5 Lessons Writers Can Learn from Pancho and Lefty

I grew up on country music. This was the late '70s and early '80s, so we're talking real country. Outlaw country.

Country that would duct-tape Taylor Swift's mouth shut, take away all Brantley Gilbert's jewelry, and tell Keith Urban that rehab is for quitters.

One of my all-time favorite songs is "Pancho and Lefty," made famous by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. It's a story song, written by Townes Van Zandt. I still hang on every word like there's a secret nugget of truth waiting to be discovered.

How is there so much embedded in one sub-five-minute song? Have a listen and we'll find out.




Now, how can writers learn to tell a story so simply, with so much depth? Let's take a look.

1. A first-person narrator telling a story about someone else can be really effective.

No less a writer than Jonathan Franzen tells us that we should write in third person. This is one of those "establishment" rules for serious literary works. The reasoning? Third person is more remote (read: mysterious), which makes the reader work harder. It's also less limiting if you want to explore multiple characters. Plus, you get to create both the narrator's persona and your main character's (note: these are NOT the same thing).

"Pancho and Lefty" doesn't follow the third-person rule. It has a first-person narrator; however, the narrator isn't the subject of the song. This accomplishes two things:

True story.

(1) it creates immediacy with the use of the "I" voice, which is why many writers use first-person voice
(2) it generates mystery since the "I" voice isn't the subject of the song.

Our narrator probably knows Pancho and Lefty, and might have witnessed the events in the song. But we don't know. (Mystery? Check.) Our narrator says, "Livin' on the road, my friend, is gonna keep you free and clean." Who is the "friend"? Is it the generic use of "friend" that he's using to tell a campfire story? Or is he singing to an actual friend, maybe Lefty himself, after the events of the song? The narrator holds himself back from us, not making this clear. (Remote? Check.)

2. The right similes can set a tone without a single adjective.

In the first verse, we get two similes in a one-two punch: "Now you wear your skin like iron / Your breath as hard as kerosene."

Think about that. What does it mean to wear skin like iron? It means you think you're invincible. You think you can take a licking and keep on ticking. Or it means you've hardened yourself to the outside world so it can't reach you, no matter how hard it tries. (Unless you rust...that would suck.)  Each of these meanings make the simile richer. And here's the kicker: who is the singer talking to? Who wears his skin like iron? A man listening to the story? Lefty? Is he talking about himself in some weird reflective way? We don't know. But we do know this song is going to be about a mysterious bad-ass. This simile sets a mood, which is what all good storytellers must do.

And what the hell does it mean to have breath as hard as kerosene? Kerosene's a liquid. Liquid, by definition, isn't hard. Or is he referring to its scent, its noxious fumes? Those things are gases, which also by definition, are not hard. We're taking a trip through the three stages of matter here, just working on an interpretation of a single simile. Using "hard" to describe something that isn't hard works well here, especially following on the heels of the "skin like iron" simile. Skin is not like iron, and breath is not hard. But isn't that so much more effective than saying, "This is a song about some hardened criminals?"

3. Using action as a form of characterization works really well.

Also a true story.

It's pretty boring when someone says, "John was a good man" or "John was a bad man." What does "good" or "bad" mean? These aren't absolutes, especially in fiction. It's far more effective to say, "John rescued the cat in the tree because it belonged to the little girl down the block" or "John skinned the neighbor's cat in retribution for the loud party three nights back." This lets the reader place John appropriately on the scale of goodness and badness.

That's what our narrator is doing in this song. Pancho "wore his gun outside his pants / For all the honest world to feel."  I think "feel" should be "fear" here, but that's just me. In any case, the narrator isn't saying, "Pancho was really good at shooting people" or "Pancho had a death wish." No. He's telling us something about Pancho that's revealed through his action. What does it mean to wear a gun outside one's pants? Several things: Pancho means business. Pancho isn't afraid of conflict. Pancho is confident in his abilities. Pancho wants you to stay the fuck out of his way. So simple, yet so effective.

Lefty gets the same kind of characterization in the beginning of the next verse. "Lefty he can't sing the blues / all night long like he used to / The dust that Pancho bit down south / ended up in Lefty's mouth."

That's a powerful way of saying, "Lefty feels like shit for the role he played in Pancho's death." Instead of using the most obvious word on the planet ("guilt"), the narrator ties Lefty to Pancho's death using setting and figurative language. Lefty doesn't have a literal mouthful of dirt. But he's carrying a crap-ton of baggage that has to do with Pancho's death, so much baggage that he can't even sing anymore. We're left to wonder...is that how Lefty earns a living? Is he so broken up over his buddy's death that can't earn a living? This image conveys emotion and suggests conflict in a few simple words. Damn.

4. Be specific with names and places.

There's a beautiful juxtaposition in this song between the vagueness of the story itself and the concrete setting. We don't know who the narrator is. We don't know if he's talking to Lefty or about him. We don't know for sure what went down between Pancho and Lefty (although we can guess). But we do know Pancho died in Mexico. And we know Lefty "split for Ohio." Later, we get more detail: Cleveland's cold. Even here, we have layers. No shit, Cleveland is cold. The average temperature in January is about 28 degrees Fahrenheit. But is it also cold because Lefty lacks Pancho's companionship?

What I love here is the specificity of "Cleveland." Lefty didn't go "out west" or "down south." There's something so much more pathetic about him shacking up in Cleveland, a non-glamorous city that's stuck between the midwest and the east. With all apologies to Cleveland, perhaps the idea here is Lefty's in nowheresville. But rather than say it, the narrator uses a specific place that plants that idea in our heads.

5. Leave a little (or a lot) to the reader's imagination.

Probably not a true story.

