Reading Interruptus: Censorship and Children

by Pari

My parents may have done many things wrong in raising me, but when it came to literacy they were magnificent.The entrance to my childhood home — a grand hallway about 20 feet long — was lined on one side with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Since I wasn't allowed to watch television during the school week, I'd spend hours looking at the books we owned. In elementary and junior high school, I didn't like reading. However, without alternatives, I defaulted to it most days.

When I was eight, I found a slim volume by George Bernard Shaw titled, My Dear Dorothea: A practical system of moral eduation for females embodied in a letter to a young person of that sex. Written for his five-year-old niece, the book is a fanciful ditty. Now that I'm older, I can see that it's dated, but back then I loved its tongue-in-cheek audacity.

Among the pearls of wisdom therein is this: "If you are told any book is not fit for you to read, get it, read it."

Could there be any better advice?

I thought of that phrase last week when I read about the chairperson of the English Department at New Rochelle High School being ordered to rip pages out of the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen before giving it to students. Apparently the school district received a complaint about some of the content and that was that.

As a parent, I struggle with the issue of censorship daily. My own parents were loosey-goosey about my reading; they didn't seem concerned about it at all. I mean, my first sex education happened when Mom walked into my bedroom and handed me Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask and said, "Here. Read this. You might learn something." I was all of ten years old.

I'm less comfortable with tossing any book to my children — especially the one who is in elementary school but reads at a senior-high-school level already. I worry about her hitting certain subjects before she has the emotional maturity to handle them.

Being anti censorship is fine and good in the abstract. But when I'm facing an innocent child who doesn't know about sex or cussing or perverted violence, well I'm less cocky than I was before having kids.

Books for younger readers have changed dramatically from the days of Oliver Twist and The Secret Garden. I know. I just spent the last few months engulfed in YA lit. (I'm not talking Junie B. Jones or Captain Underpants here; my kids graduated from them years ago)

There is an incredible range of language and topics in these novels. I applaud the experimentation and tackling of controversial issues. But do I want my younger child reading some of them? Not yet.

However, I do what I've always done. I talk with my children about their literary choices. I'll tell them if I think the material is too adult for them. (I do the same when young readers ask about my books.) I'm not so much worried about language as I am about emotional violence — rape, incest, mutilation, extremely graphic murder scenes . . .

But I don't censor. That's my decision and I'll accept the consequences. Believe me, I've had some close calls. When my younger child was reading a fairly explicit book about the Holocaust, I was uneasy inwardly. Outwardly, I made sure to check in with her often, to help her understand and to make sure she wasn't having nightmares.

Though it was a difficult read, I can't imagine ripping that book from her hands.

The thought of tearing out the offending pages makes me nauseated. {Did you know there's a term for that? It's bowdlerizing.}

Back to the story at New Rochelle:
It doesn't end with the first article. If you haven't clicked through already, go to this link. Apparently the community — and far beyond — was outraged with the school board's decision. New books were ordered. Ah, a happy ending.

When my parents died, my husband and I took the planks of wood that graced my childhood home and installed them in our own. They're filled with books once again. Our children have the right to look at any volume they want — though I do have some on the highest shelves so that they're more difficult to reach.

I know we've discussed censorship on Murderati before, but I'd like to hear your views when it comes to children who may not have the same ability to stand up for themselves, to judge what may or may not be appropriate.

What were your own childhood reading experiences? What were your parents' attitudes toward reading?
Have you ever taken a book away from your child?
Are there books that are inappropriate for children or am I just too old-fashioned?

I miss Veronica Mars

By Allison Brennan

Last year my young teen daughters and I watched all three
seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. If you’re not familiar with the short-lived
television series, it’s essentially a smart, modern-day Nancy Drew with wry wit
and sharp dialogue. It’s one of the few shows that appeals to both adults and
teens and the single best series I’ve found to stimulate conversations with my
older kids about the real, everyday dangers they face as young people in the
world today. The cancellation of this show was truly sad-the stories were
fantastic, the acting terrific, and it tightened the generation gap.

From Wikipedia:

“Veronica Mars is . . . a balance of murder mystery,
high school and college drama . . . featur[ing] social commentary with sarcasm
and off-beat humor in a style often compared to film noir. Set in the fictional
town of Neptune, Veronica Mars starred Kristen Bell as the title character, a
student who progressed from high school to college during the series while
moonlighting as a private investigator under the wing of her detective father.
Episodes have a distinct structure: Veronica solves a different “case of
the week” while continually trying to solve a season-long mystery.”

The show didn’t sugarcoat conflict, though humor and
irony were often used. Topics like date rape, cheating, drugs, child
molestation and teen-age drinking were handled in both an entertaining and
thought-provoking way.

For example, part of Veronica’s backstory was that she
was drugged with GHB the year before the show began. She never told anyone
about it, because she didn’t remember anything-except that she was no longer a
virgin. As the story unfolded over the first season, we learned that someone slipped
the drug in her drink and handed it to her. At a big party, you often don’t
know where your drinks are coming from. My oldest daughter was floored, and
said she’d never accept a drink from anyone again-she’d open the can or bottle herself
and not let it out of her sight.

In one episode, Carmen comes to Veronica when her
ex-boyfriend Tad blackmails her with a video he took with his phone of her
sucking a popsicle in a sexually explicit manner. She’s terrified he’ll follow
through with his threats to post the video on the Internet. After watching this
episode, my oldest daughter finally got it. She was nearly 14 at the time, in
8th grade, and didn’t understand why I wouldn’t let her have a MySpace page or
a computer in her bedroom.

It’s not about trusting my daughter-who wants to be a
cop, is a dedicated athlete, and lives by the mantra: “my body is my temple”-it’s
about everyone else in the world. Even your friends. Because all it takes is
one pissed off friend to take an innocuous (or not so-innocuous but ‘fun’)
image or video and send it to everyone’s cell phone, or post it on the
Internet.

As I told her, “Once it’s out there, you can never
get it back.”

They’re kids. We hope that we raise them with enough
common sense and street smarts so that when they’re eighteen they’ll make the
right decisions. They’ll screw up sometimes, but until they’re eighteen parents
need to establish some ground rules because some mistakes have
long-lasting and far-reaching consequences. And today, if it’s caught on camera, everyone in the world will know about it in eight seconds flat.

Kids don’t think parents know anything. We obviously know more than they think, but times
do change. When I was a teen, “date rape” was essentially pressuring and manipulating girls
to have sex–not drugging them into forced compliance. Alcohol, marijuana and
occasionally cocaine was the drug of choice in my high school, not heroin and
meth and eXtasy. I never had to walk through a metal detector at school; now more public high schools in major cities–and some in suburbia–have them than don’t. Even many younger grade schools. I had earthquake drills; my kids have lockdown drills.

