A Day In Boston

Happy Thursday.

I had a nice break day today, running about the various shopping malls all connected to the hotel, having lunch with the marketing director of Zondervan—and later in the day, working on Coral Moon.

And yes, I watched to see who got kicked off American Idol.

Today it’s up and out of here to sign copies of Web of Lies at the convention. Tomorrow I’ll tell y’all about the sights and sounds there. I will have about an hour and a half to walk the floor before having to leave to catch my plane.

A little more about my presentation of Violet Dawn on Tuesday at Zondervan. I began by having the lights turned off and placing each listener in the scene that occurs in the first chapter of Violet Dawn. I lead them through this scene, using a few photos and graphics through Powerpoint. The end of that first chapter is—well, those of you who have a copy of Web of Lies have probably read the chapter in the back of that book. Let’s just say it carries a certain message—which, of course, I told my listeners:

Don’t go in the hot tub!

At that point I passed out custom candy bars I’d ordered. Hersheys milk chocolate bars with custom wrappers—the cover of Violet Dawn on the top, and on the back, my Seatbelt Suspense logo and those warning words: Don’t go in the hot tub!

Remember what Jaws did for keeping people out of the ocean? I am now on a mission to take your hot tubs away from you. (Insert evil laugh here.)

I then talked about the Kanner Lake series, its setting, various characters in Violet Dawn, and the main premise of this first book in the series. Then on to my suspense novels in general, and what my readers expect when they pick up one of my books.

Zondervan puts out three catalogues a year, which in turn means they have three sales rep meetings like this per year. This catalogue is for books published in Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec., representing around 80-90 new products. These include Inspirio gift books, kids' books, nonfiction, fiction--both adult and YA, Nooma videos and Bibles. No way can all these books be presented at the conference--there just isn't enough time. The books that are covered are usually presented by someone in the marketing or perhaps editorial department in fairly quick succession. Then there are a few books which are specially presented by the authors. For this catalogue there were three—Violet Dawn, the upcoming release by Phillip Yancey (Prayer, Does it Make Any Difference?), and the project I mentioned yesterday that I can’t yet tell you about. So as you can see, this opportunity, indeed, was a wonderful privilege for me, and I have been very grateful for it.

However, for tomorrow I must change my mind gears—from hot tubs to spiders…

Traveling Post

Well, here I am, posting late on this Wednesday. I'm currently in Boston. Yesterday my day began at 4 a.m., after about 3 hours sleep (my body is still on west coast time when it comes to going to bed). Flew through Chicago to Zondervan and presented Violet Dawn before about 60 reps and sales/marketing folks there. It was so wonderful and a real privilege to be able to do that. I made sure to kiss the feet of my marketing advocate who got me on the schedule. Everyone at Zondervan is terrific toward me, and it's always great to be at their headquarters.

Then back through Chicago and on to Boston. Got into the room about 10 p.m. Had a full night's sleep. Yay! I'm in a fine junior suite overlooking the downtown area. At the moment life is good and pampered. However, on Friday I will be back in my office facing the reality of a book due in a week. Agh.

I heard about a really cool project Zondervan is doing. I can't tell you until next week, after the initial announcement article is written in USA Today. But then I'll make sure to let you know about it.

This is kind of a down day (thank goodness). Tomorrow I sign copies of Web of Lies at the library convention (evidently a huge event that takes place every other year), then hop a plane to return home. I will have time to write a regular post for tomorrow. Thanks for your patience with me today, BGs.

Traveling Today

By the time you read this I'll be traveling. My schedule involves getting up around 4 a.m. to leave Kentucky (my mom's house) to first travel through Chicago and on to Grand Rapids, Michigan, home of Zondervan. I have the wonderful opportunity to have thirty minutes before the sales reps of Zondervan as they've gathered for their meetings to be introduced to all the books they will be selling in the next catalog. It's not every day that an author gets to present a book personally to the sales staff, as they have lots of books to cover in their meetings, so I feel very grateful for the opportunity. I will be presenting Violet Dawn to them.

After that presentation at 1:00, it's back to the airport to fly again through Chicago and on to Boston. I'll be at the National Public Library convention, signing books, then it's back home on Thursday to California. Where I will finish Coral Moon and e-mail it in the following week.

I hope to post tomorrow. I just hope that after all the traveling, and the very long day today I'll have half a brain in my head.

I'd appreciate your prayers for me today, BGs.

A Forever Treasure

"Girls, let me tell you something," my mom said tonight at dinner at my sister Sylvia’s house. I’m on a quick trip to Kentucky to visit my mom, who is 89, and all four of us sisters have gathered–Sheila and Sylvia, who live in the area, and Sandy, who drove down from Michigan. Mom looked at each of us in turn. "I need to start cleaning out some of the books that were your daddy’s. I don’t want to get sick or have something happen to me, and then I don’t have the energy to do it. So while you’re all together, I want you to look at the book cabinet in his study and take whatever books you want–both those he wrote and others he collected."

My father, J.T. Seamands, died at 87 in August of 2004. He was a preacher, an evangelist, a missionary to India with Mom for 20 years. A seminary professor of missions. An author of 13 books, translated in I don’t know how many languages. A speaker of numerous languages himself–three Indian dialects, German, Spanish–all of which he preached in. A world traveler many times over. A singer, trombonist, and tennis player (he played until he was 80).

Upon returning to Mom’s house after dinner, I headed for the bookshelf. The first book I spotted was Daddy’s Bible. Red leather bound, gold-edged pages. The Revised Standard Version. I pulled it from the shelf.

You can see a lot about a person from looking through his Bible. I started flipping through pages, noting what he had underlined. Daddy had various papers stuck inside. The first, a three-page outline of his sermon about the creation and Abraham and redemption:
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1. Genesis 1 and 2. God created the universe and human kind. He said "it is good." All that God does is good.

2. Genesis 3. Adam and Eve sinned, and sin entered the world. God’s plan of redemption begins immediately. See Gen. 3:15.
Two chapters are given to the fall of humankind; the rest of Scripture is the record of God’s redemptive acts in history . . .
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I flipped further, into the Psalms, and pulled out a half-sheet of yellow notebook paper, faded and worn thin. Upon it, green ink in a difficult-to-read script:

Dear Darling J.T., this is goodbye. I am going up to live with Jesus. Be a good boy. Your little Sylvia is so sweet. Always stick to the Old Book and meet me. Love from Grandma.

A note written by Mom underneath: Grandma Shields wrote this after a severe heart attack just two weeks before she passed away–Nov. 14, 1943.

In 1943 World War II was raging. Mom had come home from India in June 1942 with her first baby, Sylvia, because of the danger overseas. Daddy had decided to stay and finish some missions work, thinking he could get on a boat for the U.S. before long. He and Mom would never have dreamed that the war would separate them for two and a half years, until December of 1944. During that time, Mom and baby Sylvia lived with Daddy’s Grandma Shields.

In Isaiah I found more sermon notes. One outline covers the front and back of a bank deposit slip, written in red ink, small cursive letters. Another outline is typed on half a sheet of paper–The Hands of Jesus. John 20:24-29:
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1. Saving hands: Matthew 14:29-31. Then Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me." Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

2. Cleansing hands: Matthew 3:11-12. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into his barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

3. Protecting hands: John 10:28. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

4. Healing hands: Mark 1:40-42. A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said, "Be clean." Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

5. Wounded hands: John 20:27. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. See my hands!

6. Knocking hands: Revelation 3:20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
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In the back of the Bible Daddy wrote many other sermon outlines–just the quick note and sometimes the text. He used alliteration and rhythm frequently as a way to make his sermons easy to remember. Just a few of them:
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Verbalize, vocalize, visualize, vitalize=holiness. Ephesians 5:18-20.
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I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Without the Way there is no going.
Without the Truth there is no knowing.
Without the Life there is no growing.
Christ, who art the Way, lead us.
Christ, who art the Truth, teach us.
Christ who art the Life, continue to live in us.
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No reservation, reversal, regrets=consecration, surrender. The Eternal Word for the Entire World.
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Loss of faith is usually not a blow-out, but a slow leak.
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I have found a forever treasure. My Daddy’s Bible.

Psalm 90

Many of you know it’s my habit to pray using the Psalms. This goes back to my illness three years ago, when God taught me to praise Him through pain and diversity—and the Psalms were such a wonderful way to do it. I have a long list of people to pray for. Folks write and ask me to do so, some whom I know and some whom I don’t (readers or folks who saw the segment on The 700 Club about my healing). Some of the Psalms are particularly great for covering sickness and emotional/spiritual needs. Other petitioning Psalms are great to use in praying for God’s mercy on our country, and for protection against our enemies (e.g., terrorists).