One of the best parts of this song is its mystery. The narrator doesn't tell us exactly what happened. How did the Federales finally get Pancho? Why did Lefty split on the day he died, with a mysterious sum of money? Did Lefty sell Pancho out? Probably. Why did Lefty do it? We have no idea. A secret dream of making it big as a singer someday? The need to get out of a life of crime? Why didn't he have the balls to say, "Hey, Pancho, I'm gonna hang up the old gun belt now and start singing showtunes for tips. You're cool with that, right?" Is it really a commentary on friendship, on weakness of character, or misguided loyalty? Or all these things? Or none of them?

We don't know, and that's the way it should be. That's why this song needs a narrator who isn't Pancho or Lefty. That's why it's so much more powerful when we hear about Lefty's inability to sing anymore. That's why it's still moving at the end of the song, when not only Lefty but the Federales are old and gray. Everyone involved still remembers, still feels bad, still has some regrets. It's that important to them. And now it's that important to me, because I've just written 1,500 damn words about an old-ass country song.  

8 Signs You Are Not the Chuck Norris of Writing

As a writer, you're a target. You're putting yourself out into the world and asking both readers and ubiquitous Internet heroes to comment on your work.

Some of these folks are looking to take you down, to give you a bad review, to tell you you don't know what you're doing. They are the Kim Jong-uns of the Internet: puffy, whiny, self-important, and probably in need of a kick in the pants. As a writer, the last thing on earth you want to do is give these people ammunition. You want to be the Chuck Norris of writing, the one-man-army capable of telling a legion of disbelievers to go straight to hell: Vaya con Chee-Tos, mothertruckers.

One of the best ways to do this is to make sure your fundamentals--your phrasing and grammar--are correct. Many writers skip this step, preferring to rely on their storytelling ability to carry them through the process. But this would be like Chuck Norris skipping all the other color belts that lead up to a black belt. Did Chuck Norris skip out on the yellow belt or the purple belt? I think not. He mastered that shit because he's Chuck Norris.  You can do the same.

One more note, before we dive in: Chuck Norris would never use Microsoft's grammar check. He knows it's wrong half the time. He ignores it, and you should, too. Chuck Norris learned how to write by reading.  A lot. And more than just kung-fu how-to manuals. Chuck Norris reads classics, sci-fi, historicals, biographies, and oh yes, even a vampire book or two.  If you want to learn to write like Chuck Norris, you need to read out of your pay grade. 

In any case, Chuck and I offer this starter kit of 8 stupid mistakes never to make with your writing. Some of these are actual mistakes I've seen in books, many self-published. Go forth and conquer.   

1. You use turns of phrase without actually knowing what they mean. 

• "...the change knocked her world on its axis..."  This is not correct. An axis is an imaginary line around which an object (presumably a planet) rotates. When something incredible happens to your character, her world cannot be knocked ON its axis. It was there to begin with. Her world may, however, be knocked OFF its axis.  
• "...step foot in..."  This is everywhere. People say it, but it IS NOT RIGHT. The phrase is "set foot in." It might make sense at first because "step" is a logical word to combine with "foot." But the sense in which it is used is totally wrong. To "step" automatically implies you are using your foot, which makes the use of the word "foot" stupid and redundant. To "set" does not automatically imply you are performing this action with a foot; therefore, it is reasonable that you then specify "foot" after the verb.  
• "...she thought to herself..."  Unless your character is telepathic, there is no way she could "think" to anyone else.

2. You use adverbs when the verb you use already implies that adjective. 

• "...tripped clumsily."  Can you trip in a way that's not clumsy? Even if you can, is that what your character is doing?
• "...shouted loudly."  Is it even possible to shout quietly? If it is, "shouted" is the wrong damn verb.
• "...jumped quickly."  Let's see you jump slowly. I dare you to try. I dare Chuck Norris to try.

3.  You use adverbs too much in general. We all know adverbs are to be used sparingly. But occasionally, they creep in and that can be okay. But it's not okay when you're using an adverb because it's easier and faster than describing how a character does something. You're a writer. You're supposed to be describing how characters do things. That's your job. So do better at it. Here are some examples of lazy adverb use:

• "You murdered my nephew," he said angrily. Really? Because I always thought proclamations of murder were issued joyfully. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if the punctuation could somehow reveal the character's emotion? If only someone had invented a single punctuation mark that conveys strong feeling.
• "Constantly stepping from foot to foot, Joe looked nervous." In this case, the adverb is unnecessary. Stepping from foot to foot already implies the motion is constant. 
• "Moving slowly through the graveyard..." If your verb requires an adverb for the reader to get the picture, you picked a shitty verb. 

4.  You misuse prepositions.  Oh God, the prepositions. They are under attack. I don't know how this happened. It's like waking up one day to find out that all the streets have been renamed and now you have no idea what people are saying when they're trying to give you directions on how to get to the grocery store. And you're like, "Man, all I wanted is some mac and cheese. Why are you making it so hard?" Don't make it hard on your reader. Prepositions are the street signs that tell your reader where your sentence is going. If you don't use the right street sign, your reader is lost.  And lost people get angry. Sometimes they get murdered by drifters. Do you want your readers to get murdered by drifters? Don't answer that. Like Blair Waldorf, I rely on plausible deniability.

• "...ponder on..."  You ponder something. You don't ponder on it. If you tell me you're pondering on a Corvette, I will imagine you perched upon a car, thinking about a subject you failed to specify.
• "She was ignorant to the fact that he was an ex-con."  She ain't the only one. You can be ignorant of a fact, but not ignorant to it. There's no easy way to learn this stuff. You just have to read good books and absorb these idioms.
• "...disappointed from..."  You can be disappointed by the fact that you died from dysentery, but you cannot be disappointed from the fact that you died by dysentery.
• "She glanced on her watch."  A glance is not a tangible thing, so it cannot actually be on the watch. She may, however, glance at her watch.
• "You can never go wrong on fruits and vegetables."  I BEG TO DIFFER. You can go very, very wrong. In order not to go so wrong, try going with them instead of on them.

5.  You use descriptive dialogue tags. You've probably seen Elmore Leonard's advice for writers, one point of which states that you should never use anything other than "said." 98% of the time, he's right. There is rarely a case when you need to use a dialogue tag. If you use one, you're following the same lazy pattern of writing indicated by adverb use. Your dialogue, in combination with the motion of the character in the scene, should tell the reader how that line is spoken. If you have to specify with a dialogue tag, you haven't effectively conveyed the feeling of the scene, the emotion of the character, or his or her mindset. 

• "Eww! I hate spiders!" she shrieked. The problem with dialogue tags is that they are often unnecessary. The exclamation points tell you this character has strong feelings about spiders. She is probably angry or afraid, and you as the writer should provide the context to tell us which it is. Using both exclamation points and a tag such as cried/shrieked/wailed/exclaimed is overkill.
• "And the best part is...I never pressed play!" he cackled.  I call C+C Music Factory on this one. A cackle is a laugh, right? Can you actually speak all these words while cackling? Or is the laugh coming between the words? Or did the cackle come after, in which case the words themselves were not "cackled"? Or is the laugh really even a cackle to begin with? Do you see what kind of problems a poorly thought out dialogue tag can get you into? 

6.  You get subject-object agreement wrong. This is a tricky one, but once you know what to look for, you'll see it everywhere. Remember, no one's asking you to speak properly. You don't have to obey this rule when you're talking to your mom or your wife, but you do have to obey it on the page. Because if you don't, someone who does know the rule is going to put down your book and think, "Amateur." And by someone, I mean Chuck Norris.

• "Americans who love The Fast and the Furious live their life a quarter mile at a time." What's wrong here? The subject of the sentence is "Americans." You're making a statement about a large group of people. But you used the word "life," which is not plural. Do all Americans live one life?  Apparently not, since "One Life to Live" was canceled. See? Even ABC figured this shit out. Now it's your turn. You want to say that Americans live their lives a quarter mile at a time. Now you're cooking with gas.
• "One cannot have their cake and eat it, too." You would think that a word like "one" is enough to tell you that it means "one."  As in singular. As in not plural. So who are all these other folks you've invited into your sentence by using "their"? Is your "one" a schizophrenic? Are you a schizophrenic? If not, shape this shit up by keeping this a party of one: One cannot have one's cake and eat it, too.  

7. You use semicolons. Badly. You do not know how to use them, yet they appear throughout your book. Why is this? Do you randomly sprinkle mathematical formulas throughout your book just because they look intellectual and important? That's what lots of people do with semicolons. They look fancy, and probably imply that your sentence is multi-layered and complicated....right? No. Just...no.  If you can't tell me the rule for semicolons, right now, don't use them. Ever. Until you learn the rule, which is this:

• One rule to rule all the rules: Semicolons are used to separate TWO COMPLETE THOUGHTS. If either part cannot stand on its own as a grammatically correct entity, DO NOT USE A SEMICOLON. Chuck Norris will hurt you if you do this. If there's one thing Chuck Norris hates, it's bad semicolon usage. Don't believe me? Try it, and then go to sleep. See if you wake up.
• "One time at band camp; I did things my mom wouldn't approve of." A semicolon is not a comma. These two thoughts are clearly connected, but they cannot stand on their own.  "One time at band camp" is not a sentence...it is the beginning of a sentence.  And yes, I know that sentence ended with a preposition. Some rules were meant to be broken. Deal with it.
• "Rochelle had more to do that Saturday night; more than get wasted." Again, the second half of this sentence is placed for emphasis--it is not a sentence in and of itself. Only the cheese stands alone. Sentence fragments are not cheese.

8.  You confuse the most basic contractions you learned in first flippin' grade. I'm serious. Now you've got Chuck Norris *and* your first grade teacher really pissed at you. Is that what you want? He'll hold you down and punch you while your first grade teacher spits in your face. Or just drags her nails along the chalkboard. That's no one's good time. So do the world a favor and just learn what six-year-olds in good schools already have.

• For the last time: the apostrophe means it's a contraction. Contraction means two words are smashed together tighter than Kim Kardashian's boobs in a bustier. Some of the letters got kicked out because they couldn't breathe. The apostrophe tells us those letters are missing and someone might want to find them someday. Or not. It's up to you. 
• You're/your.  You're going to get your ass kicked by Chuck Norris for fucking this up. If you cannot replace the word with "you are," you should use "your."
• It's/its. It's a damn shame the snake left its home and decided to sleep in your bed instead. If you cannot replace the word with "it is," you should use "its."
• Their/they're/there. They're late for their own funeral because Chuck Norris got there first. 

If you're seeing some of your own mistakes listed here, now you have the power to fix them. This is progress! If you're not seeing any of these mistakes in your writing, look harder. Look even harder still. And then, if you still don't see these mistakes, congratulations on possibly being the Chuck Norris of writing. I salute you.

Worry Birds: 73 Things that Keep Self-Published Writers (Me) up at Night

In the past few weeks, as I adapt to life without Gram, I've been overdosing on writing blogs, social media, and general marketing tips.  I paste everything interesting into Evernote, in notebooks titled "Social Media" and "Website Creation" and "To Do" and "Book Promotion."  

I have 135 "To Do" notes and it makes me feel like I'm going to explode.

