A Writer of Wrongs

Merry Christmas. Or whatever ...

2011-12-24T11:56:00.006-06:00

OK. I'm going to be politically incorrect here and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

However.

For those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays!

For those of you who do not recognize the holiday season, Happy Weekend!

For those of you do not recognize weekends, Happy Saturday!

For those of you who ...

Well, you get the idea. From my family to yours, Happy Whatever!

Technology in fiction

2011-12-16T15:33:00.003-06:00

The following is a rough draft of a piece I previously submitted to a national writing magazine. While they ultimately rejected it after much hemming and hawing, I decided to post it here because I think the subject is interesting. I'd like to hear how you use (or don't use) technology in your fiction and how it's changed how you structure a story.

Ready? Here we go:

In his 1977 classic horror novel “The Shining,” Stephen King used a family’s isolation in a snowed-in Colorado hotel to create spine-tingling tension and a creeping sense of impending doom. And brother, did it work. Let’s face it, being alone is scary. That’s why it’s been a common theme in fiction for decades.

My, how times have changed. Today, it seems we’re never quite alone. Blame it on technology, which has changed our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a decade ago. Think about it. Facebook tells us our sister is having a latte at Starbucks, our mother is playing Café World, and our boss is looking for us. Want to know what everyone from the president to Lindsay Lohan is doing right this second? Check Twitter.

A recent CNN poll shows a whopping 92 percent of Americans now have access to the Internet. More than 95 percent have a cell phone and 53 percent own a smart phone. All these doodads are not only changing the way we live our lives, but the way we’re reading and writing fiction.

Technology can be an extremely useful tool for authors. But it has to be used correctly, or it can end up creating more problems than solutions. Let’s look at a few ways to use (or not use) technology in your novel.

Isolation. Like King’s snowed-in family in “The Shining,” isolation is an effective way to create suspense. But with today’s technology, it’s hard to get your characters really alone and off the grid. Short of dispatching your hero to the Sahara Desert, the best way to achieve this is to find a clever way to either disable their gadgets or put them in a place where electronics won’t function. Bestselling author Chevy Stevens pulls this off in her new thriller, “Never Knowing,” by having her main character’s fiancé travel periodically to a remote wilderness lodge to conduct tours. It works, and more importantly, it’s believable since that’s what the fiancé does for a living.

Can you hear me now? One of the best ways to add tension to your novel is creating situations where the characters don’t know where their loved one is, or what they are doing. Young adult author Kirsten Hubbard, in her debut novel, “Like Mandarin,” weaves an affecting tale of two high school girls and their burgeoning friendship. Part of the book’s tension comes when the two girls go days without seeing each other, leaving Grace, the main character, to wonder if there’s a problem with her beloved Mandarin. The novel is set in the present, and Hubbard pulls it off by leaving technology out of the book altogether. If they had cell phones, they would’ve been texting constantly and the novel would have lost much of its emotional firepower.

Out of touch. Conversely, one way of using technology to create tension is to have someone who is usually in touch suddenly go missing. There are few things more ominous than being unable to reach a loved one who is always available by cell phone. Used sparingly, this device can be highly effective.

Don’t date your work. We often feel the need to cram our work full of the coolest high-tech gadgets available. Really, who wants to appear 3G in a 4G world? But be careful. Technology moves so fast that what’s cool this week can be a dinosaur by next Friday. Imagine the poor writer who, three years ago, started her Great American Novel about a murder mystery revolving around a relationship on MySpace. Oops. Remember, a great song is a great song, no matter how old it is, but a flip phone is just plain silly in this day and age.

Avoid contrivance. No one needs to be told that readers today are savvier than ever. One too many contrived plot devices and they’ll drop your book like it’s on fire. Think twice before conveniently disabling a character’s cell phone just when he needs it most or taking down the Internet right before she can read that all-important email. Be wary of the high-tech deus ex machina. If you must remove technology in order to make your work more suspenseful, do it in a way that’s believable. Your readers will thank you for the extra effort.

What’s in a name? Quite a bit, it turns out. Avoid using too many brands, which can be off-putting to some readers. Instead of saying a character has a BlackBerry, use smart phone. Skype can become video chatting. Use e-reader rather than a specific device. General terms come across as less elitist and can be especially useful if the brand is outdated before your book is published.

Ever-evolving technology has clearly altered the fiction landscape. Used intelligently, technology can add tension and atmosphere to any manuscript. Use it poorly and your work can fall flatter than unleavened bread. Remember, the Internet isn’t just a place for writers to waste time. It’s a wonderful research tool if used wisely. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot game of Angry Birds waiting for me.

A name change, and a new query

2011-10-27T13:51:00.004-05:00

The query below is something I wrote this afternoon. It represents, I believe, the fourth or fifth iteration of the query for my second novel, previously titled, EMPTY SPACES, and now retitled, RUNNING ON EMPTY.

At least, it will be titled that until I change my mind again. I'm fickle. What can I say?

Anyhoo.... The query is rough and not yet polished. But I thought I would toss it up here to get some early feedback. Let me know what you think, although as always please try to be nice. And if you can't be nice, at least be specific.

And also, as always, thank you!

Here goes:

Dear agent,

Grant Bachman is an ordinary junior college teacher, the kind of guy who says “excuse me” when he sneezes alone. When an armed student opens fire on an otherwise gorgeous New England morning, Grant is forced to use a fellow teacher’s desk-drawer pistol to stop him.

Once the smoke clears, Grant assumes the worst is over. He’s wrong.

Over the next five days Grant encounters an assortment of characters, all of whom will alter his life’s trajectory. Among them are a beguiling lost girl with the morals of a feral cat, a therapist offering the sweet hope of a restored life, his own self-absorbed wife whose affair with a roguish young cop is reaching critical mass, a pack of reporters hungry for a hero to tear apart, and a straight-arrow police sergeant hell-bent on solving an unspeakable crime.

When Grant’s estranged wife finds the school shooter’s cell phone hidden in her husband’s car and turns it over to her crazy boyfriend, the finger of blame turns toward Grant Bachman. With his lost girl tagging along, Grant finds himself on the run from the police, his wife, his therapist, and his old life. Now he must find the truth before his pursuers find him.

My novel, RUNNING ON EMPTY, is a fast-paced suspense/thriller complete at 91,000 words.

As a newspaper reporter, columnist, and editor, I’ve received more than a dozen national, regional, and state awards from the Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association for writing and reporting.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

The Dogs of Hazzum

2011-10-13T15:35:00.004-05:00

A few years ago, I was riding in the car with my two teenage sons, listening to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two." We were singing along when the song came to one particular lyric.

They both sang, "no dark sarcasm in the classroom."

I, however, loudly sang, "no dogs of hazzum in the classroom."

They both looked at me like I was nuts. Now I have no idea what the hell a "dog of hazzum" is, but I always thought it sounded kind of cool and druggy. And honestly, that's what I thought the damned song said. Really.

They laughed. And laughed.

I swore it was the thick British accent. They continued to laugh.

This has happened to me before.

When I was a kid, I thought Creedence Clearwater Revival was singing about how "there's a bathroom on the right." I mean, it would be helpful to know where the bathroom is, right? Of course, I learned they were referring to a "bad moon," not a "bathroom." The song kind of lost something for me after that, to be honest.

I've since Googled misunderstood song lyrics and was stunned, and not a little embarrassed, by how many I've been guilty of. At least I'm not unique in my ignorance.

Stick with me here. There's a writing point to all of this. Trust me.

When I started writing fiction a little more than four years ago, I had my career all planned out. I would nail a bestseller on my first try, spend money like a drunken sailor, and then spend the rest of my days leisurely writing bestseller after bestseller.

You know, like Stephen King or John Grisham. It would be so cool.

That hasn't happened.

I wrote my first book. Then I rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again. And honestly, I'm rewriting it again.

I wrote my second book. It was better. I'm rewriting it again, too.

Neither have netted me an agent, let alone a bestseller. Not yet, anyway.

See, I had misunderstood again. I thought it would be easy. I honestly did.

It's not.

I had spent my entire life confident in my ability to write a successful book and sell it. Fame, fortune and glory would surely follow. I was so sure of this that I went into journalism for the sole purpose of honing my writing skills.

I did.

What I misunderstood was how damned difficult it is to break through today. How hard it is to stand out from the pack, to get that agent's attention. To sell a book.

It's disheartening, isn't it?

Today, I'm not so confident. Sure, I still send queries, but only half-heartedly. I expect a form rejection. And I'm seldom wrong.

I spent thirty years thinking Pink Floyd sang "dogs of hazzum." I was wrong. I spent thirty years thinking I could nail a bestseller. I was wrong.

So far.

The upside is, when I write my memoir, I'm going to title it "The Dogs of Hazzum." Because I like the name, and because it nails a lifetime of misunderstandings.

Query for Empty Spaces

2011-09-04T19:45:00.004-05:00

After much internal debate, I've decided to post my newly written query for Empty Spaces. Remember, it's a first draft. I wrote it this weekend.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for, other than whether you think this is a book you'd like to read.

So. Feel free to weigh in. And thanks in advance for any help and or suggestions you might have.

Dear [agent],

There are crimes of passion. There are crimes of necessity. There are crimes of convenience.

And sometimes, they’re one and the same.

On a bright August morning, freshman Justin King pulls an assault rifle out of his backpack and opens fire at Eugene Community College, killing 54 students and teachers before he’s shot and killed by popular history professor Grant Bachman. As the citizens of Eugene, New Hampshire, struggle to comprehend the tragedy, the nation’s media descend like vultures.

Hours after the shooting, Grant finds himself drawn to fellow survivor Annie DeWitt, a beautiful 18-year-old lost girl who drowns her past in vodka, and dreams of a future singing on American Idol. Together, they cope with their trauma using drugs, alcohol, and an escalating series of suicidal thrills.

The day after the shooting, straight-arrow police Sgt. Rocco Beaupre makes a shocking discovery: Thousands of dollars worth of illegal drugs are missing from the department’s evidence room. Even worse, an assault rifle is unaccounted for.

When Grant, hailed as a hero by the media, is accused of beating his unfaithful wife, he’s briefly jailed. When he finds evidence that seems to link Annie to the shooter, he confronts her. And when Justin King’s missing cell phone is found in Grant’s car, both teacher and student run.

Over the course of five violent days, Grant and Rocco independently piece together a puzzle of passion, necessity, and convenience that grows more ominous with each passing minute. As Grant works to clear his name and determine Annie’s involvement, he discovers that in Eugene, no one is who they seem, and nothing is as it appears.

My first novel, EMPTY SPACES, is a 91,000-word suspense/thriller.

As a newspaper reporter, columnist, and editor, I’ve received more than a dozen national, regional, and state awards from the Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association for writing and reporting. I’ve also managed a federal Congressional campaign, helped build a school in a tiny Mayan village in the Yucatan Peninsula, and spent two months living in the coastal jungles of South America while searching for sunken Spanish galleons. In my spare time, I sleep.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Terry Towery
[personal information redacted]

Help

2011-08-30T15:06:00.004-05:00

I have a quick question, one that was brought up to me by a trusted friend and beta reader.

When you hear the title, Empty Spaces, what do you think of?

Does it remind you of the Pink Floyd song?

A chick lit book?

A book about home redecorating?

Something else?

I'm seriously considering a title change for my new novel.

Anyone?

Empty Spaces is done!

2011-08-21T19:25:00.004-05:00

I finished my second novel Thursday night. It clocks in at a sleek 90k and should fall in the suspense/thriller category. At least, I think it does. Genre identification has never been my strong suit.

I have a couple of people who have already generously offered to beta read it, but if there's anyone out there who would like a good laugh, er, read, let me know and I'll ship it to you. Just shoot me an email at terry.towery@gmail.com.

It's edgy and R-rated in spots (as was the first one, despite it's Christian themes). There's no religion in this one, if that kind of stuff turns you off. But there IS lots of violence, so beware.

Anyway, let me know. For now, preseason football is calling my name.

I'm a whore

2011-07-29T16:40:00.009-05:00

Okay, before anyone gets all up my grill for the title of this post, I'd like you to know that the word "whore" appears in the Christian bible 59 times!

Okay. I just made that up. I really have no idea how many times the word appears, but I know it does. A lot.

So anyway, about that "I'm a whore" thing.

Most of you know I wrote a novel, called The Devil You Don't Know. It's pretty good, I've been told. It took me three years to write and revise it. Three complete revisions, actually. It's been professionally edited. Not once, but twice.

It has garnered attention from some of the top literary agents in New York, two of whom told me I was among the best debut writers they had stumbled across. The managing editor of Writer's Digest Magazine critiqued the manuscript and pronounced it one the best he'd read. I've had requests from agents, but no offers.

I don't say these things to brag. These are facts.

I am almost done with my second novel, which I believe is exponentially better than the first. It's certainly more commercially viable.

And therein lies the problem with TDYDK.

It's a pseudo-Christian/mainstream thriller. It doesn't preach (much). It has very adult themes, including rape, pornography, alcoholism and promiscuity. See, what I wanted to do was rewrite the Bible the way Stephen King rewrote Stoker's Dracula.

I wondered what would happen if the Bible IS true. And what would happen if things predicted in the Bible started to happen today? In this secular world. To real people, not cardboard cutouts from poorly written Christian novels.

You know, it sounded like one hell of an idea back in college, when I thought of it after a long night of booze and dope.

And it turned out to be a damned good story. One person who read it said it reminded them of a weird cross between Stephen King and Saint Paul. I took it as a compliment.

Sadly there is no market for such a hybrid in today's fiction market, I have been told. I wish I had a dollar for every agent and/or person in the business who has told me privately that they loved it, but just knew in their heart that they couldn't sell it because of its "Christian stuff."

To which I say: Bullshit.

Has anyone ever read King's The Stand? That book has more religious imagery in it than mine does. Really. I mean, if you sub the name God for Mother Abigail and the name Satan for Randall Flagg, you have The Book of Revelations. Classic Good versus Evil.

I don't recall that causing any sales problems for Mr. King. Do you?

All of which brings me to my point (and yes, I can hear your sigh of relief out there!).

You see, I'm sitting on TDYDK. It's gathering electronic dust on my computer -- still edited, sleek and ready to be read and enjoyed.

So. Do I leave it there and call it a practice book?

Do I start another round of queries (I've sent 29 so far; most were unanswered)?

Or do I find a way to publish the damned thing myself?

For some reason self-publishing (or e-publishing, or Indie publishing. Are they all the same? Hell, I don't even know) scares me to death. For several reasons.

1. It looks like a lot of work.

2. It requires me to do all the PR work. I don't HAVE that many friends and I hate to pimp myself on Twitter and Facebook (although I will if I have to. See the title of this post).

3. I don't want to screw up any chance I have to traditionally publish the new book, or any future books.

Because as much as I love writing fiction, I also want to make money at it. There. I said it. I am a literary whore. I don't do this for the hell of it. I do it because I believe I have something to say, and because I want people to read what I write. And pay for it.

I write this with no apologies. I mean, you CAN be an artist and make money at it. Just ask JK Rowling. Or Stephen King. Or Amanda Hocking. Or (cringe) Dan Brown.

I'm not saying I'm in their league (well, except for .... oh never mind). You get my point.

So I'm writing this to get your opinions. I know they will be all over the place. I know that some have tested the self-pub waters and found them to their liking. Others, I suspect, have the same fears I have.

So if you were me, what would you do?

So why am I angry?

2011-07-26T16:07:00.005-05:00

First off, let me assure you I haven't run off to some Pacific island. Nor have I been in prison.

No, I have been writing my second novel. Every single day. When I wrote TDYDK, I didn't have a blog. I started it once I was revising, and it was easy to find time in the day to knock off a post several times a week.

But since I'm writing hot, the very idea of stopping for the day only to come here and write even more is, well, exhausting. Not to mention that it feels like I'm wasting words that would be put to better use in my manuscript.

So, sorry about the lack of posts. I do love you guys. :)

The other thing, and it's perhaps more perplexing, is that I have been in a state of low-level anger for months. It's not something I can explain, at least not well. But it has something to do with writing. And publishing. And agents. You know, that kind of stuff. Writer stuff.

Part of it is me being a baby. I worked my butt off for three years on my first book and, with a few exceptions, it garnered no interest from agents. In fact, more than three-fourths of the queries I sent were never answered.

Now, I know that's the way things are in today's publishing world. A no answer means no. But really, how hard is it to set up an auto-reply? Just so we know that we're not shouting down a bottomless pit.

I can think of two writers who have blown up big-time on the Internet in the recent past. One guy went down on, I think, Nathan Bransford's blog. And man, it wasn't pretty. The dude went bonkers and when he exploded, he likely took his career down with him.

Another woman went batshit crazy about a review of her self-published book, and wound up calling her readers all kinds of profane names. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. I've heard nothing from her since then, either.

Lesson learned. So each time I call up this blog to write something, I think about how angry I've been and I just close it. Why make things worse than they already are?

But still. I have my moments. Moments like yesterday when I not only want to never write another word, but want to BREAK MY FUCKING COMPUTER too. Really.

And I'm not sure why. I suspect I'm afraid. I'm afraid this next book will sink, too, like its predecessor. I'm afraid I'm wasting my time, chasing a dream that will constantly elude me, no matter how hard I try to catch it.

But I keep at it. I keep writing. I keep reading and studying my craft in an effort to get better. To get published. Because to quit now seems even more unthinkable than keeping going.

So why am I so angry?

How about you guys? Anyone thinking about giving up? Are you angry at the current state of publishing? Are you afraid? Talk to me, people.

And let's all have a nice day.

Five hours of horror

2011-06-10T15:57:00.005-05:00

Today was one of the worst days of my life, and nothing bad happened.

But for five interminably long hours, I was absolutely convinced that one of the most horrific things imaginable had happened.

Allow me to explain.

Late this morning, I read online about a horrific, fiery one-car fatal accident on the nearby interstate. No big deal -- it happens most every day it seems -- except that this one had occurred on the stretch of road my 21-year-old son drives on his way home from work late at night. The same kid who totaled my car two years ago.

And the crash happened at the exact same time he would be going home.

It had already been twelve hours, and the authorities had not yet identified the victim, who had been burned beyond recognition. Nor had they been able to notify the family. I felt a stab of concern.

So I started trying to call and text my son. Nothing. Now that's not entirely unusual, since the kid stays up all night and sleeps most of the day. What WAS unusual was that his phone was on. He always turns if off when he's sleeping.

Still only mildly worried, I checked his Facebook page and saw that he had posted something at THE EXACT TIME THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. I happen to know he does this on his smart phone, sometimes while driving.

Feeling the first tendrils of true panic creeping into my very heart, I waited a couple of hours and kept trying him. Nothing. By this time, he should have been awake. I checked the local media site again, and they had posted a picture of the burned car.

It looked like his. Same color, make, everything.

I was sick. I prayed. I argued with God. I worried how I would tell his two brothers. I spent the next three hours sitting outside on the front porch, waiting for the police to come and notify me. Seriously. I went through every stage of grief and had pretty much arrived at acceptance. I also smoked three huge cigars (it's a wonder I didn't hurl).

When it was way, way past time for him to be up and getting ready to go back to work, and still he hadn't answered my now numerous texts and calls, I made a decision. I would give it until 3:30 p.m. and if I hadn't heard anything from anyone, I would call the police and ask the question I dreaded most. Could it be him? God, I really, truly didn't want to know. But the waiting was hell. And there was still a part of me that felt, deep down, that he was really okay. That he was just asleep and that I would feel foolish if I called the cops. I know it's weird, but that's how I felt at the time.

I checked the Internet again at 3:20 and still they had not identified the victim. I was crazy with fright by now, but what could I do? My wife was gone for the afternoon and the only other person home was my 13-year-old son, and he was in playing video games. I couldn't let him know how damned worried I was, so I faked like everything was fine whenever he would come out and ask me something.

I could have won an Oscar, believe me.

At one point, I looked up from the lawnchair on the porch and saw a police car coming down the road. I actually felt a stab of relief, figuring at least I would know. Because nothing is worse than not knowing. But it went on past.

I remembered a friend of mine from the newspaper who lost his beautiful 19-year-old daughter in a car accident a few years ago. I remember the look on his face at the wake. I remember how it destroyed his family. Their lives were never, ever the same again.

At 3:30, I reached with trembling hands for my phone to call the cops, more terrified than I've ever been in my life. By then, I was certain deep in my heart that I'd lost him.

And my son called. At that very moment.

As I went to answer it, I had yet another terrible thought: The cops have found his phone and are calling his ICE number (that's me, by the way). Funny how the mind works sometimes, isn't it?

But it was him, half asleep but very much alive. Also a bit miffed at all the calls and texts I'd sent him. I mumbled something about wanting to know if he was coming over on Sunday as we had previously discussed. He said he was, but that he was running late and needed to get ready for work. He also said he no longer gets off early on Thursday nights, although it occurred to him that he might have forgotten to tell me that.

You think?

As we ended the call, I said what I always say to all of my family members: "I love you."

"Sheesh Dad, I love you too," he said, sounding as uncomfortable as always.

Now, sitting and thinking about it, I can still see why I was so convinced it was him. Everything fit. Everything. And it truly frightened me.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to blog about this, other than to just work it out of my system. I've always known that parenthood is not for the faint of heart. And baby, it's not. As any of you with kids know.

So let's all take a moment tonight to tell our kids (or any loved ones) how much we love them, because but for one moment of mercy, I might have lost one of mine today.

I'm also going to say a prayer for the family of the victim, whoever it might be. Because even though it wasn't MY nightmare, it was someone else's.

Can real writers hate writing?

2011-05-18T15:07:00.003-05:00

I mentioned in my previous post that I sometimes hate writing, but love "having written."

I seem to have broken some kind of sacred rule.

One commenter pointed out that those who don't love every minute of writing eventually give up. A few people in real life who read the post said the same thing to me. I know that many writing books, especially those by Anne Lamott and Stephen King, extol the virtues of the process itself, while downplaying the publication part.

Look, I've been a professional writer my entire adult life. I've had hundreds of thousands of words published in newspapers and magazines. Writing is all I've ever done. Frankly, it's probably all I can do, since I've yet to discover any additional skills.

I've also been working out at the gym for most of my adult life, as well. I do it five times a week, and I'm there for two hours (although some of that time is spent relaxing in the steam room. If you haven't tried it, don't knock it!). Many people would call me obsessed with exercise. And maybe I am.

I know that I love feeling fit and looking my best. I know that it's good for my body and my soul. And it works wonders for my creativity.

But here's a dirty little secret: I hate exercising, but I love having exercised.

Most days, I literally drag my sorry butt to the gym when I would really rather be snug in my warm bed with a cup of coffee, watching Morning Joe on MSNBC. In fact, I often spend much of the morning trying to talk myself out of actually working out, when all the while my body is already going through the motions.

For me, that's what it takes to do it with any regularity. Sure, there are days when something clicks and suddenly I'm in the groove -- in that special zone where I feel the blood pumping and it's all good. But those times are few and far between. Most days, my muscles ache and my breath gets short and later, as I sit at my desk writing, my legs cramp up and my back hurts.

You see, for me, exercising sucks. It really does. I hate it most of the time.

But I cannot fathom my life without it. I would rather die than become inactive. And therein lies the dichotomy. I have a love/hate relationship with working out. I can't live without it, so I do it because I have to.

It's the same with writing.

Most days at my desk are spent grappling with words and phrases and just trying to fashion something coherent from the shit flowing from my brain. I agonize over my writing. I really do. Sure, it sometimes flows like a rain-swollen stream, but that's just not the way it is during the actual writing process. It takes work to make writing flow like that. And some days, I can pull it off.

Some days. But most days, I can't. And that's when I hate it.

Then the following day comes, when I read back over what I wrote the previous day and revise and revise and revise. And when it's just the way I want it, I sit back and smile. Because THAT'S when it feels good.

Of course, that feeling is short-lived, because then I must start the process all over again.

And I hate it. With a passion. But I cannot fathom my life without it.

How about you? Do you REALLY love the writing process? Or are you like me, and struggle to get it just so before you can finally exhale and move on?

The tipping point?

2011-05-09T15:39:00.004-05:00

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I could tell you I'm sorry for not blogging in so long, but that would be a lie. Instead of blogging, I've been struggling just to keep writing. It's not been easy, since life has decided to turn nasty the past few weeks.

I can't go into detail, but suffice it to say that things have been somewhat intense lately. I hate when things get all life-and-death, you know? Add in the fact that I've been really struggling with this whole "I'm a writer" thing, and you've got, well, me.

Several times over the past couple of weeks, I've started to write a blog post and it was so depressing that I deleted it. I'm honestly tired of feeling sorry for myself and sharing it here for the whole world to see. It gets old.

I realize I am at a critical juncture in my "career." A tipping point. This would be the time when most sane people would pack it in and get a real job. I'm close to doing just that. But I've forced myself to sit down and write on my new manuscript anyway, even when I would rather chew off my own leg than do just that.

God, it's hard sometimes. I suspect that for some of us, sitting at our computers typing away on some piece of work that will likely die on the vine anyway is our own peculiar brand of insanity.

Goddamn it. I want to write and publish a novel.

