Signings of the Times

Why I don't miss book signings

When your first few books come out, it's very exciting. Of course, the first one will never be topped. That first call from a New York editor or literary agent who tells you that the publishing house will publish your book and here's the advance they're offering . . . well, that particular numbing thrill can't be beat!

The first few autographings or book signing parties are burned into your memory. Relatives and good friends made up most of the crowd, sure, but there were also people you'd never met before. Very exciting and heady stuff.

If you're fortunate enough and energetic enough to continue selling your work, then the signings keep being set up, and after the fourth or fifth or sixth one, your relatives and friends begin making excuses for why they won't be able to attend or they simply stop coming to them without any excuse. The thrill is gone. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. Fewer and fewer well-wishers show up for your events and you start having "combined" signings with other authors to scare up a bigger crowd of readers and book buyers.

Naturally, I recall some wonderful moments during book signings. It was fun just to see my friends and fellow writers. However, just as I recall my bad book reviews more readily than I recall the glowing ones, I can vividly remember the insults and the agony of selling maybe three or four books in a three hour period. Talk about a humbling experience!

I recall people stopping by, picking up my books, reading the back cover blurbs, checking me out, and asking, "So, you wrote this?"

"I did!" I responded, proudly.

"Oh." Then setting it back down on the table and ambling away, totally unimpressed.

I can also remember having numerous people stop by the table sitting just outside the book store in a mall and asking me where the restrooms were located. That was the most action I got all day -- giving directions to people who needed "the facilities."

One lady asked a fellow author sitting beside me at one of these functions, "Is this better than your last book?"

"Better? Well, that's hard for me to say," the author responded, graciously. "I wouldn't say it was better."

"Oh." The lady dropped it back onto the table. "I'll pass then. I didn't like your last one all that much."

Gee, thanks, lady! Just what we all want to hear from our adoring public!

So, when people ask me if I'm signing my books anywhere, I'm so very glad to tell them that my new book is an e-book and there will be no autograph party. And no free bookmarks. Remember when we did that? Made up hundreds of bookmarks and sent them to anyone who asked? One time I placed an ad in Romantic Times magazine, instructing people to write me for a free bookmark. I was swamped with requests! I was thrilled. Then I realized from reading some of the accompanying letters that these people had no intention of buying or reading my book. They simply collected bookmarks! Who does that? Evidently, the readers of Romantic Times back then.

Book signings can be exciting. Especially when you're Nora Roberts, Stephen King, John Grisham, or Sylvia Day. For most of us, though, it becomes an exercise in humility. More often than not, instead of selling books, we end up listening to other people tell us about the books they want to write some day if they ever get around to it.

I've signed off on book signings for now. Doesn't mean I won't show up at someone else's. However, when I do attend a book signing, I actually purchase a book that I fully intend to read and enjoy! What's more, I will post a book review of it. It's a novel idea, I know.

 

Don't Know -- Don't Tell

POV Ping-pong

I'm reading a good romance by a bestselling author right now. It's an older one that was on sale, so I jumped on it and I'm glad. As I expected from this author, it's a great story with interesting characters and wonderful phrasing and dialogue.

It's been a while since I've read this mega famous writer's books and she does something that most writers get slammed for -- she pops in and out of character viewpoints and often leaps into "God's viewpoint" or omniscient. I find this extremely vexing, especially when I read a sentence like this:

"Neither one of them heard the front door open and close."

Okay. So, why write that? What good can come from jerking your readers out of the book and telling them something that no one in the story knows? It's just plain asinine. Yet, this famous author does it in almost every book she writes.

She also leaps from viewpoint to viewpoint -- and not just between her main characters. Nope. She hops into secondary character viewpoints, too, for a paragraph or two. Totally pointless.

For instance, the main couple will kiss and gaze longingly and tenderly at each other and Bang! We're in a secondary character's head (and sometimes it's not even a secondary character but a "walk on" character or "sword carrier" as they say in the acting profession) and we are told that this character is touched by the scene and hopes the two people make a go of it. Really? You jumped viewpoints to tell us that? Like we can't, as readers, experience this on our own? If the scene is powerful enough, then readers will be thinking or feeling this. Jumping into a character's viewpoint for two or three sentences to "tell" us something that was just experienced by us through the main characters is utterly pointless -- and jarring.

Luckily, the author is skilled enough to not confuse us too much about who is thinking and feeling, etc. as she leapfrogs from one point of view to another. Lesser skilled writers can give you whiplash with such maneuvers and make you read passages again to try to figure out what's going on.