Psalm 90 is particularly wonderful for praying God’s mercy upon His believers in this difficult and fallen world. It contains glorious passages, covering both our physical and spiritual needs, and asking God to bless us in what we do. For as his believers, we are still only human, and oh, so susceptible and frail. As with many of the Psalms, it starts with praise and moves to supplication. Here is the psalm in BPV translation (Brandilyn’s Prayer Version), which is based on the New American Standard Version. I hope you will find comfort in this psalm and begin praying it. I have found two of its thoughts particularly meaningful. These, I have italicized. God knows we need His mercy as we struggle to live in this fallen world while waiting on His return.

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were born,
Before You gave birth to the earth and world,
From everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

You turn man back into dust,
Saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or like a watch in the night.
You sweep man away like a flood, and we die.
In the morning we are like grass that sprouts anew.
In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew,
Toward evening it fades and withers away.

We are consumed by Your anger,
And by Your wrath we are dismayed.
You have placed our sins before you,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
All our days are declining in Your fury;
We finish our years like a sigh.
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if we’re strong, maybe eighty,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow,
For soon it is gone, and we fly away.
Who understands the power of Your anger,
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Do return, O Lord; how long will it be?
Be sorry for Your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
Let Your work appear to Your servants,
And Your majesty to our children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us.
And do confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

BG Letter

Yesterday I received this letter from a BG (used with permission):

Thank you so much for your Monday "Fickle Emotions" blog entry! It was just for me!

I've been battling those "my first book was a fluke..." thoughts and delaying in sending my book proposal to my too-patient agent. After I read your blog I settled down, finished my sample chapters, proofed everything and sent it to my agent.

Within a few hours I heard back from her. She raved about the proposal and sample chapters and immediately sent everything to the publishers who have expressed interest in the proposal.

Thank you for being vulnerable and ministering to a nervous author.

I rejoiced at this news. Wrote the BG back and said as much. And meant it. Then it hit me. Drat. No wonder I’m a beleaguered, cabinet-kicking, angsting novelist. God uses it to help others.

It gets worse. Knowing His wry and ever efficient sense of humor, He no doubt wants to continue in this vein.

Does this mean I’ll never get to be an oh-writing’s-such-a-breeze, 10-book-a-year, don’t-you-wish-you-were-me novelist?

And I was so close.

Publishing News

Thanks for the comments yesterday regarding the photo shoot. You all are too much. Some great ideas. Gotta make sure agent and publisher reads 'em all. Heh-heh. (By the way, I know for part of yesterday blogspot was plugged up and the comments weren't working real well. If you tried to post a comment and couldn't, please do go back and leave your thoughts.)

In case you hadn’t noticed, I stopped counting down until my deadling. Last Friday I got a call out of the blue from my editor. “Want a few extra weeks?” Apparently, she’s so backed up, she can’t get to the manuscript on Friday anyway.

“Yo, mama, yes!” I accepted it, not expecting to take the full two extra weeks, as that will only back up what I have to do after that. Yeah, well, we’ll see. I’m traveling Saturday through next Thursday, and I won’t be writing much during that time. (Which is why I was originally trying so hard to get the thing done on Friday.) Thank you, editor! You are definitely #1 on my list right now.

Now for today—some interesting bits of news about the industry, in no particular order.

1. Christian Retailing reports that the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is replacing its current sales tracking systems, STATS, with a new critter called Pubtrack, which will debut in May. No info on how Pubtrak will differ from STATS.

This only confuses the issue all the more. The Christian bestseller lists are based on STATS—have been for a long time. But a few months ago, the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) came up with its own tracking program, CROSS:SCAN. As a result some of the stores, such as the entire chain of about 350 Family Christian stores, have switched over to CBA’s program and pulled out of STATS. So Family Christian sales no longer count toward the bestseller list. Now with STATS changing to something else—who knows what’ll happen to the lists?

Meanwhile, the fiction bestseller list still remains difficult to make these days. That's 'cause there's only one list for all of fiction, including hardback and paperback books. Maybe with more hardbacks coming along, they'll eventually break out the list into two, as you see in the general market. Next list--the April list--will post next week (around March 20), reflecting sales for the month of February. (See, told you it was confusing.)

2. Many of you may know by now that Simon & Schuster (S&S) acquired Howard Publishing last month. Wanna know the thought behind that? Christian Retailing paraphrases S&S Adult Division President Carolyn Reidy as saying “her division contemplated [entering the Christian market] after the 2004 presidential election exit polls demonstrated the public’s interest in spiritual matters. Reidy noted, “We were conscious we were lacking in this area.”

3. And this from Publishers Weekly, written by columnist Sara Nelson regarding the recent “privatizing” sale of Thomas Nelson. Previously a public company, Nelson has now taken its stocks private by selling to InterMedia Partners, an equity firm that has previously invested in small to medium-sized media companies. As a result, Nelson won’t have to deal with the stress of reporting quarterly earnings. Sara Nelson says insiders “predict that InterMedia will likely hold the company for only a few years and then 'flip' it for major profit.” Hm. Then what?

Sara Nelson continues: “[the sale proves] that there is a huge and powerful religious community in this country (no duh) and that many smaller houses have mastered the First Publishing Commandment: know thy audience.

"On a recent trip to Nashville—at which I met with the stunningly organized, knowledgeable and, well, yes, zealous Nelson people, among others—I was struck by the number of titles they mentioned (titles of which I—and I bet many of you—had never heard) that had shipped and/or sold 200,000, 300,000 and 400,000 copies. I was further amazed at the number of focus groups the company conducted and how they arrived at the idea of publishing, say, Biblezines—the complete text of the New Testament, gussied up with sidebars and photos and pull quotes—aimed at teenage girls who'd told them they never read books, only magazines.

"You can enthuse about what Nelson is selling or not—it's a free country—but there's no arguing with the fact that they're selling it extraordinarily well.”

Egad- I'm Going to be Shot!

So they want me to take a new photo.

Seems the ol’ mug shot is a bit too . . . dated. It was taken back when I was writing women’s fiction as well as suspense. Too sweet, too nice. This is what the agent tells me. (My paraphrase; I can’t remember his exact words.)

Publisher and agent agree on the look. (I’m just supposed to figure out whatever the heck it means.) It is to be: (A) Mysterious. That suspense writer ooh-I-know-more-about-poisons-than-you-could-ever-guess look. But . . . (B) With a touch of warmth. That yes-I-could-kill-you-a-million-ways-to-Sunday-but-really-you-can-trust-me-because-I’m-at-heart-a-great-gal look.

Wanna help me figure out just what I’m supposed to wear for this thing? Make sure you follow the--

Rules (Per agent and publisher):

1. Keep most the colors on the darker side. Probably black in there somewhere.

But I’m a bright color person . . .

2. Clothes should not be too dressy and not too casual.

Hm . . .

3. No glitz, no glimmer. No rhinestones on the jeans.

I’m doomed.

4. Water in the background—after all, this is for the Kanner Lake series.

This one I can handle. I’m zipping up to Coeur d’Alene, where we’ll do the shoot lakeside. I’ll take any excuse I can get to go to Idaho.

5. We gotta come away with at least one good full-length shot and one head shot.

Yikes. Twice the chance to mess this thing up.

So. Thursday before Easter’s the big day. Scheduled at the lake in Coeur d’Alene at 4:00 p.m. Great time, says the photographer, as the sun will start to go down and we’ll get some good shadows. (If you’re a suspense author, you’re supposed to love shadows. Part of that mysterious thing, you know.)

One great part to this—the photographer’s all digital. You know what that means, don’t you?
Heh-heh.

The fabulous A-word.

Air brush.

Those Fickle Emotions

The weather has been absolutely insane here in California as I’ve been working to finish Coral Moon. One minute it’s sunny. Blue sky, pretty, puffy clouds. The stuff of kids’ books. Next thing I know it’s dark and raining. Then it’s sunny again. Then it’s hailing. Then sun. Then sleet. This has been going on for days. I’ve learned the hard way I’d better get out and run whenever the sky beckons. One sunny afternoon I kept putting off my running time, finally thinking I’d go at the end of the day—around 5:00. Only problem was, at 4:45 the world began to dim. By 5:00—sleet. Now, I am a dedicated runner, but sleet I will not do. Years ago I got caught in hail. Learned my lesson. That stuff hurts.

The fickleness of the weather equals the mercurialness, volatility, and overall downright frustrating capriciousness of my emotions as I write.

One minute—hey, this book is finally coming together. Next minute—this thing is horrid; I am doomed. Two hours later—well, okay, maybe it’s not so bad. Next hour—yes it is, yes it is, yes it is, yes it is!

Same book, wildly different feelings. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in writing, it’s not to trust my emotions.

