. I keep it in my purse. It’s handy for jotting down directions and grocery lists as well as books. If you don’t have a purse, I’ve heard a briefcase works just as well.

I used to have an Alphasmart, but it got hit by a car in an underground parking garage in a shady section of Sydney, and it’s never been the same since. It had been a rather scrappy little thing, having survived several months in the Australian outback before being temporarily undone by a splash of chocolate milk and some giant carpenter ants (long story). We got it fixed by taking three buses out of Auckland to a random suburb where the only Alphasmart repairman in the south Pacific took one look at our sunburned faces, windswept hair, and giant backpacks, and realized that we must need this keyboard desperately. He switched out the keyboards, and after that, it worked fine until I was run down — on purpose, mind you — by mid-80s-era ford Falcon station wagon in that parking garage. Alpha took the bullet for me.

As for a dedicated writing room, Sailor Boy is cracking up right now. You see, when we were shopping for apartments, I was all about getting someplace with a study, or at least a walk in closet that I could use for a study. So we did and I put my desk in there and that’s the last I’ve seen of it. Because you know what else closets are really great for? Storing stuff. I work on the couch. Or at the dining room table. Or in my bedroom. Or at the coffee shop down the street. Or sometimes on the metro. Or in the tea shop near my old office. Once I tried working at the Border’s Cafe but I ended up spending 50 bucks on books, so now I avoid that.

My point is that a side effect of living in a tent the size of a coffee table for six months with someone bigger than you is that you lose all privacy requirements when it comes to working. I wrote in the tent and wasn’t distracted when it was attacked by kangaroos. I wrote in internet cafes blaring techno music while high school gamer boys yelled back and forth from their machines. I learned how to make space in my head when there was none around me.

The one downside to not having an office is that I don’t really have a dedicated place for paperwork. All the stuff on my computer is organized into folders. I bought a real filing cabinet for the paperwork, but it’s still sitting in pieces in the closet-that-should-be-my-office.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

From the comments section of the last post:

“The problem with the whole CP thing is if you write very sporadically, you don’t want to try someone’s patience. I’m having that problem right now – my kind-of CP is all on edge for my next chapter, which may not be done for quite a while.”

and

“I so need to take the plunge and find a critique partner but I’m procrastinating because I’m still not writing what I feel is a consistent enough basis (I know lame excuse) between working the full-time job, husband, and a toddler to boot I barely have time to get a few pages in on weekends. But then again a few pages a week may be all some crtique partners can handle and I suppose having a critique partner might somehow make me more accountable, I guess I better go get one huh!”

Maybe you two should work together?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with having an irregular output. Take my example. I gave Marley UTR to read in pieces over last summer, and then I gave her some more work in early December, and then in January I gave her the proposal for SSG3. For C.L. Wilson, I read her entire 1,000 page fantasy epic in January of 2006, and now I’m reading the first half again (it will be published in two volumes).

But then again, we are all using the critique relationship as nothing more than a critique relationship. Not to “be accountable” or to urge us to turn out pages. (We’ve got the deadlines for that.) We do talk about how we love the books and want to read more, but that’s reader love talking. Or maybe I’m just being a commercial old hag?

I can see how that might be a valuable motivation at a certain point in your development as a writer — if you have a critique partner waiting to see your stuff, you may be more inclined to write it — but I have never thought of it like that. (I didn’t put it on my list of reasons to have a CP.) Can anyone jump in here and talk about using CPs as a motivational technique?

I’m my own best motivational technique. Well, that and my landlord, who has this total obsession with rent. I don’t think a CP saying, “I gotta read more,” has quite the same oomph as a utility saying, “we’re turning off your heat.” But, for those of us who don’t make a living from writing, you need something else to push you. Again, I think that push has to come from you, but it’s certainly something you can arrange to work well within the CP relationship. One of my RWA chapters has a yearly bookchallenge in which we report our weekly goals with the idea of finishing a book by our Christmas party. You can make up those kind of challenges with your CPs. Promise them a particular number of pages per week. Sure. But I don’t know if that’s the point of a CP.

Gee, maybe I have grown cynical! Someone jump in here and tell me it’s okay. Julie? Now I think I’m being a bad CP, and I should be spending more time begging them to send me more.