I admit that I'm a point-of-view purist because it was hammered into me by every writing teacher I ever had and was also demonstrated to me why point-of-view should be handled skillfully and sparingly. So, it's surprising to me when I read a hugely bestselling author and find POV ping-pong games. It's especially annoying when I read that characters didn't feel, didn't know, didn't see, didn't taste, didn't hear something. That's just wrong. It's simply bad writing -- lazy writing -- pointless writing. And it doesn't matter if a multi-millionaire author writes it or a never published writer pens it. When I read it, I roll my eyes, gnash my teeth, and find myself thrust out of the fictive world. If that was the writer's intention -- mission accomplished.

 

Why Bloggers Are So Cool

Love Those Bloggers!

I confess....

I am a late-comer when it comes to blogs. Yes, I have one and have been plugging away here for a few years (believe it or not!), but I only recently dipped my toe into the pool of blog tour promotions. It's a fascinating environment and I have developed a keen appreciation for all the active bloggers who also happen to be ardent readers. Thank God for them -- one and all!

I confess....

My agent tried to horsewhip me into doing more blogging interaction when my last historical romance ("To Seduce and Defend") was published a year or so ago. I sighed and whined and rolled my eyes. I was still stuck back in the day when Harlequin and Avon did all of that promotion and publicity stuff (not that they ever did that much for me -- especially Harlequin). I just wanted to write and be left alone and I sure as shootin' didn't want to spend a bunch of money on ads and such. If my book was good -- which I felt it was -- then people would read it.

I confess....

I am an idiot and a dinosaur. My poor, old historical romance suffered because I did minimal work in getting the word out about it. It received a few good reviews, but it never took off. This made no sense to me since my previous books were selling more than my new one! Crazy. And that continues to be the case to this very day! What the heck was that all about? Well, I think it's because Amazon plugged my backlist and helped people discover it. They didn't promote my new one as much. In fact, recently, Amazon selected "Too Tough To Tame" as a daily deal and that book (an older one of mine) hit #1 on the romance bestseller list! So, given all of this, I decided I must jump on the promotion bandwagon and that's where I ran into active bloggers and blog tour guides.

I confess....

No matter how my new book sells,  I won't regret my interaction with bloggers and tour guides. It's thrilling to communicate with so many readers -- readers like me who love, love, love to discover new authors and to read new books by authors we already love. Although I'm a writer, I was first a reader and still am, so I never get tired of discussing books. My best friends get tired, however, of hearing me, so it was so nice to meet others who weren't tired of me! That's one of the great things about the Goodreads website -- lots of people talking about lots of books. I find it invigorating.

I confess....

I owe a great debt to bloggers. They set up their blogs and websites and toil away for the love of books. And they also do something that is beyond measure -- they post book reviews, not only on their blogs, but on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. BLESS THEM FOR THAT! I've done everything but sell my virtue (and I might even consider that) to get people to read and post a review of my books! I have sent out ARCs with the stipulation that they had better post a review -- even if they didn't enjoy the book all that much! And what happens? No reviews. Or maybe one out of 10 ARCs sent. But bloggers? They are champs! They read them and keep their word and review them. What's more, if they don't have time to read them or they don't like the kind of book you've written, they tell you up front and don't shine you on. Most of them won't post a review if they can't be encouraging about the book, but they let you know that's why you won't see a review from them. I love that!

I confess....

I'm hooked on bloggers and owe my literary agent a giant apology. I am no longer a happy and clueless dinosaur. I live in the land of Blogs and I am among my people once more!

Tips for Novice Writers – and Reviewers! 

     Here's something you can take to the bank.

     If you’re a writer, you write. Doesn’t matter if no one but you reads it. Stories and characters waltz about in your brain and you simply have to allow them to blossom into text. However, once we do allow our works to be seen by people other than those who personally know us, then we have to learn to accept criticism and we must understand when to take advice to heart and when to dismiss it. These are difficult lessons to master.

     Here are the top three things I’ve learned from reviewers:

1. Get as many reviews as possible from people you don’t know. Look for similar praise and beefs. If several reviewers praised your snappy dialogue, rejoice and strive to make your dialogue sparkle even more. Conversely, if several reviewers note that your pace is slow or that it was difficult to understand her heroine’s motivation, take a close look at those hiccups. Fix them before you write your next book.

2. When reviewers find typos or bad grammar and punctuation, hire a professional editor and proofreader for your next project. Be aware that editors and proofreaders aren’t the same thing. Editors discuss plotting, characterization, pacing, word choices, and sentence structure. Proofreaders catch typos, incorrect punctuation, misspellings, and continuity mistakes.

3. Be sure that the people who review your books actually like the type of book you’ve written. I’ve had yucky reviews from people who admitted that “I don’t usually read this kind of thing” or “romances aren’t my cup of tea.” I dismiss those. Same goes for the editor you choose. Ask the editor who she/he has read in your genre and what her/his favorite books are in your genre. If she/he hasn’t read any books that have been published in the past two years, then she/he probably isn’t savvy about what’s hot and what’s not in your field.

     Let me also caution you not to reply to a reviewer or editor until you’ve given yourself a day to think about it. Temper whatever you say or write, understanding that your work was published and people have a right to their opinion. With reviewers, it’s best to thank them, taking them  to task only when they get “personal” in their critiques. With editors, it’s best to discuss why and how you can improve what you’ve put on paper. Great editors can make you a great writer, so when you find one, don’t ruin the relationship by being too cantankerous and stubborn.

Getting Handsy

My New Fetish -- Men's Hands

I don't know why, but I have become fascinated lately with men's hands. I especially love large hands with long fingers. Yes, I know about the age-old analogy of what a man's hands can tell you about a more intimate part of his body, but I'm not going there here. I have gone there, but not right here and now. (By the way, I find that, for the most part, it's true!)

It all started one day when I was watching a commercial on TV and I noticed that, when the man rested his hand alongside the woman's head, his hand covered the whole side of of it! I placed my hand in the same place on my head and my hand covered from my jaw to the corner of my eye. Then I noticed how a man's hand can cover a good portion of a woman's back or her hip. One evening I placed my hand against my guy's hand and his fingers soared past the tips of mine. I'd never really noticed that before.

Not every woman needs or wants to feel smaller or fragile next to a man, but many do. It's not that we want to be "the weaker sex," for most women know this is poppycock. However, the femininity in us does call us to enjoy the feeling of protection. I truly think it's part of a woman's DNA, going all the way back to our most primitive beings. The placement of a man's hands on a woman's body can make her feel all sorts of things -- things she might not even feel comfortable feeling! Small, protected, sheltered, gentled, placated, submissive, claimed, revered, adored.

Look at the handshake. It's given to mean that the person holds no weapon and is offering peace and solidarity. Ask any businessman or businesswoman and you'll find that handshakes have never gone out of style. James Bond put a lot of stock in a man's handshake.

Where a man is allowed to place his hands on a woman speaks volumes about his relationship to the woman. If a woman lets him run his fingers through her hair, she feels an intimacy with him because women (and men) don't like you to touch their hair (other than a hairstylist or barber) unless they are quite familiar with you. Face touching is the same. As humans we are programmed to protect our faces -- most importantly our eyes. So, allowing someone to touch our faces without permission takes some trust. Just think how many people in your life you would feel comfortable about running their hands over or through your hair or caressing your face. Not very many, huh?

When a man embraces a woman's shoulders it says they are friendly. When he slips an arm around her waist, he's more than friendly. Why is this? Because his hand is coming closer to her private parts, that's why! And if he cups her backside . . .whoa! They're lovers or very nearly lovers. Or he's going to get his face slapped.

It's the language of hands. Fascinating.

Let's give a hand to hands. They do a lot for us, they say a lot about us, and they send signals out to us. And there's something about a man's  hands . . . long fingered hands . . . wide palms . . . strong and yet gentle . . . oh yeah. Gotta hand it to 'em!

 

Piping Hot and Ready to Serve

Any time I have a book coming out, I'm excited and nervous. But this time it's different. This time I'm really excited! Maybe it's because I've thought about this book for about 10 years. I have wanted to write about psychic detectives and have rolled plots around in my head, but never wrote anything down. I've been writing nonfiction, historical romances, and contemporary romances. This next novel is my first stab at romantic suspense and it is a lot sexier than anything I've written before. It could be termed a bonfire.

Through His Eyes is hopefully the first book in a series of at least three using the same two main protagonists -- Levi Wolfe and Trudy Tucker. They are both psychics, but he can channel the deceased and she can channel the living. In other words, together they work both ends of a crime -- Levi can relive crimes through the victim's eyes and Trudy sees the crimes through the perpetrator's eyes. Levi is a showy psychic, appearing on television, radio, the Internet, and magazines. He's gorgeous and talented, perfect fodder for a celebrity-crazed media. He also has a checkered past that he's trying to keep locked away. Trudy is more reclusive and just starting out as a professional psychic detective. She's extremely gifted and vulnerable to the evil she can tap into in others. In this first book they join forces to identify a serial killer in the Florida Keys.

