10 Confessions of an author-publisher

1. I would rather do anything than mop the floor. Come up with this list, for example.

2. I got my MA in fiction writing because I didn’t want to have to pass a French exam. I may have also been avoiding some additional expensive GRE component. I was such an idiot in those days that I didn’t even read the work of the writing professors I would be studying with before applying. Mind you, I mostly wanted to get out of editing technical articles about the Radio Shack TRS-80, and UNH did pay my way with a teaching assistantship. And I discovered that I loved teaching. So it worked out okay on that front, but after two years of graduate writing seminars I developed a strong preference for going out and living my life rather than writing small, artful stories. Which, in hindsight, was probably healthy.

3. I will do almost anything to avoid calling someone. I have to put it on a calendar and work myself up to a phone call. I am not terrible once I’m on the phone, but I dread getting on it. My (separated) husband likes to Skype, and my dad enjoys doing Facetime on his iPad. Oh, the horror! That supplies everything uncomfortable about the phone, plus wondering if your hair is combed and how messy the room behind you looks. Also, just saying goodbye becomes strangely long and drawn out.

4. I have thrown at least fifty boxes of books in the dumpster. People donate a lot of bestsellers to the thrift store where I volunteer and we have limited space. By the time we get the latest Danielle Steel just about everybody who wants it has already read it. Yes, there are ways to recycle books, but we haven’t quite figured out how to work it into our system yet. I have to tell you, it makes me feel pretty virtuous publishing e-books.

5. Reading often feels like work now. Do heterosexual male gynecologists get jaded about ladies’ private parts when they’re off the job? I’d love to just lose myself in a book, but I’m often hyper aware of other writers’ craft. Also, I have such a pile of books that I really should read in addition to the ones I just want to read that I feel I will never catch up. It’s a bad zone to get into.

6. I hide chocolate. I go days when I don’t eat it, but I like to know it’s there.

a photograph of the author's messy office

My messy office

7. I work in appalling disorder. About once every six months I organize my office and keep it that way for a week or two. Strangely, I usually find things much faster when it’s a mess.

8. Social media feels a little too much like high school. On the plus side, I get to hang out at the lunch table with my friends. But sometimes I post something and get crickets and feel like an awkward fifteen-year-old again. Or nobody favorites or retweets or follows me on Twitter for a stretch and I wonder if I’ve developed bad digital breath.

9. I can’t proofread my own stuff worth sh*t. Nobody can, but this time around my attempts were much less successful. Maybe I’m just older, but changing a manuscript from first person present to third person past is also an editing nightmare. A friend just pointed out more typos that I missed in my last book. He also offered to beta-read next time. (Both of those are being a very good friend.)

10. I named a heroine after an outhouse. It’s true. When I picked tobacco as a field hand for Consolidated Cigar Company in the Connecticut River valley of Western Massachusetts between high school and college, the outhouses were called Mollies. I always wondered how they’d gotten that name and what it must have been like to be the original Molly. Those girls could be pretty mean. (You didn’t want to be IN the Molly when they decided it would be fun to rock it.) But Molly in The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire already had enough to deal with, so the only thing I did with my summer of picking shade tobacco was crash David’s plane into a field of it.

Here’s one of the songs the girls would sing lustily on the bus or at lunch (to the tune of “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener”):

Oh, I wish I were a CCC tobacco barn.
That is what I’d really like to be,
‘Cuz if I were a CCC tobacco barn,
All the boys would be inside of me!

Yes, I sang it, too. Adolescent girls are just not the sweet, innocent little dears you might like to think they are.

Any confessions of your own to offer? (And here’s one of those points when I might hear nothing but crickets. Ha!)

 

Season’s Greetings … and here’s that free story!

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Amazon absolutely isn’t cooperating, nor is Kobo, but you can enjoy a free romantic comedy short story on me if you download it from Nook, Smashwords, or iTunes. (At Smashwords it will be in multiple formats you can choose from.) Or, if you’re on my subscriber list, I’ll email you a way to read it online sometime Christmas Eve.

#Free on #Nookhttp://bit.ly/13nM7Bs

#Free on #iTuneshttp://bit.ly/1CdFvo1

#Free on #Smashwordshttp://bit.ly/1JKo3tD

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

Thank you for all your support this year, and I hope you have a great holiday!

Exciting arrivals this week!

A FREE read is on the way!

I’ve only got a week left of classes, and if all goes well before it’s out my Christmas present to fans and fellow indie writers will be available. So keep an eye out — or sign up for my email list to get the link sent to you as soon as it’s live (and also truly free — that can take awhile at Amazon since I have to upload it elsewhere and then get them to price-match). Here’s the cover:

The Short, Spectacular Indie-Publishing Career of Matilda Walter

AND The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire releases this Tuesday!

 

Two Thanksgiving scenes

I was a little startled to realize, last night, that Thanksgiving looms pretty large in both my books so far, and serves as a significant turning point in the first one. This surprised me a little because I’m not exactly a stickler for holiday traditions. My son and I are happily joining friends for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. Although I regret not being with either my grandkids or my brothers’ families today, I have a little bit of a cold and I am actually very content not driving long distances in uncertain weather, or cooking and cleaning.

These are not the most significant parts of the Thanksgiving events in each book — I don’t want to spoil anything major — but I thought you might enjoy these little excerpts in honor of the holiday.

