Muse

Let me just start with the weather…

Yes, that is a picture of the cloudless, endless sky.  Breezes moved through the tent mingling the smells of funnel cake and pit beef with the sweet, alcoholic cloud of the main wine tent.  Blues and rock music pumped in from the live bands onstage.  It was a great way to kick off the summer season.

This was my first time as a vendor at a Wine Festival.  I thought it would be worth a shot since my book is partially set in Annapolis, and because I didn’t anticipate having to compete with too many other authors.   I had originally signed on only for Saturday, but sales went so well, I returned today. 

I met some great people at the Festival, and sold lots of books.  I was also able to get books by some other local authors. Here are some author websites and info. worth checking out:

• Steve Buckley just released a children’s book for little pirates called Blackbear the Pirate.  The bold, color illustrations are captivating.
• I found this great little t-shirt for the writer/wine enthusiast, for sale at The Wineaux Shop.  It says, “Well Red.”

• Jack Hennessey wrote a touching children’s book called “The Tree With No Lights.” In it, a young boy feeds the birds in the winter, and earns a special award for his efforts.
• Finally, in the category of “non-literary, but fun”, the girls at Ice & Elegance not only sold gorgeous costume jewelry, but also handbags made from NFL Jerseys.  I picked up a Steelers bag, but they can have any team made to order.  It’s a nice way for you ladies out there to support your favorite teams without having to wear those large, unflattering team jerseys.

Next week I have two more book clubs and I’ll be at First Sundays Arts Festival in Annapolis.  I hope to see you there!

This week took me to three book clubs that met to discuss my novel, Receive Me Falling.  It was a great joy to sit with book-minded people and deconstruct the novel, share ideas, and recommend books to one another. 

My stops started with the Walden Book Club–a great group of women in Crofton who have been meeting for nine years.  In honor of the setting of Receive Me Falling, everyone was invited to bring Caribbean themed appetizers, drinks, and desserts.  It’s amazing how a little detail like that sets the tone for the evening.  We discussed themes from the book and I was able to reveal some of the hidden meanings in the text.  I enjoyed the feedback of the readers and had a lovely time.

Next, I went to Rockville, MD to meet with a book club at Barnes & Noble.  These women have also been meeting for years and consist of many retired teachers and administrators.  This group seemed particularly interested in the historical setting of the novel, and connections in my book to other books they had read.  The leader remarked that these connections often seem like coincidence, but may reflect the universal themes about which people are so often driven to write.

Finally, I met with a book club in Hagerstown, MD.  It’s a very active group that also likes to view films of the books they’ve read.  We agreed that the plot pacing, wide thematic appeal, and visual landscape of the book would make Receive Me Falling a great film.  I actually began the novel as a screenplay, but the tedium of formatting the text drove me to prose.  I do have screenwriter software that I intend to play with one of these days, but I think I’d rather sell the rights for a hefty sum and let someone else tackle that.

Some commonalities: 

• Receive Me Falling is set on a Caribbean island in another time period, which makes it great escapist fiction–something readers crave in this depressed economic climate. 
• All thirty or more book club members are women, and identified with my strong, female protagonists.  I do wonder why more men aren’t in book clubs.  When I visit the Spalding teacher’s book club in June, there will be men in that group, so I’ll be interested in their reaction to the book.  Both male and female response from reader comments has been very positive so far.
• All three groups were interested in a sequel to the book, and I was pleased to inform them that I have one outlined.  Once I get through a full draft of my Hemingway book (by the end of the summer), I will begin working on the sequel to Receive Me Falling.

It really is a joy to be able to meet with people, face-to-face to discuss the book.  I welcome the opportunity, and look forward to the book clubs I have scheduled in the coming months.

Have you started Tweeting yet?  I set up a Twitter account last month to see what all the fuss was about, and though I still can’t say that I know what all the fuss is about, I do like knowing which song is stuck in Ellen Degeneres’ head and where my favorite band, Carbon Leaf, is playing tonight–sort of. 

Yesterday, in this blog,  Jennifer Blanchard discussed the benefits of twittering for writers.  She asserts that it makes writers more concise, since the site only allows 140 characters per post.  I couldn’t help but think of Hemingway with his six word story (“For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.”) and what a great tweeter he would be.  Trained as a journalist, he went for economy with his writing–never a superflous word.  It amazes me how much he says without saying much at all.  Take this bit of dialogue from A Farewell to Arms.  We learn so much without the tedium of backstory.

              “Have you a father?”           

             “Yes,” said Catherine.  “He has gout.  You won’t ever have to meet him.  Haven’t you a father?”

             “No,” I said.  “A step-father.”

            “Will I like him?”

           “You won’t have to meet him.”                                       (154)

For fun, I looked up Hemingway on Twitter, since many people pose as celebrities–dead or alive.  There are five Hemingway’s Tweeting.  I also found Edgar Allan Poe and Shakespeare, to name a few, and was amused to see that Willaim Shakespeare is now following me on Twitter. 

Celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have threatened to stop tweeting now that its founders are looking into connecting Twitter to reality TV.  They are afraid that it will foster an atmosphere condusive to stalking to have their posts televised. 

Which brings up the topic of connections.  We are so connected to one another through social media, Twitter, Blogs–the world has shrunk to the size of a computer screen.  It’s wonderful in many ways, but does it make individuals too accessible to one another?  Are we giving too much of ourselves away?

As a writer, I’m constantly aware of what I give away in my fiction.  Every character, scene, and bit of dialogue in my books comes from me–either through direct or indirect experience.  Where else could it originate?  Every scene has to be something I’ve done, witnessed, read about, or watched.  It’s never a perfect copy of reality, but its roots are there.  It’s why I stay away from sex scenes.  Whether or not I’ve experienced what I’m writing about firsthand, I have to imagine that my reader might assume that it is.  And since my readers include two very close priest friends and my father, who’s a deacon, I just don’t go there.  I’ve alluded to sex, but the scene goes dark at the moment of action.  I don’t know if it will always be that way, but for now it is. 

I also have a hard time not imposing my morality on my characters.  The book I’m currently working on involves characters in love, in the tropics, in a lusty, bawdy place.  Hemingway says writers must tell the truth in their writing, but sometimes the truth is hard to tell.  Again, how much am I giving away?  Are the characters’ poor choices a reflection on me? 

There are several people posing as Jesus on Twitter.  Perhaps they have the answer.

Lady’s Maid by Margaret Forster is a work of historical fiction.  It is told in narrative and epistolary form from the point of view of Lily Wilson–lady’s maid to the sickly, bedridden poet, Elizabeth Barrett.  The novel spans the sixteen years Wilson served Elizabeth, and explores the intense and imbalanced relationship between master and servant.

When the book begins, Wilson is a young, naive woman just out of her mother’s home.  She is the ideal servant–anticipating the needs of Ms. Barrett before they are expressed, perfectly matching her moods, and assuming whatever role Elizabeth needs her to assume.  Wilson is completely devoted to Elizabeth, and finds her entire identity in her relationship to the poet.  Wilson supports Elizabeth through all of her illnesses, recoveries, and eventual secret marriage to the poet Robert Browning.  She travels with the Brownings to Italy and all through Europe, attends Elizabeth in child loss and birth, and feels like a member of the family.

It is as Lily matures and begins to feel her own need for a life outside of her employer that conflicts arise.  As Lily finds her own identity, Mrs. Browning’s resentment grows, and  Lily finds that she is not as valued by the Brownings as she had hoped. 

The book is dense and builds slowly, but at some point in the rising action it becomes completely engulfing.  The subtleties of the relationship between the two women that seemed as insignificant as the arrangement of pillows and the proper choice of teacup, surged up with meaning and force once the conflicts began.    The manipulation and passive aggression that Wilson was forced to endure left me shaking in frustration. 

Great books do several things.  First, they leave me wanting more.  I was glad to see that Ms. Forster might consider a sequel based on some more research she had done on Wilson.  Next, I can’t stop thinking about great books.  Scenes surface and new understandings result.  I want to go back and reread sections for greater clarity and enjoyment.  Finally, great books send me looking for more information on their subjects, authors, and themes.  I want to learn more about the poets in the book, the servant, and the locations where they lived in Italy.

Lady’s Maid is a tour de force.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in quality, character-driven, literary fiction. 

One of my favorite literary blogs these days is Drama, Daily, by Nicole Stodard.  Nicole is a college professor, has an MA in Theatre from Trinity College in Dublin, and writes about Women’s Cardiovascular Health at Empowher.com.

She has started an online, summer book club of plays and works of fiction.  This week, Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, is the book club selection.  Nicole has posted many references and links to do with the play, and a list of questions to spark discussion. 

I’m way out of my comfort zone with plays, but I need to expand my horizons.  My motivation for reading plays is to strengthen dialogue in my own prose.  Dialogue in a novel needs to be well-chosen and every word must push the plot forward, reveal the characters’ motivations, and inconspicuously deliver backstory.  Since plays consist almost entirely of the spoken word, I’ll get much instruction in dialogue.

Well you know…

We all

Want to

Change the World

Last month I read an article in Writer’s Digest Magazine about a self-published author named Brunonia Barry.  After going through the agent process without much luck because she was a first time writer, she started a small publishing company with her husband, published her own book, and began a grassroots marketing campaign.    Our stories were the same until the part that mentioned she hired a publicist.  This publicist was able to get her a review in Publisher’s Weekly, which led to a contract with a traditional publishing house. 

I started reading about book publicists and kept coming across the name Kelley & Hall–Brunonia Barry’s publicity firm.  They seemed to stand out in terms of strategy, popularity, and success.    I had an instant rapport with Jocelyn Kelley, and after a couple of weeks of deliberations, I signed the contract. 

There are no guarantees with book publicity.  Publicists blitz their media contacts to sell their clients and create a buzz, and then, with luck, enough people connect to the material to pursue it.  It doesn’t always work that way, but I feel it’s a necessary step in the process in order to expand my circumference.   I believe in my book and I want to reach as many people as possible.  I’ve done well locally (which this article reaffirmed for me) but I still need to expand farther than my arms alone will reach. 

Let’s all work together to get the word out.  I need you, too.

On my way home from a book club in Westminister MD today, I was listening to The Coffee House on Sirius Satellite Radio.  The Coffee House plays mellow music by new and well-known singer-songwriters.  Original music is interspersed with covers, and the station has the intimate, acoustic feel of a small venue; thus, the name, Coffee House. 

Love it.  Can’t say enough about it.

Anyway, The Coffee House has a series calld ”Artist Confidential” where musicians discuss the evolution of their music, the songwriting process, their intent, and the always elusive and unpredictable Muse. Today’s artists were The Indigo Girls.

The Indigo Girls are a folk rock group that evolved from humble beginnings in bars and peddling cd’s out of the back of their cars, to a well-respected group with their own label and a huge, loyal following.  They have a gift for blending their ideas and voices, and have been together for more than twenty years.  They belong to that class of artist that, for me, equals genius.  Not only do they sing their own songs and play their own instruments, but they write their own music.  To be able to do all of those things and do them well is such a gift.  They are also activists for a lot of causes, and whether or not you agree with them, you have to admire their passion and dedication to their beliefs.

Another up-and-coming singer-songwriter I love, who I interviewed on an earlier post, is Dave Tieff.  I had the pleasure of attending his CD release party in Annapolis this weekend and was blown away by his music.  Dave comes from a difficult past growing up as a witness to domestic violence, and has dealt with his own addictions as a adult, but has emerged from his painful past with tremendous positivity and power.  He has translated his journey into some great songs, and is trying to raise one million dollars for charity.  His music can be downloaded for FREE from his website, and his song Lavendar Road has just been selected  by Oprah’s Angel Network for a CD. 

I’m always interested in the relationship between music and writing and art.  For me, they are almost impossible to separate.  I use classical music to urge on my writing.  I see paintings that help me conjure images to use in my scenes.  I feel the rhythm and motion in the words I choose in my novel writing.  It’s a plait–each section disappearing into the next, holding up the others for support, and working together in harmony.

Friday evening I attended the banquet for the Maryland Writer’s Association that kicked off the weekend conference.  It was a pleasure to reconnect with other writers and publishing professionals, especially because it was such a positive night of good publishing news–something we can all use in this economy.

Two magazine editors spoke at the banquet: Brian Lawrence of Style Magazine, and Dan Patrell of Maryland Life Magazine.  They discussed the tone and focus, audience and readership, and writers of their magazines.  Both were pleased to announce subscription growth since the first of the year, and thought that because they are niche magazines, and because people like to display and collect magazines, they will continue to thrive in this economy. 

The editors of both magazines said they are open to freelance writers in addition to their own staff, and prefer voices that match their tone and style, and who can put a fresh spin on an old story.  For example, Brian Lawrence suggested that an article for his fashion pages about purses wouldn’t excite him.  But an article about what is revealed about a woman by the kind of purse she carries and what’s in it would grab his attention.

Dan Patrell of MD Life remarked on the effectiveness of advertising in magazines.  He said that because people do collect and display magazines, ads can get more views, people tear them out, and people respond to what they see in full color print.  He also said they measure success “fifteen dollars at a time.”  Those two pieces of information resounded with me as I pondered my own book sales and publicity.

During dinner, I was able to meet a literary agent from New York, who also had some good news for me.  She said that recent fiction sales to publishers were way up last month (usually nonfiction outsells fiction) and that people are really looking for “escapist” fiction.  I couldn’t be happier about that, since my book is not only set on a gorgeous tropical island, but it also moves to another time period.

I think it’s time to start querying those agents…

This Sunday in the “Lifestyle” section of The Capital Newspaper, Theresa Winslow ran a story about me and my book, Receive Me Falling.  You can check it out here.