I've just approved the book cover and it's fantastic. Now I'm lining up advertising, begging book reviewers to read it, and finding "beta readers" to read it and post early online reviews. It's scheduled for an April release.  I'll post the cover here soon.

I'm blissful and hopeful that it will do well. Some of my fans won't like it because the sex scenes are more explicit and erotic. But this is written for a whole different audience.

Having made big plans for the next book or two in the series, I'm doing what I can to get the first one off the ground and running so that I can have the next ones published.

It wasn't easy. I did three complete rewrites of it. The first draft was more than 500 pages long! I just wrote and wrote and "vomited" everything on the page. Then I let my best friend/writer read it and she was . . . well . . . tepid, bordering on asking me, "Are you insane? You really think this is a good book?" She commenced to tell me everything that was wrong with it and -- damn it all, she was right! I hate when that happens!

Rewrite #2. It was better, but still needed work. My agent and her assistant told me to "sex it up." They informed me that if I really wanted to go "adult erotic" then Levi and Trudy were going to have to crank up their libidos. 

Rewrite #3. I took a deep breath and removed all my "don't go there" signs and went for it. The sex sizzled on the pages.  The suspense elements heated up. Everything came together. Finally. My best friend approved -- even though she doesn't like hot sex scenes -- and my agent said she could present this one to publishers. Amazon has accepted it, so it will be an Amazon Exclusive ebook. If it does well, they will consider a series. (I just broke out in a cold sweat thinking about how this book will be received!)

But I'm not going to stress about that right now. Now I want to relax in the bliss of having finished a book that I'm very proud of and experience the bliss of that accomplishment. Ten years of this book simmering in me and now it's fully cooked and ready to serve!

The Writer's Crucible

Finding a Good Reason

Years ago I was reading a How To book on writing and I came across an excellent lesson on character motivation and believable plotting. It had to do with the plot's crucible. In a nutshell, a plot crucible is the reason why characters must continue toiling away, staying together, and not fleeing or simply saying, "Screw this, I'm outta here."

It was a revelation for me and has helped me plot every single book since then. Sometimes I read a novel and I think, Why doesn't she ask him if that woman is his girlfriend? Or I will wonder, Why are they staying together if they're both so miserable right now? There has to be a good, sound reason for people to remain shackled to a situation or premise or idea. If not, they just look stupid.

In real life we all have a fight or flight response. Flight is easiest. Things become too messy, too dramatic, too stressful, and we take a powder. Easy. Fight is much more difficult and usually we resort to fighting when we feel we can't run away. Something is holding us in place. Running away would cost us too dearly.

For example, in the first question above, why the heroine doesn't ask a simple question of the hero to clear up a huge misunderstanding. This is a weak plot device and most readers will roll their eyes and think the heroine is as dumb as a stump or -- worse! -- a doormat. If she goes around upset because she believes another woman owns the hero's heart, but can't bring herself to ask him about it outright, can we really admire her and want to be like her?

The crucible here is nonexistent. There is no good reason why she is hanging around. Now, if the other woman told her that the hero is betrothed to her and that her family is depending on the marriage (and the hero's money) to save them from being thrown out in the street as paupers and that the woman's father is gravely ill, this might give the heroine pause to think that she should step back and not become the reason a family is tossed out of their home and responsible for an old man's death. But then you have to find a good reason why she wouldn't discuss this with the hero. I mean, wouldn't it be logical for her to ask him about it? So, then you have to decide how he's going to answer and how this will either strengthen or weaken the crucible. See? Sometimes you have to just abandon a plot or plot line and start all over.

But that, my friends, is plotting.

So, when I plot, the first order of business is the crucible -- the trap from which the protagonists can't escape because escape would be far worse than sticking it out. It has to be a solid trap -- not some flimsy thing that wouldn't hold a butterfly prisoner. Sometimes, it's a fight over a place (land, house, business) and sometimes it's a fight for a person (a child, a parent, a first love), and sometimes it's a fight for a thing (inheritance, honor, revenge). Whatever the focus, it must be clear and sharp and the reader must buy into it totally. If they pause to wonder why the protagonist doesn't just throw in the towel and be done with it, you've lost your battle and your war.

When you have a crucible that is a fortress from which your characters dare not leave, you have a formidable plot and iron-clad character motivation.