Same Title, Different Book

        In 2005, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published my coming-of-age novel Full Service. Set in small town Midwest in 1965, it’s the summer when everything changes (most of have such a time) for sixteen-year-old Paul Sutton. Fresh off the farm, and from a church-going family, he takes a job at a gas station where he fills tanks, checks oil, washes windshields and, most importantly, meets the public. Tourist girls, a kindly old gangster, con artists, a beautiful and mysterious woman in a blue Mercedes, wise men and fools—you get the idea­– all stop at the gas station on their way somewhere or nowhere. Over the long summer Paul’s eyes are opened, and though he loses his religion (among other things) he gains the world.
       With attentive editing by the FSG family, and a wonderful cover by Wendell Minor, Full Service launched to starred reviews (Kirkus called it “superb . . . pitch-perfect”). But then, well, my novel sat there. Hard cover sales were very disappointing. The paperback did better, but seven years later, still paddling gamely against the tide of fantasy and vampire fiction, Full Service seemed dead in the water. Destined, though close, never to pay off its advance.
       So imagine my surprise to see a recent, dramatic spike in its sales– particularly in e-books. Of one million e-books available Full Service was suddenly below 60,000, and moving vigorously. I was beset by instant smugness: my little gem of a novel had finally been discovered. I used to tell my students that good writing will always find its audience, and here was proof.
       Then, in a quick Amazon title search, up popped the new, hot-selling Full Service: My Life In Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars. Right next to my mine. While my Full Service had all five star reader reviews, the evil twin book had mainly one star reviews that included “absolute garbage,” “yuck,” “crap,” “simply awful,” “glad he’s not my friend,” and “worst book I’ve ever read” (24 of the latter). Yet there it was, this sweaty, trashy, Hollywood gigolo tell-all memoir cozied up alphabetically and algorithmically to my tidy, earnest novel of small town Midwest. But pimping for it, too. While I hold out a slim hope that my novel is finally catching on, it seems pretty clear that fast-fingered book buyers are clicking on it by mistake.
       I’ve always believed the literary Gods to be sly but just, and now I know they have a sense of humor. Looking for sexcapades in Hollywood, my new readers instead find themselves at a gas station in Our Town. But here’s my fantasy: maybe they’ll be so surprised –and then by engaged by my characters­– that they’ll finish my book and like it. Their eyes will be opened to the transformative power of “real writing”; they’ll realize that instead of a book-buying mistake, they made the right choice after all.
     And I’ll finally pay off my advance.

(Originally published in the Huffington Post books section.)

 

Approaches to Writing Your Novel

My most successful novel for young adults is Memory Boy, a draft of which I wrote in three weeks.  That should have told me something.  However, as a novelist I'm a slow learner; or more precisely, each novel is its own puzzle to solve, and it's usually a mistake to hark back to the previous book when writing a new one.   However, I'm trying just that with my new novel:  re-visiting the approach I took to writing Memory  Boy, to see if it will work again.

There are two very general approaches to writing a novel:  work on it daily, stopping and starting to attend to real life, much as one goes about a job.  The opposite tack is the Jack Kerouac method:  full tilt, full focus, writing fast and hard and continuously, real life be damned.  I know visual artists who absolutely require the latter method, but most novelists I know take the workman-like approach.

Memory Boy was written with modified Jack Kerouac approach.  I tried to "write" (visualize) a good deal of MB inside my head before anything else.  Once it began to seem real in my imagination, I made notes and set chapter headings in place. Soon I  pretty much knew the whole arc of the novel (with most of my novels I know only half or even a third of the story before I write the first word.)  My notes weren't copious, such as I imagine a mystery writer might need, and of them the chapter headings were the most useful.  Knowing all of–and only– what each chapter has to cover greatly speeds up the writing process.  Then, with MB fully in my head, I holed up at a writing retreat for three weeks of isolation, and wrote.  Just wrote.  No distractions other than to surface for food and a breath of fresh air.  The result was an organically whole narrative that, as I see now, has a tightness about it–an intensity, an urgency––that most of my YA novels do not have.  They are each good in their own ways, but not as tight as MB.  In short, I think the Kerouac method has much to say for itself as an artistic process.  Can I duplicate it?  Will it work again?  I'll find out this summer.

