I’ve noticed something recently.  Both of the last two weeks, I’ve absolutely gotten obsessed with a single song.  We’re talking humming the song obsessively to the dear wife.  We’re talking 19 on the playcount within a few days.  Last week’s was Ingrid Michaelson’s Everybody, and this week, it’s “Wagon Wheel,” by Bob Dylan and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Everybody, everybody wants to love…

So rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain:

The more interesting thing I noticed was that each seemed to be an absolute driving force in what my characters were going through in my draft of The Book of the Dead.  Ingrid Michaelson sings about how everybody, everybody wants to love, and everybody, everybody wants to be loved–and it’s so true. 

We’re not just motivated by the desire to be loved (the more obvious one); we also want something to love.  We want to find someone worthy of our love, so badly that we imbue them with all sorts of noble qualities, and it’s so painful when they let us down that we often turn a blind eye, or create absurd explanations.  Or we want to love an activity so much that when we can’t pursue it the way we want to, we’ll bend all sorts of dimensions, including common sense and kindness, to make it go the way we want. 

That was last week.  Last week, my characters were falling in love all over the place.  This week, things are going kind of sucky for them, and what do they want?  To be rocked.  Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain; rock me, mama, like a south-bound train.  Hey-ey, mama, rock me now.  The love is on a fast course to crashing, and they need a little comfort.

If all goes well with my writing next week, things will go even worse for the characters.  I can’t think what song will be adequate.  Something with lots of screaming.  Anybody know a song of loud, horrible, pained agony?  Something by Kurt Cobain, maybe, except not the Tori Amos cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”  That’s the song I’ll play as everybody surveys the wreckage. 

Do you have any songs you’ve listened to obsessively during any particular period, of creativity or just life?  (I vaguely remember KJL’s obsession with a certain song senior year of college, something with ‘ocean’ in the title or band name…Who am I thinking of?)

Those Brits at The Guardian.  Always coming up with lists, aren’t they?  100 Books That, If You Haven’t Read at Least 50, You’d Better Get Cracking.  Or the 10 Best Films of the Decade and By The Way You Should Like the Coen Brothers.   This time, though, they’ve done something marvy: compiled the top ten pieces of writing advice from some truly excellent authors.

They started with Elmore Leonard, probably because his 10 are so pithy, but I’m going to veer off course for a moment and say I am sick of Elmore Leonard.  Sick of his hoopdetootle!  (You can only be wowed so many times by the word hoopdetootle.)  Sick of his maniacal opposition to adverbs!  As one of my educations profs used to say, most either/ors are usually both/ands.  Phonics vs. Whole Language?  Who said there can’t be both?

I am digressing, I know, and that’s probably enough dumping on Elmore, although I’ll also sneak in the fact that I don’t think anybody reads his fiction, so I don’t know why we listen to him.  But the reason I really came here was to nominate my favorite piece of writing advice in this stack:

From Anne Enright, Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

I like this because frankly, I have a hugely hard time writing description.  Well–not of what people do when they talk; that comes alarmingly easily, as if I’m describing a screenplay.  (ps, Hi, Elmore–I just used two adverbs, and I think they worked great!) 

No, I have a hard time describing the background.  Oy.  What’s going on behind, around, and in front of the characters?  Don’t always see it right off and definitely, at first, do not care.  Yes, of course what’s happening on the street can enhance the action; why, in ch. 4 of Nice and Mean, poor Sachi is almost hit by a taxi, and it’s all metaphorical and nifty. 

But aha–that’s because, a la Enright, I’ve found a place for her to stand.  It’s not just, “Oh, the air was humid and cars rushed everywhere….”  Snooze.  I don’t think Sachi cares.  If it’s already hot, though, and a car lunges for her and stops close enough that she can feel the heat off the bumper–I think she’d care. 

It took me a long time to figure this out.  I’m still trying to picture things around the characters more than I already do.  But I also think I’ll do better if I stand where I usually stand–in their shoes. 

What’s your favorite (or least favorite) piece of advice from the list?

Good night, Elmore!

(Good night, Gracie.)

Contest Alert!

Shelli Johannes Welles, who hosts the tremendously helpful blog Market My Words, is running a great juggernaut of a Mardi Gras contest. Unagented authors can win a critique with agent Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media Group, and agented authors can win marketing consultation with Shelli herself.

The even more amazing thing about this contest is that Shelli is giving lots of stuff away for free–advice in the form of interviews from people on all sides of the publishing industry. A librarian, an indie bookstore owner, and a social media guru all gave their top advice for how to promote your book. I don’t mind telling you that for someone like me, 3.5 months away from publication, this is like gold.

So in case you need amazing marketing advice (because really, who doesn’t?) and if you want to *win*, go to faereality.blogspot.com and enter today. Yes, if you read the contest requirements carefully, you’ll know that I get more points toward a potential win because I’m blogging about this to you, but that should actually motivate you *more* go to there. Because if I’m blogging about it in the middle of the afternoon, that must mean I think it’s worth it.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

So the very nice Tamie Gonzalez, whose website has lots of interesting articles, as well as straight talk about pursuing publication, graciously gave me her towel.

I mean, she gave me permission to share the TOWEL acronym, which is actually courtesy of Marilyn Singer, a children’s book writer who’s had a long and varied career.

Are you ready for TOWEL?  Can you take it?

What you need to succeed:

Talent

Optimism

Widespread Interests

Endurance

Luck 

I like that because it both acknowledges that there is something innate and uncontrollable about success–talent and luck.  You need to contribute the a component, of course–endurance.  And then you need to have the right attitude–optimism–and a personal quality that I’ve always appreciated in people and been frankly bored by when it’s not exhibited: widespread interests. 

Now I am going to exercise my optimism and send out a bunch of press releases–something that also takes endurance because sorting through the list of contacts to find those who need to be contacted now…not so exciting.  Later, I will rock out with my talent (or at least, my writing) and…okay, yeah, this is going to Cheeseland fast.  But anyway, lest you falter: use a towel.

You can read Tamie’s full summary of the “People Who Made It” panel here.  There’s much less cheese there, I promise–and Richard Peck, too!

I know I’ve been a lax blogger lately. I’ve been sick again (boo), and I celebrated a birthday and my first Valentine’s Day is a married lady (hooray!) But mostly I haven’t been blogging because I really, really want to finish a draft of BOOK OF THE DEAD by March 15th.

Did I just say that out loud? Are you talkin’ to me? Did you rub my lamp?

(That’s from Aladdin, in case you didn’t know.)

My desire to finish the draft doesn’t mean I’m entirely absent from the internets. (JacketKnack, a blog about book jackets, written by one of my awesome grad school advisors, Julie Larios, and by Carol Brendler, an admired older classmates), has brightened my mind. The #genderinya tag on Twitter has kept me mulling a bit about what we gain and what we lose when we look at stories and accomplishment through the lens of identity. And my buds on Facebook, in addition to giving me my first and sure-to-be-most-fun Facebook birthday (all those wall notes!), have cheerfully complied with my requests for distraction. (There’s a story to be told about my Quest to Find 1,000 People Who Want to Save The Girl With the Silver Eyes, but that’s another story.)

However, for some reason, while I am bien game for bouncing off others’ enthusiasm during drafting, and certainly have crazy energy for the little things–blogging, not so much of late. I know. I’ve got to throw more of the little things up here. And so I am, today, with a quote from somebody’s blog about a towel.

But wait. I haven’t gotten her permission. Okay, hold the phone on the towel.  I’m just going to check on whether it’s okay to use the towel and then I’ll get back to you.

Cheerio!

Because your answers to last month’s poll were so hilarious (you know who you are, Dr. Who Sweatshirt), I thought I’d have a spot here where people could chime in their thoughts about their parents when they were in seventh grade.  (Whew.  You write ‘seventh’ a lot and you start accidentally typing ‘sventh.’  Sounds like a character one of of my sventh-graders would come up with.)

In the interest of not asking you guys to do all the disclosure, let’s see–what did I think of my parents in sventh grade? I was probably hugely bratty and overlooked their many contributions to my well-being.  Not that they were perfect, but my dad read Great Expectations when it was assigned to me, in case I needed help, and my mom took two of my friends with us on a weekend ski trip just because I asked.  Wow, that was so nice of her!  I’ll have to thank her for that. 

Et vous?  Feel free to be anon if you don’t want your parents looking at this.  Because, you know, you’re not supposed to write anything on the web that you wouldn’t want your parents to read.

The results were intriguing; the comments on the blog, even better.  Here’s how you readers chose what to wear in seventh grade:

29% of you, the largest portion, said they wore whatever their friends were wearing.

17% replied that they wore whatever was in their closet, and another 17% said they wore whatever they could afford. 

A relatively slender portion (8%) reported that they wore whatever was on their floor, or whatever didn’t get them busted for uniform violation, with the smallest portion (4%) saying they wore whatever the cool kids were wearing or whatever the older kids were wearing. 

Then there were the 13% who reported, “Other.”  I’m hoping those were some of the stories recounted here.  They were pretty great. 

Funnily enough, no one said that they chose to wear whatever no one else was wearing.  Is that because we all now realize that almost any seemingly ground-breaking trend was started by someone else, or that nobody started trying to be original until later years?

In any case, thanks for chiming in!  Off to the next poll–What did you think of your parents in seventh grade?

I allowed myself a little time today with my fairweather friend Spider Solitaire.  I don’t have as bad a relationship with it as some people do.  It often clears my head and I’m pretty good at shutting the door on it when I can’t come out to play.  Still, it bears a strong resemblance to its cousin, Free Cell, with whom I had more of an addictive relationship back in the day, so I’m always wary–hence the only limited visits from the sickbed, where I’ve had many hours today to do whatever and whatnot. 

And since the mind is drifting a bit, it had a profound thought about writing and spider, which went something like this: when you do a really good job of outlining your novel, you may end up with something resembling a spider game that, by the time you’ve dealt all but two rows, may have intimidatingly long rows of cards trailing off each pile.  However, if you just maintain faith that you’re dealing with a pretty good hand and a decent set of skills, you’ll clear off all the cards and end the endeavor in fireworks. 

At least, I hope that’s so.

Is that a line from something, “guilt-free zone?”  Maybe I’m hallucinating.  I’ve been having odd thoughts lately, since I’ve been sick and totally out of comission since Thursday, so much so that I’ve only been on the internets once or twice.  For someone who finds it a little too easy to get pulled in, this is nothing shotr of a miracle!

But for some reason, my absence, online and otherwise, makes me feel guilty.  What if I missed good news and didn’t get a chance to congratulate someone, and they think I’m not happy for them?  What if my handful of blog-readers think I abandonned them?  What if the nice people who have dropped by to take care of me didn’t have enough fun, and I should have been more entertaining? 

I’m sure there’s as much ego in this as guilt (oh horrors, the world will expire without my pithy reaction to the loathed facebook changes), but in any case, here I am, signing on ever so briefly, to say, I’m here!  I’m alive!  Congratulations on all your good news!  I hope I entertained you!

And I very much hope to be back to normal by Monday.