Teaser Tuesday

Real short tease from SOUTH OF JORDAN:

Gian hands me what I assume is the girly gun. It takes all my concentration to keep my hands from shaking, and I hold the handgun as if it’s made of glass rather than steel. It’s heavier than I’d been expecting, and that worries me.

“It’s not loaded, is it?” I ask warily. This brings on another burst of laughter from the guys. I decide that’s probably a no, but I make sure to keep the barrel pointed away from any bodies as I hand it back to Tim. He returns the gun to its case, snaps the case shut, and slides it across the counter to me.

We walk through another set of double doors and down the hallway that leads to the indoor shooting range. The pop, pop, pop of firing guns grows louder and the smells of exhaust and sulfur grow thicker. My mind tries to go back to that night, a single gun shot ringing out, a slumped body in the snow. I reach for Kane’s hand. Gian looks over his shoulder at us, about to say something, but his eyes fall down to my outstretched hand just as Kane takes it.

A look of consternation crosses Gian’s face. “You okay?” he mouths to me. I nod.

Just for fun

SOUTH OF JORDAN's Playlist

The Process

South of Jordan took me a year to complete, and that was with me doing it all wrong. I wasn't used to being able to take my time while writing it. While journalism has a lightning fast turn around, publishing moves at a slow, plodding pace. And that's okay. A news article is a product intended for immediate consumption, and while a novel is a product, it's also art. Art takes time.

I'm just now realizing that it's okay to write slowly and to revise as many times as it takes. I was in such a hurry to get to the querying stage with South of Jordan, that I cheated the manuscript out of the time it needed to really develop. I thought I was done after five months of work, but after a reality check, I realized I needed another seven months of revising. Unfortunately that reality check came in the form of feedback from agents, and only one of them was interested in seeing the revised product. All of those agents who requested before I was really ready, I can't re-query. Do I wish I could go back and do it right? Sure. But I wouldn't have learned without that feedback, and I'm a much better writer and much more industry savvy because of it. South of Jordan may never get off my desktop, but it taught me how I write. Some writers can turn out a publishable book in a couple of months; I'm not one of them, and I suspect I am the rule rather than the exception.

So unlike with South of Jordan, I have a game plan for my latest work-in-project, Dub Girls. I'm actually writing it much more quickly than I did Jordan. I'm at 21,000 words and I've been working on it for a little over a month. However, I now know that probably 90 percent of those words are going to be deleted in revisions. The important thing right now is to get that first draft done and to be okay with all of its imperfections.

Once that first draft is done, I'm going to let it sit. I'm probably going to take two weeks with absolutely no writing to let my head clear, but we'll see when I get there. This time, I'm going to print out the manuscript and sit down with it and a red pen--something Stephen King recommends, but I didn't think I needed to do it with Jordan. Now I know better. After that overhaul, it's going out to beta readers. I did not understand their importance until an agent pointed out to me that I, as a writer, am completely incapable of knowing if my manuscript is predictable. Of course it's going to seem predictable to me--it's my story. Every novel is a team effort. I get that now.

I'm not putting a deadline on myself this time. Looking for Alaska took John Green four years to write. Was it worth the wait? Hellz yeah! I can't remember how long it took John Grisham to write A Time to Kill, but it was a long time, I promise.

I'm anticipating being done with the first draft of Dub Girls by March 31, and then taking at least a year to work on revisions. If I get the manuscript where it needs to be before then, great! But I will never again put unrealistic expectations on a manuscript. Everyone's writing process is going to be different. I truly believe the key to turning out a high-quality manuscript is knowing how you work best, and really, the only way to learn is to write that first novel. Even if it never gets published, the lessons learned will be priceless.

Writers need friends, too

First, I should probably apologize upfront for the mushiness of this post. Let's just assume that any post that begins with kittens is going to be full of the mush, 'kay?

