If You Have a Teen, Are a Teen, or Ever Were a Teen, Read This

I'm trying to figure out the best way to advise going over to read this post from A.S. King, but I can't. I mean, I can't even steal excerpt a bit as I usually do. Maybe this hits me harder because I know Amy, and while she's hinted at this event, I've never heard the particulars. OK, I can post a bit from the very end:

You know something is waiting for you. During those awful times in your life, you will feel it. You feel like you have a purpose. Do not lose that feeling.

Now go read it.

Time to Give Away an Advance Copy of LEARNING TO SWIM: A Novel

I have one  advance copy of my debut novel, LEARNING TO SWIM, up for grabs. If you're unsure if you'd like it, here's the first chapter.

But let's make this contest a treasure hunt. Go visit the websites/blogs of three of my writer friends, and answer the following questions:

1. What critter does the subhead on Quinn Cumming's blog refer to? (Hint: I think you're gonna have to google this one.)
2. What are the titles of A.S. King's two books? Which one features pirates and which was recently nominated for an Edgar award?
3. Name four writers who have done blurbs for Reed Coleman's books. (Hint: a blurb is a short, laudatory quote.) Bonus point if you can tell me what NPR's Maureen Corrigan called him. 

Email me the answers, and I'll choose a winner from among the right answers. U.S. only, please (sorry, it's a bit pricey to ship overseas).

PS While I'm on this promotional stuff, I could use more people "liking" my author self on Facebook - this impresses my publisher. Plus, this blog links there. So just go click. If you want to.

Acknowledging that Elephant in the Room

I just read a Sarah Weinman post called "Direct Is The Only Way" that sang to me - I abhor confrontation (remember that Myers-Briggs analyzer) and in the past have cringed suffered agonized in silence. In part, she says:

Empathy is a bitch. Respect is a word I almost never hear used anymore. Anger is a big ball of fire that can be scary. But here’s the thing: if you aren’t direct, you lose out on so much: honest conversation, being true to who you are, being understanding of why others think and act they way they do.

I did figure out some time ago avoiding issues doesn't work well. (Figuring it out and acting on it are two different things, however.)

Yesterday evening I found a Huffington Post article, "What Agents Are Reading," and was delighted to find my novel on the list* (and my pal Amy's PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ!). So I posted it on my Facebook page, with the note "Since I'm on the list ..."

And a friend from high school immediately commented

Self-promoting much?

OK, I was a bit stunned. Three-word comments don't allow a lot of room for nuance, but it's hard not to take this as criticism. I thought about answering back under the comment, but made the quick decision to hit the delete key, and emailed the friend:

Hey, George**, I am assuming you were joking, but the fact is while I've moved most of my promotion to my Facebook author page, I have more followers on my regular page ... and in publishing these days, if you don't promote yourself (especially if you're new), you're dead, and I simply cannot afford not to self promote. While it's not my nature to do so, the ones who don't are often the ones who don't end up getting a new book contract ... I learned a lot about book promotion from my friend Amy King (who just got a bunch of award nominations this week) - if her books don't sell, her kids don't eat.*** It's a great impetus.

(You can debate this until the cows come home, but let's just say that when my novel comes out, if it doesn't sell decently, it's not going to be for want of me trying. A very talented writer with a great agent told me that she thought when her first novel came out she could just sit back and it would sell itself - she learned she was wrong.)

It's a balancing act not to deluge friends with news with a self-promotional edge, but I've found that most of my friends share my delight (and writer friends are especially great about this).

The old me would left the comment in place, or would have deleted it and never contacted the commenter. But Sarah is right. Direct is the only way. Maybe not the easiest way - and maybe I have a lot to learn about the most graceful way to handle these things - but it's the best way.

*And yes, the agent whose list I am on is a personal friend, but I wouldn't be there if the agent didn't love the book, and I had no idea I'd be mentioned until I saw the article - so there.
**Not his real name, so no, it wasn't George Holz the photographer who I went to high school with.
***This is a small exaggeration I am calling"literary license" - because of course Mr. and Mrs. King's children will never go hungry - but Amy refers to pirates who steal e-books as taking food from her kids' mouths, so I went with it.
Note: I also promote for other people - I linked to Amy's book, Sarah's blog, Karen's article, and even George Holz's site. Despite the fact that at our 20-year high school reunion he had no memory of me. Apparently I was mostly invisible in high school.

How You Could Help Out a (Very Cute) Dog

My writer friend Christa's dog Butch got very sick recently - it turned out he had a bad infection behind his eyes that was starting to creep into his brain. Yes, they seem to have gotten to it in time, but little Butch's tab ran a tad high. (Note that often "writer" means "staying ahead of the bills but just barely.") So some of us suggested a "Donate to Butchie" PayPal button so we could easily chip in a little to help out. Here's the entire post with details.

Help pay NoirDog's tab!

I Like This Sort of Warning Label ...

From Bookshelf Detective's Kim Tomsic:

WARNING:  "Learning to Swim" is one of those "difficult to put down" type of novels and should come with a warning label smacked across the cover that reads:  This book causes distracted behavior and could make you (1) miss your subway stop; (2) skip out on fun activities in Vegas; (3) volunteer to be bumped on an airplane; (4) hide from your family.

Another Reason to Love Twitter

Yes, Twitter can be a time suck - okay, not as much as Facebook or Backspace, when they start slinging mud over there (yow, it can get ugly when authors and aspiring authors let loose) - but it allows lovely little exchanges like these, which I noticed because I was having a conversation with Roger Ellory myself at the time:

I know Roger well enough that to know that he is now thoroughly confused and trying to figure out what I meant and remember who the hell I am and why I am in his conversation with Ryan David Jahn.

This is why I love Twitter. It makes me laugh. It lets me tease Roger Ellory. It lets me meet people like Ryan David Jahn, with a lovely sense of humor, whose books look like I would like to read them. And it's a tiny but welcome break from novel writing.

PS Of course then it's even funnier when Mulholland Books says :

And Roger adds this:

Look, My Book's For Sale on eBay! But Wait ... It's Cheaper to Get it from a Bookstore!

You can now find my debut novel Learning to Swim, in hardback, on eBay. For $24.99, pre-order. Plus another $3.99 shipping. Or, in another listing, for $24 plus $4 shipping.

Never mind that you can call and pre-order it from your local bookstore for $24 and pick it up when it arrives: instant gratification, no shipping, no extra charge for the friendly smile. Never mind that if you want to buy online you could preorder it on Amazon for $16.20, with free shipping with Amazon Prime or if you buy another book with it (let me recommend Please Ignore Vera Dietz, or Innocent Monster, or Winter's Bone). Or for the same price at Barnes & Noble.

Instead you can pre-order it on eBay for more money.

I don't get it.

Soft Fabrics, Bright Colors, Sweet Smells? Don't Think So

Thanks to Adam Purple at Writer, Not, I felt compelled to run my blog through Typealyzer, which suggests your personality type on the Myers-Briggs scale.

It tells me I'm an ESPF, a performer:

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions. 

Um, not quite. The only thing ringing true here is "always in risk of exhausting themselves" (Sara = reforming perfectionist, list maker and super-planner who takes on far too much) and "tend to avoid conflicts" (oh, yes, I still favor the run and hide technique from childhood). And, oh, okay, "enjoy work that makes them help others in a concrete way." Damn it.

But poor Typealyzer was misled in part because the entries it analyzed included excerpts of blog posts by my pal VodkaMom (I'm thinking she is the soft fabric, bright colors, and sweet smells person), writer Monica Bustamante Wagner (maybe she's the beauty and pleasure person), and opening lines of a batch of novels on Goodreads. So I'll try again when the top 10 entries on my blog are all by me.

And of course will be compelled to tell you the results.

Maple Imposters, Beware of Vermont

On Thursday, Gov. Peter Shumlin said the only maple ingredient in McDonald’s Fruit and Maple Oatmeal was extracted from the bark of a bush that is a distant relative of the maple tree. - from "McDonalds, Vermont Settle Maple Complaint," by Lisa Rathke in the Brattleboro Reformer, Feb. 21, 2011

Oh, how I love Vermont. I'm reprinting more of the article below, because it'll disappear from the newspaper's website in a week or so.

So starting Feb. 1, customers at Vermont McDonald’s stores can request 100 percent maple syrup or sugar to be added to the restaurant chain’s new Fruit and Maple Oatmeal to settle complaints that the company improperly labeled the product as maple flavored in the state. 

As the country’s largest maple syrup producer, making 890,000 gallons in 2010, the state is quick to protect the integrity of its maple products, calling out others labeled as maple that aren’t. 

