May 16, 2012

Do you talk to yourself?

Do you?  I mean, out loud?

I didn’t used to.  Only deranged people talk aloud to themselves, right?  But there are certain circumstances now when I find myself doing it.

Like when I carry two super-heavy bags of groceries in from the car and heave them onto the kitchen counter.  Okay, I grunt in relief when the first hits.  Okay, I grunt when the second lands beside it.

I also talk to myself in times of frustration, like when someone cuts me off in traffic.  You imbecile, I mutter under my breath, often using a more rude word than imbecile, but since I’m talking to myself, myself isn’t shocked.  Are you in such a *** rush that you can’t be civil?

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May 5, 2012

A shrug and a smile

Ahah!  Bet you thought I haven’t been knitting, since I’ve been blogging about everything but that.  You would be wrong.  When writing days are the longest, I need my knitting the most.

I’m shrugging – no, not doing the bobbing thing with the shoulders, but knitting a shrug.  Remember, I mentioned it in my blog on instant gratification?  I even posted a picture there of the yarn I was going to use.

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April 25, 2012

The pre-reqs of public speaking

What makes a good public speaker?  A strong voice?  Lotsa guts?  The gift of gab?

If you guessed any of these, you’d be right, but they’re the tip of the iceberg – literally, only the part you see.  When I talk before a group, there’s much more involved, and since I’m flying across the country to keynote a women’s breakfast in California this week, I’m in the midst of it right now.

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April 19, 2012

What, me? Preorder?

Well,  I don’t do it all the time, but here I am, asking you to preorder the paperback of Escape, which goes on sale Tuesday.  So let’s take a minute to discuss the pros and cons of preordering.

Pro.  You don’t risk forgetting; the book is on your doorstep the day it goes on sale.

Con.  If forgetting is a problem, you may preorder the same book twice; I’ve actually done that.

Pro.  You can be in the literary forefront, the first of your friends to read a book.

Con.  If you end up hating it, the letdown is worse.

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April 9, 2012

When characters are name-callers

Here’s another thought for those of you who are interested in the kinds of things a writer has to consider.

In a single stretch of dialogue, how often should the characters call each other by name?  I’ve been hypersensitive about this lately, because I just read another book that, IMHO, did it very wrong.

Here’s an excerpt from Sweet Salt Air in which Charlotte and Nicole are discussing Cecily Cole.  Cecily is the legendary island herbalist, alternately feared and adored.  Her herbs, which are particularly strong, are what makes island food so special.

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April 5, 2012

Why I love “Fifty Shades of Grey”

Surely by now you’ve heard friends talk of this book, and if you haven’t yet, you will.  Consider me a friend.  And here’s my talk.

I love the characters.  Ana may be sexually naïve at the start of the book, but she has spunk and wit.  She takes on Christian as no other woman has; the email between them is priceless.  Christian is flawed, but for a reason.  Discovering that reason is cause enough to read on.

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March 29, 2012

Novelist as shrink

So I’m re-reading Sweet Salt Air and seeing remarks about my characters’ emotional baggage.  Take this brief excerpt.  Charlotte, the main voice in Sweet Salt Air, is trying to explain to her BFF Nicole why she has never married.

“What terrifies me,” Charlotte said in a measured way, speaking from the heart as she couldn’t with anyone else, “is falling hard, getting hurt, and having to put my life back together again.”

“Like you did growing up.”

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March 23, 2012

A watershed moment for Sweet Salt Air

I do try to blog several times a week, but it’s been ten days since my last post, and you loyal readers have Sweet Salt Air to blame.  I’ve reached a critical point in the book – three hundred pages done, with the final climactic hundred ready to go.  But … but … but …

Several sticking points.  First, there’s a medical angle to this story, and though I’ve been working with a doctor in the Midwest since last summer, it’s suddenly showtime.  That means re-reading everything he sent, making (another) list of questions for him, and, most importantly, firming up my timeline.

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March 14, 2012

Why do I blog?

Let me make one thing clear.  I don’t blog to express a political opinion.  As a novelist, my taking a stand on anything political or religious is disastrous.  When I talked here last week about civil discourse, it was to vent not about what we say but how we say it.

So there you go – one reason why I blog.  I blog to vent about something, be it civil discourse, airport security, or plastic bags.

But there are other reasons.  I mean, it’s not like I’m sitting around with nothing to do.  I have to put blogging on my calendar, or else it gets lost in the shuffle of the daily writing, in this case, of Sweet Salt Air.

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March 5, 2012

The how-to of collecting maple sap

Have you ever had pure maple syrup?  Once you have, the other never quite works for you again.  Pure maple syrup is deep in color, rich in taste, goes down slowwwww-ly, and lingers wherever it lands.  It is sweet without containing the kinds of processed sugars we’re told to avoid, which makes it a super treat.

I’m a native New Englander.  My first childhood memories of pure maple anything were of the little maple sugar candies that my parents brought back from vacations up north.  These came in a box of four or six and were shaped like pine cones, maple leaves, or trees.  Put one in your mouth, and it melts, just like that.  I have newer memories of maple products, but more on that in a sec.

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