There's this notion going around that all good writers have a little Hunter S. Thompson in them, meaning a love of drugs, alcohol, the occasional foray with a firearm, a tragic ending. More simply, a lack of stability and some borderline insanity. I think before the days of social networking, this held more true. Writers were left alone with their work and crushing self-doubt. Of course that's going to manifest itself in some unhealthy ways for some (most?). Today, though, writers can form relationships via online messaging boards and social networking sites, and we should never take those relationships for granted. They keep away the crazy.

To sidetrack just a bit, my husband is probably my most important weapon in my writer's arsenal. He has taken on the role of motivator, cheerleader, food getter, and hand holder. When I'm saying, "I'm not sure this is going to work out for me," he is answering with, "Yes it will. Just keep going." He hit "send" on the very first query letter I ever sent because I was having trouble taking that step. He is the person to whom I dream of dedicating a book. Having said all that, he's not a writer. He's not even really a reader. So while he understands the determination and resilience I need to realize this dream, he does not understand all the mechanics of accomplishing it.

Other writers do.

Forums like Absolute Write give us the opportunity to share all the trials and triumphs of publishing, to find critique partners, to ask and answer questions, and to just generally form bonds with other writers. Not everyone can afford to attend writers' conferences, so this is huge. I don't take advantage of it as much as I should, but I'm trying. Twitter is another avenue for finding a support system, and I regret I took so long to finally start interacting with other writers on it.

My favorite part about working in a newsroom was the camaraderie among the reporters. We could kick around ideas, read through each other's stories, joke and laugh, and offer a sympathetic ear on a bad day. Thanks to the fabulous Internet, all writers can have that support system now. Have I mentioned it's important? It's important. When I'm struggling to write a scene, I can tweet and immediately talk with other writers who are doing the exact same thing. It may not help me work through the scene, but it gets me outside my own mind for awhile and gives me the break I need so I can keep going.

(By the way, I also joined a message board for moms when I was pregnant, and those ladies have been just as great as the writing community--if you're knocked up, I recommend doing that, as well.)

So what do you think other writers? Who is your support system and how important are they to your career?

Vampires will never die

You've probably noticed that vampires are hot in the world of publishing. And television. And movies. Most people who track trends are saying that vampires are here to stay, and this makes me so happy I could SQUEEEEE!!! I don't write about vampires (or anything with fantasy elements) but lord do I love reading about them (and watching them). I love Lestat, and the Cullens (don't judge), and the Salvatore brothers, and Eric Northman. Oh how I love Eric Northman. Bill Compton not so much, but I digress.

Here's the thing about vampires, though. If you're writing about them, you're in a very crowded market. Some agents are even requesting "no vampires" in their submission guidelines. Don't let that discourage you. It just means that you need to be the best. You need to strive for the ranks of Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris. You need to come up with something that's never been done before, i.e steer clear of helpless human female falls in love with dangerous bad boy vampire. But for the sake of my own obsession, I really hope writers keep exploring the world of the undead. And I really hope those books continue to be optioned for TV because my life would be infinitely less without True Blood and The Vampire Diaries (which Ian Somerhalder recently confirmed has been picked up for season two--all together now: SQUEEEE!!!)

Oh first draft, you are so bad

Advice on getting your book published is all over the interwebz. Every single piece of that advice says DO NOT QUERY UNTIL YOUR BOOK HAS BEEN THROUGH SEVERAL DRAFTS. Did I listen? Pssssh. No. This isn't a career-ending mistake, but it's a biggie. It is really hard to be objective about your own work. I thought that I was pretty good at editing myself. And I am. As long as I'm writing a news article. Writing fiction is a whole different ballgame, and you really do need at least a couple other sets of eyes reading through your work. That plot twist that makes perfect sense in your mind might not make sense to anyone who lives outside of your head. Get beta readers and USE them. They will be able to tell you how bad your first draft is.