There. I said it. I want to write and publish a novel. Or twenty. I really, really do. It's been my dream since I was a teenager. I love writing (or, having written, actually). I used to think I was good at it. I'm not so sure these days.

Life and my own self-doubts just keep popping up, day after day.

So, I haven't been ignoring you, my friends. Instead, I've been dealing with some hard times and some killer self-doubts. But I'm still writing. Maybe not well, but writing nonetheless. And when I read my new book, I sometimes get that old feeling back. I find myself sometimes thinking, This thing is pretty good. In fact, it's damn good!

And these days, that's enough to bring me back to the computer the next day. Right now, it's all I have.

Epic writing week

2011-04-15T15:38:00.007-05:00

Well, I found my mojo.

How, you ask? I merely rolled up my sleeves and started writing. And I didn't quit until my eyes glazed over.

Each day this week. Without fail. I didn't blog. I didn't read blogs. I stayed off Facebook and Twitter. I even managed to (mostly) avoid my baseball PS3 game. Oh, and even real baseball, except for night games.

Yesterday, for instance, I sat down to write a particularly big scene in Empty Spaces, one I had been looking forward to writing for quite some time. I had no idea how long it would be, I only knew I wanted to finish it in one sitting.

I did.

And it was 3,500 words long. I know that's a piece of cake for some writers to knock off in a day, but I tend to agonize over each and ever sentence -- even going back and rewriting after only a couple of paragraphs. So, it was a pretty big deal for me.

All told, I wrote a bit less than 10k words this week, bringing the manuscript up to 26k. Still a ways to go, sure, but I'm back into the story and it's starting to well up inside of me, like The Devil You Don't Know did when I was writing it every day.

I'm still a bit down, since I've heard nothing from any agents except one since the Writer's Digest conference in late January. That means I still have two partials and a full out, not to mention more than 20 queries. Some of the queries are several months old now, so I'm assuming a no on them. But many are less than a couple months old, so there's still hope.

And no, I haven't pulled the trigger on self-publishing yet. I'm not sure I ever will, to be honest. But I think it's wise to keep it as a fall-back right now for TDYDK.

I'm really sorry I've been absent on the Internets recently. I promise to post more here and hit all of your awesome blogs. Honestly. It just seemed important to me that I somehow climb back into the writing saddle and start riding again.

And, thank God, I did.

How was your writing week?

In search of my Mojo

2011-04-04T15:28:00.013-05:00

I've so much to say, and yet I cannot for the life of me think of the words with which to express myself.

Sounds like a conundrum, doesn't it? Indeed, it is.

Most of you, being the wily writer-types you are, have no doubt noticed my absence here in Blogland. Believe it or not, I've missed you all. Really, I have.

It's just that, well, I've been lost lately.

I'm not going to start in on another whiny, self-absorbed post about how much it sucks to sit here waiting on something, anything, to happen in my quest toward publication. No, I'm as tired of writing that depressing crap as you are reading it.

Still. Something, it seems, has died within me the past few months. My desire? My willingness to continue slicing open a vein only to see the fruits of my labor wither and die while still on the vine? Am I giving up?

I don't know. I hope not.

I have a confession to make: I have been seriously considering e-publishing The Devil You Don't Know, despite having two partials and a full out to agents. Why, you ask. Because I no longer believe I will find an agent. Whether it's because the book sucks, or whether the subject matter is too offensive to non-spiritual people, I don't know.

But I've lost hope for the most part.

And that's making it doubly difficult to work on my new book, even though it's a million miles removed from its predecessor in subject matter and tone.

I'm reminded of an episode of Scrubs, the best TV show in history, in which J.D. has lost his Mojo, which although I can't prove it, I suspect is a metaphor for erectile dysfunction. (I could be so lucky as to only have a flaccid you-know-what to deal with!). Unlike poor J.D., my lost Mojo goes to the very heart of what I do, of what I am.

I seem to have lost the will to write.

OMG. I can't believe I just typed that. But, alas, it's true. At least, temporarily.

I've penned several blog posts over the past year and a half on writers who give up, and why they shouldn't. I can be one hell of a cheerleader when I want to be. Apparently, I can also be a hypocrite as well.

'Cause this little firefly is burning out. Big-time.

I've been on a sort of spiritual quest for the past four years or so, since leaving journalism. I met God in Alcoholics Anonymous and, whether you choose to believe or not, He saved my life.

So I've been searching for meaning, asking the Big Questions. I've been reading theology and philosophy books, talking to shrinks and ministers and drunks and poor people and Mayans. If I wasn't so dense, I'd swear I was turning into an intellectual.

I've come to believe we all have a purpose in life. Don't ask me to explain how I know that, I just do. I've always thought my purpose in life was to be a writer. And who knows? Maybe it is.

But right now, things seem a bit, well, murky.

Perhaps the God of AA can save me yet again, for it was in AA that I learned a valuable lesson: We cannot change our lives by thinking and talking about it, but only by acting upon it. By having faith in ourselves, we act. And change then follows.

In other words, I've reached that critical point in my writing career when I have to do what I least want to do: I must sit down and write. I must quit analyzing and talking and thinking ... and start doing.

Now excuse me while I go figure out this thorny plot of mine.

P.S. Damned if I didn't just write another annoying self-absorbed whiny post. Sorry. :)

The rumors of my death ...

2011-03-28T20:57:00.007-05:00

... have been greatly exaggerated. No, seriously. I am alive. And well.

It's just that I was attending a spiritual retreat the past several days that included "unplugging" from all of the technology that we love, which also at times drives us completely bonkers.

But I'm back, relatively refreshed and ready to get back to writing and blogging. I'm sure you are thrilled. (ahem)

So. I will write a "real" blog post tomorrow. I received a couple of very cool blog awards during my hiatus and I shall acknowledge them properly.

That is all. :)

How old is too old?

2011-03-16T14:57:00.005-05:00

WHINE ALERT! If you hate self-absorbed whining, read no further. I shall post something happier tomorrow.

A former colleague of mine at the newspaper where I worked for 25 years posted a photo of me (above) on Facebook taken in the newsroom about 15 years ago, when I was the assistant city editor. I was 38 years old at the time.

I really wish he hadn't posted it.

See, it's generated some comments about how "old" I've become in the intervening years, as though I might have somehow become "younger" instead. Now if you can do math, you now know that I am 53 years old. Not "old-old" - but sure as hell not young either.

I have a confession to make: I am vain. I worry about my looks and spend far too much time at the gym, when I ought to be here at the computer writing. I used to dye my hair, but four years ago I let it go and now it's silver on the sides and salt-and-pepper on top (see my more current photo in my profile at right).

I hate getting old. I really do. All of my life, I looked far younger than I was. There were times I hated it (like getting carded buying cigarettes at 40!) and times I relished it. But sometime in the past few years, my hard living caught up to me. See, I don't like to just waste time in life. I like to live it, to the hilt.

My wife thinks I'm nuts. She swears I'm more attractive now, but then again, she IS my wife.

But the comments hurt. They do. And they worry me, because I am trying to become a published author and being old isn't exactly a selling point. Or at least, that's what I fear. I realize we don't attach photos to our queries, and when I had the chance to meet agents in person, I did quite well.

But still ....

My joints ache sometimes. Especially after working out. Or reading. Or, you know, just getting out of bed. My waistline isn't what it used to be, although it's not as bad as it COULD be.

I have crinkly wrinkles around my eyes that I didn't have two or three years ago. Thank God I still have my hair, but I suppose it could start going at any time. My eyesight is so bad I damn near didn't pass my driver's test last month. It will be the final one before I have to take it with my glasses on. Damn it. I hate my glasses. They make me look old. Of course, they also make it possible to actually, you know, see.

I got injured on this last mission trip, and it still amazes me. I really ain't a kid anymore, and I'm starting to realize that I had better start taking more precautions.

It sucks.

The problem is, I look in the mirror and I still see the same guy looking back at me. I still feel (and act) like a teenager. I love music and video games and I call everyone "Dude." I'm the cool dad that all my kids' friends like.

But still, it's happening. I'm getting older.

So that's where I am today. Feeling all down and depressed because I'm old and people have been mocking me about it. The bastards. And those mocking me are all older than I am. Go figure.

Sigh. I suppose it beats the alternative, which is dying young.

My question to you is this: How old is too old to become a first-time author? Would an agent or a publisher take a chance on a 53 year old?

OK. Gotta run. My back is killing me. And I need to go chase some damned kids off my lawn.

Back in the saddle

2011-03-15T15:43:00.004-05:00

Here's a picture of some of us in Tres Reyes, Mexico, during our recent mission trip. I'm the doofus in the white tee-shirt and Cubs hat.

Sorry I've been absent for so long. When I returned last week from Mexico, I was beat. Turns out, the youngster was off school all week and the wife took some time off, too. So we kind of had a family vacation week.

It was good.

I won't bore you with the details of the mission trip, other than to say it was the best yet. We had an awesome time, got some really hard work done and spent one day at the Mexican Riviera, sitting alongside the ocean puffing on a Cuban cigar and sipping a latte.

It was good.

I did suffer a weird injury this time, one that caused a few moments of alarm. I was lifting buckets of rocks over my head and pouring them into a cement mixer (don't ask) when I felt something pop in my forearm. It didn't hurt at all, so I kept working. Truth be told, the buckets were far too heavy to be lifting over my head, and my knees were starting to buckle.

At that point, one of my friends took me by the arm and asked, "What happened to your arm?"

I looked down and gasped. The inside of my right forearm, literally from my wrist to my elbow, was hugely swollen. I had a lump the size of a tennis ball right in the middle and it was growing before my eyes. Now keep in mind we were in the jungle, an hour or two from the nearest clinic.

Luckily, one of the women with us is a registered nurse, so she came over and took a look at it.

"Oh my," she said, leading me over and making me sit down.

"What is it?" I asked, feeling the slightest twinge of alarm. I don't like it when nurses say "oh my."

"You're bleeding out," she said, feeling the arm. It now hurt like hell from the pressure. It turns out that the strain of lifting the five-gallon buckets of gravel somehow caused a blood vessel or artery to burst in my arm.

"Am I going to be OK?" I asked, only half serious and already feeling guilty about sitting down in the shade. It was only a little after 9 a.m. and we had a ton of work to do yet.

She looked at me. "I don't know."

That wasn't the answer I was looking for, of course. She wrapped it tightly and made me sit there for a while. Eventually, it stopped swelling and I went back to work.

Later, before I showered, I removed the heavy bandage. My arm was purple and green and swollen to twice its usual diameter. To make a long story short, it eventually turned into the biggest, nastiest bruise I have ever had, although it never did hurt.

To this day, nearly two weeks later, I can still see a huge yellow bruise on my arm.

Other than that, the trip was great. I'm hoping I can convince my wife to go with us next year. She's considering it, probably just so she can shut me up.

Now, I'm struggling mightily to get back into the grind of my new novel. I spent today re-reading it, since I had pretty much forgotten what the damned thing was about.

I really hope the passion comes back. I've been a bit depressed lately, mainly because I still have two partials and a full out -- not to mention a dozen queries -- and have heard nothing in the past month and a half. Grrrrrr. I really hate waiting.

Anyway, I'm back and plan on blogging more often. I'll probably keep the posts a bit shorter so I can blog more and still have valuable writing time left over.

How's it with you guys?

I'm back

2011-03-06T20:32:00.003-06:00

I've returned from Mexico, alive and well. And really, really tired.

So I'm going to pass on blogging tonight, but I promise to update you all tomorrow. Hope things went well while I was gone.

Did I miss anything? Anyone get an agent? A book deal? Married? :)

Adios, amigos!

2011-02-25T16:11:00.005-06:00

My plane leaves tomorrow morning at 6 for Atlanta and them on to Cancun, Mexico (weather permitting, of course). From there, fourteen of us will pile into two large trucks and/or vans and be driven several miles into the Yucatan to a small village called Leona Vicario.

We'll live there for the next week, in fairly primitive conditions. We travel an additional 100 miles or so inland to a tiny (and I mean tiny) Mayan village deep in the jungle called Tres Reyes (Three Kings in Spanish), where we will work with the Mayans finishing the little Sunday school we started four years ago. My middle son, Zach, went last year. But he's staying home this year because of his job. I know he wanted to go back, even though I suspect it was a hell of lot harder than he had anticipated. :)

The picture is of me (kneeling on the left) in Tres Reyes last year with my friend Jim Witmer and a young Mayan boy we called Pistol Pete (since we couldn't even begin to pronounce his real name). I can't wait to see little Pete this year.

This is my fourth consecutive trip and, as always, I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it.

I look forward to it because it is extremely rewarding work. The Mayans are very poor and live in appalling conditions. Despite a huge guilt complex (because I have it so good here), I fall in love with the villagers every year. Especially the children. They are the sweetest kids in the world.

I dread it because, well, let's face it: It's damned hot and hard work. We work hard in the hot Caribbean sun all day long. After a day or two, I always wonder just why in the hell I am there. Sometimes, we bicker. Sometimes, things get scary because of the drug cartels and the ever-present threat of violence and kidnapping (especially if you are American).

But in the end, I always end up having an awesome time, meet some incredibly special people and learn something about another culture that I didn't know before.

It's also, dare I say it, a very spiritual week. I always feel tired but mentally refreshed when I return, ready to get back to my writing and my exceptionally lucky existence.

I know I have been awful at blogging lately, and for that I apologize. I've been really sick with a nasty case of bronchitis (which is about 80 percent over finally), and I have been working hard on my novel. Now, I'm packing and spending some precious time with my family before I leave the house at 4 a.m. tomorrow for the drive to the airport.

So until me meet again sometime next weekend, please be well and write a lot. I hope you all find agents and multiple book deals when I'm gone. (Ack. I just thought of something. I won't have much Internet access, so I hope if I get any agent news, they don't give up on me. Oh well. I suppose that's a good problem to have, huh?)

Adios my writer friends.

While I wait

2011-02-17T16:44:00.004-06:00

Hi there. It's been a while, I know. What have I been doing, you ask?

Well, I've been writing my next novel. I've also been sick, as has most of the family during the past week. I'm also gearing up for my yearly mission trip to the Yucatan. I leave a week from Saturday, and already I'm feeling harried and ill-prepared. In other words, the same old, same old.

But mostly, I've been waiting. You know the feeling, right? At the Writers Digest Conference a few weeks ago, I had four requests by agents to read The Devil You Don't Know -- three partials and a full.

I got a rejection on one of the partials fairly quickly. It was a very helpful one and she said she really liked my writing, so I didn't feel too badly about it. But I've heard nothing yet from the others, nor have I heard anything from the handful of queries I sent out in a rush of anxiety upon returning home.

So, I am writing like a fiend (when I'm not too sick to sit here at my keyboard, that is).

I'm still loving the new book, Empty Spaces. It keeps taking one dark turn after another, sometimes without my permission. I'm mostly a "pantser," meaning I write organically without benefit of a full-blown outline. I do sketch out where I'm going with the book, along with some key scenes and bits of dialogue that come to me.

But mostly, I wait. If nothing else, this whole "trying to get published" scene is teaching me patience, which I sorely lack.

So, how do you guys handle the waiting? Are you able to wade into a new manuscript, or do you agonize and keep hitting refresh on gmail? (Not that I would do that, or course.)

A yowling cat

2011-02-10T12:55:00.004-06:00

We have two cats, and they are both pretty old. Annie, the eldest, will be 16 on Valentine's Day, while Martinique (Marty) will be 15 in August. We named Annie Annimaniac after the cartoon and Marty after one of the islands Jennifer and I visited on our Caribbean honeymoon a couple of months after we got her.

A few months ago, Annie starting walking around the house yowling, a sound so piercing and unnerving that it sent chills down my spine. I'd be sitting here at my desk writing and out of the murky darkness just a few feet away would come this ethereal and terrifying sound, as loud as a jumbo jet.

Yowwwwwllllllll. Yowwwwlllllll.

And naturally, I'd freak out and yell at her to knock it off. She would ignore me and go on yowling until I would stomp my feet and then she'd jump and look at me with something like terror in her big green eyes.

I was not sympathetic.

Now don't get me wrong. I love our cats. They are the best house cats in the world. Yes, I mean that. The best. Loving and loyal and all that jazz. Marty, the small, black-and-white jumpy one, took years before she became trusting enough to sit on my lap. She's a bit neurotic, meaning if she were human she'd probably be a writer. For the past six or seven years, I cannot seem to get Marty off of me. She has become my little partner, my little buddy. She lies on my chest while I lay in bed reading or watching television like she's a part of my body. A spare limb or something.

Annie is larger (fat, actually, but don't tell her that) and all black. She's more regal, although as affectionate as Marty in her own way. Annie belongs to Jennifer, while Marty is all mine. It's like we have his and her cats. We like that.

But then Annie starting her incessant yowling and I started having not-so-nice thoughts about her. For instance, I would wonder what would happen if I pegged a book at her. Now I didn't, of course. But I admit I wondered at times, especially after she would yowl loudly at my feet, when I didn't know she was there, and I would jump two feet into the air and clutch my chest. And then it would take me an hour of surfing the Internet before I was ready to write again. Damn cat.

But about six months or so ago, I walked up to Annie while she was curled up on the couch, fast asleep, and reached down to pet her. When I touched her, she shot straight into the air and the fur on her tail puffed up comically like one of those cattails that grow along the river. And that's when I realized something.

Annie had gone deaf.

I started to research deaf cats on the Internet and I realized that it's not an uncommon condition in older cats. And I read something else interesting. It seems that older, deaf cats yowl loudly for two reasons: They fear they've been abandoned because they no longer hear us in the house, and they cannot tell how loudly they are meowing because (duh) they are deaf.

And it broke my heart.

It broke my heart because I realize that I am not unlike Annie. I sit here at my computer and pour my heart out on this book or that book, and I send my queries out to agents and I wait, brokenhearted and fearful, hoping that an agent out there will hear me and respond. I fear that I've been abandoned. And it hurts, doesn't it?

If I could yowl, I would. Seriously.

So now, when Annie yowls and scares the bejesus out of me, I don't yell at her or stomp my feet. I go to her instead and pet her and lean down and nuzzle her and tell her that I'm right here, that she doesn't have to be afraid anymore.

And then I sit down and open my email and wait for someone to do the same for me.

Some perspective

2011-01-26T19:27:00.005-06:00

First, thanks to everyone who cheered me on while I was at the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City last weekend. You'll never know how much your support meant to me.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post since getting home. I've been crazy busy with both writing stuff and non-writing stuff. It's funny how, once things start to pop, things start popping all over the place.

But in all honesty, there's another, even stranger reason I haven't posted.

I'm superstitious. I don't want to do or say or write anything that might screw things up. For reals.

Anyway, here's my conference story. It's going to be brutally honest and somewhat long, so hang with me if you can.

I had some really bad moments in NYC. Like when I realized my pitch was all wrong and that I was going to bomb horribly and come home embarrassed and unable to face my wife and kids (who had such faith in me).

And, frankly, I was fearing facing all of you here on this blog. Because you have all been so supportive, so confident that I would do well.

So when things went horribly awry, I was terrified. I remember sitting in my hotel room less than two hours before the pitch slam -- with more than 50 literary agents already arriving at the hotel -- and calmly telling my wife on the phone that I was going to skip the pitch and just "soak up all the good writing advice here."

She wasn't buying it, of course. Instead, she offered to help me. So between the two of us (and my 13-year-old), we went back and forth trying to come up with a pitch that would accomplish two things: Do the book justice and not put the agents to sleep.

A word about my wife. She believes in me. No, that's not accurate. She BELIEVES in me. Period. She refuses to accept that I will fail at getting my book published. In fact, I have several friends like that, people who are so absolutely certain that I will succeed wildly at this book-writing thing that to do anything less would be a complete failure on my part. There were people at the conference, important people who I have been lucky enough to become friends with, who believe in me, who spent several minutes talking me down from the ledge when I was ready to jump.

While I love and appreciate their utter support, it has sometimes weighed heavily on my shoulders. Mainly because I know that the vast majority of writers DO NOT GET PUBLISHED. Most DO NOT GET AN AGENT.

I know the odds. You know the odds. And they aren't good.

Now don't get me wrong. I, too, can be very confident of my abilities. And I understand that their support is heartfelt and genuine. And it's appreciated.

But it also, to be brutally honest with you, scares me to death sometimes.

It scares me because sometimes I start to believe it. I start to believe that I am going to succeed. That I am going to snag an agent, snag a big-time book deal and spend the rest of my life doing what I love most. Writing. And making money at it.

I understand that being confident is a good thing. I am confident. But I know from experience that being overconfident is almost always a bad thing. Because it sets us up for major disappointment. And frankly, I've pretty much had my share of those in life.

I've always preferred to remain a realist. A slightly optimistic pessimist.

I didn't realize sitting in that NYC hotel room how important having family and friends who believe in me really is.

Back to the conference: We finally came up with a pitch that worked. Or so we thought. When I sat down across from the first agent, she stopped me seconds into my pitch and said something like, "I don't like that. Why in the world would I root for a protagonist like that?"

I stopped, blinked once, and swallowed hard. Shit. This was not going to go well. We spent all of this money to send my worthless ass to New York, and I AM GOING TO BOMB.

My life flashed before my eyes in the space of about five seconds. And then something happened, something amazing.

I started to talk to the agent. I more or less tossed the prepared pitch away and just told her about my book, about me, why I'm the perfect person to write this book. I even got her to smile and, memorably, to laugh a couple of times. And this is an agent who is not known as a nice person.

My nerves disappeared. I forgot all about the pressure to succeed. Suddenly, connecting with this agent was the most important thing in my life. I made eye contact and kept it. I smiled. I cracked a joke or two. And I pitched that goddamned book live I've never done anything else in my life.

She asked for a partial. And so did the next one.

I connected beautifully with the third agent. By then, I was cooking. She seemed to get my book. Her eyes widened at the exact right moment when I was telling her what it was about and how I had come to write it.

She asked for a full manuscript on the spot.

I walked away to the next agent line with tears in my eyes. I nearly pulled a John Boehner and started bawling on the spot.

Holy crap. I was going to do this! I really was. An hour before, I was ready to quit, and now I had won over a New York agent. It's hard for me to put into words the gratitude I felt at that moment -- gratitude for all of those people who hadn't given up on me even after I had given up on myself. Gratitude that I have the best wife, kids and friends in the world. Gratitude for my friends on this blog, those of you who comment and exhort and just generally care about another writer they don't even know in real life.

Gratitude. It's the only word I can think of to describe what I was feeling.

The final agent I pitched asked for a partial and just like that, the bell rang and the two hours were over.

I could have gone on forever.

But now, after a few days have passed, I look back on it with some perspective. And I can feel the old me coming back. A slightly optimistic pessimist once again.

Because I know the odds. And so do you. They aren't good.

But I'm also convinced that as long as we have each other, and our families, we can do this. One way or another.

We can do this.

Well, the pitch slam is over

2011-01-22T16:58:00.005-06:00

And I'm still alive. Sort of.

I had a tough day, culminating in my calling my wife two hours before the agent pitch to tell her that I had decided not to do it. My pitch sucked (it really did; people told me so), and my confidence had swooned.

Naturally, she tried to talk me out of it and -- even though her roller derby team is bouting tonight and she had every reason to think of herself and no one else -- she rolled her sleeves up and wrote me a brand new pitch idea. It was good.

Then I stepped outside the hotel (all right, fine. I had a cigar. Quit looking at me that way) and bumped into the managing editor of Writer's Digest -- the guy who had critiqued my manuscript all those months ago and told me it was good. While we both agreed that being a good pitchman shouldn't be a requirement to get your manuscript in front of a top agent, it remains the reason for the weekend.

So I reluctantly agreed to go ahead with the pitch slam. I rewrote my pitch using my wife's fine idea and took a deep breath and waded into ...

... a freaking zoo! Holy crap. Hundreds of writers lined up 15 deep before each agent, many of whom looked exhausted and a little shocked. Long story short, it's damned hard to pitch a complex novel in 60 seconds to a bored NYC literary agent. It takes every damned ounce of whatever it is that gives us that extra boost when we need it most. For reasons known only to the angels, I had it today.

I only had time to pitch four agents (my top target had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency; hope everything is okay there). Four agents who rep my genre. I watched writer after writer leave their tables looking a bit ashen. There were the occasional looks of relief, so some folks were getting bites. But it was nerve-wracking, believe me.

I will spare you the gory details of my pitches (some went well, some didn't), but I will say that when push came to shove, I lost my case of the nerves. I don't know what happened, except I guess I got it all out before the pitch slam. But I was calm and collected and actually enjoyed myself.

And the results? Not bad, actually.

Four agents pitched. Three partial requests. One full request.

Thank you to everyone who supported me on the blog, Twitter and Facebook. But most of all, thanks to my wife, Jennifer.

I could not have done this without you, babe. That's the stone-cold truth.

NOW I'm nervous

2011-01-21T21:21:00.004-06:00

I made it to the Writer's Digest Conference in New York (midtown Manhattan to be precise) in one piece, although I'm a bit droopy from lack of sleep.

The first night was low-key but exciting nonetheless. Famed NYC literary agent Richard Curtis gave the opening talk on the future of publishing, saying in a nutshell that books are by no means going extinct and that right now is both the most terrifying and the most exciting time in publishing history.

He also thinks the future will see a split between print-on-demand books and e-books. It was a very interesting talk that, while chronicling the tough times traditional publishing is going through, ended up offering that finest of emotions -- hope. Let's hope he's correct.

Many of us then walked a few blocks to a nearby pub for a Writer's Digest "Tweetup," which I guess is today's version of the old-fashioned meet-up. It was great fun and I met lots of interesting writers and folks within the industry. But man, was it cold walking back.

Tomorrow is the big day. Seminars and workshops all morning and then the Pitch Slam for two hours in the afternoon. Fifty-five agents (three canceled) will be sitting at tables in the hotel's main ballroom and we get three minutes to pitch our novel to them.

My pitch sucks. It really does. I imagine I will be polishing it right up until I sit down across from the first agent. Unless I pass out first, in which case I won't have to worry about having a lousy pitch.

I am tired. Perhaps you can tell. But I am also totally pumped about this weekend. The hotel is incredibly beautiful and located in the midst of some of the finest real estate in the world.

Life is both frightening AND good. And it doesn't get any better than that.

More tomorrow, hopefully after a good night's sleep. Wish me luck.

I'm not nervous

2011-01-20T15:30:00.006-06:00

Really. I'm not.

(You buying this?)

Okay. Fine. I'm nervous. As hell, actually. My plane leaves tomorrow morning at 6 (Ack! Why do all my flights leave at the crack of dawn?) for New York City and the Writer's Digest Conference at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in midtown Manhattan.

Let's say it together, shall we? Oooohhhhhhh.

See, there's all these literary agents who are going to be there, and I plan to pitch my book to any of them who will listen. I've been busy honing my pitch (more or less) and polishing the manuscript for the eleven-thousandth time and ... I think I'm ready.

Or, as ready as I can be with a raging case of the Oh Shits. As in, oh shit I can't believe I am putting myself through this. Really.

And to make things more interesting, things are exploding in my other career and this weekend is shaping up as one the most important in the 11 years I've been with the company. It's huge and it requires my full attention. Which I can't give, because I will be in NYC pitching my novel, which is also kind of huge.

Sigh.

My wife designed business cards for me and gave them to me for my birthday last week. They are totally, completely awesome! Me. A writer! I am, because my shiny new business cards SAY I am. I plan on handing those babies out like condoms in a free clinic.

As time allows, I'll post some blog updates from the conference. There's also going to be real-time Twitter updates from the attendees and agents. Use the hashtag #wdc11 to find us.

Friday night will feature a workshop led by Janet Reid on pitches, and I'm going to be there, front and center, soaking it up. She had asked for volunteers to give their pitch so she could critique it, but anyone with the nickname Query Shark ain't getting her fins on me. No way, no how. Just thinking about it gives me the willies.

There's going to be nearly 500 writers there from four continents and 57 literary agents. That should make for some major league networking. While I tend toward anti-social (like many writers), I always seem to rise to the occasion when I need to be charming and all that. Let's hope I can pull it off once again, when it counts most.

Wish me luck, especially from 3-5 p.m. EST Saturday, when I will be engaged in the writer's version of speed-dating -- spending 90 seconds pitching my baby to some of the most powerful and influential agents in the heart of the literary capital of the world.

Me? Nervous? No way.

What's your favorite song?

2011-01-13T20:13:00.004-06:00

This is a tough one for me, because I've always had difficulty choosing one song. In fact, my wife claims I have about a thousand favorite songs.

It does seem that about every third song that comes on the radio, I crank it up and tell her it's a favorite.

Basically, I sort music by age. Mine, that is. So I have faves from childhood, faves from middle school, faves from high school. Well, you get the idea. Taken together, these songs form the soundtrack of my life.

Take my mp3 player, for instance. I have songs on it that date back to the 1960s (Beatles, Stones, The Who) through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and up to right now. And they are shuffled, so I can listen to the Beatles doing "Ticket to Ride," followed by Lady Gaga singing "Paparazzi," followed by The Clash, Springsteen, The Jam, Matt and Kim, and ELO. Oh, with a little Lily Allen and the Doors thrown in.

But favorite song? Sheesh. You might as well ask me which of my three sons is my favorite (hint: It changes daily).

So I'm going to sort them into three basic age groupings and then come up with my absolute favorite (which will have likely changed by the time you read this).

Younger years favorite: "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin. It's a gorgeous, lush ballad by one of the most kick-ass rock bands ever. And it reminds me of a girl I loved in eighth grade. So, shoot me.

Middle years favorite: Tie between "Streets of Fire" by Springsteen and "That's Entertainment" by the Jam. OK, and maybe "Man Out of Time" by Elvis Costello. See?

Latter years favorite: Hmmm. So many to choose from, believe it or not. I really like today's music. I'd have to say "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire, followed closely by "Rebellion (Lies)" also by Arcade Fire.

And now for my favorite song of all time (which really hasn't changed since I was a kid). It's ... "Baby Blue" by Badfinger. Best. Damned. Song. Ever.

What's yours?

What's your favorite band?

2011-01-12T16:37:00.004-06:00

Since I can't seem to find the time to blog regularly about things like, you know, my writing, I thought perhaps we could take some time and get to know one another a little better.

With that in mind, I've decided to post a few short pieces about my favorite things, like bands, songs, books, authors, films, etc. And I would love for you guys to chime in with some of yours, as well. Not only is it always interesting to get to know people better, but perhaps we'll find some overlap, something in our psyche that makes us as writers more alike than different.

Or not. Who knows?

Anyway, I decided to start with my favorite bands (or musicians, if you'd like).

Back in the day, I'd have to say Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were my favorites. Shortly after I cut my hair and went punk, I discovered Elvis Costello and the Attractions and The Clash. One consistent band throughout my life has always been Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I've seen them live five times over the years. I've also seen Zeppelin and Costello, too.

Funny story: My wife and I saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions in Chicago shortly before we were married (probably in '95 or so), and the drummer hit on my wife! Seriously. We had met the band outside the arena and got Elvis to sign his own handwritten set list my wife had managed to sweet talk away from one of the roadies. I was both jealous and proud that my wife would attract the attention of a world famous rock star. Of course, I'd have killed the bastard if he had actually, you know, put the moves on her. But he was very nice about his flirting.

Needless to say, she became a huge Costello fan and remains one to this day.

The band I'm currently in love with is Arcade Fire. They are completely, totally awesome. Right up there with the best of them, in my opinion. We haven't seen them in concert yet, but if they come around, you can bet we'll be there.

So. How about you guys. What's your faves? Any stories behind them? Do tell.

Derby, revising and tragedy

2011-01-09T18:18:00.006-06:00

My wife's roller derby team, the Hard Knocks, have announced their second bout later this month. That's the poster at left and yes, the cute one on the far left in the red shorts is my wife.

The only problem is, the bout is scheduled for the weekend when I will be at the Writer's Digest conference in New York. Damn it. Oh well, I'm sure the team will survive without me (just kidding).

I know I've been absent around here a great deal lately, and there's a good reason for it: I have been (once again) rewriting The Devil You Don't Know. I had another book editor go through it and she made some excellent suggestions designed to tighten up the plot and quicken the pace a bit in the first 150 pages.

Well, once I got started revising I started rewriting. So now the book has gotten even smaller (I've cut another thousand words) and better (I think). Next up will be polishing my query and creating a pitch that I can take with me to the conference, where I will find myself face-to-face with 57 literary agents! Gulp.

And finally, I've been glued to the television and the Internet in the wake of the mass killing in Arizona on Saturday. How very sad. I will refrain from posting a political diatribe (although I would LOVE to) and will say only that it's time to knock off all of the hatred and name-calling and divisive rhetoric and try to become a united country again. Before it's too late.

Have a good Sunday evening. We'll talk to tomorrow (which is, wait for it ... my birthday!).

My New Year's gift to you

2011-01-02T18:50:00.003-06:00

Please watch the following video. It's a wonderful reminder of what's really important in life.

And turn up your speakers. The music is awesome.

Link.

My 2011 resolution? 1999 all over again

2010-12-30T13:41:00.008-06:00

At the risk of being cliched, I'm writing a New Year's post about my resolution for the upcoming year.

I decided to do this mainly because this past year sucked sooooo badly that it's just a pleasure to see it fade in the rear-view mirror. Seriously. Good riddance, 2010.

This past year saw my confidence reach new lows, while my stress levels hit record highs. This was the year of my hitting the wall, writing-wise. Of finally concluding that only an act of Providence will result in my getting published.

I worked harder on my writing this past year than I ever have, and that's saying something since I was an award-winning journalist (writer and editor) for twenty-five years. I actually read more how-to-write-fiction books this past year than novels for the first time in my life. I study them like I'm aiming for a doctorate.

And yet, even as I worked so hard, I kept reading accounts of how the publishing industry is tanking. Two particularly frightening articles I've read in the past week (I'm not even going to link to them, to spare you the horror) came to the conclusion that the days of a debut author getting a first novel published are over.

I don't know if I buy that argument completely, but I do recognize that things are far different now than only a couple of years ago. And they are getting worse all the time.

I've spent a lot of money lately preparing to take my manuscript to NYC for the Writers Digest conference next month. And yet I sit here wondering if it's money wasted, money we could have used for things far more important than pitching my work to literary agents who likely aren't looking for new clients anyway. Things like food, for instance.

But it's done. I'm going. Too late to back out now.

So after considerable thought, I've decided on my 2011 New Year's resolution:

I'm going to pretend it's not really 2011.

That's right, I'm going to write like it's 1999!

I'm going to operate under the assumption that quality work can still get published the traditional way, despite the growing cacophony of naysayers.

I'm going to pitch that freaking novel like it's yesterday's bath water. I'm going to hand out business cards and network and all that stuff that used to work. Back in the day. Back in 1999.

I'm going to continue to read accounts of how Stephen King and J.K. Rowling got published despite all of their rejections. I'm going to pretend it can happen to me, too.

Call me a dreamer if you will. Call me naive.

And hopefully, before the year is out, you can also call me published!

Merry Christmas, all!

2010-12-24T15:35:00.004-06:00

I know I've been absent lately. It's been a bit crazy with all the holiday doings and the last-minute push to get the novel rewritten and to my new book editor.

We're in the midst of a major Christmas Eve snowstorm here in central Illinois and I just crashed my car into the boulder at the end of my driveway. Yay. Luckily it didn't do too much damage, although it took me and the three boys more than an hour to get the car up the drive and into the garage.

Now all I need to do is get the wife home from work safely in an hour or so and we can sit down to a big Christmas Eve dinner. It will be the first time the entire family has been together in weeks. It's what I love most about the holidays -- getting all of my kids together under one roof. Even their constant bickering and giggling makes me smile.

Anyway, I thought I would sneak online and wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope that you and yours are safe and happy this holiday weekend. I promise to be around a bit more often as the holidays fade into the rear view mirror.

Feliz Navidad!

The Devil is done

2010-12-15T16:07:00.004-06:00

I just finished my latest (and final) revision of The Devil You Don't Know and shipped it off to my new book editor.

I rewrote the beginning completely, rewrote most of the middle, and tinkered with the ending until I was mostly satisfied. I'm now convinced I will never be completely satisfied with any book I write. I can accept that.

I added two brand new plot lines. I also found my theme and polished it until it emerged. I cut another five thousand words from the manuscript in the process. It was the latest of several cuts over the past few months.

Five thousand words. Think about that. More than two chapters, gone in five days.

So the book that stood at a whopping 145,000 words when I finished the first draft over a year ago now stands at a relatively svelte 107,000 words.

Now all I have to do is rewrite the query and write a new synopsis. Oh, and wait for the new editor to rip it to shreds.

Once those are done, I think I'm ready to take this baby to New York City.

Then I can get back to my new book, and do it all over again.

A quick thought

2010-12-11T21:18:00.004-06:00

As we sit here, awaiting the Monster Blizzard that is right this moment heading our way, I thought I would toss out a quick post on what I like most about following my favorite authors on Twitter.

They make typos just like me. Isn't that cool? And sometimes, their spelling is atrocious (wait a minute, did I spell that right?).

So. Anyway, I thought that was cool.

WRITING UPDATE: Well. I've officially gone nuts revising The Devil You Don't Know. My new editor is waiting patiently for the manuscript, while I'm sitting here rewriting the whole damned novel. Again. See, I had a shiny new plot idea, which in turn led to a shiny new plot twist, which in turn led to a shiny new theme that needs to be polished like fine silver.

Sigh.

A little holiday cheer

2010-12-07T15:02:00.003-06:00

Oh. My. God.

I love, love, love this video. It manages to combine my favorite Christmas show from my childhood with some decent New Wave from my adolescence, resulting in one hell of a Christmas blast from the past.

Crank this baby and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N4EFVgtB0Y

A new beginning

2010-12-06T18:48:00.005-06:00

Literally. A new beginning.

Today, I rolled up my sleeves and completely rewrote the opening chapter to The Devil You Don't Know, which from now on shall be known as The Novel That Will Not Die.

A few months ago, I rewrote the entire ending. It got better. Much better. I've rewritten the middle so many times that I sometimes read it and don't recognize it as my work. (And I suppose that's not a bad thing.)

But the beginning has remained pretty much the same for three years, with only some minor tinkering here and there.

But that changed after my meeting last week with my second book editor. She, along with a couple of other readers, had commented that I was introducing too many characters all at once. I was, of course, but on purpose. The beginning was a series of short vignettes written as (gasp) a prologue. They set up the novel's premise and provided the inciting incident.

I opened up a new Word file and rewrote a new Chapter One from scratch after sketching it out in a notebook last night. No more prologue. No more character vignettes.

My wife, who has long been a champion of the old beginning, read the new one this evening and admitted she likes it much more than the original. That's a start.

I'm trying to get the book in shape for the Writer's Digest Conference in late January in New York City. I have reserved a spot and purchased my hotel room. All I'm missing is airline tickets. I have until Dec. 15 to change my mind and get nearly all of my money back -- if I chicken out.

I want to go. I want to take my manuscript and wave it under the noses of fifty of the top literary agents and editors in the world. I want to meet Janet Reid and Donald Maass. I really do. I want to hand them a business card, wink casually, and tell them to "call me."

Well, maybe not. But I want a chance to take this baby of mine to Gotham and go balls to the wall. One last shot, perhaps.

And so, I'm back at work on TDYDK. It was tough getting back inside the character's heads after all this time, especially since my new book is so different in tone, setting and voice. But once I did, it was like I'd never left it.

I was writing dialogue for Michael Reed like it was 2008 all over again. Whoo hoo. Who says you can't go back home?

I think I'm challenging myself with this because I've fallen victim myself to the writer's malaise that seems to be sweeping the Internet. From Natalie Whipple to Nathan Bransford, people are in flux. Formerly confident bloggers are opening up and letting the world see their insecurities and fears. Natalie, especially.

As a result, I love her as a writer even more now. She's just like I am!

But all of this soul-searching and insecurity -- for me, at least -- can be debilitating. I am a better writer, hell a better person, when I am moving forward. Like a shark. Because I'm always afraid that if I stop, I'll die.

So onward. Perhaps to New York. Anyone with me?

A clarification

2010-12-03T20:17:00.003-06:00

In my previous post, I wrote about my meeting with an independent book editor. I met with her to discuss whether she could help me with The Devil You Don't Know.

During that discussion, we talked about whether the subject matter of my book might make it more difficult to publish. She said that it might, and we talked about ways to get around that potential problem.

A couple of people I've corresponded with seemed to feel the editor was out of bounds by giving me her opinion. She was not. I was the one who brought it up, since I've been worrying about it for some time. She only answered me honestly. And, in fact, we had a fruitful conversation about how to deal with the issue. For that, I'm grateful.

I just wanted to set the record straight. Hey, it's the journalist in me. Have a great weekend.

An award and an epiphany

2010-11-30T18:59:00.013-06:00

A new blog friend of mine, T.C. McKee , gave me an award a couple of days ago. Thank you!

First off, please check out her blog. It's awesome. I'm glad I've found it. And I'm glad I have a new Internet writer friend. One can never have too many, right?

According to T.C., here are the rules for this particular award.

1. Thank and link back to the person that gave this award.
2. Answer the 10 survey questions.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers( I'm going to pass it on to fewer because, well, I'm lazy).
4. Contact the bloggers you’ve picked to let them know about the award.

So, here's the questions:

1. If you blog anonymously are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now? I like having my name out there. It's the main reason I started the blog -- to start building a public platform for my fledgling writing career. Ditto for my Facebook and Twitter usage.

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side: I'm still writing, after all the rejections and slights, etc.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror? A man who is getting a bit tired and worn out, but one who cannot stand the thought of giving up. Oh, and a slight thinning of hair in the front. I really hate that last one.

4. What is your favourite summer cold drink? Lipton's Diet Green Iced Tea. Love it. Could drink it 24-7. Iced coffee would be a close second.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do? Um. I suppose I should keep this one clean. So. I love to read, exercise, listen to music and spend time with my family and friends.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life? What is it? Of course. I want to be a published author. I want to make a living from my fiction writing. I want to see my name on a book.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching? Class clown, definitely. Still am.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment of your life what would you see? The births of all three of my sons. Incredibly awesome moments that likely will never be repeated. Also, marrying my lovely wife. Best move I ever made.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events? Ha ha. If you read this blog with any regularity, you already know the answer to this one. My life is pretty much an open book, both here on this blog and in real life. We are only as sick as the secrets we have.

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why? Read. I hate talking on the phone. I always have. I'm not sure why, since I really like talking to people and interacting. But there's something about a phone ....

Okay, so here are 3 bloggers who totally deserve this award:

Anne Gallagher

Tracy

Josin

And now for my epiphany, if that's what one can call it.

I met with the woman I may or may not hire to edit The Devil You Don't Know on Sunday. She is fairly young and seems to know her stuff very, very well. She scanned my manuscript and told me she doesn't think I need a full blown developmental edit. (She actually told me my writing was very good. Yay!)

But she did say something that worries me, although it's something I've long suspected. She said that the fact my book is about God, good and evil might make it next to impossible to sell. Apparently, people are able to read novels about werewolves and vampires and fairies and stuff, but refuse to read anything that postulates that God might be real, too.

I mean, come one folks. It's fiction. A story.

So. One of her suggestions is that I rewrite the book as more of a "dark comedy," along the lines of Dogma. Apparently, if I make fun of religion, the book is more likely to be published.

The problem is two-fold: The book is probably too mainstream to be Christian and possibly too Christian to be mainstream.

Sigh.

I set out to write a book about what might happen if the Christian Bible turns out to be true, and how that would play out in the secular, profane world we live in today. It's kind of like how Stephen King took Dracula and dropped him into Maine for Salem's Lot.

It's a what-if book. Nothing more, nothing less. It reads more like a modern-day horror story than anything religious. I mean, think about it. If all that stuff is true, we're in for some scary times.

So, I'm not sure how to proceed. She did say that if I don't want to rework it to be more "irreverent," then I should at least figure out a way to sell it so as to not turn off the mostly atheist publishing world.

So, I could be back to square one. In fact, the new book, which has no religion in it but lots of sex and violence, is looking better by the minute.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T11:57:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to post a very brief but very heartfelt "Happy Thanksgiving" to all of my American followers and any visitors out there who might be popping in.

Thank you to all of you, who have patiently listened to my whining and crying on this blog for the past year. I really do love each and every one of you, and I am so very thankful that you are out there.

All of you.

Despite my bouts of doubt (hey, that almost rhymes!), I don't plan on giving up on my fiction career. And I hope you don't, either.

But let's not talk about that on this day. Let's instead watch football and gorge ourselves and enjoy our families and friends. Because that's what Thanksgiving is all about.

So. Go, enjoy. Diet tomorrow.

One year later

2010-11-23T15:12:00.006-06:00

My blog turns one year old today, and I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you a couple of things I've learned about blogging and my writing during the past year.

Warning: I wish this could be more optimistic. But it's not. I've been in a rather foul mood of late, and it's going to show in this blog. (Too much real life, I guess.)

Read no further if you are looking for warm and cuddly.

Oh. Still with me? Okay. Your call. But consider yourself warned. Here we go. I have learned that:

1. I am not a very good blogger. For whatever reason, I can't seem to generate many page hits or comments. And try as I may, I cannot top 100 followers. Now I don't equate blog followers and commenters with my own personal worth as a human being or a fiction writer. No. Nor did I aspire to become a top-notch blogger. I wanted to become a published author. That was the whole point. But the blog was fun, until it wasn't. You know? So. I've been running out of steam this last couple of months. When I started the blog, I wasn't actively writing, but was instead messing with my query while waiting for an editor to finish with my first ms, The Devil You Don't Know.

I had more time to write blog posts, read other blogs and leave comments. It was fun, and I had the time to kill. But when I started writing my second book in earnest, I started to slack off when it came to writing posts. That's when my hits dropped, many of my early followers drifted away, and I started to lose interest.

I'm not quitting blogging. Not yet, anyway. But I no longer expect to be the Nathan Bransford of aspiring writers. If I can connect with you, great. If not, sorry. I am going to devote more of my time to my writing, which leads me to my second item.

2. I am no longer confident that I will ever become published. That kind of sucks, doesn't it? It just doesn't seem like it's in the cards, as hard as that is for me to swallow. I'm thrilled for those of you getting agent attention. Really, truly and honestly. But I'm not getting any agent attention. Period. And as thrilled as I am for you, I am equally as worried about my own future.

I don't really know where to go from here. I am meeting with yet another professional book editor right after Thanksgiving, in the hopes that she can do or say something, anything, that can help me generate some interest in my book. But I'm not holding out much hope, frankly.

And that sucks.

I'm still hammering away on my next book, but I'm not sure my heart is in it. I hope it is. I think it is. I'm just not sure.

It's been an eye-opening experience. I honestly thought I had the talent to pull this off. I may yet, but I'm no longer holding my breath.

In the meantime, I AM continuing to write. I will try to get to as many of your blogs as I can, and will comment as often as possible. I promise. I have made some awesome friends here, and I would hate to see that end after only a year.

Sorry to be Debbie Downer here. I'm just not feeling too great about my writing future these days, and it's become damn near impossible to keep it out of my posts. I promised you guys honesty when I started this blog, and I have kept my promise.

For better or worse, this is how I feel today. Tomorrow? Well, that's another day, now isn't it?

A tale of two scenes

2010-11-20T20:05:00.004-06:00

My 20-year-old son, Zach, is not a person who reads a lot for pleasure. He's very intelligent, but in a spacial way. He wants to be a film editor. Or an engineer. Something spacial. Visual.

But he asked to read the opening of my novel-in-progress, Empty Spaces, the other night. The book, you might remember, opens with a harrowing school shooting -- the inciting incident that fuels the entire novel.

I was rather proud of my opening scene, which I have posted here on this blog previously.

So he read it and when he was done, he turned to me and said: "Hmmm. I think you could do it better."

Say what?

My initial reaction was the usual. What do you know? You're just a kid, and you don't even read much. Give me a break. But I didn't say it. Instead, I was curious. I mean, I've learned over the years that sometimes, something really good comes from some rather surprising places.

So I listened. And listened. He talked about how I was "telling it, not showing it." Remember, this is a kid who knows next to nothing about writing fiction. He asked me my favorite scene ever in a movie.

I thought for a while and said, "The scene in the Godfather where Michael gets the gun from behind the old-fashioned toilet stall and goes out and shoots the gangster and a police captain."

"Right," he said. "That's my favorite, too. Think about how the filmmaker did that, how he used the tension and sounds and camera angles to jack up the tension without saying a word."

So I thought about it. And we talked about it. For more than an hour. And when I went to bed that night, I promised him I would re-work the opening scene the next morning, using his suggestions.

I didn't have much hope that it would be better. After all, I'm the writer here, the expert.

But I got up, poured me a cup of Starbucks (it was an off day from the gym) and went to work. I opened up a new Word file and, without reading the original, re-imagined the scene from scratch. I wanted to show it as though we were looking at it, feeling it, hearing it, smelling it. I wanted the tension to come organically, and not just through my words.

What follows is the original opening scene, followed by the re-imagined one. You be the judge. And remember that the scene shows an anonymous kid preparing to shoot up his junior college. The scene really sets up the entire novel.

Original scene:

The boy dropped his backpack onto the floor just outside the stall closest to the window and plucked the Heckler-Koch G36 mini assault rifle from its hiding place between his American history book and a pair of balled-up sweatpants. The gun was wrapped in a pair of socks—the good black ones his mother had bought him last Christmas.

He’d done his homework. The weapon was assembled in less than ten seconds, since the G36 simply snaps together using its handy little cross-pins—typically effective German engineering, his father would’ve said. The boy had bought it three days earlier from some jive-talking dope dealer whose hands shook so much he could barely pocket the cash. It had been no problem coming up with the money. He’d simply withdrawn it from his savings account at the First Bank of Exeter—money he’d earned over the summer working in his father’s law office. He’d been little more than a glorified delivery boy, of course, but it had made the Old Man happy to have his kid hanging around. And he paid well.

