I Like My Books Like I Like My Music

If you tell me, “This book will break your heart,” I’ll scoot my chair a little closer to you, the better to hear your book recommendation.

If you tell me “It’s a tough read, complicated and devastating and exhilarating”—halfway through your adjective parade, I’m downloading the book onto my Audible app.

That’s how I take my books. Challenging and emotional and difficult.

That’s how I take my music, too.

I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

My husband makes fun of me because I can forgive somewhat boring music in a song, but I cannot forgive boring lyrics. Words are too important to be empty containers for the lowest common denominator.

That doesn’t mean I gravitate towards the nastiest, grittiest books I can find (just like I don’t stream Norwegian Death Metal 24/7. Or, frankly, ever.) It only means that I look for books that resonate.

David Arnold’s MOSQUITOLAND broke my heart. A 16 year-old girl on a journey to reach a distant mother who needs her. Put like that, it’s nothing special, but the images and emotions pulled out of me by the descriptions (some ridiculous, like the couple on the roof of the gas station; some deeply poignant like the box in an old woman’s hands) were etched into my heart forever.

No, not really. ‘Etched into my heart forever’ are definitely lowest common denominator words. So overblown, they’re meaningless. What I should have said was that MOSQUITOLAND made me think about the profound good that exists in ourselves and in others even when we don’t believe in it. And how damaged lives can be perfectly enough.

I create a playlist for every book I write, and some books, like MOSQUITOLAND, that I love and want to re-live with music. I did it for ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell and also for SERAPHINA by Rachel Hartman.

It’s possible that I stood at a recent Savages show and thought, “Park would love this show. Eleanor would probably think it was too loud.”

Good music and good books have the same elements. Heart, yeah, but not twangy-twangy-woe-is-me-heart that you’ve heard one thousand times before. It has to have authenticity and be stripped down to a vulnerable place where you can’t dismiss it.

And Voice. Music and books have to have singular, arresting voices, pitched so exactly right that you can hear it above the cacophony of every day voices. (Just so we’re clear, the every day voices tell me to eat more cake and watch old Murder She Wrote episodes. That’s not the voice I’m talking about here.)

Finally good books and music need Brains. Possibly zombies eating brains, I won’t rule any genre out, but mostly the kind of brains that plot out a narrative with twists and reversals that make you snap back your head, read a line again, listen to the same verse twenty times, to pry out meaning.

So, how do you like your music and books? Are your tastes the similar in both, or do you read slasher horror while listening to the Bee Gees? (That sounds pretty good, actually…)

How to Not Stop Writing

Stop writing.
Give up and don't start again.
Stop doing the thing that makes you crazy and hurts your heart and makes you a misery to be around.
Stop writing.

It's easier to start writing than to stop - that's the way of any addiction, right?
But I'm not going to tell you lies.

I'm not one of those people who have to write. I don't feel that if I didn't write, I'd die.

I'd be fine. I have a job I love and am good at. And I can paint and draw and dance and sing for the pleasure of being creative. Writing is something I choose to do, as hard as it is.

I could stop.

Last year around this time something happened that almost made me stop writing. I failed at something pretty spectacularly. It was, to put it mildly, devastating. And I didn't know if I could recover the blow to my writing ego. Worse, I didn't know if I wanted to. You see, if I stopped writing, all of the negative feelings would go away. I wouldn't be open to failing that way again.

Fast forward to today and I'm writing again, still. I wonder, how did I do it? How did I not stop writing when it would have been so much better for my happiness?

1) Happiness isn't everything.
2) Writing makes me feel new things and scary, amazing things that I have forgotten how to feel.
3) The "What if..." habit is a hard one to break once you pick it up.
4) I have people. Squad. Wonderful, brilliant humans who tell me to shut the f**k up and start writing because THEY want to read the worlds I create.
5) My husband does not take no for an answer when it comes to believing in me. He's a stubborn son of a bitch (sorry, mom-in-law.)

That's how you do it. That's how you keep going. You just do.

The (Second) Best Possible News

You know how, when you are in the trenches, trying to get an agent or get published or writing in a new direction, you have your team? Your posse? Your squad? Your coven?

Your people. (Oh man, do you need people. You can't do it alone)

Kerri Maniscalco is one of my people. Aside from her tremendous writing chops, she is gorgeous, kind, insightful and full of so much freaking positivity that it's hard not to smile when talking to her. And though I have not tried her food in person (much to my ever-living sorrow), when she posts recipes and photos on her blog, the food envy is intense.

And. She's. Got. A. Book. Deal. (with James Patterson's new imprint! take that WITCHES!)

