The dead of night is a perfect time to sneak aboard a pirate ship. And when one is as experienced as I am, it is second nature. I’ve heard a great deal about this ship of women writers. As the writer who has penned my tale lurks and eavesdrops on my life, I do the same to her.

So, I know the first thing I must do is make certain the ninja pirate in the crowsnest raises no alarm, or plants one of those pointy stars in me!

*pulls the pin on a gas grenade and tosses it easily into the crowsnest

There, that ought to do it. Nothing terribly drastic, but it will keep her and her companion stay abed long enough for me to handle the rest. Now, the captain’s cabin… How nice, she’s already tide up the chatty Captain Sparrow!

“Shhhh! I mean no harm here, Captain Hellion…”

*handily sees Captain Hellion lightly bound and carries her out to the deck. One by one the other pirates are rounded up and carefully bundled, brought out to the deck and set before Chance’s makeshift bar. The sun is rising before the task is done.

Blury-eyed, they focus on me as I pull out a small crate and perch upon it. Leaning forward, I speak softly. “I’d like to keep this chat quiet now, see if we can leave my author’s alter ego, 2^nd Chance, out of this for a few hours. I promise, no violence.” I reache out and gently loosen the gags, so that they fall away.

“Where is Sin, what have you done with her?” Hellion demands.

I smile crookedly. “Now, I’ve done nothing but sin, according to many! But you mean your quartermaster. She’s simply napping under a light cloud of sleeping gas. She won’t be harmed by it, I assure you. I am a gentleman.”

Dead Reckoning eyes me closely. “I know you!”

“Yes, I imagine you all know me. Or know of me. I am Captain Alan Silvestri, the star of The Kraken’s Mirror and though your 2^nd Chance may take credit for creating me, all she’s truly done is bring me out of the twilight of ‘might-have-been.’ I’m very thankful  and in truth, am here in an attempt to do her a favor.”

“That’s why she’s snoring behind the bar instead of sitting on the cold deck, hands tied?” Bo’sun Terrio glares quite fetchingly.

“Yes, and I’m well aware of her internal clock being set to west coast time. I assume we’ll have a few hours to discuss her problem before she wakes and set you all free.” I take a deep breath. “Let me explain. For several weeks now, she has been moving forward with the second book of her series at a glacial pace. She’s worked out some of the greater issues and is ready to dive in, and fly to the finish. It’s a darker tale than mine, but worthy of being told.”

I look away, smiling. “In fact right now she has me and my Emily snug in her small cabin, energetically driving away the dark and enjoying each other… I have no objection to being left there for many, many, many pages.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Haleigh squirms. “I need to pee.”

“Ah, a woman in your condition has certain privileges. Let me untie you and help you to your feet….” All of them are sweet woman and I assume due to their mate’s condition none on them attempt to overpower me while I am in their midst. I know simply binding their hands before them won’t keep them still for long.

Hal thanks me sweetly and moves to the privy.

“Let me continue. Her difficulty involves the argument taking place in Captain Jezebel’s cabin, between her and Mick. It’s been going on for hours now and she’s written of the effect on the rest of the crew, how it distresses Emily. But has only stuck a single foot into the cabin to deal with the actual recording of it. I understand it’s a vitally important argument and she wants to get it just right…”

I smile as Haleigh returns and pulls up a barrel to perch upon. By now the rest are intrigued, untying each others wrists, they stretch and yawn, keeping a sharp eye on me. I am, after all, the only one armed. As if I’d draw weapons on any of them! I just hope the tripwire I set near the crowsnest offers enough warning to keep Sin from acting with some quick bit of violence at me.

“Arguments aren’t easy to write,” Marnee comments. She tilts her head at me. “Is this the final argument before the big reveal and reconciliation or the one that sets up the bigger mistakes to come?”

I consider a moment. “I believe it is the biggest real argument they will have, but it won’t clarify anything. She means it to set in motion the realization that these two understand more than they know, they just don’t know how to get past what they don’t know or are simply mistaken about.” I shake my head. “Sometimes her prose confuses me…”

“It’s going ta answer most questions but open the floor fer another round, more important questions. Like whether they can survive Jezebel’s past… Silvestri, what the hell are ya doin’?”

Chance shuffles from behind the bar, her bright yellow footwear distracts me a moment and all I can do is stare.

 

“What? Never seen Grimm from the comic pages!?” She snorts. Running a hand through her messy hair she glares at me again. “I told ya I’ll work it out!”

I nearly laugh, her hair is now standing up like a rooster’s comb. But I do want to remain in that cabin with Emily, so I stifle myself. Instead, I turn to the crew, on their feet now and watching the play between Chance and I.

I need all my charm now…

“Tell us, ladies, how does one write a bitter argument, full of constant misunderstandings, moments of deep clarity and end it on a note of sorrowful resignation? Yet a seed of hope remain? Is there a secret you’d like to share?”

Well? How do you write arguments?

My son was christened last weekend.

I attended a pretty standard Catholic school.  I’d heard the story of Adam and Eve more times than I could count.  I’ve read Genesis along with the rest of the Bible (standard part of the curriculum at my college).  Heck, our fair Hellion is writing about the First Couple, per se.   So, I’m familiar with the story.

But during a pre-christening meeting, our pastor claimed he always saw “Original Sin” as less like the Garden of Eden and more like Operation Entebbe.

A little background, for those unfamiliar.  In 1976, an Air France flight was hijacked.  The hijackers rerouted the plane to Uganda, where a sympathetic president gave them amnesty.  The hijackers released all non-Jewish folks and held the Jewish, claiming they would kill them unless Israel submitted to their demands.  But instead of giving into their demands, Israel sent a group of commandos that eliminated the hijackers--Operation Entebbe--with only minor casualties.

The pastor said when he thinks of original sin, that he doesn’t think of the timid version in the Bible, the apple, the snake, etc.  He thinks of it like the hijackers on that plane.  An insidious evil, intending to do harm, intending to enforce its will upon something else.  And he thinks of baptism like the Israeli commandos, the thing that’s going to come in and wipe the slate clean.

He said that what God did, by sending Jesus, would be like if I was on this plane full of bad guys and they said to me, “We’ll let everyone go if you just give us your son to kill.”  He asked me if I would be able to sacrifice my son to save many others.  I answered honestly, told him that I couldn’t.  I’d go myself, but I didn’t think there was anything that would make me give up either of my sons.

I’m not sure if that makes me a good person or a bad person.  I’d like to think that I’m a good person, that I’m loving and charitable.  But when he put it like that, if I would give up what I prized most—these little people who completely trust me—I realized that I might be “good” but I’m not that “good.”

And worse, I am not sure I want to be that good.  Do I believe that the rest of those people's lives—just because there are more of them—are somehow more valuable than my one son or even both of my sons?   Do I believe that sort of sacrifice would make a difference in the “hereafter?”

I got his underlying message, but I’m still not convinced the correlation worked and I’ll leave you out of my personal spiritual questioning beyond this.

However, I can’t help but think that my questioning of these sorts of things, the way I view God and all that is spiritual, helps to define me.  Yet I don’t think once in my years of writing that I've stopped to think about my character’s spiritual development.  Even when I was writing my last book—with angels and demons and all kinds of religious stuff—I didn’t go near their own personal spiritual quests.

I had to ask myself why.  Is it that I’m afraid of turning readers off?  Spirituality is a very touchy thing in this PC age.  Or was this something more personal to me?

I don’t know.

But I could see how a characters belief or disbelief in a higher power might change their outlook on the world.  Might make them even question their ability to love and be loved.  Maybe it would even make them question whether loving at all is worth it.

So, pirates, a very deep subject for you.  Do you think about your characters’ spiritualities?  How do you think pluming spiritual depths might affect your characters’ motivations?

For the past few years, I have celebrated my "birthday month".  One day never seems quite enough for such a momentous occasion, at least not until it becomes a national holiday.  Fortunately, this year some of you may get time off since it is Election Day, and if you do, think of it as a trial run for when we have a three-day weekend to celebrate Donna's Day. 

And lest it seems I am being overly greedy with an entire month rather than one measly day, consider this:  you don't have to buy my present for a specific day that might be inconvenient for your schedule.  YOU HAVE ALL MONTH! 

So what presents do you get for a writer? 

Well, besides the obvious gift this year – an e-reader – here are a few things you might want to consider when it's time for your Birthday Month.

1)      Bookstore gift cards – No matter how many books a writer owns – it's never enough.  A writer lusts after books, whether it's the ones they can't have, or the ones that got away.  They need to read them as research for a book they're writing, or as market comparison for their genre.

Reading also consoles a writer when their own writing isn't going well, and it fills their writer's soul when they're exhausted from pouring words onto the page.

Sure, writers can go to the library, and we do – but it's just one more deadline to keep track of.  (Somebody should invent a prepaid library-fine card—talk about an awesome gift for writers.  I know I could use a few *cough* hundred *cough* of these.)

The gift card also benefits bookstores, which means your one gift does double duty, supporting writers, booksellers, and heck, the entire economy.   Now that's a gift!

2)       More time to write – Right now I have the opportunity to write at whatever time of day pleases me.  But it hasn't always been that way, and it may not stay that way.  Too many writers try to squeeze writing in at the end of an exhausting day (been there), or they attempt to get up at an hour when us nightowls are finally calling it quits (done that).

When someone says, "I don't know what to get you for your birthday", ask for a set amount of time to be free of your duties, to your kids, your mate, your housework tasks.  I'm serious.  Tell them you want to put writing at the top of your Absolutely Must Do list.  It doesn't matter that you think of it as a treat, not a chore.  Do what you have to do to receive this gift.  Hopefully it'll be wrapped up in Peace and Quiet, and be tied with a big pretty bow made of Guilt-B-Gone.

But for those of you who insist on believing you couldn't, or shouldn't, ask for something like this, I would like to remind you of a couple of things.  One, it removes a lot of burden from the gift-buying members of your inner circle.  They've known you a long time and it's getting harder to find a gift for you.  They're stressed trying to find something you MIGHT like, so they finally just grab something.  Then you're stressed because you have to take that sucker back while pretending you kept it and love it. . .So skip that step.  Remove the stress, for both of you, and get something you really want.

Two, if you don't let everyone know how important your writing time is, they won't know how important your writing time is.  This is a good way to let them understand writing is more than that little thing you do once you're done taking care of everyone else's needs.  You're not being selfish.  You're giving your loved ones a genuine opportunity to expand their compassionate nature.

3)      Writers' get-together – Yes, we get together online every day and yak and chatter and gab and you'd think that would be PLENTY, especially for people who profess to like their characters way more than the folks they see in real life.

But sometimes you need to see writer friends IN PERSON, to talk about books you've read, books you NEED to read, books that make you want to quit writing, and books you're going to buy with your new gift cards.  It's deeply soul-satisfying to talk to writers who empathize with how hard it can be to write, and how much harder it is to NOT write. 

Maybe a writer's get-together could be an afternoon at a coffee shop if you're lucky enough to have writer friends nearby.  Or maybe it's something bigger, like a local RWA conference.  Or even Nationals.

This is a gift that most people will not ask for, because "it's too expensive".   If your best friend wanted a writers' get-together more than anything else in the world, would you try to give it to them?  Then why not give it to yourself?   This is also a gift for your friends, who will be thrilled at the opportunity to hang out with YOU.  So if you don't meet with them, NOW who is being selfish?

Discover what inspires you in the great times, and keeps you going through the tough times—whatever it is, THAT is the perfect gift.   Then, ask for it, or get it for yourself.  You, and your writing, deserve nothing less.

I'd love to hear your writerly gift ideas—the ones you've received, or gifts you plan on giving, or even things you want to add to your wish list.  Inspire us!

The trickiest part about sewing is having the right tension on the project you’re working on.

Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of tricky parts: finicky materials that unravel at the slightest provocation, picky patterns, and obscure directions about how to assemble the whole thing. But I’ve managed (some more successfully than others) all these things, and really if you look for the heart of the problems I have, it always comes back to the %#(*(!@*#( tension.

When you’re sewing, there is a top and bottom thread; the bottom comes from a bobbin, and the top comes from the spool that’s been threaded through the top of the machine. The needle pushed the top thread through and catches the bottom thread and pulls it up. And somehow it weaves and holds the material together. (That part is always quite magical, so that’s the best I can tell you.)

When I’m sewing, it’s always, always the tension that makes me want to thrash around on the floor in rage. My threads are always getting tangled; and the bottom threads always look like a tangled mess. Sometimes I don’t mind so much because if the threads on top are what people will be looking at, I’ll leave it go and let the underside look like crap and move on. However, right now I’ve been sewing things on the backside of the material and the threads that will be showing are the ones beneath—the tangled, gnarly ones. I was ready to set the thing on fire. I’ll just go as a homicidal maniac for Halloween; it’s fine. (Except I pretty much go to work daily as a homicidal maniac and I’d prefer to dress up for Halloween.)

So I dug out my sewing book. There was something that was nagging me. Something about the underside threads being gnarled, then it was your topside tension you needed to fix. I found it; and I was right. So after a few minutes of trying to figure out where the topside tension button was located, I reset it to something else and gave it a test drive. The stitches were as neat on the underside as they were topside. The tension was finally balanced.

I rather wish I had a tension button to push in my manuscript actually. Wouldn’t it be neat if it were that easy? If sexual tension was the topside tension; and the bobbin provided the plot/goal tension (will hero/ine achieve their goals?), it does seem there is a fine balance between showing the reader these two are destined for each other and desperately want each other, while also accomplishing their goals (while making the reader wonder how they will do so). But if you focus the tension too much on one side or the other, it’s going to get tangled, knotted, and nothing you’d ever want to show anyone. And you might not end up with anything to show everyone on Halloween (deadline) if you don’t fix the problem and the machine breaks entirely (or you get frustrated and quit).

You can always see where plot and sexual tension collide badly. Because you notice it and it seems out of place. Like in action/adventure movies, where the hero and heroine are getting to the climax of the show, they’re in the MOST DANGER, and suddenly the hero—who hasn’t shown much sexual interest in the heroine before now—turns and kisses the heroine like he’s trying to floss her teeth with his tongue. Right there, while the bad guy is holding a gun. Really? Is that the time?

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we’ve been waiting for 7 books for Ron and Hermione to get together. There have been some very close calls where you think they will never be together. And then, right as Voldemort is breathing down their necks, they’re trying to find the last horcux, and they’ve only got a few more minutes before the war begins, Ron says something about freeing the house elves from Hogwarts because he didn’t want another Dobby. Hermione launches herself at him and starts kissing him. He drops everything and kisses her back. Harry rolls his eyes and says loudly, “Is now the time?”

That one works for me—but Rowling spent a lot of time setting up tension between Ron and Hermione. And also the bad guy isn’t in the same room with them at the time, holding a gun (or his wand).

Granted, novels have the benefit of internal monologue that movies don’t get to have, but there have been movies that have had both and it works fine. I don’t know…it’s magic, maybe, being able to make something that should be a cliché and make it seem new and natural.

How do you balance the sexual tension and plot suspense in your novel? Do you tend to have better tension one area over the other? Is this one of those things that works better in the revision phase?

There's something so sexy about bare feet.  Maybe it's because it's just one short step to seeing something else uncovered. 

 Or maybe because it gives us a chance to inspect the goods that aren't on display--just yet. 

In any event, here's some photographic evidence to help us determine what makes us smile when we see a Hottie's bare feet. 

 

 

 

I’m gonna be upfront right away with this. I suffer from chronic depression. Now, it’s not a massive tragedy. It’s just part of my chemistry and how the course of my life sails. Please, no sympathy!

I was discussing this bit of information with two different friends a few months ago. Each of them had a very different reaction.

One implored me to fight this thing! To take whatever medication was out there to bring me out of bad days. She don’t believe in having bad days. Putting up with bad days or tolerating the bleak times. She’s a common sense woman, and time is not to be wasted on the lack of focus and drive a bad day brings.

Bad days. They happen.

Days when I seldom write. Days I can’t even imagine going anywhere with stories, characters. But I do find I can get things done. Good days to do research into blogs, play with images, or organize some around the house. Not a whole lot, when I’m in the midst of a bad day, little gets done. Maybe laundry. Or dishes.

But, these are just days. And I know enough about my own malady to see them as simply days. When I do write on bad days, I work on hard subjects. A character’s fear of intimacy. Like Ivy and her hopelessness at the loss of her daughter, her anger at the survival of her rapist… Or a husband’s betrayal for another character and how it drives her lack of trust. So many characters to torture!
On good days, I read sections I wrote and I can sense where I was that day. I make good use of my blue days.

Hey, I play to my strengths, whatever they are from day to day.

So, I love this friend who pleads with me to leave the bad days behind, but I know they are productive days. Just not always pleasantly productive. She worries about me and it’s difficult. Because days like this can also make me chatty about my woes. So, naturally, she wants to comfort me.

But I can use that also.

Good times to write of angry characters, ugly characters. I tend to vent a great deal on these days. I imagine nasty things happening to people I don’t like dealing with. I create wonderfully dire happenings, play with black humor and nasty ends.

I use my black days. I just work very hard at keeping them to simply days, and limit them. I find if I really dwell on the dark stuff, I eventually get bored with it. And lighter days dawn. I work on convincing my friend that these aren’t necessarily bad days, just dark days.