This is why I miss Veronica Mars. It connected me with my
teens in a way no other television program has done. When we talked about
Carmen being caught on video, my oldest daughter finally understood why I didn’t
want her photos posted online. Why I didn’t want her to send her best friend a
completely innocuous picture on her cell phone of her in three different
bikinis when she couldn’t decide which one to buy. Do you want that picture
sent to every boy in your school? Forwarded to every friend with a cell
phone? Do you want people you’ve never met to see you at the movie theater or a
ballgame and know your name and how you look practically naked?

We have to take charge-parents and the teens of today. The
police have more than enough on their plate to not add to it teens voluntarily
meeting up with predators and being manipulated into sex, raped, murdered, or
trafficked. Honestly, they have to prioritize their cases and focus on the hard
core child pornography–kids under the age of 14 who have been sexually
exploited and abused. Even then, the caseload is staggering: an April 2008
Washington Post article revealed the results of a thirty-month long sting in
Virginia where child pornography-explicit sexual material with minors under the
age of 14-was found on 20,000 private computers. Those computers were
responsible for over 200,000 individual transactions. In one state alone. And only the public files shared with undercover cops. These are a small percentage
of the hard-core child pornography out there being shared by pedophiles and
perverts, estimated at less than 20% in just this one operation. Extrapolate
that to fifty states and you can see there is an epidemic of such huge scope
it’s mind-blowing.

When you add in the sexual harassment of teens online,
the numbers are even more terrifying. Law enforcement can’t take care of it
all. If every cop in the country
worked 24/7 stopping online child pornography, they still wouldn’t be able to solve a
fraction of the hard core cases.

It’s up to parents and teachers and communities and
churches to educate our kids and hope that they get smart. Many of the assaults
that result from online chats or places like MySpace are because a victim
willingly agrees to meet their attacker-thinking that they’ll be safe. We have
to teach them to protect themselves and make smart choices.

The FBI produced two public service announcements. They
don’t have the money to pay for the advertising, so it’s up to individual
television stations to play them as PSAs-which is usually in the wee hours of
the morning. They’re each only 60 seconds. They’re worth watching. They’re worth sharing with your kids. (I posted the links in case I messed up the YouTube embedding thing.)

Everybody Knows Your Name

Bulletin Board

I’m not the strictest parent on the planet, but there are
some unbreakable rules in our house:

1) No computers, tvs or video games in the bedrooms. We
have two computers in the den which the kids can use, plus my computer and my
husband’s computer. It benefits parents to learn technology and learn how to track histories, even when kids learn how to delete history.

2) I get all passwords to all accounts, email or
otherwise. Cell phones are a privilege. Abuse of cell phone texting, i.e.
anything profane or sexually explicit, the phone will be disconnected. I don’t
check daily, but I spot check. Sort of “surprise inspection” time. I have taken away the cell phone before. And my kids know I will do it again.

3) No personal information on line. No chat rooms or IM with anyone they do not personally know from school or sports.

The last is actually the hardest to enforce. Even if your
kids obey, you have no control over what their friends post. This is why
education is so important. Even if your kids are being 100% safe, you can be
assured that either they’ll mess up (deliberately or by accident) or their friends
aren’t being safe. I have no qualms talking about these subjects with my kids’ friends. If their parents have a problem with me discussing it, they’re welcome to call me and I’ll be happy to share statistics and facts of which they’re likely not aware.

One last story . . . my oldest daughter accidentally switched two numbers when texting a friend of hers from school. Someone responded. They went back and forth 2 or 3 times, then she said, “Who’s this?” because she thought something was off. The other person teased back without telling her, so she typed, “I thought you were someone else. Don’t text me again.” He persisted. She ignored him. Then she gets a call from the number and doesn’t answer it. She’s scared. She has a voice message. She listens to the voice mail–it’s a mother yelling at her for texting a nine-year-old boy.

I called that mother. I explained what happened, and that my daughter is a minor in high school and didn’t know she’d typed a number in wrong. At first the mom was upset, then she calmed down. She didn’t cast any blame on her son, however; she was certain that his older step brother was somehow responsible.

I didn’t say what I wanted to say, which was, why does your NINE YEAR OLD have a cell phone with TEXTING??? Okay, maybe I’m being judgmental, but I don’t see the purpose. There are phones that you can program to call only a couple numbers if you’re really concerned about reaching your younger children. But seriously. Nine? And I thought my second grader was exaggerating when he said half the kids in his class had cell phones. Maybe he wasn’t.

Okay, now this really is the last story . . . when I was at the FBI Citizen’s Academy, the SSA in charge of child cybercrime said that if you let your daughter have a webcam on her computer, in less than six months there will be naked pictures of her on the internet. Predators are good at lying, manipulating, and convincing teens to do almost anything in the “privacy” of their own bedroom.

Talk, listen, and enforce. As I tell my kids–take everything you read online as a possible lie–if he says he’s a 17-year-old high school junior from Texas, it’s a 50/50 chance he’s not.

And maybe someday, a show like Veronica Mars will return. But until then, don’t wait to talk about the tough subjects with your teens.

Elements of Act Three (part 3): Elevate Your Ending

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Think
about the endings of films and books that stay with you. What is that extra something they
have that makes them stand out from all the hundreds and thousands of stories
out there? That’s your mission,
today, Jim, should you decide to accept it: Figure it out.

As
a storyteller the best thing you can do for your own writing technique is to
make that list and analyze why the endings that have the greatest impact
on you have that impact.
What is/are the storyteller/s doing to create that effect?

When
you start to analyze stories you love, you will find that there are very
specific techniques that filmmakers and novelists are using to create the
effect that that story is having on you. That’s why it’s called “art”.

Now,
you’re not going to be able to pull a meaningful ending out of a hat if the
whole rest of your story has one-dimensional characters and no thematic
relevance. But there are concrete
ways you can broaden and deepen your own ending to have lasting impact or even
lasting relevance. Today I’d
like to look at some endings that have made that kind of impact on me, and I
hope you’ll take the cue and analyze some of your favorite endings right back
at me.

And
I must say up front that this whole post is full of spoilers, so if you don’t
want to know the endings before you see or read some of these stories, you’ve
been warned.

For
me I think the number one technique to create a great ending is:

MAKE
IT UNIVERSAL.

Easy
to say, you say! Yeah,
I know.

My
favorite movie of this year so far, maybe of the last five years, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, does a beautiful
and very simple thing in the third act that makes the movie much bigger in
scope.

The
story has set up that the “slumdog”
(boy from the Mumbai slums) hero, Salim, is on a quiz show that is the
most popular show in all of India:
“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”.   In several scenes the characters talk about the show
briefly – that it represents the dream of every Indian: escape.   As the story moves into the third act, Salim has
advanced on the show to a half-million rupee pot – larger than anyone has ever
won on the show, and the film shows shots of crowds of people watching the show
in the streets – the whole country has become involved in Salim’s story.   More than that – Salim’s story
has become the story of every Indian – of India herself.   This is made very poignantly
clear when Salim and his handlers are fighting through the crowd to get to the
studio for the final round and an old Indian woman grabs his arm and says “Do
it for all of us. Win it all.”

This
is one of those archetypal moments that has amazing impact because it is played
perfectly.   In this moment
the woman is like a fairy godmother, or a deva spirit: in every culture elderly women and men
are magically capable of bestowing blessings (and curses!).    That’s a bit of luck that
we trust, in that moment.   The
gods are on Salim’s side. It also
blatantly tells us that Salim is doing this for all of India, for all the
Indian people.   You know how
I keep saying that you should not be afraid to SPELL THINGS OUT?   This is a terrific example of how
spelling things out can make your theme universal.

So
really very simply, the author, screenwriter and director have used some crowd
shots, a few lines of dialogue about the popularity of the quiz show, and one
very very short scene in the middle of a crowd to bring enormous thematic
meaning to the third act. It
would certainly not have the impact it does if the whole rest of the film
weren’t as stellar as it is (have you seen it yet? Why not????) – but still, these are very calculated
manipulative moments to create an effect – that works brilliantly.

There
are many, many techniques at work here in that film’s ending:

–
-making
your main character Everyman.

–
–
giving your main character a blessing from the gods in the form of a fairy tale
figure

–
–
expanding the stage of the story – those crowd shots, seeing that people are
watching the show all over the country.

–
–
spelling out the thematic point you are trying to make! (and this usually comes from a
minor character, if you start to notice this.)

This
film is also a particularly good example of using stakes and suspense in the
third act. (At this point it would
be good to reread the post on Creating
Suspense, since
all of those techniques are doubly applicable to third acts).

The
stakes have become excruciating by this point in the story – not only is Salim
in an all-or nothing situation as far as the quiz show money is concerned, but
he feels appearing on the quiz show is the only way to find his true love
again. (But I still think
the biggest stake is the need to win this one for the Indian people). And there’s the suspense of will he win
or will he lose, and will his love escape her Mafioso sugardaddy (sorry, I was
not a fan of this subplot).
And the suspense of “Will she get to the phone in time…”

This
movie is also a good example of bringing all the subplots to a climax at the
same time to create an explosive ending:
the quiz show, the brother deciding to be a good guy in the end, the
escape of the lover…

The
ending also uses a technique to create a real high of exhilaration: it ends with a musical number that lets
you float out of the theater in sheer joy. I can’t exactly describe an equivalent to a
rousing musical number that you can put on the page in a novel, but the point
is, a good story will throw every trick in the book at the reader or audience
to create an EMOTIONAL effect.

–
GIVE YOUR HERO/INE A BIG CHARACTER ARC

This
is something you must set up from the beginning, as we discussed in Elements of Act One

And
I will say up front – a huge character arc is NOT necessary for a great
story.   In SLUMDOG
MILLIONAIRE, Salim’s character doesn’t really change.   He is innocent, joyful, irrepressible, relentless, and
pure of heart in the beginning of the story, as a little boy, and he is
essentially the same lovely person as a man.   That’s why we love him.   He is constant and true.

But
most stories show a character who is in deep emotional trouble at the beginning
of the story, and the entire story is about the hero/ine recognizing that
s/he’s in trouble and having the courage to change: from coward to hero, from unloving to generous.

If
you start to watch for this, you’ll see that generally the big character change
hinges on the difference between the hero/ine’s INNER and OUTER DESIRE, as we
talked about in

Elements of Act One

Very,
very often the hero/ine’s big character change is realizing her outer desire is
not important at all, and might even be the thing that has been holding her
back in life, and she gives that up to pursue her inner desire, or true need.

For
me personally it’s a very satisfying thing to see a selfish character change
throughout the course of the story until at the climax s/he performs a heroic
and unselfish act. The great
example of all time, of course, is CASABLANCA, in which Rick who “sticks his
neck out for no one” takes a huge risk and gives up his own true love for the
greater cause of winning the war.
Same effect when mercenary loner Han Solo comes back to help Luke
Skywalker in the final battle of STAR WARS.

Scrooge
is another classic example – the events of the story take him believably from
miser to great benefactor – who “kept Christmas in his heart every day.”

I’ve
said it before, but I also thought it was a beautiful and believable character
change when Zack Mayo in AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN – gives up his chance at
being first in his class to help his classmate complete the obstacle course,
thus turning into a real officer before our eyes.

This
sense of big contrast and big change makes for a dramatic and emotionally
satisfying ending.

Of
course, you may not be writing a happy ending, and the dramatic change may be
for the worse. That can be just as
powerful.   In the end of THE
GODFATHER Michael Corleone ends up
powerful, but damned – he has become his father – which even his own father
didn’t want to happen.
Michael goes from the least likely of the family to take over the
business – to the anointed heir to his father’s kingdom.   It’s a terrible tragedy from a
moral point of view – and yet there’s a sense of inevitability about all of it
that makes it perversely satisfying – because Michael is the smartest son, the
fairy tale archetype of the youngest and weakest third brother, the one whom we
identify with and want to succeed… it’s just that this particular success is
doomed.

Another
dark example:   PAN’S
LABYRINTH had one of the most powerful endings I’ve experienced in a long
time.   It is very dark – very
true to the reality of this anti-war story.   The heroine wins – she completes her tasks and saves
her baby brother with an heroic act – but she sacrifices her own life to do
it.   In the last moments we
see her in her fantasy world, being welcomed back as a princess by her dead
mother and father, as king and queen, and see the underworld kingdom restored
to glory by the spilling of her blood (rather than the spilling of her
brother’s blood).   But then
we cut back to reality – and she’s dead, killed by her evil stepfather.   The film delivers its anti-war
message effectively precisely because the girl dies, which is realistic in
context, but we also feel that the death did tip the balance of good and evil
toward the good, in that moment.
It’s a satisfying ending in its truth and beauty – much more so than a
happy ending would be.

SUBPLOTS
can be used very effectively to deepen the effect of your ending.

As
I’ve said before, in great stories like THE WIZARD OF OZ, and PHILADELPHIA
STORY, every subplot character has his or her own resolution, which gives those
endings broader scope.

Think
of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – one of the very few thrillers out there that creates
a victim we truly care for and don’t want to die.   In a very few strokes, Harris in the book, and Demme
and Tally and actress Brooke Smith in the film, create a ballsy, feisty fighter
who is engineering her own escape even at the bottom of a killing pit.   In a two-second shot, a few
sentences on a page, Catherine’s loving relationship with her cat is set up
before she is kidnapped.
Then on the brink of a horrible death, Catherine uses that facility with
animals to capture “Precious”, the killer’s little dog, to buy her escape (thus
driving the killer into a bigger frenzy).   It’s a breathtaking line of suspense, because we know
how unwilling Catherine is to hurt that little dog, which has become a
character in its own right.
(Lesson – infuse EVERY character, EVERY moment, with all the life you
can cram into it).   And of
course the payoff makes Catherine’s survival even more sweet – she won’t let
anyone take the dog away from her when she is being taken to the hospital.

