a little bird told me

that my book has been spotted in chain stores.




publishers pay bookstores to shelve books on a specific date, but some stores put them out early. the release date is orchestrated so the largest amount of sales will occur within a very small timeframe and hopefully get the book on a list. i don't think early sales will make much of a difference in my case.
the photo? no relevance. i just liked it.

countdown to madness

6 days away!

have i put this one up before?

vodka -- check

party hat -- check





i realize some people feel uncomfortable blogging about a book they haven't read. i completely understand that.
so even if you don't blog PI on the 5th, please stop by for the launch party!!!

listen and weep

PALE IMMORTAL SOUNDTRACK








Last week we were talking about music and books. I was lamenting over not getting a CD made for PI. I'm constantly tweaking the Pale Immortal blog, and i've put up some mp3 links with several of the photos, and I'll probably continuously add content and revamp. You might not see a new post, but within the blog things will change.

Pale Immortal Blog

but then i happened to think of itunes and imix where you can create your own mix, put it on the itunes site where it stays for a year. i spent a couple of days choosing music. then arggghhh! half of the songs weren't even on itunes! back to the drawing board. the one i really wanted in there was husker du's she floated away. that would have been perfect.
also the breeder's version of happiness is a warm gun. but neither were available.

i finally settled on the following mix. this itunes link should take you to the Pale Immortal soundtrack. I also put up another version with fewer tunes so it wouldn't be as expensive. all you have to do is click on other mixes by this user.



imix soundtrack

edit: i'll post the list here for people who don't have itunes.

Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young
Motor Away - Guided By Voices
Wasn't Born to Follow - The Byrds
Nature Boy - Big Star
Pass This On - The Knife
21st - The Chambermaids
Hey - Pixies
Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
Damage - Yo La Tengo
Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy
Ocean - The Velvet Underground

if you go to itunes, you can listen to samples of all of the songs to get an idea of how they work together.

please vote if you visit!


and since we're talking about music, here's a great link courtesy of stephen blackmoore:

i think i'm going to have to buy a scarring party CD.

scarring party -- ocean bottom

scarring party website

.
.

dope and come closer by sara gran

i first read about sara's books at
tribe's
where he had this to say: "DOPE may very well be the best book this year."


i have to agree. i just finished dope and it was wonderful. i read come closer about a month ago -- loved it too.
i would put both of these books in my top ten for the year -- and i read a lot of books this year.

and the covers -- wow. they are both amazing.

dope is a modern homage to vintage noir;come closer is more of a supernatural horror that at times put me in mind of Rosemary's Baby and The Yellow Wall-Paper. I'm not talking about plots or writing style, but mood and the way Gran captures the main character. the way we really live in her skin and see the character unraveling from the inside out. Another similar theme is the alienation between the main character and the very person who should be her most trusted support -- her husband.

sara's website

sara's blog

zombie pub crawl 2

those crazy zombies are at it again.






zombie pub crawl 2


video from last year

what i learned from Super Mario Bros.

no, you aren't going crazy. I'm bumping this back to the top of the blog since people seemed to enjoy it.

I'll put something in the story that seems completely insignificant, then I'll have a plot problem and find that the insignificant thing isn't insignificant at all. in a daydream state I let my mind wander around in the scene. I'm not trying to figure anything out; I'm just enjoying it in the way you'd enjoy a daydream. And I'll often spot something that has been there all along, planted by me three months earlier.
I thank myself, pick up that little surprise, and run. Secret worlds, secret treasures, secret levels, hidden pathways.

Thank you, Mario!

Super Mario Bros.


Editors tend to look outside the story for a solution to a problem, and that can upset the balance and theme. I think you can very often look inside the story because the exact thing you need might already be there. an editor probably won't spot these solutions because they didn't come from her subconscious.

Finding the heart of a scene -- writing 101

i'd planned to post writing tips this week while the contest was going on at clarity of night. here it is friday and this is my first writing post. :( part of it is that i'm not very good at explaining the nuts and bolts of writing. i tend to look at things in a more zen way, and how do you explain that? it's kind of like learning to play an instrument. you learn chords and notes, but after you get them down you don't have to think about where you put your fingers.


here's something i put together, and now i don't even know if it's anything, but i'm calling it finding the heart of a scene. rambling! it's just rambling!!



If a scene isn't working, I always look for the heart of the scene. Often it isn't what's happening on the surface, but what's going on underneath. Once you find that the scene will often take off.

One real-life example of how this can work:

Say you're going to the grocery store. A simple chore. But a trip to the store is never just a trip to the store, because you are bringing your brain along with you. Hopefully. And your brain is processing and worrying and dwelling on a lot of things that have nothing to do with groceries.

This is also where you can use character and POV to enhance a scene that might really just be what I call a bridge. A way to get from one place to the next. Maybe you need to reveal a piece of information. Of course you don't want to overdo this either. Balance, pace, mix it up.

This kind of thing can really backfire. I've seen writers put a character is extreme danger and suddenly decide to have him take a little mind stroll. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine in romance. If two people are in danger, gunshots going off all over, the heroine really shouldn't be thinking the guy has a nice ass.

does anybody else have any tricks for finding the heart of a scene?

okay, the grocery store was a bad example. argh. i'm not suggesting you send a character to a grocery store and let his mind fill in the backstory. the actual scene has to have purpose to begin with. it has to drive the plot forward externally as well as internally.

IMHO
IMHO
IMHO

does any of this make sense?

no.

i figured out one thing

i post here a lot more when i'm writing. i don't know why that surprises me, but it does. i thought once i got the first draft done, i'd be here every second. of course right now when i am online i'm usually over at clarity of night for the short story contest. we've gotten some good entries. i'm glad jason is judging and not me. it will be tough.




i'm not a gadget person, but i just got something for my ipod i think i'm going to use a lot.
the sonic impact i-fusion. it's a dock with speakers, but what is really cool about it is that it's in a hardshell case. unzip it and the speakers are in the lid. ipod compartment between the speakers. the whole thing is about the size of...well, a little clipper box. as in dog clippers? lithium ion battery.

sound?

i'm really surprised it sounds as good as it does. of course you start with an mp3 -- something that is already of diminished quality. then you add tiny speakers. now you're two steps down. so no, it can't sound GREAT, but not bad. one thing that bugs me that i think i'll get used to is some pretty acute separation. some people will probably like that. everything is pretty clear and defined. highs, lows, with vocals maybe too much in front. very clean sound -- which isn't always how something was meant to sound. i think they probably really worked on that aspect of it. to make sure you weren't getting a soup-can sound. but anyhoo, i will now have music when i travel. woot!!!

that really grounds me to have music in my room.

if you're interested in an i-fusion, you can order it for less through circuit city. 129.00. every store i visited had it priced at 149.00 or more. oh yeah, i did a lot of comparison shopping in that price range and below.

the lonely moon short fiction contest

it's time!
the lonely moon short fiction contest has now begun at the Clarity of Night.
Please join us!

And please feel free to post the contest info along with jason's beautiful photo on your blog. In fact we'd love that!





From Jason Evans:

Using the photograph above for inspiration, compose a short fiction piece of no more than 250 words in any genre or style. Send your entry to me by email at jevanswriter at yahoo dot com before 11:00 p.m., Tuesday, August 29th (Eastern Time, United States). Attachments are fine. Each entry will be posted and indexed.

To make things interesting, the following prizes are on the line:

* 1st Place: Autographed copy of Pale Immortal, $35 Amazon gift certificate, 8 x 10 print of the "Lonely Moon" photograph (signed by Jason Evans)
* 2nd Place: Autographed copy of Pale Immortal, $25 Amazon gift certificate
* 3rd Place: Autographed copy of Pale Immortal, $15 Amazon gift certificate
* 4th Place: $10 Amazon gift certificate
* 5th Place: $5 Amazon gift certificate
* Readers Choice Award (chosen by you/rules to be announced): Autographed copy of Pale Immortal, 8 x 10 print of the "Lonely Moon" photograph (signed by Jason Evans)


But this is about more than prizes. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity to meet and interact with your fellow writers. Read and comment on the entries. Teach, and learn, from others. Also, please take this opportunity to chat with Anne! She will be commenting on each of your entries and sharing some writing and industry tips on her blog, Static.