Once the weapon was together, he rummaged in the backpack until he found the three ammo clips, pulled them out and slammed one home. He no longer felt the need to hurry. If someone came in now, he’d just start here. He stood, shouldered the backpack, tucked the remaining clips into the waistband of his jeans and wiped his sweaty hair from his eyes. He could feel his heart pounding in his temples. He felt more alive than he had ever felt in his life.

He looked at himself briefly in the big mirror. A wild-eyed stranger stared back at him. Averting his eyes, he walked out of the bathroom and into the crowded, noisy hallway.

Here's the new scene:

He shrugged out of the black canvas backpack and let it drop. It smacked the floor, sending up a fine spray of gritty dust. He bent down and grimaced. An unmistakable odor seeped in under the closed stall door—sweet urinal cakes, stale piss, icy disinfectant. The candy scent of cheap liquid hand soap.

Jesus. Was there a place on earth more fucking disgusting than a school bathroom?

He tore at the backpack’s zipper, which hesitated only a second before giving way. Zzzzip. Hands plunged inside, rummaged about. His brain took note of what he felt. A notebook. A flannel shirt, rolled into a ball. An iPod. Cell phone. Earbuds. A sneaker. His father’s ice pick. Just in case. Dad wouldn’t need it.

His hand grasped something cold—solid. He grunted, pulled it out.

An American History textbook. He pegged it at the door. Blam.

Growing frantic, he dug deeper, tossing the contents aside.

Yes. He grasped cold metal with trembling hands. The receiver housing of the Heckler-Koch G36 mini assault rifle, as black as midnight. It paid to know the right people. He knew the right people.

He placed the housing on the toilet’s porcelain tank top and went back to work. Three more pieces remained hidden within the bag: The return mechanism, the bolt carrier group, and the trigger group. He’d disassembled the still-warm weapon before leaving home. The last thing he needed was a fucking rifle barrel poking out of his pack. That would draw some looks, some questions.

Not good. Not yet.

His fingers closed on the trigger group when the bathroom door burst open. Laughter echoed off the cold tile walls. He froze—greasy hair in his eyes, slender hands still in the bag—and peered out through a sliver of daylight between the stall door and the cubicle wall. Two kids stood side-by-side at the row of urinals on the facing wall, pissing and chattering.

Fuck.

He reached down in slow motion, his fingers tightening on the ice pick’s handle. He’d kill them if necessary. Silently, so as to not raise an early alarm.

They finished, zipped, and even washed their hands. The door closed with a bang. The bathroom fell silent. He went back to work, quicker now. Class would be starting any second. He found the pieces, snapped them together using the handy cross-pins. Typically effective German engineering, his father would have said.

He plucked three ammo clips from the bag and slammed one home. He jammed the other two into the waistband of his jeans. Finished, he hefted the rifle, opened the stall door and stepped out. He relaxed. If anyone came in now, he’d just start here. No problems.

He turned, dragged the backpack out of the stall with the toe of his sneaker and kicked it as hard as he could. It slid across the tile floor until it slammed into the far wall, next to the clanking steam radiator under the big frosted windows. It would sit there unnoticed for twenty-nine minutes, until a handsome young police officer found it with a victorious cry.

On his way out, he glanced into the grimy mirror above the sinks. A scrawny, dark-haired kid carrying a nasty black assault rifle looked back. He grinned, gave himself the thumbs up. He felt more alive at that moment than at any time in his eighteen years.

It was straight-up 8 o’clock on a Monday morning.

Well? I don't know about you, but I think the kid was right.

Blech

2010-11-14T18:46:00.004-06:00

Yes, I've been absent. Again.

Yes, I have a dear friend waiting patiently for me to read her book (I am. It's good. I WILL finish it soon. Promise.)

But. I have been sick. Like a damned dog. And the wife, too. She had bronchitis and did a five-day run of antibiotics -- the kick-butt kind. Luckily, the roller derby league is on a mini-hiatus for the holidays, so she's not missing much.

Me? I don't do doctors, unless I'm dying. So I'm waiting it out. And waiting.

Oddly enough, I have been working on the new book. I knocked out a couple thousand words this past week -- not much, sure, but not bad considering. I know it's a rough draft and I know that I seem to have difficulty painting characters in depth (according to response to TDYDK), so I'm focusing on that. I will likely have to go back and fill in some depth once the actual rough draft is finished.

Sigh. I'm done for tonight. I hope to blog more very soon. Surely this can't last forever. Right?

Yeah, but is it love?

2010-11-10T16:02:00.004-06:00

Work is progressing nicely on my second novel, Empty Spaces. (The photo at left is how I imagine my character, Annie DeWitt, as looking.)

While the book is going well, it occurred to me today that I don't obsess over this one like I did The Devil You Don't Know. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

When I was writing TDYDK, it was ALL I ever thought about. At the gym, while working out or sitting in the steam room, I was constantly working out knotty plot issues and just generally worrying about the book. While I had several outlines for the first one, it was always changing because I spent so much time rolling the plot around in my brain.

It about drove me insane, to be honest with you.

Conversely, Empty Spaces is moving along at a nice pace -- without all the obsessing. To be honest, I kind of miss all that internal drama. I wonder if it's partly due to the fact that I know far more about fiction writing now? I mean, when I wrote the first one, I was struggling to just tell the damned story. I was always reaching deep to capture a particular scene or theme. After just a few hours at the keyboard, I was exhausted both mentally and emotionally.

Not so on this one. I write my scenes for the day, read it over and shut it down. Sometimes, I even whistle while I work.

This is not normal for me.

I LOVED my first story. It was personal. It was a story I had wanted to write for more than 25 years. It explores some very deep and deeply personal aspects of my life. It hurt to write.

This one is just plain a great story. Nothing more, nothing less. I like my characters, but I don't daydream about them like I did the first one. I honestly think this book has more intricate characters than the first one. It's certainly better written and better plotted (mainly since I know what I'm doing these days).

So why don't I love it? Is our first book like our first love, in that nothing after it ever feels quite the same? Or maybe I'm actually becoming a fiction writer and not just someone who is wrenching out his heart at the keyboard.

No matter the answer, this one feels good to write. Not painful. Not exhausting. Pleasurable.

Is that a problem?

I'm curious to hear from people working on second or third books. How did the experience differ from that first one? Can my book be great even if I don't daydream about it all the time?

Like a swarm of fireflies, we are

2010-11-01T17:07:00.006-05:00

In my last post, I wrote about how to keep on keepin' on after the thrill is gone. You know, once the romance of actually writing that first novel wears thin and the reality of trying to get it published begins crushing your already fragile ego -- bit by bit, day by day.

It appears that at some point, this point perhaps, many of us seriously consider giving up.

This malady seems to be making the rounds on the Internet like the flu these days. Based on the comments here, the e-mails I've received and reading other writer's blogs, it appears many writers I know online are suffering from it. Perhaps even most of them. It's a head scratcher, that's for sure.

Then it came to me. I remembered sitting outside in early June of this year smoking a cigar (bad habit, sure, but delightfully satisfying all the same. So, shoot me ...) and commenting to my wife about the swarms of sparkling fireflies. We watched them for an hour or so, awed by their ethereal beauty. You know, until the cigar smoke chased them all away. Hey, it works on mosquitoes, too!

A few weeks later, as we again sat on our back deck, I noticed one lone firefly flitting about the back yard. It seemed lost, confused. I swear it was swerving a bit, flying erratically. In it's death throes, I remember thinking. Poor thing.

"They don't last long, do they?" I said to the wife.

"Unfortunately, they don't," she said. "But there will be more next year to take their place."

And that, I believe, is what is happening to so many of us wanna-be writers online these days.

When I started this blog a year ago this month, many of my early blog friends were writers situated about where I was in my journey toward publication -- either they were still writing their first novel or had already finished it but had only just begun querying.

It was a heady time, full of optimism and glee. Well, okay, maybe not. But you get the picture.

We posted our raw queries and let our friends gently help us polish them. We posted snippets of our work and enjoyed the "oohs" and "awwws" of our blog mates. We steadfastly wrote of our dreams and our desires. We talked of our dream agents. We listed the music we listen to when we write. When things got tough, like they always do, we held each other up. Sometimes, we sent each other lengthy e-mails, pouring out our hearts to our kindred writing spirits.

And then, slowly, they started to disappear. One by one, like those late spring fireflies, they've gone away. What was once a swarm of eager new writers was soon a handful of grouchy, slightly depressed burnouts who blog every so often and even then, mostly just snarl at the world. Sort of like rattling the cage just to let everyone know they are still alive.

Like me, for instance.

Oh sure, new friends have come along. Friends in different spots in their writing careers, some of them still full of optimism and joy. Others seem immune to the pain and just keep on going, despite the rejections and the questions from family and friends: "How's your book? Still writing it?"

Even those questions start to wither and die out, don't they? After a while, it seems, everyone just loses faith.

And it's here, dear friends, that I believe published writers are made. Right here. Right now.

I read somewhere that the average lifespan of a blog like this is just a little under a year. I would wager that's about the lifespan of a writer's career once he or she has started querying with little or no success.

It's just too damned hard to keep writing and getting rejected, isn't it?

Yes. It is. But I believe in my heart that it's the few who continue on, past this point, who finally taste success.

When I was younger, I remember going out to my tool shed in the darkest days of winter and finding, of all things, a living firefly crawling along my desktop. The shed was slightly heated and the bug had somehow hung on and lived through the coldest months of the year. It didn't seem possible, and yet there it was.

I remember being stunned, and so moved by its unexpected presence that I nearly burst into tears.

If that little bug was a writer, he would have had a three-book deal with Random House.

When the thrill is gone

2010-10-29T17:06:00.006-05:00

I haven't been in a good place lately.

No, I don't mean that I've been lurking in back alleyways or sinister bars. I'm talking more metaphorically. As we used to say back in the day, my head is in a bad place.

How so, you ask? Well. My personal life has been a bit, um, precarious the past couple of weeks. Kids and leaking roofs and bitter disappointments. Rinse and repeat. If there truly is a God, then He's been piling on of late.

But perhaps the biggest concern, for me anyway, is my recent reluctance to write. Be it this blog or my new book, I have been avoiding the keyboard like the plague. It's not even a reluctance, actually. More of an intense YAWN. Like, who the frick even cares?

Being an inquisitive little bugger, I've spent several days researching my dilemma and I believe I've stumbled upon the answer.

I am, in a word, paralyzed. (See? I'm a genius, aren't I?)

There's a reason for my nascent malaise, I believe. I suspect (or at least, I hope) some of you can relate. See, I spent so much time earnestly working on The Devil You Don't Know, naively believing that I would write my masterpiece and then, somehow, just get it published!

I mean, duh. Why would I not want to publish it? So, having no clue as to what I was doing, I rolled up my sleeves (as best I could, since I tend to write in tee-shirts) and wrote my book. Only after the two years it took me to write it did I learn enough of my craft to realize that it's JUST NOT THAT EASY.

While I'm not ready to say just yet that TDYDK will never be published, I admit I'm not as confident as I once was.

And now, I've sat down and started writing book two, Empty Spaces. It's a really awesome book, if I may say so myself. Really, really good. I've done my homework. It has pacing, snappy relevant dialogue, a smart plot and enough tension to string it between two electrical poles.

So what, you ask, is my problem?

To be honest, I sit and allow myself to look forward to another year or two of incredibly hard work, only to find myself right here again.

Look, I am a writer. I must write. Or die. It's that simple. But like most of us, I secretly want to succeed at it, to have others read it. To have an agent and ultimately a publisher love it as much as I do.

I want to -- let's be honest here -- make money at this thing called fiction writing.

I would give anything to go back in time, to that point when all I did was sit down and write, without worrying about all the crap that was to come.

So tell me, how do you soldier on when the thrill is gone?

ROLLER DERBY UPDATE: For those who care, my beloved Hard Knocks lost 134-109 Saturday night. It was a great bout and a tremendous success. The place was sold out, alternative rock and roll blared and the media was all over it. Very cool. And the wife took a teeth-jarring hit and bounced right up, although one girl on the other team was knocked unconscious for a few seconds.

It's bout time!

2010-10-22T15:04:00.003-05:00

So, this week has been crazy busy with extreme family things (sigh) and roller derby mania. Consequently, I wasn't able to get nearly enough writing done.

I shall do better next week. I hope.

But. Peoria's debut roller derby exhibition bout is tomorrow and things are getting crazy for the ladies and those of us helping behind the scenes. In fact, I'm leaving in a few minutes to help move the floor to the East Peoria Convention Center, where we will then assemble and lay it. Yikes. By floor, I mean several hundred tiles of rubber-like material that will need to be laid and positioned just so. Then, we can stripe the floor and start setting up seats and everything tomorrow.

I'm also getting a bit nervous, mainly for my wife, the lovely Genghis Mom (seen at left in her new publicity shot for our team, the Hard Knocks). We've had several injuries in scrimmages the past few weeks and I worry about her. That said, I have to confess that I am utterly in awe of these women. Never have I seen athletes work as hard as they do (and I played a lot of sports in my younger days). We had several in Tuesday's scrimmage hit so hard they vomited.

A bit gross, but damned impressive. These ladies rock.

Oh, and the bout has sold out! That means countless folks will be on hand to watch tomorrow and we all feel the pressure. This bout will determine the sport's future in our city. So, we need to put a quality product out there to entertain the crowd.

I'm confident they will do it. As bench coach, I'm also a little worried about my performance. I'm still learning the ins and outs of the sport. It was relatively easy at practice. I suspect it will be far more difficult in front of hundreds of people (and possibly more).

I'll post the results of the bout between the Hard Knocks and the hated Polka Bots on Sunday. Then I promise to get back to more writerly posts for the foreseeable future.

Wish us luck. Until Sunday ...

Teaser Tuesday -- TDYDK

2010-10-19T15:22:00.003-05:00

Last week, I used a selection from my work in progress, Empty Spaces, for Teaser Tuesday. Today, I'd like to reach into the vault and use a vignette from the first third of The Devil You Don't Know.

There's a lot going on in this scene, much of which the reader won't yet understand. But the young soldier and whether he is what he claims to be plays a large role in the developing plot.

Perry Dorian is a famous televangelist with more than a passing resemblance to the late Jerry Falwell. Dorian's assistant, Jim Shapiro, lurks in the background of this and all of the scenes in which he appears. Hey, you think maybe there's a reason for that? ;)

Enjoy.

* * * *

On Friday mornings, as it did each week, Freedom University’s sleepy campus awoke with a start. Three large network trucks, each its own little control facility, lined the shady street outside the Stephen A. Dorian Auditorium as the studio audience began arriving for the Hour of Freedom’s weekly filming.

Backstage, Perry Dorian scanned his script while a pretty young attendant blow dried his hair and another applied pancake makeup. Jim Shapiro, his personal assistant and the show’s director, knocked briskly on the dressing room door and entered.

“The young man we discussed earlier will be sitting in the front row,” Shapiro said, consulting his clipboard. “The storyline is that he was wounded recently in Iran and he’s in a wheelchair. The doctors at Walter Reed have told him he will probably never walk again.”

“That’s too bad,” Perry said, shutting his eyes as the attendant sprayed his hair.

“Yeah, well, his parents slipped me a note. They want you to bless him on the show.”

This wasn’t an unusual request. Each week, members of the audience came forward and allowed Perry to place his hands on them as he prayed. It was a moving and integral part of the broadcast.

“Be sure he’s in the front and out of the way of the cameras and cables,” Perry said, winking at the attendant as he admired himself in the mirror. “The last thing we need is some war hero toppling over in his wheelchair in front of the cameras. Okay?”

Shapiro nodded and hurried off. Perry again went over his script, mouthing the words and practicing the gestures he would use at the appropriate times during his monologue—eyes rolling upward, head tilting toward Heaven, arms raised. It was pure theater, and Perry was among its finest practitioners.

Today’s show focused on the miracles Christ performed along the road to Jerusalem on what would become known as Palm Sunday. Perry wanted to illustrate how Jesus, aware he was heading to his own death, unselfishly stopped to heal the sick and maimed lining the road into the Holy City.

The show went as scripted. As it wound down, Perry found himself standing at the lip of the stage, exultant in prayer as organ music swelled in the background. A dozen or so people rose from the audience and came forward, some limping or handicapped in one way or another. Among them was a very young man in uniform, being pushed in a wheelchair by his parents.

Perry had done this every Friday for years and while he always felt a degree of sympathy for those who sought his blessings during prayer time, he never looked them in the eye. Human hearts can only hold so much sorrow, he reasoned. Therefore, he thought it best to just do his job and avoid eye contact.

As Perry moved to his left down the stage, he came to the boy in the wheelchair. For reasons he would never fully understand, he looked down and straight into the eyes of the young man. Perry’s heart immediately ached for the boy, who in his infinite sadness reminded Perry of Stephen, his own son. Stephen had died tragically some years before, died before Perry could help him. Died before anyone could help him. Died alone, young and confused.

Only one other time in his life had Perry felt the power deep within his very soul. Now, he could feel the power pour from his aching heart and shoot to his fingertips. Leaning down, Perry gripped the blond head of the young soldier with his powerful hands and prayed mightily, eyes squeezed shut.

“Gawd-uh, heal this boy! Heal him at this moment!” he bellowed. Offstage, Jim Shapiro dropped his clipboard and made a violent slashing motion across his throat.

“Cut!” he yelled into his mouthpiece to the main control truck. “Right now, goddamn it!”

“Give me a second!” a voice in his headphones screamed back as technicians scrambled to cut off the taping process. The guys in the truck knew what Shapiro was doing. The last thing they needed was an unfulfilled miracle onstage. That would, of course, be bad for ratings and book sales. Very bad.

Onstage, Perry remained frozen above the wheelchair-bound soldier, his eyes closed and his face purple, contorted. The crowd was silent except for a few whispered prayers floating toward the rafters.

And then, slowly at first, the boy began to rise from his wheelchair.

“Gawd-uh, I beseech you! Heal this boy!” Perry shouted.

“Hold on a second,” Shapiro whispered into his mouthpiece. “Keep rolling.”

A murmur began in the crowd and grew to a roar. The boy stood up, swaying slightly, a look of shock and pure joy on his young face. His mother screamed and began to cry as she stroked her son’s hair. His father clutched his Bible and prayed aloud.

“Thank you, Heavenly Father,” Perry whispered, dramatically removing his hands from the boy’s head and stepping back with the grace of a bullfighter. The crowd, now standing and praying, broke into riotous applause. Perry blinked in the bright studio lights, smiled wanly and abruptly bolted offstage.

Shapiro caught up with him in the bathroom adjacent to the main dressing room. Perry was seated fully clothed on the toilet seat, his handsome face pale and sweating.

“You all right?” Shapiro asked, peering in at his boss. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”

“I’m not really sure, Jim,” Perry said, shaking his head. “I guess the spirit just moved me.”

“Well, whatever in the hell it was,” Shapiro said, grinning. “Be sure you do it again next week.”

Derby, writing and a new nickname

2010-10-18T22:17:00.004-05:00

I know I've been AWOL lately, but it's been for a couple of good reasons.

See, our roller derby league's first exhibition bout is this coming Saturday. As bench coach of the Hard Knocks, we're busy getting ready to kick some Polka Bot ass. And that, my friends, has been fairly time consuming.

[The photo at left is my lovely wife, Jennifer, aka Genghis Mom of the fabulous Hard Knocks, doing what she does best.]

We had practice and team photos tonight and have a full-blown scrimmage with more photos tomorrow night. Then we start getting ready for the bout. Surprisingly (or not), we've nearly sold out the East Peoria Convention Center! Wow. It's going to be so very cool.

And, I'm pleased to announce, I have my new derby name! Yes, even us men have to come up with a weird name. Mine is (drum roll ...) Rusty Razor! It's appropriate, since I only shave a couple of times a months when I'm writing. (It's a weird superstition thing. Don't ask.)

On top of all that, I'm back hard at work on the new WIP, Empty Spaces. I did some major rewriting today and I'm ready to start moving the story forward again after a few weeks of spotty work. It feels good to be working again.

I'm also still hard at work querying for The Devil You Don't Know. I've heard nothing from any agents since my partial rejection last week, but I'm holding out hope. Of course, I still have about 200 agents yet to query, so this baby ain't over yet.

I just wanted to check in with everyone. How's your lives and writing coming along these days?

Hope conquers all

2010-10-13T11:55:00.008-05:00

Well, it happened. It was bound to, of course. I received a thumbs down on my partial. My smart phone buzzed at 11:40 last night and, figuring it was junk mail, I impulsively checked it while watching Craig Ferguson's monologue.

Hi Terry,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to look at this.

I don't think I'm the right agent for this project -- you're a fine writer, but my interest wasn't maintained for the length of the partial, and as a result, I didn't find myself invested enough in the lives of your characters to continue reading.

Considering the subjective nature of the business, I encourage you to query widely and I hope that you will find someone who thinks differently. Best of luck in your search for representation.

Cordially,

[redacted]

Ouch. This was no rejection of my query or even the first few pages. This was a rejection of the very foundation of my story. The idea. The plot. The characters. The work itself.

I'll be honest about my reaction, lying there in bed with my wife snoozing next to me: I was relieved. Numb but relieved. I don't know why, except maybe that knowing the answer -- to me, anyway -- is far better than waiting.

This morning, after sleeping surprisingly well, I experienced the more typical reactions: Anger, sadness, pity.

But not once did I consider giving up. For some reason, this has made me even more committed to getting TDYDK published. The agent was right, of course. This is a very subjective business. Hell, I needn't look beyond my wife to know that. We are very much alike, in many ways. And our reading tastes do overlap. But there are authors and books she loves that I loathe, and vice-versa. I couldn't tell you why. It's just so.

Sometimes, a story touches us because of something that happened in our lives. We can relate in a very subjective kind of way. Sometimes, the writing just clicks with us, and we're willing to follow the author anywhere. Who knows?

I'm convinced the perfect agent is out there somewhere right now, sipping coffee and reading queries and just waiting for my book. I really do believe this.

I think part of the reason I'm taking this so well (other than I know that rejections are the norm in this business, unfortunately) is that I was under no illusions. While some accuse me of negativity, I prefer to see myself as realistic. I expect rejection, and when it comes, I soldier on. No big deal.

Part of this comes from my recovery. I was taught long ago to "play the tape all the way through." That means that when I'm holding something shiny in my hands, whether it's a drink or a sent-out partial, I need to think things through. All the way through. If I allow my brain to caress it and want it bad enough, it's Katy bar the door.

So on the rare occasions when I think of a drink, I make myself see the entire process through -- until I see myself waking up the next morning hung over and wishing I was dead. It's a surprisingly effective way to avoid doing something stupid, I've found.

Same with querying. If I see myself at some point down the road, published and rich, I am setting myself up for misery. When the inevitable "no" comes, it can be devastating. But if I see myself getting rejected and then working even harder to succeed, well, it takes away the sting.

So, I am rolling up my sleeves and querying more. And I'm going to work on my new book, which I'm convinced will be better than the first (as they often are). If I don't get this one published, perhaps I'll get the next one there.

Hope, it turns out, is frighteningly persistent. And so am I.

Teaser Tuesday -- Empty Spaces

2010-10-12T13:51:00.008-05:00

Since I've been unable to write much on Empty Spaces lately, due mainly to my anxiety at having my first partial out, I figured I would start a new weekly series, Teaser Tuesday.

It's my hope that once I get either a thumbs up or a thumbs down on the partial, I can relax and get back to my WIP. I decided to go with this particular weekly feature because it's commonplace among writer blogs, and it's relatively easy.

Before we start, I wanted to let you know that my blog, A Writer of Wrongs, was a featured blog on The Written Connection, a new directory of writer blogs assembled by A.M. Kuska. It can be found here http://www.uninvoked.com/writingblogs/wordpress/

My blog was rated 7 out of 10, and I received relatively poor marks for my lack of responding to comments and dearth of writing tips. I hereby pledge to do better on responding to comments, but I'm holding the line at offering advice, since I honestly don't feel I'm far enough on my journey to publication to be posting any writing tips.

I was interviewed for the feature, although I'm afraid I came off sounding like a doofus. (Interesting sidenote: I was just talking to a friend on the phone and asked him how to spell doofus. "Are you blogging?" he asked. Sigh. He knows me all to well.)

Now, on to my teaser for this week. It's a selection from Chapter 3, right after 17-year-old Annie DeWitt's suicide attempt. College teacher Grant Bachman, who survived a horrific school shooting along with Annie, arrives at the hospital and, upon learning the girl has no parents, takes her home. It sets up pretty much everything, plotwise. Enjoy:

* * * *

By 9:30 that Tuesday morning, the concentration of vodka and valium in her blood had decreased enough so that she could be released. The emergency room doctor, a young man with a fresh haircut who wore sandals with his khakis, spoke to Grant in the hallway as a nurse helped Annie get dressed.

“She hasn’t been very helpful in terms of how this happened,” he said. “She’s unwilling to tell us where her parents are. They don’t answer their house phone.”

Grant shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. I really don’t know her well. She’s a student of mine, but classes just started a couple of weeks ago.”

The doctor nodded. “I realize that, Mr. Bachman. You seem like a nice guy, so I’m willing to release her into your custody. Take her home and make sure someone keeps a close eye on her. She’s been through a lot and, while I can’t prove it, I suspect her accident last night might not have been so accidental.”

The doctor placed his hand on Grant’s shoulder. “I would strongly encourage you both to get counseling. No one goes through what you two did and comes out of it unscathed. I can recommend someone if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” Grant said, smiling. “That would be nice.”

“And you’ll speak to her parents?” the doctor asked as he scribbled a name on a sheet of paper and handed it to Grant.

“Yes,” Grant said, sliding the paper into his jeans pocket. “I will.”

* * * *

An hour later, they pulled up in front of a ramshackle Cape Cod on West Avenue F. The front yard looked like it hadn’t been mowed in weeks and ivy creepers covered one of the two front windows. He killed the engine and looked at Annie, who slumped in the passenger seat looking pale and ill.

“You’re home,” he said, aiming for cheerful and missing badly. “Let’s find your parents and get you to bed.”

“Parents,” she repeated, gazing at her home. “That might be a problem.”

“Oh?”

She turned to him and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “I don’t have any fucking parents. Not anymore.”

“You don’t?”

“The sperm donor left when I was a baby and my mom took off with some skanky meth addict a few weeks ago.” The girl blinked back tears, and Grant again fought the urge to take her into his arms. She sniffed and continued, “Mom likes to get wasted, and sometimes she just leaves. You know? Usually, she comes back in a few days. But not this time.”

“Crap,” Grant muttered, running his hand through his hair. He’d texted Lindsay to tell her he was taking the girl home, but by now she was at her part-time library job and the girls were at daycare. He’d been looking forward to a nice, long nap and then maybe a Red Sox game on television—anything to take his mind off of the past twenty-four hours.

“Look, Mr. Bachman—”

“Grant,” he said. “Call me Grant. Please.”

“Whatever. Grant. Just let me go in. I’ll be fine. I’m used to it.”

He shook his head. “I can’t just leave you here. You’ll have to come back to my house, until we find your mom.”

“I’m not a fucking kid,” Annie said, opening the car door. “I can take care of myself.”

Grant jumped out of the car and caught her just as she was sticking her key into the front door lock. He spun her around, harder than he had meant to, and held her by the shoulders.

“Look, Annie, you just tried to kill yourself. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here alone.”

“It was an accident,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “And you’re hurting me.”

“Sorry.” He let her go.

She smiled up at him. “Why don’t you come in and watch TV while I take a nap, if that makes you feel better? We don’t have air conditioning, but I think the cable is still working, unless the fuckers shut it off again.”

He hesitated. This was not a good idea. But leaving the girl alone was an even worse idea. And really, what else did he have to do today?

“Okay,” he said, “as long as you promise to talk to me about your situation when you feel better.”

She beamed. “It’s a deal, Grant.”

The art of pinging

2010-10-10T20:41:00.004-05:00

It's kind of funny when I think about it. I mean, I've spent the last few months agonizing over whether any agent would be interested in my work. When I started querying, I watched with envy as other writer friends got requests for partials and fulls.

And me? Nothing. Zip. Form rejections. I felt like a complete failure, as though I would never even get to the starting blocks, let alone into the race.

We have a saying in my family for folks who start obsessing about something that hasn't happened yet. We say they are "pinging." It's somehow related to sonar pings in submarines -- where you blast your sonar outward and then listen for the incoming pings to see what's out there. Well, I was pinging big-time about my querying. Twenty-one queries and 15 form rejections and six no answers by last week.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Now I know, that's not a lot of queries. And frankly, the reason I sent out so few was because a.) I was using the rejections to keep polishing my query letter, since I didn't want to blanket every agent out there with my query and then find out it sucks. And b.) I'm a coward.

Then, last week, I was blindsided by an agent who actually wrote me a personal e-mail and said he/she was intrigued by my query and first ten pages and asked for the first fifty.

Whoa. This was new.

Of course, I was thrilled. Elated. My ping had come back and, yes, there was something out there. Yay.

So what, you ask, is my problem now?

Well, now I'm pinging over whether the agent will ask for a full. I mean, it's been like five whole days and I've heard nothing.

Nothing!

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Now please realize that I'm aiming for humor here, and I'm not really as neurotic as I come off in this blog (as far as you know). But it's funny how, once I take a step forward in my writing career, I find I have yet another horrifying thing to worry about.

And if that request for a full comes, I'll worry myself sick wondering if he/she will offer representation. And then, of course, I'll worry about whether he/she can sell the damned thing. And then, I'll worry about whether readers will buy it.

And then ....

Sigh.

So. What do YOU ping about?

What I've learned

2010-10-07T14:37:00.005-05:00

In 2007, when I decided to pursue fiction writing full time, I was crazy confident that I would succeed. It's been my life's dream forever. Publishing novels has always been something I knew I would do, and do well.

All of my life, I've been a confident person -- and yes, I can hear all of you out there laughing right now, given the content of most of my blog posts during the nearly one year of this blog's existence. But it's true. In real life, I come across as so confident that some (okay, many) have perceived me as arrogant.

I'm not arrogant. Really. But I usually feel pretty good about my abilities and, I believe, my track record backs me up on that. It's funny, but I've always managed to succeed at whatever I've tried in life, with only a few exceptions. Now success is a relative thing, of course, and my idea of success might be different than yours. But nonetheless, if I set my heart on something and really try at it, I usually assume I will succeed at some point.

Ah, but this writing thing has proven to be the mother of all exceptions. So far, I would hasten to add. So far.

My nearly three years in the fiction trenches -- first brainstorming, then writing, then editing, then revising umpteen times and then, finally, querying my first novel -- has been an eye-opening experience for me.

During all of this, I've learned two very important things about myself that I only tangentially knew before.

1. I am impatient as hell.

2. I have a very nasty little voice inside my head that hates everything about me.

Let's look at impatient first. To be really honest, I guess I've always been impatient, it's just that spending all those years in a newspaper newsroom -- where everything happens RIGHT NOW -- apparently allowed this particular character flaw to remain hidden for years.

But this ... this writing thing has brought it out for the world to see. I mean, big time crazy as hell impatient.

I'm working on it.

Example: I have one of those electric toothbrushes that vibrates after two minutes. I mean, that's a good thing, right? It keeps me brushing for the entire two-minute span. No problems. Dental hygiene is a good thing.

Ha. I swear to God, by the time the damned thing vibrates, at least a fricking month has elapsed! The more neurotic I get (and it's getting worse as the writing career goes on), the more I want to throw the toothbrush through the bathroom wall. I mean, the damned thing must be BROKEN. It has to be set to ten minutes. Sheesh.

See?

Oh. Did you know that if you push the REFRESH button on Gmail enough times, the whole damned Internet freezes? No? Well, it does. Trust me.

Television commercials. I mean, when did they expand to ten minutes? And my coffee pot now takes approximately a week to make twelve cups.

Sigh.

And that hideous little voice? Where in the hell did THAT come from?

You know the one, don't you? No? Then consider yourself lucky.

For me, it whispers deadly, hateful little things in my ears all day and all night:

You can't write.

You're not good enough.

What were you thinking?

Everyone else is laughing at you for even trying this.

You have let your family down when they need you most.

You are a loser.

You will never get published.

You suck.

Write a whiny blog post about how much you suck so EVERYONE will know.

Schmuck.

It gets old, listening to this hideous little voice drone on and on and on ...

So I get out of bed some nights -- when the voice gets too insistent -- and root around in my humidor for a cigar. Then I quietly go downstairs and put on my Ipod and listen to music. Sometimes, I feel like crying. Honestly, I do. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Usually, I just listen to the lyrics and search for the answer to whatever question is nagging me.

And you know what? I've learned a third thing about myself during this time.

I am a survivor. I do not quit. I do whatever I can to find that inner strength to overcome my lack of patience and my insecurities.

I keep on writing, because I've found that deep inside my heart, I still believe I can make it.

What have you learned about yourself from this writing thing?

A new ending for DEVIL

2010-10-06T19:10:00.005-05:00

I've spent much of this week crafting a new (and, I think, better) ending for The Devil You Don't Know.

A couple of beta readers had mentioned that the ending wasn't as satisfying as they would have liked, that it maybe left too much to the imagination. That wasn't my intention, of course, but it did end rather abruptly. (Seriously, I think I just ran out of gas. Hey, it happens.)

One reader in particular talked to me about how I might fix this and, after giving it considerable thought, I agreed. So, I rolled up my sleeves and went back to work on the manuscript I thought was finished months ago.

Yes, I ended up adding about 450 words, but I think the net effect is awesome (if I do say so myself).

In fact, the last chapter is pretty much a roller coaster of action. When I ended it yesterday, I was literally out of breath. I suspect that's a good thing, although time will tell. I went back today and polished the new stuff and tightened it quite a bit.

I'm very happy with it. I always kind of liked the ending, but I love the new one. It even gave me the opportunity to circle back and tie up a couple of loose ends in a very cool way that hadn't been possible before.

A couple of days ago, I sent out two more queries after re-working the query letter yet again. Less than 12 hours later, I got my first partial request. While I remain realistic about my chances, at least it shows the query is getting there. The agent in question wrote me a very lovely note saying how intrigued she was with the query and the pages I had submitted.

I realize the odds are still stacked against me, as it is all of us. There's a lot of slush in the pile these days, and agents are really under the gun just wading through it. But getting that first request from a real live agent is satisfying. I feel like I finally took another step forward in my career.

And that's a good feeling, regardless of the outcome. Now if I could just stop checking my email every ten seconds ...

A conversation at the gym

2010-09-30T13:33:00.006-05:00

There's this guy at my gym who is literally my opposite in every way. I am a Cubs fan; he's a Cardinals fan. I am a Bears fan'; he is a Packers fan. I'm a Democrat; he's a Tea Party follower.

I have hair; well, you know ....

This guy also thinks people who write novels are namby-pambies who ought to go out and work like real people. He's told me this before. In fact, our long-running "discussion" has always centered around his view that "any schmuck" can write a novel. He claims he got an A on an essay in high school English class and the teacher wrote on it that he should "seriously consider writing."

Instead, he became a plumber because, he says, he wanted "a real job."

Now being a plumber is not only lucrative and qualifies as a "real job," it's one of those things I cannot do -- like mechanics and algebra and golf.

But his views on writing, especially on fiction writing, always rub me the wrong way. Big time.

And this morning, he was waiting for me. What follows is a somewhat comical, exaggerated version of our real conversation. (I exaggerated it to make a point and, well, because this is MY blog. I mean no disrespect to viewers of Fox News, although I can't say the same about Packers and Cardinal fans.)

"Hey, it's the wimpy little writer guy," he said, snapping me with his wet towel.

"In the flesh," I said, peeling off my sweaty tee-shirt. "How about them Bears?"

"They got lucky," he snarled. "So guess what I heard on Fox News this morning?"

"Gee. I dunno. That Obama and Pelosi were the brains behind the 9-11 terror attacks?"

"Well, other than that."

I sighed. "Okay. I'll bite. What?"

He grinned. "That little fireplug chick from The Jersey Shore is writing a novel."

"Who?"

"You know, what's her name. The stubby one with the fake red tan and that hairy pillbox on her head."

"Ah. Nicole "Snooki" Polizzzi from MTV?"

"Yeah. That mouthy chick who's always getting carried out of nightclubs. You know, the one not named Lindsay or Paris."

"Yeah. I know who she is. A book huh? Must be a memoir. I mean, if Justin Beiber can write one, anyone can."

"No. No. A novel. I think it's gonna be called A Shore Thing or something like that."

I laughed. "Yeah, well good luck getting it published."

He smiled. "She's already got a book deal."

I froze. "Really?"

"Yep. I wonder who her agent is? I wonder how her whatchamacallit, query, got to the top of the shit pile?"

"Slush pile," I corrected. "And to be honest, I'm ... not really sure."

He grinned smugly. "I bet that really pisses you off, doesn't it? After all the work you and your little Internet writer buddies do. Goes to show I was right all along. Ha."

"I suppose she could be an idiot-savant or something like that," I said, stammering.

"I don't know what a savant is, but you got the idiot part right."

I managed to get out of there and rushed home. I Googled Snooki and there it was, right above an article headlined, "Snooki fined $500 for being a drunken nuisance."

Here is the nutgraph:

"Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of Jersey Shore will write a novel. Yep, you read right—a novel. By Snooki. The same Snooki who told New York Times writer Cathy Horyn that she’s only read two books in her life: Twilight and Dear John. (Not that I have anything against Stephenie Meyer and Nicholas Sparks. But two books in her life?) Snooki’s novel will be titled A Shore Thing, and according to Publishers Marketplace it’s about “a girl looking for love on the boardwalk (one full of big hair, dark tans, and fights galore).” Simon & Schuster’s Gallery will publish the novel in January 2011."

I spent the next several minutes trying to find out which agent plucked her from the shit pile, er, slush pile. No luck.

I wonder if it's the same one who rejected my query and first 50 pages in less than four minutes?

Sigh. I think I'm going to spend the next few days looking into plumbing school.

Today is a special day

2010-09-28T16:28:00.004-05:00

Fourteen years ago today, Sept. 28, 1996, I married my lovely wife, Jennifer. It was, and remains to this day, the best thing I have ever done in my life. (That's her at left, sans roller derby garb.)

This will be a very short post, since we are doing what everyone does on their anniversary -- eating a quick dinner at Panera's so we can make roller derby practice. Eh. Life goes on.

No writing updates today, since once again real life took center stage. At this point, I'm just hoping to get back into the swing of things by next week. I still have more than a dozen queries out, and I'm still contemplating adding to/changing the end of The Devil You Don't Know, based on feedback from a trusted writer friend.

Also, no word yet from Writer's Digest on whether I will be doing some pieces for them. I sent in a couple of story pitches (sort of like mini query letters) per the managing editor and was told I would likely hear something this week. We shall see.

I'm glad more people are able to read and comment on the newly redesigned blog. I suppose I'll get used to the brown, although I do miss the old coffee cup/cafe design. Still, I'm happy to switch it out if it means hearing from old friends again.

Hope you all have a good and productive night. It's time for derby practice!

My blog is fixed!

2010-09-27T17:17:00.006-05:00

As you can tell, I changed the way this blog looks.

I also changed the way it behaves. I hope. The old design was causing problems for some readers. It was too slow. It locked up. It prevented folks from commenting. It was a mess.

So. Even though I loved it, I decided to sacrifice beauty for functionality. So now it's brown. Really brown.

And now I need you input. Is the blog running smoother than before? Can you read it and comment without problems? Please let me know if it's better.

Thanks.

Also, kid problems are continuing. In fact, they are worsening. No writing today. Sigh.

Life happens

2010-09-26T14:25:00.011-05:00

Last week, I whined, er, blogged about how crappy things have been lately. For some reason, I thought that blogging about it might somehow convince Fate to find someone else to pick on.

Ha.

This past week has seen life in the Towery household veer from one disaster to another, with nary a second in between to catch my breath or write a word on the new novel, let alone actually write a blog post. (I apologize for that.)

So. Kids. We can't live without them, and (legally) we can't kill them. So. We're stuck, I guess. Now don't get me wrong. I love my kids. Really, truly and deeply. I do.

But sometimes, I wonder what my life would be like without them. I know that sounds harsh, but I would imagine that anyone out there with teens knows exactly what I mean. Right?

I mean, think about it. No hassles. No arguments. No smart-assed comments. No problems at school. No legal woes. No twisted and totaled cars (mine, of course). No lying awake at night, worrying about them because you just know what you used to do when you were nineteen.

God. I should have just gotten a dog.

Now let me say this: I have good kids, relatively speaking. I do. And I am grateful for that. They haven't been in jail for anything serious (ahem), nor do any of them have a substance abuse problem that I know of (of course, anything's possible). But Lord, are there problems with three -- count 'em, three -- sons.

Did I say I love them? I do. Did I also say I sometimes want to grab them and shake them until some sense actually seeps into their well-loved but very thick skulls? No? Well, I do.

So there's been no writing in my life for the past two weeks. And I am about to bring that to an end. I want to get back to MY life. If that makes me a selfish father, then so be it. So to any Towery boys out there reading this blog: STRAIGHTEN THE HELL UP AND FLY RIGHT.

There. I feel better.

[End of fatherhood rant]

Hey, guess what? My lovely wife has started a blog at her newspaper. It's called Training Wheels: Diary of a Derby Girl.

It's rather awesome, if I do say so myself. And I have yet to find another first-person roller derby blog at any other newspaper in the country. So there.

Here latest post can be found here: http://blogs.pjstar.com/trainingwheels/2010/09/26/my-mouth-guard-rebellion/

I would encourage anyone reading this to read her awesome blog and comment, since page hits and comments are used to gauge reader interest. Be sure to read all of the posts, which are listed in order on the right side of the page. There are pictures, too. And more coming.

I'm really proud of her. She rocks.

Oh, and I was named bench coach of her team, The Hard Knocks. I've attended two scrimmages so far and I'm LOVING it. Big-time. I'm still learning, but it's a great sport and the women are awesome.

And now a word about my writing career, since that's what THIS blog is supposed to be about. I sent out six newly rewritten queries last week. I've had one rejection so far -- from Dan Brown's agent. Nothing like being rejected by the very best, I always say. ;)

Anyway, the assistant who rejected me pointed out that my work just doesn't fit into the agent's scope of interests. Hmmm. A novel about God, religion, Satan that also includes lots of anti-religion isn't within this particular agent's scope of interests? Whatever.

I intend to get back to working on the new one this week. It's been a while, so I will need to read the thing so I can remember where I was going. But I am pushing on, because I am committed to getting published.

I can do this. And so can you.

Have a good Sunday and we'll talk again real soon.

Inspiration when I need it most

2010-09-17T14:15:00.005-05:00

I won't lie to you. It's not been a great week for yours truly.

Nothing really awful happened. It's just that a handful of crappy little things happened on the heels of last weekend's good things, which had moved me to self confidence. It never fails. Whenever I get too cocky, the writing gods tend to whack me over the head.

Consider me whacked.

I've felt bad all week that I allowed myself to brag in my last post. I hate that. I really do. And I apologize for it. No wonder I lost followers after that post. I would have left too, except it's my blog.

Anyway. No worries. I'm back to my usual almost-suicidal, neurotic self.

I've been e-corresponding with a fellow writer who is also having a bad week. And when I sent this writer an email a few minutes ago, telling said writer to buck up and offering up all kinds of encouragement, it occurred to me that I should take my own advice.

This is a tough business, this fiction writing. It's hard to do, and even harder to sell once it's done. We all know that. We probably knew it going in, although I suspect it's human nature to tell ourselves that we're different, that we're not going to fail like most everyone else.

And yet. It's hard. And frustrating. And it's so damned easy to get so frustrated that we think about throwing in the towel. I mean, there has to be a better way to make a living, right?

Well, no. There's not. We are creating. We are living a dream. We are trying to do something only a handful of people have ever accomplished. It makes no real difference whether we actually get published. We are trying. And that counts for something. Don't ever tell yourself it doesn't.

And that leads me to my all-time favorite inspirational quote. It's from Teddy Roosevelt and it NEVER fails to bring tears to my eyes and new found determination to my heart.

Here it is. Please take it to heart, because every single word is true.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt.

Writing, rocking and roller derby!

2010-09-14T15:30:00.005-05:00

Before I get into the weekend's writing conference, I have some exciting news to share with you.

No. Not that.

This: Last week, I was asked to be the bench coach for my wife's roller derby team, the Hard Knocks. She was drafted by the team a few weeks ago. It's one of three new teams in the local league.

Tonight will be my first practice with the team (yes, they call themselves The Knockers, but I'm just not there yet). I'm a bit nervous, since I know next to nothing about roller derby. But that's okay. We're all learning. And the season doesn't actually start until spring, so we should have plenty of time to get things rolling, so to speak.

The bench coach decides who skates when, since getting your skaters onto the floor within the allotted time is crucial to avoiding penalties. I will have a hand in strategy insofar as picking the jammer, blockers and pivot for each jam. My goal will be to have the skaters out there who will best be able to score points, based on which group of skaters the other teams deploys.

It sounds kind of complicated, and I fear it will be. But I love sports, I'm competitive as hell and I'm a fast learner. It ought to be a blast.

We have a smattering of exhibition bouts over the winter, starting with this Saturday in the Quad Cities. It's a newbie-only bout, so the wife won't be skating, and I won't be coaching. But the whole league is going to cheer on the local girls.

For those of you who haven't seen today's roller derby, do yourself a favor and find out if there's a league near you. And then go to the bouts. Or better yet, if you are female and between the ages of 18 and 50, try out. It's incredibly fun, damned addicting and not at all like the cheesy roller derby of the 1970s. These women take it seriously. There's plenty of action, blood and excitement.

Rock on, girls!

Now, on to more literary pursuits, namely this past weekend's Writer's Digest Editor's Intensive conference at WD's cool new digs in suburban Cincinnati.

Fifty writers of all genres and skill levels converged on the conference for a long day Saturday of lectures and speeches from the likes of Chuck Sambuchino and Jane Friedman. They discussed everything from how to snag an agent to using social media (Facebook, blogs, Twitter, etc.) to further your career and boost your writing platform.

It was very informative. But the best thing was socializing with other writers. Now that was cool. We had an even mix of men and women ranging in age from early twenties to about seventy. Some were from the Cincy area, but many of us came from all over the U.S., including Hawaii. We had a lovely meet-and-greet Saturday night.

But the main event was Sunday, when we had our one-on-one critique session with an WD editor. I believe there were six or seven editors who did the actual critiquing. We all sent the first 50 pages of our manuscripts in several weeks ago and the editors decided the match-ups.

I got Zach Petit, the managing editor of WD! Turns out he has a journalism background very similar to mine, and writes fiction that's similar in theme to mine.

But man, was I nervous.

[Caution: Some bragging ahead. Proceed at your own peril]

It went very well. VERY well. In fact, he said he had very little to critique. Instead, he asked me tons of questions about my background, how long it took to write TDYDK, whether I'm writing anything new, what it's about, etc. He gave me some advice on agents who might be interested in my work. We also talked (and laughed) about our journalism careers. Zachary Petit is a very cool, very helpful man. I was lucky to get him for the critique.

He even said he was dying to know how the book ends. When I told him, he asked several more questions and then said it sounded like "one hell of a ride." He also said he might email me for a copy of the entire thing, although he would prefer "reading it when it comes out."

Wow. I was thrilled that the managing editor of WD would like my work. Really, truly humbled. He even asked me if I was interested in pitching some story ideas to the magazine. I was damn near in tears when I left the session. I mean, me? Writing for Writer's Digest?

So I came home rejuvenated and ready to rock and roll. I rewrote the query for TDYDK with the help of a dear writer friend (Thanks Christi!) and fired it out to seven more agents, including some fairly big names. I mean, there's nothing like a shot of confidence to overcome my deep-seated insecurities.

And this morning I got .... another form rejection.

Sigh.

Oh well. It's kind of nice to get back to normal again. But this time, I have some much-needed confidence to keep at it. Finally.

Finally home

2010-09-12T19:14:00.005-05:00

We just got back from Cincinnati, where I attended the Writer's Digest Editor's Intensive conference.

It was a wonderful weekend, full of great advice, savvy guidance and good fellowship with other writers.

In a word: Awesome.

But I am exhausted. Suffice it to say my one-on-one manuscript critique session with the managing editor of Writer's Digest was interesting and very satisfying.

I don't mean to be vague. I'm just not up to writing a long blog tonight (I think I'm getting a cold or something on top of the exhaustion. Yay.). But it was so worth it. I would certainly advise anyone out there who has even considered attending some kind of writing conference to do it. It's money well spent.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. More later.

So, how good ARE you?

2010-09-09T18:21:00.005-05:00

A dear friend of mine told me yesterday that we writers are terrible judges of our own work.

In other words, many who think they are God's gift to literature in reality suck, while some who truly doubt their abilities are in fact quite talented.

Basically, I think she's right. To a certain degree, anyway.

I struggle each and every day with self doubt. It's always there in my mind, lurking, waiting to grip my heart with its icy hands until I voluntarily stop querying because I just know I suck.

I honestly don't know why. I was a professional journalist for more than two decades. I have won several (more than 20) national, regional and state writing awards. I know I can write. I do. That's not ego. It's a fact.

But writing fiction is not journalism. I've learned that the hard way. I would put my newspaper and magazine articles up against anyone's (and have, many times), but this fiction thing is new to me.

And so I struggle with doubt.

But I have a confession to make. Sometimes, I'm more confident than I let on. I know. Who would have guessed? It's not an act. Seriously. But sometimes I feel more honest and less of an egotistical bastard when I let my self doubts out on this blog and with other writer friends.

Why? Because it bothers me to listen to people brag about how good they are. Trust me, people. If we were all as good as we secretly think we are, we'd all be published and resting atop the NYT Bestsellers List.

Still, there's nothing wrong with self confidence. It's healthy and normal. It's what keeps us going every time another form rejection pops into our e-mail box.