On Thursday, Gov. Peter Shumlin said the only maple ingredient in McDonald’s Fruit and Maple Oatmeal was extracted from the bark of a bush that is a distant relative of the maple tree.

The product does not comply with Vermont’s maple laws, officials said.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company acknowledges that the oatmeal does not contain a maple product as specifically defined by Vermont’s maple laws, according to the agreement. 

It’s not the first time Vermont has lashed out at maple impostors.

Have I Mentioned I Hate Exercise?

I like sports - I like doing things. I love tennis and bicycling and and running and racquetball and tossing a basketball through a hoop. I like motion. I like the air on my face and the thwack a racquet makes when it hits a ball and the blam a basketball makes against the backboard.

I do not like exercise. Lifting weights, exercise machines, anything done in one spot for a set amount of minutes or repetitions. I hate it. (And yeah, I loathed PE, which is a lovely exercise in humiliation and boredom, not particularly needed when school and life in general hands you plenty of that as it is.)

But when one gets out of shape - I mean seriously out of shape, which I would like to blame on my broken foot of two years ago or maybe the pressures of writing a book and other complications of life, but comes down to not taking time to take care of myself - one cannot simply leap on one's bicycle for a 20-mile ride or engage someone in a racquetball match. This I know. Some years back, I could. Now I can't, and I know it. (Okay, I can, but it means several days of near-collapse and much pain afterward, so I've wised up enough to know not to do it.)

So, I have started the morning 8-minute Jorge Cruise exercise routine Amy King swears by. Yes, I hate it, even after just one morning. But if it gets me back to where I can start running and biking and all those things I truly love, well, then, so be it. 

But oh, I'm gonna grumble about it.

Oh, These Are So NOT the Interview Questions to Ask Me

1. Tell me a little bit about LEARNING TO SWIM.
It's a book. I wrote it. It's fiction.

2. Was there any particular thing that inspired the plot?
Yes.

3. Tell me a little bit about the main character in your book.
She's a woman.

4. What's your background?
I'm a reformed soil scientist.

5. What's your writing schedule/habits like? (What's a "typical" day in Sara Henry's life?)
Write like mad, except when I'm too busy or exhausted or have convinced myself I am the worst writer in the universe.

6. What kind of promotion do you have planned?
I'm supposed to plan a promotion?

7. What's next?
Book 2. 

8. It looks like this is your first novel? If so, how have you found the experience so far?
Yep.  Uhhh ... how long do you have?

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ Up for an Edgar Award!!!

I simply have to rant here that my friend Amy (A.S. King) has just been nominated for an Edgar Award for her (fabulous, wonderful, amazing) book PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ!!!

And she did a phenomenal post over on her blog today about how sometimes your path to your dream isn't quite what or when you wanted: "Now I can see that sometimes, it's not the right time to do a thing. And sometimes, it is."

Order Now to Get THE LINEUP 4

If you love language and you love poetry, here's a treat for you: THE LINEUP 5: POEMS ON CRIME.

Reed Farrel Coleman, one of the editors and contributors, says:

Although the marriage of poetry and crime may seem an odd one at first, they are actually natural partners. Poetry is often best when it is about life’s extremes. Cops, surgeons, and soldiers will tell you they never feel more alive than when faced with life and death situations. The poets included in this issue of THE LINEUP present their own unique takes on life in the balance and on things going wrong, very very wrong.

The Lineup is edited by Gerald So with Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez, and R. Narvaez. It includes poems by Ken Bruen, Michael Casey, Reed Farrel Coleman, David Corbett, Mary Agnes Dalrymple, Mary Christine Delea, Jeanne Dickey, H. Palmer Hall, Paul Hostovsky, David Jordan, Laura LeHew, Thomas Michael McDade, Peter Meinke, Keith Rawson, Chad Rohrbacher, Stephen Jay Schwartz, Nancy Scott, Kieran Shea, J.D. Smith, J.J. Steinfeld, John Stickney, Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson, Randall Watson, Charles Harper Webb, Steve Weddle, Germaine Welch

Now through February 15, 2011, you can pre-order the book directly from Gerald So for $8 per copy, including shipping (to arrive mid-March).

Will be on sale April 1, 2011 at Lulu.com for $7 + $3.99 shipping + sales tax in New York and North Carolina.

The Most Succinct Writing Tips I've Seen

Just stumbled across these writing tips on the site of newly agented YA writer Monica Bustamante Wagner, which are are possibly the best and most succinct tips I've seen:

• The wastebasket is the writer’s best friend.*
  
• There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
  
• Sleep with your characters even if your spouse gets jealous.
  
• Your work starts once you write "The End" in the last page. 
  
• Join a critique group, or maybe even two groups.
  
• Have people you don't know read your work once you're done with the revisions - a good place to find a beta reader is this.**

Hey, English isn't even Monica's first language. Looking forward to seeing her novel when it sells.  

*Me, I save everything in a file called Cut Material, and once in a while pull scenes back out to use elsewhere.
**There are some good critiquers at Backspace (plus some who have no idea what they're going on about, so choose wisely).

So You'll Know How Very Funny My Friend VodkaMom Is

VodkaMom is a kindergarten teacher, who adores her little charges - here's one of her recent posts on some of their escapades (names have been changed - including hers):

"Where did Hong-Bo go??" asked Frank.

"Oh you know, E.S.L." said George.

"No," shouted Suzy, "It's P.S.L!"

"It's E.S.L!" George said again.

"It is not. It's P.S.L.!" said Suzy, with authority.

George looked at her like a forty-year-old exhausted with the conversation. "It's ESL. It's English as a Second Language. If it was PSL it would be Penglish as a second language. And that is just silly."

A Lot Can Hinge on Where Your Book Description is ...

... truncated.

Goodreads lists books for giveaways, but the main page shows only the first bit of your carefully composed book description (and you must click to see the rest). Like this:

RINGING TRUE is a novel of our times about a group of Seattle twenty-somethings who take it upon themselves to do something about the sorry state of

... of politics? the homeless problem? the jazz scene? gun control?

You don’t need a special talent to learn to play the harmonica. You don’t need an exceptional sense of melody, or rhythm, or fabulous wind power. You 

... need a harmonica and a mouth? 

A sharp, occasionally shocking, memoir that will change how you look at young, single mothers, THE GIRL WHO COULDN'T SAY NO is also an amusing look at

... um ...  if it's not juggling diapers and school, I can't think what.

Mar is born into an age in which magic is a mathematical science, in which technology is simply another word for magic. To escape a world wide

... something very bad, I imagine.

Would you allow the military to reanimate your corpse, knowing it would commit atrocities, if it meant avoiding

... the end of the world, maybe?

With a tattered Raggedy Ann doll as her only companion, Stefani has spent her entire life

... pretty damned lonely, I expect.

Lady Hero Batten, the beautiful sister of the Duke of Wakefield, has everything a woman could want, including the

... oh, I am so not going there.

Mine (thank you, dear agent), at least gives you the set-up:

When she witnesses a small child tumbling from a ferry into Lake Champlain, Troy Chance dives in without thinking. Harrowing moments later, she bobs

... up, dear reader, she bobs up with the little boy. And herewith I give you the entire first chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

To Heck with the MacBook Air, I Want the Dinner with David Pogue

There's a contest over at Nova - which I am NOT linking to, as I don't want you to win it, and the grand prize is a MacBook Air and either a video chat or dinner with David Pogue. You don't know who David Pogue is!?!? He's the tech writer at the New York Times, and I am his number one groupie. And proud to admit it.

Who am I kidding? Of course I want the MacBook Air as well, but my hopes aren't high - someone else got all three of the first answers already and I've only gotten two, after enlightened lucky guessing. More clues are posted daily and I am a superb Googler, so I'm sure I'll be able to get them eventually - but the winner is the person who gets all ten questions right first, and someone else better at puzzles than I am will be able to solve it faster.

But a girl can dream.

Update: Have solved all 5 questions posted so far; we'll see what happens with the next ones! 
Final update: I, alas, flubbed it. Got the 9th answer in mere moments, and failed with the 10th - actually came up with the right answer within my first dozen guesses, but either typed it in wrong or didn't hit the enter button, and didn't try re-entering it for hours later. Guess I just wanted it too badly and didn't stay calm under pressure. Alas.

OK, I'll Admit It - I'm a Sap

This did choke me up a bit. This is 8-year-old Elizabeth Hughes singing the national anthem at an AHL Norfolk Admirals game last Friday- watch what happens when her mike cuts out.

What a Vermont Front Porch Looks Like Right About Now

Here's a view of the snow on the railing of my front porch (can and soda bottle added for size - no, they aren't stored there).

How to Spot a Scam Response

Sometimes I rent out my house when I'm away for the weekends (never fear, I tuck away the mixing bowls my sister gave me when I was in college, my signed favorite books, my toolbox and some other things). Sometimes I get dubious responses:

Hi
My name is Sandra Brown, I saw your add on Craigslist and was wondering if the last two weekends in January are  still available?  I won't know which weekend for sure until Monday or Tuesday. We are having all our floors sanded and we have to get out of the house for a few days so its a good excuse to have a getaway. Let me know which weekends are available. Thank you 

Okay, at a glance it might seem reasonable. Here's what sets off my radar:

• Specifically stating the name in the text of the email
• The name given bears no resemblance to the email address used
• The reason for wanting to rent is given in too much detail
• Misspelled words "add" and "its"
• No email signature
• The tone is off (us writer types are sensitive to that)

Of course I could be wrong, but I've learned not to reply to the dubious ones - they're looking to harvest email addresses (the one they send to is an anonymous one provided by Craigslist).

So sorry, "Sandra Brown." 

PS And many of these points may apply to query letter automatic rejections as well.

One of the Reasons Amy King Rocks: She Points at the Elephant in the Room

Amy (A.S.) King has just won a Printz honor for her novel PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ (a book I have raved about so much I've likely bored you), and on her blog she says:

A huge thank you to everyone who has ever supported me and to my good friends who understand that I am, like Vera Dietz, the kind of person who points to the elephant in the room and says, "Hey! look at that big honkin' elephant!"

Note: You likely won't find this book at your local Barnes & Noble or Border's - the chain stores declined (in their infinite wisdom) to carry it. Call first - they can order it - or try an indie store - they've supported this book from the first.

More Things Not to do in Query Letters

From SlushPile Hell:

Not that I would compare myself to Hemingway, but if you read my novel, you’ll see that it’s as brilliantly simple as The Old Man and the Sea, as poetic as The Sun Also Rises, and as epic as For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Well, at least you didn’t compare yourself to Hemingway.

Wherein My Friend Teresa Encounters a Vacuum Cleaner

My friend Teresa - over at The Dog Lived (and so will I) - managed to reach the age of mumble mumble without ever having used a vacuum cleaner - she says:

I am so proud to tell you I tried them all, attaching them one by one to the suction tube thingamagig that seemed to be a really important aspect of the whole vacuuming experience. And by god, they worked!! I vacuumed, brushed, angled, and suctioned for over an hour--in just the bed area! Seamus howled and barked and threatened the vacuum the entire time which he does not do to Shawn ... so I'm left to believe it was the sight of me vacuuming that frightened the dog. Clearly I was under attack. No matter! I was successful. I was so inspired I got out this can of stuff that apparently you spray on wood and wipe up to get a clean, shiny look. That worked too! And smelled really really good. Like my house smells on Thursdays that I always thought was Shawn's cologne.

Now go read the whole thing. I had trouble deciding which part to steal excerpt because I was laughing so hard.

Note: Teresa and Seamus now have a literary agent, so I'm guessing we will soon be looking for their memoir on surviving cancer (yes, Teresa's dog got cancer and then she did, too). 

Remember you can enter here for a chance to win one of 50 advance copies of my novel

Dear Teenage Boy Who Rear-Ended Me:

The traffic suddenly slowed; I stopped, you didn't. Not until you thunked into my rear bumper.

You pulled over. You apologized. You and your friend inspected my bumper and told me it didn't look damaged, although the front grille of your truck was crumpled. Fine, I say, but we have to exchange information.

You have no pen or paper. I give you some. You tell me it is your truck. You write your name, and after some coaching, your address and driver's license number, and after some prodding, your insurance information. I call my insurance company, who asks for your father's phone number, as the insurance is in his name. I give you the phone; you answer a few questions before beginning to balk.

Fine, I say pleasantly, we'll just call the police. Suddenly you become cooperative.

Now you ask me if you should call your insurance company. That depends, I said. You ask me if you should call your father. Are you under 18? Yes, well, then you should. You can't reach him, and eventually call your mother.

It was my fault, I guess, you tell her, and explain how it happened. You're going to think I'm a terrible driver (the right front of your truck is mangled from a previous accident). But it couldn't have been avoided.

Ah, kid, here's where you're wrong. Any driver's manual tells you to maintain a safe stopping distance. That means either two seconds, or approximately one car length for every 10 miles an hour you're traveling. If on a dry road you couldn't move your foot to the brake pedal in time to avoid smacking my back bumper hard enough that diet Coke went flying out of a half-empty can sitting in the console, you were following too close. (And note that I didn't hit the car in front of me when it suddenly stopped.)

Here are the things you maybe should have known before you got in a truck to drive to lunch with your friend:

• Yes, when you hit someone's car, you kind of have to exchange insurance information with the other driver. 
• Yes, it's  a good idea to whip out your cell phone camera and take photos of both cars (this I tell you to do). 
• Yes, when you're in in a car accident, no matter how minor, and you are not a legal adult and Daddy is insuring the car you drive, you had darned well better call Mom or Dad. Because no matter if a claim is filed, it's better to fess up on the spot than to have them get out of you later just how that grille on your truck got mangled.

And I really hope that at some point, maybe at night after you were lying in bed remembering the sound of your truck smacking the rear of my car, that maybe, just maybe, you admitted to yourself that, yes, it could have been avoided, and yes, you need to drive a little more carefully.

If you did, you just took a big step toward growing up.

My Novel's up for Grabs at Goodreads!

Just learned that the giveaway for fifty advance copies of my novel Learning to Swim has started at  Goodreads. All you have to do is go click the Enter to Win button, and you're in the running. (What are you waiting for? Go!)

As abhorrent as it seems to suggest that people "like" me, to keep up with my news and events, you can "like" my Facebook page.

Seeking Hosts for My Book Blog Tour

Suddenly my publication date for my novel LEARNING TO SWIM is just around the corner, and I'm setting up my book blog tour. For several weeks before the Feb. 22 publication date and several weeks after, I'll be "visiting" blogs - I can do a Q&A or guest post, or you can review the book and/or offer a signed advance copy in a contest. Some of you are already on the list or should know that you are (that means you, Teresa!) - but if you'd like to be included just shoot me off an email or leave info in the Comments here, and we'll get you added to the schedule. Q&A are likely the easiest for me, as soon in advance as possible, and of course I'd love it if you ran a contest for an ARC (I can mail it to the winner).

Just let me know! Thanks.

Climbing That Mountain Toward the End of Your Novel

Over at the Mulholland Books blog, Michael Robotham discusses "The Questions Authors Fear Most."

The idea isn’t the hard bit. It’s a very small component of the whole. Creating memorable characters that live and breathe in a reader’s imagination—that’s much harder. Simply sitting down at a desk, day after day, putting one word after another, one sentence after the next…climbing a mountain when you’re clinging to the rockface and you don’t know how far you’ve come and how far it is to the summit, that’s the bit that’s hard.

This was in response to people think that writing the novel is the easy part - that coming up with the idea is the clever part.

I met Michael at Bouchercon 2006 in Madison, met with him a few times in Sydney, and have often touted his books on this blog. And because, well, I'm proud of this blurb, and because if I don't manage to sell books, I won't have a career, here's what Michael said about my novel:

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.

 Now go find one of Michael's books. A few aren't yet available in the States, but they will be soon.

My Friends Do Have Real Names. Really.

A bunch of my closest friends, I met on the internet. (I know that sounds slightly kinky or vaguely pathetic, but I'm a writer who works at home and spends much of her time in a very small town.) Sometimes these friends have online names or use code names for their nearest and dearest, as I do for my friend Pinecone, so nicknamed because of her hair style. But knowing people from their online names can become somewhat problematic.

VodkaMom, I will likely always think of as nothing but Vodka, although she's now a good friend. I do know her real name and even where she actually lives, and have here met in person - but still I cannot think of her as anything but VodkaMom.

Stella, fortunately, I learned early on was also A.S. (yeah, I was confused) but she signs her emails "Amy," so I always thought of her as Amy. Which, fortunately, is her real name.

Quinn uses her real name on her blog - but calls her significant other Consort (which some people think is his real name - which is even funnier when you realize she also calls their daughter Daughter, which presumably readers realize isn't her real name). So when I got an emailed holiday greeting card from Sam and Quinn (okay, his name isn't Sam, but play along) for a moment I couldn't think who it could be (I'd only ever heard her call him "Samuel," never "Sam," and I do, er, think of him as Consort).

And Spuds, well, sorry. I am incapable of thinking of a person as "Spuds." 

Authoress will always be Authoress, even if I do learn her real name (she has acquired an agent who also refers to her as Authoress, although presumably not in person). And various people at an online writing group I belong to use names such as Catcher and Comma Boy, which are far easier to remember than their real names.

Maybe we all want to have a secret identity - I'll admit I sort of wish I had one.

PS And of course there's LittleFluffyCat on Twitter.

This is Somewhat Rude But I Cannot Resist

Because it is clever, and because I love the concept of using a Venn diagram to describe the market for a book by the woman named Snooki from a reality television show called Jersey Shore.

By way of a Tweet from my friend Jamie, referring to a blog called Writer, Not.

(For the non-nerds among us, in a Venn diagram the intersection of the circles shows how the two groups overlap or connect. The key word here is intersect.)

I'm a "February Hot Title"!

Over at Lesa's Book Critiques, my upcoming novel LEARNING TO SWIM is listed as a hot February release (thanks, Lesa!) - slight spoiler alert:

In Sara J. Henry's Learning to Swim, Troy Chance jumped in to save a boy she  saw thrown into Lake Champlain from the rear of a ferry.  Then she learned he had been kidnapped, and was part of a bizarre, bloody plot.

I know this is the official description that is showing up in library catalogs, but the thing is - I can't remember any blood flowing in my book. People who have read it, did I miss something? Or is "bloody" used in its, well, British sense, as an "intensive"? That bloody plot! 

The one thing authors do not control is how our books are described - I'm not gonna tell you how the book's described over at the book club sites - other than to say that the phrase "all the madness" is used. As in, Is Character X responsible for all the madness?

Don't read the descriptions, please. Just read the book. And let me know if you think it's bloody.

PS. Aha! I did just remember a small amount of blood - not enough, I think, to call my book "bloody," however.

The King's Speech - and the Absurdities of Our Movie-Rating System

Somehow I ended up in a theater full of very senior citizens when I saw The King's Speech, and I imagine it was the first R-rated film most of them had seen in a good long while.

This is as clean and non-violent a film as I think I've ever seen, but in one lovely and funny improv scene Colin Firth as king-to-be George IV (Bertie) sputters out a string of expletives as part of his stutter-conquering therapy. One of the words begins with the letter f, and apparently in American film, more than one f-word, and bang, you have an R rating. Context be damned.

The Brits, unlike the Americans, came to their senses. From The Berkeley Times:

[This scene] would have become a classic even had the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) not intervened to slap the film with a restrictive “15” rating. The problem arose from an acting exercise Logue employs to loosen the king’s tongue. He entreats Bertie to let loose with a string of angry curses. Firth, as mild-mannered Bertie, begins with a couple of timid “bullocks! Bullocks!” but soon erupts into a set-piece of acting that will hold a special place in the annals of cinema.

At a full-court press conference, director [Tom] Hopper and his cast excoriated the BBFC for granting more permissive ratings to such violence-filled films as “Salt” and Daniel Craig’s 007-epic, “Casino Royale.” The King’s outburst was nothing compared to the language hurled at the average British football stadium, Bonham Carter told the BBFC: “I mean, go to Tottenham, you know.” The BBFC finally relented and reclassified the film 12A with the adviso: “Contains strong language in a speech-therapy context.”

Maybe it's time to take a hard look at our absurd movie-rating system.

Because It Seems a Good Way to Start a New Year - Quoting Neil Gaiman

Nothing like starting the New Year out by quoting Neil Gaiman. From his blog:

And also, please wish me luck with this short story I'm writing. I'm up to page 19 and nothing's happened yet. Right now, they're eating porridge. In my head, by this point in the story everyone was going to be terrified, and strange oogly things would be happening to all the villagers. Porridge!

I call this the "going to Home Depot" moment. In my first novel, things seemed to be moving along quite suspensefully, and suddenly the characters decided to go to Home Depot. (And Canadian Tire, for cultural fairness.) It happens sometimes in the new novel, as well - not literally, of course.

But sometimes people just need to go to Home Depot. Or eat porridge.

PS. And because I have just stumbled across the astoundingly hilarious Top Ten Things Never to Send Your Favorite Writer, from Neil's assistant Lorraine, I'm including that link as well (while in fact I'd love to just quote the whole damned thing). And one of my goals in life will now be to someday have a stupendous assistant named Lorraine who can write things like this, and who sorts through odd things that arrive in the mail.