Moving on. So, do you need a critique partner when you are writing very sporadically? Sure. Your work needs critiquing every bit as much when you turn out one book every two years as when you turn out six books a year. I think, all things being equal, I’d rather a CP who sent me too little work than too much!

Of course, if you send them chapter one in January and chapter two in July, they probably won’t remember from before. Keep that in mind.

Okay, signing off now to think about how my soul has shriveled up into a crumpled, ashen ball of cynicism and commercialism.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

After last week’s post, one of my critique partners who has never been within a country mile of RWA would like me to correct my earlier statement about finding critique partners through RWA and writing boards. So here I go. Another way to find a critique partner is as follows:

Have a blog. Have a popular blog for about two years. Read books. Talk about books you’ve read on your blog. Intimate your warm fuzzy feelings for the work of a particular author. Get an email from that author’s spouse, who has found your blog through Googling. (That may be the most difficult part of the equation.) Discover that said spouse is actually a talented writer as well, and a debut novelist to boot. (Actually, no, that part is. Very rare, they are.) Read her books. Be amazed. Exchange myriad emails with her about the writing life, the craft, her home continent, etc. etc. Talk about being debut novelists with series. Talk about being debut novelists in general. Talk about the industry and books we’ve read. Do this for about a year. Meet up for lunch the next time you happen to be in the same city. Get to talking about your new projects. Offer to read each other’s work. Do so.

In other words, by chance.

There are any number of ways to meet critique partners. I didn’t mean to intimate in my last post that there’s only one. And you know what, I’m surprised that the CP in question even noticed, what with her whole obsession with zombies and unicorns right now, anyway.

This week’s giveaway:

Please note that both The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl, by Barry Lyga, and Dipped in Chocolate, by Renee Luke, are signed for your reading pleasure. (Though I do have a signed Valiant, it’s mine mine mine mine mine, and I don’t actually know Stephen King, but if he or his wife wish to contact me through this blog, feel free.)

I met Barry last year at BEA, where he told me a delightful story about a friend of his who actually was among the first female members of her society. His gorgeous, signed hardcover first edition is being featured on this blog courtesy of Patrick. Would I like to keep it for myself? You betcha. Will I? No, because I care about y’all too much for that.

Leave your name in the comments section to win.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Now that I’ve made the case for having a critique partner (CP), you’re probably wondering how to go about finding one. The bad news is that finding the perfect CP is pretty much like finding the perfect mate. The good news is that, unlike spouses, lovers, or hairdressers, it’s totally cool to have more than one. I have several CPs. Some read every thing I write some only read when I’m writing in particular genres, some are new, some are old… there’s a lot of variety.

As with dating, finding a good CP means kissing a lot of toads. It’s rare to be a perfect match with the first person you meet. (Funny story, though: my first RWA chapter meeting was also the first meeting of one of my CPs. Since we were both looking for partners, we got set up. We exchanged work — the first chapter of category romance novels, and remained unenthused. I thought her hero was a stalker; she thought my heroine was a slut. That was it for us for several months, until we got together for dinner and started talking about our other projects. When we exchanged those chapters, we clicked instantly and a long-term relationship was born. That book of hers that made me fall in love with her writing is about to be published, by the way.)

So, where do you find CPs? Writers’ groups.

I’ve found MOST of my critique partners through RWA or through the boards at eHarlequin, where I used to be a regular. This means you need to join a writer’s group. Now, when I started writing, joining a writer’s group meant shelling out a bit of dough. If you’re broke, you’re SOL. Luckily, in this age of internet message boards and blogs, you can join a virtual writer’s group for free.

There are lots of writer’s boards like this. Romance Divas, Absolute Writer, the NaNoWriMo boards, the Verla Kay boards… and those are just places I’ve been. There are also a ton of special interest writing Yahoo loops populated with writers looking for first readers.

Most of these boards have threads set up specifically for those in search of critique partners. I’m not a big fan of these. When I first started out, I tried those threads and exchanged chapters with a couple of folks, but I really wasn’t feeling it. For me, it’s the CP equivalent of searching the personals ads. “SWM, late twenties, law student,” doesn’t give me enough information to know if the guy is Sailor Boy or some of the people in SB’s class who I totally wouldn’t date. I don’t know anything about them except that they need a date.