From The Awful Mess: A Love Story

Cover for The Awful Mess: A Love StoryAs Thanksgiving approached, the food pantry got hectic. November was prime time for food collections and for new volunteers, who naturally expected to be given something to do. The generous Thanksgiving boxes, a point of pride and competition among the local churches and civic organizations, had to be organized so that frozen turkeys didn’t defrost, stuffing mix didn’t expire, pies didn’t get squashed, and no one got lost trying to make deliveries.

Mary organized driving maps along sensible car routes for the approximate number of volunteers they expected to show up on delivery day, the Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving. She and Annie supervised the distribution of lists and boxes. She had just finished checking off one set of boxes into the care of a couple of Catholics, when she turned to find herself facing Winslow.

“Oh, hi.” She tried to ignore the rising heat on her face. “I didn’t see you on the list. Are you here for St. Andrews?”

“No, Chapel on the Hill.” His blue eyes met hers for what seemed like the first time in months. “Dad’s back is bothering him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Here are their boxes” — she walked him over — “and this is where to deliver them.” She handed over the packet with a tight smile. “Tell your Dad I hope he feels better.” She stepped back, anxious to avoid further awkwardness.

He boosted a box into his arms. “You’re not lifting these, I hope.”

“No, not me.” She patted her belly. If he had ever found her attractive, he must be safely past that now. Perhaps that explained the sudden willingness to talk to her again.

“My sister’s arriving tomorrow,” he said.

“Your dad told me she has big news.”

“She’s bringing Carla.”

“Does he know?”

“No.” He frowned and shifted the heavy box over to one hip.

“Don’t you think it might be a good idea to give him a heads up?”

“She didn’t want me to. She says if they have to leave, they will.”

“Well that sounds like a fun holiday for everybody.” Mary was annoyed on Bert’s behalf. “Was this your sister’s idea, or Carla’s?”

“Probably Carla’s. She can be a drama queen.”

“I could tell him, if you want.”

He looked astonished. “You?”

She suddenly realized how far she’d overstepped. There went her face, burning again. “Sorry,” she said wretchedly. “Dumb suggestion.” She turned away, blinking back tears of embarrassment, and stumbled over to another volunteer who looked like he needed direction. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Winslow staring after her. She turned her back and tried to focus on the man in front of her, who was geared out as if he were about to go climb Mount Monadnock.

“Hey, are you okay?” the man asked.

“Hormones,” she said.

The man looked alarmed. She tried to smile. “Which group are you?”

“Unitarian.”

Thankfully, the Unitarian boxes were on the other side from the God’s Chapel on the Hill boxes, over by the Kiwanis boxes. Perhaps Annie had mapped out the boxes by dogma, or lack thereof. Mary helped the Unitarian fellow and then hovered while he carried out one heavy box at a time. Winslow came in and out, too, loading his own boxes. She sensed him looking over at her, but carefully avoided making eye contact until his last box was gone and him with it. Then she checked both sets of boxes off her list and collapsed into a folding chair.

“You okay?” Annie asked, panting a bit herself.

“I’ll be all right.”

“Somebody say something mean to you? Tell me who it is, I’ll fight ’im!”

Mary just shook her head.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“I thought I might sign up to work the soup kitchen in Keene.”

Annie scowled. “Why don’t you let the once-a-year folks do that? I’m going to have a nice restaurant meal with my home girls. You want to come?”

“Home girls?” Lawson was not exactly a hub of hip urban street culture.

“Other divorced women from my support group. The few of us who don’t have families we want to hang out with on Turkey Day, anyway.”

Mary hesitated. “How expensive is it?”

“Pregnant unemployed food pantry volunteers get to eat free.”

“I can still pay my way!”

Annie laughed. “No you can’t. The restaurant is owned by one of the women in the group. She never lets us pay a dime for the food, just for the service.”

“Well, that sounds lovely, actually. Thank you.”

Annie did a little happy dance. “Excellent! Now everybody’s taken care of.”


From The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.He arrived at three. He hadn’t really wanted to be that punctual. But he’d taken a shower, and shaved, and changed, and changed again. And then he couldn’t think of anything else to do, and it was still only 2:30.

It occurred to him that he should take something, so he drove to Stop n’ Shop. It was closed.

He tried the package store. It was open, of course. He bought a bottle of wine and felt like a grown-up. Elaine hadn’t even had to tell him to do it.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said, and handed over the wine.

“Oh, thank you!” Cassandra looked genuinely pleased. “I hope it goes with turkey. I completely forgot about wine.”

“I think maybe anything goes with turkey,” he said, as if he had a clue, which he didn’t. Elaine would have known what wine went with turkey, or she would have asked the guy in the package store. David sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.

Colin came up to take his jacket. “This is my first Thanksgiving. We don’t do Thanksgiving where I come from.”

“No? Well, and why would you?”

Colin looked unsure whether that was a dig or not. David hadn’t intended it as one, but he enjoyed setting Colin back just a little anyway.

“We do have Guy Fawkes Day in early November,” Colin said. “We light bonfires and set off fireworks and roast bangers on sticks. Bangers are sausages, you see.”

“Sounds like fun,” David said.

“What I don’t understand about this holiday is the football part of it. Not that what you lot play is what I would consider football.”

Colin had already said some variation on this to him at least once a week since he’d met him. “Are you watching the game?” he asked hopefully. He had no actual interest in the day’s games, but having a television on would reduce the pressure to have conversation.

