The Truth about Cats and Dogs

Have you ever loved a book because it had a furry friend with whom you identified, felt comforted by, or related to your own pet? I have.

Using animals and pets in your fiction is a simple device to reach more readers. People love animals.

Did you know:

• Most pet owners (94%) say their pet makes them smile more than once a day.
• 70% of people sign their pet's name on greeting cards and 58% include their pets in family and holiday portraits.
• Over two-thirds of Americans would rather be stranded on a desert island with their pet than with their partner

Consider these successful books and how the pets in them helped boost their success:

In the book Fall on Your Knees (an Oprah book club selection) by Ann-Marie Macdonald, there is a cat that the protagonist is particularly bonded to. In fact, the cat actually saves her life at one point. As the MC is lying unconscious from a wound, the cat curls itself around her head and kneads her scalp. Ouch! But this is what keeps her from slipping away. I loved that. I believe my Siamese cat would try to save my life if ever the need arose.

I, you see, am a cat lover. So, I like it when there are companion cats in a book. Though I am not much of a cozy mystery reader, you may be aware of "The Cat Who..." series by Lilian Jackson Braun, who sadly passed away this year. In her books, the cats (Koko and Yum-Yum, I believe)actually help solve the mysteries. Then there is Rita Mae Brown, who features animals as characters in her stories as well. Both of these writer's books are enormously popular.

But, it doesn't have to go that far and, of course, it doesn't have to be a cat. Sometimes, an animal can give the protagonist some distraction from herself. If a book is written in first person, and the narrator is spending a lot of time alone, say, figuring out a mystery in an old house, it is important to have some dialogue, even when no one else is around.  This type of example was well received in Katherine Howe's Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. The dog sidekick Arlo was well loved by many readers.

A pet can be a dedicated ear and can even respond in cute ways that add a little something extra to the book. Though not all animal sidekicks need to be main characters, I think Rita Mae Brown says it well: "I can never understand how authors can write books without having animals become important characters. We share the earth with other sentient creatures and they often do a better job of living full lives than we do. One woman’s opinion but I like the chatter of all living creatures."

Do you have any favorite fictional furry friends? Or... do dogs that do good and cats that carry the characters drive you batty?

 

  

Using Music to add texture to the imagination

Do you listen to music when you write? Do you listen to music in between writing sessions and think about what you have just written and where it will go next? Do you do both?
I find it hard to listen to music while I am writing. It is too distracting, too varied. I get so immersed in the moment that if the song changes to another mood, I get lost. So I don't listen to music WHILE writing.

However, I DO listen to music between writing. This last marathon round of work on DISTILLATION saw me become obsessed with more than my characters and their lives. I make mixed CDs still. Old school, I know. They correspond to playlists on the I-Pod, but it is easier to listen to them in my car. I made a playlist/CD about a month ago, just when I was really riding the wave of DISTILLATION's last 100 pages. Thanks to I-Tunes, I am aware that I love what they call Alt. Country: Neko Case, Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch etc. Some of it more blue grass, some of it more general singer song writer. But I made this mix that was mostly Gillian Welch, a combination of her new and old stuff. And I still can't stop listening to it. My husband immediately was sick of it. He said the songs all sounded the same. I disagree. But they do all have a similar dark, haunting, melancholy element to them. And they bring me to a place where the the images and the themes of my novel are able to thrive.

What I find is that I fixate on mood in a song. A particular line will speak to me and ring in some way of the story that is going through my head. My vision may not have anything to do with the story of the song itself, but the combination of the mood and the lyric help add texture to the picture in my mind.

For example: The song "Elvis Presley Blues" by Gillian Welch, which has no connection to my story's plot, has a line "he shook it and he rang like silver, he shook it and he shined like gold...well, bless my soul, well bless my soul..." My story deals with the balance between the male and the female using the sun and moon as symbols, as is done in alchemical symbology, and it deals with the reincarnation of souls. Having written the scene in DISTILLATION where the male and female leads are in a field finally getting to business and both the sun and moon are in the sky, one setting, the other rising - I am in my car listening to this song and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I feel that moment.

Another example is from Welch's new album The Harrow and the Harvest. The song "Dark Turn of Mind" is a song that if I could make a movie of my book, I would include in the sound track. So many of the lyrics bring to mind elements of my story. "I've had trouble already, and it left me with a dark turn of mind. I see the bones in the river, I feel the wind through the pines, and I hear the shadows a calling, to a girl with a dark turn of mind." (song is below)

Love it.