I never really imagined that I'd feel so much joy for someone else attaining a goal I have (yet) to accomplish. I guess I thought I'd be a little sulky. I know I'm not perfect, so I can cop to having felt that before with other people. But with Kerri? It's impossible to feel anything but love for her.

She deserves it. She's worked her arse off in the years we've known each other. Oh, and I've read OF BLOOD AND SHADOW. And it is AMAZING.

So. Here's what you do:
Go to her site and give Kerri lots of love. http://kerrimaniscalco.com/
Go to Goodreads and mark OF BLOOD AND SHADOW as Want To Read
Get ready to be thrilled when this epic book comes out.

I. Can't. Wait.

Choosing a World to Build

In the past, when I've finished a book, I take a week or two off to clear out the previous book's webs in my brain-attic, then start on a new project.

This time, I took a different approach. I asked Agent B (the incredibly marvelous Barbara Poelle of The Irene Goodman Literary Agency) if she thought I should come up with a few more book ideas and we could chat about them before I started the next book. She said to come up with 20. Not 19, not 21. Exactly 20. She told me a story about another client of hers (who I have MAD respect for) that did this same thing, before she wrote her first best seller. So you can imagine how pumped I was to start.

Twenty is HARD.

Firstly, I always have a couple of ideas rattling around my head. Once I cleared out the dross and glitter globules of my brain, I found I had four.

Four is far away from twenty, you know.

Also, some of these ideas were a sentence. They needed some serious fleshing out.

I spent December's waking hours fleshing out my four initial ideas—giving them character names and ambitions and tweaking the blurb (we decided I'd write a 'blurb' for each of the books, as if I'd already written the damn thing and knew what happened at the end. Which I don't.)

But when I was asleep, or running or shoveling snow my brain was churning. The challenge and glory of having to come up with 20 story ideas is that you need to be less precious. You can't wait for your muse to hit you over the head with the story-stick, you need to grab ideas, turn them upside down and shake them until they say 'uncle' or until they bloom into something good. Every article I read I asked myself, Is there was a story there? Every TV show I asked myself if there was a fresh, me-like angle on the story. Music videos, billboards, other people's conversation. I was like the prince in Cinderella grabbing on to anyone with a lower limb trying to fit a shoe, uh, I mean, story on.

It felt a little feverish, seeing every tiny thread as a story waiting to be told. And exciting, and a little exhausting. Even after I had 23 ideas I could refine, I kept searching. A lot of my ideas came from dreams. A lot came from reading articles. Two came from something my kids said.

That was only part one of the exercise. The heavy lifting came when I spoke to B. She asked a lot of questions. Poking my ideas with her own Yoda-like story-stick to see if they held up, made sense and had legs.

The twenty became seven. Then were down to 2. Now I have narrowed it down to 1.

This story is where I'm world building next. I'm excited.

How to get Your Groove Back after Rejection

I have joked (and been serious) before about what I have done when rejected by agents, publishers or critiques. The strategy is mostly about drinking. But, having just had a somewhat brutal rejection, I find myself in a familiar and utterly ugly place.

Doubtsville.

It's a hideous country, flat and with nary a comfort food in sight. I hate it here. I hate how squishy I feel, like a snail pulled out of its shell. I hate how my thoughts bounce around looking for something good to hang on to and finding nada.

I hate how corrosive this place is. How it seeps into my bones and amplifies the negative voice in my mind. I need to get the fudge out of Doubtsville. Now.

Directions Out of Doubtsville

Personal Tsunami
A very smart friend said to me that it's okay to feel bad. Don't minimize how crappy you feel just because people have it worse. It's okay to have a Personal Tsunami, something that feels devastating, even though it isn't. Let it feel like loss.

Perspective
Yes to tsunami, but only for a little while. There's a big difference in accepting feelings and wallowing in a vat o' self pity.


Horses
As in getting back on it. This is something I try to do too soon. As soon as the tsunami hits, I mean before the waters recede and I even know where I am, I'm googling things. Books, conferences, crit groups, blogs, answers, answers answers! I want the remedy before I'm ready for it. But there's a time for horses and getting back in saddles.

Nerves and Fear
I have a friend who is a writer and an opera singer. She helped my daughter over come some fears about singing in public. She said that when you have nerves, don't try to stifle them, instead shake hands with your nerves and say hello. Your nerves, if kept in their proper place, can help fuel you, make you better. And if you've said hello to your nerves, you can keep an eye on them. They can't sneak up on you.

Fear is not your friend. Fear is gripping and crippling and all the 'ippings' you can think of. It can stop you from writing or WORSE stop you from writing what you are really capable of.

EXIT
Get past these twists and turns and I believe you can get out of Doubtsville. I'm stuck somewhere on the corner of Nerves and Fear but I have a plan to get out. A simple plan. It's called "I NEVER GIVE UP."