Rejected for Reviewing

I am a professional reviewer, having worked for AuthorLink for nearly 10 years, and a consumer reviewer since nothing is purchased without someone emailing to know what I thought of their product, service, or opinions. I have reviewed several books for NetGalley over the years and haven denied access to books to read and review, but this is the first time I have been rejected and specifically asked to apply for access again. No such option is available to me on the NetGalley website. The FAQs mentioned that I could request the book from the publisher, which I have just done, but I thought I'd put my opinions out in the world for everyone to read, learn, or comment about. Why not? Is this world not a connected world where all opinions are debated, denied, calumnized, and laughed at by everyone? I might just get my wish to read an advance copy on my Kindle reader to see whether or not I will enjoy The Rules of Magic as much as I enjoyed Practical Magic or the numerous other books I have read by Alice Hoffman, even books I didn't think I would like and discovered I thoroughly enjoyed.

Hoffman is a consistently good author and her subject matter of practical magic for the characters in her books is endlessly fascinating without the over hyped sexual aspect of paranormal books and authors dabbling in the paranormal genre over the past few decades. In spite of my personal views of PDAs and the avoidance thereof, Hoffman does not go that route with her books or her characters and I do like that.

Simon and Schuster is one of the Big Six Publishers that many indie and Big-6 published writers deal with when they decide to enter the publishing world, but I will have to wait until some unknown publicist for this book here in the USA decide to read and respond to my query regarding an advance copy. Until then, I will continue to plan on reading the book when it is published in October or contact one of my contacts to do me a favor. Either way, I will of course get the book, read it, and review it here or wherever (Amazon, Good Reads, newspapers, magazines, or here on my own blog) and whenever I may. That's life and the way the pages fall.

This rejection is not the end and I still have other authors to fill my time in the meantime and beyond until this 3rd density existence is either upgrade by the Cosmic Sneeze or the Grim Reaper comes for me at length.

I wonder. Will I be able to read books -- or care about them -- when I have ascended?

That is all. Disperse.

Blood on the Page Mind

The picture on the left shows typing mistakes (I got a few in typing class) and for some reason editing is on my mind. It happens every time I read a book. Words out of place, awkward sentences, repetition, repetition, and using the wrong word sear my eyes and I itch for a red (or blue) pencil to edit.

Most of the time, mistakes are the result of laziness or lack of understanding (or education/training). Often the mistakes are a result of inspiration unwilling to stop and wait for the rational part of the brain to kick in and slow everything down. Many writers lock up the editorial and critical part of the mind in order to keep the writing flowing. If the flow stops, the writing may never get done -- or the writer off the ground. A few writers are determined to break and/or disregard the rules because they are artists and depicting the world as they see it, a world without the hassle and convention of rules to tie them to some outdated way of writing, and people unwilling to see the world as they see it -- without rules, eschewing convention and banality to avoid the petty, bourgeois mind. As if . . . !

And then there are the writers too poor or too lazy to hire an editor because they can do it themselves and the ones that never learned the rules and still sold a lot of stories and articles, believing "if it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it".

Whatever the reason for mistakes, typos, and a general disregard for polishing until you're so sick of it you cannot bring yourself to look at the work One. More. Time. I understand you, but I do not accept your excuses.

Or rather, the editor who lives in my mind won't accept anything less than the best, firm in the knowledge that pointing out mistakes, awkward sentences and paragraphs, sloppy punctuation, and repetitive writing are all an opportunity for the writer to learn and improve. It's a humanitarian endeavor -- and not a little kick of satisfaction when writing (and author) improve and change their previous bad habits. And then there is the blood on the page; that soothes a bloody mind.

I admit it. I mentally red pencil the books I read -- unless the writing is so good I am far more interested in what happens next than reaching for my red pencil. It happens rarely, but it does happen, and yet I still note the errors, just without the overwhelming need to feel a newly sharpened red pencil in my fingers poised to strike.

Maybe it is all those years spent as an editor (some of which are ongoing) helping writers make their prose tighter and their descriptions so real the reader wants to open themselves up and drown in the evocative writing that has me aching to show the writer where the book or story could be better. Whatever the reason, I accept that I am an editor at heart that loves books and enjoys writing reviews and critiques with the satisfaction of a gourmand served a meal at a brand new restaurant and still savoring the results. I am an editor at heart.

I am also a reviewer and writer and these facets of my psyche shall not be separated no matter how much time I take off from writing, editing, and reviewing because I am first and foremost a lover of books and words who cannot remember not being able to read. And that ain't Alzheimer's or senile dementia talking either.

That is all. Disperse.

Persuaded

Have you ever heard someone speak about a book or see a movie based on a book and wanted to read the original? I do. All the time. That's the case with The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, also author of Day of the Triffids, which I've already read.

I don't know if it's curiosity (mostly, what Beanie calls my nose problem) or lack of sales resistance. I prefer the former. Basically, it's like someone suggesting books and me deciding which ones I want to read. That's how I finally began reading Jane Austen and found I actually liked it. Before watching the BBC series with Colin of the wet shirt, I began reading Austen but just could not get past the ponderous language. Hearing it spoken gave it life and sparkle and I had to read the books, books I continue to reread year after year. Austen is a place of beauty and romance that still touches my old heart and I do so love the scene between Anne and the captain when he reaches out one very large gloved hand and she places her small hand in his. That is true romance. I see it every time I read Persuasion, which is why I suppose I also enjoy The Lake House because of the connection to Persuasion.

I have to admit that I am a bit surprised that the very wordy Wyndham Midwich Cuckoos is so very wordy and most of what I've seen numerous times in Village of the Damned has not occurred, except for the town going to sleep and anyone coming within its confines dropping off immediately. At times, the book puts me to sleep when Dr Zellaby goes on and on in his philosophical vein. There are moments when he makes sense, like when he told his son-in-law to take his daughter away from Midwich without their baby so she could escape the compulsion that comes over every woman of a Dayout baby/cuckoo when she gets six miles from Midwich, as if tethered by some invisible cable that yanks the mother back. Several more educated and scientific-minded women have already figured out they can escape the compulsion by leaving Midwich without the baby forced on them by the Dayout and leaving the baby/cuckoo in the care of the town without regret or second glances. Only one mother out of the entire population of child bearing females in Midwich had a normal baby, and that is Dr Zellaby's wife, Angela. She was obviously pregnant when the Dayout occurred.

At any rate, I am moderately enjoying the book, but I doubt I'd be reading it at this time if not for Mrs Fitzgerald's mention of the book to her brother-in-law when she was talking about how her midlife baby Jimmy kept her tethered to the house when she had one grown son and a nearly grown daughter. Having a baby at the middle of her life was not in her plans and, as much as she loved him, she was sick to death of being tethered to home with a newborn. She talked about how any woman with a Midwich cuckoo was compelled to return to the "nest" and how it had to be a man writing that kind of hell because a woman never would -- be tethered or find it fodder for a story. I had to read the book then and there.