But how do we, being both confident and neurotic, judge our work objectively? How do we know if we really and truly are any good? I mean, I can read two paragraphs of someone else's work and know whether they are good or not. But I read my stuff and sometimes, it seems pretty good. And other times, well, it sucks.

So, how good do you think you are? I mean seriously, truly, honestly. Are you good enough to be published? Be honest. We won't hold it against you.

Are you good enough to be published?

(I think I am. There. I said it.)

Pre-conference planning

2010-09-07T15:18:00.005-05:00

On Friday, we're driving five hours to Cincinnati for my very first writer's conference! Whoo-hoo.

It's the Writer's Digest Editor's Intensive conference, being held at their headquarters. A handful of names I actually recognize will be there. On Saturday, we'll sit through several workshops on query do's and don't's, whether you should self-publish, e-publish or wade through the slush. There's a lot of stuff on novel writing techniques, common mistakes, pacing, style, structure, etc.

I cannot wait. How cool will it be to actually hang out with other writers for a weekend and talk nothing but writing? Awesome.

But the biggie is on Sunday. We had to submit the first 50 pages of our manuscript a few weeks ago and were then assigned a 30-minute one-on-one critique session with a real live book editor! Gulp. Mine is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Central Time, so if you're religious, say a prayer for me. If you're not, well, wish me luck anyway. Pretty please?

Okay. So. I'm a bit nervous.

I've decided that I will let this weekend guide me when it comes to what I'm going to do with TDYDK. Although I like the new one better (since I know what I'm doing now, kind of), I had to submit the first 50 pages of the old one since I was only at page 44 of the new one at the submission deadline.

But like a couple of people here said, submit the old one and take any criticism and apply it to the new one, too. It's a win-win situation.

Unless, of course, I get crushed.

But hey, I'm told the local Starbucks is hiring. For reals.

Narration versus dialogue

2010-09-03T21:32:00.007-05:00

In The Devil You Don't Know, I am convinced I relied too heavily on dialogue as opposed to narration, since actually narrating a third-person POV novel terrified me. Don't ask me why, it just did.

Not one beta reader mentioned this, nor did my book editor, but it literally jumped out at me when revising it for the umpteenth time. Unfortunately, my irrational fear of actually narrating my book led to a lot of expository dialogue (which I struggled with and managed to tamp down eventually, but still ....).

For the record, I hate expository dialogue. Really, seriously hate it.

For you non-writers out there who wonder what expository dialogue is, here's an admittedly poorly written example:

"Hey John, I'm so glad you're my brother in law, although this divorce you are going through right now is sure hard on the whole family," Sam said.

"Thanks Sam. As you know, the divorce will be final in a few weeks, and Josie, your sister and my soon-to-be-ex-wife, is still crazy as a fucking loon ...."

Well, you get the idea.

So I've been trying really hard to avoid that in the new book, Empty Spaces.

I've been told I write dialogue fairly well, and I suspect that played into my overuse of it in TDYDK. Whatever. I'm trying to reach a happy medium in ES, using dialogue when necessary and narrating when that's called for.

I think it's been working. So I decided to throw out the first scene from the book, which chronicles the aftermath of a horrific school shooting and its impact on a 34-year-old history teacher (Grant) and a pretty 17-year-old student (Annie). Here's a hint -- one of them is crazy as hell. :)

This scene is from Chapter 4. Please weigh in with any thoughts, comments, etc. Remember, this is an unedited first draft, so please be nice. Okay? [Rated R for language and content]

* * * *
“Wow,” Annie said from the kitchen doorway. She’d showered and dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt after her three-hour nap. Her towel-dried hair stood up on top. She looked like a sexy little punk rocker. “Something smells good.”

“It’s not much,” Grant said, pleased at her reaction. “But it’s the best I could do, given the circumstances.” He’d found a pound of ground beef in the freezer and had thawed it in the microwave. After browning two patties in a skillet, he’d thrown together two salads using the veggies he’d snagged from the little garden. Now, he wiped his hands on his jeans and looked at her. “Do you have any bread?”

“Fuck if I know,” she said, yawning. “I don’t eat here much.”

Finding none, they dined on hamburger patties, stale Doritos and salad topped with generic French dressing. Annie found an unopened two liter of Diet Coke in the refrigerator and some ice cubes in the freezer. Grant was hungrier than he had thought possible and ate heartily, while Annie only picked at her meal.

When he finished, he pushed his plate back and looked at her. Without makeup, she looked like the kind of girl Lindsay might hire to watch the kids on their rare Friday date nights.

“Want to talk about it?”

She put her fork down and sighed. “I’ve already told you everything there is to tell. My mom is a drunk and a fucking meth addict and she left me. It’s kind of cliché, when you think about it.” She looked away. “Your generation really sucks at raising kids.”

He shrugged. “We were raised by a bunch of narcissistic Baby Boomers. What did you expect?”

“More, I guess,” she said. “I don’t know.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Do you want to talk about the shooting?”

“No,” she said, averting her eyes. “Not yet.”

“Okay. Now what?” Leaving the girl alone still sounded like a bad idea. And if he left her and something happened, something tragic, he wasn’t sure he could live with the additional guilt.

“I need music.” She jumped up and ran into the living room. Before he could respond, she was back with an old school boom box. She sat it on the table and punched the on button. A haunting bass line filled the kitchen.

She sat down and closed her eyes. “God, I love Pink Floyd,” she said, her head swaying to the music. “Boomers suck, but their music is the best.”

Grant nodded, still trying to place the album. “Dark Side of the Moon?”

She shook her head. “Wish You Were Here.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding.

She got up and danced slowly around the kitchen. Her hair hung into her eyes and her hips swiveled enticingly. She was barefoot and his gaze kept returning to those sexy green toenails.

He swallowed and looked away. He knew he should be leaving. Lindsay and the girls would be home in a few hours. His wife was already worried about him. There was no need to make things worse.

“Hold on,” she said, dancing out of the kitchen. She returned a few seconds later with a fat translucent red bong. She filled it at the sink and sat down, giggling at the look on his face. She reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out a lighter. Grant watched, transfixed, as she expertly lit the bowl and sucked until her eyes watered.

The cloying smell of marijuana filled the kitchen, immediately transporting Grant back to his college days. Annie smiled, her eyes partially closed against the smoke, and handed the bong to him.

“No,” he said. “I can’t. And neither should you, after what happened last night.”

“Oh, don’t be such a fucking chicken,” she said, pouting. “What’s the big deal about copping a little buzz? I mean, after what we’ve been through, what could it hurt?”

He hesitated. The girl had a point. What harm could there be? While getting stoned with a student violated all of Grant’s self-imposed rules of conduct, he had to admit that it sounded pretty good at the moment.

“Well, we have been under a lot of stress,” he agreed, taking the bong and the lighter.

“There’s no better stress reliever than dope,” she said, smiling coyly. “Except maybe masturbation.”

He was still laughing when he took the first hit.

* * * *

I am a bad blogger

2010-09-02T19:55:00.004-05:00

At dinner tonight, my lovely wife very calmly (and very nicely) told me that I don't blog enough these days.

I beg your pardon?

I sputtered and told her how hard it is, now that I'm actually writing again. I mentioned that when I started this blog, I had already finished The Devil You Don't Know and was essentially wading through revisions and just generally screwing around. And then summer, well, summer was time spent with the kid. Great fun, I said.

She smiled and reiterated her point. You started the blog, she said, to stay connected with other writers. To build a platform for when you get published. And you're not doing a very good job, she said, smiling sweetly. That, and summer is over.

No one can rip someone a new asshole as sweetly as my lovely wife, the roller derby maniac. She's not called Genghis Mom for nothing.

I countered with the time-honored: "But every word I write in the blog is one less word in my book."

To which she counter-countered with: "Bull. You blog at night and write during the day. Nice try, and please pass the cottage cheese."

And so, here I am. Guiltily blogging instead of watching opening night of College Football (okay, that's not entirely true. It's on ESPN as we speak).

So. Um. How are you guys doing? Me? I'm doing fine. Writing hard each day. New book going well. Still scared that my first book isn't going to sell. Agents hate me. Blah blah blah.

And for the record, my wife is right. I need to blog more, because I need to stay in touch with you guys, who are out there writing and editing and querying and doing all of those solitary things that we writers do. I really do need to maintain this connection, which has nourished me for nearly a year now.

So I hereby promise to blog more often. Maybe three or four a week, including my usual Sunday Night Musings. And we are bringing back Movie Night! We have plans tomorrow night, so Saturday night will be Movie Night this week. I'll let you know what we're watching once we actually decide.

So. Hang in there, folks. I'm still here. I hope you are, too.

My head hurts

2010-08-24T18:29:00.008-05:00

Oh. Hi there. Been a while, huh? Sorry. I've been busy here in the writing dungeon, slaving away at the new book. (That's NOT me at left. I wear a blue tie when I write.)

And the new book is going well. Thank you for asking. ;)

I've also been cruising the Internet lately, where I've been reading all of the doom and gloom reports about the state of publishing today.

I mean right now. Today. This hour. I say that because it seems to be changing that rapidly. Today, agent Rachelle Gardner wrote a blog post saying she's rethinking her previous aversion to self-publishing, partly because it's so difficult to get pubbed the traditional route these days. Publishing houses are paring staff and cutting mid-list authors right and left. It's never been harder, she says, for debut novelists to get published the traditional way.

It's not pretty, especially for someone sitting on one finished manuscript and hard at work on the next. Since most of you reading this have either already written a novel or are writing one now, I don't have to tell you how much work it is, right?

For the record, I have not considered self-publishing. Yet. I honestly believe agents like Nathan Bransford when they say that self-publishing still has that stigma attached to it that might make it even harder to get published the traditional way, i.e., with an agent and publisher. You know, where you actually make money.

Now money is not, nor has it ever been, a major factor in my fiction writing. I am still romantic and naive enough to want my work read by people who might enjoy it. Who might get something intangible from it. To be moved to tears, or laughter. To be entertained.

I've sent out less than twenty queries on The Devil You Don't Know, and have received nothing back as of yet (five are still outstanding, including three I sent just last week). In other words, I'm still early in the process and I'm nowhere near giving up on TDYDK.

But that's not to say I don't worry about the state of the industry. As I've written here before, I left the newspaper industry as it was crashing down around my ears. I then stepped -- quite innocently, I might add -- into the fiction writing industry, only to start hearing rumors of its inevitable and unavoidable demise.

Geez. Is it me or what?

Anyway, my blog friend Annie at http://theinkphantom.blogspot.com/ blogged about this today. She's torn, as I am, about what to do in these chaotic and rather frightening times. Her post is informative and forward-looking, unlike my thrown-together drivel. Please cruise over and read it. It's worth it.

Also, Annie offers some quality help for writers at her blog. She knows her stuff and she's always willing to help out. So if you're reading this, please go over and follow her blog. You won't regret it.

Thank you and carry on.

Different story, same writing?

2010-08-17T16:03:00.003-05:00

My new book is sleek, sexy and damned dangerous. It's very different from The Devil You Don't Know in that it contains lots of, well, sex. And like its predecessor, it also contains violence. And plain weirdness.

I love it.

But as different as it is in my head, as I write it, it's starting to sound ... familiar. I realize that we all have our own unique writing styles, and that a lot of what we write is going to be similar to other things we've written.

But I want this one to be different. Unique. Not like the other one, you know?

So I'm finding myself angrily deleting anything that sounds even remotely like it came from the first book. I want this one to be more lyrical, more of a psychological thriller. I want it to be chilling and poetic.

I mean, I want it to read like a cross between John Updike and Neil Gaiman. (Like I could pull that off.)

Still, that's what I'm shooting for. To a certain degree -- probably because I'm being so vigilant about it -- I think I'm succeeding.

My question to you, dear Blog Friends, is this: Does everything you write end up reading more or less the same? And if not, how do you manage to write different works differently?

Do you LOVE to write?

2010-08-15T18:30:00.006-05:00

I periodically pick up Stephen King's wonderful On Writing, thumb to a random page, and start reading. It seems that no matter where I start reading, I find something useful that aids me in my writing career.

Today, I grabbed the dog-eared copy that lives permanently next to my bed and opened it to ... well, that part the always makes me feel guilty. Damn it.

It's the part of the book where he goes on and on about how much a real writer needs to love the act of writing. According to King, one should write no less than a thousand words a day -- seven days a week. Anything less means you're not (gulp) a serious writer.

And you had better love it. King claims that a real writer (my words, not his) loves writing, the act of writing, more than anything in life. Yes. More than sex. More than chocolate. Even more than baseball!

As Scooby-Do says, "Rut row."

Don't get me wrong. I love writing. Except for those days when I hate writing. You know? I mean, there are days when really good shit just oozes from my keyboard. Those, unfortunately, are few and far between. Mostly, there are days when I sit for hours and crank out 250 words of pure, unadulterated crap. Can I get an amen? No? Never mind.

On those days, I absolutely despise writing. Hate it. I'd rather be cleaning the toilet than sitting at this computer trying to make sense of the crap coming out of my brain.

Ah. But here's my saving grace (you knew there'd be one, didn't you?): I would rather sit here and squeeze out those crappy 250 words than not write. That's right. I'd rather suffer through writer's block and crappy prose and shitty first drafts (thanks, Anne LaMott) and all those things we take for granted each and every day, than not write.

That must mean I love writing to some degree, right? Why else do it? But to say that I love the act of writing more than anything else on Earth?

Nope.

For this writer, doing the really difficult writing is like slicing open a vein. It hurts. It's depressing. It seldom puts me in a better mood.

The only time I'm in a worse mood is when I'm not writing. Sigh.

How about you? Where does writing -- not having written, but the actual act of writing fiction -- fall on your like scale?

Project update

2010-08-10T16:41:00.004-05:00

Sorry, but I only have time for a short update today. I'm about 4,000 words into my new book (working title Empty Spaces) and I'm feeling pretty good about it so far.

It's a psychological thriller that follows two survivors of a horrific school shooting (with a couple of nasty plot twists!). The main characters are a 34-year-old teacher and an 18-year-old female student, the aforementioned survivors.

Of course, one of them isn't who you might think he/she is. ;)

The biggest hurdle for me so far is getting back into the writing-everyday routine. I wrote a ton yesterday, almost to the point of burnout. Today, I wrote far less. Sigh. I know from past experience that the routine will eventually come if I just stay with it.

So, I'm curious. What are you guys writing? I'd love to hear the "elevator pitch" for your WIP.

Searching for the right project

2010-08-08T20:44:00.003-05:00

As most of you know, I finished my first novel a few months ago and have been mired in query hell ever since. I've started three new projects since then and shelved them all -- including my political thriller that now sits at 20k words.

The first thing I started after finishing The Devil You Don't Know was what I thought was going to be the sequel. Then it occurred to me that it might be a bit, um, presumptuous of me to begin a sequel to a book that may or may not get published. Frankly, it seemed like a waste of time.

But the opening scene, a school shooting, was by many accounts one of the best things I've written since taking up fiction writing three years ago.

What to do?

Well, the weeks off this summer seem to have proven fruitful. I had the most wonderful idea for a new book that can use the opening shooting scene (which I posted on this blog a few months ago) in its entirety.

I suspect I was putting so much pressure on myself to succeed at the next book that I was being overly cautious about what to tackle next. I've decided to keep the other two and finish them later. But I'm pursuing the new book, which has a working title of Empty Spaces.

Sometimes I think my problem is that I have too many ideas. Each one seems new and fresh and exciting, but after a few weeks of writing it, I think of something better. Sigh. I know I need to pick one and focus on it (while continuing to query TDYDK).

So. That's what I'm doing. How about you guys. Do you have trouble deciding what to write next? Do you only work on one project at a time? Or do you have several cooking at any given moment?

Butt in seat; brain on vacay

2010-08-03T16:17:00.003-05:00

Um, is that the proper use of a semicolon?

See? I can't seem to get my brain in gear these days. I spent much of June and all of July on a summer hiatus. I spent time with the 12-year-old and we had a blast. Best summer ever, he says.

I agree.

But now, the time has come to put the butt in the chair and start writing again. Or, at least, start doing something again. But I spent today here at the old computer and accomplished .... nothing. Zip. Nada.

Crap.

I know I need to start querying again on TDYDK, even though I'm about this close to giving up on it and sticking it in the drawer. Still, I spent damn near three years of my life on it and I owe it to myself and my family (who stuck with me during the hard writing days) to keep on trying to get it published. Somehow.

And I need to finish planning my new book and get back to writing it. Every day. Like I used to.

But man, it's not easy. I know what I'm getting myself into this time -- months and possibly years of agonizing over every word and phrase, only to find myself right back here someday in the future.

Ah, the life of a writer. Great, ain't it?

But, as Scarlett O'Hara famously said: Tomorrow is another day.

Let's see if I can make it count.

How's your writing coming along during these Dog Days of Summer?

Home at last

2010-08-02T19:08:00.004-05:00

Actually, we got home about 3 a.m. Saturday after I decided to drive straight through from Williamsburg, Va. Yes, that's right. Seventeen hours. A new personal best.

Needless to say, we were exhausted for most of the weekend. Today, I drove another six hours to take Brennan to his grandparents' in suburban Chicago for a week of "Camp Gramp."

Nothing much to say, other than I'm glad to be home. We had a great vacation, but I'm looking forward to getting back to writing on a daily basis. This week, I'm back to querying and blogging and planning the new novel. It'll be nice to get back to work after almost three months off.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the final few days of summer. We shall talk again soon.

Is it ALWAYS this hot?

2010-07-24T15:30:00.004-05:00

Well, after a series of rather comical (not at the time, of course) episodes of getting lost -- including getting onto the wrong Pennsylvania Turnpike (don't ask), we arrived in Washington, D.C. Thursday evening.

We've been here several times, including as recently as last year. Once, in the summer of 2005, I was here with my son Zach and his eighth grade class and it was very hot.

But that was nothing. I mean, it's freaking HOT here now. I mean fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk, melt the frigging soles of your tennis shoes hot.

Wow.

Brennan and I walked for several hours yesterday with the heat index well above 100 degrees and by the time we got back to the hotel, we both looked a bit like Chevy Chase in the film Vacation when he wanders in the desert after wrecking the Family Truckster. Today, we took a cab to Union Station for lunch. We're dumb, but we're not stupid.

I also found a really cool cigar shop and bought some fine sticks for the trip. I was in heaven, believe me.

Unfortunately, Brennan and I learned the Marc train doesn't run on weekends anymore, so we were faced with a conundrum: How to get to Baltimore tomorrow to meet up with blog friend Tracy for the Orioles-Twins game?

Finally, I booked us on Amtrak from Union Station to Penn Station in Baltimore. Round trip cost? $75! And that doesn't' include the light rail from the station to Camden Yards and back. We leave in the morning from the hotel at about 9 and won't get back until about 8 at night.

And it's supposed to rain and storm all day.

Regardless, we're spending the day in Baltimore, rain or shine. I hope the kid's up for eight hours of schlumping through museums and aquariums.

Oh well. We're here and having a blast. Hope all is well with you guys. I'll update again when I get the chance.

Heading East

2010-07-20T19:34:00.007-05:00

We're hitting the road early tomorrow for a much-anticipated 10-day trip out East. Yes, we're driving, although we are normally a "flying family."

See, I firmly believe every kid needs at least one long car trip with his or her parents. It's like a rite of passage. My own memories of driving across the country cooped up in the backseat with my kid sister while my Dad grumbled and slouched behind the wheel as my Mom lectured him on his driving skills are, well, not so great. But hey, it's still a rite of passage.

After a two-day drive, we'll spend six or seven days at the Washington Hilton near the Capitol. The wife has a Newspaper Guild convention there, so Brennan and I get to be tourists while she works. I spent nearly twenty years attending such conventions all over the country (including Hawaii!), so I've earned the right to lounge on the National Mall with a cigar while she works.

We've been to Washington and Baltimore several times, so we know all the cool places. And I know several people who work at the Capitol from my political days, so we always get some cool tours. Last year, Brennan and I got to tour the Senate wing of the Capitol and sat at Sen. Dick Durbin's desk. We also sneaked a peak into Harry Reid's office and watched them set up the scaffolding for President Obama's Inauguration. It was incredibly cool to get up close and watch the set-up. Brennan especially liked all of the Secret Service guys with their scoped automatic rifles.

On Sunday, Brennan and I are taking the train to Baltimore to meet up with blog friend Tracy to catch lunch and an Orioles game. I'm excited since it's the first time I'll get to actually meet an online blog friend and fellow author! We're also planning on hitting a Washington Nationals game Tuesday night (the wife can attend that one).

Next Wednesday, we're heading off to Virginia for some historical tours (Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown) before ending up at the world-famous Busch Gardens amusement park for some serious roller coaster action. After that, we'll have a couple of days for a scenic trip home through the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky before heading back up into Illinois.

I'll have the laptop and there's wi-fi at the hotel in Washington, so I will be able to post some short updates and read all of your cool blogs. That said, we probably won't have an Internet connection until Thursday night or Friday morning.

Oh, and for any would-be burglars out there, be advised we have housesitters. ;)

So?

2010-07-16T14:52:00.001-05:00

Is this any faster? I'm not sure if I like it as much as the previous design, but it seems a bit faster to me.

Please let me know if this makes any difference. I'm open to playing around some more to find a background that I like and that loads quicker.

Thanks for your feedback.

A quick poll

2010-07-15T12:44:00.003-05:00

I need your help.

Specifically, I need to know if any of you have trouble loading this blog (especially since I changed formats a few weeks ago). One of my followers has been having issues with loading the page and reading it once it's loaded. It's slow, she says.

It doesn't exactly speed along for me either, come to think of it. But I do love the new look.

So please weigh in and tell me if you have loading/reading issues. If enough of you are having difficulties, I'll find a faster-loading format.

Thanks and carry on.

Is my blog dying?

2010-07-14T15:21:00.004-05:00

I hope not. I decided to take some much-needed time this summer to spend with the wife and kids, since I've spent the past three-and-a-half years with my butt in this seat and my eyes glued to this computer screen.

My writing had pretty much taken over my life. And then I created this blog last November and discovered blogging and all the cool writer friends online. I had finished my first novel and was in the midst of several revisions, so I had more time than usual to blog and comment and do all those cool things that, in the end, eat up tons of time.

Time I used to spend writing. Or with my family. I've been trying to rectify that last one the past few weeks, and it's been greatly rewarding. But I worry that it's come at the expense of my blog friends.

I greatly value you guys, so it's been tough seeing some you go away. I've started to lose followers and that saddens me. And now I see many of my blog friends are taking time off, too.

I really hope we all reconnect this fall. Even though I plan to start back on the new book in earnest the minute the kid goes back to school, I would hate to think of going back to writing in a vacuum, without the input and friendships I've grown accustomed to over the past few months.

I read recently that the average lifespan of a blog is about six months. I really don't think I'm ready to throw in the towel yet. Are you?

So I hope you guys come back and we can get back to the give-and-take that I find so vital to my writing career. I really hope we're all just a little lazy and enjoying the nice weather and our families -- and not breaking off our friendships.

In other words, the answer to my question above is -- no. This blog is going nowhere. So, who's with me?

Talk derby to me!

2010-07-11T18:36:00.009-05:00

I finally got to watch my lovely wife, Jennifer (Genghis Mom, her official Derby Name) skate with some of her teammates at an exhibition at the Marshall County Fair yesterday.

She was awesome. (I took the crappy cell-phone photo at left yesterday.) While it wasn't a bout (their first one is coming up on Saturday), it was an opportunity for the fledgling league to showcase their skills, talents and, um, short skirts. They were a big hit. In fact, several young fair beauty pageant winners sat next to me and the (very thrilled) 12-year-old and asked so many questions about roller derby that I eventually sent them to a team member, who gave them some information on how to join up.

This wasn't her first exhibition, but it was the first one I have attended (the last one was at the same time as a Little League tournament 40 miles away).

I have to admit, I've become a huge fan over the past couple of months. I knew little about roller derby, other than some fuzzy memories of those crazy 70s teams that wore lots of nylon and faked all of their moves (remember Raquel Welch in Kansas City Bombers?).

Roller derby today is very different.

Today's Derby Girls (as they prefer to be called) are athletic, skilled and hard-working. They take their sport seriously. It's dangerous and damned difficult. In the three months of our league's existence, there have been countless bruises and cuts, two broken ankles, a broken tailbone and one broken neck. Seriously! It's not for the faint of heart.

But the most fascinating thing for me has been watching what it's done for Jennifer.

She is a features editor at the newspaper where I worked. It's a hard, stressful job with crappy pay and long hours. She's also president of the Newspaper Guild local (the union that represents journalists and other newspaper workers). That also is hard and time-consuming, not to mention thankless as hell. I was also a reporter and editor there and was president of the same local (we are the only husband-and-wife presidents in the local's 50-plus year history), so I know what I'm talking about.

Many of you know that times are tough for newspapers these days. Very tough. Between a crushing economy, piss-poor ownership and rapidly declining readership, our beloved newspaper is circling the drain. Many have lost their jobs over the past three years. It's been horrific to watch, since these people are friends of ours.

