So this makes me sooooooooooooo very happy — I’ve recruited a few peeps to beta read my new novel, and the feedback so far has been so encouraging!
I planned to stop after the first 5 chapters, but couldn’t put it down!
THAT’S the kind of thing that makes this writer VERY very happy :-)
So I’ve got this novel, you see.
I love the concept. It’s a first person novel, narrated by a woman who is an animal control officer.
And she’s got problems.
Man problems, for starters. Her ex-fiance has shown back up in her life. And here, she thought she was completely over him.
Before you know it, she also ends up with dog problems — particularly when she stumbles on evidence of a dog fighting ring that is out of her official jurisdiction but very much on her conscience.
I first drafted Loose Dog several years ago. Shopped it to exactly one agent, who requested a full, but eventually passed on it.
I should probably have kept pushing, but instead I set it aside and wrote Libby, and a bit after that Can Job.
And you know what? That was the right decision. Because what that one agent told me is that Loose Dog was well-written but needed work on pacing. So I focused on improving my plotting, and as you can see from my Amazon reviews, plotting is one of the things readers like about my novels.
So now I’m back to Loose Dog, and my first New Year’s resolution for 2012 is to tweak it until I absolutely love it.
Get ready, world :-)
UPDATE: Out now…
Thanks to John Wiswell for hosting this blog hop! Please go visit his blog for more #bestreads2011.
Here are mine :-)
Portrait of a Lady. One of the great things about my Kindle is that there are so many free classics. This book, considered by some to be Henry James’ masterpiece, is definitely “slow hand lit.” James takes his time; the book’s pleasures are subtle ones meant to be lingered over, not swallowed in chunks. Definitely worth reading if you’re inclined to literary fare.
As an indie author myself, I’m meeting other indies on a daily basis. There’s no way I could read all of the new books I’m finding out about as a result, but I am trying to at least sample and if something grabs me, read on. The Movie by Bosley Gravel is one that did. Said it before and will say it again, Bos is a writer to watch.
This one sort of falls into the indie author category as well. Julie Harris is a midlister who has started bringing titles out as ebooks. I read An Absence of Angels and really enjoyed it. It’s historical fiction, great story telling, memorable characters.
My dad lent me this one. Gregory Orr spent part of his childhood in Germantown, New York, where my father also grew up. The Blessing is his memoir. It opens on the day that Orr accidentally shot and killed his younger brother, but this is not a maudlin book. It’s a beautifully realized meditation on pain, grace, and art.
1975 interview with P.G. WodehouseI adore Wodehouse.
I appreciate serious novels, of course. I love novels that tackle Big Questions, and when they’re well-written I find them transporting.
But I also adore humorous fiction, and Wodehouse is by far my favorite humorous fiction author. It’s partly the language — I’m a total Anglophile — and perhaps it’s also that we’ve got those Butterfields and Lydiards in the family tree but I so appreciate the English sense of humor as well.
No surprise, then, that I view him as a writer to emulate — so much so that when I was starting my novel Can Job, I spent some time studying the Wodehouse novel Leave It to Psmith to understand how he put novels together.
I did thing like count how many characters he uses, and created an outline of his plot to see how he handled pacing.
Learn from the best, right?
Now I discover this gem: an article online where Wodehouse passes along some tips for writers!
They are fantastic tips as well. Here’s a taste:
[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a great slab of prose at the start. I think the success of every novel – if it’s a novel of action – depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, “What are my big scenes?” and then get every drop of juice out of them.
He also says this, in answer to a question about what makes a story funny:
I don’t think a man can deliberately sit down to write a funny story unless he has got a sort of slant on life that leads to funny stories. If you take life fairly easily, then you take a humorous view of things.
All in all a delightful little read. Many thanks to Abe Books for putting it online!
Today’s Monday Musing prompt from Should Be Reading:
Currently? No.
But I have done, and when I do I like to not only collect the author but also read things like bios and collected letters.
The last author I collected, for instance, was Evelyn Waugh. I read a number of his novels: Decline and Fall, Scoop, Vile Bodies, Handful of Dust, The Loved One, Helene. (I’d already read Brideshead some years earlier.)
Around the same time, I also read Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family by Evelyn’s grandson, Alexander Waugh. I read Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age by D. J. Taylor.
Reading related non-fiction books enriches the reading experience for me, and may even help me become a better writer.
What is your response to the prompt?
Mama don’t take my e-reader away.E-readers like the Kindle and iPad are sweeping the nation … do you have one? Do you like it? Do you find it changes your reading/buying habits? If you don’t have one, do you plan to?
Yes, I do have one — I have a Kindle.
My dad gave it to me for Christmas. And to be honest, I was skeptical at first, but now I LOVE it.
I love the way I can carry an entire library around in a tiny little box. I’m something of a minimalist — I don’t like to collect a lot of “stuff” — books are an exception, but there are many books I want to read but not necessarily own in hard copy. My Kindle lets me do that.
I love that I can sample — or buy — a book within seconds of learning about it. No more having to keep lists of books I want to check out — and then having to hunt for them in traditional bookstores. Order them if they weren’t in stock . . .
And yes, my Kindle has changed my reading habits. I am reading more, because now I always have a book at arm’s length that I’m interested in continuing.
Of course, as a writer, I’m a bit giddy at the fact that I can now also publish novels myself for other people to read. But that’s a whole other story ;-)
It’s that time again — and here’s the prompt!
And here’s mine:
So I piled all the money back in the basket and set it aside. It was about then that we heard police sirens, which is a pretty rare thing in Podunk, so we ran to the window and saw Lawnmower’s old rusty Camaro speed by and right behind it was a police car, almost certainly McNutt, and he zoomed by too.
The book is The Movie, by Bosley Gravel, who IMHO is a writer you Should Be Watching. And I’m not just saying that to be nice, Mr. Gravel.
Today’s Musing Mondays prompt:
Other than for school, do you read books to learn how to do something? What was/were the topic(s)?
There are a several types of how-to books I read from time to time.
I sometimes pick up books on writing. The most recent standout is Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle, which is a transcript of an interview of Moorcock by Colin Greenland. It’s an opportunity to spend some time with a writer who truly “gets it,” a real gem of a book.
I sometimes read books on marketing and PR. In this category I recommend Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port, a great book for anyone who sells services or intangibles.
I also read books on consciousness/metaphysics which, loosely speaking, might qualify as how-to books. But since I have yet to, yanno, actually bend a spoon with my mind or something I hesitate to recommend any of them. But I’ll be sure to update this post the SECOND I succeed :-D
Thanks for stopping by! And if you need ideas for your To Be Read pile, please check out my novels in the sidebar.
Set my alarm for 5 a.m. cuz if I don’t make extra time for this in the morning no way am I going to keep up :-)
Here’s my opening sentence. YES it’s rough — it’s supposed to be! But I don’t care, I’m so excited :-)
Most suppose golf is about life, not death—it is, after all, supremely difficult to manage a golf shot while dead—but death had been very much on the minds of the members of Crumbling Bluffs County Club the past few weeks, ever since Sly Burbank’s body had been found off to the side of the 4th fairway. And it was on their minds that night in particular, because they’d learned, that night, the results from the coroner’s inquest.
NaNo on, dudes!!!!!!!!!!
Poor Taylor. Her mother got her a PR job at Diptych Corporation, and she’s definitely in over her head . . .
__________________________________
“Taylor.” Basil wet his lips. “We should probably get together right after this. Are you free?”
Taylor nodded.
“Good. Meet me in my office. We have a lot to do. If you need lunch, we’ll order up from the cafeteria. I don’t usually eat lunch.”
She nodded again.
The meeting dragged on.
Taylor’s notepad filled with scribbles. Hire photographer for press kit photos, check with corporate communications on list of press contacts, check with corporate communications on list of analysts, tradeshow back wall/customer quotes? She smiled at everyone and nodded her head until her neck ached. Fake it fake it fake it.
Finally it was over.
Everybody stood up.
“See you in a few minutes,” Basil reminded her as they were leaving.
“Sure thing.”
She turned toward her cubicle.
“Hey, protest girl.” It was Miles. He’d caught up with her and was speaking now just above a whisper, his lips close to her ear. “Blow him off.”
“I can’t blow him off. You heard Darryl.”
“Yeah. Darryl’s an idiot, too. But I’m telling you. Baz is going to dump his entire job onto you. He’s a lazy f**k and he’s spotted a sucker. That would be you.”
“Thanks, you’re a gem yourself. What are you even doing here? I didn’t think anarchists stooped to working for multi-national corporations.”
“This isn’t a job, it’s an infiltration.” He grinned at her. Ouch. He was very cute. His eyes were hazel in the middle and brown around the edges, and his hair curled out at the tops of his ears.
She looked away.
They were at her cubicle. She stepped inside and hesitated. She should be doing something, getting something, but what was there to get? Maybe . . . another pen.
Miles stood at the cubicle entrance, watching, seeing too much.
Taylor rounded her desk and opened the top drawer.
Miles stood aside to let her back out into the aisle. Aisle. Really a passageway, a beige fabric alley formed by the walls of her neighbor’s cubes.
She hesitated again.
“That way,” Miles pointed. “Turn left at the copier.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She went on to meet her fate . . .
_______________________________________
Want to read more? Click here to buy a copy of Can Job.