Instead of being energized, I'm paralyzed.

I feel like I'm back in 6th grade. There we were, scared and afraid we'd forget our locker combinations.  The first thing my new school had us do is write down all our worries about being very grown-up middle-schoolers on a construction paper bird.  Then we attached our birds to balloons and released them in a big welcome-to-middle-school ceremony.  They were called "worry birds," and by releasing them, we were supposed to let go of our worries, too.  As environmentally unsound as the process is, I feel like I need to do it again.

I'm worried that I will fuck up. I'm worried that I will never, ever be a better or more successful writer.  I'm

worried I'll miss something, fail to do something, and watch my cohorts pass me by.

These are my worry birds:

1. Do I need an author website?

2. If so, where do I host it?  Everyone has an opinion, and as soon as I read a good one about Bluehost, then I read a horror story about them, too. HostGator? LinkSky?  

3. Once I figure out where to host it and buy a domain name, what platform do I use?  The ubiqutous WordPress? Joomla? Impress CMS? Drupal? Does Drupal rhyme with RuPaul, and if so, isn't that kind of a silly name? 

4. Or should I just use Weebly? Are Weebly sites real sites, or are they for non-web people who can't be bothered?  Can I be bothered?  Should I be bothered?  I mean, I'm bothered, but should I bother?

5. How do I organize and design a site that doesn't look cheap, crappy, and templated? I am not a designer nor a programmer. I do not have the money to hire either one.  It's a one-woman show around here, and I work 8 hours a day and do laundry and cook dinner. The hubby would also appreciate it if I worked out more than once a month.  I am not in a good place with love handles right now. 

6. Where will I find the time to produce original content for a website? I don't have enough time to blog and write new stories, let alone put stuff up on yet another site.

7. Don't get me started on a newsletter. People say this is what you need: direct email marketing, hence the  website, hence MailChimp, hence a beautifully formatted, wonderfully written newsletter that I DO NOT HAVE.

8. Do I need WordPress multi-site? As in, an easy way to produce and control multiple websites? Like, one for each book?  Would these each need different looks, themes, content?  Oh, God, content.  

9. "Here are the 248 essential blogs that teach you how to use WordPress." "Here are the 823 plug-ins you CANNOT be without." Are you serious?  I read less informational material in grad school and now I have a Master's.

10. Do I need G+ and Facebook pages for myself as an author, as well as for each of my books? In addition to a personal website? These, of course, also need content.  

11. Do I need to do paper books as well as eBooks?  Do I need to charge more for my eBook so there's less of a  price difference between the two? .99 for the eBook and $9.99 for the paper book just seems stupid to me.  Yes, my eBook is worth more than .99, but pricing low gets volume and readers and reviews, right? 

12. If I do need paper books, which paper book producer should I go with? Xlibris, Book Baby, CreateSpace, Lulu, Autharium, or some as-yet-undiscovered winner? Who has time to research and document the costs, features, and services of each of these vendors in order to make an educated decision?  These are my books.  This is my LIFE.  I cannot afford (literally or figuratively) to fuck this up.

13. Pressbooks? What the hell is Pressbooks?

14. Sales tracking...um, yeah, I don't have that yet.  It would entail downloading month-specific Excel spreadsheets from Amazon that I probably should have been doing all along.  But now I'm behind.  So catching up is hard.  Damn it. 

15. You *are* eating five servings of fruit and veggies daily, aren't you?  And drinking eight 8-oz. glasses of water?  Without whiskey?  As Count Rugen says, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

16. Is it worthwhile to pay for a service to advertise the free days you get on KDP?  (Joe Konrath mentions having good luck with eBookBooster, but he's Joe Konrath, making $8,000 a week.)  Also, now that Amazon changed the rules about advertising free days, is this still viable?  Is KDP still viable?

17. Should I take my two KDP-exclusive books off exclusivity and release them through Smashwords, too?

18. Should I be doing more with Kobo?  What *can* I do with Kobo?  Nobody buys my books there, but is it because nobody buys my books there or because I'm not doing anything with it?

19. You mean I need to be in Kobo so I can sell eBooks in real bookstores?  Shit. Shit. Shit.

20. Should I be doing more (read: anything) with Shelfari and Goodreads? Is Boikeno.com the same thing?  And how about BookTalk, KindleBoards, Library Thing, Authonomy, Bibliphil, Booksie,  BookBrowse, Nothing Binding, Filed By, Bookhitch, Scribd, Figment, etc....What are all these places?  Should I use them or ignore them?  How will I remember all the logins and passwords and bears, oh my? 

21. Wait...you mean I have to post fresh content on some of these and then come back and monitor what people say about it? Yeah, sure, I'll do that from 25:00 to 27:00 hours in the parallel universe where I need absolutely zero sleep.

22. You *are* maintaining your LinkedIn page, right?  You *are* posting regular updates, and joining communities, and generally making yourself useful to the twelve writer groups you're in, right?  You're not just deleting those automatic email updates, are you?

23. Why hasn't one of my books sold a single copy since I changed the cover?  This new cover is awesome and the old one sucked. I thought I was doing the right thing.  What gives?  

24. Is there even a point in querying for the novel I just finished?  Querying takes time and rejection takes time and time is what I don't have.  

25. Should my next thriller incorporate characters from my first thriller?  You know, for continuity and increased sales.  They say that helps...but what if I want to create some new characters?  Am I shooting myself in the foot?  What if I'm kind of done with those characters?  Does that mean I created boring, uninteresting characters?  Am I a literary philanderer, incapable of committing to a genre, let alone to a family of characters?  Literary syphilis...is that what awaits me?