Authors and Book Clubs

                                "Oh, The Places We’ll Go"  

         The famous Dr. Suess book by similar title is most certainly an allegory of authors and books clubs.  When I publish a new book I'm certainly “off and away” on an adventure, and the places I’ll go, from book store signings to peoples’ overcrowded living rooms, are wonderful to downright strange.   Still, go I must, it’s only just (sorry): people have plopped down good money for my book, and now they want–one could say, deserve– straight answers about it.  And not from back-matter author interviews or website Vimeos.  Book club people want their author contact up close and personal–and with food involved.  To authors, book club invitations are like a church bell’s toll:  one might not feel like going at all, but in the end it’s nearly always a good thing.

      Though not necessarily an easy thing.  For authors, book club events are complicated and many-layered.  Let’s start with the food.  No matter what menu is promised, it’s best to eat (lightly)  beforehand.  Book club events are often long on sweets and caffeine but short on protein.  The last thing an author needs is a sugar and caffeine high on an empty stomach, which can lead to talking jags about the process of writing –and editors, and revision, and copy editors and one’s Amazon numbers– plus managing a paper plate and your novel and a glass of wine while sitting in the host’s personal Lazy-boy is a dangerous act.  Speaking of drinks?  One.  Two drinks and you’re back to talking about the writing process, about the sentence on page 74 that defeated you.

            This gets us, ala Dr. Suess, to the dark side of things.  If not eating or drinking much sets the author apart from the assembled club, that’s as it should be.   A book club is a homogeneous gathering of nice people who do not write. Their living rooms or summer patios with lawn chairs become a “waiting place” where they listen for a “yes or a no”; that is, they want to believe that the author is a nice person who sees the world just like them.  Which the author does not, because, well, he’s an author.  Negotiating this psychic territory while cheerfully talking about one’s book is no easy thing, because an author’s book club persona­–necessarily agreeable if not charming–is not altogether truthful.  The novel might have been a personal agony to write; or might have caused hurt to family or loved ones; or feel, as F. S. Fitzgerald put it, “fake”, and not all that it could have been.  But no one really needs to hear that.  Though readers’ groups are more literary than others, most are as much social as bookish– this in play against the author, for whom writing is a matter of life death.  Truth be told, I often leave a book club event feeling largely false–which is of course my problem, and not that of the nice folks who invited me, and who, I hope, will keep reading and buying books and reaching out to authors.

             Musicians say there’s no unimportant gig; ditto, I think, for writers and book clubs.  That I hardly ate or drank a thing that night is soon forgotten (as is the weak coffee and the impossible Lazy-boy).  What remains is the simple, elemental power of good books to bring people together. 

  (first published in the Huffington Post "Books" section)

Writing and Season

Understanding personal, daily bio-rhythms is a big part of the writing process -- are you a morning writer, a late-night writer, or maybe your best time is after a siesta?  But don't ignore the impact of season on your motivation to write and even the quality of your prose.

Northern writers with four distinct seasons to deal with have a more complicated writing life, I think, than someone who lives, say, in  San Diego or Florida or Arizona.  The weather, the temperature, the light, the length of day is always changing, and with it my mood.  My inclination to write competes with other, often sudden opportunities (or necessities) to be outside:   to plunge into the river on rare hot day in northern Minnesota;  to shoulder my shotgun and head to the woods on  beautiful October afternoon;  to shovel the roof in January.