Lastly, the song "The Way it Goes" from the same album - talks about people all once friends going different ways in life and dealing with darkness of one sort or another. "The brightest ones of all, early in October fall. That's the way that it goes. That's the way. While the good ones go to bed with good whiskey in their head. That's the way that it goes. That's the way." The theme of this song reminds of living in a small town and the things that happen which never go away, the things that change relationships, but still you can never get away because everyone in a small town have to exist in such close proximity. This too shows up in DISTILLATION.

Because of my obsession with this CD, I was able to stay in character so to speak. When driving alone in my car, or cooking dinner, I could immerse myself in the in the emotions and ideas evoked in my novel, by letting the art of another add texture to my imagination.

So how do you use music in your writing?

Obsession is not a bad word

The rewrite of DISTILLATION is complete - for now. Since early spring I have been doggedly reworking my first novel.

I set out to make DISTILLATION the novel I had really wanted to write all along (though it took me a while to admit to myself just what I really wanted.) This time I was going to make it pop in a huge way - make it magic, make it romantic, make it gothic. I think I succeeded. Summer 2011 is coming to a close and I have had a fabulous ride reworking this book. I am too in love with it, which I know is dangerous, but it has been the greatest adventure. Not only do I think I made my book better, I learned a lot about myself.

But here's the thing. I have spent most of my summer obsessively writing. When I wasn't writing I was listening to music (the same songs over and over and over) lost in the world of my characters. My imagination was on fire. I was channelling them. I was having trouble eating. I wasn't sleeping. I would get up at four and start writing again. I was euphoric. I felt like I was on drugs but there was no crash. Not once have I suddenly dropped down and said - this sucks - why am I doing this? My poor husband must be jealous, I am so enamored with my characters, I have to give him credit though. He has listened to me go on and on about ghosts and witches, romance and peppermint, souls and eternity. He has really supported me through this obsessive roller coaster.

And now it's done. I have to write curriculum for school. I should be doing that right now in fact, but here I am. Strangely, I am not sad or grumpy. I am still happy and even when I am back in the classroom, I know my characters are there waiting for the next chapter to be written.

Recently, an article about Kathryn Stockett's 'The Help' came across the Twittersphere. It talks about how long it took her to write the book, how many rejections she got, how her friends said things like: “How do you keep yourself from feeling like this has been just a huge waste of your time?” Eventually, after 40+ rejections, she started lying to her friends about what she was doing on the weekends. "The truth was," she says, "I was embarrassed for my friends and family to know I was still working on the same story, the one nobody apparently wanted to read." She became increasingly obsessed, going away for weekends to be alone and edit, editing even as she was in labor.

I really related to this article when, last weekend, I declined hanging out by a lake with friends to stay home alone and edit for twelve hours straight. It made me feel a lot better knowing that at query # 61, Stockett finally got an agent and now look where her book is.

I have a long way to go before I meet her record, and her success, but at this point, I am thankful for the pleasures of obsession.

Embracing the writer you never knew you wanted to be

Oh yeah - I went there. This is the best image I could find to illustrate one of the things that has been in my imagination over the past month as I rewrote DISTILALTION - it's not quite right, a little too...perfect, but nonetheless a visual helps.

Hello again.

Summer has flown by because I have been having way too much fun rewriting DISTILLATION. I took a serious hiatus from Blogger - though I've been around the Twittersphere a bit. It was a choice I needed to make between reading and thinking about writing and just WRITING. Over the past two months I have completely reworked my novel and not only do I think it is much better, but I feel that I have finally embraced the writer I never knew I wanted to be.

When we start out writing, there are so many preconceived notions of what is and what is not good, inspiring, marketable, enlightening, or worthwhile. I just read a tweeted blog post entitled You Want to Write Trash? thanks to @AmyJRomine. This post is about a woman whose husband thought her Gothic romance was trash and didn't see why she would write such drivel. Well, it turned out her husband was a good reason to need some romance in her life.

My life is pretty good, but like most, it is full of work and bills and responsibilities and other boring things. So I write to escape it, to add some measure of fantasy to my days. And this time around with DISTILLATION, I finally let go of my preconceived notions. I stopped trying to cling to some modicum of reality, because I asked myself the question: Who the hell wants to escape to reality? Not me.

Earlier this spring I tried to read a realist novel by a well known author whose prior work I had enjoyed years ago. I got to page 50 and when a character was lamenting a horrible tragedy for the 10th page in a row, I closed it and never picked it up again.
I wanted fantasy - damn it. I wanted witches, and ghosts, and magic, and maybe a little mystical love. Okay maybe a lot. Well good thing I had the summer ahead of me to rewrite a book with the potential for all of those things. And man, has it been fun.

When I let go, so did Alice (my MC). She articulated what she wanted, she stopped shaking in her boots, she faced her fears to find the truth, she figured out she wanted her man early on, (and let him know it), and she let others help her to accept herself for who she is, which in the end enabled her to solve the mystery, which made everyone happy. Alice (and I) achieved so much more than we did in the first version. We went so much further, in so many ways. Looking back at the story I thought was "done," I now see as a real let down. It was so UNSATISFYING.

DISTILLATION went from being a half baked magic realism flopper, to a full on gothic, darl, scary, fantastical, magical, funny, sexy, and -  I think - inspiring story. No I am not calling myself a romance writer these days. Still supernatural women's fiction. But, I stopped telling myself I must be the only one who reads good love scenes twice just for fun, or gets excited when full on magic brings down that bad guy. Once I embraced what I wanted and let myself stop worrying that it was silly, then Alice embraced her talents and had a real adventure.

Now, let's just hope that when the rose colored glasses come off, it reads as good for others as it does me.

On "Fictional" Mothers

Mothers are everywhere in the books I read, and there happens to be one in my WIP as well. Since I read a lot of fiction with women protagonists, often there is a mother daughter clash, usually a gentle - I think this woman is crazy - sort of thing - and a - I don't know why my daughter thinks I'm so crazy sort of thing. Think Ya Ya Sisterhood. In all actuality, I believe it is romanticized. In fiction, we fictionalize pieces of  our lives. Change the details. Change the ending. All as a way of dealing with it.

Not surprisingly, Alice thinks her mother Josephine is crazy in DISTILLATION. She doubts her because of the way her mother has failed her in the past. I guess it is not one of the things that sets my book apart. But the reason this shows up in so many books is because many young women have that sort of tug o war with their mothers. We write what we know after all.

Daughters grow up with a paradox, as I am sure sons do with fathers too. We idolize them, we look to them for identity when we are young. Then as we get older and break away into adulthood, we question them, we scrutinize every mistake, and we are horrified by those mistakes. When I realized my mother did not have control over the world, and that some of the decisions she made were not good ones, I think it changed me forever. This theme is in my novel. For fathers and sons, I can only speak from an archetypal/ literary sensibility. The son too looks to the father for identity, and in literature anyway, the son must make peace, make amends, or outrun the sins of the father. If we are considering son/mother and daughter/father relationships, well we must consider Oedipus and Electra. Is it true we daughters always end up marrying men with the traits of our fathers and sons their mothers? I hope not.

So, there's the rub. I love my mother, and as I've gotten older I have evolved my understanding of her as a human, and as a woman. Writing Josephine and Alice has been my way of articulating that journey. Not everyone gets along with or is best friends with their mother or father. But as people we are always changing, and for me at least, and as it seems many others, writing has been one way for me to gain perspective.

What sets your novel apart?

Having recently a conference, I have been doing a lot of thinking about how a novel needs to stand apart from others in its genre. It is really unsettling, when you read a book and realize that it has such similar elements to something you have been slaving over for a few years and showing to only your writing group. But that's how it goes. Ideas tend to trend, or so it seems.

So, I made a list of some books I've read in the past years or two that had something that set them apart, in hopes that I will find something in my novel that is not in theirs and be surprised I do have something, or perhaps brainstorm some ideas, not like theirs, from see what others have done.

Not in order of reading or release - all somewhat in my genre - some closer than others:

• Her Fearful Symmetry - Audry Niffenegger - told from the ghost's perspectiveHorns - Joe Hill - the devil is the hero - a familiar character in a new way
• The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters - the end has a twist - don't want to give it away
• The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry - the end also has a twist - a psychological one - similar, but different that The Little Stranger - in both - what you think is happening all along is not what is happening. I think it is masterful when an author can trick the reader.
• The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane - Katherine Howe - historical narrative interlaced with a contemporary story
• The Dead Path - Stephen M. Irwin - a fairy tale witch in a thriller style narrative
• The Tooth Fairy - Graham Joyce - uses a familiar character in a completely new way
That's only some - I know there are more - and I would love to hear about books you have read that have something that sets them apart. WIP.

It is daunting and intimidating to set out to think of something new and original. Isn't it true that there is nothing new under the sun. I think those authors who have snatched up surprise should be applauded. A MS one has started at for too long, looks like old socks after a while, and I know that is why distance is important. But sometimes, if you look again, you just might find there is something unexpected in there. If not, you too might consider what isn't out there and how you can bridge the gap.

6 Reasons Why I Love The Muse...

Yesterday, I went to Grub Street's The Muse and the Marketplace writing conference 2011. It runs for both Saturday and Sunday, but this year I only went for only one. Conferences are expensive and they can be somewhat intimidating, especially if you are shy. But they are so worth it. I have actually never been to any other conference besides the Muse, and this was only my second year going, but I hope to go to more in the coming year. There is Write Angles conference that happens right here in the Pioneer Valley and it is affordable. I want to go to more because going to conferences is the best way to exercise your writer muscles, beyond writing itself that is. Yesterday, I had an amazing time. So here are 6 reasons why I love this conference, and why I think all writers should find away to go to at least 1 writing conference a year.

1) You meet other writers. You have all heard before, and know first hand, that writing is often a solitary endeavor, that can in fact be lonely if we don't reach out. The writing group is an important remedy to this, as is social networking on line. But at a conference, you get to meet folks who write in other genres, who share your hopes, dreams, and frustrations, and who are just as excited as you to learn more and stretch their writing skills. I met some really great people yesterday, and I admit I was a bit shameless with the business card thing. Anyone who uttered more than a sentence in my direction got a card. Hey - why not? It's a great way to get people to remember you and check you out. So if you are here because of that card - THANKS for stopping by!

2) You meet published authors. One of the best events for me this year was meeting one of  my writing idols: Alice Hoffman. She was lovely. She led a seminar of brainstorming for a linked story collection and it was so fun just to hang out with her. And, being the Lisa Simpson that I am, when she needed someone to write on the board and take notes, my hand shot up. So, I got to be her assistant. Yay! What fun. She was great.

3) You learn things. The Muse and the Marketplace is great because it does exactly what it's name says, it presents opportunities to spark the muse, and to explore the marketplace - two different aspects of the writing life, but each equally important, depending on where you are in the process and what your current goals are as a writer.

Last year, I was getting ready to query DISTILLATION for the first time, so I focused a lot on the Marketplace aspect. I went to seminars with "agents on the hot seat" talking about what they do, what they like, don't like, and how they view the industry right now. I also went to query sessions and met with an agent for the purpose of getting feedback on my query. It was so helpful all around. This year, I am working on revamping my story a bit, and so I focused more on the Muse aspect. I learned about the elements of thrillers and mysteries, and I got some insight into the essentials of structure.

4) You get outside your comfort zone. This may seem like the most terrifying part of the conference, and it fits into a number of the other reasons for going to the conference. You can't meet people if you sit on your phone checking your email the whole time, or if you won't strike up a conversation. But when you do go out on a limb, it is rewarding.

One risk I took was submitting my first page (anonymously as required) to the "Author Idol" seminar, in which a panel of 4 established writers listen to a professional "reader" read first pages one at a time from the submission box. If they hear something they don't like, they raise their hand. At two hands, the reader stops reading. SCARY. The conference also offers a version of this with Agents, which I watched last year, but did not submit too. That is even scarier, because they have much more critical ears, as is expected.

When the reader get to yours you tense up and stop breathing, hoping your face is not turning red, and that it's not obvious they are reading your piece. The anonymity is important because the agents or authors can be more open about their reactions. This may make you think: "No Way! Why would I put myself through that?" And yes, it even says in the brochure this exercise is not for the thin skinned. But it is great. You get so much insight into your writing. Which brings me to #5.

5) You get honest feedback on your work. This, for me, is the most important aspect of going to a conference. Whereas some conferences do the speed dating style pitch sessions, The Muse allows you to sign up (at an extra, but tax deductible, cost - it does not go to the agents - it supports Grub Street programs) for a one on one, twenty minute session with an agent or editor of your choice. Here is a reason why The Muse and the Marketplace is such a high caliber conference. Amazing authors and agents volunteer their time to this event. Of course, authors do get to sell books, and agents may just find a submission they are interested in, but overall it is so generous of them to do this.



6) You feel like a professional. Last week I wrote about having a business card, and about how they help boost your sense of self as a writer. Going to a conference does the same thing. The Muse is at the Park Plaza Hotel is Boston. It is really nice. They serve a fabulous lunch. The presenters are top shelf. The attendees are serious, just as serious as you. What a great way to affirm: I am a writer. I am willing to work (and perhaps invest a few Benjamins) to further my career as a writer, and this is because I am serious about my craft and want to learn, network, and invigorate my writing practice. Going to a conference validates your goals as a writer - whatever they may be, whether you want to write your family memoir, get your work accepted in a literary magazine, publish a novel, or just express yourself.

I'd love to hear about other conferences out there that people think are great and anyone who did go to The Muse and the Marketplace (some of you are there right now!) tell me what you loved.