However, it is not quite so simple. If it were a matter of total nontrust, that would be one thing. Problem is, which of those emotions arise from the writer sense within me, the gut knowledge that there are, indeed, problems with the structure of this book? For example, often when I write, I’m bored to death with the story. I’m terrified all my readers will be as well. Is this an emotion to ignore? Sometimes. Or is it that writer’s gut sense that some scenes are in truth lacking conflict? Maybe. Maybe not. With every book, I’ve had the “it’s boring” fear. I was afraid Dead of Night was boring. By the time it hit shelves, I was convinced—that is not a boring story. Same with Web of Lies. So maybe the boring emotion is just that untrustworthy emotion. But . . . what if it’s not?

There is one and only one thing that moves me forward. The deadline. Or, as we’re now calling it in BGdom, the deadling. I have no choice but to push through the emotions and finish the book.

But what about those of you who don’t have a deadling? Who are struggling through your manuscripts, dealing with that writer’s angst? (Perhaps you don’t deal with it quite as much as I do. Before I was published, I thought all my work was brilliant.) My suggestion to you is to push through as if a deadling awaits. Otherwise you could end up spinning your wheels for months . . . which become years. Always trying to improve what you have, never quite getting it right. Listen. You never will get it perfect. Ever. And one day when you’re published, the deadlings are gonna be a very real thing. Train for them now. This doesn’t mean stop working on your craft. It means finish the book, then let it sit as you go into study mode for a while. Read lots of novels, study books on writing fiction. Then go back to your novel with fresh eyes. You’ll know more. You’ll see errors you couldn’t have seen while wallowing in it day to day.

Whatever you do, don’t trust your emotions. Even if they’re telling you the book is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Responses to Yesterday's Comments/Questions

I have a question about good, affordable ways to market your very first book. How effective are things like creating postcards and bookmarks? I've heard of offering free books to people who will mail your postcard to readers they know. Are things like that effective? Basically, how do I, the brand-new and unknown author with possibly no marketing money from the publisher, build my own readership?

I have to reiterate that these days, a Web site is essential. And that will cost you some money unless you’re a site designer. Beyond that, I’d say this. Invest in two books: Pyromarketing and The Tipping Point. Read those books with pen in hand, taking notes. Pyromarketing is 90% fill, but the other 10%, its essential message, is gold. Pay attention. Let your thinking move from the typical mass-marketing mentality. The Tipping Point will also lead you to look at marketing in new ways. As a new novelist, you shouldn’t get your sights set on “tipping” anytime soon. But these concepts will help guide you to some different strategies for getting the word out about your books. Stielstra, author of Pyromarketing, also has a blog you should follow (he doesn’t post every day): http://pyromarketing.typepad.com/

About Character arcs - do you create an outline/profile of each character? I'm finding in my manuscript, that I'm getting character traits confused.

Confuse character traits? That concerns me. Forgetting eye color—that I can understand, because appearance can be decided by an author pretty quickly. But your characters’ traits shouldn’t be just assigned. They should arise from the characters’ core truths, which take time to discover. If you’ve gone through this process, you should know the characters well enough that you won’t forget their traits. Read the Personalizing chapter in Getting Into Character for this process. Take the general ideas and make them work for you however you can—I’m not saying my approach is the only one. But I do say that character traits should take time to develop naturally from the inner character, and therefore shouldn’t be so easily forgotten.

How large is a print run? Is there a standard within each house or does that change from book to book?

It depends on the sales history of the author, and on the house. If you sell 100,000 copies out the door, the first print run is going to be at least that high. If you’re a brand new author, the first print run may be only 15,000 copies. Or if you’re in a smaller house, those numbers can go way down for a new author—even to 5,000 or less. It really is all over the map.

However, subsequent print runs are much smaller than the first. A publishing house just doesn’t like to have a lot of books sitting around for a long time, plus the highest sales of a book usually lie in its initial push. So a first print run of 15,000 may have subsequent runs of, say, 2,500 or so.

And now, roll the drum for our new words.

As for spitzy, I didn't find it in the dictionary. However, it should be because it's delightful. Here's my recommended definition: spitzy (adj.) combination of spiffy and spritz (as in spritzed up); bright, attractive

Nope, not in the dictionary. However, when all else fails—google. Spitzy produced plenty of hits—mostly formal names. There is no adjective as I used it. However there’s a general kind of dog called spitz (incorporating numerous breeds). I saw a few Web sites in which spitzy was used, as in "Fido’s coat was more spitzy than Rover’s."

Good grief. Dogs are taking over the universe.

I say heck with 'em. Lynetta had the right definition. Therefore I doth hereby declare spitzy a new spitzy word for BGdom.

Bless you as you get down to the wire on your deadling.

My deadline is 23 days away and I'm deadling as well, wondering WHAT in the world I'm doing here.

Hm. Seems our other new word is expanding a bit. First a noun, now also a . . . what? Is that second usage an adjective or verb? Or both? Could we possibly have coined a word that can be used all three ways? What creative genius!

Let me see if I can incorporate all three uses in one sentence.

As you deadling toward a deadling, may you survive your deadling world.

Remember, folks, ya heard the word here first. Use as you will, but do credit Dineen Miller and BGdom in general.

Finally, kudos to you out there who are slogging away on your own series. It ain’t easy, but you’re definitely in good company.

See ya Monday, BGs.

Various Things

Nine days from deadling for Coral Moon and counting.

We’ve been on the topic of character arcs within series for a while. Feel like I'm running out of things to say. Do any of you have specific questions about series you’re working on? Or anything I’ve missed? Please post them if you do, and we’ll take a look at them tomorrow.

I had a good day yesterday. Writing, of course. But also had a conference call with my agent and the marketing and publicity gals at Zondervan regarding Violet Dawn. They are giving that book a good launching, I’ll tell you. With what they’re doing and what I’ll be doing (and what you can be involved in, if you choose), if should be a fun launch. More on that to come.

Other various pieces of good news, in no particular order:

Received a new copy of Dead of Night today—third printing.

Web of Lies is selling the best of any of my books so far. Yippe-yay. And the sales figures don’t yet reflect the flyers campaigns in stores such as Lifeway and Family and Parable, etc, which are just getting underway.

Eyes of Elisha and Dread Champion are both getting spitzy new covers and will be reissued this spring. That is terrific news.

Wait, is spitzy a word? Somebody do tell. It just sounds so right.

Brink of Death will be in Zondervan’s summer sale around June. That means you can pick it up in bookstores for a cool $4.97. Hey, I can’t even get it that cheap at my author discount. Methinks I should buy a few copies meself. (This is an example of what I was mentioning a few days ago—market, market, market the first in a backlisted series.)

I heard numerous other cool things but can’t tell it all here. In short, I’m feeling very humbled at God’s mercy after so much good news in one day. He knows us poor humans so well! He knows when we’re struggling and really need a pick-me-up. As I’m working the countdown for this deadling, these myriad pieces of good news have gone a long way to help keep me going.

I’ve also received some very nice letters of late. Here are two that meant a lot to me. Again, as I struggle to finish another book, they are wonderful encouragement.

What a wonderful ministry you have....one sentence from Web of Lies made such an impact to me: 'God's power is released through prayer, whether I feel anything or not.' I've already told two of my closest friends about this sentence. My friend just found out that her 10-year-old daughter [has an incurable illness], and I told her to tell her church to pray. Every Christian she knows should be praying for her precious little girl.

I live in a suburb of New Orleans. My family was very fortunate to not receive much damage from Hurricane Katrina, but we have many dear friends who lost everything. One friend called me in tears, the day I finished reading Dread Champion. She'd just found out that not only her original filing with FEMA had been rejected, her appeal had too. She was at the end of her rope and begged me to pray because she didn't know how to deal with it. I remembered the "Dread Champion" verse and pulled out the book. We looked up the reference and we (along with a few other people) are now claiming Jeremiah 20:11-13 for this situation. My friend says she's signing every letter she sends to FEMA with these verses! Thank you so much for this blessing from God that we received from your writing.

What’s most impressive about these letters is how the themes of the book were passed from reader to friends in difficult situations. Two readers, and yet—who knows?—6 or 8 or maybe more people have now been heartened by God’s message as they face struggles in their own lives. That's the efficiency of our God.

I pretty much let it all hang out here, BGs. You know writing’s hard for me. You know I struggle with it and always angst that the books are horrible when I write. God always pulls me through. No wonder I get on my knees every time when I finish a book. I just couldn't do it without Him. And He sends good pieces of news just when I need them. Thank You, God, for the positives of this day.

Character Arc in a Series--Part 6

Ten days from deadling for Coral Moon and counting.

And guess what—I finally figured out today how I’m gonna make the end work. !! This is so typical a problem with me. I know how the book needs to end; I’m just not quite sure how I’m going to pull it off. At the moment I’m thinkin’ maybe this book won’t be so horrid after all.

Second good piece of news today is that I heard my books (three of the four Hidden Faces series) are in Costco now. Apparently, however, they get put on the table as room allows. In the Costco nearest me, mine weren’t on the table, but I saw boxes of books underneath, waiting their turn.