“Good Lord, no,” Colin said. “I did watch some of that parade, though. A bizarre tribal custom if I ever saw one. Huge inflated totems, dizzying drumbeats, virgins displayed like offerings to appease the gods!”

“So where’s Molly?” he asked Cassandra, who looked as if she’d had just about enough of Colin.

“At a football game.” She sounded tense.

“A football game?”

“The Turkey Day game. It’s home this year. Shadbrook vs. East Hadley. I assumed she would be home by now.”

“You see?” Colin says. “More madness. And on a day like this.” He gestured outside, to where the snow was falling more heavily.

“I hope he knows how to drive in this stuff,” Cassandra said.

“He?” David asked.

“Steven. Steven Bishop. A guy she used to know at the local high school. He looks nice enough.” Cassandra didn’t sound too impressed.

“She was very excited,” Colin said. “Our Molly hasn’t gotten out much.”

“I wish she would get home,” Cassandra said. “I’m glad she’s getting out, but I guess I’m really not used to this. Would you like a glass of wine before dinner, David? Or one of Colin’s imported ales?”

“Wine, please.” Yes, by all means, give him a drink. Had she invited him over here on purpose to make sure he knew about Steven? Maybe this was Cassandra’s way of saying it’s over, pathetic man, get on with your life.

x x x

He was glad he’d already downed that first glass when a beat-up old Plymouth pulled up outside. “I think she’s home,” he said.

But she didn’t come in right away. No, she stayed out there in the car with Steven.

Finally, Cassandra opened the door and stepped out onto the stoop. Molly got out of the car. She tried to neaten her hair. She looked so excited and happy. She practically bounced through the accumulated snow to the door.

Despite the ache in his heart, David found it impossible not to think: This is good. This is right and proper. Look at her, isn’t she beautiful?

When she saw him, though, some of that animation drained away. She licked her lips nervously. They looked chapped. Her entire face looked rough and red. He could remember kissing like that, centuries earlier, back when kissing alone was amazing.

“Hello, Molly,” he said, and smiled bravely.

She smiled back. The happiness overspread her face again. She just couldn’t contain it, could she? “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“How was the game?” Cassandra asked.

“The game? It was fine.”

“Who won?” Cassandra asked.

Molly opened her mouth, then closed it. “I have no idea.”

Colin chuckled, then patted him on the shoulder and steered him toward the kitchen. “Let’s refill your glass, David.”

 


FYI — The price on The Ribs and Thigh Bones will rise after it’s released Dec. 9, so pre-order before then to save a dollar. Or pre-order because you want to help me make it more visible to other readers (pre-orders really do make a BIG difference). Or … don’t worry about it and go eat some turkey. It’s a holiday! Hope you have a nice one.

If life hands you spam, make spam-ade

Found Poetry Constructed from Spam Comments on my Blog

Seriously a few moments.
Plenty of adventures
Are usually now being formed.
Your daughter’s virginity disappear.
Meals left out during the open
Can turn out to be the ideal nesting internet site
For spring pests.
Until you have young, get a secure broken relationship.
Chance to go somewhere for you was really very much required
To get these adolescent girls who’ve got a great deal of likely,
Wouldn’t have the infant
In an exceedingly Denver habitation.
Sizzling out of this scenario is the two of us.
To have initiative —
Also trust around the would-be with this marriage.
Just pay for the music.
Possess a moment.

 

The English is better in this book, which was one of five general fiction semifinalists for the 2014 (and apparently last) Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award:

Cover for The Awful Mess: A Love Story

Chapter Two of The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire

Continuing on from Chapter One

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.MOLLY HAD BEEN to exactly four funerals before, one for each grandparent. She didn’t know if that was a lot of funerals for a girl of sixteen. But she knew this one was different. Emily and Elaine had already been dead for over three weeks, and there was no hint at all of their earthly remains, assuming there were any left. And, of course, Emily and Elaine had not been old people at the end of full lives, but a young girl and her mother.

“Such a tragedy,” everyone kept saying. It had been repeated so often that Molly now heard the words as if they were capitalized: Such a Tragedy. She had expected to hear plenty of that today and had steeled herself against it, hoping not to become a bawling wreck. What she hadn’t expected was what people were saying about Emily and Elaine once they got past the Such a Tragedy part.

“We’ll never see her learn to ride a bike!” Emily’s grandmother sniffed, then started sobbing outright and hid her face in a handkerchief before someone helped her back to her pew. Molly sat there thinking that Emily had already learned to ride a bike the previous summer. It had been the Bicentennial so they’d purchased red, white, and blue “Spirit of 76!” tassels for Emily’s bike handles. Didn’t this woman ever talk to her granddaughter on the phone? But then she felt mean. After all, Mrs. DeRochemont not only didn’t get to see her granddaughter learn to ride a bike, she would never get to see her ride a bike, ever.

Probably they’d missed so much because they lived all the way over in California, which had to be a very expensive long-distance call. And who was she to judge? All her grandparents were dead. They had excuses.

But her sense that things were off just got worse when they started talking about Elaine. They kept referring to her amazing talent, to her great promise as a poet and painter. Molly had worked for Elaine Asken as a babysitter and mother’s helper for four years, but she’d had no idea she ever wrote poetry, and she’d never seen her paint anything other than the bathroom – a nice sky blue.

Her mother looked as perplexed as she was. Their small town did not lack for artists. Molly’s mother was one herself (the infamous Cassandra Carmichael – yes, that one). She wasn’t shy about bringing it up, either. So how could something like this have never come up in neighborly conversation?

Back at the Asken house, now crowded with mourners trying not to chat too cheerfully over the food, Molly caught her mother examining pale David Asken with suspicion. Her mother had always seemed to like this young family across the street, to consider them the right sort of people, not too old-fashioned or Republican or anything. She particularly approved of the fact that Elaine had a job, teaching English at the local public high school. Now, however, Molly could tell that she suspected Dr. Asken of oppressing all the art out of his wife.

Molly thought it was more likely that her mother had oppressed any mention of art out of Elaine. Cassandra had hit the big time with an installation called Puberty, which had included a life-sized sculpture of Molly, twelve at the time, constructed entirely of tampons and feminine napkins – unused, thank God. This had been such a big hit that her mother had moved on to a series of papier-mâché portraits of women’s private parts she called Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. Worse, her mother always made sure the local media knew about her new shows, and they delighted in giving full coverage to her exploits.

All this had often made Molly want to curl up in the fetal position in her bed rather than go to school. People assumed Shadbrook was an enlightened town because it was so close to UMass and the other colleges – and plenty of academics did live there. But the other people, the locals – farmers and factory workers and custodians and groundskeepers – wouldn’t be caught dead pretending to like contemporary art. At Shadbrook High School the kids had saluted her mother’s first show by passing her sanitary supplies in class and calling her Tampon Girl. She was grateful when her father took pity and got her transferred into a local boarding school as a day student. At Shadbrook Academy the rich kids thought it was cool to have a mom who was so open-minded about, like, sex, and Molly tried to act as if she thought so, too. She’d already learned the hard way that betraying embarrassment in high school was like jumping into a shark frenzy with a vein open.

But Molly was not particularly open-minded about sex. She was still only sixteen, and she had never felt an overwhelming urge to exchange bodily fluids with any of the boys she knew, even the ones she considered cute. And she didn’t appreciate it when someone assumed she must be hot to trot just because her mother had a bunch of giant vulvas lined up on a shelf in her studio.

Today, though, she was less the crazy feminist artist’s daughter than she was the bereaved babysitter of the dead girl. People were giving her the same watery smiles they were giving Dr. Asken – in her case, probably because her eyes were still red-rimmed with tears from the service (so much for not bawling), or perhaps because she was helping out at the house and therefore seemed to hold some kind of official family status.

Mr. and Mrs. Pizarelli from next door tapped on the glass door off the deck and began to slide it open. Although the Asken house faced busy Federal Street, the driveway was off quiet Brinkley Street, facing Molly’s mother’s house. Only salesmen and Jehovah’s Witnesses walked all the way around. Mr. Pizarelli bore a huge pan wrapped in aluminum foil while his wife carried a homemade layer cake high up before her like a sacred offering. Molly knew they were going to want more recognition for their efforts than they could get from her, so she quickly went into the living room and pointed Dr. Asken’s sister, Denise, toward the new arrivals.

In the living room, two women she didn’t know were examining the large oils hanging there and Molly suddenly realized that they must be Elaine’s, since they were signed EDR. The two largest paintings were color studies more than anything, but a few were more representational – impressionist scenes of shells or sea oats and dunes. It was the kind of stuff her mother would dismiss as too conventional – sofa art, she might call it, with a sniff.

Molly jumped when Denise grabbed her elbow and steered her towards the kitchen. Although she lived in Minneapolis, Denise had been staying here at the house since shortly after the crash, watching over her brother while he recuperated from his injuries. She leaned in towards Molly’s ear and murmured, “How do you think it’s going?”

What made Denise think she was any judge? “Fine, I guess.”

“I was hoping David would get more involved, but I’m afraid he still has a long way to go.” She sighed unhappily.

After three weeks in the hospital, Dr. Asken still had one arm bandaged all the way from the hand to the elbow and hanging in a sling. The other hand wasn’t bandaged anymore, but it was scarred with pale, puckered trails like birthday cake icing. At rest it curled in on itself like a claw. Except for those injuries it was not really obvious from looking that he had survived a terrible plane crash. There had been fourteen survivors out of eighty-three passengers – or eleven, really, since three had since died from their injuries.

Molly assumed Dr. Asken was suffering – how could he not be? But today, when she’d dared to look, she was mostly struck by how he seemed to not really be there at all.

“Do you think you could stay for a while this afternoon and help me clean up? I’ll pay you, of course.” Denise’s plump face had managed to take on a hollow look, and she had a fine sheen of perspiration over her upper lip. She’d been shepherding people to and away from her brother, putting out food, refreshing drinks and supplying gory details to people who surely already knew what had happened but wanted to hear it all over again from a more authoritative source.

“Yes, I can stay. You don’t have to pay me.”

“Oh, aren’t you sweet.”

Molly sensed a faint touch of contempt there. Did Denise think she was some kind of provincial idiot? But although Molly could use the money, it hadn’t been her primary motivation in her relationship with the Askens for a long time.

This house had been her refuge from the general chaos at home as well as impassioned monologues about the beauty of the female body and the political importance of the female orgasm and other things she just didn’t think a girl should have to discuss with her mother. She had loved Emily because she was a sweet little girl who worshiped her, and she had loved Elaine because she was predictable and steady and kind. She’d loved coming over here into the tranquility of Elaine’s blues and greens, the houseplants that didn’t die from neglect, the sense of order and peace. Just stepping in the door was soothing.

But it was not Elaine and Emily’s house anymore; it was just Dr. Asken’s. And Dr. Asken – Dr. because he had a Ph.D. and taught science at one of the local women’s colleges – had never been anything more to Molly than a tall man with hair just long enough to make her father frown, a man who occasionally appeared, looked mildly embarrassed, and paid her.

In truth, she was not really entirely comfortable that she had been hired to work as Dr. Asken’s housekeeper for the rest of the summer.

She quietly dodged around people in the living room, collecting glasses and dishes, doing her job. But when she was loading the dishwasher and recognized Emily’s favorite juice glass, the one with Cookie Monster on it, she felt tears rise again. She dashed out the door to the front porch, where she could slip down onto the old wicker sofa behind the lilacs and try to get a grip.

Moments later, her mother stuck her head out of the front door. “Oh, there you are,” she said. “Are you all right?”

Molly nodded and gave her a surly pout, desperate to head off any serious attempt at comfort. It would only make her cry.

Cassandra sat down next to her and took out a cigarette. “I wonder why she stopped painting,” she said. She took a drag and blew out smoke in a long stream.

Molly coughed. “I wonder why you started smoking.”

Her mom blew out another long stream, and Molly wondered if maybe that was why she had started smoking – the opportunity it provided for dramatic pauses.

“I used to smoke before I got pregnant with you.”

“So you won’t mind if I start now, either?”

Her mother cocked an eyebrow at her and offered her a cigarette.

Molly recoiled.

Her mom smiled. “I didn’t think so.” Another stream. “What do you think of Elaine’s paintings?”

“I didn’t realize they were hers. I like the colors.”

“I see indications of real talent.”

Molly frowned. There was no way would her mother would have said that if Elaine were still alive. Her mother generally dismissed all but most the radical of her contemporaries as “bourgeois hacks,” and there was nothing in Elaine’s work that suggested revolutionary tendencies. Molly said, “Elaine was the warmest, kindest woman I’ve ever known.”

Her mother stubbed out her cigarette and tossed the butt into the lilac.

Molly thought it took a lot of nerve to toss a butt into a grieving man’s front garden, but then she realized there were no ashtrays on the front porch. Elaine would have thought to put some around. “Let me get an ashtray for you,” she said, and stood up.

“Don’t bother, I’m going home. Are you coming?”

“Denise asked me to help clean up.”

Her mother snorted. She’d taken an instant dislike to Denise. “Well, good luck with that.” She went back through the house, no doubt to do another round of condolences on her way out.

Molly twisted around to peer through the living room window, curious to see how Dr. Asken would react to the second, parting handshake from her mother. People in the room stopped what they were doing to watch her. Molly’s mother was not a beauty – she was a tiny woman, with unusually short, spiky hair and a face that was more interesting than it was pretty – but people did watch her, even people who didn’t know how notorious she was.

But Cassandra Carmichael didn’t get even a flicker of recognition from Dr. Asken. It was the same as the first time he’d shaken their hands, after the service – like someone going through motions he didn’t even know he was making.


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Sneak peek at the next novel (Chapter One)

The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire -- showing a (dressed) teenage girl on a bed, looking rather pensive.

It’s 1977 in a small New England town peppered with academics from the nearby colleges. Physics professor David Asken has just lost his pregnant wife and young daughter. Molly Carmichael is the sixteen-year-old babysitter from across the street, not in any hurry to grow up and eager for almost any refuge from her mother’s notorious art career. Her summer job is to keep house for the recuperating widower, a man who’s quietly planning to end his life as soon as he can drive again. Events will force both of them to grow up the hard way, and it’s their unexpected connection — fraught with potential scandal — that will help them do it. THE RIBS AND THIGH BONES OF DESIRE explores the nature of love, and raises the question: Is there ever a time when doing the wrong thing might be exactly right?


There is a code of behavior, she knew, whose seventh article (it may be) says that on occasions of this sort it behooves the woman, whatever her own occupation might be, to go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve the thigh bones, the ribs, of his vanity, of his urgent desire to assert himself; as indeed it is their duty, she reflected, in her old maidenly fairness, to help us, suppose the Tube were to burst into flames. Then, she thought, I should certainly expect Mr. Tansley to get me out. But how would it be, she thought, if neither of us did either of these things?

VIRGINIA WOOLF, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE


 

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF BEING MARRIED, David thought, if he couldn’t at least have a little company while he was pretending not to be terrified?

Elaine must have been really tired to sleep that way, with her mouth open and drool trailing down her face. He knew she’d hate to be seen like that, which gave him another reason to wake her up. “Honey?” he said, using his thumb to gently rub the drool away.

She opened her eyes and looked blank for just a moment, before a jolt of turbulence made her grip the arm rest. A small, evil part of him was pleased to see his wife the fearless flyer scared for a moment, even if it was only because she hadn’t fully wakened. “They said it was going to get bumpy. And we’re starting our descent, so the seats need to come up.” She’d missed the no-smoking light coming on, which might have cheered her up if the cabin wasn’t already layered with a haze of cigarette smoke.

She pressed the button that straightened her seat, then did the same for their daughter Emily, who slept on in the window seat. Her little face, still a little too pink from the Florida sun, was sweaty with child-sleep, and a few stray strands of hair clung wetly to her forehead.

It was probably just as well she was out, what with the steady shaking they were getting. Either she’d be scared about something neither Mommy nor Daddy could fix, or she’d decide it was fun and he’d know he was the only natural-born weenie in the family.