And
of course I’ve already gone into this, but the intricacy of detail about the
killer’s lair, and the fairy tale resonance of this evil troll keeping a girl
in a pit, give that third act a lot of its primal power.

I
know, I know, a lot of dark examples.

Okay, here’s a lighter one, one of the happiest and
most satisfying endings in an adventure/comedy: BACK TO THE FUTURE.   This is a great example of how careful PLANTS can pay
off big when you pay them off in the end.   In the beginning we see high school student Marty
McFly in a life that, well, sucks.
His family lives in a run-down house, his sweet but cowering father
won’t stand up to the bully he works for, the parents’ marriage is faltering.    Marty is transported back
to the past by mistake, and is confronted with a fantastic twist on the classic
time-travel dilemma: he is
influencing his future (present) with every move he makes in the past – and not
for the better.   In fact,
since his high-school age mother has fallen in love with him, he’s in danger of
never existing at all, and must get his mother together with his father.   Brilliant.

All
Marty wants to do is get his parents back together and then get back to the
future before he does too much damage.   Mission accomplished, he returns… to find that every
move he made in the past DID influence his future – and much for the
better.   The house he returns
to is huge and gorgeous, his parents are hip and happy, and the bully works for
his father.   It’s a
wonderfully exhilarating ending, surprising and delightful – and it works
because every single moment was set up in the beginning.

This
ending owes a lot to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and GROUNDHOG DAY (which itself owes a lot to IAWL). All three are terrific examples
of how you can use the external environment of the main character to illustrate
character change and make your theme resonate in the third act and for years to
come.

To
give a completely different example – suppose you’re writing a farce. I would never dare, myself, but if I
did, I would go straight to FAWLTY TOWERS to figure out how to do it (and if
you haven’t seen this brilliant TV series of John Cleese’s, I envy you the treat
you’re in for). Every
story in this series shows the quintessentially British Basil Fawlty go from
rigid control to total breakdown of order. It is the vast chasm between Basil’s idea of
what his life should be and the reality that he creates for himself over and
over again that will have you screaming with laughter.

Another
very technical lesson to take from FAWLTY TOWERS – and from any screwball
comedy – is SPEED IN CLIMAX.
Just as in other forms of climax, the action speeds up in the end, to
create that exhilaration of being out of control – which is the sensation I
most love about a great comedy.

The most basic and obvious technique of speeding up your third act is – make it shorter than the other acts. Really. Write fewer pages. It seems faster because it IS faster.

Another technique is cross-cutting between subplots or lines of action. We very often see the hero/ine and allies split up in the third act and approach the site of the final battle from different directions. That creates an opportunity to cut away from one plot at a cliffhanger moment, and go to another set of characters, leaving the reader/audience paralyzed with suspense over the dilemma of the first set of characters, and then even more agonized as you cut away from the second plot and characters, and so on through all the subplots as they converge.

The
TICKING CLOCK is often used to speed up the action, especially in thrillers –
in ALIEN there’s a literal countdown over the intercom as Ripley races to get
to the shuttle before the whole ship explodes.   But I’ll warn again that the ticking clock is also
dangerous to use because it has been done so badly so many times, especially in
romantic comedies where the storytellers far too often impose an artificial
clock (“I have to get to the airport before she leaves!   Oh no….TRAFFIC!   I must get out of the taxi and
run!”).   SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
unfortunately succumbed to that cliché and I swear it nearly ruined that
otherwise perfect film for me.

So
just like with all of these techniques I’m talking about – the first step is
just to notice when an ending of a book or film really works for you. Enjoy it without thinking the
first time… but then go back and figure out how and why it worked. Take things apart… and the act of
analyzing will help you build a toolbox that you’ll start to use to powerful
effect in your own writing.

Any
examples for me today? Or is everyone caught up in holiday
traffic? I mean, shopping? Remember – this year, give books!

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Note: Typepad seems to be acting up – I've had trouble both posting and commenting in the last few days, and getting weird cabbagy error messages. So please, if you're commenting, copy your post before hitting post in case of gremlins. I know how we all hate losing posts to the ether.

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Previous articles on story
structure:

What's Your Premise?

Story Structure 101 – The Index Card Method

Screenwriting – The Craft

Elements of Act One

Elements of Act Two

Elements of Act Two, Part 2

Creating Suspense

Visual Storytelling Part 1

Visual Storytelling Part 2

Elements of Act Three, Part 1

What Makes a Great Climax?

Fairy Tale Structure and the List

The Writer’s Life (Part 1)

by J.T. Ellison

Since we're crashing into a new year, I've decided to make some serious, major changes to my writing life.

I am always looking for better, more efficient ways to work. It stems from both my obsessive-compulsive need to be organized and my overwhelming love of office products. Getting gift cards to supply stores (Staples, The Daily Planner, etc.) run a close second to bookstores gift cards.

I love trying new systems, new notebooks, new anything. I've only been doing this for three years, and I'm still looking for my perfect method, my artistic channel, that glorious thing called "process." The method that in twenty years will be the HOW behind my books.

Right now, I'm finding that the process of finding a process means more than a small tweak to my system. I want real change. I don't know about you, but I have, on occasion, caught myself thinking
"Why am I here, instead of in my manuscript?" This goes for everything
non-manuscript related – email, blogs, news sites, social networks, to do lists, research. All
of the things that seem to eat up time that could otherwise be spent
productively, writing.

The problem is all of these things need to happen, to some extent. I can't skip email for three weeks without some feelings of guilt. I won't even begin to pretend that I don't like the occasional breaks to play on Facebook. I love to read the news sites during the day, to check in on my favorite blogs. But I truly believe there's a more productive way to incorporate the fun and the obligatory into my workday.

I've been looking for the best way to do this, and I've found this wonderful system called GTD, brainchild of David Allen. Getting Things Done. (Yes, all you Mac people already know about this. Us PC folks are usually a few steps behind. Quit your snickering.) My God, who wouldn't want to invest in this? I've always called my approach to work AiC – ass in chair, but GTD takes AiC and puts it on steroids.

GTD is going to help me revamp my writing life.

Note I didn't use the words "writing routine." I've always thought of what I do as a routine, a series of goals that I've set for myself, publicly and privately, that allow me to meet my deadlines with a modicum of hair intact. In the days before major book contracts, the days before deadlines, before Murderati even, I stuck to a pretty steady routine, driven partially from my desire to write and partially from the embarrassment I'd feel if I couldn't bring pages to my writing group twice a month. No pages at group meant I wasn't producing, the biggest sin I as a "writer" could commit.

And it worked, quite well. For a while. Nowadays, when I'm working on three books at once (one being written, one being edited and one being promoted) I find that sometimes, the work that needs to get done is taking a backseat to other priorities. Which is utterly insane, because as writers, our only priority should be to write.

One of my favorite authors, Jeff Abbott, has been writing a series of blogs about productivity. In them he not only gives excellent, sage advice, he's linking to other sites that give excellent, sage advice. My new favorite is 43 Folders. Great advice. Great, practical, knock this crap off and get back to work kind of advice. I love it.

Because somewhere along the way, my laptop, sacred beast that it is, internal automatic wireless being, has become my lifeline "out" of my house. This is a VERY BAD THING.

I ask myself what the problem is. Am I so caught up in the excitement of having a network of friends who GET what I do that I'm shirking my writing time to be with them? Well, maybe a little. There is something quite heady about being online with like-minded individuals. Are they helping my writing? Well, to the extent that I learn something new about the publishing industry weekly, then yes. Otherwise?

I didn't know a soul when I wrote my first book. No one. I was in an utter vacuum. And I was blissfully happy. Working at my own pace on my own story, no distraction, no worries. For several years here at Murderati I've been encouraging new writers to get out of said vacuum and connect. Connect, connect, connect. Network, network, network.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Now I understand the emails I was getting before my first book came out. Those encouraging notes that said enjoy this time, because once the book drops it all changes.

I'm rapidly realizing that I long to have the vacuum back. Don't get me wrong, I love you guys. I love my writing friends here in town. I enjoy emails from fans, requests for media interviews. Who wouldn't? I think it's part of the excitement of becoming a debut author. And in the course of only 13 months, I have three books on the shelves. I've written the fourth and started the fifth. Talk about your zero to sixty, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars. Any normal human being would be having this kind of time management issue, right?

The way I've been managing to get all that work done is writing every day, from
12-4, 1,000 words a day. THAT was my old routine. But it's not working
anymore. I'm having days where I look at the clock, it's 3 pm and I haven't opened the manuscript. Or days where I've been so busy handling myriad other chores – also known as life – that I haven't written a word of fiction. But I've gotten my blog done and I've cleared out my email and chatted with my parents and touched base with a friend or two, and probably knocked out a load of laundry or made a run to the grocery.

And those are good things, because they have to be done too. Writers can't live by manuscript alone, unfortunately, and I've always been adamant that I want to have a full, rich life, one that includes being a writer, not resting solely on that identity for survival. I want to have a life outside of my books – if I don't, my writing WILL suffer.

I've realized I'm not the only writer who has these issues, and that in and of itself is heartening. I've been feeling a bit like an outcast, looking at some of my literary heroes who don't have a blog to weekly caress their inner woes and the magnificent work product they are responsible for. It's humbling, and inspiring, and I WANT IT.

If anything, this week's journey through the internet searching out better processes proved to me that I am a part of something bigger, a social construct of intellectualism, entertainment and ultimately, creation. That what I'm doing, writing these books, matters, even if that's only to me. That as much as I want to think that writing is just a facet of who I am, I'm realizing that I must simply surrender to the reality that I am a writer, that writing is my life, and as such, I need to have a rich and healthy writing life in order to be happy and fulfilled.

Next week, I'll tell you how I plan to do this.

So, share. What's your process? And do you have any devilishly good sites on productivity and creativity you enjoy reading?

Wine of the Week: Shared over a delicious meal with my secret houseguests – Barossa Valley Estate E Minor Shiraz (Australia)

PS – Congratulations to Jacqui Carney, who won the critique of her NaNo pages!!

PPS – If you're an online shopper, please consider using GoodShop to buy those holiday gifts (BOOKS!) You'll be able to help out your favorite charities, who are all having a rough year too.

Her Master’s Voice

by Zoë Sharp

When I pick up a book by a new author – one that’s new to me, I mean, rather than a debut novel – somehow I know within the first page if the book’s going to hold my attention or not. I think most of us, whether we do it consciously or not, make that same snap decision.

And although I’ve talked before on these pages about the importance of opening lines and of finding the right jumping-off point for your story, there’s more to it than that.

It’s the voice.

Every writer has their own distinct voice. You might think of it as their style, but there’s more to it than that. It’s something to do not just with the choice of words, but with the way they’re put together on a fundamental level, the rhythm and the flow of them. It’s the way the writer breaks up sentences, paragraphs, chapters. And it’s something that’s very difficult to assess in your own work.

An old friend from my old writing group has a wonderful lyrical style of storytelling. She could read out of a phone book and you’d sit entranced and listen. But whenever we would go to meetings and she’d bring along printouts of her latest piece of work, my comments would be the same. "It sounds brilliant when you read it out, but what you’re reading is not what’s actually on the page."

As the author, you know where the emphasis should go, the pauses, the inflections. I’ve often said that I’m a visual writer. While I’m writing a scene it’s like I’m watching a movie being played inside my head, and all I do is write down what I see. Then, when the reader picks up that same scene, I hope that they feel they’re watching the same movie I was, when I wrote it.

But how do you know?

Whenever I’ve given talks to writer’s groups and would-be authors, the piece of advice I always include is to read your work out loud. There’s nothing to beat it, not just for checking that rhythm and flow I mentioned earlier, but to pinpoint those sections of dialogue that just don’t quite sound like real words coming out of real people’s mouths, and those chunks of descriptive narrative that just go on for a teensy bit too long. On the page, there’s always the danger they can lurk unnoticed in corners, but out loud they really scream at you.

This week, I finally managed to get hold of a copy of SECOND SHOT in its unabridged audiobook version, read by actress Clare Corbett. I must admit that I put it on the CD player in the car not without some considerable trepidation. It’s a very personal thing, hearing your first-person character brought to life by a stranger. And one whose interpretation of that character is restricted, in a way, by exactly what’s written on the page and no more than that. I remember reading an interview with an author who’d read his own work for audiobook, and was not allowed to make any alterations to the text, even though he was the one who’d written it in the first place.

And then there’s the horror stories, of course. My good friend and fellow LadyKiller, Priscilla Masters, recalls how one of her novels went to audiobook with a Swedish character called Agnetha, which was pronounced as ‘Agg-neetha’ all the way through, when it should be pronounced ‘Ann-yetta’. Another, Chris Simms, was telling me he had described a character in one of his Nepoleonic War novels as a war veteran, because – although he was only in his thirties – he’d been a boy soldier. The narrator chose to do all this character’s dialogue in the voice of a crusty old man.

But Ms Corbett, I have to say, brought Charlie Fox to life almost exactly as I’d heard her in my head. It was quite something. And I’ve still no idea how she managed to do the voice of a four-year-old girl, Ella, quite so convincingly.

The only oddity was Sean Meyer.

Sean has been a mainstay of the series almost since the beginning. He was one of Charlie’s army instructors during her abortive Special Forces training, a rough diamond from a council estate in a gritty northern English city, who eventually left the army to move into close-protection and was driven enough, successful enough, both to start his own agency and then to be taken on as a partner in a prestigious New York outfit, taking Charlie with him. He’s got that killer instinct right the way through, intelligent and cold-blooded, but he loves her to bits, even if – sometimes – he’s got a strange way of showing it.

Yes, he’s a Lancashire lad by birth, but I saw him as having acquired quite a bit of gloss along the way, sloughing off a lot of his roots and, with them, toning down his speech patterns. But I’d never quite got round to actually saying that, on the page. So, Ms Corbett’s interpretation, quite correctly, gives him a noticeably flat northern accent.

And, once I’d got over the surprise, I realised I really quite … like it. And now I’m sitting here, writing the new book, and whenever Sean speaks, all I can here is that voice for him. I’ve even found myself subtly altering his dialogue so it fits better.

What I also found myself doing was trimming more words out than I was putting in. Hearing the narrative made me realise that, although I think I’ve been progressively tightening the books up as the series has progressed, there’s still plenty of room for improvement …

So, my question is, have you listened to an audiobook that really didn’t fit your interpretation of the characters? Did it alter your subsequent reading pleasure? Have you had your own books translated to spoken word format and, if so, how did it match up to the way you heard the story as it unfurled inside your own head? And has it altered the way you write?

This week’s Word of the Week sincere, which means pure, unadulterated, genuine, free from pretence, the same in reality as in appearance. The derivation of this word comes from cere, which means to cover with wax. If a sculptor was working on a marble statue and they made a mistake, they would fill in the error with wax to obscure it – marble being a very expensive material to simply throw away and start again. However, if a work of sculpture was completed without the necessity for this, it was sincere – without wax.

Also, I managed to have a complete brain dump when I put news of Mayhem in the Midlands on Twitter and got the dates muddled with that of another convention I’m attending next year, CrimeFest. Mayhem will, of course, run from May 21st to 24th, 2009, and I am delighted to have been invited to be the first Caroline Willner International Guest of Honor in this, their very special tenth anniversary year.

WTF?

by J.D. Rhoades

You may remember a few months ago, after I came back from vacation, I posted about odd things I'd seen. I talked about how the writer's mind can't help but take those little anomalies and run with them, spinning stories out of those glimpsed threads of other people's lives.

So…let's do it again. I've been collecting little snippets, odd and unexplained occurrences for you to think about and, if you are so inclined, to spin your own stories from. They don't have to be full-blown novels or even short stories..but see if your imagination can come up with creative explanations for these little "WTF?" moments.

THE PIANO IN THE WOODS: Authorities in Harwich, Massachusetts, are probing the mysterious
appearance of a piano, in good working condition, in the middle of the
woods.

Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin
Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact — and, apparently, in
tune.

Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said
information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in
the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may
be.

But so far, the investigation is flat.

Also of note: Near the mystery piano — serial number 733746 — was a bench, positioned as though someone was about to play.

The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.

MASSACHUSETTS MYSTERY MEAT:

Police in Framingham are trying to figure out who keeps leaving chunks of meat on the town common, and why.

People who live near the common have been finding butcher-quality cuts of meat under a tree there for about five weeks.

In
the most recent incident, the fifth one overall, a resident discovered
a large piece of raw, unwrapped meat, along with what appeared to be a
liver and some bones on Tuesday.

Henry Field, who lives across
the street from the tree, told WBZ he's found 4 of the 5 pieces. "It
was a large chunk of meat, two to three inches thick. A delicious
looking steak."

He's already stopped his dog Dorje from eating
it, but he's worried someone might be trying to poison animals in the
neighborhood.

Framingham's public health director Ethan Mascoop
told WBZ the meat does not appear to be tainted and, at this point,
there is no reason to be concerned.

WELL, WHOEVER IT BELONGS TO, HE CAN'T HAVE GONE FAR ON FOOT: A severed human foot has been found in Canada's westernmost Gulf
Islands, marking the third such discovery in six months stumped police
said Saturday, noting all three are right feet, size 12, male and shod
in sneakers.

"It is not known at this time what relationship, if any, this foot
has with the two feet recovered last year in the same area," Constable
Annie Linteau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

The two previous cases are still under investigation and federal
police "have yet to determine if foul play is involved" in the first
two cases or in this latest discovery, she said.

The standing mystery began in August 2007 when a severed foot in a
white and blue runner was discovered washed ashore on the beaches of
Jedidiah Island in the Georgia Straight between the Lower Mainland and
Vancouver Island.

Authorities speculated it might have been lost in a boat propeller accident, due to foul play, or a hoax.

Six days later, a second right foot in a black and white sneaker appeared on nearby Gabriola Island.

The most recent find was on February 8, when a third right foot washed up on the east side of Valdes Island.

The local coroner is conducting DNA tests on the feet. But so far, there has been no match to missing persons, police said.

I TOLD YOU THAT CULLEN BOY WAS UP TO NO GOOD: 19 vials of HIV-infected blood were stolen from the locked freezer of a
downtown Vancouver hospital.

The blood samples were being stored in a locked freezer on the sixth
floor of the facility's virology lab when they were stolen sometime
between Saturday and Monday morning.

The samples, which were awaiting testing, are labelled with the patients' names, identification number and the letters "HIV VL."

St. Paul's Hospital spokesperson Shaheen Shivji said this was the
first time HIV-positive blood had been stolen from the hospital.

"We've not had such a break-in in any of the freezers before. They
are locked and the area is part of the regular security personnel
patrols," Shivji told CTV Vancouver on Tuesday.

She said the hospital's security video tapes would be checked and security measures were being stepped up.

"If people do come across a vial and they suspect it could be a vial
that was stolen, we ask them to call police right away," Shivji said.

Dr. Akber Mithani, vice president of medical affairs at St. Paul's
Hospital, sought to reassure the public that the only way to infect
someone is to introduce it into the blood stream.

"As long as the vials are sealed, they pose no danger to the public," Mithani said, appearing on CTV Newsnet.

Mithani is baffled as to why someone would steal the vials.

"It is strange. We haven't had any incidents like this one ever before in St. Paul's," he told The Canadian Press.

"We could come up with all kinds of theories around it but it would
all just be speculation," he said. "I have no idea why somebody would
want this."

So speculate! Make four stories, or weave it all into one, or pick any one you like. Let your imagination go wild.Tell us WTF you think was going on here.

Whips and Chains

By Louise Ure

I spoke at a book club gathering in San Francisco a few days ago. It was a small affair – only three attendees plus the hostess – but it was an evening I will never forget.

It was Monday, the first day back at work after the Thanksgiving holiday. Who could possibly remember that they'd scheduled an author visit to discuss The Fault Tree? Surely that's the reason the other people who were expected that evening did not show up. I probably wouldn't have either if I hadn't been the speaker.

So there were five of us in the room. Three black women and two white. All of us between forty-five and sixty. Two of us childless, three who were mothers with adult children.

As usual, I was stunned by the notion that these women discussed the characters from my book as if they were alive. As if they'd just left a conversation with them.

"She's got to get more of a backbone. She can't go around feeling so guilty
all the time. It'll wear her out."

"I'd like to go out with him. He knows how to treat a woman."

Then somebody mentioned the punishment I had conjured up for the protagonist in her youth: her mother would send her to put her face against the Fault Tree, a giant eucalyptus in the backyard, and stand there until she was ready to say she was sorry.

"You know her mother beat her when she was a kid," one woman said. Two others nodded knowingly.

They were reading into the character more than I had intended. I'd never seen the mother as physically abusive, but as someone who scarred with her language, her scorn, and her neglect. That's certainly bad enough, but I hadn't imagined a physically as well as emotionally-battered child in the story.

Then the real conversation started.

Each of the women in the room, except for me, said that she had been beaten as a child. And two of them said they beat their own children.

There was no apology. No pity. It was a statement of fact and how things had to be done. There was even laughter as the shared stories struck home.

"My mother would say, 'Go get a switch and it better not be a small one.'"

"My mother would wait until I'd forgotten all about my transgression,
until I was in the bath and naked and wet, because it would hurt more then."

"My mother would plait the switches together."

"My mother had a leather strip she cut from a conveyor belt.
She called it Mr. Do Right. When we grew up, she cut each of us kids
a piece of it to keep as a souvenir."

I remember how horrified I was at the punishment concocted for the young girl in Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees." She was forced to kneel barelegged for hours on a hard floor that had been strewn with grains of rice. Imagine the pain. The impossibility of finding a moment of release. (UPDATE: Sara J graciously added a comment to correct me: "Not rice on the floor in THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES – grits.")

But this – this casual discussion of the disgrace of child abuse, treated almost with an "I can top that" storytelling technique? And the greater sin … that two of them felt perfectly justified in beating their own children?

"I only hit him on his butt and the back of his legs,
where it won't be seen."

One black woman described it as protection.

"Whatever I do to my son is nothing compared to what
The Man would do if they caught him and thought he was a criminal.
I've got to scare him straight before they get to him."

I don't mean this to suggest that child abuse is a black issue versus a white one. Nor that mothers are the beaters and fathers are not. These are just the stories I heard that night.

In a subsequent conversation with another friend this week, I learned of a white family back East where the father would start counting in a loud voice as he sat in his easy chair. Whatever number he reached by the time the children heard him and got to his side was the number of strokes they would receive. Prior bad behavior on their part was not even required.

Then we hear about the 17-year old boy who finally escaped his captors in Tracy, California this week, just forty miles from my home, with the chain and padlock still attached to his ankle.

Or the father who imprisoned his daughter for twenty-four years and fathered seven children with her.

Could we even make up anything as evil, unstable and vicious as the real stories out there?

It makes my Fault Tree horror seem angelic.

I'm not sure what response I'm asking of you today, 'Rati. I'm still shaken by the proximity and common face of such pain. It's everywhere. It's passed down from generation to generation. And sometimes it's even taken as the status quo.

We should be ashamed.

My editor fantasies

by Pari

here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when the judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other somethings did —
you imagine His surprise

Dear E. E.,

I was pleased to receive the first two stanzas of your newest poem, "here is little Effie's head," though I'll admit to being a bit perplexed by your unconventional punctuation. Do you really think readers benefit from the lack of commas, periods or capitalization? As these stanzas stand now, the reader has no clue where to pause, to take a breath.

While I'll admit I'm new to editing poetry, it seems that a few hints might help the reader grasp your meaning and meter more effectively.

"Coffinlid" should be two words.

Also, is it possible to be more specific in lines six and seven? I'm not convinced the use of "something" and "somethings" works here. Are you referring to crumbs? To souls? Do you really want to bump your readers out of the poem with these kinds of questions? The same objection could be made to line eight. To whom are you referring with the word "you?"

While creativity takes time, I have faith that the remainder of your poem will arrive – as we originally agreed – before the end of office hours tomorrow.

Best,
PN Taichert

From the moment I dreamed of being published, I held an image of the perfect editorial relationship. My editor would be experienced with a marvelous breadth of knowledge about effective storytelling and the many nuances of American English. We'd have a partnership. I'd supply the nearly done sculpture and the editor would supply the kind of professional eye that would take my work to an even better level.

Perhaps this image is outdated.

I know many authors who dis their editors as being too young or not having a clue. They tell horror stories — especially about copyeditors — who correct incorrectly. I love the example Susan Slater refers to where someone in New York kept changing the word "adobe" to "abode" in a work about New Mexico.

But I also know writers who adore their editors and cherish their comments more than gemstones.

In my experience at UNM Press, the main editors tend to focus more on herding manuscripts through the process and making sure all the pieces come together on time for publication. This is a valuable service. But I've never had a discussion about broader concepts in my works, about whether a particular character is neccesary or a certain resolution works.

The copyediting is great for line edits but there's little attention paid — at least vis a vis my works — to the overall picture.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful. I just want more. I want to be the best writer that I can be, to be pushed to be better.

Yeah, right, Pari. Dream on. The publishing business doesn't work like that anymore.

Why not? Why not!

Sure, everyone is overworked. There are too few people to do the job. Still, I yearn for that give and take and hope to experience it in my writing career . . .

But back to the beginning of this post:

Over on the listserv at Novelists, Inc., one of the members posted this link:

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/22/axls_editor/

Please take the time to read what an editor might do to Axl Rose's "Sweet Child O' Mine." (It's the reason I decided to toy with e.e. cummings' famous poem.)

And then let's play:

Tell me about your editor or dream editor.

Pick a short piece of literature and edit it, like I did at the beginning of this post, and share your fun with the rest of us.

I can't wait to read what you all have to say.

and some days we laugh

by Toni McGee Causey

Oh, I'd like to give you a blog with all the metaphors tied up prettily, a big fat box that rattles when you shake it, makes you curious and your eyes light up as you rip into each simile. I'd like to dance with you under the lights, toast to the pleasure of having had you for company this year, and sit with you around the fire, listening to your stories. You have been a gift to us, all of you who visit here. You have sustained us and comforted us, commiserated and empathized. Cheered us on and felt our rage when we've slammed against the cage.