As a special treat, after the contest is over and you and I are hard at work reading enties, Anne will share another chapter of her novel on her Pale Immortal blog!

You do not want to miss this one!

Let's make writing a less lonely process.

Rules:

1. 250 words maximum.
2. Titles are optional, but encouraged. Titles do not count towards your word count.
3. One entry per person.
4. Any genre or style is welcome.
5. All rights remain with you, the author; however, you consent to the posting of your entry on this blog.
6. Judging will be conducted by Jason Evans on the basis of pacing, entertainment value, technical use of language, storytelling, and voice.
7. Please provide a name for your byline. If you have a website or a blog, I'd be happy to link your name to it. If you don't have a website or blog, feel free to include a short bio. A bio does not count towards your word count.
8. At the close of the contest, I will announce the date and time for the announcement of winners.
9. After the winners are announced, I will post what I liked most about each entry. Also, if you send a request to me by email, I would be happy to offer any constructive comments I might have. Constructive comments will be by private email.


Let me officially declare the contest open!

why didn't i think of that? oh, i did.

Trends:


Setting words to music in a totally different way

Looks like it's not enough just to read the book when you can listen to soundtrack, as the WSJ's John Jurgensen found out over the weekend. Having seen the power of songs to promote TV shows, movies and even videogames, publishers and authors are increasingly experimenting with soundtracks for books. Writers like James Patterson, Michael Connelly and Lemony Snicket are giving out CDs with copies of their novels. Others, like Bret Easton Ellis, are posting music suggestions on Web sites, blogs such as Largehearted Boy (and his weekly "Book Notes" feature) or MySpace pages. In many cases, the soundtracks are aimed at appealing to younger readers.


read it all here at galleycat:


music and books

martina and the loons

BookLoons is a great review site. If you haven't been there, you should check it out. They review fiction and nonfiction, adult, YA, and children's books, and post new reviews every week.

BookLoons

loons are the most fascinating birds. they really do dance, and their call is absolutely haunting. aren't they beautiful? the common loon is the minnesota state bird. you'll be tested on that next week.


A Pale Immortal review has been posted at bookloons:
review
i was a bit sad about the rating of 3 until i was told it's their highest rating. am i bragging? sorry!


and i was lucky enough to be interviewed by the charming and ultra-cool martina bexte.
interview
.
.

Book tour! You could do better by stephanie lehmann

The author of The Art of Undressing makes her highly anticipated return with an irresistible new novel about a woman trying to choose between the man of her dreams -- and her fiance.
Daphne Wells is way too busy watching television to start planning her wedding. She tells herself that being glued to the boob tube counts as research for her job at the Museum of Television and Radio. But the truth is, as much as she's looking forward to a future with her fiance, Charlie, their sex life just isn't ready for prime time.

Then Daphne meets sexy, successful writer/producer Jonathan Hill when he comes to the museum for inspiration. Daphne spends a weekend in the Hamptons at Jonathan's beach house--on business, of course--but the picture comes in loud and clear: This man can turn her on as if he's a remote control. She's more confused than ever about marrying Charlie. What if she can do better?



Stephanie Lehmann is the author of Are You in the Mood?, Thoughts While Having Sex, and The Art of Undressing. Her plays have been produced Off Off Broadway, and she is a contributor to Salon. Originally from San Francisco, she's a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and has a master's in creative writing from New York University. Lehmann now lives with her husband and two children in Manhattan.




Stephanie's website

friday recap and update

i finished the first draft this week. I'm guessing it will take another two months to pull everything together before sending it in. next week is the short story contest at clarity of night. i'm really looking forward to that! had to break down and start taking allergy medicine. hate it. i feel like a different person when i'm on this stuff. i look at my old self and think, what an idiot. then i look at my new self and think, what a snooze. bottom line: hate the meds. i hope i can get off them in a week or so.

my kids will be playing in milwaukee tonight in case anybody from milwaukee happens to spot this. love the poster designed by tom stack of stackmatic.



they play saturday night at the Picador in Iowa City. It's the grand opening of what used to be Gabe's Oasis. I saw Frank Black there several years ago. Hottest i've ever been in my life. bet i lost ten pounds in 3 hours.

september is going to be crazy. i'll be doing some traveling, visiting friends and relatives, book signings. i have something coming up i'm really looking forward to. nothing to do with writing. not sure it's going to happen, so i won't mention it yet, but stay tuned.

edit: oops. almost forgot to mention that i did make it to once upon a crime last night. not a great turnout for stuart's signing, but decent. i've really seen signing participation drop drastically over the past few years, and i wonder if there are just too many writers doing signings.

bouchercon panel

just got my bouchercon panel assignment.

YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG: the books that kept us awake all night.


fun title, but like most of these things it will take a little while to figure out exactly what we're supposed to be talking about.
ideas and suggestions welcome!

i imagine they'll wait to officially post the panels on the bouchercon site until requested changes have come in.


Bouchercon 2006

book huffing

a couple of weeks ago we were talking about preferences when it came to paperbacks, hardcovers, and trade paperbacks. but one thing we didn't discuss was SMELL!!!! i just received my early copy of Pale Immortal. A few days ago a friend sent me a copy of her new paperback. I opened my book.
Hey, this smells different than Michele's book.
Pick up Michele's. *sniff, sniff*
Pick up mine. *sniff, sniff*

yeah, a LOT different!

So pretty soon I'm going through the house sniffing books. Now i realize books can pick up all sorts of scents, so really the only way to test this is to actually go to a bookstore and sniff several books.

I haven't done that, but in my quest for answers and comparisons I noticed that many of the trade paperbacks smell similar, and they smell MORE EXPENSIVE. really. Go sniff some books. You know you want to.

word cloud

i've seen word clouds, but i had no idea they took the words from your blog.
this is pretty cool!!








make your own word cloud

got your ticket?

if you're new to my blog and are thinking WTF, here's an explanation:

PROJECT PIMP SQUAD, or more politely called 100 BLOGGERS BLOGGING. I came up with this concept about a month ago. I'm trying to get 100 bloggers to blog about Pale Immortal on September 5. A virtual party. It is going to be a blast, so join us if you can.

If you are interested in being part of this project you can email me and I'll put you in the PIMP SQUAD email address book and send the posting info to you, or you can simply return to this blog a few days before September 5 to get all of the information.

Touch of Death

sandra ruttan posted a great comment on my broken, part two post. now she's elaborated on it with a couple of compelling, near-death stories.


Sandra Ruttan: On Life And Other Inconveniences: Touch of Death

broken, part two

somebody's at the door--
and it's not the pizza guy.





this post is somewhat connected to last week's post about broken writers.
when i was about nine my grandmother and i took a vacation together. on that vacation, she died. i think that marked the beginning of my obsession with death. I now had a loved one in that other place, and that place became a curiosity for me. suddenly i felt a strange sense of comfort when it came to all things dead. cemeteries, the smell of a funeral home. (is that embalming fluid?????) over the years i moved past that, but the books i read tended to be dark.


flash forward: my husband died of cancer ten years ago. After a couple of surgeries he was told the cancer had returned and he had at the VERY most two weeks to live. so we went home and waited. just basically sat and waited. every day was goodbye. every day was the last day. every day was the preparation for death. this went on for five freakin' months. it truly was the blackest of black comedies. i was alone with him in the middle of the night when he took his final breath. i think the whole experience brought back a bit of the old death obsession. It has certainly surfaced in my writing.


as writers we take major events in our lives, traumatic or otherwise, and turn and twist them and look at them from all different angles.

my question is: if you are drawn to the macabre, if you are drawn to cemeteries, if you write about death and murder, do you think a past death event plays a part in your curiosity and need to further explore? (I'm not talking about mystery here. I think different though processes are at work when it comes to a mystery that follows a set of clues until the case in solved.)

I'm curious to know if most people who write about death have been through a fairly significant death event. Of course death touches all of us, so I don't know.... Maybe my obsession has always been there, Maybe none of this had anything to do with it.


here's an interesting aside: i knew a high school girl whose father was killed in a plane crash. a few months later she started hanging around funeral homes and a couple of years later she married a mortician.

oh, and if you'd like to reply, but feel uncomfortable posting under your name please feel free to post anonymously.

The future is night

write this on your forehead:


August 22


The Clarity of Night Short Fiction Contest!








Party favors! Balloons! Clowns and jugglers! Bearded ladies! Monkeys on unicycles! Come one, come all to The Clarity of Night for another one of Jason's fantastic short fiction contests. Jason has been kind enough to invite me along for this journey, so together he and I will be slicing and dicing your entries. Kidding! Jason is known for his thoughtful and nurturing feedback, so I will try my best to avoid screwing that up.


While you're there, check out some of Jason's great fiction. Right now he's working on a serial called The Field that I think is one of his best.



more flashing going on: Jim Stitzel has created Flashes of Speculation.

About Flashes of Speculation:
Flashes of Speculation is dedicated to the sharing of works of flash fiction in the genre of speculative fiction. This includes science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, alternate history, or magic realism.

Word Nerd

Bethany Warner at Word Nerd has posted a review of Pale Immortal where she says really nice things like this:

"WOW. Word Nerd's guilty little reading pleasure is vampire stories but this one takes the cake for the best one she's read in a long time."


Word Nerd



in other news: i just received the info about the ITW conference in NYC next summer. hotel: yikes! 200 bucks a night. tax, etc. will probably make that 240. i'll have to pass, but at least this info makes it easy to decide. I knew NYC hotels were expensive, but I didn't know how expensive.

(i tried to stay away from my blog; i really did.)

group blogs

Thinking about starting a group blog?

A few months ago I was invited to join and help start a group blog with writers from the Twin Cities. Since I already had...let's see...at least three blogs, I said no. But with some arm-twisting I finally said yes. My biggest issue was that this was a romance blog, and I thought my presence there would confuse visitors. In the end I'm not sure it confused as much as diluted the focus.


What I learned from my stint in a group blog:

Group blogs are hard. Much, much harder than a solo blog.

It's hard for a group blog to have personality, because...well, it's a group.

Group blogs aren't spontaneous. This was my biggest frustration. You have your day to post. If you have something you want to chat about, something that's on your mind, it will no longer be on your mind next week. Lack of spontaneity translates to lack of energy. The more the merrier does not apply here.

Worry over dominating the blog keeps members from posting even when things are sluggish.

Nobody is in charge. While this seems the fair way to handle things, you almost need a host. Otherwise it's like going to a party where there is no host and everybody is wandering around looking for the beer, and the CD is stuck on Green Day's Time of Your Life.

Disinterested group members. A lot of people get into group blogs because they have no interest in having a blog in the first place, but they feel pressured into blogging. They feel a group blog will be the easier way to go. YOU HAVE TO ENJOY BLOGGING. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

If you build it, they might not come. Big names don't translate to visitors. Many of the most popular blogs are written by unpublished writers or newly contracted writers. I've seen some NYT writers start blogs with other NYT writers and the blogs bombed.

Having a group doesn't always mean more visitors. It could actually mean fewer visitors.

A group blog takes just as much time as a solo blog. Maybe more when you factor in the planning and behind-the-scenes stuff.

It's probably not a good idea to mix genres.

Make sure everybody is on the same page, especially when it comes to participation.

edit to add more ideas:


you can't be afraid to make an ass out of yourself.

friday recap and update

"Oh, joyfully--joyfully--joyfully--go down with you into the night of the Grave."

Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman - October 1, 1848.


first of all i want to thank everybody who replied to my broken post. I debated about that post for a long time, unsure of how people would react. i finally put it up about 2:00 am, probably because nothing at that time of the night seems real. I woke up the next morning thinking, oh, shit. :D

now i plan to put up another rather dark post next week, this one about death. it ties into the broken post, and is another issue i like to poke at from time to time.


i'm trying to get this first draft done, so for the next two weeks i might not be posting quite as often as i normally do. i didn't take my usual break after the 100 page mark and am just plowing ahead

i'm working on a sequel to pale immortal. i tried to get my publisher to agree to the idea of a sequel in the winter of 2005 because i felt the books should come out close together. at that time they weren't interested in dealing with it. (I don't know if this is just my publishing house or if all houses are working this way now. There doesn't seem to be much forward-thinking going on, and there seems to be an inability to make timely decisions.) i sent the proposal in sept of 2005. they finally agreed to it april/may 2006. my contractual deadline for book 2 was oct 1. i told them i couldn't possible write a book in 4 months. (taking sept off for PI signings, etc.) they gave me a verbal okay for dec. 1. a couple of months ago my editor asked when she should expect it. i said dec 1. she called a few days ago and said that she saw by my contract that the book was due oct 1. they wanted to move it up in their schedule, when did i think i could have it done? I think she was going to ask if i could get it in earlier than oct. i reminded her of the dec 1 date. i honestly think she completely forgot about our two earlier 'conversations" about the deadline, but it seems that i always come away from these things looking like somebody who's hard to get along with. *sigh*

Book Tour! The Bitch Posse by Martha O'Connor

THE BITCH POSSE by Martha O'Connor

If you missed it in hardcover....
it's now available in paperback


(i have a special interest in anybody named martha since my daughter has spent a large part of her life wondering how a mother comes to choose such a name for a child. my answer has always been a palms-up, goofy shrug.)



"Astonishing and truly remarkable ... tough, subtle, tense, authentic
and very beautiful. If this isn't really Alice Sebold, Donna Tartt or
Barbara Vine writing under a pseudonym, then Martha
O'Connor is a huge
new talent who is already about as good as it gets."

Lee Child, author of The Enemy



A circle's round it has no end; That's how long I want to be your friend.

Tear off the mask and stop pretending. Your Posse knows the truth.


Novelist Martha O'Connor makes a remarkable debut with THE BITCH POSSE
(St. Martin's Press; May 12, 2005), the dark and thrilling story of
three young women, their passionate friendship, and the terrible
secret that inextricably binds them together. Bestselling author
Jacquelyn Mitchard called the novel :dark, poignant, and only too
believable...a book that will walk alongside you, and haunt your dreams,
long after you turn the last page.: Her contemporaries have compared
her to Alice Sebold, Donna Tartt, and Joyce Carol Oates.

With bold and unflinching language, O'Connor weaves past and present
from the perspectives of three best friends, Rennie, Amy, and Cherry -
as rebellious teens and then as grown women in their mid-30's coping
with the repercussions of their actions. As high school seniors, the
girls form a tight circle of friends - which they name the Bitch Posse
- in order to lash out against tumultuous situations in their lives.
But as steadfast as their friendship is, it's not enough to protect
the girls from circumstances that cause all three of their lives to
spiral out of control. Rennie has a doomed affair with her married
drama teacher, which results in her bearing the psychic weight of an
abortion and a blighted love. Amy's parents think their daughter has
thrown over her bad-news friends, and upon learning their daughter has
become a drug and alcohol addict (not unlike themselves) they turn
their backs on her. Cherry's mother finds solace in cocaine, then
heroin, leaving her daughter to target her rage at someone, anyone,
over whom she has control.

Flash-forward to the present, where one girl is now a wife and
mother-to-be, trying to uphold a life of normalcy for herself and her
family. One is a writer with a sexual addiction that sucks her into
destructive relationships. And one is incarcerated in a mental
hospital - and has been since one fateful night fifteen years ago,
when a betrayal led them to commit a crime that profoundly changed
their destinies.

Fascinated by the struggle between good and evil within the human
spirit, Martha O'Connor delves into the dark side of human nature, the
intensity of female friendship, and the possibilities of redemption in
THE BITCH POSSE. Emotionally raw, upsetting, and provocative, this is
the introduction of a huge new talent and will leave readers reeling
this season. As Edmund White says, "The Bitch Posse is a debut worthy
of Joyce Carol Oates."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Martha O'Connor grew up in Illinois and earned a BFA in Creative
Writing from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, graduating Phi
Beta Kappa, summa cum laude. Her poetry has been published in the
literary journals Stand, Poetry London Newsletter, Confrontation, and
Midwest Poetry Review, among others.

By turns a department store clerk, waitress, latte-maker, and
eighth-grade teacher, Martha O'Connor now lives and writes fiction and
poetry full-time in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband,
award-winning novelist and short story writer Philip F. O'Connor, and
their children.



martha's website