Writer Wednesday: Pete Morin

Pete Morin, the blues guitar playin’, ex-trial attorney, ex-politician, ex-bureaucrat, ex-lobbyist, and ex-witness, and lovely novelist has made the leap from dream to reality. That’s right… Pete’s in the house! The Smashwords house! The Amazon house! The Barnes and Noble house! And your house–if you download his book.

Morin describes his legal novel, DIARY OF A SMALL FISH, as “a novel of suspense, corruption and redemption.” (Can we just say how much this book draws on his own personal tickle trunk of real life experiences? Talk about going to have rich and real detail like no other!) Okay, so back to the book… Basically, this guy who hangs out in the political arena gets his chops busted for whom he hangs out with. (A lesson most teens could handle learning, eh?) While I haven’t cracked open my epub file to get the full goods on Morin’s novel (I have critiqued his query, synopsis, as well as the odd passage so it’s not like I’m totally blowing stuff out my ears here), I have been assured that there is love, revenge, corruption, suspense, twists, turns, mourning, rule breaking, and a little bit of redemption. Can’t wait!

Curious? Check it out:

Amazon

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

P.S. Watch my Goodreads account for a upcoming review of Morin’s book.

True That!: Characters and Keepin’ it Real

Okay, so I’ve been talking about characters a lot lately. Or so it feels. (Maybe it’s all just actually swirling in my head and isn’t coming out all over the place like I think it might be.) Anyway, today I was getting blood work done and was chatting with the lab lady while she was prepping and drawing blood. As I was leaving she wished me and the kids a good day and I wished her the same. I added, “I hope nobody passes out in your chair and falls out!” (Thinking of how someone I know happened to do that once.) Because really, when you’ve been talking about how you and the kids are going swimming and going to have a lovely day and she’s saying she’s stuck at work all day… what do you say to wish her a good one?

Funny enough… she was actually kind of appreciative of my comment and said, “Thanks. It’s actually been a really bad month for that. All the lab techs have been noticing that, even in the next town over.” Huh.

I was so surprised I didn’t quite know what to say. And, of course, I was burning with curiosity. (As usual.) Why are people passing out? Is it the weather? Fasting? Rushed lab techs who give too sharp a jab with the ol’ needle? (Mine was amazing actually, hardly felt the needle go in.) Are they looking at the vials fill with blood and getting woozy? (Really, you shouldn’t do that! Watching vital life fluid drain from your body is never a good idea.)

And being a writer, I, of course, turned this juicy tidbit back to my writing. Hmmm. My characters… what would constitute a good day or bad day at work? What would be strange for them? What leads to a good day, a bad day, a busy day, an interesting day, boring day, etc.? And how do I find that out? Research! Imagination! And chatting with people in the profession. Speaking of which, I think I’d better go make one of my characters into a lab tech….
Have a good one and may your keyboard’s keys resist the urge to pop off!

When Novels Cough, Sputter and Die

I started Life of Pi by Yann Martel last night and was struck by something in the author’s note (which is truly the narrator’s note). The narrator (a writer) said the novel he attempted before this story (Life of Pi) had fine writing. The sentences, themes, dialogue, and plot were all good. The characters practically needed birth certificates they were so real. “Really, your story can only be great. But it all adds up to nothing.” As Martel said, an element was missing. The story was emotionally dead.

Reading this, I felt an echo in my heart. His words struck stone. But instead of it being “soul-destroying” it was surprisingly liberating.

Let me backtrack a bit. A few months ago I was debating what writing project I should tinker with over the next few months. Ideally, I should take something that is close to polished, polish it, and try to sell it. Right? Well, looking over my work I debated working on a scrap heap of a story that has done amazing over on WEbook. Literary professionals were giving the first few pages 5/5. It has even gone so far as to hit the final round and is now spending its time lounging in the literary showcase. (I should mention that people have only read the first 50 pages in that contest so they are unaware that while this story takes off like a great shot and has witty, funny, poignant moments, an element is missing and somewhere along the line, as Martel puts it, it has coughed, sputtered, and died.)

In many ways, this story has the trappings of a winner. So, find where it is oozing its vital fluids and stitch it up, right? And that is why, I decided, with some great cheers and bolstering from my wonderful cheerleading writing friends, to attempt CPR. And several transplant surgeries.

However, as it stands, the story’s organs are strewn about in Scrivener. It continues to ooze and flop about like a fish in its final throes of death. I continue to scratch my head. And the story flatlines. I feel the answer will come to me… eventually… but reading the opening of Life of Pi it gave me the much needed permission to release the story so it can peacefully go into the light. Let it have a glorious life, short-lived. (At least for now.) It will not no longer spend its lingering days suffering through needless, unsuccessful surgeries.

Let it sputter and die.

Me, I need to move on.

And I know exactly who the next patient will be and what it needs to be revived so it can enjoy a full and entertaining life.

Question: What do you do when your stories cough, sputter, and die? Do you mail them off to a fake address in Siberia with a non-existent return address like Martel’s narrator claims to have done? Do you operate on it until its organs are mush? Or do you move on? How do you know when its time?

(Oh, so many questions!!)

Stop the Edit Insanity!: Draft Read Throughs and How Your Ereader Can Save the Day!

In the past, whenever I tried to do a read-through of a story draft, I end up in Problemville due to several commonly held writerly personality issues.

Note: You may not be familiar with the names of these personality/behaviour issues as they often go undiagnosed, and therefore unheard, however, their descriptions may ring some bells–particularly if you are a writer or live with a writer.

This photo has very little to do with these editing “illnesses,” but it’s cute, and well, the cat’s expression kind of goes with how I feel when thinking of these issues.

TooCheapitis: Characterized by a cheapness that will inhibit the effectiveness of the writer’s editing efforts and often will cost them an inordinate amount of time in order to save a pittance, or to create less waste. You may notice this ‘illness’ most when a writer comes to the editing stages and needs to print their manuscript in order to see the numerous flaws than are ‘hidden’ on the screen. Basically, this is characterized by an unwillingness to print off hundreds of pages of a story that they know they will quickly read, then immediately shred since the quick read-through will highlight the multitude of issues/errors/omissions within the story that need changing/fixing/removing and/or improving (as is the quick read-through’s purpose). So, while the benefit to printing off all these pages is immensely valuable, the writer is unable to overcome TooCheapitis in order to edit in a manner that is the most effective.

MustEdititis: A very rampant plague that is characterized by the intense compulsion it creates in a majority of professional writers. For example, whenever faced with a subpar sentence, weak word, typo, a truly shoddy paragraph, or screwed-up chapter, the affected writer feels the distinct urge/need/undeniable compulsion to tweak, slash, delete, rewrite, fix, and generally make over whatever they have just read. Every time. Even if it slows them down, is not the read-through’s intended purpose, and their action knowingly throws them off their quick read-through which is being done in order to gain a feel for the story’s flow.

Until recently, there was no known cure for these two illnesses. However, it has been recently discovered that doing read-throughs on ereaders (rather than paper) negates the effects of both TooCheapitis (assuming the writer has managed to overcome TooCheapitis at some point in order to purchase an ereader) as well as MustEdititis.

Doing a quick read-through of a manuscript is a valuable editing step for writers who have concerns about story flow, pacing, as well as to reacquaint themselves with how the story’s plot is progressing. Here is a brief list of some of the beneficial side effects experienced by writers who use an ereader cure for their TooCheapitis and MustEdititis:

• Readeritis: Writers actually read their story like it is a story and therefore, experience it like a reader.
• BigPictureitis: Writers are able to see the big picture stuff as MustEdititis no longer causes them to stop and fix ‘small picture stuff,’ thus allowing their editing brain to get a better feel for pacing, plot progression, etc. Writers are then able to see things they normally wouldn’t be able to.
• HaveGotitis: Writers are less likely to end up utterly despising their story as they are more likely to forgive the small errors/omissions/run on sentences/flatness/excessive telling/poor sentence structure/etc. since they are keeping their their minds on the ‘big’ story. In other words, writers are able to see what they have and not what they don’t have.
• Workimgitis: Writers get a better feel for their characters and what is working in their story.
• KeepGoingitis: Writers are not tempted to stop and change every little thing that isn’t up to snuff.
• TimeSaveritis: It takes less time. (And editing is a slow process, so wherever you can save time–awesome!)
• Friendlinessitis: It’s more reader friendly–reading 400 pages of gook on one’s computer is never that much fun.
• EcoFriendlyitis: The writer is less likely to get paper cuts or worry about destroying five forests in order to get their story perfect.
• Brevititis: The writer is less tempted to make 80 million notes to themselves. (They might be tempted to write 80 quick ones instead.) If the writer does make notes to themselves, they are brief, general notes written on the fly that are less likely to fence them in creativity-wise when it comes to finding a fix-it-solution later on.
• Noticeitis: Writers who make brief notes throughout (rather than succumb to MustEdititis) are more likely to notice if the same ‘issues’ are coming up time and again. throughout.
• Keepitis: Writers making notes are less likely to accidentally change or remove something in an early chapter that they later discover was intrinsically important.
• Consistentitis: Changes made based on notes rather than on a read-through are more likely to be consistent across the whole story as well as with the story’s voice, pacing, and overall tone.

When Not to Query or Pitch

If you have a query letter all ready to go and you are itching to send it off to an agent or have a pitch all sparkly and new for an editor… hold off. According to MediaBistro (this article includes most popular vacation dates) you should wait about another two weeks for the optimal receipt. Why? Folks are still on vacation. And then when they get back… well, they have some catching up to do. So, take a deep breath, move your finger off the send button and spend the next two weeks working on something new.

Enjoy!