26. Is it a waste of time to finish the second romance novel I started, a kind-of-sort-of sequel to the first one I did, since my heart isn't in the genre?  I'm more than halfway through, and one of the best ways to generate readers and sales is to write multiple books in a series, or even in the same genre and I SO DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT.

27. When will I have time to research the next thriller, which requires knowledge of French police-type agencies, French cultural institutions, French universities, art theft, and Parisian geography?  I know pretty much nothing about all of these.  Okay, you can delete "pretty much."

28. You *are* using HARO to try and get some free publicity for yourself, aren't you? You're reading the daily emails and querying reporters for any stories you're qualified for, right?  You have a perfectly honed pitch and bio, don't you?

29. What have you done in terms of planning the blog tour for the next book that is soon to be rejected by all agents I plan to approach?  I mean, first I have to design the book, produce the book, make the cover, and plan a to-market date. But really, I need a blog tour.  I need contests.  I need autographed copies to give away.  WHAT?  I HAVE LESS THAN 200 TWITTER FOLLOWERS?  Help me help you...if a tree falls in the forest....insert third cliche here...

30. Should I be buying my own ISBNs?  (I can't afford to buy my own ISBNs.) 

31. "You don't have Google alerts set up for each of your book titles?" 

32. Should I be making Vine videos?  How the fuck does one make a Vine video?  I have a digital camera and a Kindle Fire HD, nothing else.  If push came to shove, I could probably make a tripod with dowels and duct tape.  Would that help?

33. Should I be making book trailers?  My computer came with basic video editing software, but I'm on extremely limited country-ass bandwidth and if I go over 5 gigs per month, the hubby pays for it.  But again, I'm minus the webcam. So that kind of kills that idea, right?

34.  Should I buy a webcam?  (And HD makeup so no one sees the sun damage and zit scars from twenty years ago?)

35. Should I be paying for a template to make a better formatted eBook using Word?  Right now I use the Smashwords nuclear method and it seems fine, but I'm a quality-over-quantity kind of girl and the templates appeal to me even though the ones I looked at are $47/book for paper/eBook template combos.  I do not have $47 x 4 books, fifth coming soon. I do not have InDesign.  I cannot afford to get InDesign.  I fear Pirate Bay.

36. Scrivener?  What in holy hell is Scrivener?  Bartleby, you sick fuck, what are you up to? 

37. How do I get (good) reviews for my comic mystery?  I have some bad ones.  I don't think they "got" it.  Or did I not "get" it?  Oh, crap, what if it's me?  WHAT IF IT'S ME?

38. How do I get anyone to review my historical vampire book?  It's the only thing I've ever gotten a fan letter for, and it has no reviews. The agony.  The humanity.  The feeling that I'm doing something really wrong....

39. When do I find the time to query book bloggers in order to solicit guest posts in order to build my brand and my as-yet-nonexistent website?  I suck at writing query letters.  If I didn't, I might have landed an agent in the first place.

40. "Start by figuring out which book bloggers you share common interests with and connect with them."  SURE.  In my copious spare time.  I'll, like, befriend them all.  Because I'm so good at making friends.  (Did we cover the part where I'm a WRITER?  If I were good with people, I would probably be doing something else with my life.)

41. When am I supposed to find time to follow the 500+ people my trial LittleBird subscription found?  When am I supposed to read their tweets?  When am I supposed to bookmark and then read the 800 websites and posts those tweets recommend?

42. Calibre is what, again?  E-book management software?  What fresh hell is this? 

43. Do I need to hire a photographer to take a few shots of me for the as-yet-non-existent website? My digital camera sucks and I have no Adobe software whatsoever and can't afford to buy any.  I can only traffic on snapshots from 2004 for so long.  

44. BookBuzzr.  Writer.ly.  Might as well learn quantum mechanics while I'm at it.  

45. Instead of producing paper books, is it worth querying small/indie presses directly?  Are you allowed to do this if you've already made an eBook?  What if I yanked the eBook?  

46. Wait, I'm supposed to be currying favor with readers on social media?  Searching for people with keyphrases like "book lovers," "book club, "librarian," "didn't barf when I read Twilight"? When do I find these people, interact with them in a meaningful way, read their tweets and posts, etc.?  Is there a second clock that only really special people have that gives them more hours in the day than I have?  That's it, isn't it?  I knew it.

47. Apps for Facebook that advertise my website?  Do I need this?  Should I?  Wait, first I need a website...

48. Should I use StumbleUpon to help make sure my content is found online?  I have to write content first, remember.  And are you allowed to only Stumble your own stuff?  Isn't that lame?  I don't want to be lame.

49. Fuck, Pinterest.  I need to upload my book covers to Pinterest.

50. Fuck, Flickr.  I need to upload my book covers to Flicker.  Someone somewhere said you get up to 75 keyphrases per image.  75.  I can't think of 75 words right now, except for the ones with four letters.

51.  Fuck.  See, I told you.

52.  No, really, fuck.  What keyphrases should I use in my Flickr images?  Or in general? 

53.  Oh, my God.  Should I be doing AdWords campaigns or Facebook sponsored ads?  Or both?  What landing page do I use?  You can't use a third-party as your landing page, can you?  CAN YOU?  

54. Wattpad?  Is this where James Watt lived?  Unless he invented Visine, I don't give a shit.

55. Writing contests, literary journals, all the regular writing-type submission stuff I did in grad school...you mean I'm still supposed to be doing all that?  You mean I still have to use words like "liminal" and "ontological"?

56.  When are you finally going to get around to using AdWords campaigns to A/B test possible titles for your next book?  Because you SUCK AT TITLES.  And you LACK A LANDING PAGE.  And the money to pay for AdWords.  For the love of God, tell me Blogger is still free.