Here’s what I do suggest: these boards and groups foster a community, much like this blog. Once you start engaging in conversations with people, you will see who thinks like you about the craft, who may be at your level* of craft development, who you may click with. Once you have had a few exchanges with them and they seem like someone you want to hang out with, ask them if they want to swap a few chapters of their work with you. (Always start with a chapter or two. It’s the CP equivalent of a coffee date.)

Then, read their work. Give it an honest, fair, constructive critique. Even if you hate it. Even if it sux. (And yes, sometimes it will suck. Just as you have to kiss a few frogs, you’ll have to read a few excruciating chapters. Look on the bright side: now you know what slush piles look like!) By the end of the exchange, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether or not this relationship will work for you.

What are the signs?

1. Decent craft level on their part. If the work is a mess, practically illiterate, to the point that you don’t feel you can offer much in the way of constructive criticism (the “where do I start” phenomenon), then this probably isn’t the right CP for you. You have a limited amount of time to devote to critiquing. You can’t give all of it to someone who hasn’t mastered the basics yet. This isn’t a bad thing. It just means they haven’t reached the point where they need a CP. They should probably look for a writing instructor (classes at local colleges, etc.). We’ll talk about this more during the WGAGB section of this series.

I had a few false starts with CPs when I was still looking on the “CP Personals” boards. By this time, I’d already finished a book, joined RWA, entered a few contests and gotten feedback from published writers, and was working full time as a journalist. I was working hard on my craft. But I kept going on coffee dates with people who’d cranked out a first chapter, unpolished, as a lark. After tying myself up in knots a few times trying to figure out how to give them a thoughtful critique, I realized that it was never going to work out. So I stopped posting on those boards, and started doing more targeted, intelligent searches for possible critique partners.

2. They send you work you like to read: You’re going to be reading a lot of it, so good or not, if it’s not your cuppa tea, you won’t have any fun doing it. This is similar to that personal taste factor that plays into decisions of editors and agents. “I just didn’t love it.” Now, I have worked on certain projects of my critique partners that I haven’t loved, but in general, I love their work. This is why it helps if you pick someone who either writes in the same genre as you, or writes in a genre you like to read. We’ll talk about this more in the WGAGB section of this series.

I had one CP that I liked heaps, and she was a good writer, too, but I wasn’t really feeling her genre, so I wasn’t much help to her. I hadn’t read in the genre, so I had no idea what was a cliche, and I wasn’t loving it. We’re still buddies, though, and she’s a totally awesome CP. This is the CP equivalent of the guy that’s not right for you, but you set him up with your friend and now they’re happily married with a house and a dog and the friend is expecting twins in the fall.

3. You get back a critique that helps you. This, of course, is the most valuable asset. The other two are about their stuff; this one is about yours. If they aren’t giving you anything that can improve your work, there is no point in working with them anymore. You’re wasting their time. This can go in two directions: either the crits regularly come back with, “This is marvelous, don’t change a word!” or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, with harmful or unhelpful advice. This second one is a bit harder to define, but can include things like: over-reliance on “rules” rather than specific advice about what is or what is not working in the story (Ex: “You can’t do BLANK in this genre,” rather than “BLANK isn’t working for me, perhaps it’s not motivated well enough?”), preponderance of bad writing advice (Ex: “‘was’ is passive”), overwriting of voice, or any other signal that the CP just doesn’t “Get it.” You want them to love and get your work, too.

This is probably the hardest issue to quantify. It’s partly a matter of ego. Who doesn’t want to be told that everything we write is stupendous and shouldn’t be messed with. Clearly, our CP is just a fine arbiter of taste, right? And on the other end of the spectrum, it’s easy to write off any CP giving us the tough love as someone who just doesn’t “get” our work. But you have to be honest with yourself. I’m lucky enough to have CPs who are brilliant and talented and yes, there are times when I’ve said, “don’t change a word, this is perfect.” But that’s rare. Because I’m a tough bitch.

And I’ve also had the CP that threw “rules” in my face. I dropped that chick like a hot penny. Maybe it’s true that I can’t do BLANK in whatever genre I’m writing, but saying that isn’t going to make me better. Remember that CP who called my heroine a slut? Guess what? The next book I gave her, the one she adored, had a much sluttier heroine. The book opens with her returning, hungover, from a one night stand with a man whose name she can’t remember. But did the CP call me on that one? No, because there, the heroine’s actions were well-motivated. The CP never said, “you can’t have a slut in a category romance.” She said, “your character’s behavior doesn’t make sense and it’s not working for me.” The chick in the next book’s much more shocking behavior worked just fine.

4. There is balance in your expectations. Whether this means the type of critiques you exchange, the turnaround time, or the amount of work you have to do, make sure that you know what the other person’s expectations are and you agree. Note: this does not mean keep a page count tally. Marley is a much faster writer than I am, and C.L. writes 1,000 page fantasy epics to my 80k chick lits. But we’re each invested in our CP’s work and we don’t ask more of them than they can handle.

Long ago, I had a CP who was very talented and had a ton of new ideas. She also had a lot of time to write, and wrote very fast. She’d sometimes send me three chapters a day. And she was always starting new projects and then abandoning them. I’d get three chapters of Book A, and then the next day, three chapters of Book B, and then Book C, and then Book A again from a different starting point in a different POV, and, wow, she just got a thrilling idea for Book D while she was out grocery shopping and just had to dash 20 pages off and could I read it? All in the space of a week. Eventually, I had to lay down some ground rules, or I’d never get my own work done. In addition, I grew to resent the idea that I’d spend time and effort critiquing a work that she’d then abandon for the next shiny new project. (I also suspected that maybe as soon as she received any criticism about the project, rather than putting the time in working on it, she’d just move on. This suspicion was borne out when she got revision letters from editors and never reworked the manuscript to resubmit.) It wasn’t fair to me, and eventually, the relationship ended.

Wash, rinse, and repeat, until you find the perfect CP. The one whose work you love to help make better, who is brilliant at making your work better, and who is a perfect candidate for a long-term professional relationship.

I’ve had a lot of CPs over the years. Some have remained friends, even if we didn’t work out as CPs. Expect to dump a few and get dumped yourself a couple of times.

Here’s a story of how I met one of my new CPs: Last spring, I was on one of these groups practicing hooks, and I met a writer who seemed really fun and talented. She’d just gotten a request from an agent for her latest WIP, and was looking for someone to read the partial before she sent it off. I volunteered, read the partial (which was very good), and gave suggestions. We met a few weeks later at RWA Nationals, and she was just as lovely and fun in person. In fact, she ended up joining my RWA chapter after we “adopted” her at the conference. When NaNo rolled around, we emailed each other regularly about our new projects, and decided to exchange chapters in December. We’re each about a hundred or so pages (I think she’s beating me, actually) into our new books. Her new book? Wooooooowwwww, good.

And now, I’d better get back to working on my CP’s new manuscripts (they’re probably all like, get off the blog and WOOOOOOORK!) before they get frustrated with my long turn-around times and *I* get dumped. We’ll talk more about working with your CP next week.

But first, this week’s winner of the Book Pimp Giveaway:

STEPHANIE JANULIS

Please email me with your choice of book from the Giveaway, and your address. And may your new crit group with Jessica be going swimmingly.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

…by my agent, Deidre Knight, to share five little-known facts about myself. But I’m an open book! What facts have I failed to share? Okay:

UPDATED TO ADD: Robin has shamed me with her confessions. Way to up the game, Brande! What kind of confessional-series writer am I, anyway? Time to get personal.

1. My favorite flowers are tulips. Yesterday, someone told me that tulips have no scent, but I disagree. In fact, one of the reasons I decided that tulips were my favorite flowers is because I remember a bouquet of tulips I got many years ago that smelled just like a loaf of fresh-baked bread. My editor gave me a bunch of tulips this week, and you can only detect a faint aroma if you stick your nose right into the bloom, so I suppose the scene is dependent on the type of tulip you’re looking at. I wasn’t kissed until I was 16. It only happened once. Then I hit a long dry spell. Like…. long. After that I learned not to wait around for the kisses.

2. I’m a huge slob. Actually, that fact isn’t little known at all to anyone who knows me in person. The only time in my life when I avoided being a huge slob is when I was living out of whatever could fit in my backpack in Australia. Yeah, this one is embarrassing enough.

3. I studied Latin for seven years. I even had a Latin class with the Man-Who-Would-Be-Sailor-Boy, but we didn’t know each other then. My Latin now? Sucks. Sailor Boy’s version of the story was that when he met me again, he totally remembered me as the girl he used to avoid in Latin class. I didn’t remember him because I was barely conscious in that Latin class. Hence the avoidance.

4. For most of my life, my favorite color was blue, but in the past decade, it’s changed to red. I’m not sure why. I just find myself drawn to that color more often. I wonder if it’s a sign of a shift in my personality. On my sixteenth birthday, I took a nosedive with a glass of OJ in my hand and sliced my face open. Down to the bone. 28 stitches later, I have about a four inch scar on my cheek and jaw (Dontcha just love photoshop?). I’m still a klutz. I’ve also broken most of my toes and once, my tailbone.

5. The scene in Secret Society Girl where Amy was in a bathroom stall and overheard a total stranger talking about how unworthy she was of her ex actually happened to me in college, though not in the same way. Unlike Amy, I found the whole situation too funny for words.

So, it was just after having broken up with my first serious boyfriend. It was an awful awful breakup, which he’d punctuated by coming to a performance of a play I’d been in, and making out with a girl in the front row while I was on stage. (He was probably lucky I didn’t vomit all over them both). Later in that performance, I was in the stall, and the girl and one of her other friends were redoing their makeup in front of the sinks (I guess he’d kissed it all off), and she said, “I don’t even know what he sees in her. She’s a senior, and it’s not like she’s the president or the editor of anything.”

*That’s* when I started laughing. Yes, I was old, and clearly lacking in status.

I tag… Susan Adrian, Amanda Brice, and Robin Brande.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So I’ve been pretty good at keeping out of the newest tired, dead-horse version of “fun books, especially those by women, mark the end of Western civilization” kerfuffle. What is there to say on the detractors’ end that hasn’t been said over and over since Daniel Defoe was slamming Aphra Behn? Has civilization been steadily crumbling since then? Has the state of the novel? (Hope not,s icne it was just invented around that time!)

It’s a stalemate, folks. You know that scene in Twelve Angry Men where the racist just starts ranting away and instead of attempting to argue logically with him anymore, all the other jurors realize he’s a brick wall of idiocy and just walk away? That’s how I feel. There’s no point in trying to respond logically to people who honestly believe that the text of Hamlet is somehow tainted by being on the same shelf as the text of Shopaholic, or that there is an automatic devaluation of any book encased in a cover reflecting an unsaturated orange hue of 620 nm (i.e., “pink”).

But then I read Bookseller’s Chick’s well-reasoned defense, and I just want to say: right on, my friend! Telling an adult reader that she is incapable of making good decisions about her reading choices is tantamount to saying that if candy is available on the shelves at my local Giant, I won’t buy Brussels sprouts. Hey, guess what? I’m a grown up. I know the difference between vegetables and chocolate. I don’t need them to be on separate aisles or color coded for me to be able to tell, either. I also happen to love vegetables and I find it laughable that you assume, because you see me with a Snickers bar, that I don’t eat vegetables too. I happen to love vegetables, especially Brussels sprouts.

I was a Literature major at Yale. I can shoot my mouth off about the Western Canon enough to satisfy even the snobbiest of lit snobs. At one point, my friends and I estimated that we read between four and ten thousand pages of literature for every class. (The Russian Novel class was a particular bear, though Women and the Rise of the Novel was no slouch in terms of doorstoppers.) That means that over the course of my college career, I probably read about 200,000 pages worth of literary classics. Two. Hundred. Thousand. And that’s not including the books I read in high school, in childhood, and the classics I’ve read for fun. (Yes, I read all kinds of books for fun.)

Thanks for your concern, but I think I’m good, really.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites