50 Book Challenge book 27/50

Usually when I don’t write for awhile I don’t read for awhile. And vice versa. The two seem to go hand in hand. When I read regularly I tend to be writing more. When I write regularly I tend to be reading more. Anyway…I’ve recently started back the two activities after a few weeks of…don’t really want to call it a “hiatus.” I think I’ll call it, sitting on my ass doing nothing. Yeah, that sounds right.

Anyway…for book 27 I read: “A Bite to Remember” by Lynsay Sands.

Vincent Argeneau is a centuries old vampire who owns several theatre companies. Lately he’s experienced several instances of sabotage that has forced him to close down his plays. His cousin, Bastien sends him a private investigator to help. The problem is…the PI is a mortal…and a girl. And he can’t decide which part of that equation he’s more put out about.

In Lynsay Sands’ world, vampires came from the advanced civilization of Atlantis and they are actually humans who used advanced nanobyte technology. It’s an interesting version of the vampire mythology. They wander the earth searching for their life mate, the one person destined to be their partner for eternity. They’re only allowed to have one child every hundred years (for population control) and only allowed to turn one person…period. The person they turn is normally the person who is their life mate.

While Sands gives us a detailed explanation of how nanobytes works and how turning works in her world, (she even goes so far to explain the evolution of canines to help replace the blood from all the nanobytes working so furiously to keep them all young and beautiful and illness free), she doesn’t tell us anything about why they have one true life mate wandering around (one they often have to wait centuries for.) While it’s paranormal romance, and that’s fine, I do wish she’d explain the backstory on how life mates came to be.

Maybe it’s just a fluke and it’s an issue of…very rarely a vampire will find someone they’re really drawn to whose mind they can’t control, and they take that person as a mate. I’m not sure I buy the “destined to be their life mate” business though, if only because the rest of Sands’ world is set up with an internal logic that doesn’t rely on “magic” to make it run. Introducing a magical element in the form of “fate” seems out of place.

 

Excuses and coddling your muse

I think sometimes as writers we coddle ourselves too much.  I know I’ve been guilty of this very recently.  We find an excuse not to write. And man it’s a good one too.  We don’t feel good today.  Or we just need to take a day off to let things percolate.  Need to think some.  Cause lord knows we can’t just WRITE.

And I’ve excused myself far too much.  A day off turns into two days which eventually turns into a week.  And even when it doesn’t, working 2 days a week isn’t working.  Please keep in mind, it’s not working…for ME.  It might be genuine effort for someone else with more things on their plate.  You see, I have no real massive responsibilities out in the world.  I’m not employed.  I don’t have any children.  I’m not on any committees.

My days are lavish rolling hills of sunbathing, rollerblading, working out, and yoga.  And some house cleaning and some cooking.  I’m not making forward momentum because I’m allowing fear to stop me.  At this point I’m about equally afraid of success or failure so it’s become this big bogey man.  There is no longer any logic here.

In my head I’m either going to absolutely fail forever at every writing related thing I try, or else I’ll have a nice success then fail subsequently forever after that. (so I guess I’m not really afraid of success so much as a small success that gives me false security that I’ll continue to succeed.)
I have no idea where this deep pessimism comes from.  But I know it’s not healthy.  If I want to consider writing “my job” even if I’m not getting paid for it yet, then I can’t just “do it when I feel like it.”  I think with writing, since it’s a creative endeavor, if things aren’t flowing right, it’s tempting to just “let it percolate” for awhile.  And that’s all fine and good…but hey…I can work on something else.

I’ve decided it’s absolutely necessary unless I want to forever “play at being a writer” that I actually WRITE or do something strongly writing related every day.  Weekends I can have off.  Everybody else gets weekends off.  But I have to stop this patting myself on the back and going “Oh, you didn’t write today?  That’s okay.  You just sit there in that big comfy chair.  Writing is hard. Just let it percolate for the next five years and come back to it.”

This is a recipe for never being published.

 

I got tagged.

Cynthia Eden Tagged me. I’m not tagging anyone because A. I’m too lazy. B. I don’t want to get hunted down by someone and beat up.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.

“A Bite to Remember” by Lynsay Sands.

“He parked in a big public lot and left on foot, and we parked and followed. He led us down this alley and Jackie really started getting itchy, but the man was way ahead of us so I was sure it would be alright.” He shook his head.

As for tagging, anyone who wants to participate.

 

Strike Age from your vocabulary.

This is a little long, so please bear with me, there is a point, I promise.

Seriously. Amazing stuff has been done by people older than the average person for doing that thing. Marjorie Newlin. is definitely one of my heroes. 87 year old body builder. Started when she was 72. She couldn’t carry her kitty litter bags up the stairs so she went and got a personal trainer. At first they didn’t take her seriously, but she worked so hard and made such progress she was competing within 2 years.

When I was a little girl, I used to watch figure skaters and ice dancers on TV. I wanted to be those girls. It was the only dream I was told I couldn’t do. And in fact when asked what I wanted to be as a kid, I don’t even bring that one up usually. See I’m from southern TN, and when you say “ice skating” here, people go “huh?” Like they’re confused on the entire concept of blades on ice.

When I was a little girl I said I wanted to figure skate. But I was already in my teens. (Which is already considered too late to start. But come on, not every little girl wants to be in the olympics, some people just want to be on the ice and perform and compete period. Just like not everybody who wants to be a pilot wants to be a fighter pilot.) My mother said you had to start out really young and besides there were no skating rinks anywhere near us. This was rather deflating.

Then yesterday the whole world opened up. I’ve started rollerblading again. (Dug out my rollerblades, I’m completely addicted) and I was looking for places out where we’re moving to in Arizona to rollerblade. Parks, skating rinks, whatever. When I googled skating rinks in the area I found ICE SKATING rinks. A friggin ton of them.

And as I dug around I found figure skating and ice dancing lessons for adults. So I thought…this is cool. I could learn to do this for fun. But then I found out…I could learn to do this and compete. There are adult national figure skating competitions and champtionships sponsored by US Figure Skating There is an international competition for adult figure skaters run by ISU. Major competitions began being held in 1995 for adult competitors by USFS, and the ISU international competitions are only a few years old. This is a new and growing segment of the sport of figure skating and it’s kickass exciting to me.

You must be at least 21 years old to compete in USFS sanctioned events and there is no max age, I believe 81 so far is their oldest competitor. Though you can compete at certain events at nationals without first qualifying (besides tests you have to pass to be allowed to compete on that level), in other parts of the nationals, the championships, you have to have placed in the top 4 of sectionals championships. (basically regionals. And I believe there are 4 regions) They do age categories for competitions because what your average 65 year old can do isn’t exactly the same as what you’re average 25 year old can do on the ice. In ISU you must be between the ages of 28 and 71 to compete.

USFS has this new thing called ice theatre competition. VERY theatric. People can compete as singles, pairs or teams. And you have to be at least 21. It looks fabulous.

Most people who compete in adult figure skating started figure skating AS adults. For many we’re talking 30’s and 40’s just starting out. Judging standards are slightly different in USFS for adult competitions because of physical limitations of starting so late. For some reason starting when you’re 5 or 6 makes it possible to be able to do triple jumps, but so far only one adult figure skating competitor has done a triple in an adult championship competition. Though I think more will follow. Before anything really difficult is accomplished by a human being it’s called “impossible” until someone does it, then more people start to be able to do it. So much of what you can do is in your head.

And just to show you an example of what adult figure skaters can accomplish, here’s a video of Hayley Skousen at one of the smaller adult competitions called “Skate San Francisco.” I think she’s fabulous. Now Hayley is 22 now, she was 21 at the time of this video, so she’s young for an adult competitor, she’s probably been doing this at least since her early teens, maybe before. But she’s competing in the “masters” section, which means the really freaking hardcore competitors. Most adults who start late get to “gold” competition. Though if they can accomplish double jumps they can get to masters. They just have to test for it and pass.

Here is another adult skater, Jodie Maier at the 2004 Adult Nationals. She’s 51 now (and competed this year as well). I think she’s a good skater, but I don’t like her choreography and musical choices as much. Hayley has a watchability that you don’t care what technical moves she’s doing or isn’t doing. She’s just got a certain presence.

Ice dancing has fewer limitations in what is possible to learn as an adult because there are no required jumps in ice dancing. It still requires a huge amount of technical proficiency, skating ability and artistic intepretation. As well as hitting your beats. Figure Skating is much more forgiving on rhythm and beat hitting, since it’s more about technical proficiency.

So anyway this is a really long-winded way of saying, whatever your dream is…there is a way you can do it. People who want to dance, ballerina careers end at 25? So? Ever hear of vegas? Or bellydance? Or apparently ice dancing. Truly, on the ice pretty much just people with a scope lens can tell how old you are. I watched a youtube video of a fantastic figure skater in her fifties, who I swear to God I thought she was about 24 until it listed her age. There are opportunities for all ages of people to find ways to follow their dreams.

Considering that there really is no age cap on writing, I think we all need to chill on this “falling behind” “ZOMG look how old I am” thing. Especially since a vast majority of first time published authors are at least in their thirties. And no one who reads a good book cares how old the author is. In fact, if she’s 80, publishing for the first time she gets tons of news coverage. So whee for publicity.

I guess I just feel like when some girl decides she wants to figure skate at 40, and then goes on and actually DOES it, we writers need to stop our bitching.

 

Something that annoys me

I refuse to name names. And I refuse to mention what prompts this but…I’ve noticed that there are famous authors out there who continue to churn out one horrifyingly bad book after another. (And in fact if said books were their first book we can safely assume they wouldn’t make it out of the slush pile.) Their first books were great, in fact what got them on “the list.” They built a name and now it seems like they are just coasting on that name with no thought or care to what that name is being attached to and either no concept that disappointing your readers so much will screw up your book sales, or just not realizing the books are that bad.

I hate it when I love an author and then they start churning out crap. I wonder if they’ve overcommitted themselves and are now just trying to make quota. I wonder if they’ve gotten too enamoured with their “famous life” and have forgotten that the quality of the writing got them there and if the quality of the writing doesn’t return they could become as relevant as MC Hammer.

I wonder if they just don’t grasp that it’s not their best work. They’ve heard so much glowing praise and butt kissing that maybe they just don’t have the critical eye anymore. Who knows why it happens?

Maybe they’re just out of ideas. Maybe they play with the same basic plot and characters over and over because they love them so much. But really by the fourth time everyone has to read the exact same story, aren’t we being just a wee bit self-indulgent? One can play with the same basic theme, without rehashing the exact same characters over and over.

Like I said, I refuse to name names, because this isn’t about badmouthing someone. And no, you won’t be able to tell from checking my 2008 reading list because I’m not listing the book on my 50 books read thingie. I’m just saying…I’m highly disappointed in a trend I’ve noticed in more than one author that got too famous too fast.

I just feel with so many people desperately wanting to be published and working toward it, producing the best work they can possibly produce, it’s irksome when other authors publish the unpublishable based on name recognition alone. Of course that’s a train that can only be ridden so long without anything to back it up.

I think what bothers me most though is the loss of the really great earlier stories. When the first books came out it was so exciting because this was author I could happily read til the end of time. Then each book slowly got a little worse and a little worse until it felt very much like the rough drafts must be being published. I just feel cheated as a reader, and very sad to lose the quality that was there before.

Thoughts?

 

“Hotter After Midnight”

Cynthia Eden’s book: “Hotter After Midnight” is being released today by Kensington, Brava. It sounds like a fantastic paranormal romance. I really like the concept she’s created of a monster doctor. And if her hero looks anything like the guy on the cover…yum.

I can’t wait to read it. Will try to pick up a copy this weekend if at all possible.

Be sure to pick it up and support Cynthia! And if you can, mention the book on your blog.

 

short post script on the synopsis.

Spy sent me a link to Erica’s Loving your Synopsis. This is definitely something I needed to read. I like the attitude about it.

Looking at it as a sales presentation changes it to me from a “Dammit someone is CHEATING and trying to read the spoilers first” to a more fun challenge. This is the kind of attitude shift I have to have in order to write a great synopsis.

 

Learned Optimism

Am I an optimist or a pessimist? It depends on who in my life you ask. It depends on if they’re close enough to me to be in my “whiny inner circle.” I’m honestly both, but I would like to learn more optimism. Because frankly pessimism hasn’t done a damn thing for me. Now a healthy skepticism and dose of cynicism has served me well, but just the all out doom and gloom mentality of the pessimist, no.

If occurs to me that worry doesn’t solve any problems. It’s not an active solution. It’s just burning energy. And not in a productive way. So I’m seeking to change my attitude. I don’t want to be the type of person who worries about things, gets frequently depressed, or is angry all the time.

I tend to blow things up bigger than they are. I tend to let stupid things get to me. I’ve been known to stew and obsess for hours, even days over a smartass remark on a message board. (Not writing related things. Places where I can be anonymous.) Why? What’s the point? At the end of the day most people aren’t saints, but most people aren’t devils either.

Most of those nasty people we know are just miserably unhappy. I don’t have to get the last word in. They make their own day bad just by having to exist in the sludge of meanness they’ve built around them. Maybe it’s a protective measure so people won’t hurt them or take advantage. But when does a shield stop being a shield and start being a weapon that you attack both others and yourself with?

I don’t want to be like that. When people think of me I want them to think positive things. Not because I have some need for everybody to like me. Not everybody will. That’s fine. But because I don’t want to be a part of making someone else unhappy. Even indirectly with my pessimism.

There are often times when I feel like I’m “behind.” For 29 I haven’t accomplished a whole lot. And I feel like a big part of that has been a pessimistic attitude.

 

Rethinking the Synopsis

Two things are clear here:

1. I have to do the synopsis. No matter how much I hate it. Until and unless I get rich and famous and can publish my own stuff and ride on my name, which let’s be honest here, isn’t that likely, I have to do it if I want to be published. It’s just one of those horrible things writers have to do. But at least I’m not sitting in a cubicle somewhere stapling the new cover sheet to the TPS reports.

2. If I don’t get over my synopsis resentment my synopsis will look like A. I can’t write a synopsis to save my life and B. I don’t know my own plot or else don’t have one.

I’m trying to rethink and re-frame how I approach the synopsis. Sure, I want every reader, even the editor or agent to get to experience the book like the reader does. And I strongly feel that if you get spoiled first it changes the experience. And I’m honestly not sure how someone can sell a book to anyone that they were spoiled on first. I just don’t grok it.

However…an editor/agent is like your lawyer. If you have a lawyer, he/she isn’t there to “experience courtroom drama.” He/she is there to help create courtroom drama (well and get you free, but that goes without saying), which the judge, jury, and any people sitting in the “audience” get to experience.

You don’t withhold anything from your lawyer. Or you screw up your case. You can’t hold back an essential clue saying it’s a “surprise” from your lawyer, just because you want your lawyer to experience shock and surprise. I guess a part of being a lawyer is you give up the right to that sort of thing. But maybe there is an equal level of fun in being “in on the secrets.”

I still don’t love this synopsis thing. I’m still only a fraction of an inch away from hate, where I was. But if I don’t change my attitude on it, I may never get published, simply because every synopsis will make me look like such a rank amateur no one will want to work with me.

These are the hoops one has to jump through when they need someone else to finance their project. And that’s basically what the publishing industry is…someone else financing your project. Like an investor.

 

Why I hate the synopsis

I don’t dislike it. I don’t find it slightly annoying. I hate it. And it’s not the work. It’s not the fact that I’m having to do extra work that the “end reader” won’t see. If it was the extra work, I’d bitch about the dead words from all those drafts or the maps and character sketches, or research or query letters. But I don’t. I understand the purpose of all those things. But the synopsis feels somehow almost morally wrong.

Yeah, I know I’m cracked, but hear me out. The synopsis is 1 or 2, sometimes 3 pages in a long book, where you basically tell the entire story really really really short. It’s like a giant spoiler. Books are supposed to be experienced in a certain way. The writer goes to all this work and the payoff is the big reveal. The experience the reader has. Which is altered by a spoiler.

This is why readers who read the last page first drive me crazy. It’s not fair. You shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Read it in order. If it ceases being entertaining throw it across the room or burn it, or write the author a nasty letter or email to convey your severe displeasure. But don’t read the last page first. That’s just wrong.

The synopsis is like sex on the first date. I don’t do that. Shake my hand first. Jeez. I’m very grudging about what I want to share in the synopsis because I want some surprises remaining. In fact I have a surprise in one novel which doesn’t affect the flow of the book and I am so dead serious about this I would rather remain forever unpublished than give the surprise away in the synopsis.

Now I do get that often things like the synopsis are used in sales meetings, etc. I get that not every single person involved in the production of my book wants to read it. I’m not that vain. And I guess if I thought of the editor or agent as one of those people it might not be that bad. But somehow it feels like whoring myself out, and if I wanted to do that, there are lots of street corners in the world.

Though, on the flip side maybe there exist editors or agents who start reading a story first before they read the synopsis. (In a perfect world right?) If they don’t read it until after they read the novel, I don’t care. I guess in some ways it’s a matter of faith, like people reading or not reading the last page first.

Once a book is out there, anyone can read that last page first and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop them unless I want to start some vigilante team that stalks people in libraries and bookstores and boxes their ears for them when they see them reading the last page. Even then I can’t get to people who don’t start reading at all until they get a book home. Unless I had some really bitchin’ surveillance. I jest. Probably.

I guess I’m going to just have to accept, that just like there are people who read the last page first, there are agents and editors that likely read the synopsis first (probably most of them.) If I want my writing to see the light of day, there are going to have to be a few reading casualties.

If I was an agent or editor I’d say: “Give me a blurb but don’t give away the ending. I want to be surprised. There will be time for a synopsis when I decide I like it.” I just wish it was a more prevalent attitude instead of trying to sell something before you’ve had a chance to enjoy it. Slow down. Drink some wine. It’ll be there tomorrow. There’s no need to be this frantic. Really. The entire rest of the book publishing industry is so freaking slow, that I don’t understand why they have to have the entire thing encapsulated in two pages, right now.