57. Five essential Twitter hashtags for writers?  I can't even fit what I want to say in the fucking message, let alone leave room for 5 goddamn hashtags. 

58. Which social media management tools will I use?  How the hell should I know?  Fuckers spring up like mushrooms...MarketMeSuite, Seesmic, SocialOomph, CoTweet, Buffer, TwitterFeed, SpredFast, Sprout, Social Flow, AgoraPulse, Ping.fm, Engagio, Hootsuite, Pingraphy, and TweetVisor?  Might as well ask me to explain the difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.  

59. Wait, now I have to make sure my social media outlets "talk" to each other and my website(s) so my updates are blasted everywhere? Isn't that overkill?  Isn't that a duplicate content penalty waiting to happen?  If not now, later?  Panda happened, folks.  Penguin happened.  

60. Writing conferences?  Are you freaking kidding me?  Do you know how much that shit costs?  I credit carded the gas to get to my grandma's memorial service.  Plus, I can't get time off work.  I need money because I have to pay for a mortgage and repay the student loan money I used to go to grad school so I could learn to oh, you know, WRITE.

61.  "800 million sites for Indie Authors."  "5 trillion authors you NEED to know."  "World's Best Marketing Tips Scattered Through These 50 Links Because It's Friday and You're That Lucky."  Dude, by the time Friday rolls around, I don't even know my own name anymore.

62. "Build your brand. Get a logo.  Make your website look like your social media, which looks like your newsletter, which looks like your website."  Did we not cover the fact that I have NO design skills, money, or Adobe software?  Good luck with that.

63.  Understand all copyright laws so you know when you can and cannot use an image in your amateur-ass book cover.  Re-do your amateur-ass book covers, like, eight times because although you can do a lot with PowerPoint, it is no Photoshop.  Which I do not have or know how to use.

64.  What?  You don't have a Google Partner Account?  But to get my eBook on Google Play, I have sell it through my own site.  I do not have my own site.  OH MY GOD, I DON'T EVEN HAVE MY OWN SITE. 

65. Have you crafted a better author bio?  Because, you know, when you *are* the brand, you can't afford to suck.  And you probably suck, you know.  Just saying.

66. You *are* keeping up with your Google+ communities, aren't you?  You *are* making helpful and useful connections and reading everything and commenting, not just +1'ing, right? You need these people.  Be nice to them.  Be responsive.  Read their books.  Leave reviews.  Participate, dammit.  Participate like a motherfucker.

67. You DO have an about.me page, right?  Everyone else got theirs in, like, early 2011.  AND IT'S FREAKING 2013.

68.  Google Reader says I have 18,349 unread items.  All of which contain vital, helpful information I need right now.  Sure, I'll get right on that.  Lemme just grab the toothpicks I use to prop up my eyelids late at night.

69.  NO ONE READS LONG BLOG POSTS THAT HAVE NO IMAGES.  No one.  Don't you know the first thing about content marketing?  Or visual marketing?  Or marketing?  

70.  Wait, I'm supposed to be writing about my own books on this blog and trying to sell them?  But that's embarrassing.  I'd prefer to write about writing and life in general.  Plus I don't know which keyphrases to use.  We covered this, didn't we?

71.  When are you going to write the blog post you started ages ago, about why you don't believe in hiring an editor?  (Sorry, professional editors.)  How many flaming comments will I get for it?  How will I explain that I paid 30 THOUSAND DAMNED DOLLARS for the ability to go to grad school and learn to do it myself?  Did Shakespeare or Milton or Donne pay an editor?  Well, then holy hell, I won't either.  I'll take the responsibility of producing the goddamn best book I can because...I can.  Got a problem with it?  Call my editor.

72.  Someday I'd like to read a book for fun again.

73.  Maybe write one, too. 

Oh, holy Jesus, that's a lot of worries.  I don't have this many balloons.  The balloon factory doesn't have this many balloons.  MAKE IT STOP.  

All joking aside, every single one of these points is a question self-pubbers have to answer.  And then do something about, once they find the answer.  It is exhausting. And liberating.  And scary.   And, at the moment, requiring a liberal dose of whiskey.

Do You Suffer from...Character Attachment Disorder?

Okay, so I'm nearing the home stretch.  The new book has about 60 pages to go before the first draft is finished.  But in those 60 pages, I have to completely destroy the character's life.  And the lives of her family members, through the choices she makes.

I've noticed my page count dropping slightly per day, ever since I began to approach this final stretch.  And then it hit me...I'm attached to my character.  I don't want to ruin her life.  I don't want to hurt her.  But I have to, because of the bad decisions she's made.

All along, I intended for this story to end a certain way--the end was what I envisioned first.  So I know it has to happen this way.  Everything in the plot leads up to this ending.  I've created the sort of inevitable train wreck you know is coming but can't turn away from.

Yet...I still kind of want to turn away.

Does this happen you guys, too?  Have you ever created a character you enjoyed so much you didn't want to end the story, particularly in a way that harms the character?

This is a tragic story.  Everything is in place for the tragic ending...the foreshadowing, the tone, the language.  Now I'm dreading writing the tragedy because all the character had to do to avoid it was be smart.  But I don't think she's smart in that particular way, so it wouldn't be true to the character to have her save the day instead of ruin it.

*sigh*  On with the final few chapters...let's see what happens when my fingers hit the keys.

New eBook: The Romanov Legacy

My third eBook, The Romanov Legacy, is now live at Amazon!

I might be biased, but can I just say that I love this book so much?  I  didn't ever want to let go of these characters and these settings.  In fact, I still don't.

If you're a fan of Dan Brown, you'll enjoy the globe-trotting suspense.