Mostly, I've been pleased and fascinated by the books I've been recommended in this fashion, but there have also been some dogs. Still, I wonder how many people buy books, not because a friend mentioned them or because of being drawn by the cover art or the author's name, but because a television character or movie based on a book put the idea into their heads. How do you find the books you read for entertainment and escape?

Maybe Beanie is right and it all comes down to my nose trouble. Stranger things and all that.

That is all. Disperse.

Literary Therapy

Today has been an early day of uploading book reviews. I should have done them earlier, but got caught up in all the work drama that now seems to be sliding slowly toward a new path. There are worse ways to spend my life, but making more money with better benefits and a whole lot less stress doesn't seem to be one of them. These are the times I go back to basics, one of those being the comfort of an old friend -- a book.

The book is Andre Norton's Moon of Three Rings about a Free Trader (space faring free trader) on a new world caught up in that world's intrigues who ends up wearing fur for a while. The fur is a barsk, a dangerous and violent animal not easily tamed, dying from abuse. The Moon Singer, Maelen, finds and saves the barsk and ends up putting Krip Vorlund in the barsks body, shoring up both spirits since his body has been beaten. Thus begins an odyssey into the interior of Yiktor among the Thassa and a price that Maelen must pay for her actions.

I read Moon of Three Rings for the first time nearly forty years ago and I find something new every time I read it, picking up little details and bits of writing that I missed the first few times. Each time it's a new book, not because I don't remember the story, but because I am coming to the book a little different, older, hopefully wiser, but most definitely changed by time and experiences. I bring a different me to the book each time, as I do to other books I reread. My experiences change me, but they also change the way I view the world and the world within the books. Good books just get better with time, and I was in need of a good book, although I almost opted for the next Disc World book from Terry Pratchett.

I flirted briefly with another Jasper Fforde, likely The Eyre Affair, the first in the Thursday Next series, but decided a good old book was exactly what I needed.

I often wonder if doctors ever think of library therapy for what ails their patients. It should be a required treatment for depression, ennui, high blood pressure, and stress, among other ailments that have accumulated with our modern age. Sometimes the best treatment is slowing down with a good book, not just any book, but a really good book, a golden oldie if possible. There's something to be said for a trip through the pages of a well loved book where the characters are familiar and the environs comforting. It's the literary version, at least in my opinion, of stopping to smell the roses. A vase of fresh cut roses wouldn't go amiss while sitting down and reading and you'll have time to smell the gentle fragrance while you read. Two birds. One stone.

The world changes so quickly and times begins to feel like it's traveling past at mach speed. The vistas change and so do we, but at the core we are the same people who fell in love with a story or an author as children and need a little reminding. I may even dig up a copy of the very first book I ever owned and read it again, imagining myself lying in the sweet hay on clean sheets in the loft looking up at the stars shining into the attic with Heidi. Or I could journey back in time with John Carter or swing through the jungles with Tarzan or even go on an adventure with Conan the Barbarian.

What I really need is a box full of vintage comic books and a Creamsicle or a bowl of popcorn and a stack of fairy tales or 1001 Arabian Nights. Sometimes the world looks better from a fantastical perspective. Thoreau did say to simplify and fairy tales, comic books, and fantasies are the simplest and best pleasures I know.

Simplify. Find a comfortable spot with good lighting and read a book. You can enjoy your lunch in a comfortable chair as easily as at the table or a counter, but bring a napkin so you don't mess up the book. Don't forget the roses.

Actual Value vs Perceived Value

A lovely young Chinese girl pours boiling water into a 400-year-old teapot, adds tea leaves, and puts on the lid. Hot tea-flavored water cascades down the sides as she explains that the patina imparted by using the teapot is what gives it value. "Some things," she says as she wipes the sides with a cloth, "have no value unless they are used."

A Stradivarius violin, the finest violin in the world, cannot be kept in a safety deposit box or safe or it will crack and dry out and be useless. Unless it is used regularly by a violinist, no matter how good or bad she is, the violin is just so much glue, pegging, wood, and strings that go out of tune. The same is true of a piano, no matter what make or model; it will dry out, crack, and die without being used.

Some things were made to be used, and so it is with books, but how do you judge a book and assess its value?

Each book is a labor of love, a work of art, no matter what the critics say. Each book is the brain child given life and form on paper, and in pixels and electrons, and lives only when it is read.

Authors regularly tout their best selling status, count their profits, and continue to create more brain children, but does that make a book valuable? It is valuable in that the book earns money, but there is value beyond money, beyond the price, and beyond the profit. There is value in every book for some reader who has read the book so many times she can quote passages by heart, giving them nuance and a flavor the author may never have intended or realized. Each book is valuable to some one -- and sometimes to many someones, until the rest of the world and fans catch on. That is what I hope happens to my books, that they are read over and over by someone -- or many someones -- regardless of how much I earn, so long as they touch someone's heart and/or mind. That is the value of a book. It imparts a view of life, a bit of magic, a soupcon of wisdom, and often a titbit of laughter, tears, or joy.

Too often, in our rush to be recognized, lauded, and to profit from our dreams and visions made real, we forget that the real value in a book is in its impact. There is no value otherwise.

I remember a story about Beatrix Potter who made up stories and painted the scenes she saw in her imagination. As a Victorian woman, her only possibility of a life was to marry, manage a household, bear children, and be a helpmate to a man. The only other option was to ruin her reputation by going on the stage or becoming a prostitute, at least if she was from a good family. Lots of jobs were available for lower class women and few cared what they were. Someone had to serve, clean, cook, manage a household staff, etc., and no well born lady would have considered for a second having a valet instead of a lady's maid.

Beatrix was from a good family with some money and position and still she wanted to continue writing stories and painting her friends. She decided to have her work published and, with her companion in tow, she went round to various publishers until she found a publisher willing to take on her project and do it her way. She would not be fobbed off with second class work. She would draw and paint her own illustrations, and her first book was born.

Beatrix wrote and illustrated several books and, to her family's utter surprise, people talked about the little books as if they were gems of beauty and value, and bought so many of the books Beatrix was able to move out of her parents' home and into her own home on her own land bought with her own money. She was free at last. The rest of the story is as fascinating as the writing, but better leave that to another time and another subject.

Beatrix's books were her brain children and children, and adults, who bought the books loved them, cared for them, and passed them down to their own children. The books aren't big in size, but they are works of art that have value far and beyond the cost of materials and publisher's fees. The books are immortal. That's what every writer dreams and so few achieve.

Is it because the writing isn't good? Sometimes. Is it because the subject is off the beaten track? Sometimes. Is it because the author didn't play the socializing, marketing, and networking game? Not always.

Sometimes books don't hit their stride right away or fans don't form clans to discuss, rehash, and proselytize for the author. It's not the book or the author's fault; it's the luck of the draw -- or not drawn.