When I voluntarily left three years ago, I was so burned out I felt like I was 100 years old. It's amazing how much better I feel these days, despite the stresses of trying to get a novel published. It's not even close to the stress I experienced in journalism.

As I was recovering from journalism, I knew I needed something I could be passionate about, something that would give me the personal satisfaction I needed. I found that passion in fiction writing. It's been a blessing to me, believe me, even though I bitch and moan about it. It's literally saved my life. Getting a chance to pursue my dream is, well, a dream come true.

I've watched the toll journalism has taken on my lovely and usually optimistic wife. She's come home and cried too many times to count over the last three years. It's been a trying time for those poor souls at newspapers, both here and around the nation. Add in the fact that the union has been busting its ass to save people's jobs, often without success, and you can imagine the amount of stress she's been under.

Enter roller derby.

She has fallen head-over-heels in love with the sport. It's hard and violent and the perfect outlet for all of that stress. Jennifer has never been what one could call athletic, but she's all in for this. She's joined my gym and works out like a pro. She hits all of the practices and sweats and bleeds for her sport.

She's my new hero.

It's been like a tonic for her. She's found something to be passionate about, something she enjoys with ever fiber of her bruised and battered little body.

As I watch her, I can't help but equate it with my own dreams. She never, in her wildest dreams, thought she would end up being a tough-as-nails roller girl. But she is. And she's a damned good one, too. And I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get a chance to try to become a published author.

We are chasing our dreams, our passions. And it has rejuvenated us both.

I would encourage any women reading this to look into today's roller derby. It's not your mother's roller derby, believe me.

Start with renting Whip It, the roller derby film starring Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore. After you've watched that, go to Amazon.com and rent the first (and only) season of Rollergirls, a reality show from A&E. It's awesome and is a true-to-life representation of being a roller girl today. Then buy the book Down and Dirty: The Insider's Guide to Roller Derby by Jennifer "Kasey Bomber" Barbee and Alex "Axles of Evil" Cohen.

And then find a start-up league in your area and join up. If there isn't one, look into starting one. You won't regret it.

I got an award!

2010-07-11T18:14:00.010-05:00

Sorry it took so long to respond to this, but as most of you know, I've been on a sort of summer vacation (more like just being lazy, actually).

Anyway, the lovely Amanda Borenstadt at afortnightofmustard.blogspot.com awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award a few days ago. Thanks Amanda!

Now I need to tell you seven things about me that you (probably) don't know. Here we go.

1. I've been married three times.

2. I have three sons and two cats.

3. My stepfather was a state trooper and I wanted to be a cop for years -- until I couldn't get accepted. Only then did I decide I wanted to be a journalist.

4. I served four years in the U.S. Air Force as a, you guessed it, security police officer.

5. I pronounced my Rs like Elmer Fudd until I was 12 years old. I was only able to stop after being forced to see a speech specialist in sixth grade.

6. I have a familial disease that causes me to have dramatically high levels of triglycerides in my blood. That puts me at risk for heart problems, so I've taken three different kinds of cholesterol meds and seen a cardiologist regularly for a decade. It also forced me to get off my ass and get to the gym five days a week.

7. I'm a closet Lady GaGa fan. Seriously.

And now I'm supposed to pass this on to some of my versatile blog friends. Oh, and I'm lazy as hell these days, so please click on the following wonderful blogs in my links to the right.

Let's see (closes eyes and points at followers):

Gina at A Muse in My Pocket
Josin at Her Bloggish Blog Thing
Christi at A Torch in the Tempest
Anne at Piedmont Writer
Jessica at The Alliterative Allomorph
Meleah at Momma Mia, Mea Culpa

How do you handle rejection?

2010-07-09T15:32:00.005-05:00

Rejection hurts. Whether you're trying out for a baseball team or asking that guy or girl out on a date, hearing the word "no" can send anyone into a tailspin.

Rejection that comes as a result of having little or no talent in a particular area, such as hitting a baseball or driving a golf ball, is bad enough. But it's still a rejection of a particular skill set. OK, so I can't hit a baseball. That sucks, sure, but it's not the end of the world. Right?

Right.

But as writers, especially writers of fiction, it seems to me that rejection hurts even more because it goes to our core being.

When I slice open a vein and pour my innermost thoughts, desires, intellect and passions onto the page, I am leaving a piece of my essence there. My fiction represents me in the most basic, primitive way.

Reject that and you're rejecting my intelligence, creativity and, well, me. Those rejections hurt far more than others, let me tell you.

Jack Bickham, in his book The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, hits the nail on the head when he writes:

When you write fiction, whether you realize it or not (and at some level, you probably do), you are risking revelation of your dreams and deepest emotions. It's frightening to reveal yourself this way, even indirectly. Further, the act of writing is tied very close to a person's ego structure ... The most humdrum piece of writing somehow represents the person's worth as a person sometimes. Because if it's dumb, the writer is dumb. And if the writer is dumb, he is also, ipso facto, worthless, an object of potential ridicule ... doomed.

Amen, brother.

I realize I have been lagging a bit lately in my querying. I really have been unplugged from work and the Internet for a few weeks now. My wife took the week off and we have been having a blast. And Little League is finishing up with a game tonight and then one more after that.

I tell myself I'm not querying at the moment just to "let things ferment a bit." Uh huh. Right. I suspect it's because the form rejections I've received so far have hurt far more than I thought they would.

But I shall overcome. Seriously. I'm climbing back on that horse. I've spent a few days polishing the first couple of chapters of The Devil You Don't Know and I'm getting ready to tackle the damned query letter. Again.

I know most of us claim we just shrug off those rejection letters and go on. And we do, ultimately. Otherwise, no one would get published.

But seriously, how deeply do the "no thanks" from agents cut for you? Do you take them as a criticism of your very essence? Or just another writing career hazard?

Getting to know each other -- Part 2

2010-07-01T19:09:00.004-05:00

I owe each and every one of you an apology for being so absent from the Internet the past few days. Instead, I've been spending quality time with my 12-year-old son, enjoying the beautiful weather and spending hours and hours plotting my new novel while sitting on the front porch with a bottle of sweet green tea and a good cigar.

No. Wait. I'm not apologizing for any of that. I've been having a blast -- a relaxing blast, if you can wrap your mind around that phrase.

Anyway, I've only been online sporadically the past couple of weeks. And I do apologize to the members of my crit group for being absent recently. I promise I'll be more involved in the coming days and weeks.

And that whole "I'm not working at all until the kid goes back to school" thing? Forget it. Instead, I've been working a few hours a day between times with the kid. It's been the perfect thing for my anxiety and writer's block I've been going through. And best of all, it's been guilt free!

So tonight, I have two somewhat-related questions for you, dear bloggy friends. Some of you eagle-eyed members of Bransforums might remember I asked similar questions over there some months ago and they got tremendous responses.

Here we go:

1. Do you write in your pajamas? Or do you get fully dressed before you begin your writing/editing/revising?

Me, I usually write in my black and green X-Box pajama pants and a tee-shirt. Sometimes, I'll wear shorts, a tee-shirt and sandals or flip-flops in the summer. The main thing for me is being totally comfortable.

My writing area is downstairs in the family room/study, so I'm usually out-of-view if someone is over to the house -- not that the sight of me in my pajama pants and Led Zeppelin tee would necessarily send someone screaming in horror from the house. But hey, you never know. Better safe than sued, I always say.

2. Do you listen to music when you write? Television? Or do you require total silence?

Me, I need absolute silence to write. No TV, no baseball. Nothing. Otherwise, my attention wanders and I get out of the narrative. This goes for editing and revising, too. I need to fully concentrate, and the slightest distraction pulls me off course.

I do, however, listen to music on my iPod while plotting or outlining or just plain thinking. I especially like to stay up really late, after everyone has gone to bed, put on the headphones, fire up a cigar and sit downstairs in the dark and just think about my story. I let it play out in my mind like a movie. Sometimes, my story takes a weird twist or turn because of a particular song I'm listening to at that moment. Music really helps me create, I've found.

I'm fond of classic rock (70s stuff with a progressive or punk edge), although my iPod has music from the Beatles to Lady Gaga and from the Clash to Lily Allen. I just love music. Period.

So how about you guys and gals? Pajamas? Fully clothed? Music? What kind? TV? Quiet? Let me know and we can all get to know each other a little better.

Getting to know each other -- Part 1

2010-06-27T19:39:00.005-05:00

OK, blog friends. It's high time we get to know one another. Over the next few days, I'm going to tell you a little about myself and then ask you to respond in kind.

I'm going to focus on one thing per post. I'm also going to try to bring the point around to writing, although I can't make any promises.

And tonight, I want to talk about cursing.

Yep. You heard that right. Cursing.

We've all heard that a dirty mouth indicates a small mind and a poor vocabulary, right? But it's been my experience that that's not always true. I know very intelligent lawyers, judges, politicians and teachers who swear like longshoremen. And let's not even talk about journalists.

Me, I swear far too often. And I don't mean an occasional damn or hell, if you know what I mean. I suspect my background has a lot to do with that. My stepfather was a Vietnam combat veteran and an Illinois State trooper. Consequently, I grew up with a houseful of cops. There was much coffee, cigarettes, machismo and swearing at our kitchen table over the years.

I was a police officer in the Air Force before college and then spent many years in a big-city newspaper newsroom. My old city editor (may he rest in peace) swore so much that his assistant fined him a quarter for each cuss word. The coins went into a coffee can at City Desk. It filled up so often that we used the money to buy everyone in the newsroom donuts once a week. And there were fifty people in that newsroom at any given time. Honestly.

True story: The city editor once turned around to face the obit writer and screamed, "Hurry the fuck up!" and found himself face-to-face with a troop of Cub Scouts who were touring the newsroom. He shrugged and fished every quarter he had out of his pocket and dropped them into the can. We had jelly-filled donuts that Friday.

I was thirteen or fourteen the first time I remember my mother saying fuck. My memory is a bit hazy here, but I recall we were in a cabin somewhere in Arkansas on vacation and me, my sister and my ten-month old baby brother were all sleeping in the same room. My baby brother was a notorious screamer and my sister and I were giggling and acting like idiots when the door flew open and there was mom.

"Shut up or I will fucking kill you both!" she screamed before slamming the door. Apparently, she was having a bad day. We were so shocked we didn't even giggle for, like, ten seconds.

Once that thresh hold was crossed -- and believe me, there's no going back -- my mother started swearing like a Marine in front of us. She's 70 years old and still screams "fuck you" at the television when she's unhappy with a show. (She was popular with my friends in high school, trust me.)

The first time I remember getting in trouble for swearing was when I shouted "Goddamn" at the top of my lungs when a neighbor lady found a morel mushroom in her front yard. I guess I was excited. I do remember, however, getting my butt whipped with my father's skinny belt for it.

Oddly, I've found that very poor and very wealthy people swear the most, on average. I know people from lots of money, people who drive BMWs and Mercedes and live in million-dollar homes that say fuck all the time, even to their children. And to this day, it shocks me.

I've also managed to bring my poor wife down a bit, language-wise. She doesn't swear as much as I do, but she's good for some spicy language on a daily basis.

My older boys swear a little around me, although neither started until they hit 18. The 12-year-old does not, since he runs the risk of getting his mouth washed out with Dawn dishwashing liquid (no one uses bar soap anymore, do they?)

I use quite a few swear words in my writing, although only in dialogue and only if it's true to the character. I try not to use them for shock value. But I will admit that I have trouble with a novel in which no one ever swears, since real life just isn't that way.

So how about you, dear blog friend? Do you swear a lot? If so, when did you start? Do you use swear words in your writing? And if not, why not?

Footloose and fancy free

2010-06-24T18:59:00.003-05:00

We're reviving Family Movie Night and, for this week anyway, we're having it tonight instead of Friday. We joined NetFlix recently since our local video store went belly-up, and a handful of DVDs in funky little paper sleeves came today in the mail.

Frankly, it seems so old-school, using the mail system. But who am I to judge?

Anyway, yours truly has been suckered into watching what might be the worst movie of the 80s. Yes, that's right. Footloose. My apologies to you Kevin Bacon fans out there (and you know who you are), but I find it thoroughly cringe-inducing.

However, I did make everyone sit through Night of the Comet (one of my faves), so I have this coming, I guess.

So far, the Great Summer Vacation Experiment (as it will be referred to from now on) has been somewhat boring. I spent the day sitting outside on the front porch reading Jaws by Peter Benchley, a favorite from my younger days. The novel's rapid-fire pace and thoroughly engrossing storyline immediately made me itch to ... wait for it .... write!

How weird is that, since I took the summer off because I haven't been able to write. Maybe it's working already. God, I hope so. I really want to make this author thing work. It's been my dream since, like, forever.

The kid sat inside and played video games and watched movies, so the first full day of our vacay wasn't much different than the others. It was, however, guilt free.

Tomorrow, the wife and I are taking the kid to Border's for books and coffee and then we're going to catch the matinee showing of Grown Ups.

Ah summer. How's yours coming so far?

Oh crap. The movie's starting ...

Guilt-free fun!

2010-06-23T15:57:00.004-05:00

I've been trying to figure out what's been causing my inability to write in the past three weeks, and I think I've stumbled upon the answer, thanks to my blog friend Karen G.

It's two things, actually. One, I gave up on The Devil You Don't Know -- despite anything I might have blogged about to the contrary. I spent three years of my life on this novel and after ten agent rejections, I mentally shoved it aside as though it means nothing to me.

That's crap, of course. It means the world to me and I know it. Just because I haven't found an agent yet (or even received a non-form rejection) after sending out 16 queries doesn't mean the book sucks. (I hope.)

But I shelved TDYDK and the political thriller I was writing and decided to begin this big, deep and complex adventure novel.

About this same time, Brennan finished school for the summer and since he's too old for camp this year, he's home with me. And then I got sick. Really sick.

After a pretty good one-thousand word start on the new book, tenatively titled, El Fanstasma (Spanish for The Ghost), I ran out of gas. Completely. I was dead in the water.

For three weeks, I've been trying to write the book while fighting the guilt of ignoring my 12-year-old son for hours at a time. He doesn't have much to do this summer, so he sits upstairs either reading, watching TV or playing video games.

Yesterday, I blogged about it and asked for help. Karen's answer hit home when I read it this morning. She said 12-year-old boys like being with their dads, and reminded me that this phase doesn't last much longer. I know this, since I have two older boys. She suggested I take the summer off -- guilt free -- and enjoy the time with him.

When he goes back to school in mid-August, she says, I should be unblocked and ready to write.

At first, the idea of doing nothing this summer didn't appeal to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I had to agree. She was right. I do feel guilty. And I can't concentrate on my writing because of it.

So I've decided to write nothing this summer except blog posts. Instead, I am going to rewrite the query letter for TDYDK and start querying again. Big-time.

Oh, and spend all kinds of time with Brennan. We're going to play tennis, hike, swim and lounge around. Basically, we're going to have fun.

And I am not going to feel guilty about it. I promise.

Moving forward at a snail's pace

2010-06-22T14:33:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm moving ahead with the new novel, slowly but surely.

Emphasis on slowly.

Today, I managed to delete all the crap I had written before and then added about 300 new words that may or may not be English. Still, whatever they are, they're better than the garbage that preceded them.

I left the opening scene, because I actually think it's salvageable. Heck, it might even be good as it is.

I've also been analyzing why I've been so blocked the past few weeks (I know. Analyzing always gets me in trouble). I think it's a combination of fear that my first effort wasn't very good and a big change in the Towery household. You see, this is the first summer that the 12-year-old hasn't gone to summer day camp. He's too old this year.

So he and I are hanging around the house all day. He goes to the gym with me and then we come home, eat breakfast and I head down to write while he reads or watches television or plays video games.

And I worry that I'm ignoring him. That his summer will suck because Dad is too busy in his study writing. We live out in the bluffs and there's no kids his age nearby. So the poor kid sits here all day while I write (or try to).

And, I suspect, that's keeping me from concentrating on the task at hand -- namely getting this new book started and done in the ten-month time frame I'm shooting for.

It's just not happening, folks.

I'm one of those weird writers who must have complete quiet. I can't be interrupted or I lose my train of thought and whatever I was writing vanishes from my mind forever. I do have a cursory outline, but I mostly write from the seat-of-my-pants. And that's been a problem the past three weeks.

It's not his fault. Not at all. In fact, he feels bad and blames himself for dad's writing block. Now this isn't true, of course. It's all my fault.

But it's still a problem, you know?

As you can tell, I've spent far too much time screwing around with the blog. I do, however, like the newest design. Of course, knowing me, I'll change it again next time I'm blocked.

Hell, I haven't even been able to blog much, I've been that blocked. The simple act of writing a blog post damn near sends me into panic mode these days. I sit here, and ... nothing comes.

So I do this stream-of-consciousness thing I'm doing right now, because it's the only way I can actually get something written.

I wonder. Do people see shrinks for writer's block? I'm serious. I'd do it if I thought it would help.

So my question to you, dear bloggy friends, is this: What do you do when you're blocked and can't write? I mean, I've already taken three weeks off, so taking more time off isn't the answer. Maybe the little bit of work I got done today means the end is in sight. I hope so.

When your characters speak Spanish

2010-06-21T15:38:00.004-05:00

I'm facing a conundrum in my WIP. It's an adventure thriller set in South America and suburban Chicago. It involves primarily Americans, although the antagonist is Colombian.

My problem is this: When writing about Juan Pablo Marquez (the antagonist), do I have him speak Spanish or English? Obviously, he and his companions would speak Spanish in real life, but how about in my novel?

I've considered doing what Tom Clancey does when writing about Russians. He has them speak English, but in a sort of stilted way. He also peppers his dialogue with Russian phrases and names so the reader knows he's reading about Russians. It can be a little cheesy at times, but I think overall it's effective.

I've not encountered this issue in any of the writing books I've read. What would you do?

As a side note, we just had the most spectacular thunderstorm go through. It was one of those majestic storms filled with sound and fury. Some of the thunderclaps were so loud they literally shook the foundation of the house and rattled the walls. It was quite impressive. And the best part is, we didn't lose power.

At this writing, we are waiting to see if Brennan's baseball game is a go tonight. After a long and very hot weekend that featured five games in three days, I'm kind of rooting for a postponement. But we shall see.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on my language problem. Hope your Monday is going as well as mine is!

Random ramblings on a Sunday night

2010-06-20T19:29:00.005-05:00

I'd like to post something deep and meaningful on Father's Day, but I can't. My father and I were never close, unfortunately, and I never had much of a relationship with him after he and my Mom were divorced when I was ten.

He was killed in a car accident 14 years ago next week.

I did, however, luck into having three wonderful sons. My middle son, Zach, and his lovely girlfriend Kayla just left. We had a nice visit on the deck and it was a good excuse for Zach and I to enjoy a cigar together. My oldest, Blaine, called and texted me several times while we were at the tournament. And Brennan, the youngest, got me a brand new Alias 2 smartphone for Father's Day (I suspect the wife actually paid for it). So now I can check my e-mail anytime I want.

The baseball weekend is finally over, although we have another out-of-town game tomorrow night. I always gripe and groan about these Little League games, and then I miss them something terrible when the season is over. And this is likely the final season of baseball, since Brennan will be too old for Little League next year. So a 17-year family tradition will come to an end next month.

But the biggest news of the weekend belongs to Jennifer, my lovely wife. (She's the little cute one in the front in the photo above). As many of you know, she was selected for the roller derby league being put together here, which I find hilarious since she's a college-educated journalist who just happens to be 5-feet tall and weighs a whopping 105 pounds.

But she's tough as hell and determined to do a good job. I could learn from that kind of dedication. Anyway, they had tryouts for the league's travel team and of the 40 women who tried out, they picked 16. And she was one of them! Yay. I'm so proud.

I'm also ready to get back to writing after a three-week hiatus. I'm still not sure why I was so blocked, but maybe it was time-off well spent. Brennan and I have been enjoying his summer vacation and just hanging out. And now I feel rejuvenated and energized.

I'm ready to get back to querying for TDYDK and back to writing my next one. Here's hoping it starts to flow.

And a happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there (and to anyone who's ever had a Dad).

Still here

2010-06-18T20:42:00.004-05:00

Just a short post to let everyone know that I am, in fact, still among the living. After nearly a week of Internet, phone and cable TV problems (including four visits from Comcast technicians) we are back online.

Now we are fully immersed in the Little League weekend tournament from hell. Game tonight, possibly two or three tomorrow and at least one and probably more on Sunday. All in a tiny town about 40 miles from here.

Yay. :)

I'm interested in what you guys think about the blog makeover. I'm not sure why I did it, although I suspect boredom played a role. Nonetheless, I happen to like hummingbirds. So there.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi to everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful and productive (or relaxing, as the case may be) weekend.

I hate Comcast

2010-06-14T20:56:00.007-05:00

There. I said it. I HATE the bastards.

Really.

(Rant warning; please do not read if you have delicate sensitivities!)

We have our land-line, cable television and Internet bundled with Comcast and the whole damned thing has been mostly down for DAYS! Everything goes dead at the same time each day and no matter how many times we call and complain, or how many times they send a "representative" out to our house to check our system, NOTHING gets done about it.

Each time the guy checks our equipment, he tells us there is nothing wrong at our end. But the Comcast people in Schaumburg or Mumbai or wherever the hell they are tells us that it's not them, it's us.

Grrrrrr!!!!! No. It's not us. It's them.

The upshot is, I've been sitting here since last week with the Internet mostly down and all those QUERIES out! I just know some agent is going to send me an email and I'm going to miss it! Talk about stress.

Anyway, I would like to say this to Comcast Cablevision: You people are fucking morons! Someone should put your incompetent asses out of business once and for all.

There. I feel better. And I'm not worried about them suing me for giving my opinion. I know a little about libel after twenty-five years in journalism and I know I have the right to say what I want about someone. The burden of proof is on them to prove they are NOT fucking morons.

Ha. Good luck with that, Comcast.

Oh, and I got a blog award while we were down. The lovely Anne Gallagher at http://piedmontwriter.blogspot.com/ gave me the Surefire Winner Award! Wow. Thanks, Anne.
I hereby pass it to Gina at http://www.amuseinmypocket.com/. Once she gets Shay's story down, it's a Surefire Winner! :)

When dreams nearly die

2010-06-13T18:22:00.005-05:00

I have been fighting the worst funk of my life the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure what has been going on with me, but I can honestly say I have been on the verge of some sort of clinical depression.

I had lost the will to write, whether it was fiction or this blog. It just didn't seem important to me. I just wanted to wallow in self pity and failure.

It sucked.

I'm convinced that part of it was physical. I apparently had some kind of virus or bug or something that left me feeling exhausted and damn near catatonic. The glands under my neck were swollen and I had a headache all of the time.

Blech.

I had written the opening scene of my new WIP and then struggled mightily to move it forward. Everything I wrote was garbage. Seriously. None of it is usable.

Concerned, I stopped writing for a few days. I figured I just needed some time away from fiction writing for the first time in three years. A week went by and ... nothing. I still felt crappy and completely uninterested in writing.

I even talked to my wife about seeing a counselor. Or a shrink. I needed something.

I still might.

A few days ago, it occurred to me that I had given up. That I had fallen victim to my own lack of confidence. I had become convinced that my first book sucks, that it will never be published. Consequently, I felt no need to continue writing. I was a failure.

Why go through all of that work again, just to fail again?

As some of you know, I am a vice president/communications director for RS Operations, a global marine salvage corporation (Google us and invest!). Things have been looking up there, so I figured maybe I don't need to chase my dreams. I can help someone else chase theirs!

Some back story: Several months ago, I started following the blog of 16-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland. She was attempting to become the youngest person to sail nonstop around the world. In a boat. Alone. I grew to admire her courage and how she was determined to make her dream come true, no matter what anyone said.

I could relate, you know?

So imagine my horror when, during the absolute depths of my depression or whatever it was, I signed on the Internet to read this: Teen sailor feared missing at sea.

Like most people who follow blogs regularly, I really felt like I had come to know this girl. I had commented on her blog and she had commented back. We were blog buddies!

And now she was missing somewhere in the Indian Ocean and feared dead. I was heartbroken.

I followed her saga closely and, unfortunately, became convinced the child had perished at sea. I was angry. At her for going. At her parents for allowing it. At the sea for taking her. I was pissed. And sad.

I also had this sinking thought: That's what happens when you chase your dreams.

I signed on the Internet late Friday before hitting the sack and did a Google search on Abby to see if there was any new information (once a news junkie, always a news junkie). I happened to see a breaking news item that said an Australian Airbus was due over her position within ten minutes. If she was alive, they might be able to either spot her or make radio contact.

I stayed with the Google stream as it was updated in real time. Ten minutes passed. People were praying for this girl online, mainly on Twitter. Most didn't seem to expect a positive outcome. I didn't either, to be honest with you.

Twenty minutes passed and no news from the Australians. I felt really bad and was thinking about going to bed.

And then this moved on the Google Stream -- Breaking News: Teen sailor found alive and well.

OK. I'll admit that I raised my fists in the air, let out a whoop and then sat there and cried tears of joy. I have kids her age. I could only imagine the joy her parents felt at that moment.

