Book Giveaway Winner!

On our Favorite PASTimes historical fiction blog, we give away a book every week. Right now, the odds of winning are *excellent.* We get many hits per day on our site, but for some reason not a lot of people leave comments, which is how one enters to win the drawing. We're still working on getting the news out to all those people who love to win books.

Anyway, I'm excited because one of my friends won the book this week, and it's a great Victorian mystery by Will Thomas. But I won't give away the surprise until my blogging partner Cindy notifies her of her victory.

Favorite PASTimes runs interesting interviews on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with both inspirational and general market authors of historical fiction. The site is located at:

favoritepastimes.blogspot.com

Our upcoming authors are Jan Watson and Tosca Lee.

Books Change Lives

Last night was a really special class for the "Stop Gossip and Criticism" group. That's because my teaching partner, Bruce, asked the class members how the book we're studying has affected their lives. Several people (including Bruce and me) testified that this book has changed our attitudes and our lives. One thing we discussed is the way that exercising control over our critical natures works like other ascetic disciplines, cleansing the spirit and bringing us into closer relationship with God.

That's supposed to be the point of studying: to change our lives, to renew our minds and deepen our spiritual walks.

Thanks, Dr. Sedler. Your book is a gift.

Calming the Election Frenzy

I know quite a few people from both parties who are pretty worked up about the election. By contrast, I've been feeling pretty serene. I can't control other people's choices. My sincere belief about what is best for our country matters, but it does not alone determine who will be our next president.

Yesterday, I chose to do the following things that matter:

To roast marshmallows and make smores with my daughter.

To read a book.

To walk to the park and play soccer with my dog and my family.

To notice the golden-red color of the light coming through the leaves.

To try in a small way to make someone's life a little better.


God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Elevator Pitches

While at Glorieta I attended a very interesting workshop focused primarily on nonfiction writers and speakers. The instructor hammered home the importance of seeing one's clients as partners and figuring out how to help them, instead of trumpeting the dazzling goodness of one's own speaking talents.

One of our major points in that marketing workshop was to narrow down the focus of our work and avoid using self-focused adjectives. As a hypothetical example, instead of saying: "Rosslyn is a dynamic, exciting speaker and an expert on parenting," one would say: "Rosslyn shares proven techniques to help parents build their influence with their children."

The value statement is supposed to be twelve to fifteen words, at most.

On ProBlogger Tips this morning, there is a fascinating collection of 1400 "elevator pitches" for blogs. The host of ProBlogger Tips invited all readers to give an elevator pitch, and it's fascinating to see what their blogs are about, as well as who knows how to pitch and who doesn't. Look out for the self-inflating adjectives!

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/25/tell-us-about-your-blog-in-140-characters-or-less/

Check it out if you have time, and tell me which pitch you like. (One note: after you follow the link above to Problogger, the comments link is up on the top right of the post instead of in the more common place at the bottom of the post.)

Or, try this. Imagine that you are an agent in the elevator. What do you want to hear about a novel that will set it apart from the competition? (That is, other than something about the author's international fame and platform of 3 million people.)

If I were the agent, I would want to hear something that makes the novel emotionally moving in a realistic way. Randy Ingermanson says that mainstream readers turn to novels for intense emotional experiences, and I agree with him. Not all novels provide the same intense emotion: one reader looks for an adrenaline rush, while the other looks for tragic catharsis. Still, as that agent in the elevator, I'm looking for a novel's unique emotional power.

Glorieta Roundup

For the record, I took this picture with my new friend Alison at the Glorieta conference. I really enjoyed meeting her--she is just as nice and interesting as she seemed from our internet contact! This picture doesn't really look exactly like her because it's taken at a funny angle, so Alison, if the one from your camera came out better, send it to me and I'll post it instead! (Sorry I was talking about you in the third person, Alison, but I couldn't figure out another way to phrase it.)



Another new friend, one of the professional writers, asked me to sing the real historical song that appears prominently in my novel. That was a real moment of kinship: how many people would actually care what this forgotten nineteenth-century song sounded like? Even other writers usually don't care about that stuff! During that same conversation, I ended up describing to her the most tragic moment in my novel, which is always a dangerous topic for me because talking about it tends to make me choke up and get tears in my eyes. The fact that my novel is based on real people makes their suffering equally real to me.

It was an indescribable feeling, then, to see that my new friend was equally moved by the story, in a way that would only be possible for another writer who cares about the same things I care about.

These are the kinds of conversations that make it worth going to writers' conferences.

Freedom

Two kinds of freedom I experienced at the conference today:

I met with Editor A, who works for a publishing house that already has my manuscript. The manuscript is actually on his colleague's desk at the moment. Because I've never met anyone from this publishing house in person, I set an appointment with Editor A so that I could make a face-to-face contact.

That very well might have been the most relaxed, enjoyable pitch I will ever make. Freed from the pressure of trying to influence Editor A to request my manuscript, I could concentrate on why I love my novel so much. I told him about the novel with great relish and some laughter, and I think he enjoyed the pitch as much as I did. That feeling of freedom will be a great memory for me as I make future pitches.

Here's another kind of freedom: the freedom to disagree. I had two conversations with other novelists today during which those novelists felt free to disagree with me. The first conversation actually changed my opinion on whether or not it would be good to have a ratings system for CBA books. I went into the discussion in favor of a ratings system, and came out of it against one. My author friend is right: it would just be too hard to separate controversial content from worldview. Some writers can present very gritty, difficult situations with subtlety, power and good taste. Others can take a perfectly innocent situation and describe it in a way that is salacious. There's no way to objectively rate novels based on their content.

The second discussion was a friendly debate on the general quality of the Harry Potter series. I made a few points about the weaknesses of the series, particularly in the later books. My new friend countered with some well-thought-out opinions of her own.

Freedom to disagree as friends. It's a freedom I haven't experienced much since grad school. I think that we women often worry so much about offending--unfortunately, with some reason, as some women perceive disagreement as hostile--and therefore we draw back from discussions when difference of opinion emerges. I don't enjoy debate for the sake of debate, but I really enjoy being able to explore the opinions of others in an open-minded way.

Live from Glorieta...

Here I am taking a quick breath in the middle of the hecticity.

I just finished a WONDERFUL meeting with Susan May Warren, a well-known multi-published author. Here's how kind she was: first, she was very excited about my novel and brainstormed potential plot revisions with me for fifteen minutes. That's amazingly selfless for someone with her level of expertise. Next, she even invited me to come *back* for another appointment so we could continue the conversation. What a lovely, lovely person. I'm really looking forward to seeing her again in about half an hour.

There's lots more good stuff to tell, and I'll try to get some pictures too.

Final Prep

I'm trying to get everything together and packed, so my post will be brief this morning.

This will be the first time I spend more than one night away from my daughter. Even my one-night trips have only occurred three or four times in almost six years, so this four-nighter is a big step for Mom. My independent little daughter will be fine, but I'm considering bringing a stuffed animal to get me through the night.

My Own Kind...Run For Your Lives!

I am leaving in less than two days to attend a gathering of my kindred. That thought may be scary to my friends.

My writing kindred, that is. And more specifically, inspirational writing kindred.

I have one friend in town who has been a very helpful reader of my work, and two excellent critique partners. With the exception of these three people, my writing buddies float ethereally in cyberspace--disembodied voices heard only by me as I scan their emails and blogs.

Now I actually get to meet several of them, including my new friend Alison and a couple of people I know from various professional organizations.

What makes this conference especially cool is that my job is simply to meet people and jabber about my novel. Because my agent has already ensured that said novel is in the hands it needs to be in, I don't have to worry about whether or not I will leap that hurdle. Instead, I have the entirely pleasant task of introducing myself to certain people and communicating why my novel is exciting. I don't have a problem getting enthusiastic about my novel!

The other benefit of the conference will be the classes. I'm taking a number of classes in marketing and a couple in technology, so I think I will be equipping myself with some valuable tools for the future.

Keep watching this blog for photos and updates on the Glorieta conference!

The Way You Look Tonight

Movies can sometimes teach novelists a few tricks about character development. For example, there's the job of the casting director.

A casting director's greatest challenge is to cast a film that is based on a famous novel. For each of the novel's characters, the casting director must find an actor who can satisfy hordes of fans who know exactly what each character is supposed to look like. In addition to looking the part, any actor under consideration has to be talented enough to create the right character emotionally.

I recently watched the Ralph Fiennes /Juliette Binoche version of Wuthering Heights.


Verdict: Juliette Binoche is a very good Catherine Earnshaw. Ralph Fiennes is an excellent actor, but, in my opinion, totally wrong for Heathcliff.

My favorite Heathcliff ever was Timothy Dalton. This may surprise those who remember him from the James Bond series, in which *he* was the actor who was totally wrong for the part. Nonetheless, I really like Dalton's version of Wuthering Heights (from 1970, can you believe it?).

The problem with Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff is that he is too fine-boned and also too intellectual, which makes Heathcliff come across as a calculating sociopath. In contrast, Timothy Dalton is over six feet tall and broad-chested, with a rough-hewn look that seems right for a young man of low birth. Dalton successfully conveys the destructive passion that drives Heathcliff, who is the Captain Ahab of romance novels.Timothy Dalton

When Ralph Fiennes's Heathcliff curses Cathy after her death, he delivers the classic lines in a fairly calm, restrained way. You can imagine that his delivery doesn't quite work for lines of this emotional magnitude:

"Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you - haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe - I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

If ever words were meant to be raved and groaned, these are the words. And Timothy Dalton raved and groaned them very convincingly.

Look at the picture of Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff on the video cover at the top of this post. He looks quite pretty with his long hair and big eyes. Pretty just won't work for Bronte's Heathcliff.

As writers, we have to give our characters the bodies that match their types. If Melville had made Captain Ahab four feet tall and possessed of a high, piping voice, Moby Dick would be a satire instead of a tragedy. Sometimes, a deliberate contrast between physical type and inner truth (such as a very handsome man with a sadistic or cowardly soul) can be highly effective. But a writer will leach the power from her work if she creates a purposeless disjunction between appearance and personality, like the miscasting of Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff.

If, like me, you create some of your characters according to the demands of the plot, then you have to think like a casting director. If you make your heroine too voluptuous, will her beauty overwhelm her intelligence in the eyes of your reader? Or, might it be an interesting twist if her striking looks mean that she has to struggle to be taken seriously by both men and women?

Can you remember a movie in which a famous character from a novel was played by an actor who didn't fit the part?

Halloween...er, Christmas...is Coming

My friend Gwen the music teacher may have something to say on this subject.

I'm up much later than usual tonight because it's the time of year when anyone who has anything to do with church or school music turns her thoughts to CHRISTMAS. Yes, while the rest of the parental world is wandering around in search of princess costumes or humming the theme to the Addams Family, music people everywhere are racking their brains to figure out what the kids (or adults) are going to sing this year.

My church kids are doing a 20-minute presentation of carols interspersed with short readings.

First, it's Christmas in a (mostly) minor key:

Gabriel's Message (1895/13th century origin)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (1823, but really, really old)
We Three Kings (1857)

and for our modern finale:

Some Children See Him (ca. 1950)


What are your favorite Christmas carols? (I know my friend Angie likes the Wexford Carol, which fits right in with my taste, too. It's too rangey for the kids, though, as are several others that I really like. Nothing's quite as potentially painful as listening to kids try to make it up the scale in the chorus of "The First Noel!")

Understanding One's Own Writing Process

The other day, I had to reconstruct a chapter-by-chapter outline of my first novel. I found my chapter outline from the very beginning of my writing process; the outline basically consisted of a one-sentence description of plot developments in each of the 36 chapters. That original outline bore only a superficial similarity to what I eventually wrote as the novel progressed.

The discovery of the drastic difference between the original outline and my final product was reassuring to me as I start my second novel (or contemplate rewrites of my first novel). As an organized plotter, I want to have a perfect chapter outline in place before I begin. In reality, my writing process doesn't work that way. My characters didn't spring to life immediately for my first novel; I had to write them into existence. Only when my characters started to "live" in my mind--when they took on flesh and became three-dimensional--only then did the plot of my first novel start to work itself out in organic ways. Coming to this realization about my own writing process relieves some of my self-imposed pressure to design the perfect outline.

Amazing

I have to post this link to an article by Mark Gavreau Judge in the online edition of Books and Culture.

Something amazing happened at a concert he attended recently. I'll let you read about it.

I also really liked this quotation he attributes to Pope Benedict:

"Today an illusion is dangled before us: that a man can find himself without first conquering himself, without the patience of self-denial and the labor of self control; that there is no need to endure the discomfort of upholding tradition, or to continue suffering the tension between the ideal and the actual in our nature."

Concert of the Year: A Holy Joy

Characterization and AWPS

Here's a passage I just read from George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss:

Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee. Certainly, the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous, and to superficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie, though a connoisseur might have seen 'points' in her which had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness: it was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed: everything about her was neat--her little round neck with the row of coral beads, her little straight nose, not at all snubby, her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by a head, though scarcely a year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight. She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any older than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like Lucy with a little crown on her head and a little sceptre in her hand...only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy's form.

Isn't this great? Eliot captures the contrast between the cousins, as well as Maggie's unconscious insecurity about Lucy's appearance.

Of course, we could never get away with writing description quite like this: in the first place, Eliot is using the third person omniscient POV, the disappearance of which I discuss here. In the second place, Eliot's sentence lengths are unacceptable for mainstream commercial fiction of the twenty-first century. The five sentences in this passage number respectively 33 words, 55 words, 65 words, 7 words, and 53 words. Even accounting for the short sentence, that averages out to 42.5 words per sentence.

Alan Oathout guest-blogged for an editor at Bethany House a few years back. Alan wrote an excellent post on differences in sentence length and prose quality between inspirational fiction and mainstream fiction which I'm going to paste here:

Average Words Per Sentence

Books for young people use shorter, less involved sentences—the younger the target age, the shorter the sentences. That stands to reason. Younger readers need information packaged at a level their developing brains can grasp. As we grow and mature, we become capable of processing more complex material, and can cope with longer sentences. Eventually, we reach the level where (In the words of Dr. Kristi Siegel of Mount Mary College) prose made up of too many shorter sentences feels “choppy, childish, or like a bad imitation of Hemingway.” When I first began learning about sentence length, I did a very un-scientific survey of my own, just picking up books from my shelf or the local libraries and calculating AWPS (I used a sample of fifty sentences from random parts of each book, counted the words in each, and divided by fifty).

Guess what? ABA novels typically fell in the 12-15 wps range. Comparable CBA novels contained around 10 wps or less. One of my least favorite CBA novels (The past winner of a Christy award, no less) fell to a woeful 7.19. But not all CBA material aims so low. Ezekiel’s Shadow, by a certain David Ryan Long, came in at a very ABA-respectable 12.47. Heaven Lake registered at 16.38, thanks in part to a monstrous, semi-coloned sentence of 102 words that slipped into the random sample.

No, I don’t get overly hung up on the numbers. Nor do I believe AWPS is by any means the only measure of a novel. But for me, the exercise helped clarify one reason why so many folks perceive the standard CBA novel as fluff. Many of these books—even hyped, award-winning ones—are written at a level appropriate to adolescents. And when adults accustomed to ABA fiction are handed a CBA novel, they may not be able to put it into words, but the difference will be apparent.

Pretty interesting stuff, whether you eventually decide that you agree with Alan or not. Some of us may wish to aim for the 12-15 AWPS rate as we assess the complexity of our prose. But Eliot's 42.5 AWPS won't cut it either, as the contemporary commercial fiction reader will not tolerate extremely-lengthy sentences.

Silver Lining

Does anyone else find something appealing about the prospect of returning to an economy in which people must live within their means?

I'm not minimizing the pain of the recession, especially for older Americans who don't have time to recover from heavy losses to their retirement plans. But couldn't it be kind of good to wipe away the last fifteen years of decadence and just start all over, back in the real world instead of in credit-fueled la-la-land? I'm not in favor of job losses and misery, but I'm a big fan of truth and realism.

I'm a one-time Wall Street employee (at a VERY low level, when I was just out of college). Don't listen to anyone who tells you that the answer is less regulation of the banking industry. When I worked in finance, I witnessed lots and lots of amorality, self-rationalization, and greed. Conversely, one of my finance jobs allowed me to meet two of the most upright, honest bosses I've ever known. Unfortunately, there was a striking contrast between their admirable characters and the behavior I saw in the rest of the industry.

What do you think? Will a depression have a silver lining?

Fireproof: Not a Dry Eye in the House

While watching Fireproof last night, I sat next to a distinguished fifty-year old man who wiped away tears more than once. Everyone else in the theater seemed equally affected by this story of the redemption of a marriage. Of course, I was crying off and on through the whole thing, but I'm always the biggest crybaby in any movie theater, so the testimony of the other weepers may be more revealing!

It's really a movie for Christians, because the application of Christian belief to marital love is very explicit. I don't think many non-Christians would be comfortable with the overt statements of faith in the film.

Fireproof is surprisingly entertaining and funny as well as inspiring. It's the story of a fireman and a sucessful PR executive whose marriage has gradually deteriorated in the seven years since their wedding. By the time the movie opens, they are ready to split up.

The same team that made Facing the Giants made Fireproof, but Fireproof is far more professional and the script is a hundred times better. The acting occasionally contains touches of amateurism, but not to the extent of the first movie, and the script is so tight, suspenseful, and clever that it easily carries some of the less-experienced actors. Kirk Cameron plays the lead, which may interest those who know that he gave up his acting career after his massive success as a very young actor in the 80's. He apparently couldn't find enough roles that were compatible with his Christian beliefs. I was impressed by the quality of his work in this film: he's come a long way from Growing Pains.

There were many memorable lines, but the one that stuck with me was: "You have to love her whether she deserves it or not." Other strengths of the movie include the racially-mixed cast and the older character actors who really look and talk like people we know rather than Hollywood's versions of people we know. It's refreshing to hear real Southern accents, for once, instead of that strange and usually unconvincing film version that sounds like Foghorn Leghorn.

I highly recommend this movie for Christian audiences. Go see it and bring all your friends.

Taking It Seriously

Tell me, fellow writers.

Have you had trouble with people not taking seriously your vocation to write?

Do some people you know think writing has an infinitely-flexible schedule, not like real work?

Do you try to avoid discussing your writing with certain people (or most people) because you don't want to see the inevitable dubious reaction?

No names or specifics, of course, but vent if you will. :-) I'll add my response to anything I see in the comments.

Release Your Unicorns!

My friend gave my daughter a beautiful coloring book called Horses of the World. It has realistic horse pictures to color as well as full-color versions of those same pictures on the back cover, presumably to allow a child to copy faithfully the colors of each breed of horse.

I heard somewhere that many imaginative children don't have much interest in coloring books. My daughter had no interest in faithful color-copying of the horse images.

The first picture she colored brown--all brown, so both horse and rider were completely obscured by the dark brown crayon. I asked her gently why it was all brown. "That's a camouflage horse," she said.

Tonight, she colored another one. By the time I walked up to see what she was doing, the horse was all pink.

"What are you doing?" I asked, hoping my friend wouldn't be upset if she noticed the monochrome, not-so-neat coloring.

My daughter pointed to the horse's head. "I'm making it into a unicorn." There was a perfect pink horn drawn on top of the horse's forelock.

Writers learn at an early age that it's more exciting to make your horses into pink unicorns than to color inside the lines.