Every book has value to some person, some individual, and to the author. In order to transcend the first flush of creation, a book must be read and readers must talk and spread the word of mouth necessary to bring a book out of the shadows and into the light. However, if just one person, or even one hundred persons, read and reread and commit the book to memory, it's value soars. A book, like a 400-year-old teapot, has no value unless it is used. Usage brings a patina of beauty that the brightest diamonds and the richest fabrics cannot achieve.

Read a book. Pick one, any one, and find within it the beauty and profundity of the author's dreams. One person, one book, or a hundred persons and a hundred books, it does not matter. It only matters that you read and keep the words and images and dreams burnished. It's the difference between actual value and perceived value.

If you're looking for a gift, what better gift to give someone you love than a book?

Now Presenting . . . Who?

It never gets easier this whole networking, socializing to sell books thing. I wonder how authors did it a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago? Oh, right, people bouught books, read the books, talked about the books and more people bought the books. Of course, there weren't millions of people writing millions of books then. Only a few ever got through to the gatekeepers. The few who could afford it and paid to have their own books published had some success, depending on how good the books were. That's the real trick. Not socializing or networking but writing really good books.

I read George R. R. Martin's Live Journal blog and I was struck by the surprise that he is having such success now, especially since his ice and Fire series has been out since 1996, except for the new one coming out next week. A Dance With Dragons took about eight years to write and finish. George admits he's a slow writer and doesn't do deadlines very well.

George garnered a lot of fans, as he should since his Ice & Fire series is amazing. The writing is accessible and not overdone or heavy with description, although there is sufficient description to put you right in the action at the right time and place. Each character is unique and flawed in some way, but eminently memorable, from the Imp (Tyrion Lannister) to Eddard Stark, Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. The books have been translated into several different languages and Vietnamese may be next. What George has created in Winterfell and the world where it is set crosses all boundaries and touches something inside us that believes in magic and demons and in the strength of men and women to combat anything that comes down the Kingsroad.

A recent article cited sales in one day that exceeded all of 2010 before HBO picked up the series and shoved the series to the top of all the best seller lists here and abroad. I wouldn't mind selling 40,000 books, but I'm new at the game and don't have George's track record in movies, television and books. I'm working my way up, but I do wonder what it would take to get people talking about my book the way they talk, dissect, and love George's books. Probably stop writing about relationships and the evil that men and women do in the real world and take the same elements and place them in a world of my own creation like Middle Earth and Westeros. I love fantasy and dragons and everything that goes with them, but find it difficult to write fantasy. I work best in the real world where the harms we do each other are next door and the next town over. I'd do well to create a world, set the rules and let my imagination run wild -- right after I finish the current trip into Victorian England where Jekyll, Hyde and Jack the Ripper put Whitechapel and serial murder on the map.

There is a world -- this world a few hundred years hence -- that lies under the curse of man's technology and Mother Nature's ire where vampires rule, not the vampires currently known and written about, but vampires of a different breed at war with each other and king of a world locked beneath dark skies where the sun doesn't shine and glaciers creep ever closer to the equator. It is a world where domed cities protect the ragged remnants of humanity cloned to near extinction, a shadow of itself, and ruled over by vampires who breed the humans for food and to run the machines their ancestors built.

The mother lode of humanity's best and brightest live underground safe from the ravages of nature, nurtured by vampires who archive their memories and protect what the shadow humans in the domed cities can no longer remember after generations of cloning. The underground humans and vampires protect technology, books and memories of what went before, what caused and perpetuates the season of Ragnarok that reigns on the surface, and these two worlds are about to clash over the precious seeds of life as it once was left behind that will soon be resurrected as the world rebounds and begins to bloom again. Memory will guide the way.

If I'm very lucky, then the novels I write, in the real world and in a world of fantasy, will start the buzz and word of mouth will sell 40,000 or more books. It's my dream, and one that isn't out of reach -- so far. In the meantime, I need to work more on socializing and networking because I'm not sure I could handle any more book signings where no one shows up or a dozen people stop by on their way up the aisle to join the hundreds waiting to see the author of Clifford the big red dog's adventures. George can tell you how that one goes. There's nothing like holding a book signing where everyone forgets to come.

Now, about that socializing. Do I really have to? Can't someone just start talking, someone with a big mouth and a bigger audience full of big mouths? I can only hope.

 

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Being Transported

There are always surprises when I least expect them and yesterday I needed a surprise. I've needed one for a long time.

A writer friend emailed that her husband died Monday evening. She was sad, but all right with his death. It's hard watching someone you love slide slowly into the abyss bit by bit. I sent her my condolences, not because I knew her husband Fred but because I know her and have watched his decline from the sidelines all these years.

Yesterday, she sent me a message thanking me. She thanked me for my kindness and for my book, Among Women, because it captured her and took her somewhere else when Fred was in such pain and she could do nothing to help him. That's a pretty big compliment. What else could I say but you're welcome? I am still sad for her loss, but also glad that Fred is no longer in pain and his family can now grieve, something they have been doing in fits and starts for years.

I remember what it was like to lose my great Aunt Ann when she had Alzheimer's, which is what Fred had. She stood six-foot-two in her stocking feet and was from solid peasant stock. She was creative and fashionable and had made a huge success in her life. She never had children, although her husband had a child by his previous wife; he was a widower when Ann married him.

When we found out about her, Aunt Ann had been living in her big brick house all alone and the neighbors were stealing her blind, which is probably why she kept so much of her cash in her vast book collection. Having Alzheimer's made it difficult for her to remember, except in brief and fleeting flashes, where it was, but it made her feel safer. She had lost so much weight she was a shadow of her former glorious peasant self. She smelled and was dirty and her beautiful home was a dump. That's what living alone for several years while she was ill did to her and her surroundings, as it eventually does to the people who love her.

My parents took her home and my father cared for her until she eventually died. They sold off her possessions, cleaned up and sold her house and took care of her during her few remaining years. My dad cared for her as if she were a child, and that is what she had regressed to in the end, a child with easy smiles and wide wondering eyes unfamiliar with the world around her or the people she once knew so well and had towered over.

I know how my friend felt because I've been there. There is relief followed quickly by regret when someone you love dies of Alzheimer's, and yet there is also peace; someone you have loved and who loved you is now resting in the arms of the universe, has moved past his body and away from his mortal coil to be a part of the universe once more, having been given a glimpse of the eternal while they were still alive, and silenced by the disease so they cannot tell those left behind the wonders they have glimpsed that brought them to their knees emotionally and spiritually. At least, that is how I see it.

The rest of the day was the usual battle with a pernicious computer program that had a stranglehold on my OS and I spent a good part of the morning trying to get rid of it. When I finally figured it out (turn off the antivirus program) it was late and I was hungry, so I ordered in. The delivery driver is one I have come to know well over the past three years and he had news for me. After a year, he has finally finished chapter ten of Past Imperfect (gotta change the name the next time around) and he was excited about the twist on the story the characters had engineered. I was just along for the ride, and to take notes. He has two more chapters to go and he's anxious to see which guy will get the girl, or which guy the girl will choose. Depends on your point of view. What he said next surprised me.