And at that moment, my depression broke. It dissolved. Gone.

This girl had risked her life for a dream and nearly lost both. But she intends to try again, despite almost dying.

And I intend to keep on trying, too.

Dreams are too precious to give up on.

I learned that from a 16-year-old girl.

Go Abby.

Trying to write my way out

2010-06-08T15:27:00.004-05:00

I have been unable to write anything other than pure crap for about three weeks or so. I'm not sure why, but it's driving me nuts.

Not to get too personal, but I've had some (minor) health issues during that time, including some kind of weird bug that left me exhausted with swollen glands and one hell of a headache for weeks. Then, I developed a running-related foot injury that hurts me when I sit down (at my desk, for instance). It's throbbing right now, as a matter of fact.

This has all combined into a massive bout of writer's block. Take today. I sat here for more than three hours and came up with ... 238 words.

Of pure crap.

A couple of weeks ago, I was really excited about the new WIP. I still am, but I'm having real problems getting it off the ground. No matter what I do, I stare at the screen and nothing comes.

Sigh.

I'm starting to get worried. I mean, I wrote The Devil You Don't Know mostly in a fog of ignorance. I was pretty much done with the manuscript when I discovered there were writers' blogs and agents online. In other words, I knew nothing about writing fiction when I wrote it. I just let 'er fly and went with my creative juices.

Then I learned all about the craft of writing. I started to read writing books, and blogs, etc. It helped me tremendously in editing and revising TDYDK.

But since then, I have started three books. And all three sit in various states of un-doneness (if I may coin a phrase) on my hard drive.

Don't get me wrong. I am not quitting. No way in hell. I will work through this.

But I can't help but wonder if I now know too much about the writing process. For instance, I am so damned aware of how important the first fifty pages are that I freeze now when writing my WIP. I just know that it's not good enough. And the more pressure I put on myself, the harder it is to sit down and just write.

Like I used to.

How do you deal with writer's block? Do you put too much pressure on yourself? Do you find that the more you know about the craft of writing, the harder it gets?

Night of the twister(s)

2010-06-06T19:09:00.010-05:00

Last night was a wild one here in central Illinois.

It all started about 6 p.m. The wife and 12-year-old had gone to East Peoria (some 15 miles away) for pizza with a friend. The wife often does restaurant reviews for the paper, and this time a pizza joint was up for grabs. So she called a friend from the paper and the three of them headed off. I demurred, since I'm on a low-carb diet. Oh, and the Cubs were on television.

All good so far.

At about 7 p.m., the sky darkened and it began thundering. I switched from the Cubs game (on WGN Chicago) to a local station and saw that we were under a tornado warning. At that moment, the lights flickered and several tornado sirens began going off in the distance. Then the siren closest to our house (about half-a-mile away) went off.

Curious but not alarmed, I went out on the front porch with my cigar to watch the sky. (It's something I've always done; sirens go off, people head for the basement and I head for the front porch.)

I called the wife and they were on their way home. She needed to stop at the newspaper to drop her friend Kathy off, so I suggested they stay there until the storm passed. She agreed.

A minute later, several ambulances and police cars went screaming past the house (remember, we live on a blacktop road in the wooded bluffs, just north of the city). Then a firetruck went by, with a loudspeaker blaring: "Take cover immediately. This is not a drill. Take cover immediately!"

Whoa. I waved at the truck and called the wife, who was now stopped at a gas station about five miles from the newspaper. I strongly suggested she hurry up. She agreed.

I went back in the house for a moment to check the Weather Channel and the police scanner (a holdover from my journalism days) and heard that several tornadoes were on the ground nearby, including one right near where the wife and kid were. Oh, and there was one just up the road from me.

I went back out on the porch and lit another cigar. The clouds were among the most frightening I've ever seen (see photos above from pjstar.com; the top one is the Elmwood twister, the bottom shows what was above the city and the newspaper where the wife and kid were). Man, it was a sight. I could hear what sounded like a freight train (the cliche is true, it turns out) just south of here. While I couldn't see the twister, I sure as hell heard it.

By now, the wife and kid were at the newspaper (eight miles away) and the kid was sent down to the fortified basement, where I knew he would be safe. The wife pitched in because the newsroom was woefully understaffed and all hell was breaking loose. Finally, when the scanner said a tornado was literally at the newspaper, I texted her and strongly suggested (ahem) that she and the whole staff go to the basement.

They did.

Anyway, to make a very long story short, it eventually passed and the wife and kid got home unscathed. But 15 tornadoes had touched down in Peoria County (possibly a record) and the town of Elmwood some 35 miles west of here had taken a direct hit. I knew from the scanner traffic that they had closed the town down, blocked off all roads and were gathering people at the high school. I also knew the entire downtown area had been wiped out, as well as the grade school.

At 9 p.m., it was clear the paper didn't have the manpower to staff the hell that was still breaking loose throughout the area (including police digging for the body of Stacey Peterson here), so the wife and I decided to take a ride.

Well, we ended up driving through some of the worst weather I have ever seen. I managed to elude the police barricades and we ended up in Elmwood. With the 12-year-old. Such is the lives of professional journalists.

And what a scene it was. Completely dark. No power anywhere in town. Silent as a tomb. Clusters of people just standing in the roads, in yards, on the sidewalks. In shock. The town looked like it had been bombed. Parts of houses hung from what power lines were still strung up. There was an eerie popping sound and a hiss coming from the blocked-off downtown area -- downed electrical wires sparking and gas leaks from the dozens of buildings and cars that had been destroyed.

If you've seen the movie Twister, you might remember what Wakita looked like. It was sort of like that. Maybe not quite as bad. But you get the idea. Really spooky.

Anyway, the wife did her job. She interviewed survivors at the high school, talked to police and volunteers and all the good people who pitch in when these kinds of things happen. And then came the biggest news of the night:

There had been no injuries. None. It was a damned miracle. I still don't know how dozens weren't killed. The little movie theater was filled with people when the tornado scored a direct hit and destroyed it. Amazing. Just amazing.

We didn't get home until after midnight. What a night. Wow.

And the 12-year-old? He says it was the best night of his life. And he also thinks he has the coolest parents in the world for taking him.

Cool? Doubtful. Dedicated journalists? Yep. A little crazy at times? Sure.

A happier picture for Marty

2010-06-03T14:54:00.003-05:00

This is me and two mission friends outside the Mayan ruins in central Yucatan. We were just being goofy. Marty asked for a happier photo, and this is the best I could do in the short term. Oh, I'm the goofball on the left! As you can see, I like to wear black. :)

Back from the ledge

2010-06-03T14:41:00.004-05:00

Thank you for the virtual pats on the back after my latest whine. You guys are the best. I only hope I can be there for you, should you need it, like you were for me.

So what did I do to pull myself back from the ledge? Well, I sat on the deck and read Donald Maass all morning and then, literally in a flash, I had an idea to make the new book even better. It's a plot twist that even I didn't see coming, and it was somehow spurred by reading a chapter in Maass' superb Writing the Breakout Novel.

He was writing about premise and how it's important to layer your book with several nuanced sub-plots and then twist them in just the right way to bring it all home at the end.

And it clicked. So I dropped the book, grabbed my Moleskine notebook and jotted it down before I could forget it. I'll flesh it out in a couple of hours while sitting at my son's Little League game.

And again, thanks for the encouragement. I really needed it.

Such is the life of a writer ...

It don't come easy

2010-06-02T14:12:00.008-05:00

I'm lost. That much I know.

<----(This is a picture of me looking lost. Sad, isn't it?)

I spent two-and-a-half long years writing The Devil You Don't Know, and all it's given me so far is form rejections from agents. Sigh. I know I've whined on this blog countless times about how my book sucks, etc.

But really, I'm starting to wonder. Between the form rejections and beta readers just up and disappearing on me (for reals), I'm beginning to think I'm wasting my time. I've started two books since then, and bagged them both. I quit writing the sequel to TDYDK when it became clear that it's very likely the first one will spend eternity on my hard drive. I then started a political thriller, but quit after 20k words because, while I was enjoying it, it felt lightweight. I think I started it for all the wrong reasons -- mainly because I didn't want to have to work as hard on the next one as I had worked on the first.

Bad move on my part.

So when I had a great idea for a big, kick-ass action thriller last week, I spent several days plotting it out, doing an outline and creating a cast of characters. I started writing it over the weekend and really liked the first chapter. A lot.

The second chapter? Meh. Not so much.

Now I'm blocked. I sat for hours today, staring at the screen. And nothing would come. Nothing. Every idea I had to move the story forward seemed dumb. Stupid. Amateurish.

What a stupid fucking way to try to make a living, I decided. And I closed the manuscript and signed on to the Internet. And here I am. Yay me.

I think I'm scared. I remember how much work it was to complete the first novel, and I literally quake at the thought of spending another year or two working that hard ... for nothing.

At least, nothing so far.

I really wish I was one of those confident people who just brush rejection off and keep on going. Sometimes, I think I am. But then days like today come around, and I start to wonder.

At lunch, I cranked up the kitchen radio while I ate my omelet and an old song by Ringo Starr came on. It brought tears to my eyes, which ought to tell you something about my state of mind these days.

Anyway, here's some of the lyrics to "It Don't Come Easy." If you haven't heard it, give it a twirl on YouTube. Ringo was in a band at one time, you know ... ;)

Got to pay your dues
if you wanna sing the blues,
And you know it don't come easy.
You don't have to shout or leap all about,
You can even play them easy.

Open up your heart,
let's come together,
Use a little love
And we will make it work out better

I don't ask for much,
I only want trust,
And you know it don't come easy.
And this love of mine keeps growing all the time,
And you know it don't come easy.

Please remember peace is how we make it,
Here within your reach
If you're big enough to take it.

I'm alive!

2010-06-01T18:30:00.004-05:00

I was offline almost the entire holiday weekend. We were busy with graduation parties and family get-togethers and road trips and all the other stuff that families do on long holiday weekends.

And I am pooped.

I started the new novel over the weekend, and by today I had already run out of gas. I'm 1,700 words in, and I'm clueless as to where to go next (even though I have, like, this huge outline). In other words, I'm writing again! Whoo-hoo.

I know I announced a couple of weeks ago that I was scaling back my blogging -- and I have -- but today I want to announce just the opposite. I have missed blogging every day, so I hereby promise to blog most every day except Saturday. Even if it' something short and sweet.

Like this one.

Like monks on a roller coaster

2010-05-26T15:58:00.005-05:00

I've done a lot of things in my life, most of which I won't go into here. But this writing career thing I've embarked on has to be the wildest emotional ride I've ever been on in my life.

My confidence level can go from zero to sixty in about three minutes. And then back again. And then back yet again. And so on.

Take this past weekend, for instance. A follower of this blog offered to read the first fifty pages of The Devil You Don't Know to, you know, get me to quit whining. She liked it, but had some very solid advice on how to make it better. I worked diligently on it for a couple of days, rewriting the entire beginning of the manuscript. I tossed out entire chapters and then went completely nuts and reworked the entire book.

I managed to cut more than 10,000 words from it -- a good thing, since it was too long. I sent it back to her.

And she LOVED it. Raved about it. She wanted to read the whole book. So I sent it to her and she read it in a day and a half. And LOVED it. I was thrilled and, quite honestly, got to feeling pretty cocky. She helped me with the query letter (which I posted earlier this week on this blog) and I immediately sent it out to a handful to agents.

A handful of really good agents. Like Janet Reid. And Nathan Bransford.

I mean, I was feeling good. You know?

And they rejected me. In record time. Poof.

Shit.

So then I sank into a massive depression. I suck. My book sucks. Everything about me and my life sucks. I don't deserve to live, etc. You know the drill.

By yesterday, I had decided to give up writing for good and get a real job. Again.

Now at this point, you're probably thinking: Well, something good must have happened today. Right?

Uh. No.

The only thing good so far is that I haven't received any more rejections. But it's only 4 p.m. here in Illinois, so I suppose that could change.

Sigh.

But here I am, still plugging away. I might lack the talent to become a published author, but I'm starting to believe that I don't lack the tenacity. And I keep hearing that tenacity is one of the key ingredients to making it in this business.

In the meantime, I've switched gears again. I have put the political novel on hold (temporarily) and I'm researching an idea I had over the weekend for a big kick-ass adventure thriller with a solid, original plot. I spent an hour at my son's Little League game last night sketching out the plot. I love it.

So I'm going to write it. First. Before I finish the political one, because this one feels right. I can't really explain what I mean, it just does.

So how about you guys? Are you up one minute, and down the next? How do you deal with the emotional roller coaster that comes with writing a novel?

It's time to relax

2010-05-23T19:15:00.005-05:00

Over the past three days, I have completely re-worked my manuscript. I have a new query letter that I really like. And I'm now at a point where I honestly feel like I've done everything I can do to get The Devil You Don't Know published.

(Thanks, Anne!)

Oh, there's one more thing, I guess. I have to write a synopsis. Damn it. I have a secret that I'm going to share here for the first time: I have been purposely avoiding agents who require a synopsis in the hope that I could just, you know, skate around it.

Yeah. Right. Not going to happen. So tomorrow, after I mow the entire yard and before I make dinner and then take the kid to his first Little League game of the season, I am going to try to kind of start writing a synopsis.

Damn it.

I sent three more queries tonight with the new query letter and shiny new manuscript just ready to pounce on the world. Ahem. Anyway, I really got my courage up and queried .... wait for it .....

Nathan Bransford!

I know. It'll never happen for several reasons (not his cup of tea, not his kind of writing, too adult, etc.), but what the hell. Since I figure he'll reject me like he does 99.99999999 percent of writers who query him, I figured I might as well get it out of the way.

I sort of expected the rejection fairly soon, since he's like super-human when it comes to the speed in which he rejects people (although he does it nicely, I'm told; I'll let you know). But then I remembered that the series finale of Lost is tonight, so I figure that'll keep him occupied for the entire evening.

So I should hear from him in the morning. (Yay, he says weakly.)

I've decided to post the latest incarnation of my query tonight for you guys to sniff around and rip to shreds should the desire strike you. Seriously, if you guys see anything that needs work, please tell me. I still have lots of prospective agents left -- including all of my A list with the exception of Nathan. So I can still tweak this baby.

Thanks in advance. Here it is:

Dear Mr. Bransford,

Newspaper editor Michael Reed takes a frantic call from a former nun, begging him to meet her son, the resurrected Jesus Christ in the form of fifteen year old Jordan Crane. Michael blows her off as just another crackpot.

When Michael's son is hit by a car, his fragile faith is tested in ways he could not have imagined when Jordan Crane places his hands on his son's dead body—and brings him back to life. A skeptic by nature, Michael questions his own sanity.

Michael soon learns Jordan needs him to lead a small group of average people into the greatest spiritual battle of all time—the last fight between God and Satan. Can they save the world? Is this kid really the Son of God? Or has Michael truly lost his mind?

As he suspends his disbelief and rationalizes the miracles Jordan Crane keeps delivering, Michael's newspaper instincts take over and he knows he must tell the world this story. It's not an assignment he relishes.

THE DEVIL YOU DON'T KNOW is a thriller complete at 114,000 words.

As a career journalist, I've received a dozen national, regional, and state awards from the Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association for writing and reporting.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I would be delighted to send you the first three chapters.

Very truly yours,

Terry L. Towery
[contact info redacted]

If I don't write YA, am I doomed?

2010-05-20T19:33:00.005-05:00

I don't read Young Adult fiction. I haven't even read the Harry Potter series, although I did see the movies.

I don't like vampire novels unless the names Stephen King or Bram Stoker are attached to them.

I wouldn't know Twilight from Lightning Thief. And when I think of Team Edward or Team Jacob -- well, I don't think of them. Ever.

I prefer adult fiction. Nothing against YA, of course. I'm thrilled that young people are reading and that there are tons of talented authors out there providing wonderful books for them to read. I have a preteen who loves YA and reads several novels a week. My wife has even been known to read it occasionally.

But not me. It just isn't my cup of tea. And I write what I like. Period.

But I've been getting some scary vibes on the Internet recently. Basically, conventional wisdom says that unless you write YA, you can pretty much forget about getting published these days.

Say what?

Now, I'm sure I'm oversimplifying the situation. Or worse. I once had a boss who told me I was an awfulizer. Of course, he was a complete moron, but that's beside the point. He was right that one time.

But the fear arose within me again recently when a friend commented (partially in jest, I'm sure) on one of my blog posts that maybe if I made my main character a teen instead of an adult, then perhaps an agent would be interested in my book.

Uh, no.

All joking aside, I do think it's much harder for those of us who don't write YA or even romance novels to get published these days. Maybe everyone has quit reading books except kids, young adults and romance lovers. I don't know. But it's enough to worry me, a writer of adult fiction.

So I'd like to know: How many of you reading this blog write Young Adult fiction? How many write romance? And finally, how many write plain old commercial or literary fiction?

I'll bet the vast majority of you write the first two. And that means my fears might be rooted in some truths.

Great. That's all I need. Yet another hurdle to publication. But then again, I might just be awfulizing. It's happened before.

I've killed my darlings

2010-05-18T18:27:00.010-05:00

I just spent the day completely revising the first 195 pages of The Devil You Don't Know.

I know. I'm exhausted. Fried.

As most of you know, I finally broke down and asked for help the other day. Guess what? I got it! Yay.

The lovely and very talented Anne Gallagher, Piedmont Writer to those of you here on the Internets, emailed me and offered to read my first 50 pages and tell me if they worked for her. I sent it off last night without a moment's hesitation because, really, what do I have to lose?

Thirteen hours later, she emailed me back an amazing critique of the pages, telling me things that I had long known in my own heart. The book starts with too much back story; the plot needs to be moved up. Keep in only those parts that move the plot forward and take the rest out. Do it, she said, and let me know if you think it works better.

It does. It really does.

As many of you know, the book is also too damned long -- clocking in at 123k. Yikes. So that had to be fixed, too.

So I rolled up my sleeves and went to work this morning, cutting and pasting and hacking it like I'm that serial killer in the film Seven. I pulled out chapters two through three and pasted them into a separate file. Then I moved Chapter four up to become Chapter two and rewrote accordingly. Then I slowly added in only those things that move the plot forward. Nothing else.

Sadly, I lost much of Gary K., the biker AA sponsor (although he shows up later, just without much of his previous flair). But by mid-afternoon, I knew I was onto something good. Really good.

The story started to flow like the new manuscript has been flowing. I hewed close to the plot's bones and killed all those darlings that stood in the way. I've heard it mentioned that many first-time novelists commit writer masturbation while writing their rookie novel. In other words, they write to please themselves, not the reader.

Anne pointed out (not in so many words) that I need to make love to the novel, instead -- I need to do it for others and not for my own selfish pleasure.

Whew. I'm blushing here. Sorry for the saucy talk! Let me go take a cold shower and .... Okay. I'm back.

Anyhoo ... Anne was right. Stunningly right. Nine hours after starting, I had revised up to page 194. I stopped because, well, because I'm worn out. I just sent her the new beginning. I can't wait to see what she has to say. And if it still doesn't work, I'll go back at it in the morning. I've decided the goddamned thing has taken up way too much of my life not to give it every chance to be published.

Oh, and the length? Well, now it's down to 114k and counting. Yay! That means that in one day, I not only made the book better, but I made it shorter by almost 10,000 words. Not bad for a day's work, I'd say.

I'll let you know how things turn out. But I am committed to getting TDYDK published.

Thanks Anne. And thanks to everyone who has lent a hand over the past few weeks. I will never be afraid to ask for help again.

You guys are the best. :)

When (and how) to ask for help.

2010-05-16T19:32:00.003-05:00

As most of you know, I'm in the midst of querying for my completed novel, The Devil You Don't Know.

It's not pretty.

In fact, querying reminds me a little of gym class back I was a freshman in high school. I dreaded going to my 3rd hour class that year, because I knew what was going to happen before I ever got there. My stepfather was a police officer, so I had a target on my back. I remember thinking that I might as well just shove my own head into the locker room garbage can and save the seniors the trouble.

In other words, it seemed pointless and fruitless -- and I knew how it was going to go before I even got there -- but I kept going because, well, because I had to. Querying is like that for me. I'll bet it is for most of you, too.

I sent one query Thursday to an agent who reps my genre and whose web site said is actively looking for new writers. Swell, I thought, and sent that baby off. She also requested the first 50 pages of the manuscript along with the query, which thrilled me to no end. So I copied and pasted and sent it off.

Four minutes later, I received a form rejection. Four freaking minutes! Either my query flat out sucks, or that woman is the world's fastest reader.

Sigh.

Like many of us, I suffer from crippling self-doubt. Big-time, serious self-doubt. Tell me my novel is really good and I guarantee you I will think you are lying to me. I don't know why I'm this way, I just am. And I deal with it. But it makes it hard to work in a business like publishing in the year 2010, when rejection isn't just a possibility but a fricking lifestyle.

I talked to one of the final three beta readers who are going through TDYDK today and he seems to genuinely like it. That should make me feel better. But I got my seventh form rejection from a prospective agent at 6:30 this morning. Do these people not sleep? Do agents really get up that early, just to ruin my day? Good Lord. (Okay, I'm kind of kidding here. It didn't ruin my day. I mean, come on. The Cubs finally won. Nothing could ruin my day).

Asking for help from anyone is very, very difficult for me. In fact, it's damned near impossible. See, I'm the one who is always helping other people. I was a professional journalist for a long, long time. An editor. A mentor to dozens of journalism interns and young reporters. I shouldn't need help. See?

Bullshit. I need help. I need help on this query letter, because I don't think it's getting the job done. I also need help on the first 50 pages of my manuscript. Oh, and the ending. It sucks too.

I need help.

There, I said it. Now, of course, I have no idea how to actually get some help. I've put the query up on numerous online sites and have paid very close attention to the valid criticisms. I've made changes accordingly. But the fact is, agents are reading my query and rejecting me -- sometimes in record time. Something needs to be done before I run out of agents to query.

So I'm asking you, dear readers: How do I get help with this? Shall I post the query again and see if we can somehow figure out what its problem is? Whatever it takes, I'll do it. I'm that desperate. Seriously.

And while I'm not ready to dump TDYDK yet, I am beginning to suspect that it may end up being a fairly decent first attempt. The latest beta did say he felt my writing becomes more sophisticated as the book moves along. I suspect that's due to the fact that I honestly didn't know what I was doing when I started it back in February 2007.

In fact, I suspect I love the new WIP so much because I know what I'm doing now. I think it flows better, is more professional. Is more publishable.

But see, I have this huge MS just sitting here, finished, so I will try to keep selling it. I will continue to query and will make whatever adjustments I can until I am convinced that it's a non-starter. Then, I will park it on the hard drive and sell it once I become a famous best-selling author. (Heh heh.)

I've also signed up for an Editors Intensive workshop by Writer's Digest at their Cincinnati headquarters in September. The workshop's purpose is to get the first 50 pages of your MS in shape. Also, I get a 30-minute one-on-one meeting with a professional editor who is supposed to work with me on those crucial first 50 pages. God knows, I need it.

Problem is, I don't know which book to bring. The completed one that might not ever sell? Or the new one that represents my best efforts so far? I hope I'll have a better read on that come September.

I'm also interested in some kind of online writing crit group. I read about people being in crit groups all the time, either online or in real life. Since I live in Peoria, Illinois, and I don't know one other fiction writer in the area, doing it in real life is a problem. So does anyone know how to get into an online critique group?

I'm listening. I love writing, and want to continue doing it as long as I can. So I'm all ears.

UPDATES: I have reached 20,000 words on the new political thriller (I really need to come up with a name for the damned thing). It's coming along very nicely so far. In fact, it's such fun to write I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong. Surely it can't be this enjoyable, can it?

Also, a reader asked me how the situation with the grouchy old lady at the gym turned out. Well. Ahem. I, uh, changed my schedule. So the situation is now, um, resolved.

Feeling overwhelmed? I am

2010-05-13T15:05:00.007-05:00

Perhaps you've noticed that I've been blogging less lately. It's nothing personal, and I am still finding time to read my fave blogs out there and comment when possible, since I know how important it is to me when someone comments on one of my posts.

When I started this blog back around Thanksgiving, I had already finished writing The Devil You Don't Know and was essentially waiting around for the book editor to read the manuscript and get it back to me for a massive round of revisions. I got it back in January and started revising and editing immediately.

But I still found time to blog six days a week. In fact, I enjoyed it. I especially liked the give-and-take with other writers out there, both published and unpublished. It was nice to know I wasn't alone in my frustrations.

But as I continue to query (I've sent out 12 so far and have received 6 rejections), I've started back writing my political thriller. And it's been consuming my days (and sometimes nights). In fact, it's been leaving me pretty much exhausted by early evening. Throw in dinner, Little League and family time, and my blogging time has suddenly evaporated. I need to cut back, folks.

I intend to keep blogging -- as often as I possibly can. I enjoy it far too much to quit now. It is my sincere hope that my faithful readers will continue to drop by and read and comment as they see fit. I would certainly appreciate it.

And knowing me, I'll probably still blog three or four times a week. I just don't want to have to feel guilty if I don't write a post each day. I hope you understand and hang with me.