GREEN LIGHT DELIVERY: Funny noir sci-fi giveaway!

Need some holiday reading? Need a gift for a sci-fi lover in your life?

Enter to win a signed paperback copy of my humorous, noir-inspired science fiction adventure novel, Green Light Delivery!

The book:

Webrid is a carter, like his mother and grandfather before him. It's not glamorous work, but it pays the bills, and it gives him time to ogle the sexy women on the streets of Bexilla's capital. Mostly, he buys and sells small goods and does the occasional transport run for a client. Then he gets mugged by a robot. Now, with a strange green laser implanted in his skull and a small fortune deposited in his bank account, Webrid has to make the most difficult delivery of his life. He doesn't know who his client is, or what he's carrying, but he knows that a whole lot of very dangerous people are extremely interested in what's in his head. Literally. And they'll do whatever it takes to get it. With the help of some truly alien friends, a simple carter will journey across worlds to deliver his cargo. And hopefully keep his head in the process.

Here are some nice reviews on Amazon.

Read an excerpt here.

The contest:

Open to U.S. postal addresses only (because of shipping costs). Please leave your email address and the name of your favorite sci-fi book or movie either 1) in the comments section below or 2) privately by messaging me on my FB author page.

One luck winner gets a paperback copy of Green Light Delivery, with a personalized signature at the winner's request (to yourself or a gift recipient).

Enter by Wednesday, December 5, 11:59 pm EST. Winner will be announced here (and via email) on Thursday, December 6.

Please spread the word. Thanks and good luck!

Gwen Thompson: Your Book Is Like Your Apartment

My guest today is Gwen Thompson, whose first book, Men Beware Women, won the Miami University Press 2011 Novella Contest and was just published by Miami University Press. Gwen has a particularly interesting perspective on writing because of her other work as a feng shui  consultant. Here she shares some fascinating advice about using words to your greatest advantage.

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Form : function :: sound : sense.  Yes, I know analogies have been eliminated from the SATs, but that doesn't let writers off the hook for making apt comparisons.  This particular analogy is a favorite of mine because when I'm not creating imaginary settings as a writer, I'm helping people re-create their real-life settings as a feng shui consultant: www.yourgracefulspace.com.  At its most basic, feng shui is the art of harmonizing form and function in your home, where objects that only serve a practical purpose without pleasing the senses are missed opportunities.  City dwellers living in small spaces soon learn to be extra mindful about choosing household items that do double duty in this way.  With space always at a premium on the page, writers do well to choose their words as wisely. 

This is why my training regimen as a writer includes listening to the Afternoon Drama on BBC Radio 4.  The BBC broadcast original 45-minute radio plays in every style and on every subject imaginable five days a week, and make them available to listen to online for a full week after they're broadcast.  Besides providing me with a refresher course in trans-Atlantic idioms while I was writing MEN BEWARE WOMEN (set in Oxford and New York), Radio 4's afternoon plays are consistently compelling and well-written for the simple reason that they have to be.  Unlike in the theatre or on film, where special effects, scenery, costumes, and actors easy on the eyes can distract audiences from all manner of bad writing, you can't get away with lame dialogue in a medium where dialogue is all there is.  What draws us to remember and re-read our favorite passages of writing is the conviction that the author has said what he or she is trying to say in the best possible way: good writing is where sound meets sense.  In fiction this of course applies to narration and description as well as to dialogue--no surprises there.

What surprised me, as a first-time author, was how form and function, sound and sense came into play together on my book's cover.  The form the designer chose--the view through the gate into the quad of an Oxford college--gives potential readers an enticing glimpse of the world where much of the book takes place, fulfilling a cover's function of luring you to look inside the book and enter the story.  The title MEN BEWARE WOMEN is a play on the title of a play by Thomas Middleton called WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN that figures in the plot, but it also sounds a lot like a warning label.  Turning this title into part of the scene by placing it on the type of sign where you'd expect to see a prohibition posted (namely, KEEP OFF THE GRASS) deepens the sense of being drawn fully and immediately into the world within the pages.   

But when sound and sense are mismatched, whether accidentally in mistranslations or deliberately as in the Twinkie Song, comedy ensues, intentional or not. 

Writers, beware!

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You can learn more about Gwen Thompson's writing on her website.

She also has a site dedicated to her feng shui work.

You can purchase Men Beware Women from the publisher, at Amazon, or at BN.

Novelist Carol Hedges on YA Heroines

Creating an effective main character is a complicated process, and writing a female protagonist in YA is particularly delicate work. British novelist Carol Hedges joins us today to discuss this challenge.  

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"I like the idea of being strong. I've grown up with the concept. It's in my bones and my blood. Strong people survive. They don't go under."

            So speaks 18 year old Annie, the heroine of my new ebook Jigsaw Pieces. My genre is YA Crime Fiction, and for me, there are two ingredients that go to make up a successful book in this genre. The first, clearly, is a crime of some sort. In Jigsaw Pieces, set in 1998 it is the mysterious death of one of Annie's fellow students. In my 'Spy Girl' series, crimes vary from selling drugs to teenagers (Once Upon a Crime) to stealing a priceless holy relic (Dead Man Talking).

            The second ingredient is a strong female protagonist. Annie Skaerdstadt, Jazmin Dawson. So what makes a strong character? Well, it's not enough just to tell readers they are strong. Strong characters have to demonstrate their strength, usually by being pitted against challenging events, or other characters. Annie is taken from her birthplace, Norway, and dumped in an English school, where she has to develop a carapace to survive the daily bullying. Jazmin is up against an adult world that does not want her meddling and playing detective, and is prepared to take drastic and dangerous steps to keep her out. Through both girls' determination and actions, we learn how strong characters function and survive in difficult situations.

            But strength can also be shown in softness: Annie has a compassionate side, shown when she bonds with the mute World War 1 veteran Billy Donne, whom she meets in a nursing home. Jazmin is intensely loyal to her friend Zeb Stone, even when he fancies another girl. Strong characters also must have failings and flaws, an inner fault line that makes us warm to them. Maybe because they are a little like us?

             At the end of Jigsaw Pieces, Annie discovers that there is still a vital piece of the Jigsaw missing from her life. In the Spy Girl books, Jazmin is faced with the reality that she is not cut from adult cloth - yet.

            And here we see the final ingredient of a strong character - there must alway be a sense that there is more to be grasped, new and different conflicts to be overcome. For a strong character, the journey is never complete; there is another story waiting to be told.

            I love writing strong female characters like Annie and Jazmin because they are so multifaceted and complex. They challenge me and push me to my limits. I hope they do the same for my readers as well.

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You can learn more about Carol on her blog, or follow her on Twitter @carolJhedges

You can buy Jigsaw Pieces as an ebook on Amazon or Amazon UK.

No, No, NaNoWriMo

Happy November 1. I wish you all a happy and productive National Novel Writing Month. Please excuse me if I sit this holiday out.

I often consider why participating in NaNoWriMo is so unappealing to me, when so many writers find it inspiring. And I've decided it's because of the mantra that keeps me writing at least a bit every day:

Anything is better than nothing.

Yes, as a novelist and short story writer, those are the words I live by. If I look at a novel as a 70,000-word monster that needs to be created and cleaned up before it's worth anything, I'd never even start. But if I think of it as a building I can lay one brick at a time (and on really good days, ten bricks), then it seems completely doable.

For me, the very concept of NaNoWriMo makes me feel stress, not motivation. Too much needs to be accomplished in too short a time, so my mantra wouldn't hold up.

So no NaNoWriMo for me, thank you. But that's not to say I'm not working on a novel. In fact, I'm at different stages on two of them: I'm polishing a middle grade historical to ready it for an agent hunt, and I'm doing the revisions my publisher requested for the sequel to Green Light Delivery. I expect to have a very productive November. At my own pace.

And to those of you for whom NaNoWriMo gets your writing engines stoked, I hope it's a fantastic experience and you write up a storm!

Novelist Justin Robinson Admits He Loves Outlines

Plotter or pantser? It's the eternal writer's question. Justin Robinson, who is celebrating the launch of his very funny suspense novel, Mr Blank, shares his thoughts on how he learned to stop pantsing and love the outline.

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The Importance of Outlines

Back in August, I volunteered over at Marshall High for career day.  Long time readers will remember this as the site of the Afterschool Special “Two Loves for Jenny,” which somehow forgot to include a single character named Jenny.  I was over there because the college counselor inexplicably thought I could have some wisdom to offer high school kids beyond toothpaste making beer taste funny.  I found myself sitting in the lunch area with a little sign that said “Justin Robinson -- Writer” as about sixty teenagers wandered from table to table to chat with the various professionals (and me) scattered throughout.

I bumbled, stammered, and joked my way through the two hours, otherwise known as how I deal with every social situation.  The kids asked a variety of questions, but the one thing I kept returning to was the importance of The Outline.  I used to turn my nose up at the thought, not because it was a bad idea, but because it smacked of work, something that writing couldn’t be.  Accepting that not only is writing work, but is occasionally hard work, is one of the more important steps to doing this sort of thing as a living.  And come on, it’s not like construction workers throw up buildings off the top of their heads.  Someone makes an actual drawing beforehand sometimes.  Books are a lot like buildings, except that barely anyone pees in books.

I’m a compulsive outliner now.  My first novel, Subspace, was the only one I did without an outline, and I got away with it because it already existed as a novella.  When I sat down to write Mr. Blank, I wanted to avoid the issues of stalling out and rambling on that plagued me in the past.  This would require outlining.  I started out knowing I would need exactly 23 chapters (required if you’re writing anything about conspiracies), and went from there.  Each chapter was structured around a conflict between the narrator and some representative of the Information Underground.  Since chapter 12 would be the middle, it would serve the fulcrum of the book, where our hero would develop the hypothesis that carries him through the rest of the story.

There’s a tendency to want to follow an outline slavishly, and it stems from the same place as a reluctance to rewrite.  It’s the weird sense that the words came from on high and are binding contracts.  They’re not.  The outline is a tool, not a master.  Sometimes, either what I’ve outlined isn’t possible to write or sounded better in the outlining phase than it looks on the page.  When that happens, I look at both the outline and the book.  I try to figure out my reason for outlining it that way.  Was it a solid reason, or was it just because I lacked perspective on the book as a whole?  While writing, did I make some breakthrough on character or plot?  Am I missing out on a good moment, or did I outline something no sane person could ever communicate?

Outlines are important for the same reason you don’t wear white to a pie-eating contest.  Be prepared, and you won’t feel quite so silly while fishing raspberries out of your sinuses.

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You can learn more about Justin Robinson on his website.

You can purchase Mr Blank from the publisher, or on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

[Note: I moderate comments, so yours might not show up immediately.]

Laura Sassi: Rhyming Stories as Shiny Shoes

I love having guests whose skills are different from mine. Laura Sassi writes rhyming stories, something I have little experience with, so I had a lot to learn from her guest post. Do you have a story you think would work well in rhyme? It might, and it might not. Read this, and give it some more thought.

(And congrats to Laura on her new book deal!)

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If the Shoe DOESN’T Fit: Thoughts on Rhyming...or Not

by

Laura Sassi

            My daughter loves shoes, especially sparkly shoes. “Like Cinderella!” she cheered as a toddler. But unlike Cinderella and her lovely glass slipper, my daughter learned early on that the shoe doesn’t always fit. Too big and it’s hard to walk in without wobbling. Too small and squeezing your foot in just plain hurts.

            I love rhyme as much as my daughter loves sparkly shoes. It’s my passion and my preferred writing style. I’ve sold several rhyming stories and poems to kids’ magazines including Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Jr., Highlights for Children, Spider, and Ladybug. And I’m thrilled to announce that Zonderkidz will publish my debut picture book, GOODNIGHT, ARK, a rollicking rhymer about bedtime on Noah’s ark.

            But though I love sparkly rhyming tales, rhyming doesn’t always fit the story. Sometimes rhyming makes the story dreadful and forced, perhaps even un-readable. How is a writer to know whether to rhyme or not? In keeping with Cinderella and her shiny shoes, here are three questions I ask to see if the rhyming “shoe” fits.

Question #1: Can I rhyme well?

Good rhyme is hard to carry off because it must also be paired with perfect meter. To carry that off you need to have a good ear for the rhythm of words. In addition, the rhyming words you choose must be unexpected and fresh. For me, the perfect rhyming story is one that flows so well that the rhyme seems organic to the piece. Accomplishing this takes lots of revision, fine-tuning and patience.

 Question #2: Does rhyming fit the mood of my story?

When I first indulged my passion for rhyme, I wanted to make EVERY story rhyme and did so with disastrous results. My favorite failed example is a rhyming story I drafted about a boy who takes Splash, the class fish, home to watch over vacation. The fish, unfortunately, dies,and the boy must decide whether to replace it with a look-alike or confess the truth. Here’s my dreadful rhyming version of the moment he discovers the fish is dead.

            “One morning at the end of break, 

            Jerome said, “Time to sup!”  

            But Splash, alas, moved not one bit. 

            “Look, Mom! He’s belly up!”

Even now, I cringe when I read that. Not only is it distressingly forced, but the mood and the rhyme don’t jive. I now reserve rhyme for light-hearted and humorous pieces. As for Splash, I wisely re-wrote the entire story in prose. The non-rhyming version of my fishy tale appeared in the April 2011 issue of Clubhouse Jr.

Rhyming Question #3:  How old are my readers?

I once wrote a humorous three verse poem with fresh rhymes and impeccable meter.  A perfect sell for the kid’s magazine market, or so I thought.  Turns out, it’s fatal flaw was that it included a couple lines about algebraic expressions. Not something your typical rhyme fan is familiar with. Why? Because, as I’ve learned both as a former teacher and now as a mom and writer, the biggest fans of rhyming are the very young. Toddlers and preschoolers love playing with sounds and pointing out, repeating, and making their own rhymes. So, while I still love writing rhyming poems for the age 8 - 12 crowd, I’ve discovered that the pieces of mine that shine the most are the short and pithy rhyming pieces for youngest readers.

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To learn more about Laura Sassi and her passion for rhyme, visit her at www.laurasassitales.wordpress.com or on Twitter @laurasassitales 

[If you leave a comment (and please do!), don't be alarmed when it doesn't show up right away. Evil spammers have forced me to moderate and approve each comment before I post it. -AEJ]

Love Thyself: An Essential Lit Lesson for Kids

All the recent news about bullying the the schools has made me think a lot about the role literature can play to help kids with self-esteem issues. There are many wonderful, moving examples of kids’ books where characters learn their own strength, and come to love how special they are.

Particularly poignant are stories about kids with troubled home lives, who overcome daily struggles to find happiness. I think the most powerful examples are those flooded the with humor and joy, making the character’s pain bittersweet rather than depressing. In Linda Urban’s A Crooked Kind of Perfect, a girl learns to celebrate her own gifts, and not to compare herself so much to others. Leslie Connor’s Waiting for Normal shows the power of a positive personality to find light in circumstances many would find impossible dark. These are both joyful books, despite the pain they describe.

And then there is the cartoonish, or fantastical, or metaphorical lesson in self-esteem. A classic is George Selden’s The Cricket in Times Square. Lost little cricket, tiny and alone at the Crossroads of the World, manages to make friends and even be a hero. Or how about Jeff Brown and Macky Pamintuan’s Flat Stanley series? Stanley gets flattened to half an inch thick. Does he give up? No! He saves the day in his special, flat way.

Some of the most affecting lessons in self-love come in the form of picture books. An extraordinary recent example of this is Claudine Gueh Yanting’s beautiful My Clearest Me, which shows a very shy child taking flight and freeing himself through poetic imagery and richly colored paintings. And then there’s Shel Silverstein, who contributed so many illustrated poems on the topic of finding strength in what the world perceives to be our weaknesses.

I’m sure that one of the major reasons many of us write for kids is to have an impact on their lives. The impact can be huge, and it can be very positive, and need not be preachy. It can even be fun! Stories have magical potential.