Hey, that's MY baby...

Last summer, I was invited to join a book club. I belonged to one many years ago when I lived in New York state and realized how much I had missed it. It didn't take me long to accept the invitation.

We studied "The Shack" for several months and when we finished, the group decided on its next project. I was surprised when they all agreed to read "Angels Unaware." And embarrassed. I offered to drop out while they read it, but was voted down.

"We want your input," they said.

"Angels Unaware" is my first published novel and frankly, by the time it was out in print and e-reader, I was throughly sick of the editing and rewriting process. I hadn't even looked at in in months. So in a way, it was like reading an unfamiliar work.

But not quite.

The women attacked the book from an entirely different perspective. They called Jordan, Kat's selfish and controlling husband, "Jerk Man." Then they divided a sheet of paper into columns and listed all his good qualities on one side and his faults on the other. The faults led by far.

Like all writers, I try not to make my heroines too perfect or my villains too evil. They must have a flaw or a redeeming quality or no one would believe in them. So, I tried to point out places where I had had Jordan act, if not nobly, at least a little less self-centeredly. "Look," I said, "where he tells her he's sorry she's sick and offers to pay for a second opinion."

"Huh. Just like Jerk Man to throw money at a problem," sniffed one member.

"He must have a reason to act like he does," mused another. I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut before I gave away too much of the plot.

"Well, she might have questioned where all that money came from at some point. She just accepted it."

As they argued, I had the feeling they were talking about people they knew, friends or acquaintances whose foibles they were dissecting. It was hard to remember Kat and Jordan were just words on paper, people who lived only in my head. Except now they were living in someone else's head as well.

Although I tried to accept their opinions, it was a little like parading my first-born child at a tea party and hearing everyone both praise and criticize my darling's every feature and mannerism.

I don't know if I'll go to the next meeting. They might enjoy reading the book more without worrying about hurting my feelings. (Although no one has yet -- they seem to like the book and ask innocently why it isn't on the best-seller list.)

On the other hand, how many writers get to hear their readers react honestly to what they've written? A carefully written and thought-out review is great, but to see someone read a passage for the first time and blurt out an emotional response is entirely different.

So they hate Jordan and cheer for Kat in her struggle to discover herself. And that is exactly what I hoped would happen.

Where Ideas Come From

I am not a joiner. Oh, I belong to two writers' groups and a book club, and do some volunteer work at the church, but that's the extent of it. A good week is when I have no meetings penciled on my calendar.

Mom was different. Once we kids were grown and out of the house, she became a social butterfly. If she didn't have at least one meeting reminder on her kitchen calendar she would go into a depression. For her, a good day was a committee meeting with coffee in the morning, a bridge club luncheon, a late afternoon bridge club and an evening with friends after dinner. Or an evening with friends with dinner.

Whnever I visited she hauled me along to her bridge clubs, thinking I "needed to get out and meet people." I couldn't convince her that I had plenty of friends of my own and viewed playing any card game with the same joy I greeted a dentist appointment.

There was one club she belonged to, though, where I did enjoy tagging along. This club had no name, no officers and no charter or bylaws. It grew, if I remember correctly, from Newcomers Club meetings when all the ladies were strangers to town and to each other. Long after they were settled, they continued meeting for lunch. That was it. The only rule was the members took turns choosing a restaurant for the next month's meeting.

There was no adgenda. They caught up on each other's lives, exchanged news of mutual friends, discussed the latest book or movie (or Hollywood scandal), and enjoyed a good meal.

So when I needed a reason to have my characters come together in my next book, it was a no-brainer to adopt Mom's monthly lunch meeting -- with one difference. I gave it a name: "The Lunch Club."

Just do it

I finally did it.

I bought a Nook. I'd researched e-readers, talked to friends who had one and knew exactly what to buy when the time came. I feel a tiny bit guilty about not buying a Kindle since I used CreateSpace to re-release my journal, "I'd Rather go to California," but the scales tipped about an ounce in favor of Nook.

I hadn't planned on getting one just yet, but then an on-line writing friend published a book. When I tried to buy it, it was in e-format only. That alone did not make my mind up to take the plunge, but then another friend published a book and it wasn't available in print either.

Now, I could have ordered the book anyway and had it downloaded to my computer. I've done that, but I find it hard to read a book on the computer monitor. No matter how engrossing, my back tends to protest before very long.