"I really should read more. If you only knew how big a deal it is that I am reading this book . . . ." He faltered there. "I'll get my mother to write you a note." I explained that wasn't necessary and showed him my latest book. "Are you giving this to me?"

Actually, no, but since your eyes lit up and you seem interested . . . . "I'll sign."

"Yeah, and I'll bring back the other one so you can sign it, too."

Surprise. He not only likes the book it has taken him a year to read, getting to it whenever he remembers there is a book to read, the only book he owns besides a telephone book (or so he told me), but he is anxious to read more and to read my latest book. Big surprise.

Two surprises in a row, each of a different origin, but both equally wonderful. People are reading.

If there is anything that would make me happier it would be that more people read, not just for work or because they must, but because they want to, because the story or the author engaged them and made them feel like reading, because they actually were transported and could forget the mundane details of every day life. What better purpose is there for authors and their books. Yes, it's for us, for the authors, but it's also to share a bit of how we see the universe and each other, and just because it's fun to pretend to be someone or somewhere else. Not every book has to have social significance, but it does help if the book -- no matter how badly it is written -- takes us away from what is to what could be or will be or just might be. That is the magic of books and the surprises found between its pages -- virtual or real. What better job could there be?

Yeah, I know. It doesn't always earn a lot of money, but whatever happens to my books, at least I know that at least two people who are not related to me enjoyed the books and were transported. That's enough for now.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

There are times when coming home from a vacation and getting back to the daily grind is a relief and times, like this morning, when it's not so much a relief as a pain. I want more time, at least a whole week, and preferably two weeks. I'm out of luck.

For the past five days I've been lolly gagging around having breakfast in a lovely dining room, tea at a castle and dinner at a new place every night and it has been lovely. Add in long luxurious baths, reading vampire novels and taking long walks with no particular destination in mind or having to be anywhere at a certain time, and it was perfect. Fresh towels I didn't have to launder. Sitting on a big porch in the sunshine reading books and waking up in a huge four poster bed on clean sheets I didn't have to wash or change was just the icing on the vacation cake. Now it's back to work and back to doing my own laundry, cooking my own food and changing my own sheets in a bed with no tall posts. I may have to fix that one of these days and create a little Victorian atmosphere of my own. But it's home and at least one good thing happened. I finally caught a mouse in my expensive and humane trap. Only one more to go and I don't have to break down and poison the little wretch.

In a few minutes, I shall take off the vacation clothes and put on work clothes and get down to the business of earning enough money to go on another little holiday in a few weeks. I'm still trying to decide if several short holidays are better than two week-long holidays. I guess I'll find out.

I also got some research in on a -- wait for it -- zombie story set in the Civil War. I don't do zombies, but Mary Ann got my mind turning on zombies and a Civil War setting when we discussed her zombie story set in the Civil War. My story isn't set at Shiloh but at Gettysburg at the turning point of the war. I spent quite a bit of time looking at the battle plans and reading some of the accounts and found the perfect place for a little evil and mayhem at Devil's Den. It has just the right atmosphere for the darker side of war.

For Christy, (I received your letter this morning), I have an answer to your question. No, I didn't take my camera, but I do have a picture for you. This is what some of the suite looks like.

I believe I may go back there again or I might find another little place I've been thinking about where breakfast is delivered to the door and there are woods to walk in and a river to meander beside. It's anyone's guess. Or I shall simply save up some time and put all my energy and time toward a seaside cottage in New England for a little writer's retreat with one of my favorite friends. The decks are clear and anything is possible.

Enjoy the week and don't forget to have a little fun along the way.

That is all. Disperse.

Getting hard

The more I interact with amateurs, the more I am inclined to move to a cave and live like Thoreau. It isn't because they're stupid (they are) or that they're unprofessional (yep, that too) but because they are rude and ignorant and take delight in trampling all over everything that isn't theirs.

I recently critiqued another writer's work. It came up in the queue. In order to get a critique, I have to give one. This person sought me out the next day and trashed my hard work, giving me the lowest scores possible. At first, the comments seemed unnecessarily vicious and hammered away at literary writing techniques that have nothing to do with genre writing. I decided to check the person out to thank them (teeth gritted) for their carefully considered comments. That's when I found out I had written a critique of their work the day before. I pointed out the cliches in their work and the too obvious plot devices, never giving a score below 3/5, and offered suggestions that would elevate their work above the cookie cutter style they had chosen (beautiful, rich, bored woman in expensive car seeks out starving young man living in hostel and selling newspapers in the rain for food offers hot bath, gourmet food and top shelf alcohol for the night in her secluded, well appointed hideaway). There was no sense of place. The dialogue was stilted and obviously pulled from some television show or 1900s melodrama. The characters were one-dimensional and the situation trite.

Unlike my usual methods where I state flat out that someone has screwed the English language with a broken skewer and trampled it with jump boots into the quagmire of a tar pit, I used tact. He used none and simply had a screaming tantrum all over my hard work. I feel like I'm flying with turkeys. It's enough to dishearten and depress, and it has done both in the recent past.

On a hunch, I checked out the other negative critiques and they were also people I had given low marks for horrid, misspelled and grammar-deficient writing. Flying with turkeys again.

I know professionals can be rude and snarky, but at least they have some credentials backing up their comments. These amateurs have none, as their lack of understanding or familiarity with the English language and basic grammar show. Now I know why successful writers refuse to read amateur work. It makes them despair for the future of literature. And I certainly do.

I don't expect everyone to love everything I write, but I do expect a certain level of professionalism and tact. I give what I expect to get -- the golden rule. Too bad no one has taught these literary anthropoids that being able to use a computer keyboard does not mean they can write.

Oh, well, time to go back to my cave and read good writing or even marginal writing with promise. I have so many to choose from.

That is all. Disperse.

Person or product

With all the talk about branding and shelf life and marketing, my head is in a whirl about being an author. After years of hard work and learning and writing, and thinking that all there was to being an author was writing a good book, I'm at a loss. Then I read Rachelle Gardner's post about choosing a literary agent and I knew what I wanted to find and how to find it.

I am a writer. It's what I do. It's what I think about. It's what I've always been in one form or another. I write books. I also write articles and short stories, and poetry on rare occasions. I didn't want to sell books, or market, brand, network or make books. I wanted to write. And I have written. But looking for an agent has been a disappointing experience, in part because I was so busy putting together winning queries and packaging myself and my book to tantalize, excite and entice an agent who would be enthusiastic about the work when I should have been thinking about what kind of an agent I want.

I want an agent like Lauren Bacall in the movie version of Stephen King's Misery. I want a clone of Maxwell Perkins or Lewis Jackman in Return to Peyton Place, an agent who sees the person behind the writer and wants to publish everything I write. Someone who sees me as more than a single book. An agent who represents a person -- me -- and not just a book, a single title, or series, and then moves on to the next book.

In all of the rejections from agents I have queried, each has said I'm a good writer, but s/he is not passionate about the book I'm offering. They were excited by my query and proposal package, but just weren't enthusiastic enough about the work. Nowhere in all those polite and politically correct rejections did anyone mention being enthusiastic about me as a writer, a person who turns out good work and will continue to do so. But how do I find an agent interested in more than one project? That is the question.

At this point, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I want an agent who is enthusiastic about representing me and sees me as a writer with a bright future. I'm not my book; that is the product of my imagination, experience, evolution, talent and hard work. It is a product any competent person, or people, can package, market and sell. The engine that drives this assembly line of words and ideas continues to run and produce. I need to find someone who understands that and is passionate about a relationship with me. A relationship with my book is a short term affair. A relationship with me is a long term arrangement. That's the person I want and need. Just point me in the right direction.

A time of dreams and fantasies

Movies are compelling with their images and colors brighter than those seen in the living rooms and dens and bedrooms where the movies play. It's no wonder talkies took off the way they did in spite of the people who claimed movies would never take off. In movies there are no limits to the imagination. People have traveled farther in movies than they ever have on land or in sea or air. Makes me wonder how far we would have traveled if the people involved had been as keen to achieve space flight as they did to crack the boundaries of time and space on the big screen.

The first flights of fancy took place around fires in caves and on the plains and in the mountains and hills and at the sea side when night ruled and men huddled close for comfort and protection. Was it a lie that started the first storytellers to spinning fancies and fantasies out of shadow and leaping firelight? Or was it merely wishing to penetrate the darkness and stave off the predators waiting to pounce?

Fiction writers are considered liars, but I don't see us as writers, but rather as dreamers and visionaries. Is it a lie to wish for better or to want to travel beyond the confines of gravity? Anyone capable of such courage and wisdom and ability would have to be special and so the story is born.

I am constantly amazed by the wide variety of stories and movies and even more so by the time it takes to watch someone else's dreams and let my own lie fallow. That's the lure of movies and books, like a come-hither from the king of the leprechauns that leads to wrack and ruin, and the death of dreams.

I'm guilty of following the easy entertainment of the written and acted word, caught like a dazed fool. I'm getting better at discipline, but it's not second nature yet. I'm too much the rebel when it comes to settling down to someone else's rules -- and even my own. I don't like fences even the kind that limit time and spontaneity. Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels so that keeping the roads hot isn't quite so easy any more. It's probably why many take up writing later in life when children are grown and there are hours and time to fill. There's so much to look back on and record, so many thoughts to follow to the rainbow's end and fantasies to to eave from threads into whole cloth. It's also why some begin writing in their youth -- time to fill, dreams to follow and fancies to weave.

I'm in the middle of life, but have always found time to write. Now that there is more time with fewer distractions during summer break, I should be able to finish a couple more books. I write waking and sleeping, but I think for a while I'll leave my working hours for actual work, toiling toward the goal of time to write. There are worse things to do with the time, and I've done most of them. Time to do better and be good for a change or I'll not get a single good night's sleep as stories and characters have found their way into my dreams, luring me with penny bright phrases and evocative prose.

Kick Start Your Writing

My astrological chart says I'm not a self starter and I would have to agree. I am a born procrastinator -- on some things, writing being one of them. I love to write and can sit and write for hours on end, usually irritated that I have to get up and tend to nature's call or eat. I have been known to write for 36 hours straight, with nature breaks, of course, and not get tired. I am in the zone. The words are coming. The characters are cooperating and often teaching me things about them I did not know. My fingers are not tired of typing and my backside has not yet reached the leaden stage where getting up is like trying to free my nether regions from a powerful electromagnet -- must be the endorphins and adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. Everything works fine. I wrote a 100,000-word biography like that once.

Then there are times that I just cannot face the page, knowing that if I do I will be caught in powerful currents and dragged down into the zone where I will not emerge for hours, maybe even a day or two. I cannot afford it. I have to work my day job and do the laundry and bulldoze the detritus from the last writing stint, definitely not a good idea if avoiding surprise visits by the health department.

I do write every day, but not on my works-in-progress. I journal every day, keep up with correspondence and emails, and work, which consists of 8-10 hours of typing dictation, very technical dictation. On the laptop waits my novel or short story waiting to be finished and it calls to me. Like the hunger pangs I ignore when I am in the writing zone, I ignore the siren's call to write until pretty soon, like hunger pangs, the call fades. Then begins the avoidance dance and the procrastination when a deadline looms. It is my fault; I am not a halfway person. I am either all in or all out, my versions of "Do or do not; there is no try," from Yoda to Luke Skywalker. There stands the problem: inability to commit hindquarters to seat in order to write.

Instead, I play a couple rounds of computer games (I prefer skill and knowledge games), work on blog posts, fire off a couple of quick tweets and a run through Facebook to see if I missed anything and then rounds through the various blogs, all while checking email and getting ready for work while sipping a cup of hot green tea that is cooling fast. One job through the widgets to check hits on the blogs and a quick visit to see if anyone has read the latest chapter of the novel I posted on a publishing site. The novel is unfinished and needs a final edit and proofread. It is the reason I have been procrastinating.

I want to finish the novel. Well, it is already finished and needs a little tune-up and loose ends tied. I need to finish the novel before the editor gets to it. I plan to finish the proofreading but, oops, where has time gone. Almost time for work and I still need to eat breakfast (pesky hunger pangs) and take a shower. Maybe later.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe this weekend.

By then, a few weeks have passed. Good thing the editor has not contacted me because I have nothing to offer to excuse my inability to kick start my writing engine.

That was yesterday. This morning, I found the answer. I knew it all along because it works for getting the laundry done, the clothes folded and put away, the bed made after the sheets are washed (making the bed every day provides a warm and moist environment for dust mites and other microscopic vermin to grow and procreate -- that is my story and I am sticking to it), the dishes done, the vacuuming finished, exercising and taking out the trash. Once I begin, the rest takes care of itself.

With writing, it is the internal editor that kick starts my engine. One of my critique partners mentioned an extra word in chapter twelve and a comma missing in chapter fifteen. They cannot be allowed to stand or I will forget and the spell check program will not catch them. Into the breach once more I go.

Control-F and type in a few words of the phrase and the extra word is easily found. Next search coordinates go in and, wait a minute, there is something else. How could I have missed that awkward phrasing? Well, that has to go. A few moments later and I am in the zone happily writing and editing and listening to the characters tell me secrets that I dutifully transcribe and polish. The first step is the problem, but the internal editor makes taking the first step effortless.

I do not have the problem in journaling or editing others' work or writing reviews. Deadlines and missing days in the journals keep me honest, but there is no real deadline for a new book or a work-in-progress that has not been contracted. Yes, the problem crops up when I have a long critique and the first glance at the manuscript ends with groaning sighs after glancing at the first page, but the deadline keeps me honest there, too. No, I will just have to rely on the internal editor and program her to whisper errors, typos and misspellings in my ear that she caught on the way out of the zone so that I am anxious one again to go once more into the breach. When that wears thin and begins to go the way of the hunger pangs, I will have to find another way to kick start the writing.

Someone else will have to whisper errors into my ear that engages the internal editor. I doubt I will ever get past the need to clean up mistakes, especially when they are mine.

Spring Cleaning

Pages bleed.

All the pages are bleeding. Some are hemorrhaging and some just grazed by the editing pen. On the computer screen, the hemorrhaging is in blue or purple or green, signs of alien intrusion into the fabric and heart of the story. Characters are remodeled. Evocative descriptions are slashed to ribbons. Double-spaced lines flood the once pristine words with criticism and suggestions. Shock sets in. Denial is followed by anger. How dare they? Curiosity peers over the edge, grows bolder and settles in for a long and thorough look until the writer is overwhelmed.

Are they right? Is the main character that unsympathetic? No, someone likes her grit and determination. Another critic sees the brittle facade hiding the fear and confusion. Yes, there's another critic who hates her, who missed the subtle body language: cringing against the wall, spooked by harsh sounds, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

How much of the burning, pillaging and savaging of editing is personal and how much impersonal and useful? That is the real question.

When writers entrust the work to other writers of different experience and skills, the results are always mixed. It is easy to fall back on the knowledge that every opinion is subjective, colored by personal prejudices. The real problem is finding balance and weeding out the negative from the positive. In the end, it all comes back to the writer.

What is the point of the story? What is the dominant theme? What is the best starting point for the main character's journey? Where is the beating heart of the story? How much should be revealed -- and when?

It is difficult to find balance between your vision and how the results are perceived and received. You are the writer. You get to decide.

Beginning writers will follow every suggestion and change the manuscript to reflect everyone's taste until the essence, the writer's vision, gets lost in a muddle of different styles. It is hard to hold up against so many different, and often more experienced, critics. The critics could be right. The critics could also be wrong. One things cancels out all the rest. No one writer can please everyone all the time. It is impossible. The best one can do is to hold fast to the vision and point of writing the story -- any story.

Ayn Rand had a hard time getting The Fountainhead published. It was long. Some publishers considered it boring and pointless. Others thought it was too radical, too different. Rand stood firm. When a publisher finally contracted the book, editors suggested changes. Rand agreed to remove one character, Roark's girlfriend before Dominique, because it did not advance the story. The rest of the book would be published without any further changes or she would go elsewhere. The book was published without another change.

I remember seeing the massive book on the bookshelves when I was growing up. It was a book club selection. It was so big, taking up a significant space on the shelf. It would be missed. I chose The Graduate instead, switching dust jackets with a less adult book so it wouldn't be discovered. I didn't read Rand's book until many years later.

When I finally read The Fountainhead I was mesmerized. I flew through the story, marveled at the themes and characters and wanted to start all over again when I read the last page. I didn't know that many critics panned the book and said Roark was unsympathetic, too harsh, too unlikable. I liked him immediately. I knew what he felt and wished I had the same strength of character, the same passion and devotion to my own dreams. He touched and awakened feelings and thoughts I didn't realize were there even though I didn't care for his carrot orange hair. One small feature in another wise remarkable character was not enough to ruin my enjoyment. It was insignificant in contrast to everything else about the admirable and stoic Roark. Had I read the savage criticisms before I picked up the book, I would have read The Fountainhead anyway. No one earns the critics' ire or dismissal without arousing my curiosity.

I expected critics to rape and pillage my first published novel, but I didn't expect it with my current book. I had learned and evolved. I was a better writer -- I thought -- and I wrote a story that was close to my heart, born out of my own experiences. How could I go wrong? I forgot the rule. No one can please everyone all the time.

Seeing the bloody comments and suggestions was like starting at square one all over again. The main character isn't sympathetic. She's snooty. Why isn't she afraid? How can she be so cool, calm and collected in her situation? Too much back story. Not enough back story. Too many adjectives. Not enough adjectives. The sentences are too long, too short, too many. Too much dialogue. Not enough dialogue. Too much action. Not enough inner monologue. The comments went from one extreme to the other. I resisted the urge to change everything.

You cannot please everyone all the time.

I chose to focus on spelling mistakes, sneaky words that hid when edited and popped out later during critiques. I made a few changes. Added scenes, took others out, put them in earlier or later. Then I stopped. The story I wrote was getting lost. It didn't help that after over a year of stalling and schedule changes, the publisher decided not to publish the book after all. My confidence was shaken. This book meant so much.

All the books mean so much.

I know I will not please everyone all the time. I can only write the story, fix the typos and grammar mistakes, and let it go.

No matter how many books an author publishes, when the critics descend, confidence wavers and the urge to change everything to fit everyone's suggestions grows stronger. No one can write a book that pleases everyone. It is impossible. The only thing that comes close is an interactive story where the reader gets to choose the paths the characters take. I don't write those kinds of books. I will never please everyone. There's no need to try.

In the end, it all comes back to the writer's vision, the writer's skills and experience and the writer's story. It is like spring cleaning. No two people do it the same way, no matter how they were taught. Editing one's own writing is like spring cleaning. No matter what rules and guidelines were learned, editing is as individual as the writer. Stick to the original vision.

Write the story in your own voice with your own style. Take criticism and suggestions under advisement. Stay true to the course. It may take a while to find a like-minded agent or publisher, but the result will be worth it. Your book may not be The Fountainhead, but it will be memorable and readers, critics and other writers will like it. Even if they don't, it doesn't matter. What matters is writing what moves you.

Dancing Barefoot Among Goats

It was the first book that was all mine and I slept with it under my pillow. All the other books in the house belonged to Mom or were shared with my brother and sister, neither of whom cared anything about reading or books, not then, not when I was ten and they were eight and five. My sister was more interested in clothes and accessories and my brother in playing outside barefoot and getting dirty and into trouble. Only I cared about the books, the children’s library of fairy tales that I absorbed as a sponge absorbs liquid. Unlike the sponge, I didn’t let go of what I absorbed, carrying the stories with me to regale the neighborhood kids with tales of Ice Queens, adventure, sword fights and magical animals under curses who talked. The book I received from my aunt when I was ten was mine.

The book arrived in time for my birthday and a week long bout of measles that kept me confined to my bed. I opened the package and uncovered Heidi by Johanna Spyri, diving into the world of the angry Grandfather forced to take in Heidi, the five-year-old child of his dead, disinherited daughter. Aunt Dete, who trudged up the mountain to Grandfather’s hut, unceremoniously informed him that Heidi was his responsibility; she had better things to do with her life and Heidi was not an asset. Meanwhile, Heidi shed her clothes down to her shift and ran barefoot through the soft alpine grass, as free and happy as only a five-year-old child can be. I was caught in Heidi’s spell, eating golden toasted goat cheese on bread with a chair for a table and a stool for a seat. Nestled in sweet-smelling hay, I gazed in wonder up at the star-filled sky in the black sky visible through the window, lulled to sleep by soft alpine breezes scented with edelweiss. Johanna Spyri shared a new world with me, a world I could visit any time I wished in my very own book.

Owning my first book was important to me. It’s still important as anyone visiting my cottage can quickly see. Stacks of books cover most of the flat surfaces and fill boxes in my office beneath bookshelves groaning under the weight of words and ideas. Heidi was very different fare for me. I cut my teeth on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and thrilled to Ivanhoe’s adventures. Outside of the fairy tales I collected, and continue to collect, the only children’s books I read were the ones assigned by teachers unfamiliar with my particular taste in literature. Johanna Spyri’s classic tale was a children’s book only because I was a child when it was given to me. I’ve read it over many times since those long ago days stuck in bed, my skin itching like mad from measles and unable to scratch.

In Heidi’s world, I found a soul mate in the little dark-haired girl entranced by new experiences and open to adventure, a little girl unafraid of anything but being cut off from what she loved most. In Herr Sesemann’s house, among the rich furnishing and sumptuous meals, Heidi longed for Grandfather, blind Grandmother, Peter and the goats, but she wasn’t afraid. She knew the change wasn’t permanent. She could go home whenever she wanted. The only thing Heidi feared was being exiled from the mountains, never to sleep in the sweet-smelling hay beneath the glittering stars and run barefoot with Peter and the goats.

Heidi’s nightmares and exile ended when she returns to the Grandfather’s hut. There she remains, running barefoot with the goats in her shift and eating toasted golden cheese on bread and drinking goat’s milk at the table the Grandfather built for her. With Clara beside her in the hayloft, they fall asleep to the lullaby of pine trees sighing from the soft caress of alpine breezes laden with the scent of edelweiss.

When I read Heidi, or any book, I travel beyond the confines of my responsibilities and chores to different worlds in the care of skillful writers painting dreams with words. I see through eyes not so different from mine, except in color or shape, and inhabit a world where anything can happen. The views are not always so beautiful or so rare, and all the people aren’t good or kind or generous, but they are worth visiting, worth experiencing even second-hand. Books are open doors to realms of possibility that open the mind and the heart to show that no matter who we are or where and how we live, we are connected. Books change us and prove we are not alone, provided we let down our guards and welcome dark-haired orphans dancing barefoot in their shifts on the mountainside among the goats.

In the Darkness There is Danger

The latest box of books to review from Authorlink came on Friday and I decided to dive in with Ted Dekker's latest thriller The Bride Collector. It was a bad choice for bedtime reading, which is my favorite place to read and my favorite form of sleep aid. Can't sleep? Read. Works every time, not because the books are boring but because they relax and transport me to a place where my body, a usually tensed wirespring of emotions held in check and muscles cramped from over or under use, can let go and float on a puffy cloud of alternate realities and wondrous prose. Not last night.

I knew from the cover, a bas relief picture of a bridal veil hanging from a rusted, bloody, oft-used meat hook, and the title that it was a thriller, but I usually don't have problems sleeping after reading books with graphic violence or horrific scenes. Every one in a while . . . This was one of those once in a while times.

Eyes drooping from fatigue (I haven't been sleeping through the night, harking back to some newborn state I avoided the first time around, probably emotional or mental colic), I bookmarked my page, stacked the book on top of the others and turned out the light, composing my heavy limbs for sleep. It didn't take long for Morpheus to gather me in his arms and whisper sleeping thoughts in my ear before I was yanked out of the bliss and into a world of darkness and terror where I was hunted by a family of throwbacks intent on playing Operation with my not so vital parts until they could dig out the vital parts with a rusty, bent spoon.

The leader of this homicidal group had his smirking, eager brothers hold me while he prodded between spine and right kidney with a thin lead rod, increasing the pressure until I writhing in their grip, biting my lip to keep from screaming in terror and pain. How I got away I don't know, but get away I did, running up a flight of stairs that appeared out of nowhere with the happy howling hounds on my trail. At the top of the stairs were two shovels, one point and the other flat-bladed, and I turned, grabbed the pointed shovel and stood my ground ready to swing at the first head within reach, except the shovels were chained to each other and to the banister. It was a trick and a trap. I started to run and catapulted out of the nightmare into drowsy wakefulness unable to free myself from the grip of the nightmare or wake fully. The struggle continued with the hounds hot on my heels, having grabbed my dream state to reel me back in and back in I went, fighting for consciousness and being dragged back inch by inexorable inch until finally I broke free, still sleep heavy, and tried to change the dream until at last I was saved by a full bladder near to bursting. It's the first time I was glad for nature's call.

That wasn't in the book and I hadn't finished the second chapter.

Dekker's writing is so visceral and evocative and the killer so insidiously dark that it set my mind to creating a nightmare all its own. I've decided that under no circumstances will I ever read a Ted Dekker thriller that close to bedtime, nor will I read him in bed unless there's plenty of daylight. Nope, reading Dekker will be cut off a minimum of six hours before bed while there's still plenty of light and a chance to purge his prose with frothy musicals, tear jerking romances and plenty of time to get it all out into my paper journals. His writing is far to suggestive to my overactive and very creative mind.

The last Dekker book I read and reviewed, which was also my first, was Green, the last and the first in a cycle of four. Once I started reading the book I was drawn into the story and quickly immersed. I resented needing to sleep; I wanted to finish it all in one sitting. That didn't happen, but the world and the ideas on which I gorged myself were a banquet for the senses and I enjoyed every moment, returning to read as soon as I finished work. Luckily, I work at home, so it was a short commute. I curled up in bed and flew away to the worlds of Dekker's imaginings and in spite of the religious themes, which were seamlessly woven into the overall narrative. This book, The Bride Collector, is a different Dekker than the one that fascinated me before. This Dekker knows the deepest darkness of the human soul wherein lies the joy and the insatiable need to warp the very fabric of reality and refashion it in its own image. This Dekker weaves nightmares and taps the instinctive and deep-seated fears in all of us, and especially, obviously, in me.

I highly recommend Ted Dekker's books. I must finish The Bride Collector in order to review it -- two chapters is not enough -- but I will read it in the daylight where nightmares can't drag me back into the abyss. Then I'll get Boneman's Daughters and read that in daylight, too, but I will read it. I suggest you do the same. Make sure it's daylight and keep your loved ones close; don't go to bed alone and, under no circumstances, read Dekker's thrillers in bed.

Avoiding the Slush Pile

If you haven't heard about HarperCollins UK, you haven't been paying attention. They have a website called Authonomy. It takes time to go from the bottom of the slush pile to the top, but the books that make it avoid the usual waiting time and get the editors' attention.

Since I want to break into the European market, I posted Among Women on the website and have been making my way to the top. It takes time and you have to participate, but it's worth the effort.

If you'd like to take a look at Among Women before it's published here in the US, go sign up (it's free), comment and/or back my book. It's an interesting cyber twist on the old fashioned method of printing out your babies and sending them through the mail with fingers crossed in hopes you'll make it out of the slush pile and onto the bookshelves. Enjoy yourselves.

That is all. Disperse. It's time to read.

The stuff of dreams

While reading another writer's blog post about intersecting ideas and how they fuel a story, I immediately thought back to the first time I tried to write my Jekyll and Hyde story.

I read and reread SWhile reading another writer's blog post about intersecting ideas and how they fuel a story, I immediately thought back to the first time I tried to write my Jekyll and Hyde story.

I read and reread Stevenson's story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde until I knew the story backward and forward. It was while working on an article about Jack the Ripper that the dates the Ripper killed were familiar and brought to mind Stevenson's story. That's when the idea was born to write a book about the three characters that bound them together.

The American actor who portrayed Jekyll and Hyde on the stage during the time Jack the Ripper terrorized London was pulled in by the newly created Scotland Yard to answer questions. The police believed the actor's portrayal had crossed over from fantasy to reality and considered him a prime suspect. He was immediately released, but the trail remained.

In writing Whitechapel Hearts I had to find a voice and a way to tell the story that would transcend Stevenson's story and make it live in a new way. I didn't want a parody and I certain didn't want to write an homage, but nothing I wrote jelled, nothing felt or sounded right, so I put the story on the back burner until I figured out what was wrong.

The motivation was wrong or, rather, the lack of motivation. Every time I read Stevenson's macabre tale I had the feeling something had been left out, just as something was left out of the tales of the Ripper's kills. The facts were there, but the motivation wasn't. What set the Ripper on his bloody rampage and why did Henry Jekyll seek to excise the emotional side of his nature?

Gene Roddenberry used technology to sever Captain James T. Kirk's softer and harder natures, but I planned a novel set in the heart of Victorian London when the Ripper prowled the streets of Whitechapel. Technology wasn't an option and I'm definitely not into deus ex machina. The motivation had to grow organically from the characters, but finding the motivation was like finding a needle in a haystack -- until a conversation with another writer about Victorian morality gave me the answer. I said a quick goodbye, skirting the edge of rudeness in my need to get the idea down on paper, and sat down with paper and pen. I had the intersection of lines that led to the heart of the story. Why does anyone sever their heart from their mind? Love.

Delilah Makepeace was born that day. She was the bridge between Jekyll, Hyde and Jack the Ripper. She was the cause, the reason and the motivation.

What happened after that day is a long journey of research and delving into the past, and into the minds of the characters, to detail the confluence of events and hearts that led to the bloody trail of bodies the Ripper left behind. The story is the stuff of dreams -- and nightmares -- and it is the labor of years and false starts, but that is the way writing works.

Sometimes the stories and characters come seemingly without effort, and other times it takes digging and retracing all the paths until the right one is found and the characters come alive.

Now, if I can only find the one thread that pulls together an apocalyptic tale of vampires, science and nature in upheaval, I can move on to the next world where the stuff of dreams becomes reality.tevenson's story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde until I knew the story backward and forward. It was while working on an article about Jack the Ripper that the dates the Ripper killed were familiar and brought to mind Stevenson's story. That's when the idea was born to write a book about the three characters that bound them together.

The American actor who portrayed Jekyll and Hyde on the stage during the time Jack the Ripper terrorized London was pulled in by the newly created Scotland Yard to answer questions. The police believed the actor's portrayal had crossed over from fantasy to reality and considered him a prime suspect. He was immediately released, but the trail remained.

In writing Whitechapel Hearts I had to find a voice and a way to tell the story that would transcend Stevenson's story and make it live in a new way. I didn't want a parody and I certain didn't want to write an homage, but nothing I wrote jelled, nothing felt or sounded right, so I put the story on the back burner until I figured out what was wrong.

The motivation was wrong or, rather, the lack of motivation. Every time I read Stevenson's macabre tale I had the feeling something had been left out, just as something was left out of the tales of the Ripper's kills. The facts were there, but the motivation wasn't. What set the Ripper on his bloody rampage and why did Henry Jekyll seek to excise the emotional side of his nature?

Gene Roddenberry used technology to sever Captain James T. Kirk's softer and harder natures, but I planned a novel set in the heart of Victorian London when the Ripper prowled the streets of Whitechapel. Technology wasn't an option and I'm definitely not into deus ex machina. The motivation had to grow organically from the characters, but finding the motivation was like finding a needle in a haystack -- until a conversation with another writer about Victorian morality gave me the answer. I said a quick goodbye, skirting the edge of rudeness in my need to get the idea down on paper, and sat down with paper and pen. I had the intersection of lines that led to the heart of the story. Why does anyone sever their heart from their mind? Love.

Delilah Makepeace was born that day. She was the bridge between Jekyll, Hyde and Jack the Ripper. She was the cause, the reason and the motivation.

What happened after that day is a long journey of research and delving into the past, and into the minds of the characters, to detail the confluence of events and hearts that led to the bloody trail of bodies the Ripper left behind. The story is the stuff of dreams -- and nightmares -- and it is the labor of years and false starts, but that is the way writing works.

Sometimes the stories and characters come seemingly without effort, and other times it takes digging and retracing all the paths until the right one is found and the characters come alive.

Now, if I can only find the one thread that pulls together an apocalyptic tale of vampires, science and nature in upheaval, I can move on to the next world where the stuff of dreams becomes reality.

Broadcast news

If you didn't get a chance to hear me live on Internet Voices Radio Friday night, here's your chance to listen to the mp3 file.

I was surprised, despite a bit of stage fright, that I actually enjoyed reading the excerpt from Past Imperfect. It has been a long time since I did anything remotely theatrical, other than the screams of terror when I wake up in the morning and remember I didn't do the dishes the night before or find a volcano of dough has covered the top and front of the stove where I put it to warm two hours before. I have confined my theatrics to my small and intimately isolated stage here in the cottage. I had forgotten how good it felt to get into the character and just go with it. I could've used a bit more rehearsal, definitely more than a 10-minute read-through to see how many pages I could read in ten minutes, especially since I found out that emotion takes time and I didn't get as far as I had just reading. I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time.

After Friday night's performance and talking once again with the station manager, I began considering her previous offer to host my own show, a show of authors reading and discussing their books and getting into some of the tricks and treats of the writing trade. I'm still muddling it over and haven't made a decision, but I'm definitely leaning in that direction. I always enjoyed my time treading the boards and getting into character. In a sense, writers are actors, too; they get into the minds and hearts of the characters they create -- that is if they are good writers and not just going through the motions -- and act out all the parts in their head, or on their own private stage when they read their work aloud to edit, something Mark Twain suggested for clarity and to hear the music of the spoken words.

At any rate, let the heckling begin. I had a good time, mistakes and all, and I will definitely do it again.

That is all. Disperse.

PIVTR Read-a-thon tonight

From 10:30 to 10:40 p.m. Eastern time, I will read from Past Imperfect for the PIVTR Read-a-thon. I've chosen a pretty hot spot to read. Come one. Come all. Listen and enjoy. A test will be given tomorrow.

Go to Internet Voices Radio tonight and I promise you can heckle and complain tomorrow and every day after that if you like. Hecklers will not be shot or ignored.

That is all. Disperse.