Tuesdays with Story

“I am, after all, not just the novel’s creator but its first reader. And if I’m not able to guess with any accuracy how the damned thing is going to turn out… I can be pretty sure of keeping the reader in a state of page-turning anxiety.” — Stephen King in On Writing

Writing Friends

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau called himself a “self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms.” I hope every member of Tuesdays with Story got in a little inspection time this week, even as Madison’s first-of-the-season blizzard kept Second-and-Fourth members from meeting on December 8. On Wednesday, Millie Mader e-mailed me: “It’s not only a good writing day, but my Dish Network is out!”

’Tis the season for writing, here and now in Madison. The snow is our ally. Imagine: You could be trying to do this difficult thing while sitting on some wave-lapped, sub-tropical beach, under the sun’s relentless roasting as gritty grains of scorched sand work their way into the tight places between your winter-cramped toes.

The Bard got it right, too:

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;

But like of each thing that in season grows.

— William Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost

For the December 17 issue, please send articles, news and information about writing, writers, words, and publishing. Send directly to me or post in our Yahoo! Groups file “Stuff for the Editor.”

Special thanks to members who sent content for this edition of TWS News. Because we missed a meeting this week and most of us pulled extra duty inspecting snow, I’m afraid this one’s a little skimpy. And it’s a little late because I came back from business travel Thursday and had to dig out my driveway. — Clayton

 Last Meeting

Second-and-Fourth members missed their December 8 meeting, so we lack news and comment on the latest work of Anne Allen, Jack Freiburger, Holly Bonnickson-Jones, and Carol Hornung.

However, Jack has volunteered to host a meeting on Thursday, December 17, or the following week on December 22. That evening meeting would be a “solstice party.”

Second-and-Fourth members: If you want to meet yet this month, please e-mail Jack soonest. And let me know the result, please.

Who’s Up Next

December 15 (First-and-Third): Clayton Gill (Chapter 6, Fishing Derby), Amber Boudreau (Chapter 3, YA novel), Danny Dhokarh (poem, “If my love for you shall cease”), Millie Mader (Chapter 15, Life on Hold), Pat Edwards (poems), and Jerry Peterson (short story, “Lights and Sirens for Santa”). Meeting at Alicia Ashman Branch Library, 7:00 p.m.

December 17 or 22 (tentative for Second-and-Fourth): Jack Freiburger (???), Holly Bonnickson-Jones (???), and Carol Hornung (tentative). Meeting at Jack’s place, 7:00 p.m., but requires confirmation from Jack of meeting date and time.

January 5 (First-and-Third): John Schneller (Chapter 9 rewrite, Broken), Amber Boudreau (Chapter 4, YA novel), Judith McNeil (???), Alicia Connolly-Lohn (new chapter for Lincoln’s Slave Trials), and Clayton Gill (Chapter 7, Fishing Derby). Note: Meeting at Barnes & Noble West, 7:00 p.m.

January 12 (Second-and-Fourth): Please let the TWS News editor know soonest.

 Words and Language

Jerry Peterson spied “deleb” on Paul McFedries’ Word Spy website (http://www.wordspy.com): deleb, n. A dead celebrity, particularly one used to endorse products.

Example citations:  Revenues from delebs are already rising as rights companies become more aggressive about advertising and product deals, says Reeder, whose company represents estates including Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol and Johnny Cash. … [A] deleb cannot be caught sniffing cocaine or punching a nightclub bouncer. — Katie Allen, “Yves Saint Laurent tops dead celebrity earning league,” The Guardian, October 29, 2009

Images of deceased stars have long been used in advertising. The most recent trend is for digital enhancement of images, seamlessly integrating “delebs” into current situations and, in some cases, putting words into their mouths. — Louise Jack, “The man in black to walk the line again as a marketing icon,” Marketing Week, April 30, 2009

Earliest citation: “Steve McQueen is a legend that many celebrities like to emulate, but few do,” said Diana Brobmann, senior manager, new business development and product licensing at GreenLight. “The use of Dead Celebs (or as I call them ‘delebs’) such as McQueen, continues to increase in the marketplace. — Samantha Loveday, “GreenLight races in with Steve McQueen deals,” Licensing.biz, June 19, 2008

McFedries notes: “You’d think that the word delebrity would just be the longer version of deleb, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In most usages, a delebrity is a famous fashion designer (designer + celebrity):

Similarly, Japanese chain Uniqlo brought in the likes of Alice Roi, Phillip Lim, Lutz & Patmos, Jones and Maruyam to create special limited edition lines for its stores. “It’s a reality that’s not going away, but it runs the risk of having some backlash if there is too much,” Robert Burke, founder of fashion consultancy Robert Burke Associates, said of the “delebrity” phenomenon. — Marc Karimzadeh, “The Delebrities,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 11, 2007

McFedries lists related words, including celeb, celeblog, celebreality, celebutard, and celebriphilia.

 What If the Worst Happened?

What if the dog ate the only copy of your just-finished manuscript? Or, what if your laptop’s hard drive crashed and you had no backup copy of “all the good stuff”?

Cathy Riddle alerts us to an article in a recent issue of Northwestern University’s magazine about African-American poet and first-time novelist Angela Jackson (Where I Must Go, TriQuarterly Books, Northwestern University Press, 2009.)  “The article will give comfort,” Cathy says, “to anyone struggling through rewrites… Jackson nearly lost the entire manuscript for her first novel after working on it for 30 years.”

Cathy notes that in the article, Jackson, now in her 50s, also talks about life as a writer and student in the late 1960s at predominantly all-white Northwestern University. Members of the black writers movement took her in, nurtured her, and helped her grow.

For more: http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/winter2009/feature/angelajackson.html 

Contests to Warm You Up… Right Now!

Short Story and Poetry Due December 15: The quarterly magazine Wisconsin People & Ideas hosts  the Wisconsin Book Festival Annual Short Story and Poetry Contests. Winners receive cash and publication in the magazine. First-place winners of both the 2010 short story and poetry contests receive a week’s stay at Edenfred creative arts residency in the Madison Highlands, courtesy of the Terry Family Foundation.

However, the deadline looms. For details: https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/magazine/index.php?category_id=3755 

Breaking through Via Amazon: Finally, the Amazon novel contest is announced: The 3rd Annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition. It’s going to be different this year: Only two categories — General Fiction and Young Adult. Fishing Derby, Broken, and Amber Boudreau’s as-yet-untitled book may be perfect. The attached article (link below) has details and links to the rules. I can say that as a participant in last year’s contest, this is a fantastic, free opportunity.

Last year, there were short, periodic informational videos, and interviews of prior contestants, editors, etc. and online conversation rooms with other writers. I highly recommend this contest for anyone who wants to make a real effort to complete a novel. Although I haven’t been published, I think I can say, the contest trains you in what it’s like to submit your book, with a pitch and synopsis to a publishing house. If this year’s contest operates like last year, you will get a paragraph of literary agent feedback, if you make the first cut. You can sign up now. Your novel must be uploaded online between January 25 and February 7, 2010.

For more: http://www.pr-inside.com/amazon-com-and-penguin-group-usa-announce-r1624049.htm

By way of inspiration, check this out: James King, author of Bill Warrington’s Last Chance won the Amazon contest last year. This post (link below) shows a page of his manuscript with the markups by an editing reviewer. Looks like fatal bleeding all over the page, albeit in green — but he was the final winner.

See also: http://thebusinessofwriting.blogspot.com/2009/08/good-thing-she-didnt-hate-it.html

What We’re Reading

John Grisham’s Ford County: Having recently finished John Grisham’s Ford County, I feel let down. In this book, we reconnect with many of the colorful characters who enlivened the pages of Grisham’s novel, A Time To Kill. However, Ford County is a collection of short stories. Sadly, most of Grisham’s characters now appear as “good ol’ boy” country rubes.

Grisham’s droll sense of humor peeks through here and there, and his writing is still superb. Nonetheless, the tales are pathetic rather than comedic. They probably paint a relatively true, if exaggerated, picture of life in Grisham’s fictional small Mississippi town of Clanton. The courthouse lawyers are still rumpled and lazy, as they gorge on donuts and coffee and, more often, whiskey.

Also, the “uppity” whites of Clanton still don’t treat the black neighborhood of Low Town as part of their community. Their extreme hypocrisy makes Grisham’s final story in the collection significant.

A gossipy, aristocratic family who own rental property in Low Town have a black woman as a tenant. When their gay son, who has been living in San Francisco, is diagnosed with HIV and is dying of AIDS, they want him “out of sight.” Their hypocrisy is unparalleled as they pawn the young man off on their indignant tenant. She keeps her place up especially nice, and the family offers her the house free and clear if she will take in their son and keep quiet about it. The black woman and the son strike up an understanding and loving friendship, which lasts until he dies.

Grisham’s final story redeems Ford County, as a contract molded out of convenience, morphs into unlikely acts of human compassion and sincere friendship. — Millie

Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: See the book review link:  http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/philosophyreligion/fr/aNewEarth.htm

And, check out Eckhart Tolle on YouTube (multiple links at http://www.google.com/search?q=Eckhart+Tolle&btnGNS=Search+youtube.com&oi=navquery_searchbox&sa=X&as_sitesearch=youtube.com&hl=en) and American Public Media (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/tolle/?refid=6).

I am getting this book for Christmas. Enjoy! — Brandy

 Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent

“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,” says Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, quoted by Nathan Bransford in his December 10 blog from an article in the Wall Street Journal.

“Authors may well be motivated to delay e-book releases,” Bransford writes, “since they may be receiving a better royalty for hardcover sales than they do for e-book sales. So for some authors, it may indeed make financial sense to encourage/force publishers to delay e-book releases if e-book customers will be motivated to go out and just buy the (higher royalty generating) hardcover during the delay period. This probably only applies to the top authors with rabid fans — everyone else will probably want to strike with e-books while the publicity iron is hot.”

See also Bransford’s comments on using a pen name, December 8. Visit: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

Talk About Technique

This editor did a little Google search on “how to write a book” and got 131 million hits. Top of the list was a British publisher of how-to guides. Here’s part of the lead paragraph, offering wisdom that underpins all technique: “Don’t waste your time trying to cash in on today’s hits. Write the novel you’re burning to write, and make it as good as you possibly can. There is only one rule: Don’t bore your reader.”

More at: http://www.howtobooks.co.uk/leisure/writing/

The Last Word

This story caught my eye. It was posted on CNN but apparently was a reprint from O, The Oprah Magazine. It is the story of extreme writer’s block. This guy’s problem was so long and depressing, he practically had a total life melt-down. It borders on humorous. It took him years and years to get his novel finished. But then, in 2008, he won the Pulitzer Prize. I think it is inspiring in an ironic way. I think most writers would look at this author and say to themselves, “Well, at least I’m not that bad off.”

See: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/12/04/o.junot.diaz.becoming.writer/index.html