Book Signings

My first book signing happened a few months after I'd given birth to 13 pounds of twins. So beforehand, I went shopping to find a magical dress that would hide the fact that I still looked like I was carrying around an undisclosed child in my stomach.

I still remember the sales clerk's reaction when I told her about the event.  She looked at me dreamily and said, "I've always wanted to do a book signing."

I've thought about that statement several times over the years. During some signings, I wish I'd taken her name and number and hired her to do mine for me.

Because yes, some of them really are that bad.  Once only one person walked into the bookstore during the entire signing. (On the bright side, I did sell him a book, so in that regard it was my only 100% successful signing.)  Another time the bookstore obviously forgot I was coming. They'd done no advertising and just set me up in a chair in the corner of the store and ignored me. And I'll never forget the time I brought a pen with golden ink so my signature would be distinctive. It was distinctive all right. It leaked all over the books.

If you have a bucket list with Do a Book Signing written on it, let me save you some trouble. Choose a store, set up a table, and sit there for an hour or two while people rush by you avoiding eye contact. Then cross book signing right off your bucket list.

That said, I'll be doing two book signings in the next week. Yes, actually I am a glutton for punishment, why do you ask? (No, I'm just joking about that. Both places I'm signing are awesome, or trust me, I wouldn't have agreed to it.)

Utah friends:

Friday, May 4th 5:00-6:30 p.m.
The Provo Marriott Hotel
101 West 100 North
 Provo, Utah 84601

A ton of other authors will be there too. Literally, a ton. Although none as wonderful as me, so don't you dare go stand in their lines first. Just saying . . .

Arizona  friends:

Monday, May 7th at 7:00
Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85283

Authors Shelley Coriell and Amy Dominy will also be there. Changing Hands is promoting us as Funny Girlz, so one of us should do something amusing. I'm voting for Shelley, because she's a new author and therefore should be subjected to hazing.

Truth in Advertising, why writers are needed in the real world

This morning when I got the strawberries out of the fridge, I noticed that the package said they were “limited edition”.  I hate to disagree with packaging, but how can strawberries be limited editions?   Does this mean I should expect strawberries to disappear from the grocery store shelves soon? The earth made them for a few millennia, but it will be discontinuing them?

Or did the package mean that those particular strawberries won’t be around long? Eat them now before they mold.  If so, doesn’t that go without saying?

It made me think about all the other inaccurate packaging that products use.  For example:

Good and Plenty

Good yes, but only plenty if you have no children. If you have children, they will descend on you as soon as they hear the sound of the box opening and you will end up with only three pieces of candy. Perhaps they should have gone with Good and Adequate If You Don’t Have a Sweet Tooth.

Life cereal.

Who came up with this product name and why?  I’m guessing it’s probably because we all wish our life was like Lucky Charms—full of rainbow marshmallows that are magically delicious—but instead life is actually more like crumbly little squares that aren’t nearly as sweet as we’d like.  It's life, baby, get used to it.

Hershey’s Kisses

Unfortunately, these kisses are a little too waxy tasting. It makes me wonder who Hershey was kissing. If someone is going to be kissing my lips, I want it to be Lindt. Almond Roca would be acceptable too.

Thin Mints

These have yet to make me thin, although I keep trying.  (You can see this blog has swerved into thoughts on chocolate and will probably not leave. Chocolate. Mmmm.)

Snickers

I love the candy bar but it makes you wonder what other names were tossed out in the marketing meeting before they decided on this one:  Scorns? Scoffs? Disdainful Deriding? General Mockery?

What is this candy bar really trying to say, and does it have anything to do with what people think of your rear end after you eat too many?

Almond Joys

Okay, this packaging has it right.  I’m pretty sure this is what joy actually tastes like.

Suddenly, I have an overwhelming urge to eat chocolate. But anyway, this is just one more example of how writers are clearly needed in the world.

Write on, folks.

So you've written your book--now what?

One of my most common emails (that I get, not that I send--just clarifying) is from people who have completed their novel and they want to know what to do next.

My first response is: rewrite it.

I don't tell people that because I don't want to discourage them. They'll get plenty of discouragement from agents/editors/publishers. Besides, for all I know said optimistic writer has already rewritten the thing 17 times.

I usually tell people about agentquery.com It's a great resource for authors. You can search agents by genre and the site gives you all sorts of useful information like the agent's submission guidelines and what sort of chocolate to send in order to bribe them. Okay, the website doesn't really tell you about agents' favorite chocolate, but it should. If I was an agent, that's the first thing I'd have listed there.

Anyway, here is the checklist I should give people before they submit anything.

1) Have you read any books on writing? If the answer is no, you're not ready to submit. If the answer is yes, but you've only read one or two, you're also probably not ready to submit. Writing is like playing the piano. Most people who are self-taught are not going to be all that good at it.

Here are some great writing books for novelists:

Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King
Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain
Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham (Actually anything by Jack Bickham)
GMC Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Deborah Dixon (You need to go to the publisher's website for this one.)
Anything by Gary Provost
Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

If you write non-fiction or picture books, get and read the books that pertain to those genres. Ditto for romance books, westerns, whatever. Blogs on writing are also very helpful. For example, if you need to write an action scene involving angry grapefruit, you'll want to read my last blog.

2) How many times have you gone over the manuscript yourself?

If the answer is twice, you're not ready to submit. For first time novels, you need to send that baby out to lots of readers for critiques. Don't just send it to your mom or friends. They'll tell you that it's great--and they might even believe it. After all, they love you. You need to have a network of fellow writers or well-read friends that can give you tough love. If you don't have that, pay for it. Revising is the difference between selling and not selling.

3) How long have you let the manuscript sit, unread?

If it's only a few days or a couple of weeks, you're not ready to submit. One of the truly weird things about writing is that you can't see your own mistakes when you write them. This goes for missing words but it also applies to unclear dialogue, bad description, etc. The story works beautifully in our minds, and so that's what we see on the paper. Let your manuscript sit for a month. Two or three months is better. (Which is why it's great to send a manuscript to an editor and then not get the revision letter for a couple of months. By that time you can look at it with fresh eyes.)


4) Have you ever gone to a writers' workshop or conference?

If not, why not? If you want to publish you probably should go to a conference that addresses your genre. You'll meet people who know about the industry. You'll get advice from pros, and you'll get tips about what's selling and what's not. If paranormal is a hard sell (which it is right now, by the way) and you're pitching your paranormal romance, you may run into problems. Not knowing why something is rejected is one of the most frustrating things about this business. Stay up to date about what's going on.

Besides, a good writers' conference will energize you. That's why people go back year after year.

5) Have you bought all my books?

Actually, this step might not really help you, but it would help me so I'm including it.

Happy submitting!

What I'm doing now

You'd think that after writing twenty plus novels it wouldn't be hard anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be if I kept writing the same novel over and over again. (Hey it worked for Barbara Cartland . . .) But unfortunately I keep writing different novels and the one I'm working on right now is an action novel. Yep, action.

Action, I've decided, is hard for me to write. I mean it's such a visual thing in a non visual medium. Plus, I've never really cared about fight scenes or car chases. Give me witty banter or romantic smoldering looks any day.

I was trying to make my daughter help me with a good guy-bad guy fight scene for the Erasing Time sequel and needed something to stand in for my people, so I grabbed a marker and some grapefruit that were on the counter.

Yes, This is what I've resorted to:


I'm pretty sure Ian Fleming didn't use this method. Sigh. And in case you're wondering, the pineapple is just an innocent bystander.

The bribery continues

First off, let me say that I really thought I was through bribing blog readers to do random things. I mean, I never intended this blog to be like those What-would-you-do-for-a-Klondike-bar commercials. Although it isn't readily apparent, I have more class than that . . . at least some of the time.

But this time what I'm asking you to do will be really easy. Two seconds of your time.

My engaged daughter called me yesterday to tell me she was chosen as one of the five finalists for a wedding give-away and asked me to ask my friends to vote for her and the son-in-law-apparent. (You know you want to see his picture anyway)

Sooo in a shameless attempt to buy votes I'll be giving away paperbacks of My Fair Godmother (because I have a ton of them) Vote. Leave a comment telling me you did. And I'll give-away a copy of MFG for every four comments I get. In other words, if I have 20 commenters, I'll give away 5 copies of the book. Your chances are good--so take 2 seconds and vote for Asenath and Alex--number 4 at this link:

https://inspiredgiveaway.wufoo.com/forms/q7x3a1/
ops--the voting doesn't actually have their picture. To see that go to: http://inspiredweddinggiveaway.blogspot.com/
and scroll down to number four. Why does my daughter appear to be checking to see if her fiance has a heartbeat? I have no idea, but there are rumors of vampirism . . .

11 Ways not to start your novel

I'm about to read a lot of first pages from hopeful authors. I've done countless critiques over the years, and so I both look forward to and dread this job.

Opening up the pages of a book is a bit like opening up the front door for a blind date--except that it requires no effort on your part . . . such as doing your hair, or sucking in your stomach so you look thinner, or whatever else you do on your blind dates. (Really, it's none of my business, and I don't want to know.)

The point is, you're hoping for something good and you're often disappointed. In the gentle-hearted spirit that I am well known for (Oh, all right, Sarah Eden still refers to me as Attila the Hun because of a certain edit I did for her) I'm going to offer fellow writers a few tips.

Here are a few ways not to start your novel.

1) With your character waking up.

I wake up at least once a day. You could say I am a veteran at waking up. I never like it when I do it, and I probably won't like it when your character does it either. Give me something more exciting.

2) With your character running away from someone or something.

One would think that this would nicely take care of my first objection, and it would--if I hadn't already seen it about a hundred times. A good chase scene is nice, but not at the beginning of a book because A) I don't know enough about your character to care if they get away and B)I'm pretty certain your main character won't be killed off in the opening scene as that would make for a very short novel. So it isn't really a high tension opening anyway.

3) With huge chunks of back-story.

Yeah, I know, Charles Dickens gave us character life sketches right off, but styles change and this sort of thing doesn't work now. We also don't wear top hats anymore. Go figure.

4) With action that is so confusing I don't know what the heck is going on.

Sometimes an opening starts with people being bombed, or someone being attacked, or just people sitting around talking about other people. Whatever it is, it has to make sense. I'm already doing the brain-intensive job of transforming printed words into a lush and vivid landscape in my mind. Make it easy for me. This isn't the place to be obscure or mysterious.

5) With so many characters I can't keep them straight.

It's always better to start with a limited amount of characters until the reader has time to get people straight. Opening with lots of characters feels like one of those parties where you meet fifteen people at once and you know that no matter how hard you try you won't be able to remember any of their names tomorrow.

6) With a mean character.

Hey, if I'm going to step into a character's skin and be that person for hours or days, I don't want to be someone I don't like. Ditto for stupid characters. And while you're at it, please make me pretty too.

7) With a run-on sentence.

This is akin to getting your first glimpse of your blind date and noticing his shirt is dirty. If he didn't take the time to fix that, the rest of him is probably not going to be much better.

8) With a statement that doesn't have anything to do with anything else.

For example, if you start your first chapter with the sentence: Betty's ghost was not the forgiving type. (Which, by the way, is a great first line. I should use it sometime.)You should let us know about the ghost and why it's holding grudges fairly quickly. Don't go on and on describing Veronica and her trip to the mall. Your reader will be gritting her teeth and thinking, "Who's Betty? Did Veronica kill her? What is her part in all of this? Is this author trying to irritate me?"

Probably not, but the result is the same anyway.

9) With a bland sentence.

I have enough bland sentences in my life already. They're sort of like dust and they settle on everything. If the first sentence isn't good, what are the chances I'm going to find captivating ones later on?

10) With a flashback.

If you need to flashback in the first scene, you probably haven't started your book in the right place. Plus, editors and agents tend to hate flashbacks. Many of them were bitten by flashbacks at some point in life, so you really can't blame them for this prejudice.

11) With the phrase,"The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit." (Apologies to Scott Westerfeld) Okay, it's original, but I have a large supply of cats, and now any time one of them throws up, I think, "Um no . . . I don't think I've ever actually seen the sky that color . . . I wonder what Scott's cats have been eating?"

You just don't want to do that to your reader.

My First Kiss

My first kiss was a bit usual. As a teenager, I loved drama (the kind on stage, not the kind that happened with a bunch of mean girls whispering at their lockers) and when I was 15 I was in a play where my character kissed a guy. I wasn’t allowed to date until I was 16, so kissing wasn’t a familiar activity for me.

Granted, I had thought about kissing. Well, worried about it actually. Because according to the massive amounts of romance novels I had read, the first kiss was really important. Apparently you were supposed to feel all sorts of mystical fire-like sensations that left you dizzy and incoherent.

Plus, I had heard all sorts of horrible tales about people who were bad kissers and the social damage this produced. The problem was, I had no way of knowing whether I was a bad kisser or not. It’s not really the sort of thing you can practice beforehand.

What exactly was a person supposed to do with their lips the whole time? No one had ever told me this vital information.

I don’t remember why I took the part of the girl who kissed a guy in the school play. Perhaps I didn’t thoroughly read the script. Perhaps I thought that the drama coach wouldn’t actually have me kiss a guy—just like drama coaches don’t actually make characters kill other characters in the production.

But no, the teacher wanted a real kiss. And that meant we had to practice the kiss. There is probably no more awkward way to have a first kiss than to have it in a lit auditorium in front of your peers while a teacher yells out stage direction.

Yeah.


That said, I offer my public apologies to Blake Limburg who was a very nice guy and much more adept at kissing than I was. I don’t think I was ever able to look him in the eyes again.

Thankfully, fiction isn’t real life, so my characters have much better first kiss experiences. Here’s Cassidy’s first kiss in my new ebook, Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards.

(SPOILER ALERT: If you don't want to know which guy Cassidy kisses until you read the book, don't read this scene.)


Josh was still studying me. “You’re not mad at Elise for going after Bob, are you?”

“No. He’s just a friend.”

“Oh.” Josh nodded, considering this. “Is there anyone you like more than a friend?”

My gaze went to Josh’s. Why was he asking? Was he just making small talk or did he have a personal interest in the subject? He was looking at me intently, his blue eyes locked on mine.

I shrugged. “There might be.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Maybe. You know a lot of people.”

Josh put his arm on the back of his seat, his fingers nearly brushing against my shoulder. “What’s he like, this guy?”

Normally I wouldn’t have admitted to anything, but I was tired of all my moments with Josh being ordinary, safe. This was one I was going to seize. “He’s the usual sort of guy that girls get crushes on. Smart. Funny. Really responsible.”

“That’s the usual sort? Why don’t I have girls swarming me?”

“He’s also tall, dark, and handsome,” I added, “Plus he’s got these gorgeous eyes—all deep blue and mystical.” I looked away from him then. I couldn’t keep looking at the eyes I’d just described.

Josh leaned a little closer to me. “A rich guy with a sports car?”

“Not really.”

Josh nodded, his gaze still intense. “Would I approve of you with this guy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Would you?” I let my gaze slide to his then, just long enough to see him smile. I wasn’t going to say more. I wasn’t about to admit to everything when he hadn’t admitted to anything yet.

“I think I might approve of this guy.” Josh kept smiling. His voice was soft now, as lulling as the heater. “You said Bob didn’t kiss you. Have you ever been kissed?”

“Sure, if you count the time in the fourth grade when Jonny Miller cornered me in the coat closet.”

“No, I’m talking about a real kiss.” Josh moved even closer to me. “You’ll always remember your first real kiss.”

I thought about asking him if he remembered his first real kiss, but on second thought, I didn’t want to hear about any of his past kisses. “You’re probably right,” I said.

“If I was to kiss you now, I’d go down in your personal hall of fame. The opportunity is irresistible.”

And then he kissed me, and it was a real kiss. He pulled me closer. His lips were soft against mine, a question—one that I wanted to answer. In essay form.

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Other-Teenage-Hazards-ebook/dp/B006HN8MSG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330969137&sr=1-1