Back to our current topic regarding character arcs for protagonists within a series. Today, five questions to ask yourself (in no particular order) when you’re wondering which subplots in the protagonist’s life to wrap up within one book, and which ones to continue to the next book(s) in the series.

1. Can I make this problem worse before it gets better? If so, maybe you should continue it for a while.

2. How long has it been going on in the character’s life? If it’s been a long-standing problem, it needs proper time to fix. This could include such issues as emotional healing from the past or from a recent trauma, an illness or injury, a problematic relationship with family member or friend, and others. And a “fix” to problems such as long term emotional ones may not mean everything in this area is suddenly is peachy keen. It may well just mean a turning point has been reached—one hefty enough to satisfy the reader.

3. Romantic subplot? I say use it as long as you can, preferably to the last book. Most readers enjoy the romantic subplot. Keep ’em wondering who your protagonist is going to end up with. Give him/her a number of choices—then play ’em up good.

4. Is this problem getting draggy to my plot? Been going on too long? Might the reader be tiring of it? If your protagonist begins to sound like she’s whining or angsting (verbing those nouns again) about the same thing over and over, better do something about that.

5. Has this been a big enough subplot in this book that the reader will feel unsatisfied if it’s not brought to at least some closure? Again, closure doesn’t need to mean the problem’s totally fixed. Depending upon how bad it’s been, just getting a handle on it, or really determining to overcome it can feel like enough closure for that particular book.

I’m sure there are other guideline questions, but these came the most quickly to my mind. Perhaps some of you can add to this list. But at least these five need to be asked--because answers to some of them might counterweight answers to the others. Then you have the challenge of deciding which answer takes priority.

Even in the end of the series, I wouldn’t want to completely solve every problem of the character. If you’ve just got the character going in the right direction regarding some issue, the reader should feel satisfied that things are going to improve. I think overall this is the right way to go, in that it best reflects life, but I will admit that the resolution in the final book may prove your most controversial among readers. I’ve found it interesting to read some fan letters from folks who’ve loved the Hidden Faces series, but include something like, “Oh, no, is the series ending? I really want to know what happens with [the romantic subplot].” And I’m thinking, huh? To me it’s very clear where the characters are headed. But it just depends on what the reader’s used to. If someone reads my stuff and also reads romance novels (now that would be an eclectic person), she might expect more of a trip-down-the-aisle ending for the romantic subplot. I don’t know; I don’t have final answers on this. But I do remind you that you’re never going to please everybody with every aspect of your book(s).

And I know I’m repeating myself from yesterday, but please don’t bring every last character to salvation just because the series is ending! It ain’t reality.

Character Arc In a Series--Part 5

Eleven days from deadling for Coral Moon. And counting. (Hm, I'm going to have to add that new word to my spellchecker.)

Here’s a fun article on writers and editors. Someone posted the link to it on one of my writers’ loops today. Read it and chuckle. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0217/p20s02-cogn.html

Okay, today’s topic. Guideline #2 for establishing a character arc within a series: Give the protagonist challenges in his/her personal life that will not be solved in the first book.

Not exactly rocket science, I know. Even in books that end well—and by far the majority of stories end at least fairly happily—we want to avoid fixing everything. Life just isn’t that way. So our stories shouldn’t be either.

Nor is it any new idea to create personal problems in the protagonist’s life. We’d better do that if we want a well-rounded character. Sure, my poor protagonists get mixed up in murder and mayhem, but they happen to have a life, too. Who were they before the murder and mayhem struck?

These personal challenges provide us with subplots for the story. It’s one thing to create them for a single book. But how to handle them in a series? Our job is to understand which personal problems need to be (at least fairly) brought to closure within a book in order to satisfy the reader, and which can be left hanging in order to pull the reader toward the next book.

In my opinion the best subplots somehow end up affecting the main plot. Not just by, say, overall wearing your character down so she’s got less energy to fix her main problem, but by specifically causing something to happen that makes the issues in the main plot grow worse.

For example, in my Hidden Faces series I’ve had a number of subplots running. One is a romantic subplot, although I purposely started this one very slowly. Really didn’t begin until book 2. A second is the subplot with Annie’s son, who is into drugs. He has issues with this running through books 1, 2 and 3, and is still feeling some of the fallout in book 4. This is a major source of heartache and chaos in Annie’s life. But it’s more than that. In each of these three books, something Stephen chooses to do, or the friends he’s running with, etc. ends up becoming a factor in the main murder plot. Now, of course I wanted to vary the occurrences so they don’t all seem the same book to book. Some occurrences may provide only indirect links between this subplot and the main plot. The trick is to make it all flow logically and coherently, and not seem contrived.

There are other issues in Annie’s life. There’s her guilt and feelings of self-doubt due to her own childhood and the break-up of her marriage. Meanwhile she’s raising two kids on her own. There’s her opinionated sister, who always bosses her around, and who isn’t a Christian and has no desire to become one. In fact, Annie isn’t a Christian either, at the beginning of the series. This, too, is a subplot that doesn’t see closure in the first book.

So Annie’s got plenty going on in her life—even if, in the prologue of book 1, her neighbor across the street wasn’t strangled in front of her own 12-year-old daughter. With all this stuff happening in Annie's life, I’ve got plenty of fodder to work with over the course of 4 books. And guess what—even at the fourth, some of these subplots/issues are not going to be “fixed.”

Of all the personal challenges to bring to closure in Christian fiction, the one that seems to plague us authors most is the “unsaved loved one.” Or even the unsaved protagonist. You don’t have to fix this issue in every character’s life, really you don’t. In fact, you shouldn’t. How often in life do you see all the folks within a family, plus all that family’s close friends, become Christians in a fairly short period of time? Even if your series spans many years, be careful of the temptation to save everyone. (Now there’s an oxymoron you’ll only find in Christian fiction.) Story rules. If a character’s going to become a Christian, this choice has to seem the only one he would make under the circumstances, given his inherent prejudices and hurts and worldview, etc. Or sometimes the nth degree of actual salvation isn’t the right choice. Sometimes it’s a mere turning of the character 50 degrees—enough to say, hm, yeah, there may be something to that God stuff; maybe I’ll take a look at it.

We’ll look at this in more specifics tomorrow. For now, if you’re planning a series, you might write down all the personal issues in your protagonist’s life. See which ones you can carry through more than one book. Make sure that the mix is such that the majority of them can be carried through. And if you've got questions about subplot issues in your series, or whatever, you know where to leave 'em.

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Read Part 6

Character Arc In a Series--Part 4

Happy Monday. I am 12 days away from deadline on Coral Moon and counting.

Speaking of which, thanks to Dineen Miller for (unwittingly) coining a new word for BGdom in her comment on Friday. Said she was praying for me as I meet my “deadling.” Now I don’t know about you, but I think this is brilliant. And quite Freudian. Blends earthling (mere one that I am) with deadline. The two should not mix, but alas, in the writing world, they do. Or perhaps it mixes deadline with counting (as in pages and words, and too few days left). Or perhaps both. At any rate, from now on I shall never work on a deadline again.

I am 12 days away from deadling.

Does have a nice ring, don’t you think? (Unless you’re in the midst of it.)

A few other comments from Friday:

Sally: I wonder how far we should go as writers. For example, if my story takes place in 2002 in Chicago suburbs, should I be researching the weather and daily events, too? Seems like this could become a huge obsession!

Agreed, and I don’t think you have to go so far as to match weather to day. But you do need to match believable weather. If your story takes places in February in Chicago, you don’t want 60 degree weather unless you note that’s a doggone heat wave. For Violet Dawn, I had to be careful about sunrise time because the opening of the story is based on that issue. I didn’t want North Idahoans reading my book and thinking, “Good grief, doesn’t she know the sun doesn’t rise at 6 a.m. here in July?” (Sunrise and sunset in Northern Idaho are very interesting. They change way faster than in California, for example, because they go to further extremes. At winter solstice, daylight starts to fade at 3:30 in the afternoon. At summer solstice, the first lightening of the sky will begin at 3:30 in the morning.) For Dread Champion (some books ago), I needed to research the tides in the Salinas, California area, where my crime scene was set. Someone reading the book might happen to known when tides go in and out, and since that was an important detail to investigation of the scene, I wanted it to be correct. Past this, I say don’t obsess too much. Of course, if you use a real event that occurred in that Chicago suburb, you sure do want to place it, and your story, on the right day.

If you didn’t see the comments between Bonnie and Vennessa from Friday, I suggest you read them. They both made good points. To Bonnie’s final question about the necessity of making years work (when you don’t name the year in the story), I’d add a final thought.

