I Write Like...

I saw this neat little internet tool on The Rap Sheet, and I was working on an article for the NoirCon program at the time. I've finally finished it, and subjected the first paragraph for analysis. According to the interwebs...

I write like
Arthur Conan Doyle

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Then I took the text from the first chapter of the last novel I worked on and got this:

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Heady company, to be sure. I wonder if they want me to buy something from them?

Want to see who you write like? Try it here: http://iwl.me/

Of Plot, Character and Cinnamon Rolls

One of my favorite blogs is "Type M for Murder," a group blog of mystery writers, mostly Candian, but all insightful. Recently, they have been ruminating over the age-old question of plot vs. character, what takes precedence, and have even added setting into the equation. But, with all due respect to all involved, I would like to politely disagree with these fine writers and answer the question in my own way. So...

Q: What is more important in a novel, Character or Plot?

A: Whatever is more interesting in that particular story.

Let's take a step back. This question doesn't even identify who is supposed to answer it. Are we talking to writers, now, or readers? I think Vicky Delany explained it best in her post on Setting. Vicky explains that when she is seeking out a book, setting plays a large part in whether she buys it or not. In the same way, this interest is reflected in her writing. But not everyone thinks this way. I know that setting plays a very small part in what I choose to read, but a much larger part in what I choose to write.

And other readers may have completely different priorities. A cop might like to specifically pick out police procedurals because he likes to check the authenticity of the writer's information. Another cop might seek out romance novels, because he deals with cop stuff every day and doesn't want to deal with it on his downtime as well. A third cop might pick up books because he has enjoyed the author's previous work.

The analogy I came up with in my head is this: What is most important in Cinnamon Rolls: the smell, the taste, or the texture? Surely one of these things draws you to eating a cinnamon roll, likely a combination of two or all of the factors. For instance, the smell might remind you of the soft, flaky texture of a roll. Or a hankerin' might come over you and the smell would seal the deal. And this limited scenario doesn't even take into account the ingredients, the literary equivalent of which might be vocabulary, or use of language, or a long, languid style.

My point is this: one of those factors might attract you to a project, but the project can't exist without the rest. Interesting characters with nothing to do is just as boring as constant action performed by cyphers. A cinnamon roll might taste good, but the experience won't be good if it smells burnt and the dough is stale. All of these factors have to come together in a particular way to be appealing to the eater, er, reader. And not all readers have the same tolerance level. Some may not want a cinnamon roll at all. Some may want a really big cookie. Or pretzel sticks.

I gotta stop hanging out at the mall.

So, in my opinion, there is no single important element in writing or reading a book. I may even pick different projects for different reasons. I love Lawrence Block's writing style. I'm attracted to Sean Chercover's Ray Dudgeon and Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs. I love Stephen King's twisty, unpredictable plots. The first book I wrote came from the setting, with the characters and plot shoe-horned in. Which is probably why I don't like it, now. But the book I (have been) writing now is more character-based, with the setting enhancing the character and the plot coming along. And I'm also thinking about doing something similar with the first novel.

Someday, I hope to put all the ingredients together for a tasty treat. But it's likely the recipe will never be the same.

Bad News

In a bit of actual news from me, I recently got a letter from Malice Domestic saying I did not recieve one of the William F. Deeck Grants this year. Although it's news, it's not an actual surprise. I re-read my rewrite and realized that it all had to go.

That's right. All of it.

I'm rewriting the book. That's right. All of it. I realized that I was trying to make The Book too many things, trying to shoehorn a lot of things into the narrative that just didn't fit, or made it awkward. The result is something that had some good writing, but an inconsistent tone and sketchy detection.

The new version is much lighter in tone and more focused on the characters than the plot. So far, it's going well. I won't know for a while how well, but it makes me feel good, and there's something in that.

The upshot of not getting the grant means that I will be attending only one conference this year, and that's the big one. Bouchercon in Baltimore. And let me tell you, I am really looking forward to it. I'll see friends I haven't seen since the Madison B-Con and I will be much more comfortable and hopefully do some great networking.

Until then, it's up to me to work away and get something good written for people to read.

On Children and Self-Discovery

On p. 56 of ON WRITING, Stephen King says:

"We had two kids by the time we'd been married three years."

Wow. Yikes. I've had two kids for about three months now, and I can't imagine having done this in our first three years of marriage, let alone at the age that King and his wife did it. It just wasn't right for us. If there's something that we've done together that I'm most proud about, it might actually be the family planning that we've done, and are now done with. We had over seven years together, five of them married, to enjoy each other before the kids came along, and we've had them nearly four years apart. So far, it seems to be working out pretty well for the family, if not for our upkeep of the house and my writing. They sure do take up a lot of time, them kids.

This is one of the things that I love about King's ON WRITING. Fully one-third of the book is taken up by a curriculum vitae, a "making-of-a-writer" sort of memoir. It serves to help us better understand the author, which lays a groundwork for us to understand why he writes what he does, how he does it, and why. I don't want to go into too much detail about it. I really do want you to pick up the book. I think you'll like it.

This "CV" portion of the book, I think, is what makes King's book on writing unique. It recognizes that each person's makeup and process are unique. It successfully lays out the individual techniques and background of one person and allows you to make the choice if this is right for you. I'm not going to say he doesn't preach, because there's certainly some of that in there. But it's much more palatable coming from someone you just spent 90 pages getting to know.

I'm very much into self-knowledge. And I think that's part of what my writing is about, finding out things about myself through the content of the work, but also finding out things about myself through the process. It's not a revelation. The information comes in a bit at a time. But I'm still working at it.

The Movies

On p. 33 of ON WRITING, Stephen King says:

"What I cared about most between 1958 and 1966 was movies."

While I can't relate to the timeframe, it can't be overstated how much of an impact film has had upon who I have become. Heck, I work at a film archive after having gone to a school that specialized in film preservation. But it's more than that.

One of my earliest clear and persistent memories is that of going to see STAR WARS. It was at a drive-in, in Greece, NY if memory serves me right, and it was the front half of a double-feature with ORCA: THE KILLER WHALE. This would have put it in July or August of 1977. We weren't allowed to stay and watch the second film because I was 6 and the film started out with them cutting open a whale. I couldn't go to sleep after STAR WARS had blown my mind, so we went home instead.

As kids do, I latched onto this piece of entertainment (it wasn't hard to do, with the merchandising being everywhere) and it started to infect my everyday life. My dad had a company car that had a bench seat in the front (God, remember those?) that I could lean over to see the dashboard. I pointed to a button with a tiny light on it, excited to find out this new car had a rear deflector, only to be disappointed to be told it was a rear defroster.

But this was typical of how I functioned. I would relate things happening in real life to what I saw in the movies, and later on TV. And even though I held a love for STAR WARS through April of 2002, I moved on to what I learned that I truly enjoyed, the more mystery- and adventure-based entertainment, such as STAR TREK, THE WILD WILD WEST, MAGNUM PI.

I first started to see these things with a critical eye in 1984, when I saw IRRECONILABLE DIFFERENCES, with Drew Barrymore. I loved ET, and she was good in it, and this film looked like a fun comedy for the whole family. Well, it wasn't. It was about a little girl suing her parents for a divorce because she feels like she's been neglected. Hi-frickin-larious. I never watched a trailer or TV spot for a film with complete trust from that point on.

It only grew from there. I got into more serious cinema, and more serious critique. I started following awards and Top 10 lists. I gobbled up AMC and my PBS station looking for older films.

When I started writing, it was usually for or about film. Two from the early 80s come to mind, when I was writing the sequel to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, called RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK II, where Indy and Marian discover not the Ark of the Covenant, but Noah's Ark. Then there was a one-act play that took place on Dagobah after the events of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. This we performed with myself, my sister, and two kids that were visiting from our old neighborhood, neither of whom could remember their lines. I remember actually getting into a fist fight with the older boy.

When I got to college, I doubled in Journalism and Film History, looking toward film criticism, but it wasn't until I discovered The L. Jeffrey Seznick School of Film Presrvation and the George Eastman House that I knew I had found my niche.

Even now, when I'm writing, I take a lot of inspiration from film. My current project is heavily indebted to film, and I can see projects in the future that touch on it as well.

I don't get to go to the theater as much as I used to. The home theater is nice, but certainly not the same. The little ones prevent me from going out too much, but I've started to take the older one to the movies. He looks forward to it now. And so do I.

Knowing What We Do

In his Second Forward, on p. xvii, Stephen King writes:

"Fiction writers, present comapny included, don't understand very much about what they do -- not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad."

This is a statement that contains more truth than fact. There is definitely a sense that, since most writing is done in a vacuum, the author isn't going to know what does and doesn't work until the book is read, at least by himself, if not his first readers.

But writers know what works, at least the good ones do. They know what word to choose to achieve an effect. They know how to structure a book, or pace a scene. They know how to bring their ideas to life through words.

And they know what doesn't work. That's what rewriting is for. An author can read his own work, before it even gets to a reader, and identify things that are working and things that aren't. He can't find all of them, but he can find some.

But in that moment of creation, it's true, you don't know. You sit there in front of the screen and try. You bring yourself, your vocabulary, your sensibilities to the page, but in that moment of creation, you don't know whether it will work or not. It takes time, distance, a lot of patience. I guess the goal is to create more that works than doesn't.

New Beginnings

Yikes! Has it really been almost a month since I've been here?

Wait, why am I surprised? Based on my past history, it's really not that unusual.

Well, I hope I can be excused. Just this one time. I've been home taking care of my newest little one. Amazingly, it involves virtually no physical activity, but requires almost all of my concentration. It's an excuse, to be sure, but it has, unfortunately, been used to excuse myself from several things, including blogging. And writing.

But I'm working my way back into it now that I've found a rhythm, and often sleep when the baby sleeps. (When I go back to work in two weeks, it will all fall apart again.) And quite a while ago, I had an idea of a long-lasting approach to my blog.

I had been listening to my Book-on-CD version of ON WRITING by Stephen King (yes, again). And I found myself talking back to it, saying things akin to "Man, I could never do that" or "I see what you mean" or "I don't know..." and I realized that, for the first time, I was listening to it as a writer, and not a fan. It was a thrilling realization that I was having my own little professional conversation. And then the idea hit me. I may never get to meet Stephen King (who I greatly admire), and if I do I don't think I'll be allowed to go over the book point-by-point, bringing up certain issues and asking clarifying questions. But what I can do is bring them up on my blog, try to work through them myself, and see if anyone has anything they'd like to bring to the conversation.

So, I'll be starting that tomorrow. I'm going to go write the first post right now. I'm using the MMPB version, if you want to follow along. In the meantime, this is what I'll be seeing for the rest of the day:

Supporting Local Authors

I did some internet shopping recently.

In order to complete my Aaron Sorkin collection I ordered the movie MALICE from Amazon a week and a half ago. At the same time, I ordered PB (read: Pat) Ryan's last book in her Gilded Age historical mystery series. It's a really good series, you should check it out.





I also went to eharlequin.com and ordered up the new edition of LL (read: Lorraine) Bartlett's MURDER ON THE MIND. This is a really good book in a series that is just starting. DEAD IN RED, book #2, comes out later this year. The book itself is only $6, plus shipping, but I got some sort of deal (maybe as a first-time customer?) that netted me $4 free, which brought the entire order under $4! This may be a limited time offer or something, so you should jump on it now. The new cover looks great and I'm glad I have both editions. Now I'll have to get this one signed, too.

Not so local, but someone I've come to admire, is Lawrence Block. He is running a special on his site to get both the print and audio versions of TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT for only $20. I jumped on that.

I also hit the Gates Public Library Used Book Sale by accident. Bad idea. Lots of Ian Fleming and Lawrence Block, Stephen King and even THE SECOND SALADIN by Stephen Hunter. This haul will probably last me for years. But if I can make it to Bouchercon before I buy more, I'll be happy.

Ed Hoch

I've never met Ed Hoch. I haven't even read that much of his work. But I've been aware of him.

In this business of publishing, that's saying something. I knew he lived in Rochester, and wrote of Rochester, or at least his version of it. And I knew that he was widely respected.

I guess I always assumed that I would meet him one day, however briefly. I would feel like I had nothing to say to him, a giant, but would have some connection in this small community of Rochester writers, and the even smaller community of Rochester crime writers.

Ed Hoch died on Thursday, so I won't get to meet him. But so many people that did meet him have had so many nice things to say about him. Check out these links provided at Confessions and The Rap Sheet.

This man had a career in writing. I could do worse than to try to follow in the trail that he blazed.

Hello Faithful Readers

And to all those just passing through.

Sorry to have been away so long, but my wife just gave birth to our second (and final) child. It's another boy. The wife is feeling a little outnumbered. Not to mention overwhelmed. I took a couple of weeks off of work and my turn for primary care comes up when the Wife goes back to work next month. I'll take 4 out of 5 weeks off then stay with the little bugger till he's ready to go to Baby School.

In the meantime, I haven't gotten much done on the writing front. I think I fantasized that with all those days off I'd have time to do something. But that wasn't the case. Not only did we have a new baby, but we did it around the holidays, my mom came up to visit for 4 days and we had another kid trying to reclaim his place in the familial structure.

Anywho, I'm getting back on track. It helps to have inspirational books to read. I got both Elmore Leonard's and Walter Mosley's writing books for Christmas, and I'm listening to ON WRITING again. It's good stuff. Another way to motivate yourself is to read the second book from a writer you met last year. You exchanged first books and now she's done with her second. Get on your horse, Gus.

It's these inspirational missives that may give me direction here on the blog. There are things that they say that I don't agree with, and things that I'd like to explore further, for myself, if nobody else. I hope you'll see what I mean when I find my hard copy of ON WRITING and start going through it again.

Till then, have fun. And remember that pitchers and catchers report on Feb. 15!

More Influences

I was having a conversation with my wife the other day about music and I asked her what her favorite albums were. "Give me a Top Five," I said. She rattled them off pretty quickly. They were all current Country artists: Trisha Yearwood, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks. Then she proceeded to tell me what my favorite albums were: Purple Rain, something from Pearl Jam and something from Lyle Lovett.

It didn't take much thinking on my part to realize she was right. The first two albums that came to mind were Purple Rain by Prince, and Ten by Pearl Jam. A little more thinking told me that I'd probably put the two-disc Step Inside This House by Lyle Lovett in there as well. She knows me so well. But I did surprise her when I decided on a fourth: the multi-artist A Very Special Christmas. I still haven't decided on a fifth, though. It may be something from Huey Lewis, or another from Lyle Lovett. Or maybe it's something from my past that no one else has heard of or remembers.

But what hit me was not how much my wife knew me, it was how well she knew herself. She was firmly encamped in a certain genre and was able to enumerate her favorite artists and their best albums easily. Whereas I have chosen albums of glam rock, grunge, Christmas music and East Texas balladry. There's not a through-line to be found. I don't know what that means, yet. Maybe I'll figure it out when I pick a fifth. I'll let you know.

In the meantime, what are your 5 favorite albums?

Odd Influences

For me, things that influence my writing and how I write can come from anywhere. Obviously, this book that I'm completing is heavily influenced by my 30 or so years as a cinephile. But that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Recently, I read something or heard something (see, I don't even know where it's from anymore), that when writing, as much as you can, have the narrative carried by dialogue. I had never considered this before. I like dialogue, and feel as if I do it well, but when I thought about effective dialogue, it was always in reference to film or scriptwriting, where you don't have as much time to work with. Following closely on the heels of this advice, I was listening to a book on CD by Lawrence Block, HIT PARADE. A great book, by the way, I recommend it. But what I discovered was that Block was using this device to masterful effect. Even sequences where our main character, Keller, said nothing, the entire thing was carried out in dialogue as Keller relayed the information to his "agent." It really clarified the entire concept for me.

Also, I was watching the extras on my BOURNE SUPREMACY DVD, where screenwriter Tony Gilroy (now also the director of MICHAEL CLAYTON) was being interviewed. He was talking about adapting the lengthy books for the screen and happened to mention that when he was writing dialogue, he would always remember to try to keep the characters in conflict with each other, even if it was just a shift in point of view. This would help to keep the dialogue dynamic.

Going back to this rewrite, I kept these bits of information in mind. The result, I hope, moves a bit quicker and makes the interactions more lively. It is morphing into something that I think is a bit more sophisticated than it was, and I hope that makes it better.

I'll let you know.

Welcome the the Post-Baseball Blog

Well, World Series Survivor did not end up particularly successful for me. The Red Sox and Rockies, both of whom had already been eliminated, were the actual WS representatives. My last hope, the Cleveland Indians, choked their way out of a place in history. It's been almost 60 years since they've won a World Series, and the closest they've been since then is 1995, the post-strike year, when the Braves beat them soundly for their only WS in their amazing 14-year run.

That won't stop me from doing it next year, though. But I don't think it will be on this blog. I've had difficulty deciding what I want this blog to be, and I've tried several things. Ultimately, it should be about my writing, but there hasn't been much to write about there recently. I don't want the blog to be a daily update ("Hey, I wrote 125 words in my re-write last night!"), but it should be about my writing in some way.

Give me a week or so to figure it out.

Overdrive and Casino Royale

I just want to drop a note about a new way to listen to books.

The Monroe County Library System has recently added a service where you can download audiobooks, some to CD, have them for a 3-week period and have them returned for you automatically. I've downloaded probably a dozen of them since I found out. One of the titles I burned to CD was CASINO ROYALE by Ian Fleming. I'm not sure if this is the first James Bond adventure, but it seems fairly early in the series. The basic plot is remarkably close to the film that was released last year.

What I was surprised to discover was exactly how good an Fleming was as a writer. His ability to create suspense around something as simple as a card game is admirable and something I'm going to have to study. And the Bond character in this short novel is much more complex and philosophical than you ever see him on-screen. What a wonderful experience that might have gone undiscovered had it not been for audiobooks.

This may be another author for whom I'll have to get the books and actually read.

Bosch/Haller and the Meaning of Understanding

I understand.

But do I? Do I really comprehend every facet, innuendo and implication of what you are saying? It's not likely. Yes, we speak the same language. We construct sentences in much the same way and use commands and interrogatives in generally the same way. But, ultimately, the words that we use do not mean the same things to every person that uses them.

Consider this: In 1977 or 1978, my Dad had a company car. It was a big white sedan that he liked to call "The Shark." At one point in time, I was leaning over the front bench seat and looking at the controls on the console. I saw the button that said "Rear Def.", pointed at it and asked my Dad if he was going to turn on the Rear Deflector. Countless screenings of Star Wars and Star Trek re-runs had already rotted my brain. After several attempts to get herself under control, my mother revealed to me that the "Def." actually stood for defroster, which Dad would use to melt the ice on the back window if he needed to. I was chagrined, but happy I learned something new.

The point is, when I talk about defrosters now, whether they be in cars, or freezers, or on the space shuttle, I remember that incident. Tied into it are feelings about big American cars, my parents, the wonder of youth and my decades-long relationship with Star Trek, Star Wars, and Sci-Fi in general, which really gets into warm fuzzies about my Dad.

All of this is contained in that one word for me. That is what I bring to it. So, even though you and I are using the same word, and getting the message across, the sentence has more meaning for me than it does for you. Or maybe just a different meaning. Maybe you have your own defroster story that you think of every time you hear the word. But whatever it is, you're bringing a different set of experiences to the word than I am. The true meaning is lost in translation between psyches.

So, do we really understand each other? Can we possibly? No, not fully. But we can enough to get along, to agree or disagree, to connect or admit that we simply don't see things that way.

And art is the same way. We all have our own levels of education, especially about the medium we're working with. We all have our own unique experiences to draw upon. All the images, sounds, words that we see have their own set of connotations and relationships exclusive to us embedded in them. It's what we bring to the table. Like any form of communication, art is imperfect in its ability to relay truth. But it is also more effective at relaying the sense of truth, the underlying message trying to be expressed, than any straight-forward exclamation can do.

This is what connects with people, the sense of truth, the idea that a common truth is at the root of our uncommon understandings. We like to attempt to look through other's eyes and be comforted that what we see is essentially the same as what we see.

All this to say, I listened to the audiobook of LINCOLN LAWYER sometime late last year or earlier this year. I didn't see what the big deal was. But what I didn't know was that Mickey Haller, the protagonist of LL, was Harry Bosch's half-brother. I guess it was explained off-handedly in the book somewhere, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time because, worse still, I didn't know who Harry Bosch was.

Then, later on, I decided to give Connelly another chance. I listened to THE NARROWS. This, I loved. I thought the mix of third-person and first-person was used effectively, unlike certain other authors I had seen use it. I liked the mixture of real-life and fiction, with the book and movie of BLOOD WORK mentioned. I liked that he brought together the threads of three different narratives that had already been explored in his previous books, at the same time opening Harry Bosch's world and acknowledging that they were all taking place in the same continuity.

I was hooked.

As I do with my new discoveries on CD, I went back to the beginning. I read BLACK ECHO and liked it. I moved on to BLACK ICE, and now I discover that Haller's back story was seeded all the way back here. Haller and Bosch share a father, but their experiences with him couldn't have been more different. Again, they have a common thread, but they don't understand in the same way.

But I think I understand something a little more now. Connelly's fans had followed Bosch for 11 books prior to LINCOLN LAWYER and had a familiarity and fellowship with him by then. There is a thing about family, especially fictional families, whom we seem to be able to accept with flaws much easier than our own. And people were not only ready for a Mickey Haller book, they were welcoming it and eager to embrace it.

With this in mind, and a future reading of the book (in book form, this time) on the horizon. I find myself anticipating it, as well. I look forward to the comparisons between Haller and Bosch. I wonder what Bosch might have been if he had known his father. And what he ended up being despite it.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to Work I Go

I may have told you before that I had joined an on-line critique group through Guppies. Well, it's dividends have come to fruition, and boy am I happy!

The three other members of my group have read my manuscript and have all had good suggestions. Several of them say the same thing (your language isn't strong enough; don't use passive voice); and several of them disagree (I love the film references; There were too many film references at the beginning - it made me sick). But they all brought their own unique view to my novel and have forced me to see it through their eyes, if only just a little.

To all of them, I thank you, and I offer you a little Friday Afternoon Huey:


I've got a short story rattling around in my brain that I have to get out on paper, but then I'm going to take a serious look at the novel and create a significantly-altered Next Draft. I think this will be the last one. As has been made clear to me, this particular sub-genre is not where I feel most natural. If I can make it work, that's great, but if not, I would be better-served starting on something else.

Wish me luck!

I Wanna Be John Waite

I was off running some errands over lunchtime on Wednesday of this week, and I happened to drop into the Borders in Henrietta. I saw a sign advertising an appearance hanging in the front window. Then, as I got closer, I realized that the date and time matched with what my watch was saying: 8/15, 1pm. I read the name, shook it off, then got closer and read it again. Nope, I read it right the first time. John Waite was playing inside the Borders right now.

Who's John Waite? you might ask. People that are younger than me might not remember, and those older might not know. Heck, even those of the same age might be hard-pressed to put a name to the song until they heard it, but I bet a ton of you remember this:



"Missing You" was a big hit back in 1984, and got played in fairly heavy rotation seemingly every summer after that. I liked it at the time and it definitely hits the right nostalgia chord every time I hear it on the radio. And, being a child of the media as well as a child of the 80s, I knew who sang the song when it did come on.

Then, in the late 80s, he joined the "Super"Group Bad English and hit the big time again with this power ballad:



So, what was this man, who had been at the top of his profession at least twice in the past, doing playing an acoustic set at my local Borders?

The answer: What everybody else does. Work. Apparently, he's got a new album out that he's been touring in support of. He played a few cuts from the album and was signing afterwards. He was out there, promoting his product and meeting the people who like what he does and put their increasingly-hard-earned money down to purchase it.

I've been to enough writers' conferences and book signings to see how it works, and I recognized what John Waite was doing and appreciated it. He could easily retire or fade into the bliss of nostalgia, but he loves his music, and is willing to work to promote it. His professional life is not in the past, but in the present, or the future. He continues to create and work toward making sure he can continue to create.

Should there come a time when I am able to get paid for being creative and have people read what I write and like it enough to spend money on it, I'd like to think I would be willing to work to cultivate that situation and make it work.

If I become a writer, I want to be like John Waite.

On Writing

No, this is not about Stephen King's book. Although, I find it to be an excellent read and a good investment if you want to read it over and over...

No, this is about my writing. Or, more specifically, the lack of it. I haven't been writing a lot lately. Yes, I know that I should be, and I also know that not all other writers write all the time. Some go in spurts, as my last novel seemed to. But I'm caught in the middle here. I FEEL like I should be writing. I feel like I should be getting practice in, taking my hacks, to put it in baseball parlance.

But on the other hand, I want to learn. I want to know what I did wrong. I want to know what I screwed up last time, so I don't make the same mistakes again in another book, another short story, whatever. This is where feedback comes in. I had a friend read the ms, and another that read the first 50 pages. I have still another whose feedback is supposed to appear in my mailbox any day now. They all had good things to say, and good suggestions for change. But I need it all together, to make it coherent, to get a larger picture of what an aggregate group thinks, and what I agree with and what I don't.

Into this story walk the Guppies. One of the Guppies is in charge of coordinating critique groups and setting people up to have them read each other's work and commenting on it. I have already met some great people and have already gotten one ms feedback. I have read one manuscript myself and sample chapters of another, and have added my (hopefully useful) comments. I feel like I am nearly ready to tackle the ms again. I have 3 good sets of comments, at least one on the way, and a few more people in my critique group to access. I believe there will have to be some wholesale changes. There is a question of believability of motivation, which undercuts the tension. How will I deal with this? I don't know yet. I am a victim of the passive voice. I need to change a lot there (but not all).

So, into August and September I go, pushing on toward the end of the baseball season, and hopefully on to another (and better) version of my book. I will keep you posted, because I really want to get it done. I know what the next book is. It's very different, and I'm very excited to explore it in more detail.

I'm Done! (Again!)

I have finished my re-write of the novel, adding about 2000 words to it. It now stands at about 72,500 words. A short novel, to be sure, but tight, I hope. I was looking for places to add to, believe me.

I have asked a few people to read it and tell me what they think. I am also now officially a member of a Sisters-in-Crime subgroup called The Guppies (the Great UnPublished). I am hoping that I will gain a wealth of information from this group, maybe even getting my manuscript read and reading a few myself. I really hope to get some help on...

Query Letters! That's right, it is now time to switch gears from narrative fiction to selling myself. I am going to have to research both agents and editors to find out who I think would be most likely to want to represent or publish this novel. There will be a quite a few letters leaving my place for NYC in the following weeks. And it's going to be a long process, so stay tuned.

Closing the Month Notes

Whoa, sorry about that, guys. I sorta took a little vacation there. But it's still been my best month as far as blogging is concerned. I'll try to at least match the posts next month, although there's a lot going on, especially at the end of the month. Here's some updates:

- I went to a Cataloguing Symposium in NYC a few weeks ago for work. It hink it was good. We'll try to implement some of it this Summer.

- Then I came home and took my family to Cooperstown. We were there for the Hall of Fame Game (Blue Jays v. Orioles) and the festivities around it. My son was afraid of the subdued lighting, but I had a good time.

- A full one-third of all of Major League Baseball has been eliminted, by me, from winning the World Series. (Including the fact that my beloved Jays will not show up on this list). Here is the updated list and their elimination numbers (the number of combined losses by the team and wins by the Wild Card leader in each league).

#1 - Tampa Bay (104)

#2 - Kansas City (98)

#3 - Washington (99)

#4 - Seattle (109)

#5 - Colorado (103)

#6 - Texas (99)

#7 - Cincinnati (98)

#8 - Pittsburgh (102)

#9 - Houston (100)

I expect the first actual elimination around August 15. I can't wait to see who it will be!

Obviously, the biggest mistake was Seattle, which is now only 3.5 games out of the Wild Card, but it's going to get much tougher now, as the parity in baseball continues and anyone that goes on a run can put themselves in contention.

- I am now reading THE BLACK ECHO by Michael Connelly. A little more procedural than I normally read, and I was expecting it to be first-person, based on THE POET, but it's good so far. And the tunnel rat stuff is just really claustrophobic.

- The Guppies have not written back to me about membership.

So, that's what's going on with me. I am putting the final touches on my novel and I want some people to read it. I want to start the next one. Vacation at the end of the month. Stay Tuned!