Wherein Quinn Applauds the Succinctness of Twitter

Go visit my friend Quinn's blog, where she applauds my Twittering skills. (The original Tweet had precisely 140 characters, but she kindly left out identifying details.)

Yes, sometimes during a hurried, flurried week, Twitter is the perfect way to catch with distant friends.

Emergency Bra: It's a Gas Mask, Too

I do admire the aplomb with which she carries this off.

And Then This ...

...  from very talented thriller writer Michael Robotham, whose books I inhale:

From the opening page, LEARNING TO SWIM is a terrific debut. This moving and insightful psychological thriller features the inspiring Troy Chance – an everywoman hero who women will admire and men will want to meet. I can’t wait for her next adventure. - Michael Robotham, author of SHATTER and BLEED FOR ME

First Came This ...

A lovely new blurb came in this weekend from YA author Steph Bowe, whose debut novel gave me chills as I read it. She says

If THE USUAL SUSPECTS and a Jodi Picoult novel had a love child, it would be LEARNING TO SWIM - a thought-provoking, evocative, and thrilling read. - Steph Bowe, author of GIRL SAVES BOY

This Week of All Weeks, I Needed This

"Emotional, intense, and engrossing, LEARNING TO SWIM is a terrific debut. The talented Sara J. Henry introduces a thoroughly modern heroine with an independent spirit and a tender heart. Readers will be cheering for Troy Chance as she deftly navigates the treacherous waters of betrayal and loss, and they'll be looking forward to seeing her again when the book is closed." - Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of FRAGILE

Thank you, Lisa. (And I love your books, too.)

Just Because It Makes Me Feel Good

This groom and father of the bride planned a different sort of wedding toast, with secret rehearsals - I love this. (Clearly, he's a professional performer - clearly, the rest are not!)




The groom wrote about the video: My surprise for my wife Vanessa on our wedding day. All of Vanessa's close friends and family rehearsed for a month in secret, leading up to the reception. What we lack in polish, we hopefully make up for in joy and love. In any event, everyone in this video has one thing in common: We'd do anything to show Vanessa how much we love her.

He's Lin-Manuel Miranda, a composer, lyricist, and actor, who wrote and starred in In the Heights on Broadway in 2008, which won a Tony for best musical.

Missing a Friend

I lost a friend this week.

He died suddenly, abruptly, incomprehensibly, on Monday evening. At age 38.

He was the one person I could send a list of incredibly geeky Word tech tips to and know he would be delighted - and he was, especially about a key sequence that would immediately capitalize or non-capitalize words (Shift-F3). He could send me random questions like Can you ever put quotation marks inside closing punctuation? and How do you turn off Track Changes? I could tease him unmercifully. I could put a note in a manuscript that barbecue DOES NOT HAVE A Q IN IT and he would respond with a dictionary citation referencing that spelling, but then spell it the way I wanted it.

He was at first loath to let me work on the books he was publishing - reissues of books he loved that had gone out of print - but he did, first entrusting Daniel Woodrell's TOMATO RED to me and then books by Don Winslow and others. He not only didn't get annoyed by my detailed work and disdain of bad line breaks, but seemed to revel in it. And had the astounding type of brain that could and did take in everything I told him - every keyboard shortcut, every layout detail, every book design nuance, every Word trick - soak it in, absorb it, use it, expand on it, in a way I've seen very few people do.

He'd email me how do you write something like four and a half hours? Like that? or four-and-a-half hours? and If something is pocketing a hundred and fifty grand - Is it hyphenated? 

And he knew I couldn't resist answering, sometimes at length, with citations.

David also sold books, hand sold them from what I hear, from the bookstore he managed in Houston, where he had worked for 21 years, and where he met his wife-to-be. Before he even got his hands on an advanced copy of my book, he told a rep from my own publisher that she had to read it, and he'd already requested that I sign at his store.

He loved books; he loved reading them, selling them, publishing them. But he knew things were changing. People, he said, would come into the store, select a book, consult a smartphone app that would tell them where to buy it the cheapest - and leave. “And working bookstore retail for 21 years, I’ve *never* been worried before...now I am,” he emailed me. “I’m just honestly starting to fear for both my jobs.” But then, a few weeks ago, he was delighted about the merging of his small press with another independent publisher.

We worked together a lot recently - he was pushing to get a batch of books out soon. Last week he got the idea to boost early registration for a 2011 book convention he was helping plan by essentially raffling off the chance to have a character named after you in a new book by a mutual friend. I'd asked, tongue in cheek (because I would never want a character named after me) if I were eligible, and if I could have the character named after my dogs. 

David: As long as your dogs aren't like Toots O'Booby or something. 
Me: Actually, Reed might LIKE it if they were named Toots O'Booby.
David: Exactly!