Spring in Minnesota is my most difficult time to write.  I am hostage to the crazy, mad arrival of returning birds and their mating call and flutter--not to say ice-out on the Mississippi, then the peepers and various frog songs, and turtles to watch out for on the highways.  I limp along with my writing, doing what I can (usually well before dawn) until the urge to be outside and do something (something "real", that is) overtakes me.   Seasonal affective disorder is not just about being light-starved and gloomy; it makes me light-drunk, manic and  attention-deficit-disorderd when it comes to writing.

My point here:  if you are struggling to write because of  short days of winter, or long crazy days of summer, or other seasonal factors (allergies!) try as best you can  to move your "ball" (your novel) forward at least in some way.  If it can't be several pages of good prose, it can be notes on characters; or sketches of  chapters-to-come; or skimming in a novel that has prose like you'd like to have some day; or certainly editing, tweaking, or tinkering (but not too much) of what pages you do have.

Some progress, every day, is the goal.  It is what will eventually bring you to that exhilarating last page,   which is when the real work of revision begins.  But take pleasure in getting to this point–a completed draft of your novel–because most aspiring writers never get there.

 And recognizing all of the obstacles against the act of writing--including our latitude and longitude--is no small part of the writer's life.

Amazon plus

Most authors can't resist checking their "numbers" (book rankings) on Amazon.  We do it because it's the fastest way; sales numbers from our publishers are usually months behind.  And Amazon has been increasingly clever in cultivating authors by offering free space for author profiles.  I've dutifully signed on, though somewhat reluctantly, because I try to be loyal to the indie bookstore world.  But some services are just too good to pass up, including my recent discovery (where have I been?!) of "Bookscan" sales highlights.

Located in "Author Central," "Bookscan" is actually way more than highlights:  it not only shows how many copies of what titles have been sold, but where they were sold--not addresses, certainly, but regions.  Minneapolis area.  West Chicago.  Brooklyn.  Imagine a map of voting trends, one that breaks a state down to counties, and that's pretty much was Bookscan offers.  What's not to like about that?

Then I discovered pages and pages of reviews (where HAVE I been??) of my books, each with stars (up to five).  It's never healthy to read one's reviews, and after a page or two of this I got a grip and stopped.  The problem with reviews, is that the author remembers the very best--and the very worst--of them.  And the very worst ones, even if written by someone clearly imbalanced, tend to stick in the brain.

Any way, I'm just musing over Amazon here:  how much it has to offer, and how difficult it is to say no.

2011 Year in Review: Youth Literature

My tenure as a judge for the National Book Awards, 2011, ends today.  It was a fabulous, exhausting and  remarkable experience.  Along with four other judges (Ann Brashares, Nikki Grimes, Marc Aronson, Matt de la Pena), I read 278 books over the summer.  Our panel gradually narrowed the entries to about thirty, then ten, and then the five finalists

While the five finalists--make that six, what with the now infamous confusion of "Chime" with a non-contender by a similar title--got all of the attention, there were other  noteworthy books that got our panel's full attention, but didn't quite make the cut.  It was painful, letting go of books I greatly admired, but compromise was in order as we had a job to do:  pick a winner.

So below is an informal list of the "contenders"--books that all of the panelists came to know well, and to wish well beyond 2011:


Between Shades of Gray*
Chime  (finalist)
Inside Out and Back Again  (NBA Youth Lit winner)
My Name is Not Easy    (finalist)
Lie
Flesh and Blood So Cheap (finalist)
A Plague Year
A Girl Named Faithful Plum
The Babysitter Murders
Bird in A Box*
Black, White, Other*
Bronxwood*
Carmen
Dragon Castle*
Eliza's Freedom Road
The Flint Heart*
The File on Angelyn Stark
How to Save A Life
The Near Witch*
Paper Covers Rocks*
Okay For Now  (finalist)
Rotters
Saving Zasha*
Skate Fate
5000 Years Of Slavery
Small Acts of Amazing Courage
Vietnam:  I Pledge Allegiance
We All Fall Down
Wonderstruck*


*books that got lots of discussion.  Highly recommended.

"Super-Committees": If Writers Can Do It, Why Not Politicians?

          It occurs to me that I just served on a “super-committee.”  One that got its work done, on time, and with minimum drama. I recently concluded several months work for the National Book Foundation as a judge in the youth literature category (details below in earlier postings).   Reading and evaluating close to 300 novels was my main task, but it required me to work closely with the four other judges. All, like me, were writers.  And while we knew of each other, we had not met, or had met only in passing on the book trail.

          Our panel of five included three men and two women.  An age range from 28 to over 60.  Hispanic, African-American, Caucasian.  East Coast, West Coast, and the Midwest.  Protestant, Catholic and Jewish.  We all had distinct opinions on what constituted a really good book, and while some of our opinions overlapped, many did not.  Five independent thinkers charged with working together and reaching consensus on the 2011 National Book Award for young adults.

          Our first step was to meet and get to know each other–get a sense of each other’s personality, interests, inclinations.  Then it was quickly forward to our work as book reviewers.  Each of us, over a long summer, read the same 278 novels.  We communicated by conference call, email, and a secure, online spreadsheet where we weighed in on the books, and ranked them.  In September we narrowed to a list of ten titles.  In October, the final five.  And, just last week in New York City, we met again in person to choose a winner, which was not easy.  Over a three hour lunch we lobbied, cajoled, debated, dug in, gave ground and made compromises.  Failure was not an option.  People were depending upon us, and we came through.  The National Book Award for youth literature, as well as three other categories, was presented November 16 at a grand ceremony in New York City, after which our committee packed up and went home.

            Unfortunately, our national “Super Committee” charged with deficit reduction has not worked so well.  Worse, it is nightmarish kind of déjà vu for those of us from Minnesota:  we all remember the disastrous government shutdown of the summer of 2011 that, most of us agree, did not have to happen.  As I look back at my NBA “super-committee,” I see several factors that helped us complete the work, ones that politicians ought to try some time....

 1.      We approached our task with an open mind.  As best we could, we left our literary prejudices at the door.  I write realistic fiction and nonfiction that tilts toward boys and men; I’m not a fan of fantasy novels, or the so-called “chick-lit.”  One of the younger, women panelists was best-selling author of novels for girls.  I lobbied hard for a novel focused to the Inuit life of hunting and survival above the Arctic Circle, while she advocated for a fantasy novel about twin sisters, magic and misty glens. In the end, we came to understand and like each other’s books a great deal, and support both of them as finalists.

2.       We did not inject personal or cultural issues into the debate.  Our job was to discuss books.  Period.   Not religion, or what constitutes liberty, or whom we can marry, or what we can do with whom, or whether it’s right to buy wine in grocery stores on Sunday.  None of us believed it was our role to tell the others how to live their lives or what to think.  True, we had to choose one book out of a very large pile, which made us “deciders”, but we made our decision through a reasoned debate on the books only.

3.                    We made compromises.  No one had to give up his/her core beliefs about writing and literature, but all of us had to make tough choices.  Often we had to let go of one book in order to move another forward.  In the end, none of us got all of our choices, but all of us got some.  The winner was unanimous, a book we could all support, which is not to say we didn’t have regrets about some of our favorites not making the cut.  But without compromise, we would never have finished.

4.                   We were not beholden to or pressured by outside forces.  All of us authors had publishers, editors and agents, and our publishing houses especially stood to gain from a winning book. But our editors left us alone, and we them, and we made our choices based solely on the books at hand.

5.                   We did not make the process all about us, even though there was lots of opportunity to do so (I'm referring to the infamous error in the announcement of the final five authors).  The work of any committee is  is more important than any one member.  We did not seek microphones or the spotlight.  None of us tried to leverage our role into something more.

      In short, by using a few fundamental approaches to group work–ones that politicians ought to know– it is possible to get things done.  I can only hope our national and state legislatures can start to work half as efficiently as this disparate group of writers thrown together to get a job done.