Even if you don’t delineate the year, you as author need to know what year it is and make your timeline work, especially if you’re going to write a series that spans a certain number of years. There are so many hidden issues in your story that can end up dating it, even when you don’t realize it. For example, before 9/11/01 a character could meet another at the gate in the airport without a special pass. Now, no way. We’ve grown so used to the new security rules that we might automatically show someone picking up a passenger having to stop before security. But what if that’s book one of your series, and the four-book series encompasses six years in the characters’ lives? And you write one book a year? Readers who don’t obsess about year dates are going to assume the current book they’re reading is present year. That may be fine until book 4 comes out in 2006, and the kids in the series have aged six years, making it clear to the reader that book one (which came out in 2002) had to have taken place in 2000—before the new security rules. Someone who finds your series late and reads the books all at once to catch up will particularly be apt to notice this. Trust me, they will. So I don’t call for obsession. I do call, however, for awareness of how books may be dated when we don’t realize it.

Katie also made a very good point about a book in a series taking place ahead of real time. She mentioned one (in a great series, by the way) in which the date 9/11/01 passes like any other day. This is one of the reasons I don't like to get ahead of real time in my series timelines. You just don't know what's going to happen in the real world.

Tomorrow, we’ll go on to guideline #2 for writing a character arc within a series.

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Read Part 5

Character Arc in a Series--Part 3

Happy Friday! At least for y’all, I hope. With two weeks to go until deadline, no off days for me until Coral Moon is done.

Yesterday I got the coolest gift in the mail from my agent, Don Pape (Alive Communications). This guy’s got definite class. A box arrived on my door, labeled “My M&Ms.” Inside, a large white thermo-Styrofoam-whatza to keep the chocolate from melting. And in the box? Four bags of light and dark violet-colored M&Ms. With the words “Violet Dawn” on some and “Kanner Lake” on the others.

Is this a sweet gift, or what? My agent rocks.

You can check out sending your pals personalized M&Ms on www.mms.com.

Okay. On to the topic. Before I continue, I want to respond to some comments from yesterday.

Lynette: Is this a personal choice of yours, or do you find this is an industry practice, or do you think for some readers it won't matter? (it reminds me of how soaps 'magically' grow children from the age of 12 to 18 overnight LOL) But it's something I never thought of when reading a series. As long as the author keeps the time line straight, it doesn't matter to me.

I have to admit this is a personal obsession for me. Again, because I deal in so many tiny details in my suspenses. I’ve not had conversations with other pubbed authors about this. Those of you out there who’ve written series, what say you?

Domino: How closely related do stand alone novels have to be for them to be considered a series? I have a three book series that has three different heroines. It is generally the same group of people, but not all are family members . . .

Definitely a series. You don’t have to have the same protagonist in a series. I did this with my Bradleyville women’s fiction series—three generations of women, with a different main character each time, starting in the 1960’s and coming up to present day. The continuity was the fictional town and extended cast of characters, who appear from book to book. I am now doing this with my Kanner Lake series (although all stories are present day).

Domino: I've already researched date and weather details on the internet calendars , noting when the moon is full or new and setting my Sundays and Saturdays on the correct day of the month.

I use two Web sites consistently for these issues. www.timeanddate.com will give you the correct weekday for a date in any year. Holidays too. For moon phases, plus sunrise and sunset times in specific locations, see: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html

The moon phase and sunset times were very important in writing Violet Dawn, as the main character is racing the dawn. Just a few days ago I looked up the sunset time in northern Idaho on the day Coral Moon takes place. When night falls is important. Of course, I couldn’t look this up if I didn’t know the exact day the story begins, so—heck, we're back to that date thing again.

Becky: Do all suspense writers for Christian publishers have to do 2 books a year? I know writers in other genres who write one book a year . . . It just seems hard to develop a real buzz if a book is a has-been so quickly.

Well, first, authors have to write as they can write. Some can do one book a year, some four or even more. I’m in the middle. Having said that, it also depends on the genre. As my editor puts it, in the suspense genre, you need to “feed the beast.” There’s a momentum that gets going among the kind of readership that loves the fast-paced stories. Sheesh, my readers make me tired. I just get a book on the shelves, and they’re already wanting the next one. So for my genre’s sake, and because two books a year is all I can handle—that’s what I do.

Becky: Some of us never start a series because by the time we hear of it we are already behind by a book or two.

Yeah. I see this as the pro-con argument for series. The pro is, you get a reader hooked, you’ll sell that reader future books in the series. Con is, reader sees book #2 in the store and won’t buy it because he’s missed book 1. For this reason, Zondervan has stopped putting book numbers on series books. That seemed to be a CBA thing, and the ABA stores didn’t like it. (ABA authors tend not to have numbers on their series books.)

Also, this goes to show that when you are writing a series, you need to continue promoting the backlist, focusing on book #1 in the series. Even if that was 4 books ago, if you keep selling book 1, you’ll keep selling the rest.

C.J.: I always try to write my books in a timeless sort of way. I attempt to keep from dating the stories at all, except for naming the month or season. I find myself less likely to re-read a novel that took place in say, 2001, because there's less immediacy.

I have to agree with that last thought. Which is why, when I’ve named days and dates in my suspense novels, I’ve not put the year on there, even though I’m very aware of what year it is. Which leads me to Bonnie’s question: Do a lot of people obsess with novel timelines to that miniscule degree (figuring out what year goes with the date?) Tell you the truth, I don’t think most readers do. But somebody out there’s gonna do it. So if you have a day and date mentioned, or even a holiday falling on a certain day of the week, you’d better get it right. If you don’t, you’ll hear about it from your obsessive readers.

We’ll pick this up on Monday. Think of me as I write this weekend—and eat my Kanner Lake Violet Dawn M&Ms.

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Read Part 4

Character Arcs in a Series--Part 2

Today we embark on studying some guidelines for planning a character arc for a book series.

Guideline #1: Watch dates and years.

This won’t apply to all series. Not all books make it clear what day(s) the events are occurring. My Hidden Faces books, which take place in present day, actually state the day of the week and date (which determines the year), so I really had to be careful about this issue. But there are hidden ways your books might contain dates that define the year. Does your story include a holiday that changes weekdays year to year? Or one like Easter, that changes dates? If your story is present day, and Christmas falls on a Sunday, your story is taking place in 2005.

Believe me, even if you don’t specify 2005, you’ll have readers out there who will check this sort of thing. As for me, if my readers don’t, my copyeditor sure will.

Real news events included in your story can also tend to date it, although not necessarily to the day or year. But if you mention the presidential election took place a month ago—obviously your story’s in December. And presidential elections only take place every four years.

If I’m writing a present-day story that occurs in December, I’ll consider that it takes place in the year previous to its publication—unless the book happens to be published in December.

Why? Because I find it awkward for “present day” books to be ahead of the real calendar. I can write a story that will be published in May 2006 and have it take place the year before, or up to the current month of May. But to have it take place in November 2006 doesn’t feel right to me. (This is far different than stories that are purposely set in the future.) I want my readers to have a sense of real time, and if they’re reading about a month that hasn’t occurred yet, I feel that sense is broken.

(No doubt this attention to detail comes from my writing suspense, which requires that a million and one details be worked out regarding the crime and twists. The genre's simply made me obsess about everything.)

So here’s the rub. Let’s say you’re writing a four-book series under contract. Kids are involved in your stories. They’ll be growing. Your protagonist will be aging too. How long a time do you expect between the events of the first and the last book? Four years? Maybe you don’t want the kids to age any more than that. Okay, let’s say you write two books a year. And you probably know it takes approximately one year from handing in the manuscript until it hits shelves. So do the math.

You write the first book from Feb. to July of 2006. It will be published in July 2007. The story ends around the Fourth of July holiday. Well, ya just made it under the wire. Your story can take place in 2007. So the holiday better fall on a Wednesday.

But wait a minute. You want a four-year spread between the first and last book. And if you write two books a year, that means you’re turning in book 4 in Feb. 2008. It will be published in Feb. 2009. That’s only 1 ½ years in real time between the books. But in your storyworld, you’d be setting the last novel four years from the first—somewhere around summer 2011. I just won’t allow myself to do that. It bugs me too much.

Now if you’re the ultimate planner, you can work out this conundrum from the beginning. Redefine when book one takes place (it’ll have to be a few years before publication), then build from there so by book four the story’s taking place just about the time the book is published. Yup, that’s one way you could do it. Wish I could. Unfortunately I’m way too much of a pea brain to figure out four plots at once. I simply can’t plan that far ahead.

So what’s a gal like me to do?

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Read Part 3

Character Arc Within a Series

Good grief, how did we get one-sixth of the way through 2006 already?

Those of you who checked for a post yesterday and didn’t find it—it’s there now. Just got posted late.

Also, great to see (through the comments on Monday) what some of you are working on. And that a number of you will be at Mount Hermon. Wonderful! We’ll rock! Also, Cara, I really appreciate your prayer for me as I finish Coral Moon. I really need those prayers right now.

Today I want to talk about character arcs within a book series. Thanks to Lynette for the topic idea. She asked me how I handle planning and carrying out the arc for a protagonist when I know that character is going to be in three or four books in a row. I have no answers as to what’s “right”—not sure there is one “right” answer. I can only tell you what I’ve done.

Let’s back up a minute. There are two commendable components within a series that battle each other, as I see it. The first is a strong overall arc for the protagonist. The second is that in most cases publishers and readers want each book within a series to stand alone. With stand-alone stories a reader can pick up book #2 in the series and completely understand what’s going on, and see the end to the main plot. It’s a story within itself. However, if you’ve got a strong character arc going, that reader of book #2 is definitely going to miss out on some stuff. The character isn’t in the same place in which she started. (Or he, whatever the case may be.) She’s grown, and some aspect of her life has changed since book one. This is why I tell readers—sure, my books in a series stand alone. But to best enjoy the series, they should be read in order.

So—want the absolutest (if that's not a word, it should be) kind of stand-alone book in a series? Then don’t include an arc for your character. These series can certainly work. James Bond comes immediately to mind. Guy’s the same in each story. Always the clever hero. Always wins. Always gets the girl. We don’t see him change or learn much of anything (other than the change of face as different actors played him in the movies).

But this is not the kind of story I write. So, using the Hidden Faces series as an example, how did I plan the overall character arc for Annie, starting with the first page in book one and ending with the last page in book 4?

Honestly? I didn’t. Because I didn’t know the plots for all the books when I started out. I only knew the plot for book one. Still, I knew a character arc would naturally grow for Annie. There are some guidelines I followed in that first book that helped set me up for the future books. More about these tomorrow.

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Read Part 2

The Concert--And Truth

Sorry for the late post, especially for you east-coasters. This is what happens the day after a Bon Jovi concert. :) We had a rather late night. This morning my ears still aren’t back to normal. Feel like there’s cotton in ’em.

We had a terrific time. Great mother and daughter night out. Met some fun people around us, which made the night all the more entertaining. Our seats were very good—17th row. And we were near the end of the row, so we got a great photo of John Bon Jovi as he came down the aisle, close enough to touch him.

The band started out with “Last Man Standing.” Very appropriate for me, as it has my line in it—“Don’t forget to breathe."

The band played for over two hours. Man, that’s a lot of energy expended on John Bon Jovi’s part. Guy surely gets his exercise. Good exercise for me, too. On my feet the whole time, rocking out. I love the energy of a concert. I love the just-let-it-all-out scream and yell and show excitement momentum. That’s something we adults don’t get to do often enough. (Well, maybe if you attend sports games, which I don't.)

But you know, two things strike me when I go to a secular rock concert. These two thoughts come back to me again and again during all the music and fun and noise and adoration of the players.

The first is that this has to be just a taste of what it’ll be like when Jesus restores earth into the new world. No doubt the first time I see Jesus, I’ll be so overcome I’ll fall prone to the ground to worship. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of those times. But I have to believe there will also be those times of out-and-out screaming and jumping up and down and applause and excitement over Jesus and what He’s done for us. And listen, there’s gonna be rock music in the new world, or it won’t be perfect. Case closed.

Second, as much as I can be pained by some song lyrics, I am also blessed by some of them. I see truth in the words. And I know that all truth comes from God. Now the musician may be singing the words and meaning something totally different, but I immediately apply the words to my spiritual life. In Matthew 6:22 Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If the eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” I feel this light within my soul—God’s light—when I look at the secular world. I automatically see the truth that abides in that world, and it can feed me spiritually.

Consider the Tom Petty song the band sang (I Won’t Back Down):

Well I won’t back down, no I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
Gonna stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won’t back down

Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won’t back down.

Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down

Hey baby there ain’t no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
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Now I don’t know what they’re thinking when they sing this, but I hear Ephesians 6:13-14—standing firm, clad in the armor of God.

Or how about this one (Welcome to Wherever You Are):

Maybe we're all different but we're still the same
We all got the blood of Eden running through our veins
I know sometimes it's hard for you to see
You're caught between just who you are and who you want to be
If you feel alone and lost and need a friend
Remember every new beginning is some beginning's end

Welcome to wherever you are
This is your life; you made it this far
Welcome, you got to believe
That right here, right nowYou're exactly where you're supposed to be
Welcome to wherever you are

When everybody's in and you're left out
And you feel you're drowning in the shadow of a doubt
Everyone's a miracle in their own way
Just listen to yourself, not what other people say
When it's seems you're lost, alone and feeling down
Remember everybody's different; just take a look around
When you want to give up and your heart's about to break
Remember that you're perfect; God makes no mistakes
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And this one—I Am. Every time I hear it, I think of the Great I AM. In fact I have to laugh at myself. First time I heard this song I ran to read the lyrics, almost expecting to see the words written as I AM.

How you spend your minutes are what matters
All tomorrows come from yesterdays
When you're feeling broken, bruised and sometimes shattered
Blow out the candles on the cake
Like everything's a big mistake
It seems you always wait for life to happen
And your last buck can't buy a lucky break
If all we've got is us then life's worth living
And if you're in, you know I'm in
I'm ready and I'm willing

I am
When you think that no one needs you, sees you or believes you
No one's there to understand
I am
I'll be there to be that someone
When you think that no one is there to hold your hand
I am

We're just who we are, there's no pretending
It takes a while to learn to live in your own skin
Say a prayer that we might find our happy ending
And if you're in you know I'm in
I'm ready and I'm willing

I am
When you think that no one needs you, sees you or believes you
No one's there to understand
I am
I'll be there to be that someone
When you think that no one is there to hold your hand
I am
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Bottom line, even this fallen world is still permeated by God’s truth. I can see it everywhere, because my soul longs for it and seeks it. And if I can find it while I’m screaming and rocking out to great music, so much the better.

Ramblings

Happy Monday, BGs. I'm rambling today with various updates on myself in no particular order. Why am I rambling? See #1.

1. I am brain dead from a weekend of doing our personal finances, after a heavy week of writing. Even with my careful filing system, it takes me 8-9 hours to prepare our information to take to the tax guy so he can actually do the taxes. When did life get so complicated?

2. Wait a minute, I can’t be brain dead. I have to finish Coral Moon in the next three weeks!

3. Next three weeks? Oh, no! I might have a problem with that, seein’ as how I don’t know how I’m going to make the whole thing come together.

4. Tonight—guess where I get to go!! I’ve got 17th row floor seats to the Bon Jovi concert. Yowsa. I was going to take my husband, but . . . hm, suddenly he’s very busy with business in San Diego. (When I told him I wanted to go see Bon Jovi, he said, “Bon Who?”) So my 16-year-old daughter’s going with me. Okay, so it’s not a boy band concert we can both scream at (they’re SO old news), but she’ll still have fun. A mom/daughter night out.

5. Do you know after 1 ½ years of working to get “Don’t forget to b r e a t h e . . .” trademarked, my attorney says he has to start over because the bureaucrats keep changing their minds about what “category” we’re supposed to pick or something. It’s all insane. Anybody ever tells you hey, no sweat, you can do your own trademark—don’t believe ’em. We’re working on trademarking “Seatbelt Suspense” too, but that one’s a year behind. Which means next year I’ll probably get to start over on that one. Sheesh.

6. I will be at Mount Hermon again this year. Who out there’s going? I’m gonna lead one of the mentoring clinics. With about 10 mentees, I guess. Gayle Roper’s doing one, and Randy Ingermanson’s leading a second, and I guess MH keeps getting more people asking to be in a group, because they asked me if I’d do one, too. I’m already on the critique team, which is work enough, but I said okay.

Okay, that’s the ramble for me. Some of you might check in and let us know what you’re working on, or reading or whatever. I hope to be more coherent tomorrow, but . . . we’ll see.

My Take on Ghosts

Well, what a lively bunch of comments yesterday. Thank you for your responses.

Here are some of my thoughts on the subject of ghosts. Disclaimer: I’m no expert, and my opinions should weigh no more than anybody else who commented.

1. Over and over, the most common agreement among Christians to whom I’ve asked this question is that most “ghosts” can be attributed to demons. I agree with this. I’ve witnessed enough demonic activity in my life to believe the critters are quite prevalent (probably more than we’d like to think), and have no end of imagination when it comes to tormenting us. Now why some demons choose to become visible, or hang around particular houses, I don’t know. But they do seem to be rather lazy once they’ve taken up an abode, so it probably has to do with a past history of the place. They like to claim their territory and stick to it, and don’t relish having to leave. I base this opinion on two passages in the Bible. First, when Jesus drove the demons out of the deranged man, and they begged to go into the pigs. (They didn't want to be homeless.) Second, in Jesus’ parable (Matthew 12: 43-45) about a spirit who’s driven out of a man and restlessly seeks a new home, only to return to the man (swept clean but unoccupied) with seven of his buddies. Party time.