Which brings me to my next point. First drafts are always bad. This is expected and it doesn't mean you are an awful writer. Even if you're a weirdo who can turn out a decent first draft, it can be much, much better after a few rounds of revisions. My advice: you can ALWAYS increase tension and raise the stakes. Before you hand over your baby to your beta readers, sit down with your manuscript and a red pen and make notes about how you can accomplish those two goals. You'll be surprised at how much more your characters come alive and how much your plot can develop. Do a round of revisions based on your own notes and then open yourself up to criticism. Then do another round of revisions. And then maybe another. By the time you're done, you should have a shiny, polished manuscript that barely resembles that first draft.

I'm going to end this post with a metaphor, because I'm a writer and that's what I do. The first draft is the framework for a house. It's not pretty, but it is necessary. You can't drywall and carpet your house without that framing. And for the love of everything that is good, do not invite agents to look at your house when it's just a rough, skeletal frame. Wait until you've got food in the fridge and pictures hanging on the walls.

Teaser Tuesday

From my work-in-progress DUB GIRLS:

“It’ll be fun, Anna,” Mom says. “We haven’t been paying for those expensive guitar lessons for you just to play by yourself in your bedroom for the rest of your life.”

She goes right for the guilt-trip. Nice. Mentioning the band was a mistake. I think maybe, on some subconscious level, I brought it up because I knew she would talk me into it. And I know I’ll allow her to talk me into it, because now if I don’t join Joey’s stupid band, I’m committing myself to hearing about it until I move out of my mother’s house.

I open my mouth to throw out a smart-assed retort because I’m in the mood for a fight, but before any words can come out, Ethan makes that sound. The one that causes my stomach to plummet while my heart stops beating entirely.

I hit the floor a split second after he does, and I pull his head into my lap before he can slam it against the hardwood floors. His eyes are fluttering and his jaw is clenched, drool already starting to seep out between his teeth. His jerking movements are too violent for me to control completely, and I’m worried he’s going to hurt himself.

“Pillows!” I scream at my mother. “Move! Now!”

I’m the only one in the family who can think rationally through Ethan’s seizures. Everyone else just freezes in their panic. I’m vaguely aware of Jacob’s wails—they’re the normal background noise during a seizure—and Mom’s feet pounding past me and Ethan on her way to the living room. In less than two seconds, she’s shoving two throw pillows from the couch into my arms. I use them to cradle Ethan’s head as I try to talk him into coming back to me.

“C’mon little man,” I whisper into his ear. “Come out of it. I’m waiting for you, Ethan. Just come back.”

I’m trying to count in my head while I soothe him. Is it after five minutes that we need to start worrying about brain damage? When his face starts to turn blue, I stop worrying about counting.

“Call nine-one-one,” I tell Mom. Her choked sob drags my eyes away from Ethan’s face. She already has the phone in her hand. Good.

Ethan finally relaxes in my arms, falling into a deep sleep. I brush his damp hair off his forehead, occasionally needing to wipe away the tears that fall onto his baby-soft skin, as I listen to my mother give the dispatcher a quick summary of Ethan’s condition and our address.

This is why I can’t join Joey’s band. Forget all my superficial worries about stage fright and sucking in front of people who aren’t afraid to tell us how awful we sound.

“Pick up Jacob,” I tell Mom once she’s off the phone. The baby is crying so hard in his high chair, he’s starting to choke. Aidan slides off his chair and squats beside me on the floor. His huge eyes are welling with tears, but he’s the only one of us who’s managed to hold it totally together. He leans over and gently kisses his big brother’s cheek.

“Ee-tan, o-tay?” he asks me.

“Yeah, buddy. Ethan’s okay. He just needs to go see a doctor, but he probably won’t even need a shot. That’s good news, right?”

Aidan stands and places a chubby hand on my shoulder. “Anna tay?”

I carefully free my hand from underneath Ethan’s head so I can wrap my arm around Aidan and pull him into me. I bury my face in his neck and inhale the sweet scent of toddler sweat and Johnson’s baby shampoo.

“I promise, Aidan. I’m not leaving you.”

The Future of Print Journalism?

Never once in the course of my childhood did I ever say, "I want to be a journalist when I grow up!" Nope. I wanted to be a marine biologist, a famous actress, a rock star, and a lawyer, but a reporter wasn't even on the radar. Neither was author, although I wrote my first detective story at the tender age of 11. When I had to pick a major my freshman year of college, I chose Sociology for lack of anything else I wanted to do. Colorado State University offers a criminology program for Sociology majors so I did that. Sophomore year I took a mass media class, and fell in love. The class covered everything: radio, TV, movies, journalism... I was entranced enough to add a second major and start completing my prerequisites for entering the Journalism school. Even then, when I met with my advisor and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered, "I want to write for Spin Magazine." Ha.

When I was in school, journalism was not facing the bleak future it is today. We knew that online media was likely going to overtake print journalism, but we thought of it in terms of The Future. As in, one day, aliens may visit us in The Future. We had no idea the collapse of the Rocky Mountain News was less than five years away.

Even with the security of the job market at that time, J-school students had to add to their resumes while they were still in school. Writing for the college newspaper was an absolute must, as was completing an internship. Both of my majors required an internship in order to graduate, and fortunately I was able to satisfy both schools' requirements by working for a specialty magazine that covered adoption/foster issues. I have no doubt that without that internship, I would have struggled to find a job following graduation. I basically won the equivalent of the lottery when a Denver-area newspaper had an opening for a police-beat reporter the same month I graduated. The Criminology degree didn't hurt either.

Watching newspaper after newspaper die has been heartbreaking. That's our history we're losing. But as journalists, we have to adapt, and sometimes that means leaving journalism for awhile to pay the bills. So many of my friends have had to find other writing jobs after being laid-off. I left willingly to raise my son, and to be honest, I am not optimistic about being able to re-enter the field if I want to. But to those J-school students who believe in the importance of the free press (as I still do), make sure you're doing what you need to do while you're in school, because the job market is only getting more cutthroat. Don't wait until your senior year to start writing for your school's paper or looking for an internship. Don't limit yourself, even if you need to pick a concentration within the major. Learn everything you can about newspaper, magazine and online writing. Master all three of those crafts, because they are different. Pick up a camera and learn how to use it. And possibly the most important (and something I didn't learn in school), learn Spanish. Bilingual reporters are worth their weight in gold, and there were several important stories that I covered where I was insanely frustrated with my inability to conduct an interview in Spanish.

The news is never going to go away. There is a certain amount of stability in choosing journalism as a career, but you have to be the best at what you do. All of us who work in journalism, even if we've been sidetracked a bit and we're now working for PR departments or writing technical articles, we need to keep fighting for the industry, for the newspapers that have been around since the 1800s. What we do is important. We inspire change and hold governments accountable. We give a voice to the little guy and expose corruption. So I'm asking everyone, students and veteran reporters, don't give up.

My top three stories, so far

By request, a blog post about some of my favorite stories I've covered as a reporter. It actually took me awhile to narrow it down. There have been several stories that have profoundly changed me, but most of them are pretty depressing, and I don't know if the word "favorite" is really appropriate. However, one story that does bear mentioning is the first fatality I ever covered. A seven-year-old boy named Nicholas Speights died on the Fourth of July. I remember thinking as I wrote that story, I would never have children because I knew I could never survive the pain Nicholas' family was enduring at that moment. But Bill and Cheryl Speights graciously allowed me to be a part of their healing and to continue writing about their extraordinary son. They taught me that even if a child's life ends much too soon, every single second of that life is worth it. This lesson weighed heavily in my decision to become a parent, and I'll never be able to thank them enough.(On a related note, if you're looking for a worthy charity to donate to, please consider the liveBIG Fund, which was founded by Nicholas' father to promote outdoor educational opportunities for kids and young adults with an emphasis on outdoor safety and awareness. http://www.livebigfund.org/Default.aspx)

Now for my list:

3) A feature article on the coroner

I undertook this article for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to establish a good relationship with the coroner so I would be the first reporter he thought of when getting information out to the media. I think he knew what I was up to. The first thing he did was take me down to the morgue and show me all of the autopsy tools. He also shook a little jar of fingers (yes, fingers) in my face. Those fingers are used when they need to get fingerprints off a body that is too bloated to cooperate. Remove the skin from the deceased, wrap it around the stand-in finger, and voila! I also got to see the morgue's residents, waiting in their body bags in the giant refrigerator. I drew the line at lying down on the metal table, but I passed his test anyway. The story got a lot of positive attention, and I got myself a new buddy in the coroner. Win/win!

2) Dan Savage's adoption story

A lot of people know Dan Savage from the independent Seattle newspaper The Stranger and his sex-advice column "Savage Love." What a lot of people don't know is that Dan and his husband Terry are the loving parents of an adorable little boy named DJ. They adopted DJ from a homeless street kid in an open adoption, and their story is incredibly moving. I covered this story when I was working as an intern for Adoption Today magazine. It was a huge undertaking for a college kid, and Dan was very patient and gracious with me. This story tops my list because it has a genuinely happy ending, and I am a complete sucker for happy endings. I also hope I did a little bit to raise awareness and acceptance of same-sex parenting.

1) Firefighter Jeff Dunn

It's so hard to summarize these stories into little paragraphs, especially this one. Jeff Dunn was a Castle Rock Firefighter/Paramedic who died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). My newspaper had covered Jeff's story from shortly after his diagnosis, and he died a few weeks after I started working there. I never got the chance to meet him. A few days after he died, I called his best friend, firefighter Oren Bersagel-Briese, and asked if he would help me put together a tribute to Jeff. Oren gathered all of Jeff's pallbearers and we met at the firehouse. The resulting story was something like 70,000 words, and every one of them ran. I had little to do with how great the story ended up being. All the credit goes to the firefighters who let me into their lives, and into Jeff's life. At the heart of the story was the absolute sense of brotherhood (and sisterhood) among the firefighters. The entire department banded together to take care of Jeff and his family, to raise money for treatment, to cover Jeff's shifts so he didn't lose his health coverage, to keep Jeff as independent as possible for as long as possible. I am truly lucky they let me bear witness to it.

So there they are.

Jennifer Weiner has said that being a reporter is a much better choice than getting an MFA for aspiring novelists. Reporting forces you to observe life, to step outside of your comfort zone. It provides a huge wealth of life experiences that you can't typically get by just living your own life.

It also teaches you not to get too attached to your writing. I guarantee spending a year or two working as a reporter will knock that fear of the red pen right out of you.

Get your query letter critiqued

Agent Kathleen Ortiz is having a contest to kick off her brand new blog, and the prize is pretty damn good. Go to Kathleen's blog (http://kortizzle.blogspot.com/2010/02/query-contest.html) and enter the contest for a chance to have her do an in-depth query critique. This is full of awesome for a few reasons, but mostly because writing a query letter is haaaaaaaaaaaaard. Much harder than writing a novel. And having a living, breathing agent tell you why yours is not working could be the difference between your manuscript finding a home and getting trunked. So go. Now.

Teaser Tuesday

It's my very first EVAR Teaser Tuesday! Are you excited? I'm excited!

I'm posting a scene from SOUTH OF JORDAN even my beta readers haven't read yet (psst, beta readers, I changed the title because my sister said the original title sucked. Having sister who will tell you when something sucks is the greatest gift a writer can have).

I hope you all like it.

I’m still mentally berating myself when I look through the peep hole. No cop. Emily. I open the door to let her in. She’s got her arms crossed and she’s glaring at me.
“Um, hi?”
She jerks her thumb toward Kane’s Jeep. “What’s he doing here?”
“Nothing. Just hanging out. Why? Do you want to come in?” She shakes her head no, so I step out onto the porch and close the door behind me. “What’s going on?”
“How long have we been friends Jordan?” she demands.
“Oh… Um…almost ten years?”
“And in all that time, I never had you figured as a girl who would lose herself over a guy.”
I’m already on edge and Emily’s accusation causes my strained patience to snap. It’s a struggle to keep from raising my voice. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Lucy and I stopped by Sicilia Vecchio to see you last night. You know, when you were supposedly covering for a sick hostess.”
This isn’t good.
“I was.” My attempt at a defiant tone falls flat.
“Cut the bullshit, Jordan. Some guy told us you met Kane there and the two of you took off. That was after he tried to say you hadn’t been there at all.”
“And what did this guy look like?”
“Curly hair. Hot.” Gian. They must have come while I was in the basement with my spreadsheets.
“Look, Emily…” I trail off. What can I even say at this point?
She shakes her head in disgust. “Spare me, okay? Just admit you bailed on me for your boyfriend.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like, Jordan?” she spits.
I want so badly to tell her. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not my secret to tell.” This is true enough, and obviously not the answer she is expecting. She opens her mouth to say something, but then snaps it shut. I can see her anger evaporating.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, Em. It’s been miserable keeping this from you.”
“Will you tell me when you can?”
I lean back against the closed door. I’m exhausted. Exhausted from people wanting things from me I’m not sure I can give. Exhausted from being scared all the time. “Yeah,” I tell her. “If I ever can, I’ll tell you what’s been going on.”
“Okay. I guess I’m going to take off.” She steps off the porch and starts heading to her car. Then she turns back toward me. “Hey, J. Blair?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you have to do something you can’t tell me about, can you just tell me you’re doing something you can’t tell me about?”
“Fair enough.”
I watch her climb into the lime green VW Beetle we’d nicknamed Bugsy after she got it for her sixteenth birthday. When she starts the car, music spills out of it. She’s playing the mix of punk songs I’d made for her in an effort to sway her from Britney Spears to Alkaline Trio.
The memory presses against me until I can’t breathe—driving around aimlessly with her last summer, blasting that CD with the windows down, searching for something, anything to help us kill the daylight hours until the next party. I want to go back to that time so badly, the longing makes me double over. Emily drives away and takes the music with her, and I’m left with the silence, not knowing what to do with it.
The night’s getting colder, and I’m in a thin t-shirt. I slide down the door until I’m on my butt and I hug my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth as goose bumps claim my exposed skin. The frigid air helps me feel numb. I stay out on the porch until Kane comes to bring me back inside.

Later, procrastination

I've heard it over and over--all writers need a blog. We need to put ourselves Out There. We need Facebook and Twitter accounts and we need to Connect with our readers. I started writing fiction seriously a year ago, but this is my very first blog post because I don't have any readers to Connect with. I'm a little nervous to press "publish post" knowing I don't have a single blog follower. It's like sitting alone in the middle of a crowded high school cafeteria, picking at your sandwich and wondering if anyone is going to come sit by you.

More than that, though, I didn't think I had any right talking about writing fiction. I felt like I needed something substantial that would scream, "Hey guys! Pay attention to me. I know what I'm talking about," like at the very least, agent representation.

I know all about writing news. I could talk your ear off about journalism and the stories I've covered during my career. I probably will in later posts. But what I've learned during the past year is that it doesn't matter if you already have an established journalism and technical writing career if that's not the type of writing you want to do. Writing fiction is still hard work. Learning about publishing is hard work. Querying agents is nerve wracking and getting rejections sucks. Nothing I learned in J-school gave me any frame of reference for entering the world of publishing.

But I'm learning. And I'm making mistakes along the way. And that, my friends, is what I have to offer. As I'm wading my way through this process of revising and querying and agonizing while I compulsively check my e-mail, I can share what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right.

So, I'm done procrastinating. I am now officially blogging, and hopefully helping some other unpublished authors along the way.