He went on to suggest Jon O'Burrito and Rabbi Farrel O'Bruen, and the other event organizer eventually chimed in on the email exchange and told us we were both ineligible, for reasons of silliness. Later David emailed me about the contest announcement: Sorry, Sara, but have you had a chance to revisit my marathon run-on sentence.  ;-) And I did, and he posted it.

That was Friday. David died Monday.

So no more funny emails or esoteric editing questions. No one to send teasing email responses or tech tips to, or nag about spelling or spacing choices. No more Twitter exchanges. I'm trying not to cry as I'm reviewing the last manuscripts I worked on for him.

And failing.

I'm missing a man I only spoke to two or three times on the phone - and would have met in person for the first time next month.

And I'm only one of many who is missing David Thompson, and who knows that the world shines less brightly without him in it.

Lovely remembrances from David Handler and Alafair Burke - and there are many more out there. Alafair has set up a memorial fund for donations: "In Memory of David Thompson," 7 E 14th St #1206, NY NY 10003-3121 or email Alafair, or donate through PayPal. Or buy as many Busted Flush Press books as you can, from your bookstore, or order from Murder by the Books, the store David managed and which his wife, McKenna Jordan, owns.

What I Am Grateful For

My friends. I'm just realizing how amazing they are, no matter how far away from me they live. They are there for me, each in their own way, and I'm just learning how much that means.

My family. In their very odd way, they stay in touch with me, by reading my blog, and occasionally reading my friends' books and emailing them about errors in their books. Not by calling or emailing me, mind you. This is called Asperger's. Somehow I escaped this condition. Mostly. As much as you can when your family members are eccentric or geniuses or have Asperger's, or are eccentric geniuses with Asperger's.

My dogs. I miss Wendy with an ache I can't express, and will always regret I could not save her, but the others are there for me in their own wonderfully quirky ways. And they get me out of the house every day, to walk them or go to the river. Or to lay in the hammock outside under the trees to breath and think while they wander about and play.

My agent. The more I hear about other people's agents, the more I realize how amazingly lucky I am. My agent laughs at my jokes, he answers my phone calls, he likes my writing, he sells my books. He's charming and witty and very, very good at what he does. And he likes my ginger snaps.

My books. Somehow I was born with the ability to write. Somehow I was born with the doggedness to force myself to learn to rewrite, and to shape a mass of words into a book with a plot and flow and rhythm. Somehow I wrote a novel that - as off-the-beaten-path and as quirky as its main character seem to me - people seem to really like. And now I'm writing another one, and it is starting to dawn on me that I am writing for a living. Which seems a small miracle. Or maybe not so small.

I wish some things were different. I wish I could eat bread and sugar without getting sick. I wish I weren't infertile. I wish I innately understood things like how to dress and shop and decorate or, well, wear makeup and fix hair, all those skills that seemed to have escaped me, that maybe there isn't room for in my problem-solving, observant, analytical brain. I wish I had a mother who could love freely and express that love. I wish I had a family of my own, one I had watched grow up and could help into adulthood. I wish I didn't have a muscle pain/fatigue problem that flares up whenever I get stressed/work too hard/worry too much/eat something wrong/forget to exercise. I wish my father were alive and that I could show him the early copy of this first novel that is dedicated to him. I wish I hadn't shed so many tears over things I wished were different but couldn't change.

But I am so, so grateful for what I do have.

"Deal With It and Don't Want Shit You Can't Afford"

If you've ever downloaded a "free" book from the internet or if you think your child may have, read on. If you're an author, link to this post from my (currently rather annoyed) friend A.S. King. An excerpt:

Anyone reading this who has ever downloaded a book for free, and is now making all those lame excuses I always hear:

• "I can't get a copy in my local bookstore!" (Order it. Get it from a library. Buy the ebook version.)
• "I'm too poor!" (Try being that poor and raising two kids - welcome to my life. Deal with it and don't want shit you can't afford. Duh.) 
• Or my favorite, "I'm just like a library!" (Uh - no you're not. You're a spoiled, entitled, immature, selfish person. Last time I checked, most librarians required an MLS and a modicum of integrity.)

A Special Note to Parents: ...You should have taken them to the manager of the grocery store like my father did to me. And if you're too late for that, and this is your first realization that those free books and movies and songs they download are no different than them stuffing DVD cases down their pants in the local Target, then why not use this as an opportunity to teach them? There may be no physical manager to make them apologize to, but you can always erase the illegal files off their drives (in my house, I'd take the computer, wipe it clean and donate it) and make them apologize to every author they stole from. We all have accessible email addresses. Hell, if you want, just have them send the apologies to me and I'll make sure they get to the authors who need to see them.

And parents: if you're shrugging thinking, "it's no big deal." then look at this.  And look at this.  Or this. And if you're really that happy to be that dumb about this stuff, then here's a basic education about how if your under-18 kid has illegal files on his/her computer, it could be YOUR ASS and YOUR WALLET that pays.

Have some freaking respect people. For my kids. For my hard work. And for yourself.

Amen.