And, my readng time is confined to the hours after five, when I stop work for the day. I like to curl up in my favorite chair and read while Jim watches television. If the show is interesting, I might watch it but the book comes back out during the commercials.

You can't do that with a computer.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought a Nook. I took it home, read the directions, and had one book that very day and pre-ordered the other which came online this week. Then I visited Smashwords and re-downloaded a book I had purchased there some months ago and had gotten only as far as the first few chapters.

Okay, this is like giving a kid the key to the candy store. You can access the entire B&N site from the Nook and if you see something you like, you just press "Buy." No connecting cables or special codes. It charges your account and the book is in your hand in less than a minute.

I could see right away that I would have to set myself a limit or I'd have my credit card maxed out in no time.

When my son found out I had bought my new best (electronic)friend, he sighed and said he had planned on getting me one for Christmas.

"That's okay," I reassured him. "You can get me a gift card to buy more books."

Nothing like hinting very, very broadly.

Like everything else in my life, I now wonder why I waited so long. My device will not replace printed books--I still go the the library and stock up. It just adds another dimension to my reading list.

Continuing Education

There are two great advantages to belonging to a writing group. One is you get to meet other writers and commiserate or congratulate. And, you get to talk about writing with people who understand the joys and frustrations.

The other advantage is that most groups have either a guest lecturer or a hands-on workshop at their meetings so that you get to learn more about your craft.

I belong to the Carolinas Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. I went to a meeting Saturday and the guest speaker was A.J. Hartley. Dr. Hartley is Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. That sounds as impressive as it is, but Dr. Hartley was both informative and down-to-earth. He writes in several genres (see Books to find out what he's written) and generously shared with us both the advantages and pitfalls.

I was interested because I have written an historical romance (unpublished, but finished -- if I can ever stop tinkering with it), two contemporary women's fiction (one published, one awaiting word on my submission), a contemporary romance (also awaiting word) and a book that is a paranormal romance in an alternate history.

Dr. Hartley said that agents don't much like their authors to genre-hop because a "brand" leads to longevity. In other words, readers associate an author with a particular genre and might be disappointed to pick up a book under the author's name and find out it is something quite different from what they previously read. Also, he warned, it is more difficult to completely know one genre and to know its market.

On the plus side, he said, "Do it because you want to."

That's what I wanted to hear, besides learning that he has done it successfully. More than that, he used his own name on each book. No putting a different name on his young adult books than his adult mysteries, it's the same name on ALL his books.

Some other points he made during his lecture were:

Push the limits of your genre to create something else; write in more than one genre so if one genre should collapse (paranormals, believe it or not, are getting harder to sell); and meld two genres together to create a new genre or a niche market. I thought, on hearing this, there is hope for my paranormal, A Question of Boundaries, after all.

Model your work on what other people are doing. This does not mean plagarize, but if you do not know what is selling today, your out-of-date pace and structure may not catch an agent's eye. If you want to write romance, you should be reading other romance writers every chance you get.

Lastly, after you read enough to know what is popular in a genre, figure out the rules so you can break them.

Of course, none of this matters if you are writing for fun, but if you are serious about breaking into the industry, you have to know what is selling now and why.

I pay my dues to belong to CRW, and I drive over an hour each way to the meetings. If I didn't think it was worth it, I wouldn't go. I'd stay home and write. But it isn't likely I'd ever get published without the help I find there.

My Ghost Story

I love ghost stories as well as anyone. My favorites are "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James and "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson.

We once lived in a haunted house. I would wake up to see someone--or something-- standing at the side of the bed. My husband and sons backed me up on this, for at one time or another they all had heard or seen or something they couldn't describe.

My most vivid encounter happened on a beach in midsummer. We were vacationing on St. Simons, an island off the coast of Georgia. We took a day trip to Jekyll Island to see the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, where injured turtles are nursed back to health. Told that there would be a turtle walk that night, we decided to return in hopes of seeing one of these creatures crawl out from the sea to lay her eggs.

Our little group set out about nine o'clock. We walked along the beach, but according to our guide, there were no turtles around and about that evening. We had about decided to turn back when a jeep drove up. There were two rangers aboard and they proceeded to give us an impromptu lecture. As I listened, I became aware of someone standing close by my side. Too close.

After a few minutes I turned to give this person "The Look" to let her know she was invading my space, but there was no one there. I say she, because I had a distinct mental image of a fortyish woman, rather stocky and about shoulder-height to me.

I returned my attention to the stories the rangers were telling, but the sense of this woman standing so close as to be all but skin to skin distracted me. I looked again, but the nearest person--a man--was a good 18 inches away.

The sensation was so strong, however, that I moved to the other side of my husband, where I enjoyed the rest of the lecture in peace. The strangest thing about this encounter was that I was not one bit afraid. Annoyed and irritated, yes, but I never felt the least twinge of fear.

I often wondered if this woman was as pushy when she was alive as she was as a ghost. I imagined her as the kind of woman who edged ahead of you in line and elbowed her way to the front of the sales table. Maybe she saw us standing there and came to see what we were looking at and was trying to get closer, not quite shoving me out of her way.

Lately, I had another thought. What if she had died on that particular stretch of sand and was unable to leave the scene of her death? In that case, she was not invading my space, but we were invading hers.

Either way, I swear to this day that I physically felt somebody next to me when my eyes could see nothing but air. I leave you with this quote from Shakespeare:

Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Routine or procrastination?

Here it is, almost lunchtime and I got up early today to work on my blog. Really early. But first I had to have my coffee and read the newspaper. Then I did the crossword puzzle, because how else would I know if my brain was running on all circuits?

Then I went to my computer. I had to check my e-mail, and there were a few that I had to answer right then. And someone sent a cute video that I looked at -- only three minutes, right?

I noticed that my e-mail in-box was overflowing, so I deleted some of the old messages. Of course, I had to re-read them to make sure they weren't something I needed to save or do something about. After trashing them, I opened the trash file and deleted all 400 pieces of the previously deleted mail.

I have three e-mail accounts, so this action was repeated twice more.

Then I decided my workstation was too messy, so I went though the slips of paper where I had scribbled down urgent information, addresses, URLS I mean to visit someday, minutes of past meetings, invoices and a newsletter from a health organization that I had to skim in case it contained important, new information.

I finally turned to my blog site and entered my ID and password. My eye was caught by the list of blogs I am following and I just had to read Eliza Knight's, blog where she has posted a video on the worst jobs in history. This was really interesting, so I watched it and then checked my other favorite bloggers to see what they had to say this week.

And so the morning went.

It isn't that I don't want to get to work, it's just that so many other writers are posting so many great articles that I'm afraid I'll miss something if I don't look at them right now.

I don't know why I can't wait. I have a stack of library books, but I don't open my current read until I have finished my writing goals for the day -- usually around 5:00 which coincidentally is glass-of-wine time. This is when we turn on the TV for the 5 o'clock news (I read during commercials and the weather report). The TV is silent until then, so don't ask me if I saw Good Morning America or The View.

Maybe because the books and television set are in another room, their siren call is muted and I can ignore them.

Alas, I can't put the computer in another room and still work on it. What I need to work on is my self control.

Fashion statements then and now

My husband is not a fan of the droopy pants look. I'm talking about the guys who wear the waistband of their pants somewhere below their buttocks, exposing their underwear. So far his response is reserved to muttering under his breath and grinding his molars.

For some reason this "fashion" reminds me of another men's style popular beginning in the 14th century, when tunic hemlines became shorter to make men's legs look longer, exposing their "naughty bits" when sitting. The Church declared the Black Plague was a divine punishment for this sinful flaunting of private parts.

Then the working men began to take off their tunics and waistcoats in deference to th hot summer sun and worked in their shirts and breeches. The young men of the aristocracy gleefully adopted this "look" to the bewilderment of their parents. Unfortunately, removing the outer garments made the gap between the shirt and breeches (leggings that were laced to the shirt) even more noticable.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and so the codpiece appeared to cover the gap. Over time, this practical answer to propriety was decorated, padded and eventually shaped to represent a permanent erection.

After some 200 years of popularity, breeches grew wider (think of the Dutch) and the codpiece disappeared except for rock stars and comic book heroes.

I hope this currrent trend of exposing the buttocks, although decently covered by plaid, polka-dotted and striped drawers, won't last as long or I'm afraid my husband will grind his teeth down to nubs.

Yes, I can be tolerant when I put this look into historical perspective. But can someone tell me why so many young girls and boys are wearing their flannel pajamas to McDonald's and Wal-Mart?