Surprise endings

My day job as an editor always has me looking for the "great ending." I love endings that I didn't see coming - surprise endings. To wit, this little guy has it down pat.

Sucking it up

As the ball in New York began its decent this past New Year's Eve, I took a reflective glance at my goals for 2009 in between quick slurps of my dad’s chocolate martinis. Damn, you just haven’t lived until you’ve sucked down one of those puppies. I managed four until I tripped over my own feet and spit out carpet fibers. My doting husband, Mom and Dad are quite forgiving of this unrepentant drunk, considering I only pull that trick once a year.

I’m not one for resolutions because they seem to be setups for failure. Rather, I look for themes. Last year’s was Survival. Since I’m still breathing, I must have pulled that off with relative success. This year, I decided would be devoted to Passion. If I’m gonna do something, do it with passion.

So far it’s been easy. I’m nearing the end of writing The Writer’s Essential Tackle Box which is like having a personal interview with twenty-five publishing industry professionals, and me. Besides writing, I love the publishing business. Talk about passion in spades. And I get to pour all of my loves, hates, dislikes, wishes, and recommendations into this book that’s designed to give authors the most unique insight to the industry they’ll ever get. Since I’m so passionate about helping authors, this is a no-brainer.

I discovered that writing nonfiction is different from fiction. Fiction requires me to create a made-up world with unreal characters who slog their way through a riveting plot, all while being plausible and compelling. Donovan’s Paradigm sucked me dry because the characters are so deep and complicated. I felt as though I had lived with my siblings for a solid month without a potty break. Truly a horrific thought. But I loved that book, and it seems many of my readers did as well since I’ve been hounded about when the next one is coming out.

And that’s the problem. I think I lack the passion for Kim and Erik right now, which really sucks because I adore them both. But their lives and complications about their medical future and commitment to each other require my complete concentration, and I don’t have that kind of time anymore. Which really sucks.

Some hats are easy to put on, yanno? I can go from being an editor to a mom with no problem. I can go from winning literary awards to getting critiqued to within an inch of my life without batting an eye. But stopping and starting the intensity of Kim and Erik requires a hard hat, and I left mine in my other purse.

I’m ready for something light and airy. Breezy. Dare I say it…women’s fiction? A romantic comedy? This is new territory for me, yet I find myself creating the plot, characters, timeline, and chapters in my mind as easily as burning dinner – something I do with alarming frequency. I feel such passion for this goofy story, which is shaping up to be something of a Bridgett Jones’ Diary variety, that I actually feel guilty for loving it so much. Like I’m being disloyal to Kim and Erik.

It worries me because Kim and Erik are a series of five books. The longer I take to crank them out, the harder it is to promote them. But maybe I should get this silly story out of my system and see where it takes me. I already know it’s achingly marketable, and I have the perfect set of agents in which to query. Maybe after I’ve taken this wherever it’s meant to go, I can get back to Kim and Erik with more clarity.

And maybe, just maybe, the passion that’s fueling this crazy story will portend something pretty cool. After all, I’m a follow-your-heart kinda gal…

No one can say it better than the Brits

As predicted, the bankrupt UK wholesaler EUK has failed to find a quick buyer for what it is basically an unsustainable business and bankruptcy administrator Deloitte announced today that "700 employees have today been made redundant."

Excuse me. Redundant? They've ended the livelihoods of 700 people, and the best they can come up with is "redundant"? That's like saying Auschwitz was a "little misunderstanding."

As a purveyor of words, I look for them to make an appropriate impact in order to effect an emotional reaction. I'll admit that no one can do subtle better than our British cousins, and I love them for it. We Yanks are so in-your-face with our movies and literature, and much of it is overkill - like we believe our audience too stupid to understand nuance. Instead we belch it out like an overripe onion just to be sure you didn't miss it. Brits, on the other hand - dare I say it - assume their audience has a brain. We could stand to take a page from our across-the-pond friends in both vocabulary acuity and narrative exposition.

But I don't know. Somehow, here, it just sounds cruel.

LyNe2WriMo

As an attempt to uphold my position as prez of LyNe2WriMo (membership:1), which is the response to NaNoWriMo, I've bargained with the devil to write a scene a day for my second novel. This came about when every freaking writer's blog I went to talked about the success they're having. Even Dino banged out a book last year, and I'm still wracked with jealousy. If she can be a full time doc and commit, then what's my problem?

Alas, I knew I couldn't live up to NaMoWriMo's expectations, and nothing bugs me more than defeat. So I decided that LyNe2WriMo was a better deal. My membership and I sip margaritas and enthrall each other with our latest scene. Ok, so I'm talking to myself. Not the first time that's happened.

The scene I decided to write about was inspired by Monkeygirl's post about the fibromyalgia patient who signed into the ED with chest pain rather than admitting her real affliction. In all my research with docs, I never knew patients did this. It's crappy enough that patients use the ED for their primary care physician in the first place, but patients who lie so they can get treated first should be dealt with by submitting to an acid enema.

I love showing the idiocy and heroics of medicine as seen through the eyes of docs who possess both pathos and a great sense of humor because most of it is so unbelievable. I read Monkeygirl's posts, for instance and shake my head at the chutzpa and insanity of those ED patients. It's like these people are born devoid of a brain or common sense. You simply cannot make this stuff up. The scene is unfolding beautifully, and I expect to knock back several margaritas at tonight's meeting. But there is a huge, depessing problem. This scene doesn't fit in the current book - which takes place in the Amazon. I have to wait to get Kim and Erik back to the US. Damn, I hate writing out of order.

Good thing my LyNe2WriMo membership will understand.

You want it when?

I have a writing deadline. End of October or witches will appear and burn out my eyeballs with hot pokers laced in gin. I have a love/hate relationship with deadlines. If I don’t have one, I tinker and futz around until one day someone says, “Where’s the damn manuscript?”

Oh. You were serious about that?

So then I go into writer overload and begin pulling 12-hour marathons. By 8 at night, my brain is a puddle of goo, and I can barely put a conversation that doesn’t contain a dialog tag – as in, “ ‘Pass me the peas,’ Lynn said while trying to keep her nose out of the mashed potatoes.” Like, who talks like this? Even that annoying Suede from Project Runway, who spoke in the third person, didn’t use dialog tags in his own speech.

My sleeping patters also go haywire when I’m under a deadline. My usual dreams of Antonio Banderas sweeping me off my feet and whisking me away to the Bahamas are replaced with comma splices, voice, pacing, and the occasional witticism.

Sometimes I’m driven to clean. Or order one of my kids to do it. I think it derives from the fact that I need something in my life to contain order and cleanliness because it’s a sure bet my unfinished tome has none of these elements.

But I’m good now, back to writing with fervor and direction. What happened? I ran into a doc who was reading my first book stop. “I am so loving this book!” she cooed. I blink. This is a balls-to-the-wall surgeon, so I’m speechless and let her prattle on. She likes me. She really, really likes me. I bask in my Sally Fields moment before rushing back to my office. I take the phone off the hook and order my kids to make dinner.

Good thing, too, because sitting in my inbox was a threatening letter from my distributor demanding the cover design, tip sheets, and, oh yes, the damned book. Guess they have nothing on those witches…

Writing: yes, we have a straightjacket for that

5:30 a.m. – at computer writing madly, trying to meet deadline

8 a.m. – cockatoo screams that it’s time to get up. Leave computer and go downstairs to uncover her.

8:02 – swearing ensues. Mine. Kids left shoes, glasses, napkins on coffee table, along with huge blog of brown blorch that I instantly set about cleaning.

8:05 – take glasses and napkins into kitchen. Toss shoes over the Great Divide (boxes that prevent cockatoo from escaping back half of the house to eat whatever antique wood crosses her path in the front half of the house) so cockatoo won’t eat them. Consider briefly allowing cockatoo to go ahead and eat the shoes, until motherly heartstrings wrap themselves around my neck and choke off my air supply.

8:15 – put glasses into dishwasher, convinced children don’t have a clue as to the purpose of this mysterious machine beside the sink. More swearing ensued. For the love of all that’s holy, these brats are 21,23, and 26…who broke their damn fingers? Clean hubby’s dirty dinner dish from last night. Only mildly pissed. After all, it was my idea to whip out a bottle of wine and sing old Three Dog Night songs in the backyard.

8:30 – Eating breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs…cooked to perfection. Ungrateful, piggish cockatoo eats half. Doesn’t clean up the kitchen, so I do the honors.

8:40 – stuff pill down dog’s throat. She hacks it up, and it goes skittering under the couch. Expensive medicine. I move damn couch to retrieve pill, which is now gooey and has hair sticking to it. Wash off pill and stick it and half my arm down dog’s throat. Mission accomplished, though I’m sure I see dog flipping me the finger. Begs for after-the-pill treat. I’m intent on ignoring her. Nobody makes me move that damn couch.

8:42 – I give in. Give damn dog damn after-the-pill treat. I’m such a sap.

9:30 – got a good few pages written before son #1 needs me to follow him to drop off his car for an oil change. Consider telling him to take my bike – I’m hot on the trail of this chapter. I relent. I’m a mom. I do these things.

10:30 – back to writing after stopping off at store for emergency supply of tampons for daughter. How does this happen? I always had sixteen boxes of those puppies back in the days when such things occupied my frontal cortex.

11:30 – oh for crying out loud. Do I look like I know how to sew a hem? Just because my DNA marks me as a chick doesn’t mean I’m handy. I’m a writer and, therefore, given a pass from anything remotely passing as domestic. Do what all God’s children do, and take the jeans to the cleaner. They know how to hem. Cripes. Fine. I’ll iron the damn shirt because it’s my shirt you’re borrowing, and I don’t want iron burns on the front.

12:40 – finally on a big roll. The words are pouring out of my brain like Hemingway on crack. I’m brilliant, by golly. I'm smellin' the Pulitzer from here! I should…

“Mom?”

“WHAT.”

“Uh, can I take you out to lunch?”

Ah geez. I suck. I’m navel lint. I’m an ungrateful hosebeast. I have the most beautiful kids and husband in the world, who adore me in spite of my tunnel vision during deadline time. They stop their own lives just long enough to remember the little things that will remind me of why I love them. Yeah, dirty dishes and shoes lying around pisses me off. But how can that possibly eclipse a warm, sweet smile, an infectious laugh, a tender hug that says I’m the center of their world, an out-of-the-blue invite to lunch? I swear, writing can make you crazy.

5:00 p.m. – “Yes, sir, I’d like to pick out that lovely straightjacket. Yes, the pink one with lace and pearls.”

When art mirrors real life

I just discovered that a major theme of my book centers on unconditional love. Odd that I would have “discovered” this. After all, who’s in charge of this insane asylum anyway? That’s the funny thing about writing fiction, oftentimes it rules our quill and moves us in different directions than we’d anticipated. How many times have I laid out the framework of a chapter only to get into the meat of writing and have my characters push me elsewhere? Sometimes I wonder if I’m channeling something going on in my life that is applicable to my characters, Kim and Erik. While they’re great surgeons, they are fatally human and make some dumbass decisions based on their, well, humanness.

I kept wondering exactly what Erik’s problem was with Kim since they were so perfect together before he went and screwed everything up. I realize how all schizoid this sounds since he is a figment of my imagination, but the sociology major in me likes to delve deeper into a character’s psyche and think about the why’s behind their actions. And that’s when the idea unconditional love came to me. What a revelation. It’s a hefty notion to love someone, warts and all. Especially in this day and age of disposable relationships. I’m not talking about hogging all the covers at night and not putting the cap on the toothpaste. Those are murderous offenses in my book.

I’m talking about the ability to overcome very big issues because the love we have for that special someone is far bigger than preconceived notions. It’s people of differing political parties, religions, or skin color to not be the Bickersons where food fights and flying dishes rule the household because they found a way to make it work. And this is what my characters knock up against in a big way with this second novel. The trick for me is to write about it convincingly.

Experiential writing is strong medicine because I’m forced to dig into my private reserve that sometimes has a “Do Not Touch” sign on it. This is the stuff that says, don’t go there, gurlfren’. It’s reeealy private and reeealy painful. But I need to tap into that in order to make my characters real. I discovered I knew about unconditional love. And boy, did it open my eyes in a most therapeutic way. So didn’t see that coming.

I learned that it’s ok to be pissed and hurt over my son’s actions or decisions and still love him anyway. I learned to give in to the fact that he beats his own drum, even if it is in dire need of a tuning. I learned to come to terms with his avoidance of our family as if we’re contagious. I learned to accept the dichotomy that, while there seems to exist this family disconnect, he’s never spoken harshly. He just floated away from us. I’ve learned to appreciate that my heart will ache and my brain will be angry. I learned that should he call me in the middle of the night in a still, small voice, asking if I still love him, that my answer will be an unhesitating, sobby “yes, of course. With all my heart and soul.”

How odd that my writing would force me to confront my private reserve and, ultimately help me understand more about me, my son, and my character. Should be one hell of a chapter.

Just sit down and write, stupid

I’ve been trying to find the time to finish Book 2 of the Donovan Series, and it’s a battle to find a few scant minutes to put fingers to keyboard. I wish I could be more like one of my friends who basically barfs it all out in a first draft. It’s smart writing because she gets the foundation and finer points down on her hard drive. Then she goes back with a scalpel for her rewrites.

I’m jealous that I can’t plow through on my first draft. I know how vital it is to get the darn thing down because it gets crowded sloshing an entire book around in my brain for so long. But I can’t. I begin to write and before I know it, I’m noodling with the action, the dialog, the inner voice….ARGH! And this is why Book 2 remains two-thirds of the way finished.

Sorry, Kim and Erik, I love you two knuckleheads as if you were real, and I really hate leaving you two in limbo in the Amazon jungle for so long. Just don’t misbehave while I’m off having a serious sit-down with God. I’m requesting that He do something about adding a few more hours to the day. This 24-hour thing isn’t working. Or maybe we could discuss cloning…