One of Paul’s most famous passages (Ephesians 6:11-12) talks about putting on the whole armor of God so we can stand against the “devil’s schemes." He says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” As I understand from the NIV study Bible, this series (rulers, authorities, power of this dark world, etc.,) refers to the hierarchy of demons. Even talking to Christians, Paul made it clear that demons are out there, and we’d better be prepared to stand against them. And that it can be a hard fight.

Christians aren’t without their “ghost” stories. But, again, many of these sightings appear to be demons, not really ghosts. (Of course, these are two entirely different entities. Demons are fallen angels—beings created by God who are not human and never were. Ghosts would be the spirits of dead humans.) One person told me of the “ghost” of a child in her family’s house. It looked to be about four years old. Her children saw it. But it didn’t “have the heart of a child,” as she put it. The thing was evil. She felt it even when she couldn’t see it. They sent it away through prayer.

That “feeling of evil” is the certain common denominator among demons. If you’re ever in one’s presence, you’ll know it. There won’t be an ounce of doubt in your mind.

2. Second point that Christians agree on, biblically based: Do not go there! Don’t consult psychics, don’t attend séances, etc. Again, not because of ghosts, but because demons tend to hang around these kinds of activities. God commands knowledge of the supernatural and the future (and the dead). If he wants to impart supernatural knowledge, He’ll do so through dreams, prophecy, words of wisdom, etc. Or in an extreme case He might even allow a spirit to return to deliver a message, as He did with Samuel. But in any case it’s God’s purview. We’re certainly not to consult psychics for knowledge outside our world. The Bible puts it in absolute black and white. Supernatural knowledge (including what happens to the dead) comes either from God or from Satan. There’s no gray area. So when people choose to go to Satan’s realm for it (mediums, psychics, séances and the like), why should they be surprised to stir up the demons that hang out there?

3. I have a hard time believing in a ghost that’s hanging around earth like it’s stuck. I can’t make the notion jive with the Bible. So I’d tend to think these are demons. But as some of you mentioned, what about a dead relative who appears with a message? Are we to say such instances are all imagination and hooey? Problem with that is, you’re likely to find some pretty rational people with these kinds of stories. Are we to say they’re demons? Then why is there no feeling of evil? (I suppose you could argue here that Satan and his minions can pose as bearers of light, which is true.) But maybe, just as God allowed Samuel to return with a specific message, He sometimes allows a spirit to return to comfort someone today, or to bring a message. I can’t find scripture that absolutely denies the reality of this type of ghostly appearance. In fact, with that story of Samuel, I find just the opposite.

Bottom line, I believe God is in ultimate control. If demons are hanging around, whether posing as restless spirits of the dead or not, prayer in the name of Jesus will drive them away. And if God chooses in His wisdom to send back a spirit to give someone a message, He can do so. He created all, including the curtain of separation between worlds seen and unseen, and if He wants to open that curtain, I imagine He’ll open it. God is ultimately more mysterious and wonderful and awesome than we can imagine and know on this earth. I'm not about to put Him in a box and say no, no, He'd never do that. But I'm gonna leave it up to Him to decide. And when I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask a lot of questions.

Here's a Question for You

Good comments from yesterday. Thank you. Just as clarification, I’m not going to turn into a seat-of-the-pants writer. I can’t, with the kinds of stories I write. I’ve got to know the twist I’m writing toward. But I do think the “non-rejection” attitude can be helpful to me in the plotting phase. Not that I can end up keeping every idea, but allowing myself to consider them for a while and see where they go rather than immediately tossing them out may cause me a little less grief.

All right, now turning a sharp corner . . .

Do you believe in ghosts?

Hah. That got your attention.

I can’t decide whether I do or not. On one hand, I can’t figure how to make the idea of ghosts fit with biblical theology. God apparently has places for spirits to go, and it isn’t wandering around this earth like some lost soul.

However . . . there’s that perturbing story of the witch of Endor (I Samuel, chapter 28). Saul asks her to call up the spirit of Samuel, which she does. And he appears, much to her apparent surprise. A definite ghost story. In the Bible.

Then there’s the Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah—both dead—appearing and talking to Jesus.

Then there’s this interesting scene which proves nothing but is provocative. At the end of Luke, when Jesus appears to the disciples after His resurrection, they think He’s a ghost. Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey, guys, don’t be idiots—there’s no such thing.” Instead he says (my paraphrase), “Look at me, touch me. A spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

There’s also the scene when Jesus walks on the water, and his disciples think he’s a ghost. (Evidently this ghost belief stuff goes way back). Again, Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey, guys, no such thing.” He simply says, “It is I.”

I do believe many “ghosts” are really demons. And The Bible makes it very clear we are not to consult mediums or chase the dead, or look to any supernatural source for knowledge other than God Himself. So I advocate no séances, got me? In fact séances and the occult in general are undeniably fave lurking grounds for demonic activity.

But what about every ghost story you’ve ever heard? Are they all rubbish? Can they all be explained away? Are they all demonic activity? Can we ever really know the answer this side of heaven?

How should a Christian approach this topic?

Improv Rule

Thanks to all of you who commented on yesterday’s post. I was so heartened to see how that scripture spoke to you. Becky and Bonnie, thanks mucho for the tips on the online Bibles.

Recently I read Blink, the nonfiction title by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point. Both are fascinating books. I was struck by a passage in Blink in which he talks about the spontaneity of improvisation theater. Gladwell tells of a comedy group in New York who creates a thirty-minute play on the spot, based on ideas called from the audience.

The tagline for Blink is “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” Gladwell says improv theater is a “wonderful example of the kind of thinking that Blink is about. It involves people making very sophisticated decisions on the spur of the moment.”

On the surface, he says, improv seems “random and chaotic,” but it really isn’t at all. Every week the cast of the group gets together to practice. Why? Because their art is governed by a series of rules, and everyone must abide by these rules and become very good at appearing to be spontaneous within these rules.

Gladwell explains that one of the most important improv rules is “the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story is to have characters accept everything that happens to them.” In this way a scene can be built. “Bad improvisers block action” while good improvisers “develop action.” He runs a few lines from an improv scene in which a crazy doctor suggests amputating someone’s leg just because he’s “having trouble with it.” The patient tells the doctor he “can’t do that.” The scene goes nowhere because the patient character has blocked the suggestion course of action. Run the scene again, with the patient accepting the amputation, and a wild and zany story is built.

I reacted to this idea with a nonplused shake of my head. It seemed totally backward to me. After all, isn’t an author’s story created by conflict? Character A wants something, and character B blocks it. Yet this is exactly opposite of what the improvisers do. Now maybe this rule applies more to comedy, I don’t know. But as I pondered this apparent dichotomy and what it could mean for my writing, a crack of light appeared from a new thought, not quite complete. Sort of like a door was opening in my mind to some major aha, but I had yet to push it open. I’m not sure I’ve opened it completely yet.

Apparently it has to do with plotting a book. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I have major problems with that. Ideas don’t flesh out for me easily. Usually because I reject an idea the minute it pops into my head as “not good enough” or “boring” or “I’ve already done that” or “not twisty enough” or something.

What if, next time around, I rejected the rejection response? What if I acted like a member of a comedy improv group and simply ran with whatever ideas surfaced from my subconscious? The “idea of agreement.” Block nothing. Accept a premise, accept the compounding ideas that follow, and see how far I can go in creating a story.

I don’t know how well this will work until I try it. (Which will be very soon. After I finish this book—the 6th in my 7-book contract—I must create new ideas to sell for my next contract.) But I am going to try it.

Y'all have thoughts about this? I'd love to hear 'em.

Starting a Blaze

Recently in my devotions I was reading II Timothy, Paul’s last letter, sent to his spiritual “son.” From the tone, Paul evidently knew his time was running short. He talks about having run his race, having fought the good fight. Paul knows he will soon be in heaven.

What would you write to a son or daughter if you knew it was probably your last letter? Paul writes numerous points of counsel to Timothy about how to run his church. I’ve read this book many times. Have to admit I have little creativity when it comes to reading the Bible. I simply read it through, and when I’m done—I start over. Usually I read in the New American Standard Version. But this time through the New Testament, I’m reading an NIV linear version. That is, books and passages from books appear in order of their events instead of the typical biblical line-up.

One line absolutely jumped out at me, probably because I don’t usually read in the NIV. Fan into flame the gift of God.

Fan into flame the gift of God.

Paul was talking about a particular gift God had granted Timothy “through the laying on of hands.”

(By the way: I’m in Idaho at the moment, and without an NIV Bible. Somebody please look for this line in II Timothy and post what verse this is.)

A visual jumps in my head as I think of this sentence. A picture of someone bending low over a stack of twigs, struggling to help them catch fire from a lit piece of paper underneath. The person alternately blows and fans, but carefully. Not enough, and the fire won’t catch. Too much, and the flame will be extinguished. The person must shelter the fire from wind. Must nurture it, have patience with it, believe in it. Work it.

God gives gifts to each of us in the form of talents. The ability is from Him. He created it. But we must fan it into flame, with God’s help. We must tend it, believe in it, nurture and protect it. Work it. And once it’s crackling and bright, giving others heat, we must continue to stoke it.

As an author who often struggles, I immediately applied this passage to my writing. God may have given me an ability to write, but that doesn’t mean that fire just blazes away on its own. I have to fan that gift into flame. It takes work, diligence. It’s not always easy and often not fun.

Paul did not say, “Sit back and enjoy that bonfire God started for you.”

Fan into flame the gift of God. What is your gift? Are you fanning it just the right amount? Have you just started nurturing it, and already expect a bonfire? Or are you forgetting to stoke it at all?

Copyediting Follow-up

Happy Friday, BGs. There was one question from the copyedit post (on Wednesday) that I wanted to follow up on.

Dineen: How many times is a word considered overused? Sometimes you can't help but repeat a word in a paragraph if you’re describing an action within a time, like searching through multiple drawers in a desk.

Camy: I echo Dineen's question. I usually try to only use a word once every 100 pages, and if I remember using it in the past 200 pages, I'll still take it out. Is that too extreme? There are only so many words for walking, or crying, or singing, or whatever.

There’s no set number for when a word is overused. It depends on the word. You’ll remember the copyeditor noticed I’d used the phrase “fetal position” twice, and he thought that was too much. I agreed, because of the power of the phrase (referring to someone being very emotional). But other verbs may be used five times, or ten or more depending on how common they are.

I do try not to use the same verbs and adjectives close to each other. Two “wafted” verbs three pages apart is too much for me. (Another copyeditor catch.) Using a word only once every 100 pages isn’t a bad rule—good way to catch yourself. Again, that is if we’re not talking about an everyday verb like said or looked or sat. Of course, those can be overused, too, because they are so common. And they’re boring. I’m always trying to use the more exciting verbs, particularly in action sequences or to create tone, but then I end up using those too much. Sigh. This is why I love to have a good copyeditor. I just can’t catch everything.

And now a quick update on Coral Moon. It’s due four weeks from today. Agh. I have too many pages to go, and I’m just dragging through the thing. As usual, I think the book’s lousy and boring. But—type on, type on.

Have a great long weekend, y’all. I will be taking Monday, President’s Day, off. Meet ya back here Tuesday.

A Special Hop

BGs, thanks for your comments on the copyedit post yesterday. I will do some follow-up answers to questions about that post tomorrow. If you have any more comments about that, please leave them here today.

For today's post, I'm a guest at Camy Tang's blog. Please follow me over there for, well, kind of a layperson's sermon, I suppose you could call it. (Oh, great, you're saying, we'll never shut her up.)

Camy's also giving readers a chance to win a copy of Web of Lies.

http://www.camys-loft.blogspot.com/

Copyedits for Violet Dawn

When I first started publishing with Zondervan, I was assigned a great copyeditor. I worked with him through numerous books, then lost him for a while. Boy, did I feel the difference. I’d grown so used to this guy’s hard look at my manuscripts that I didn’t realize all copyeditors weren’t made of the same cloth. Whereas he would give me pages of queries, the other copyeditors would send along a half a page. In the first printing of one of my novels in which I hadn't worked with this guy, I found numerous grammatical mistakes (which were fixed in the second printing). I’d discovered some myself during proofing, but apparently hadn’t caught all of them. They should have been caught in the copyedit process, but they weren’t. If I’d had my old, hard copyeditor, they would have been caught. So I demanded him back.

In the copyedit for Web of Lies, this fave Copyeditor (CE) of mine queried about the stair banister in Annie’s house. In one sentence I referred to it as a “white banister.” CE went back and did a search in each of the three earlier Hidden Faces books to check for consistency. Sure enough, I’d never explained it as a white banister before. I’d never mentioned its color at all. “Are you sure you want to say this now?” he asked. “Readers may have imagined it differently for three books’ running.”

Now that is a detail-oriented copyeditor.

I deleted the word white.

In the copyedits for Violet Dawn, CE had over 170 queries. This is not counting all the “overused words” he listed. I’ll tell you, it’s one thing to note something that stands out in a sentence. It’s another thing to note a certain word’s usage throughout the entire book. But CE apparently keeps a running track. Here are just a few he caught:

Tilt, 17 times. ("People tend to tilt their heads and look up, instead of merely looking.") Flick, 25 times. Whoosh, 5 times. Survey, 19 times. Swivel, 14 times. Grunt, 16 times.

Really? I had no idea my characters did so much grunting.

There were about a dozen other words he found overused. It takes me a long time to fix these. I have to do a search on the computer, then come up with another appropriate word (that I haven’t used too much.)

Here are a few examples of his queries for Violet Dawn (with some blanks so as not to give away any content):

AQ14: Please establish in this scene that the garage is on the north side of the house. Otherwise readers may imagine the scene incorrectly and be forced to reimagine it later.

This is an astute catch. CE had to read further chapters before he could determine what side of the house the garage is on, and then come back to this first mention of the garage and ask me to clarify here.

AQ29: Two paragraphs ago ___ tossed the flashlight into the hatchback. Here she closes the hatchback door and then grabs the flashlight. Please clarify. (Keep in mind the flashlight needs to end up on the passenger seat, where she picks it up in a later scene.)

AQ37: Earlier it was said there was a “curved, descending path through forest down to water’s edge”; here there seems to be no path at all. Please clarify.

AQ47. Second use of word waft in three pages.

AQ50. There was already “something in her voice” two paragraphs ago. Does it make sense for her tone to change again so quickly?

AQ55: Consider deleting the phrase “and the broken lives inside” and allow the metaphor you’ve created to stand on its own.

AQ60: Who is Paige addressing here, the woman or the girl?

AQ68: Doesn’t adrenaline travel through the bloodstream, rather than the nervous system?

AQ78: Bailey is always [doing this same task.] Do you think it would be better to vary her actions?

AQ92: Please make it clear she’s standing outside her car, not sitting in it.

AQ97: Leslie “clicked off” the last time she ended a call in this scene.

AQ110: “Fetal position” is used twice in this book. It’s such a strong image that I recommend using it only once.

AQ123: Vince’s next objection makes sense, but I’m not sure this one does. [Continued explanation of why CE thinks this.]

AQ126: It may be a good idea to note what time it is here, since Nancy is home from work so soon. You might want to mention she only works part-time.

Oops—a real booboo on my part. And a keen detail catch for CE. Nancy does work full time. A good 25 chapters earlier I’d mentioned what time she left for work—and it was the wrong time. Had to move it back so when she gets off work it’s 8 hours later.

AQ130: Should this be “fellow officers” instead of “policemen?”

AQ147: “Lay in his hand” implies that his hand was open, palm up, which isn’t the case here.

AQ153: “Heaved” was used two paragraphs up.

AQ159: Metaphor needs to be reworded. [Explanation of why.]

AQ165: Nancy just huffed toward the end of the last scene. I’d reword one of these.

AQ168: This sentence is trying to say two things at once. [Explanation of what should change.]

AQ171: Third instance of “tsking” in final pages of the book.

See why I love this guy? He catches the small nuances. He’ll note something that doesn’t jive with what I mentioned five chapters or even 25 chapters previously. Sure, I suppose it would be great to zip through an easy copyedit in half an hour rather than take up my whole weekend. But the things a lesser copyeditor would have missed!

Editing Question/Hopping

Becky had a question about yesterday's post on editing: It seems that everyone has the title of editor and yet the jobs you describe seem quite specialized at Zondervan. Does your macro editor do copy editing for someone else? Is your copyeditor going to conferences and acquiring other authors? In otherwords, how specialized are the people you work with?

The editor's jobs are quite specialized. I think this is true for most houses. However, it's common for the acquiring editor (the one who goes to conferences and looks for manuscripts, as you mention) to also be the macro editor. This person knows fiction. He/she knows what makes a good story and what the house needs to rounds out its fiction line. This person will typically take the book through the macro editing process--and perhaps the track edits, if the house includes that step. Sometimes the house works with a freelance editor who steps in to do the macro edit. Often the acquiring editor doesn't have time to macro edit every novel, so he/she may do some of them, and a freelance editor will be hired to do the rest.

As for copy editors, these are a specialized breed. They're taught to look for the details. Many would have no idea how to do a macro edit. By the same token, a macro editor would not necessarily be a good copyeditor. A copyeditor is supposed to stay within his purview and not stray into macroediting, because that stage has already been done and agreed upon by the time he receives the manuscript.

Now for today--I've hopped again. Please join me on the Charis Connection for my post. Please leave your comments there.