(Wait, I called them bad days earlier. Well, I could go back and replace, but use the word that works for you.) 

My therapist is much more pragmatic. Her take on depression involves taking advantage of these days to nurture the soul. To acknowledge the special needs of that day. A good day to take it slow, to allow myself the luxury of some self-pity, some tears and being self-centered.

She counsels me to pay close attention to myself on these days. Therapists, gotta love ‘em!

My other friend sees it in similar ways as my therapist. We all have bad days and you just sail with them. The trick is to not let them use you as a club to beat at innocent bystanders. Or, let’s face, even the guilty. (Oh, how I’d love to let lose on some people in my life and totally ream them…but it wouldn’t do any good. Wouldn’t really make me feel any better in the long run and would just make more problems when it comes to mending bridges.)

So, blue days are about keeping the mouth shut, save for on paper. Fiction paper! Because blue days don’t last and trying to reach across a chasm you caused when feeling blue can just toss one back in the chasm all over again. (Great way to create conflict for a fictional character though…Hmmmm!)

 

It’s a real balancing act. Or not so much an act as a lifestyle. Staying aware of how mood affects the day to day stuff, including how characters develop and how they react. On a good day, a pivotal conversation might result in thoughtful decision making and studied actions. (Or something wonderfully clever and witty. From the best days, let’s face it.)

On a bad day, this same conversation may result in a blazing bitter argument and a mad dash straight into the lion’s mouth.

I’ve said it many times, writing is therapy. The trick is in using it to write good stuff. A bit like running with your strengths.

What do you find? Bad days see you slice and dice more than usual? Or does your heroine sob in a corner? Are you aware of how your overall chemical mood affects your writing? Or do you rise above it, ignore the clamor of anger, blues, upset? I mean, let’s be honest, we all deal with ups and downs as we write… What’s your story?

I have a habit of thinking of craft and writing advice as a recipe. It's been tested and proven by a chef, someone who is recognized as an expert. And if it doesn't work, it must be because I didn't follow the recipe quite close enough, didn't measure something right. I try again, and again, to get it just right.



But then I was reading this book last night on teaching the process of writing (I won't bore you with the details) and I came across an amazing analogy. The author suggesting taking writing advice and craft advice as a heuristic:

A heuristic procedure is an informed method of trial and error--it's a strategy, not a recipe. Mathematician George Polya's 1945 book How to Solve It popularized heuristic as a method for problem-solving, placing value on such notions as determination and discipline ("Willpower is needed that can outlast years of toil and bitter diappointments") along with more concrete strategies (such as asking, "Did you use all the data?" and "Do you know a related problem?")

It's a strategy, not a recipe.

What a way to think about my writing process! A strategy is, at is heart, an idea. Something we're going to try, to see if it accomplishes our goal. Think about it -- if you're creating a strategy, you're coming up with a game plan. It usually involves the expectation that it will not completely and fully succeed. We come up with contingencies: "If XYZ doesn't work, then I'll try...." It's full of Plan B's and Plan C's, and leaves fully open the possibilities of gathering more advice and ideas if the current plan isn't working. It implies you're consulting a compass which can only tell you the direction you're heading in, not the destination.

A recipe, on the other hand is a static thing. It's been tried and proved, and it's someone else's creation. It's written in absolutes, and it's written in the second person (Put the butter on the bread, which is grammatically commanding, You put the butter on the bread, which, when you think about it, takes on creepy Silence of the Lambs undertones. It puts the lotion on the skin . . .)

My point here, is that when a recipe fails, I assume it's because I didn't properly follow it. That I need to limit my mistakes and follow the proven instructions more carefully. When a strategy doesn't work, we widen our focus, look for other ideas and information and paths.



A recipe we can use over and over, always producing the same result. If we're planning a strategy, we need a new one each time. We create a new one, based on what we learned last time and new things we've learned since. We don't know exactly what path we'll end up taking this time, but we have confidence we'll get there, because we eventually got there last time.

I love this idea, that instead of taking craft advice as a commandment of what we shall do to achieve a set result, we take craft advice as an option we can add to our strategy by which we plan our path from where we are (an idea) to a destination (a bright, shiny, finished novel).

How do you see your writing process? Something that works better if you stick to it tightly and try to figure out the "best" way to get there? Or do you think of it more as a strategy? A trial-and-error set of ideas that you hope will help keep you find your path as you're on it?