I had all these plans this week of putting on a big spread, something sprinkled with kindness and a big plate of happy over there in the middle of the table for everyone. Something that would take all our minds off this guttering economy and screeching wails of war that never seems to end, of terrorists and taxes and these-crimes-these-days-itis. Unfortunately, I've finished polishing a draft and my brain looks like an over-stuffed closet exploded all over the place and I have no clue where I'm going to shove all of this stuff, nor what I've done with the important bits and pieces that might have made up a coherent celebration of Good and Just and Overflowing Milk and Honey Buffet… hell, I can't even find the crackers right now, so I hope you'll forgive me. And if I could, I would send gifts to every single one of you, but I don't think the forty-two cents in the bottom of my purse is going to stretch far enough for that, and so, I give you a few things I've gathered. I nudge them out into the circle, hoping you'll enjoy. One is hand-made, and the others are things I think will give you a smile:

For a Christmas laugh, I give you When In Doubt, Throw Hard Candy (aka, The Santa From Hell)

For a writing-related post I know all you creative types will relate to, go read Libba Bray's Writing a Novel

And not for the bashful (probably not work safe), there's R-rated (raunchy) Amy G and her talent with the kazoo. [Now watch, there'll be a stampede over to YouTube just because I said 'raunchy'.]

Or, you may be like me and want one of the Despairware t-shirts

Meanwhile, are you reading Mir? You will love Mir at Woulda Coulda Shoulda, trust me on this. I'll tell you that you'd also enjoy reading Heather over at Dooce, but I don't even know where to tell you to start with Heather. Just plunge in, because there's always something funny over there. Same thing with Joshilyn at Faster than Kudzu.

So this is my wish for you, this holiday season–that something gives you a smile. That in spite of loss and unemployment, bitter winds and worse news, there's something that happens this week that warms you and gets you through. And while you're at it, if you have something funny you can share or a holiday wish, send 'em along.

Ball and Chain

By Cornelia Read

I
have been married for twenty years. Actually, as of today, make that twenty
years, two months, and nineteen days. I won’t quibble about hours or anything.
I’m tired.

This
past November 18^th, I sat down for my first meeting with a divorce
lawyer.

Karmically
enough, that date is also my soon-to-be-ex husband’s birthday.

What
does this have to do with writing, you may well ask? Well, I think mostly the
connection can be traced back to the exact moment I actually realized the
marriage was finished.

This occurred circa ten a.m. on the morning of
President’s Day before last, when my formerly intrepid spouse said to me, as I
was packing for a trip east to take part in the South Carolina Book Festival:

“You have to give up this writing shit, because you’re not making any money and
I need a homemaker.”

I
looked at him for a moment and didn’t say a word–just stood there remembering
the three cross-country moves I’d made with two small kids in tow for his job
transfers, the thousands of diapers I’d changed solo, the pots of discount mac
and cheese I’d cooked for the kids and eaten the dregs of when he was yukking
it up a la frat-boy at trade shows in Chicago and New Orleans and Atlanta, or
being hand-fed expense-account sushi by comely young Korean waitresses while
dining with potential customers in Seoul–and then thought to myself, “you can
kiss my shapely well-published ass, Bucko, because I am *SO* goddamn out of
here.”

And
I thought of the following words, uttered by Alice Walker during her graduation
address to the class of 1972 at Sarah Lawrence College, my own alma mater:

“No
person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence…. Or who belittles in
any way that which you labor so to bring into the world.”

Okay,
it took me until this last July to actually leave, but still. Here’s the
important thing: I may hate like anything to slam my ass into the chair every day
to write, but I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let anyone get away with demanding I stop. Reading is how I endured my childhood, but writing is the only way
I could’ve survived life as a grownup.

I
never thought I would ever finish a manuscript, but somehow, seven years ago,
in the depths of one of the most miserably tanking abyss periods of my entire
life, my love of words and stories came rushing back—seemingly out of nowhere.

I
got involved with two magnificently supportive writing groups, one focused on
mystery and one more generic. I rediscovered a passion I thought I had given up
forever. And ultimately, I met a bunch of very kind and incredibly cool people
and I got published, so now I can actually support myself… at least this
year.

Believe
me, all of that is a fucking miracle. It is the very best sort of good luck,
and I am every kind of grateful.

Funny
how things unfold, though… it turns out the woman my husband has been seeing
all summer and just bought an engagement ring for is this
wannabe-romance-novelist chick, from the generic (and long-defunct) writing
group.

There
might be some instant-karma retribution coming due, however. First of all, I
think this woman probably believes she’s snagged my fictional husband “Dean,”
who is waaaaay cooler than the real-life version. Poor thing, though…
eventually she’ll get him home and discover batteries are not included.

Second?
Well, the divorce lawyer was recommended to me by a woman in my Current Writing
Group—who just happens to be an assistant DA in San Francisco. (Not that I want
or expect to walk away with gobs of boodle or anything. {Here are my new nine favorite words in the English language: “I made more money than he did this year.”} I just want the walking-away part: Finito. Over-and-done-with. Thanks
for playing. Buh-bye.)

And
hey, look… I am far from having been a perfect spouse or anything. Let’s just
say the husband was justified in nicknaming me “the lightning rod for entropy
in the universe.” I’m a fucking slob. I admit it.

C’est
la guerre. May we both move on, live long, and prosper. Whatever.

Here’s
the problem, though: I’m stuck with my ex as a series character. This is
because I made him look too good on paper.

In
my defense, I did try to portray him more honestly in my second novel.

This
made my kinghell genius editor and his scathingly brilliant assistant say,
“What the hell happened to Dean? He’s so goddamned bitchy and whiny… all he
does is yell at Madeline and smoke pot. Why doesn’t he get off his ass and look
for a job?”

Jeff Spicoli - Chris sm

I
of course said, as I seem to do with each draft when the gang in NY gets to a
part they don’t like, “Um, because that’s what happened in real life?”

To
which their response is always, “Which doesn’t make said episode suck any
less as fiction. Please go fix it.” (Only they phrase it much more kindly, something I totally appreciate because underneath this hardboiled catcher’s-mitt of
a persona I am such a delicate little flower.)

This
time around–book three–they just said:

“So. Dean disappears in the second half of the
book. We need to see more of him…. No, you can’t start showing the
dissolution of the marriage yet…. You’ve got too many other balls in the air
with this narrative.”

In
response to which I sighed a single resigned, “Feh.”

I
guess I’ll just have to think about some other guy while I’m “with” my husband,
in the third draft. (Funny, it seems like I’ve had quite a bit of practice at
that, too, in real life.)

Someday,
however, I’m going to convince the editorial mucky-mucks that it’s time to push
Dean over a steep cliff and then run him over with a big fat honking
train—preferably while he’s wearing his pseudo-ass fakeity-fake-fake
“I-like-to-pretend-I-served-in-Iraq” camo hat, vitriolicly humming along with Rush
Limbaugh–and I’m going to enjoy the hell out of *that*.

Payback’s
a bitch, dude.

In
the meantime, screw Tammy Wynette’s lame ol’ “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” here’s some music
to *really* celebrate by:

Dixie Chicks rule!

Now
‘fess up… has reading or writing ever saved you, or given you the opportunity
to honest-to-goodness OWN the last word? Spill….