Book Mound

If you look on the sidebar of this blog, you'll see that I have a section called "On My Reading Table." Ha! That sounds very genteel. What I actually have is a book mound. I suspect many writers do.

In addition to the enormous book mound on top of one of my bookcases, I have unread books squirreled away on every bookshelf. Some are from the library; some I purchased because I needed to research an author in my genre. I've read some of the research books all the way through. I've only skimmed some of the others, or even booky-booed them.

A looky-loo in real estate is someone who comes to ogle a property with no intention of buying. A booky-boo is someone who picks up a book, reads the back cover, starts reading a few pages of the opening, flips to halfway through and reads a paragraph, then files the book away for reading on some nameless future day when the booky-boo has "free time."

I've booky-booed a number of the books on my shelves. Is any writer out there disciplined enough to actually read one book before buying another? Maybe I have so many booky-booed books because I bought them for research purposes, acquiring them more rapidly than I could ever hope to read them.

Here's to book hoarders everywhere! Better books than cats, right?

Flying, 19th-Century Style

When I drive out of my neighborhood on certain early October mornings, the sky is filled with hot air balloons--near, far, ascending and landing. In their silent flight, the balloons look like briliant Easter eggs.

Of course, I love them because they're a piece of living history. I also value the balloons for what they tell us about their pilots.

To fly a balloon, you have to be willing to go where the air takes you. Unlike our directed, precise flights on airplanes, balloon flights are always a little mysterious. As a balloon pilot, you go aloft with the full awareness that you will not have complete control over your final destination.

A Small Miracle of Roses

At our party, some of the kids invented a game of giving roses from our rose bush to anyone brave enough to touch the cactus in our front yard. Our friends were concerned about our rose bush, as the kids stripped it completely. We kept telling people not to worry, that despite all appearances, the rose bush was prolific and would be just fine.

Our faith in our rose bush was not misplaced. Here we are, only five days after the party when the rose bush was nothing but green and bare stems, and look at this. Isn't it wonderful?

Witticism or Criticism?

My "Stop Gossip and Criticism" class has me thinking a lot about how we speak, especially how we speak to our friends.

Sometimes, we may fall into the habit of being witty through criticism--using our sharp eyes and tongues to incite laughter at hypocrisy or ludicrous behavior in others. It's hard to refrain from this kind of humor, sometimes, when we see something that we know will make our friends laugh.

Trying to abstain from criticism, though, doesn't mean giving up wit and laughter. Just yesterday, someone made me laugh with a couple of witty observations and turns of phrase. What made it especially enjoyable was that it was said at no one's expense. It is absolutely possible to be funny and clever without being negative about others. It just takes a little more work, and a different frame of mind.

My father taught me when I was young that it was not funny to make derogatory comments about others, but a little dry self-mocking could go a long way. That doesn't mean truly being negative about oneself, either. I've always enjoyed people whose senses of humor reveal their ability to poke fun at themselves. It's a humble kind of wit.

Speaking of self-mocking, here's my favorite moment from class tonight.

Rosslyn: I thought I would have a plethora of handouts, but I see I have just enough. (Pauses) I'm glad Friend X isn't here. She would make fun of me because I said "plethora."

Co-teacher: That's OK. We can still make fun of you for her.

And so they did. :-) This just goes to show that teasing can also be done in a loving spirit, when the victim is present.

Green Like Muzak

Some of you may be familiar with the 2003 spiritual memoir Blue Like Jazz. I think my own spiritual memoir will be titled Green Like Muzak.

Why? Because sometimes we take all this stuff a little too seriously, wrestling with angels every night when we should be letting go and getting some rest mentally and spiritually.

The only problem with the title of my memoir is that Muzak is a dying art form. When I go to the grocery store now, I groove along to the cool music--real versions of songs by Sting and other musicians who have gone from cutting-edge to easy listening. In fact, it's songs like "Let's Hear it for the Boy" that threaten to push me into a Flashdance sequence in the middle of the baking supplies.

Doesn't anyone else ever feel like bustin' a few moves in the grocery store? Is this just a solitary freakish impulse of mine?