And Now A Word For My Friends....

First time I witnessed the power of Louise Ure's words was during a read aloud of a writing class exercise more than a decade ago. She had produced a paragraph about not being able to grow flowers and something about loving Australia and missing her friends there. Whatever she said, however she said it, she had the rest of the class in thrall and made all other exercises banal. Forgettable. I have no idea what mine was about, yet all these years after the fact I still recall the essence of hers. It was that powerful.

In the time that has passed, Louise has published three mysteries: "Forcing Amaryllis" was her lyrical and wonderful debut. "The Fault Tree" features a blind protagonist who at some point flies a plane (a bit of the novel that Louise researched with a phone call to none other than the legendary Ray Charles - a blind licensed pilot himself. How cool is that!) "The Fault Tree," by the way, won the Shamus Award. "Liars Anonymous," which came out in 2009, was, unfortunately, her last. They are all available online.

All three mysteries, good to read just because of the riveting plots, showcase Louise's own sense of prose. The pages drip with Tucson heat. I highly recommend them. And my fingers are crossed that Louise's time away from writing is nothing but a well deserved break.

Three must reads

Buy this book

Guy Bommarito was Executive Creative Director at the company that facilitated my sabbatical last year. In fact, both of our sabbaticals were facilitated at the same time. He put his time to use wisely and the result is "Creative Bones" - a must read for anybody with or without a creative bone in their bodies.

A liberal arts student as well as an agency creative will learn from reading Guy's book. Lots of good sense approach to the creative process. But this would mean limiting the book's reach. A biologist, train conductor, big shot executive, receptionist, physician, barista, wine maker, accountant, home maker, web developer and every CEO will benefit from applying Guy's easy principles to work. Or to life.

Or else just read it for the pleasure of hearing Guy think and the easy way words flow from his pen. Or his mac.

Oh, and "Creative Bones" is available on Amazon.com.



Lastly, here is a bit of advance notice, a 'coming soon to that Amazon.com always near you.' Another friend, Buddy Mapel, has a book coming out this month: "The Quail Runner." A Southwestern mystery that will give Tony Hillerman a run for his money. I will announce and share my thoughts as soon as it's out. I know it will be good.

If you've been reading my posts, you know I keep score. Thus far, all my comparisons end, in the parlance of the current world cup, with all the people I admire, and now a number of my friends, scoring a goal or more, me nil.

Oh well. Still working to find a way to even this out. Any time now...

The Business of Writing

In the time that has passed since my last blog (too much, probably,) I have continued to submit to agents (almost thirty have received a query plus miscellaneous addenda, as required) and added to my rejection list, making my current total six. The great ratio is only due to my sending most queries just last week. In a month or so, the delta will shrink. I will, of course, continue querying. And will continue to obsess about first impressions (is the letter catchy enough? and how about my first line, paragraph, page, chapter?)

To perfect and improve on the art of catching an agent's eye, a myriad of options are available to the novice writer. Once you are past the 'how to stop procrastinating' and 'creative writing for dummies' workshops and seminars, and your novel is finished and you want to get the baby to market, then this other anxiety begins. At first, I felt this anxiety might affect only the bad beginner. The author manqué, with neither a good story or a good storytelling style. A person like me who needs all the help she can get to stop herself from digressing on the weather in the opening paragraph. No matter how dark and stormy the night really was...

An agent, we are told, may become more favorably inclined to agent us should we come accoutered with a platform. Platform is another word for a following, your own customer base. If you don't have a platform, help comes in the way of "Blog your way to a book deal" (is that what I'm doing?) or "Promote yourself through social media." All of which belies the prior paragraph--query letter could suck and your first line disappoint, but if you can prove that you have thousands of potential buyers, someone will be representing you tout de suite. So now I have a Twitter account (haven't tweeted yet,) post pictures on Instagram and regale my twelve Facebook friends with occasional likes on their posts. I must do better.

In addition, since it is assumed that a great majority of us will not find representation, much less a publisher, the siren song of self publishing keeps pushing us to a land with little time to write, given how much original self-promotion we must generate if we want to obtain any public presence without the backing of a major house, and in the absence of a book review in any of the literary magazines people actually read. Or, for the sake of clarity here, that I have actually heard of.

Add to that all the self-help contributions in the areas of "One hundred ways to make money out of your writing" and the image of the writing life that plays in front of my eyes is one of toil and tribulation. Of hard long hours stretching a marketing muscle I was born without, and complementing my income by practicing an art I have no talent for: teaching, or contributing ditties to ads and technical jargon to the back of smart phone boxes, never forgetting to tweet my latest deep thought. While all the while the 1% in our demographic, the writers agented and published in New York, can claim offhandedly not to have a social presence, to actually dislike a social presence with emeritus disdain.

A few extraordinary authors have mastered the self-publishing, self-promotion world and are making good money. I salute them. I will probably join them. But I will not have the discipline to continually promote sales and keep writing. With me, it will have to be one or the other. Lacking a miraculous development to transform me into mega-selling, blockbuster movie deal authorship, I've come to terms, happily, with the idea of keeping my day job, which I love and provides a good life. And hope for publication and some income from books to expand the good life with the occasional luxury. And to continue to take care of this writing itch I've been scratching for decades.

An itch and scratch I'm happy to share with the four of you who read my blog.