If you're a fan of Olen Steinhauer, Robert Ludlum, John le Carré, or Eric Van Lustbader, you'll enjoy the nifty Russian spies.

If you're a fan of female-driven suspense novels with more psychological goings-on than Girl, Interrupted, you'll enjoy meeting Natalie, the heroine.

If you're a history buff, you'll love the details about the Romanovs, their murder, the flight of Russian emigres through China, and the bit of speculative history I throw in at the end that might make England's Queen Mary turn over in her grave.

And if you've ever done something crazy because you love your family so much you'd die for them, you'll understand why the two sisters do some crazy things to protect each other.

Really, with all this going on, you're totally getting your .99 worth.

Here's what it's about:

A family murdered in the dead of night.  A treasure lost in the throes of revolution.  A ninety-year quest that Lenin, Stalin, and the entire Soviet war chest couldn't solve.  One woman holds the key to it all:  the missing fortune of Nicholas II, last tsar of Russia.

Natalie Brandon believes the stories--that the murdered tsar left behind a secret account intended to provide for his family in exile.  She believes them because the voice inside her head believes them.  Labeled a schizophrenic by her childhood doctors and psychiatrists, Natalie hears the voice of an angel named Belial.  Belial tells her things...things no one else could possibly know.  Natalie knows Belial is real.  She knows the tsar's account is real.  But no one believes her until a blond, blue-eyed Russian spy breaks into her apartment and kidnaps her, claiming she's the only one who can help him find it.

Together, Natalie and Constantine must find a pair of letters written by the tsar's daughters, in which the account's password is encoded.  But Russian Prime Minister Maxim Starinov also wants the letters and will do anything to get them.  The pair must outrun Starinov's lethal spetsnaz unit as they chase the letters from San Francisco to Moscow to London.  The hunt draws in Natalie's sister, Constantine's partner, and a loyal Russian family whose only mission is to preserve the tsar's legacy.

With nothing more than Belial's strange whisperings to guide them, Natalie and Constantine fight for their lives--and each other--in a race to protect the tsar's legacy from a greedy despot.


Available for Kindle via Amazon.

Using Present Tense

So, I started reading Philippa Gregory's latest, The Lady of the Rivers.  Something about the way it's written is bugging me a little.  It's in present tense.  Is it me, or is there very little point in writing a historical fiction novel in present tense?  We know these events took place in the past.  It feels a little disingenuous to think using present tense will make the past come alive.  Isn't that what good writing and research are for?

So I started wondering....what's the point of using present tense in fiction?  Is there one at all?  I'm not convinced there is.

The first book I read that used present tense was Anita Shreve's Fortune's Rocks.  This, too, was a historical.  It weirded me out at the time, but I realized the present tense did force me to slow down as I read.  Maybe this was the point.  Maybe it had nothing to do with it.  I remain unsure.

My mentor professor always discouraged the use of present tense as an MFA program affectation.  I tend to agree.  Here's the logic:  using present tense draws the reader in more deeply, creating a sense of increased intimacy and timeliness for the characters.  I'm gonna call bullshit on this one.  If you're a good writer, you can do all of this in past tense.  You do not need to warp the space/time continuum and pretend that each sentence is happening right now.  I don't think it increases intimacy.  I think it creates awkward phrasing and draws attention to itself needlessly.

Here's an example from the Gregory book:

The girl looks steadily at all of us and gives a nod of her head to each.  As she looks at me I feel a little tap-tap for my attention, as palpable as the brush of a fingertip on the nape of my neck, a whisper of magic. I wonder if standing behind her there are indeed two accompanying angels, as she claims, and it is their presence that I sense.

The prose feels clunky to me.  If I'm reading a 400+ page historical novel, chances are I'm okay with being told events happen in the past.  Chances are, I'm already interested in the personages featured in the novel.
Just for kicks, I'm going to rewrite it in past tense, below:

The girl looked steadily at all of us and gave a nod of her head to each.  As she looked at me I felt a little tap-tap for my attention, as palpable as the brush of a fingertip on the nape of my neck, a whisper of magic.  I wondered if standing behind her there were indeed two accompanying angels, as she claimed, and it was their presence that I sensed.

Overall, I'm giving the nod to the past tense.

Laura Miller, writing for Salon.com, quotes several established writers (Bill Gass, Phillip Pullman, Phillip Hensher) as being against present tense storytelling because it hints at a sort of lack of nerve, lack of confidence, or possibly aping of a literary trend.  I agree.  Miller cites Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall as a present-tense novel that works, but fails to ask the question:  wouldn't it have worked just as well in past tense, too?  It's the characterization of Cromwell that's brilliant, and characterization happens in past tense as well as present tense.

I just don't think I can be convinced that present tense adds something that would be irrevocably lost if it were taken away.  Miller cites The Hunger Games as being acceptable, if not better, in present tense in order to increase suspense.  But it's written in first person.  Um, hello?  The person telling the story needs to be alive to keep telling the story, whether it's in past or present tense.  So this doesn't work for me, either.

None of the reasons for present tense hold weight.  But I'm curious what *you guys* think.

Have any of you written in present tense?  Why did you make the decision?  Did it help the story?   Convince me!  Astound me with your brilliance!

Grad School Is Over...So Now What?

My two-year roller-coaster of grad school has finally come to an end.  Classes are over, and I'm in a holding pattern as I wait for my degree to post.  I'm told this could take as many as 12 weeks.  In the meantime, I'm trying to rebuild the writing momentum I had last summer.  But what does that mean?  Where do I go from here?

First things first.  Let's go out on the deck and have a drink.  Here's the view from my deck, which might explain why I'm so partial to thinking there.

I began the degree with hopes of teaching in a community college.  This still might happen, but since a multi-billion dollar California budget deficit was recently announced, I'm guessing slots will be few and far between at the few local community colleges near me.  I'll definitely apply once my degree posts, but all I can do is cross my fingers, polish my application materials, and hope for the best.

Dude, this really is a killer view.  See that pasture to the right?  Sometimes there are cows in it!  And they trot happily along, grazing in the company of one sheep and one goat.  It's true what they say.  Happy cows really do come from California.  

But seriously, in terms of writing, I've got a slough of to-do items on a list that's sat largely untouched since the semester began.  Publish next ebook?  Working on the formatting as we speak!  Publish romance manuscript that won the Daphne DuMaurier award last summer as an ebook?  Maybe.  Haven't had any luck with agents or queries for it, but truth be told, I haven't tried as hard as I might.  I'm fighting with myself on whether to go it alone here and self-publish or query some more and see what happens.

I have a pile of short stories, some needing to be sent out and some needing polishing before being sent out.  Short stories are so weird, you guys.  My creative writing professor assured me all of the things I've turned in are worthy of being published.  Yet they've all been rejected multiple times.  (Peter Ho Davies noted in an interview that he heard the average number of rejections for a short story before its acceptance is 12.  One of his stories was rejected 25 times before acceptance.)  I'm not near that number yet.  So I guess this means I need to research markets, read more journals, and submit, submit, submit.

I feel torn in several directions.  There's the literary side of me--the one that writes short stories and sends them to reputable journals.  There's the genre side of me--the one that writes thrillers and romances and dreams of mass-market publication.  There's the DIY side of me--the one that's put out two ebooks so far.  But I feel like I'm going to have to choose who I want to be....the writer I want to be.  Either that, or I'll have to start using a pseudonym for certain types of writing.

I feel like, as a writer, we are told we need to pick a market and stick with it.  Genre or literary?  Short stories or novels?  But what if I like all of them?  What if I'm able to write all of them?  Can I do it all, under my own name, without crossing some invisible boundary that the establishment doesn't want writers to transgress?

I feel a little bit like I'm walking a tightrope.  The literary journals I submit to might not want to publish me if they Googled me and see my ebooks.  But those books are just as much a part of me as the literary short stories I'm sending out.  Do I really need to submit literary fiction under a different name?  Or re-do my ebooks under a pseudonym?  I'm not sure yet.  I don't know how to be sure.

Have any of you struggled with this issue?  Do you write under your own name, or a pseudonym?  Do you write in different genres?  How do you get published in each one?  I'm all ears!

   

The Challenge: Making Scenes into a Story

Last spring, for a creative writing class, our assignment was to write six brief scenes:  three each from the point of view of two different characters.  We were supposed to write from the point of view of character A observing character B, while character B did three different daily activities.  Then we did the same thing from the point of view of character B observing character A while character A did three more daily activities.

This was a fun exercise, but these short, unconnected pieces have been languishing on my computer for awhile now.  So I had a bright idea:  can I weave these six unconnected scenes into a story?  Is it possible?

At first, I thought this would be easy.  The scenes feature the same two characters, so all I'd have to do is weave the daily activities into some logical sequence, right?  Easy peasy.

Well, it would have been nice if it worked out like that.  But it didn't.  It's taking a lot more massaging and rewriting to get the scenes to flow.  It's a really fun challenge, though--it forces you to smooth rough edges and really think about scene order and how you can arrange them to build to some sort of emotional awareness and climax.  Of course, I made it more difficult for myself by writing scenes that end mostly happily, while most of the stories I write end on a decidedly morbid or depressing note.  That's what's taking most of the revising time.  I have to correct for tone in each scene as I weave it in with the others.  The cool thing is that now I have an entirely new story to play with.

If you have a little spare time, give it a try--write six random half-page scenes featuring the same two characters, with three each from a particular character's point of view.  Choose activities to describe that are mundane:  washing hair, watering plants, making the bed, feeding the dog, watching the news, cooking dinner, cleaning a bathroom, etc.  Then let them sit for awhile.  As you think about the characters and what they might mean to each other, think about what you want to say through those characters.  How is their simple, everyday interaction leading to a larger truth?  Then have at it--mash those scenes into a story!

What Does It Take to Get a Master's in English?

Not much, regretfully.  In terms of a final project, my school requires only 60 pages, either of a memoir, short story collection, or novella.  That 60-page figure is a MAX number of pages.  It used to be that you had to submit a full novel or a complete (approximately 200 page) short story collection in order to have a shot in hell at getting a Master's.  But these days, with budget cuts and hiring freezes, the university staff just don't have the time to read 200-page books from all of us.

So we get 60 pages.  Max.

What the heck is wrong with an educational system that gives people a Master's degree for 60 pages of crappy fiction?  Or memoir?  It's embarrassing.  Granted, I don't have a literary novel lying around that I could use in order to graduate.  (A romance, a spy thriller, a mystery, and a vampire historical--yes, I have those!)  If my school had real standards, I'd have had to finish the literary mystery I started last summer.  I would have had to follow it through instead of letting it rot on my computer, untouched since August.

In a way, I want that push.  Instead of turning in 60 pages of random short stories, I would have had to work harder on what a fiction writer is supposed to do--write books.  Short stories are fun to write, but they're also easy on the relative scale of fiction writing.  Just because you can do it several times in a row doesn't mean you deserve a Master's.  How many of us had to write short stories in high school or our undergraduate careers?  My guess is a lot.  So how is doing more of that supposed to merit an advanced degree?

I shouldn't be complaining.  Next semester, I will turn in my 60-page collection of short stories and hopefully get my Master's degree.  But part of me wishes that school had given me the kick in the ass I need to finish the one that got away.