Was it evil to hope that the next child would take after him a little more? He put a possessive hand on Elaine’s belly, which still wasn’t showing anything that couldn’t be put down to the airline meal. She gave him a tight smile in return, one he easily translated as must you?

He withdrew his hand. She didn’t want him to tell anyone yet – not even total strangers in Florida who didn’t know their names and could hardly run off and share the news with her boss or her mother. He checked to see if the woman who had the opposite row all to herself suddenly had a knowing look on her face, but she was bracing one arm on the seat in front of her and gripping the armrest with the other. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving – presumably in prayer – but her eyes opened wide at a sudden clanking.

“It’s just the landing gear going down,” he offered, with far more nonchalance than he felt. (Were they really going to try to land in this?) She didn’t look comforted.

Another sharp jolt made someone further up scream. Outside the window a spike of lightning briefly illuminated startlingly high towers of storm clouds and was followed immediately by the crack of thunder. Raindrops began to trail across the window as the lightning began to intensify, its cracks and booms and rumbles and murmurs overlapping so much that David gave up trying to count seconds in order to estimate distance.
Between flashes, the red and yellow glow of the plane’s lights pulsated eerily.

“I thought we were supposed to miss all this bad weather by leaving as late as we did.” Elaine might not be a nervous flier, but she was definitely an irritable one.

“This time of year storms can form pretty quickly.”

“Lovely.” She started checking the seat pockets in front of her and Emily, tidying compulsively as usual. “Should I wake her?”

“She might start singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song again.”

“At least it replaced It’s a Small World.”

“Don’t even mention it!” Elaine wouldn’t be above teasing him with the tune just for kicks, so he quickly added, “She had a good time, didn’t she?”

“That she did,” Elaine said. “She’s not hard to please.”

Unlike you, he thought. What wouldn’t he give just to hear her say he’d done something right? Something like: “Going to Florida was such a great idea, David!” But she just wasn’t given to that kind of thing.

Instead, it seemed to him, long recriminating silences were beginning to replace the easy exchanges they’d once had. He thought they’d each talked and listened in fairly equal measure, back when they were dating and first married. These days, it seemed to him he did more of the talking, and often all he got for it was that tight smile.

Like when he’d come home from the last day of class with these plane tickets.

Aw, fuck it. “Did you enjoy it?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “A lot more than I expected to.”

That was an admission, wasn’t it? She hadn’t expected to have fun. She could still be lying about having any, though. “What was your favorite part?”

“Oh, watching Emily get so excited, of course.”

Of course. Emily. Not her.

Not that this vacation hadn’t been a bit of a marathon for him, too. It had been so hot and humid, and the lines so long, and everything so relentlessly, cheerfully commercial. It had also been a lot more expensive than he’d counted on, and just to top it all off, Elaine had begun to have a little morning sickness. It hadn’t really occurred to him until too late that maybe this trip wasn’t the best timing for her.

“You feeling all right?” he asked now. This bouncing around couldn’t be easy on a queasy stomach.

“I’m fine,” she said, as if surprised.

They had to be nearly at the runway by now, surely? He peered outside looking for lights from the ground, and thought he might see a few. This was really very bad weather to be landing in. It wouldn’t even be safe to let them off the plane, not onto those metal steps – though he would be willing to run for it just to get the hell out of this thing.

Another strong jolt punctuated the general shaking. He took Elaine’s hand, then leaned forward and peered at Emily. Her lips were doing that adorable suckling thing. A few rows ahead, a baby started screaming.

“I bet that baby’s ears are bothering it,” Elaine said. “They should give it a bottle.” There was a perceptible increase in conversation, probably as every mother on the plane said some variation of the same thing, while everyone else on board wondered, like him, how long they were going to be trapped on a shaking plane with a screaming baby.

No longer just peppering the windows, the rain could now be heard pounding furiously on the roof.

The engines suddenly roared and the plane lifted steeply up again. The conversations around them stopped dead at this change in the routine. Only the baby continued crying.

David felt the plane straining for altitude even as it continued to buck. With one hand he held on to Elaine’s and with the other he held onto his seat.

Emily whimpered and Elaine pulled her hand away to attend to her, just as the plane suddenly lurched left.

And that was the last thing he remembered of his life before the crash.

———————————————————————————–

Ready to just go buy the book? You can do that here.

But if you’d rather keep reading, here’s Chapter Two.

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ABNA was nice while it lasted, but…

…not, in retrospect, quite as nice as I’d expected.

Amazon Publishing’s Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is a brilliant idea to acquire new authors of quality work, usually without the fuss of agents, while building engagement among its self-published authors and readers. Kudos to them for coming up with it.

I wasn’t at all sure about entering. The Awful Mess is women’s fiction, and it would be up against the entire general fiction category. My book verges on romance, and it has progressive religious elements. I didn’t think either aspect was going to help it. My book also has two sex scenes and some bad language. This didn’t seem to fit the guidelines for the contest. Finally, I suspected that this whole process would be a bit of a distraction from my game plan. And it was.

On the plus side, getting to the quarter finals would include a free Publishers Weekly review. And a couple of fellow authors, including one who’d made it to the quarter-finals before, urged me to jump in. I did my research and noticed generally strong marketing by Amazon for the previous winners. So, ultimately, I did jump in, with a version in which the two explicit sex scenes were jumped over.

And, as it turns out, the book made it to the quarter-finals and then into the semi-finals — which is to say, it was one of five semi-finalists for the general fiction category.

I'm in there with the ABNA semi-finalists -- I'm not just making it up!

Yes, I really was in there with the ABNA semi-finalists — I’m not just making it up!

Personally, I would not be shocked if Amazon was behind the scenes somewhere guiding this result, since they might have noticed that this book was doing pretty well for an indie debut (in its first year it sold over 1,200 copies, and had over 50,000 free downloads). If I were an acquisitions editor in their publishing division, I might think this looks like an author with potential. (The book that won the general fiction category was already self-published, too, and doing even better.)

I especially wondered this after I got my sought-after review — which, it turned out, was not really a Publishers Weekly review, in the sense of being a review actually written for and published in Publishers Weekly. It was uniformly positive, for which I was very thankful, but it seemed a little off, as if the person who wrote it hadn’t really read the entire book. It suggests that my heroine fends men off (she tries, but she’s not very good at it), and references the “rowdy bars” of the small New England town. I suppose there is one kerfuffle in one bar, but it’s hardly a major plot element. It also uses the phrase “small New England town” twice in six sentences. While I’m very grateful that it is so positive, it’s not something I can easily use for marketing, especially since I have to explain that it’s from the ABNA contest and the book was not exactly the same. So I consider this aspect a bit of a bust.

I decided that I would not attempt to enlist my friends or mount a social media campaign to gain reviews for the ABNA excerpt. I already had 170+ real reviews on the full novel, so it seemed kind of silly. Also, I was moving house and had no time to even send out a press release. This may or may not have played a part in the reality that I didn’t win my category.

Part of the reason I didn’t fight for it may be that I was feeling ambivalent about becoming an Amazon Publishing author. That it would be financially advantageous, I have little doubt. I notice that Amazon promotes its own books quite effectively, and I considered the contract all semi-finalists sign eminently fair (I once worked as an acquisitions editor, so I am more familiar with publishing contracts than most folks). But whether Amazon was likely to be a happy partner with me as I moved ahead on later books — books with even more sexual themes, plus some controversial content in the second — I wasn’t sure.

I noticed they had a truly huge list of authors in their various publishing imprints, so I had no idea what kind of attention I would get (not that I have any complaints about communication from them during this process — it was always prompt and courteous). And while Kindle Select was a great place to launch The Awful Mess, staying exclusive to Amazon would mean no branching out into Kobo, Nook, the iStore, or bookstores going forward. It might get me even less access to local bookstores than I already have as an indie. I’m not sure what it would mean for libraries, but I doubt it would help much.

Finally, my sales dipped pretty precipitously during this process. Most of this, I’m sure, is because I haven’t been promoting. After signing that contract, I wasn’t sure how much I could promote. When I finally asked, initially I was told I could do anything as a self-publisher, but then when I double-checked before confirming a BookBub promotion, and the product manager also double-checked, the lawyers said that during final voting that kind of promotion would be a no-no. Part of the sales dip may also be that I let my Kindle Select status expire because I was planning to branch out into the other retailers once I had safely lost. (Does Kindle Select status provide a measurable sales advantage on Amazon? I don’t know. I do miss the income from loans, though.) Part of it may also be confusion between the ABNA excerpt and the full book, though I doubt it.

At any rate, at this point I’m so close to launching the second book that I’m going to go ahead and get those ducks lined up before I do any serious promoting. I’m now aiming to get that published this fall. (If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, make sure you sign up for my mailing list, and then make sure you also opt in when you get the confirming email.)

So, fellow writers, if you’ve participated in ABNA at any point, did you feel it was productive for you? Would you recommend it to others? Would you do it again?

 

 

Five unexpected pleasures of being single again in my 50s

#1 City living. The need for an affordable house pushed me into a city I had originally intended to avoid, if only because of resale issues. But I’m glad it did, because I really like it here. People often think of this city as dangerous and poverty-stricken. It does have some downtrodden neighborhoods, but it’s also beautiful and interesting and lively. In my little subdivision, built in the 40’s, we each have a little lot and a little house – and it’s plenty enough to live in comfortably. I don’t feel unsafe. I don’t have to worry about bears, either. And I’m close to everything.
#2 My space. Even though it’s a much smaller house (less than half the size of the old one), I feel as if I have more space. This isn’t so much because of downsizing as the reason for downsizing — my ex has retired to his beloved Puerto Rico (and we are legally separated). My son has his own TV in his own room now (he’s nineteen, so I don’t feel guilty about that). That means I actually have a living room that I can use as I wish — for reading, or for watching what I want to watch. It’s strange and quite pleasant, after nearly 24 years of marriage in which the remote largely sat in the hands of someone else and togetherness meant watching vast amounts of TV. Also, while sharing the single bathroom with my son does require some adjustment, at least now I can insist that he lower the seat. His future wife should thank me.
#3 No honey-do list. This means it’s entirely up to me to get stuff fixed, or fix it myself. No waiting around, no hinting, no days or weeks or months or years of frustration. Just do it or don’t do it. If it’s not done, it’s on me. Mind you, I miss my husband’s easier fixes (he could easily hang a new fan or light fixture, for example), but a large part of our marriage consisted of me wishing I could fix or replace something and him saying that he would do it – but who knew when – or telling me that it didn’t need to be done, which meant I didn’t feel I could spend money on it. He did come through in a big way once in awhile, but this is not generally an area of our marriage that I will miss – any more than he will, I’m sure. (It’s worth noting that this does NOT mean I’ve become a model of efficiency in getting these things done.)
#4 No tense interior design negotiations. I can hang the pictures I want wherever I want them. And then I can take them down and hang them somewhere else. (Yep, there’s been quite a lot of that.) Since my walls are papered-over paneling and due for painting before too long, I don’t even feel guilty knocking all those holes into them. I’ve also been rearranging furniture to my heart’s content.

Mozzarella, goat cheese, strawberries, peppers, balsamic vinegar, scallions, and oil on romaine. Not bad.

Mozzarella, goat cheese, strawberries, peppers, scallions, crushed almonds, and balsamic vinegar and oil on romaine.

#5 Nuts and berries. Seriously, add cheese and salad fixings and the occasional restaurant foray to that and we’ve pretty much got my diet at the moment. My husband would have been pointedly bringing home packages of steak and chicken by now. (He might well have cooked them, too, mind you.) My son is often away for dinner or just not interested in what I make, so I’m pleasing myself with lots of salads, or just noshing on cheese and bread and fruit. Since much of the cheese is interesting stuff from Honest Weight Food Coop or the Troy Farmer’s Market, it’s been quite really nice. And easy.

Now, I’m not saying I recommend any of this over the benefits of a loving romantic relationship — but when you don’t have that, for whatever reason, you might as well appreciate the unique pleasures of your situation.

Top 10 likes/dislikes about my downsized life

Like Mary in The Awful Mess, I have just downsized into a tiny house, although I think I made a better choice than she did (and I also have a nineteen-year-old along). Also, I don’t think any little old ladies have recently dropped dead in this one.

I’ve put my dislikes and likes together to keep things positive.

DISLIKE #10. Still can’t find some of my socks — the ones that match most of my summer pants. They’ve got to be somewhere. Actually, this applies to at least another ten percent of my possessions at this point. I was just terrible at packing (thank God for two friends who showed up to help the last day).

LIKE #10. I finally realized I could throw out the entire bag of panty hose I haven’t worn in over a decade, and plenty of other stuff I can’t find room for. (Of course, it would have been nice to realize that BEFORE packing and moving.)

DISLIKE #9. Troy water tastes faintly chlorinated.

LIKE #9. The water pressure is amazing — so amazing it practically blasts me against the opposite wall of the shower — and the flavor is otherwise fine. This ain’t Florida tap water, thank goodness.

DISLIKE #8. I can’t put away the boxes of stuff stacked in my office closet until I have installed shelves in my office closet.

LIKE #8. I have an office, and someday I will actually be able to walk around in it, or at least edge my way around things in it. This is my fault for bringing Jaime’s big-ass thrift-store-find desk, which has so much drawer space that I actually might not need that office closet at all if I could just stop hoarding office supplies.

DISLIKE #7 & 6. The basin under the kitchen sink was apparently left there to catch the drips from the rotted plumbing. And the reason there was no washing machine was possibly because the washer hook-ups were so rotten they started spewing water the minute the new machine was attached.

LIKE #7 & #6. I have a good and reasonably priced plumber. Which is good, because I just realized the outdoor faucets aren’t working, either. And thankfully the gas dryer left here works fine and has a vent I can clean out without taking the house apart.

DISLIKE #5. There are mysterious iron stakes in the middle of the driveway and backyard with plastic tape on them. There are also lots of bumps and holes. Mowing the lawn is like driving over potholes after a bad winter.

LIKE #5. I suppose it’s good to have a little mystery in one’s life? I had a survey done, so at least I don’t have to worry that those stakes are actually weird property boundaries in the middle of what I thought was my lot.

Popcorn and chartreuseDISLIKE  #4. The living/dining room has Chartreuse green walls (painted on paper-covered paneling) with lacy filigree design elements. The previous owner’s daughter, who lived alone here, was apparently quite girly.

LIKE #4. The filigree is easy enough to remove, and the Chartreuse is growing on me. I don’t plan to keep it, but until I am ready to start painting it’s actually more bearable than I would ever have believed possible.

Those of you who are thinking of coming to dinner someday are wondering why I let this cat sit on my dining room table. But you have to admit she's very decorative.

Those of you who are thinking of coming to dinner someday are wondering why I let this cat sit on my dining room table. But you have to admit she’s very decorative!

 

DISLIKE #3. Popcorn ceiling in the living room and hallway.

LIKE #3. I’ve got nothing here. It’s even peeling. Maybe I could like that I know a good painter? Or maybe I’ll be brave and try this myself?

DISLIKE #2. No central air.

LIKE #2. This June weather has been blessedly kind, and the bedrooms,at least, can be kept cool with our new window units. The previous owner left a window unit for the whole house, but it really can’t cope. This will be my incentive to get something done. Also, thankfully, there are A LOT fewer mosquitoes here, so I hang around outside more in the cool evening hours.

DISLIKE #1. Slopes. I have them on three sides, and they are steep. I’ve already landed on my ass just trying to get down to the back yard.

LIKE #1. This is the kind of landscape problem that can lead to all sorts of creativity. Maybe a deck … maybe terracing … maybe a burbling stream that also collects rainwater for the garden … who knows?

What were your top likes and dislikes the last time you moved or rehabbed?

Oh yeah … preening author note: The Awful Mess is currently one of five semi-finalists for the general fiction Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Which is kind of cool, though I’m trying to put most of my spare energy towards the next book right now.