Hugh Jackman, My Daughter & Me

Today, I took the day off from writing (which — for me — can be SO hard to do!) to spend the entire day with my daughter in New York City. In the morning, we attended a terrific Mamarazzi® event where we saw a preview of the new Hugh Jackman movie, THE WOLVERINE (it’s amazing!), followed by a Q&A with Hugh Jackman himself conducted by The Moms (Denise Albert and Melissa Musen Gerstein). After that, we visited Madame Tussauds and then grabbed a bite to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. It was a lovely day spent in midtown Manhattan with one of my favorite people, and a nice reminder that sometimes it’s a good idea to put the laptops and the computers and the writing away and just be. :) Here’s a snippet of the Hugh Jackman chat. He seems like such a nice guy, doesn’t he?

Writing Tip #110

Don’t imitate. Interpret. Today’s writing tip comes from Peter Beston, an East Quoque, New York-based artist I had the pleasure of meeting during a recent taping for The Writer’s Dream. “Don’t imitate. Interpret.” It’s the advice Peter gives to aspiring painters, but of course his words can apply to any creative artist. When you imitate, you aim to replicate what another person has done; you essential take yourself out of the creative process. When you interpret, you embed your own viewpoint into your creation — you make sense of, add to, depict, question. When I think of “imitating,” I think of an assembly line, the mindless act of placing images on a canvas or sentences into a Word document — an act of the body rather than of the mind. When I think of “intepreting,” I think of a collaboration, a synergy between the mind and body. Although I’m sure there are those who believe that the act of trying to imitate alone will yield an interpretation, my feeling is that if the intention is only to duplicate what is already there, then the artist is not utilizing her most important asset: her point of view. And a well-developed point of view is what separates a beautiful work from a singular work.

Why I Picked a Male Narrator for the ‘Baby Grand’ Audiobook

I always thought — and this surprised quite a few people — that the audiobook of Baby Grand should be narrated by a man — even though my protagonist, Jamie Carter, is a woman and carries a significant number of scenes. (There are a slew of main characters in Baby Grand, each of whom helms a certain number of scenes. Frankly, I still can’t figure out if I’ve written this thing in third-person limited or third-person omniscient narration, even with reading helpful blog posts like this one from Nathan Bransford. I’ll leave that to creative writing professors for now).

I remember talking with my former agent about the decision and she totally thought the novel should be read by a woman, as did my best friend and others. Yet, this was one of those decisions in which I decided to go with my gut. (My feeling has always been that if you feel strongly about something, you should go with those feelings. That has served me well in my career.)

And I felt strongly about this. Why? Still not quit sure — you know, those unexplainable gut feelings — but I came up with these three reasons:

1. Men’s voices are scarier. At least they are to me. (Unless we’re talking Kathy Bates in Misery.) Since Baby Grand is a suspense thriller, I wanted its telling to be pretty darn creepy. And I got some pretty creepy samples sent to me too. But, keep in mind, I also needed this male voice to be able to carry those chapters in which Jamie was the narrator, so I needed a male voice to have a pleasing quality, with only a hint of creepiness. It was a tall order, but in the end Bob Thomley’s narration did the trick. Am I alone in thinking men’s voices are scarier than women’s? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that virtually all computer voices — like those of my GPS — are predominantly female. Scientific studies have shown that people generally find women’s voices more pleasing than men’s. Sorry, guys.
2. There are more male main characters in Baby Grand than female characters. Of the nine lead characters, there are seven men: Don Bailino, Mark Nurberg, Phillip Grand, Edward Carter, Reynaldo Rodriguez, Bob Scott and Gino Cataldi (plus several minor male characters), and only two females: Jamie Carter, the “hero” of the book, and Katherine Grand. So the narrator chosen would spend the majority of their time narrating male-oriented chapters. It seemed to make more sense to go with the numbers.
3. The profanity. The bad guys of Baby Grand like to curse. A lot. And since these four-letter-word-loving characters were guys, their dialogue seemed to sound more authentic being narrated by a guy. Truth be told, of the two or three females auditioning to read Baby Grand, only one made it to the sample round, and, after taking one look at the profanity, turned down the job. I respect her decision, but, between you and me, I thought she was a bit of a wimp. What can I say? I’m from New York.

Note: All this week, we will be celebrating the audiobook release of Baby Grand. Tomorrow: A guest post by Matthew Burns of audiobooknerds.com.

Hurricane Sandy: Life Lessons in the Dark

My 15-year-old son said to me—as he, his brother, his sister and I were huddled under blankets last week during Hurricane Sandy and her aftermath which ravaged much of Long Island, New York City and New Jersey: “People do crazy things because of the blackout.”

Our power had gone out, and we had been listening to a battery-powered radio which—amid news reports of devastation, of flooding New York City tunnels and homes burning in Queens, New York—was warning of people who, desperate for gasoline, were cutting gas lines and starting fistfights, of local looting, and of men posing as utility workers and burglarizing homes when electricity-starved residents let them in with open arms.

“I think crises bring out the best or worst in people,” I said, stunned a bit by his statement, and many others that have come from my oldest son over the years. “If you’re a good person at heart, a crisis will bring out the best in you. If you’re not, I guess it can bring out the worst.” (A magnifier, as my husband calls it.)

For four nights, I sat in the dark with my three children—who, without the circular glow of one of our two camping lanterns, were not discernible at all sitting only inches away from me—wondering if every snap of a branch or creak of a gate outside was a potential threat to our safety. I had forgotten how dark darkness really was until the lights went out and how much of our lives relied upon a current through a wire or a signal in the air. During that time, my children and I clung to our smart phones and tablets, our only lifelines to the outside world, our connection to our neighbors and our old life.

That first morning after the hurricane, after the winds had died down and the sun peeked out from behind low-lying gray clouds, I awoke, happy to see my children asleep around me in the lower-level den, where we had all spent the night in order to be safe from falling trees. I slipped on my shoes, a baseball cap and a jacket and ventured outside to survey the damage to the neighborhood. It was a strange feeling not knowing what to expect when I opened the front door, kind of like Dorothy opening the door to Oz: What would I see outside? How much damage would there be? Was our home intact?

My Book Revue Author Event

Last night, I had my first book signing for Baby Grand at Book Revue in Huntington, N.Y. — the go-to place for book signings on Long Island (Nelson DeMille will be there tonight, Valerie Bertinelli tomorrow night). More than 100 people came out to support me, braving the rain and the parking. I was completely overwhelmed. A truly great evening. For photos from the event, you can visit the Making ‘Baby Grand’ Facebook page. And here is a video snippet of my presentation where I talk about the inspiration behind Don Bailino, the villain of Baby Grand.

Real vs. Fictional Locations

Last week, at a meeting of the Long Island Writers Group, I spoke about my experiences as a self-published author for my debut novel Baby Grand, and one of my writer-friends asked how I go about describing places that actually exist. Do I feel like I have to stay true to what is real and visitable? How can I make things up about places people know well?

All good questions.

And I would think the answer is different for every fiction writer.

For me, and I wonder if my journalism background has influenced me, I like to depict a “real” location, such as Bryant Park in New York City or the Executive Mansion in Albany, New York, as accurately as possible (keep in mind, however, that this means as accurately as possible from my viewpoint). I like to provide an authentic flavor to the place so that anyone who has been there may recognize it or anyone who has yet to go there will one day recognize it. That’s why I drove up to Albany in May 2010 and took a tour of the Executive Mansion — an important setting for Baby Grand. I wanted to get a feel for what the place looked and felt like. And some of those details, I think, help to tell the story visually.

However, keep in mind, I also throw in all sorts of fictitious details about those “real” places, just for fun. Plus, I have absolutely no qualms about creating totally fictitious locations or settings as well, such as an Albany diner/dessert place named Taryn’s, in order to suit the needs of my novel. Could I have used a real diner in Albany? Sure, I guess I could have. But I didn’t feel the need to. Or want to. I don’t feel any pressure to be accurate. I mean, the governor of New York in Baby Grand, after all, is named Phillip Grand, not Andrew Cuomo (although I do mention Mario Cuomo — that’s the fun of writing fiction!).

It’s the mixing of fact and fiction that makes writing and reading fiction exciting to me, which probably explains why I’m drawn to books like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and authors like Michael Crichton (recreating dinosaurs from the sucked-blood of ancient mosquitoes? sounds good to me!) and why The Da Vinci Code is one of my all-time favorite books — a book that may read like careful, accurate research, but really is chock full of fallacies.

But isn’t that part of the fun? The very notion of “artistic license” is allowing writers of fiction to take all sorts of liberties with fact. As I wrote in an earlier blog post, my author-friend Jeb Ladouceur doesn’t visit any of the places he describes in his thrillers. He just makes stuff up. He doesn’t want the realities of those places to stifle his creativity in any way.

Good for him.

However, my inner journalist won’t let me play that way. At least, not all the time.

How do you go about writing “real” places? Do you feel comfortable taking some artistic license?

Guest Post: Why I Chose to Self-Publish after Being Published by New York

One of my favorite things is hearing about the publishing experiences of other writers. Today, author Carole Bellacera tells us why she chose to self-publish her novels after having had deals in the past with traditional publishing houses.

I admit it. I was a snob. Back when I finally sold my first novel to a major New York house, I looked down my nose at anyone who’d self-published their books. For thirteen years, I’d struggled to sell a novel, coming close a few times, but always falling short. But even then, after working with three different agents, and suffering years of rejection, I held fast to my belief that if I had to stoop to self-publishing, I wouldn’t be a “real author.”

And now here I am, almost 30 years later, a self-published author. How did that happen? Well, it’s a rather familiar story to many authors. After my fourth book came out by the New York publisher, my editor left for greener pastures, leaving me an unwanted orphan. No one else, apparently, saw in my work what my editor had, and all support dried up. Of course, my sales sucked swamp water, which, I’m sure, accounted for the lack of excitement on Fifth Avenue.

Burned out and discouraged, I took a few years off from the business side to renew my love affair with what was important to me – writing. I wrote two complete novels and then waded back into the quick sands of publishing – only to find that I was starting over from the very beginning. Agent hunting, editor hunting… rejection followed by rejection. Having a track record didn’t seem to make a difference.

That’s when I decided to take back control of my career. I was sick of being told “no, your work is not worthy.” I knew it was worthy. I was the same writer I’d been when I sold four novels which earned raving reviews, if not sales. So I got my rights back from my New York publisher and put my backlist out on Amazon’s Kindle program. But I didn’t stop there. I’m in the process now of reissuing all my backlist in print, too. And then I took the two unsold books I’d been shopping to New York and put them out through Amazon’s CreateSpace.

Writing Tip #61

Building bridges. We took a quick family vacation this weekend into New Jersey, and as we were making our way over the Outerbridge Crossing, affectionately called the “Outerbridge,” I mentioned to my husband how I used the bridge as a model for a fictitious upstate New York bridge I created for my book Baby Grand. I can’t remember if it was a conscious decision to use the bridge (part of me thinks I actually used the very similar-looking Goethals Bridge, which is only a few miles north), but its steel cantilever construction and narrow lane span came to mind when I wanted to create a scene that took place on a bridge. If I recall correctly, I even envisioned the vistas from the Outerbridge when deciding aspects of what my character saw from its roadway.

I imagined my husband wondering why I didn’t just use an actual upstate bridge instead. I certainly could have done that. There are several accurate depictions of things and places in Baby Grand. I even took a trip to the Albany in the spring of 2010 to get a feel for the place.

But I like the mixture of “real” and “not real” when writing a novel, the picking and choosing of tiny details of my life and my imagination, a collection of random elements that have been inserted into a new order, making new connections. To me, that’s part of the fun of it all, creating these little places and people that are composites of all these different aspects of my world. To me, that’s what writing creatively is all about: Building bridges, be they metal or otherwise.

Meet Juliette Sobanet

Today’s featured debut author is Juliette Sobanet, a French professor who writes fun, sassy women’s fiction with (you guessed it!) a French twist. Thanks, Juliette, for a terrific chat — and, by the way, I just LOVE the book cover!

Name: Juliette Sobanet

Name of book: Sleeping with Paris

Book genre: Chick lit/Humorous women’s fiction

Date published: October 8, 2011

Publisher: Self-published (though Amazon and Barnes & Noble)

What is your day job?  French professor

What is your book about? Charlotte Summers is a sassy, young French teacher who is two days away from moving to Paris with the love of her life and from fulfilling her dream of studying at the prestigious Sorbonne University in France. But when she discovers her fiancé’s online dating profile and has a little chat with the busty redhead he’s been sleeping with on the side, she gives up on committed relationships altogether and decides to navigate Paris on her own.

Determined to stop other women from finding themselves in her shoes, Charlotte creates an anonymous blog on how to date like a man in the City of Love—that is, how to jump from bed to bed without ever falling in love. But, with a slew of Parisian men beating down her door, a hot new neighbor who feeds her chocolate in bed, and an appearance by her sleazy ex-fiancé, she isn’t so sure she can keep her promise to remain commitment-free.

Why did you want to write this book? I spent a year in Paris completing my Master’s degree and accumulating all sorts of fun, exciting, and sometimes bizarre experiences that I knew I’d want to write about one day. I’ve also been an avid reader and writer since I was young, and after I completed my Master’s in France and returned back to the States, I knew it was time to write the story that had been swimming around in my head and was dying to come to life on the page.

So, using some of my own life experiences and my time in France as inspiration (and then exaggerating it all, of course!), I came up with the concept for Sleeping with Paris. My goal in sending this story out into the world is that readers will find a book that they can relax with at the end of a long day, laugh out loud, fall in love with a sexy French hero, romp around France, crave a little chocolate, and fall asleep with nothing too heavy on their minds.

What would you say is the most challenging part of writing a book? Editing and rewriting. It is so difficult to swipe whole scenes, whole sections of your draft and start over again. But to have a solid final product, it simply must be done. Still though, acknowledging what isn’t working in your story and being willing to scrap it is no easy task.

Did you conduct any kind of research in order to write Sleeping with Paris? I studied abroad in Lyon for six months during undergrad and then completed my Master’s in Paris. My time in France helped me to create an authentic view of the setting and the characters from the viewpoint of a young, newly single, sassy heroine. Also, in this novel, I explore issues that all women have dealt with from time to time: love, broken hearts, infidelity, the importance of friendships, family relationships, and career aspirations. Drawing from some of my own personal experiences and from those of my friends as “research,” I hope that women (or men) who read this novel will be able to identify with some of the characters and their problems, while still having a ball romping through Paris!

What motivates you to write? I guess it goes without saying, but I love writing. It’s something I’ve always felt drawn to, ever since I was a little girl. I have stacks of journals saved up underneath the bed, and I’ve been creating stories whether on the page or in my head since as long as I can remember. I love that each writer has a unique story to tell, and with Sleeping with Paris, I was able to tell mine. Well, the first of mine, that is. There are many, many more stories in me. This is only the beginning! So, to properly answer your question, I’m motivated to write because with the exception of drinking wine on a cobblestone street in France, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing!

Did you experience writer’s block? I don’t think I’ve ever experienced full-on writer’s block. Of course, I’ve had those moments where I’ve stared at the screen and wondered, “What next?” But thankfully, for me, that is only temporary. I figure it’s better to at least get some words down on the page (even if they’re not the greatest) than to write nothing at all. That’s what editing is for!

How long did it take you to write this book? I began the first few chapters in December of 2006, but I really got down to business and wrote the whole first draft in spring of 2008. Two years of editing, revising and rewriting later, in the summer of 2010, I had a finished product. And just before publication, I went in for another round of edits. You see? The editing never ends until publication!

Why did you decide to self-publish? Last year, after Sleeping with Paris won first place in the Washington, D.C. Romance Writer’s Marlene Awards, I signed with my agent, polished up the manuscript and got it ready to send to New York. We went on submission with this novel last fall, but because of the trend away from this type of light women’s fiction/chick-lit, the book didn’t sell. Thankfully, even though we didn’t find a place for this story going the traditional route, I did receive positive editorial feedback, so I didn’t give up hope in finding a home for my first book. I recently began paying attention to the massive rise in self-publishing and saw it as a fantastic opportunity to get my work out there and gain a readership. And so I took the plunge and am so happy that I did! It took a lot of courage to get to this point, but I wouldn’t do it any differently.

Was the self-publishing process easier or more difficult than you thought it would be? Some aspects were easy breezy, while others definitely had me reaching for the wine bottle… J  Overall, though, it was quicker and more fun than I could’ve anticipated. The positive reader feedback I’ve been getting since publication has made it all worth it.

What is the biggest misconception about writing a book? That after you finish your first draft, you are almost finished. Writing the words “The End” is really just a sign that now the real work must begin. That’s when you find out that everything you wrote (or at least some of it) isn’t as fabulous as you thought . . . and then it’s time to revise and rewrite!

What was your favorite aspect of the writing process for this book? I loved the very beginning, before I had a clue what I was doing! Transferring those raw ideas to the page in any way I wanted, without worrying about “the rules.” Letting the creative juices flow, so to speak. There’s nothing more fun than that!

What tools/methods have you employed to promote your book? What advice would you give to writers regarding promotion? I’ve been blogging and using Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis as a means of promotion. I’ve also been doing interviews (like this one), have created an author profile on Goodreads, and have posted a bit on the Kindle Boards Forum. There is an endless amount of things that can be done for promotion, so the trick is to prioritize and not allow all of the promotion to steal too much time away from your writing!

How has life changed for you since the publication of your book? At first, I was so excited, busy and tired that I thought my head was going to spin off! Things are calming down a bit now, but the best and most rewarding change has been having new readers come across my book, read it, and tell me that they enjoyed it. I can’t even describe how happy that has made me.

Do you find yourself obsessively checking sales stats? Guilty as charged. Amazon updates them almost hourly, which is both helpful and a time-sucker!

You mentioned you have lots of books in you. When do you plan on writing the next? I’ve already completed a second book, called Kissed in Paris, and I am currently at work on edits for my third novel, a magical women’s fiction with a hint of mystery, called Dancing with Paris. And when this one is finished, I plan to keep on writing!

My favorite last question: Oprah once famously said that there is no such thing as luck, without preparation and a moment of opportunity. Would you agree or disagree with regard to your own success as a writer? I completely agree. We all have dreams and aspirations, but I do believe that we must do our best to work toward them, to prepare in any way that we can. With writing, that means spending a ton of time . . . writing! Then rewriting. Then asking others to read and critique our work. Then editing and revising again! The process never ends. It can be long, exhausting and time-consuming, but you won’t become a solid writer without putting in the time and effort. And then, like Oprah said, there will come a moment of opportunity, and if you’ve been working hard, hopefully you’ll be ready to jump in and take it.

 

Katy Perry at Madison Square Garden: A Night to Remember

“Do you know that there’s still a chance for you?” – “Firework,” Katy Perry

Katy Perry at Madison Square Garden

I often hear from people that the reason they don’t enter writing contests or competitions is because of the sheer numbers out there doing the exact same thing.

“What are the odds that I’ll win?” they say.

Let me tell you a little story…

Last night, I took my 12-year-old daughter, Helena, to see Katy Perry in concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was her first concert at the Garden – a huge arena with so much history, both for me and for New York. I was excited. For me. For her. I knew the seats weren’t the greatest; I mean, they were okay. Section 311. Pretty high up there, but at least we were close to the stage.

I could tell immediately that my daughter was disappointed with the seats the moment we entered the arena. She didn’t come out and say so, because she’s such a sweetie, but I could read it in her face.

We weren’t sitting for more than two minutes, before she said, “Hey, I just saw there’s a contest where you can win a seat upgrade.”

“Oh, really?” I said, not paying it much mind. I was imagining what my daughter would say to her friends about the concert and whether the bad seats would leave a bitter taste. I was also thinking about the ensuing conversations that were bound to take place between us about how “we’re not always going to be able to sit close to the stage.”

“I missed the number you were supposed to text,” she said disappointedly and stared at the neon lights as they changed from one announcement to the other. Finally, she took out her phone, chanting the number under her breath so she wouldn’t forget it and punched numbers into her phone.

“You should do it too,” she said when she was done, “so we increase our chances.”

I may have rolled my eyes. I don’t think I did. I happen to be a very optimistic person, but I mean, what are the odds? Still, I dutifully took out my phone and inputted the numbers Helena told me and got a reply immediately that said I needed to go to a website.

“You have to visit a website? You can’t do that on your phone,” I told my daughter. She doesn’t have a smartphone. That meant that her entry was invalid.

Plus, now I was wondering what my daughter had gotten me into, probably signing me up for a slew of email lists and Madison Square Garden newsletters. But I filled out the form anyway, which, luckily, was short and plugged in my name, email address, phone as well as my seat section, row and seat number from memory. I pressed “submit” and was thanked by the website, which said they’d let us know if we’d won at 8:40 p.m.

I looked at my watch. It was 7:20 p.m. It seemed like a lifetime away.

“We can enter four times,” Helena said. “You should do it again, in a little while. You know, space them out.”

“Okay,” I said. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was thinking. I was thinking I’ve told my daughter all this time that, as Woody Allen famously said (or I think he did), 80 percent of life is showing up. You know, you gotta be in it to win it, something I just said to my 9-year-old the other day when he entered a school contest. But, again, what are the odds?

So I took out my phone a few minutes later and entered again and got an error message. I then somehow managed to un-enter the contest by accident and had to reenter one more time. After that, I got a string of error messages every time I tried to enter again.

“This thing is not letting me enter more than once,” I told her.

“That’s okay,” she said, the gleam in her eyes dimmed slightly at the prospect of having to stay in the seats I purchased.

As the first opening act changed to the second, and the place was rocking with screaming tweens and teens, I noticed on a phone being held by the dude sitting in front of me that it was 8:40 p.m. I took out my phone and saw that the green indicator light was blinking, which meant I had a text message. Let’s face it: It could have been from anyone. I had been texting my husband and friend Viki all evening. I clicked and read the following:

MSG INSIDER: YOU

WON 2 SEAT UPGRADES!!!

Please be in your seat by 8:50 pm.

A Guest Services Rep will be

with you shortly.

I was stunned. I couldn’t speak and just held up my phone in front of Helena’s face, blocking her view of the stage. I watched her eyes go down the screen and then her jaw drop.

“I think we won,” I said in a whisper. “Oh, my god!”

Within 10 minutes, a young man and a young woman sidestepped their way up the crowded nosebleed stairs and stopped at our row.

“Dina?” he asked.

I nodded. The people around us didn’t know what to make of it. For all they knew, we were scalpers who had gotten caught with fake tickets.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I just need to verify your ticket information.” Ticket information that I typed in from memory, not even bothering to doublecheck…

I handed him the crumbled paperwork from my pockets.

He looked at it with a flashlight and said, “You’re good.”

For such a big, loud room, all of a sudden it felt quiet. There was no fanfare. No spotlights. Just Helena and I following two strangers down these treacherous steps and then down escalator after escalator to a lower floor.

As it finally dawned on me that this was actually happening, I asked the young woman, ““How many people won this?”

She looked at me strangely and said, “You. Just you.”

“How many people entered?” I asked.

“Oh, about 10,000,” she said with a smile.

And then came what is probably the greatest moment of the evening for me, and that was when the young man and woman led us back into the arena and I heard Helena scream out, “OH, MY GOD!!!!”

Our seats were right by the stage. Five rows from the floor. I looked up to where our old seats had been, somewhere in the darkness up there, and shook my head. I was still stunned.

We took a couple of publicity shots and then the pair wished us well and left us.

“Thank you, thank you!” Helena said, hugging and squeezing me. She was so happy.

“No, thank you, baby,” I said.

My daughter had reminded me of something very important and something I really do believe down to my core – that there’s always a chance, as long as you believe in that chance and do what you can to make it happen. Whether it’s a writing contest, an elementary school competition or a chance to win free upgrades.

And the concert? One of the best I’ve ever seen.

Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon.