Gotham Writers' Workshop

I'm just finishing up a fabulous workshop on freelance writing at Gotham. Online courses work great with my current schedule. This is what I used for my class bio:

I'm a writer living in St. Louis, Missouri with my husband, our two young daughters, and a snoring pug. When I'm not writing I'm usually reading (everything from Elizabeth Strout to Richard K. Morgan, which is to say: everything), engaging in terribly wholesome family activities, eating, or running.

For ten years I worked in medical publishing but now I stay home and play Uno. For fun I write fiction and narrative nonfiction. (I've published a few short stories and essays and have written four practice novels that no one will ever see.)

For money I do freelance work - both marketing and editorial - for my former employer. But I'd like to do more freelance writing in addition to freelance editorial work.

I recently finished reading WRITER MAMA by Christina Katz, which energized me to start the career transition. I'm looking forward to this class!

A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher

This month for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club I'm discussing A SUDDEN COUNTRY: A Novel by Karen Fisher.

First let me just say that A SUDDEN COUNTRY is the author's first novel and was a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist.  Seriously.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was reading this book and it was making me crabby.  Now I've finished.  In fact, I finished the novel quite quickly, as I raced to the end to see how the two main story lines would resolve.  (More on those in a moment.)

First a bit on why the book annoyed me so much as I read it.  I called it "Madame Bovary on the Oregon Trail" and it's helpful to note that I didn't have a blast reading Flaubert's masterpiece, either.  I spent the first half of A Sudden Country talking aloud to the female main character, Lucy.  "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. You idiot. You'll ruin everything. Seriously, don't do it.  Fine, do it.  Die if you want; lose your children, whatever. See if I care."

The characters in the novel are nuanced and flawed.  I mean, really flawed.  And that's good and all, but it's hard to like any of them.  Hard life, hard people, occasionally making stupid choices possibly to just because they can.  So rarely do they have significant choices to make.  Anyway.

Sentence fragments.  I was annoyed by them throughout.  But my least favorite thing about the writing was my friend Jeanne's favorite part, so it's obviously a matter of taste.  Jeanne loved the way the story unfolded slowly, with a sense of mystery.  It drove me crazy.  I thought the vague, dreamlike, and occasionally misleading language drew attention to itself and took me out of the story.  I spent the first few chapters doing math, trying to figure out how Lucy and Israel had all these kids when they'd only been married 4 years, then guessing which kids came from which previous marriages.

Reviewers on Amazon were split between loving the writing style (sentence fragments, partial explanations, imagery-rich details short on clarity) and hating having to read certain sections more than once to figure out what was going on.  I found myself somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes the style worked for me, sometimes it annoyed me.  The author's comment on this issue: "this novel took over ten years, and most of it was written very late at night, by a tired person. So if you find it dreamlike and hypnotic, that’s probably why. I advise reading it under the same circumstances."

I get that!  Enough with the criticism already.

One of the greatest strengths of the novel is the amount of historical detail the author includes "effortlessly."  I'm not usually a huge fan of reading history and require massive doses of personal narrative to make the lessons go down.  (To this day, almost everything I know about ancient Egypt came from a children's novel my mom brought to distract me when I was home sick.)  But at times in A Sudden Country I found the historical anecdotes (daily life on the Oregon Trail) more compelling than story.  The author did a really really good job with her research and with writing it into the story in such a way that it was enjoyable rather than pedantic or distracting.

And then there's the story arc itself.  I love the ending, though I know many people hated it.  I think Lucy's story arc ended just perfectly.  Everything was not wrapped up in a neat little bow, but her life never really was particularly tidy (unlike her home or her campsite).  The other main point of view character and story arc . . . dropped.  Something was building, building, building, I was excited to see how it came out, and then - poof!  Done, over, kaput without ever reaching a conclusion.  Without ever reaching a confrontation, a destination, anything.  It just failed.  This frustrated me.  Doesn't it break all the rules to cut off the story like that without any sort of resolution?  But the more distance I have from the book, the happier I am with the author's choice to handle the story the way she did.

I read a book club version of the novel, and it included an interview with the author as well as a reader's guide bound into the paperback.  You know how sometimes there's one tiny thing someone says or does that jumps out at you and bothers you so much it colors everything else you know about them and their work?  (Tom Cruise's religion, Orson Scott Card's politics, David Hasselhoff's habit of wearing his shirts unbuttoned)  There were two of these such moments in the author interview, and they nearly spoiled the whole reading experience for me.  Now that I've done a bit more research, I suspect that either the author's tone didn't come across perfectly in the interview, or it was edited unsympathetically.  (Note this interview is much more humble and likable, IMO.)

"The road to publication was as rough, believe me, as the journey I was writing about."  I would have laughed at that line at a writer's workshop, but not so much immediately after finishing an engrossing and emotional read.  Really?!  Your search for an agent endangered the lives of your children every day?  You had to leave behind every thing you held most dear?  Sheesh.  I know it's hard to get published, but that's a little Rumpelstiltskin.

This review is far too critical. I'm so glad I read this book. I think you should read it too. It's very good. And educational. Wait! Stop! I mean that in a good way.

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What I Want to Write

I haven't been writing much about writing lately. And that's because . . . I haven't been writing much lately. I've been freelancing more lately. Like, for money. That's important, and it takes up a lot of the time I used to spend writing creatively. (And blogging.)

It's really really hard to keep up with: raising kids, running a household, menu planning (and shopping and preparing healthy food), keeping active, freelancing during "free" time, AND creative writing.

It can be done, of course. In fact, I've done it! (Although when I'm writing busily I often let exercise and eating-in slide a little bit.) So the real reason I haven't been writing as much lately must be something else.

I believe it's because I'm still trying to figure out what to write. Write what you read! goes the standard advice. Well, I like to read lots of stuff. I've tried to write what I read, and even some stuff I don't read as much of for variety.

And after much effort I've determined that it's a real struggle for me to write
children's lit
humor
romance
sci fi and fantasy
and . . . mysteries. I've worked the longest at writing mysteries! I've studied really hard! I've practiced! I've loved reading these all my life! I'm an active member of Sisters in Crime! And maybe one day I'll write a mystery that I think is good enough to share with others.

But in the meantime, where the writing feels most real and most natural and most fun and most exiting is when I'm writing something a lot like . . .

Literary fiction or maybe book club fiction ("commercial fiction," I suppose, though I don't really tend to see the two as such distinctly different genres as some do). So: commercial literary fiction. I think I have drool on my chin. Upmarket fiction.

But the derision!
The pretension!
What unpublished writer could claim to be writing a book like that?!

Those books, the ones that might have stamps from prestigious awards on their covers, the ones with thought-provoking readers' guides, the ones that "use too many words" (as determined by a writer friend of mine who's all about pace and urgency and cutting out all "unnecessary" description) those are the books that really touch me, that really get me excited, that make me think:

I want to do that!

And so. I live. I experience. I feel. I read. I think. I practice. I write.

And someday, hopefully, I'll have a novel I'm proud to show others.

(Image from AllPosters.com.)

Nothing to Read Here

I read a book intending to review it for the May meeting of Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. I decided against writing the review, though.

You know what everyone's mother says about if you can't say anything nice . . . ?

Well, that's not the case here. It's more like I'd be damning the book with faint praise.

And since I didn't have a really strong reaction to the book either way I'm simply not going to review it.

So I could dust off an old review, like this one of Percival the Plain Little Caterpillar.

Or I could review another book I've read recently, like Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls or Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout.

Or I could just take a month off. I've chosen to do the latter. I'll also include a list of the books one of my book clubs has discussed:

2006
The Tender Land by Kathleen Finneran (memoir)
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (graphic memoir)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Plainsong by Kent Haruf

2007
Night by Elie Wiesel (memoir)
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Birds of America: Stories by Lorrie Moore (short stories)
House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (memoir)
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dangerous Life of Altar Boys by Chris Fuhrman
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Bearing Witness by Michael A. Kahn
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

2008
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott
Lamb by Christopher Moore
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (play)
Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott
Him Her Him Again the End of Him by Patricia Marx
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (memoir/essays)
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Women by Clare Luce Booth (play)

2009
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir
Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

2010
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle (short stories)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher

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The Cougar Club by Susan McBride

This month for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club I'm reviewing THE COUGAR CLUB by Susan McBride (HarperCollins/Avon) as is Staci of Life in the Thumb.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that my husband, Paul, is two years and nine months younger than I am.  Does that make me a cougar?  I don't think so.  But I will admit that what feels like no big deal in our 30's felt a little more significant when we were 22 and 19.  Also, my best friend is four years older than her husband.  And my sister is a whopping five months older than hers.  So you decide: are we a Cougar Club?

McBride took some heat for the title of her new book even before it was published.  Apparently, some people find the term "cougar" to describe an older woman dating a younger man offensive.  McBride - married to a man eleven years younger than she - has a wonderful sense of humor about the whole thing.

THE COUGAR CLUB begins a new series about three best friends in their mid-40's, each of whom is making a fresh start of some kind and has a connection to a younger man.

The two best things about this book, in my opinion, are the fact that it's set in St. Louis (woo hoo!) and the characters.  They are - as always in McBride's books - so real that they outlive the pages of the novel.  I have recently realized that I'm 35.  It's not the number that's freaking me out (although, of course it's the number that's freaking me out) but also every little bump, lump, and spot I see on my skin.  I really really really want to go visit dermatologist Dr. Elise Randolph.  I think, "Oh, she's just over at MoBap. I wonder if she can fit me in this month?"  Then I remember: she's a fictional character.  Besides, I'm sure she's all booked up and it would be a little awkward anyway with all the details I know about her private life.

Last year I reviewed the first book in St. Louis author Susan McBride's last series, The Debs (Young Adult, Random House). I thought the writing good and I cared about the characters, though the style was a bit opulent and name-droppy for me.

The same is true here, to some extent.  There's far less name dropping in The Cougar Club than in The Debs, and the names the characters drop are much more my style (Krups coffee maker? Yes, please!).

I love the premise of the series.  I love the quotes from the characters between chapters.  And I love the enduring, loyal friendships between three grown women.

Also, I am really excited for a local author made good; Random House was so invested in this new series that they promoted the book, gave it a great cover, and even printed the trade paperback with spot gloss.  But enough industry talk.

On to the criticism.  I had a hard time loving one of the main characters in the novel (Carla Moss, news anchor).  And and hearing all the characters' ongoing concerns about aging, I found myself panicking about my own slow demise.  (This latter might be a good thing. I've worn sunscreen every day since completing the book. Oh how I wish I hadn't spent my college summers lifeguarding and getting so tan.)

The plot didn't move along quite the way I wanted it to.  This book felt like an introduction to the characters we'll learn more about in the next installment.  Here they are, here's what's going on in their lives, now hang on for book two.


I like McBride's writing and while The Cougar Club wasn't perfect, it drew me in.  I'll be sipping cocktails at Brio, waiting for the next novel in the series.

Here's a blog post from the author discussing reactions to her book. Definitely check it out, because there are two cute videos of the author.

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The End of Publishing? (Cool Video)

For my Facebook pals: The End of Publishing.

Busy Weekend Ahead

I made a trip to Kinko's in preparation for a serious editing phase.

Hey, Mom, look what I did!

(My mom doesn't read my blog. Usually. I just mean that I think it looks cool to see four rough draft novels printed and bound for editing work. Of course I'd kill fewer trees if I could do all my editing on-screen. Alas. But at least I can read tiny type: two sheets per page, double-sided.)

My workspace: