Give me a C ... for confused

Have you ever heard of a referee competition? Follow me on this. Can you picture a bunch of guys standing out in some field, clad in their trusty black and white stripes competing to see how high they can throw a yellow flag? Me neither, but it might sound something like this if ESPN televised such an event.

"Boy Howdy Jim. Look at Frank Jones go. He's really on his A game today. I've never seen anyone signal false start with such zest."

"You said it Biff. He got a full 720 on that rotation. And his form absolutely flawless."

Ridiculous right? Nobody cares how well a ref looks while he throws a flag or signals a penalty, so what would be the point of having them compete just for the sake of competition? Refs only have value as long as they are needed to police an actual game.

I couldn't agree more. So why in the world do we have cheerleader competition? What are they cheering for? And who are they leading is these supposed cheers?

Here in Amarillo we have at least two "organizations" that girls or guys of all ages can join and cheer. Not for sports teams but in cheer competitions. Why? Somebody please explain this to me.

I know someone will take offense to this and claim my attitude towards this is sexist, but really I don't think that is the case. To me it is more a case of putting the cart before the horse. It would be like having a Zamboni driver competition based on how pretty of turn they make at each end of the ice, when his real job is to lay a decent sheet down so the game can proceed. Or to take the analogy out of the arena, Like judging a conductor on how well he flings that little stick around(yes I'm aware that description makes me sound like a hick) instead of how well the symphony plays.

What's your opinion on this? I suspect most of you will disagree, but that's okay. I can live with rejection. I'm a writer.

Rejoice! All You Evil Vegetarians

Monday is when my critique group meets every week and tonight marks a sad day for me. For the first time in about three years I will not be bringing any pages of my own. Not because I'm a slacker, I actually finished about twenty five or thirty pages this week, I just don't feel good about the majority of what I wrote this week.

I'm not talking about the typos, or myriads of punctuation errors, or even my atrocious grammar. I can live with someone reading my material that is laced with those types of errors. Heck, those of you who read this blog are subjected to that stuff everyday.

I'm talking content, voice, and just plain lackluster storytelling. Now I have taken material to crit only to find out the story is working near as well as I imagined. My group has picked apart a character or two and moaned over a weak plot, but luckily not lately. They still offer a ton of valuable help, but usually we are talking about fine tuning a character not an entire makeover. Anyway I don't feel comfortable enough with this one POV character to unleash her on the world so my streak will end tonight.

Changing the subject, I went to the doctor this morning to hear my results on some bloodwork I had done a couple of weeks ago. Now anybody that knows me has heard me say, Lettuce is the devil. So are broccoli, bean sprouts, carrots, beets, spinach, and just about every other plant that people eat. I don't do vegetables. I am a carnivore, with a bit of bread thrown in.

For years people have told me. One of these days your diet is gonna catch up to you. You cholesterol must be out of this world. You're going to keel over with a heart attack before your forty.

Okay all at once let me hear it -- I TOLD YOU SO.

Feel better now. My good cholesterol was too low and now I have some nice new pills to take every night. My blood sugar was too high and my doctor directed me to lost 55 pounds. Yes, you read that right FIFTY-FIVE as in the same number Sammy Hagar shouted that he couldn't drive.

Right now I tip the scales at 275 so we are talking about nearly one-fifth of my body weight. I'm gonna try and lose some weight, but don't expect to see me chomping on celery stick anytime soon. Think I'll go on an all beef jerky diet.

Anybody got any suggestions that doesn't involve a bowl of lettuce?

Shake it all About

Thursdays and Fridays are my normal days off from work. Thursdays( when I’m not mandatoried to work that is) I have to myself and I usually spend a good portion of the day working on my writing. Fridays I do a bit but I also keep my four-year-old son, because he only Montessori classes four days a week. We have a good time hanging out together although he does a pretty good job of conning me, which is why I dine at Chuck E. Cheese for lunch about every other Friday, and why I’m slightly out of breath as I type this.

At his insistence, I just finished doing the hokey pokey with him, in my underwear no less. It wasn’t a pretty sight I can promise you. Had someone walked up and peaked in the window they would have been blinded for life. Now believe it or not, this wasn’t my first experience with this particular little ditty.

Sure, there are authors out there who have published multiple books, won awards, sold million of copies, but I’d wager there ain’t a heck of a lot of writers out there who have done the hokey pokey with a New York editor under the musical direction of a Western Swing band. I have.

Every year at the conclusion of our local conference, Frontier In Writing, the speakers and staff along with the local volunteers head to the Big Texan. In case you’ve never heard of it, The Big Texan is a somewhat famous restaurant that offers a free 72oz. steak to anyone who can eat it and the trimmings, a baked potato and salad within one hour. The place has been featured in several movies, magazines and television shows and is chocked full of Texas décor and souvenirs. Every Saturday night in the summer they open the outside tent, bring in a live band and offer a good sized dance floor to go along with your steak and beer.

So there we were better than dozen conference volunteers, two or three agents, a couple of editors and five or six published authors, amid the usual array of tourist and travelers. As one of the few able bodied men I had danced far more than my normal three or four songs. I’d been bust trying to teach the foreigners( in this case anybody not born and raised in Texas) how to properly two step because the thing people do in other states is not the Texas Two Step, trust me on this.

Anyway I was several Shiner Bocks into a fun evening, when the band, for God only knows why launched into the hokey pokey. Kensington Books editor, Hilary Sares, (I’ll go ahead and give you her name because I don’t think she would mind. At least I hope not.) grabbed me by the arm and said , “Let’s go do the hokey pokey.” I looked at her and with my most befuddled tone asked, “Are you serious?” “Yeah,” she answered. “Why not?”

Why not? We were in public. Two tables over was a group of my coworkers. The hokey pokey is a kids song and dance. I’m to big to do anything but the two step. My body does not look good shaking all about. Think the gopher in CaddyShack and you get the idea.

But a few second later, there I was sticking my right foot in, turning myself around and yes, shaking it all about. No it wasn’t pretty. Just ask my coworkers who were there and like to remind me about it from time to time.

But I don’t regret it because Hilary ranks as one of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met, both within the business and out. Nor do I regret doing the hokey pokey with my son this morning because he will only be four once, and that truly is, What it’s all about.

R.I.P & Kiss My

Write like your momma is dead.

This was one of the first pieces of advice Jodi Thomas gave me back in the very first creative writing class I took after I decided that I wanted to become an author. At the time I chuckled along with the rest of the class and didn't think to much about the statement. But over the years I've come to realize all that this statement means.

It's not just your momma you have to clear from your mind. It's your spouse, your friends, maybe an entire race, culture or group of people. Now I'm not condoning writing something just for the sake of attacking a group of people. There are manifestos of hate that are put out for the sole purpose of belittling somebody else. I'm talking about being true to your characters, even those that you do not like or agree with.

In Mark Twain's time some labeled him a racist for his prolific use of a specific racial term in Huckleberry Finn. Now there is a brand new novel out called Finn by an author named Jon Clinch, which explores the life of Pap Finn, Huck's dad. I haven't started the novel yet, but I've read some reviews and comments elsewhere that ridicules the author for using the same term as Twain. To me, the author would have done a disservice to both his story and Twain's if he softened the story, chose not to use follow Twain's lead and, make Pap a vile man. I for one can't wait to read the novel and I certainly don't think that makes me a racist. I expect going in not to like Pap, but I believe there is a lot to be learned by taking a close look at at any society's "bad seeds." Not sure who first coined the phrase If nothing else I can serve as a bad example but I do think there is a good bit of truth in those words. All parents have said something along these lines, Yes, you have to go to school. You don't want to end up like your cousin Joe do you?

And as I heard an agent say one time at a conference, If you're writing doesn't piss somebody off, you're not writing strong enough to really reach anybody.

So write it the way the character would say it or do it, not the way your mother, friend or spouse would expect from you. After all, you're telling a fictional character’s story not your own. Otherwise, you are writing a memoir, but then again, there have been some who couldn't even be true to their character when writing about themselves. Of course that didn't stop them from selling a million copies, or appearing on Oprah.

Green Money, Red Blood, and Black Ink

By and large, I work with a good group of people, I'm talking about my day job here. Most of them know I write and several have graciously volunteered to be early readers for me. They offer comments, suggestions, and tons of encouragement.

I probably have a habit of talking about writing and the publishing too much, and I'm sure at times they get sick of it, but hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't stop me and ask, "Sign a book deal yet. Hear anything from that editor in New York, or that agent that requested your stuff?"

I work at the Post Office so they see me carry in large envelope after large envelope. When faced with this standard question I said nope no deal but I did get an email yesterday. Not exactly what I wanted to hear (such as, we are going to pay you an obscene amount of money for the rights to this great work) but encouraging just the same.

So this coworker responded with when are you going to say enough is enough and give up on becoming an author so you can become a professional poker player. He then pointed out that I've cashed a lot more checks from playing cards than I have from my writing. And he's right but there are still some major differences between the two.

Never have I been busy doing something when suddenly a pair of Aces popped into my mind, the way story or character ideas do.

Never have I met someone and wondered straight away if they could bluff with a straight face, but I have, and do meet people all the time that I think wow that facial feature or that dialect would be great on a character.

Never do I watch the World Poker Tour and television and stare at an empty seat between Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson and dream what it would be like to sit there.

But I have went to the bookstore, located the E's and said right there, that is where my book will sit.

Writing is in my blood. I can't turn my back on that. No matter how long it takes. Last year the winner of the World Series of Poker took home twelve million dollars. His name is Jamie Gold and he beat out nearly 900 other players for the title. even if I had the ten grand to enter, and even if I got extremely lucky and won you know what I'd say. All right now I can quit my day job and stay home to write.

I'm All In

So there I was yesterday playing in a Texas Hold 'Em Poker tournament with the slowest bunch of players I've ever encountered. And as always when I have time to just sit and think my mind turned to writing.

Now playing poker and not giving the game your fullest attention can often be an early ticket to poverty, but like I said this particular tournament's pace was excruciatingly slow and when your dealt deuce seven as your down card you have no choice, but to fold and wait for the hand to be played out.

So how does this relate to writing? Follow me on this because what made since last night amidst a thick cloud of cigar smoke and half a dozen frozen mugs of Shiner Bock might be somewhat of a stretch this fine Sunday morning.

Poker, like writing, and the sea is a steady up and down tide that you must follow and be aware of in order to get where you want to go. One hand you draw pocket aces, and everything looks good so you raise when the bet comes to you. A good story idea fills your mind so you raise the stakes and start plotting character and jotting down plot points and sketching out chapters.

But then the flop comes nine, ten, queen all hearts and your aces are a diamond and a club. Now you have to worry about a straight, a flush, or somebody with pocket queens or two pair. Things didn't work out the way you hoped. You're still holding a pretty good hand but no longer is it a sure thing. (Like there is ever a sure thing for in publishing, unless maybe your last name is King, Childs, or Grisham.) Suddenly you've gone from happy to doubtful, but you plunge on and write the story anyway because you still believe in your hand, your manuscript.

For arguments sake lets say the turn card is a three of diamonds - no real help to any one. You go ahead and bet just to see the hand played all the way out. the equivalent to finishing your novel. Now to play devil's advocate I'll present two different scenarios for the last card, better known as the river card.

Now you can drown in the river. That is to be ahead and have the best hand only to have that last card get you. For our game lets say the river comes an eight. Anybody with a king as one of their down cards just hit a king high straight which beats your pair of aces. They got you on the river. The better your hand the worse getting beat on the last card hurts. If you just mailed off a single page query and get rejected you're really not surprised. After all, it's not like they even looked at your actual writing. A partial hurts a little more, but you can still fool yourself, The first few chapters just need punched up. If only that agent would have read a bit more. And there there is the full manuscript rejection. The poker equivalent of having pocket aces and getting beat by three twos.

Scenario Two — that river card is a third ace. The possibly you could still be beat is there, I don't want to make the scenario a sure thing since that does not jive the realities of the publishing world but three aces is a solid hand, as is a well-thought, nicely written novel with ample conflict and a sympathetic interesting characters.

You win a pot, you win a contest, an agents send you a form rejection, you lose half your chips. either way you have to deal with the cards you're dealt and get ready for the next hand. Spend too much time counting you chips or cursing yourself for being stupid and the game will pass you by.

My advice -- ride out those waves of emotion and don't be afraid to Go All In when you believe you've got a winner.

For those non poker players out there hope this doesn't come across as mindless dribble. And for the curious I managed to come in first out of forty nine players, the third tournament in a row I've won which just means I'm waaaay over due to lose.

Wish I could say it was one of those million dollar tourney they show on TV or even a high stakes game at the Bellagio but alas I am merely the reigning Texas Hold'em champ of the local Moose Lodge.

The Other White Meat

What makes a writer?

A literary agent once said in a workshop I attended … "No one under the age of thirty-five should attempt to write fiction."

Now this was a reputable agent with a good many projects sold to big houses. But I still say the idea you have to be a certain age to right is utter nonsense.

Everyone is a writer in some sense. Don't think so? I'll wager a dozen T-Bone steaks to a head of lettuce that not there's not a single person in this world who hasn't already wrote a conflict scene or two in their head. We all do it. Get in to some type of argument and then later think … oh I should have said this. And then they would have responded with blah, blah, blah. and then I could have really got them with …

Come on admit it. You've done this.

The trick is to put that kind of stuff down on paper, mix in some inner emotional turmoil, or middle-eastern terrorists, or a dead body or whatever fits your genre. All the while adding in the bits and pieces of everyday life that all of us see firsthand. Which brings me to life experience. You can have it at ten in some extreme cases and you can be a hundred and still not have much.

Now I personally still have about eight months until I hit that magic age of thirty-five and if I suddenly get my break the day after my birthday, well then that particular agent can look me up and say, "I told you so. But in the meanwhile I've lived a pretty varied and eclectic life that I continually recall and use for material. Here is the short list.

Paying Gigs- grocery sacker, wood sander, feed store worker, postal worker, football referee, Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, gigolo - Okay I'm kidding about that last one, but if the price was right you never know what I might do. All of these have had their moments but the time I spent at Rose's Feed and Garden gave me more material than ten authors could ever use in a lifetime. Now of course I twist around my experiences, enhance them and give the reader a more entertaining twist than the actual reality, but still I've seen some interesting stuff, like the time a well-meaning mom of a small child groped me while I was in the Easter Bunny costume, but that is a whole other story.

Critters- Once upon a time I wanted to be a vet. I love animals, especially the tasty ones. But over the years I've raised a variety of animals for both fun and profit. Okay, only the pigs were what you could call real profitable but still it was interesting. Rabbits, at one time I had almost two hundred.

Dogs- I've had good one, bad ones, and some that caused me nothing but grief.

Cats- Blame my wife for this.

Pigs- I earned more my senior year of high school showing hogs than I did in the two years after graduation. Nothing goes together like FFA, stock shows, and smuggled Everclear consumed straight from empty shampoo bottles, again a story for another day.

Lambs, Goats, Chickens, Turkeys, Hedgehogs, Tropical fish, and Guinea Pigs, which don't taste anything like actual pork.

Sports-Football, Hockey, Softball, Frisbee Golf, Miniature Golf, Real golf, Video game golf, Okay I'll stop now that I sound like Bubba Gump.

On top of these things. I read like a fiend, I talk way too much, which leads to meeting some interesting people, like to travel, enjoy a variety of music, but mostly Texas Country which is a whole lot different from the stuff Nashville cranks out for the uninitiated.

Guess what I'm trying to say is it ain't the years behind ya that puts experience in your tank, it’s the miles.

Of course you can even get by that if you have a heck of an imagination and a strong tendency to make up lies.

So you wanna write a novel?

Right now I'm in the process of starting my fourth novel - character sketches, a loose plot structure, deciding on character names and so forth. Doing this has made me think of how unprepared I was when I started my first. Let me first tell how I did it then, and then I'll tell you how I would have done had I known then what I know now.

My first novel started as an assignment for a class. A class taught by RWA hall-of-famer Jodi Thomas. RWA stands for Romance Writers of America for those who didn't know. Jodi has been extremely generous with both her time and knowledge and without her encouragement I never would have pursued this dream.

Back when I started, I had no real idea what my novel would be about, who the intended audience was, or what I was doing. I had a couple of characters that I vaguely understood, but not nearly enough to start writing about them. I did not know their motivation, goals, or histories. Basically, I had a male protagonist who'd wasted years of his life loving the wrong woman, I had a female protagonist who'd wasted years of her life running from who she really was, and I had a snotty self-righteous small town queen who was married to a egotistical jackass. Because of that lack of focus and knowledge that same novel is now languishing on my hard drive still riddled with problems. Despite over two years of work and countless rewrites. Someday I might go back and redo the entire novel from scratch but for now I just look at the whole thing as a learning experience.

Now let me tell you what I think are the keys to writing a first novel that has a viable chance of being picked up by agents and editors.

1) Know your audience- Who is going to buy your book, besides your mother. More than likely the audience is someone a lot like yourself, but you can't put that in a query. If you read nothing but romances there is a good chance your going to write a romance. But what if your two favorite authors are Stephen King and Nora Roberts, or Toni Morrison and Nicholas Sparks? Okay, I know those are extreme but I have very eclectic tastes and I'm sure a lot of you do as well. So is your novel horror or romance, literary or commercial. You'll be better off if you know this before you start and constantly remind yourself as you write. Genre bending is fine for established authors, but why complicate matters when it already so tough to sell that first one?

2) Find the conflict- You're going to need conflict early and often to make the story stand out. Sure there are exceptions, but how many are first novels. Internal, external you need both. Save the history, info dumps, and backstory for later chapters.

3) Use your imagination - Don't start your novel by having two strangers meet on an airplane, bus, or any other mode of public transportion. Remember, agents read hundreds of first chapters a week. They've seen most everything. Give them something new and you stand a better chance. this goes for character as well. What makes your protagonist different? They need quirks flaws, interesting hobbies, occupations. Something to make them stand out.

4) Slow Down - Don't rush in. write mini biographies for you major characters. So what if you never find a way to fit all the info into the novel. The better you know the character the easier it will be to write them. And when you finish that first draft, smile pat yourself on the back, wait a week and then plunge in at the beginning and go through the entire thing sentence by sentence. By the third time you might be ready to start querying.

5) Write the synopsis first - I know not everyone will agree with this advice and yes things will change, but for me it is much easier to write a condensed synopsis before I know every last detail of the story. After the fact I have a hard time separating out the minor complications with those that really matter. When I only know the bare facts I can create a basic synopsis then usually only requires minor tweaking to make it jive with the actual novel.

6) Write Well - This one is obvious but don't ignore the craft. Be willing to take criticism and learn from it.

7) Never say Die- I've known quite a few good writers who simply give up instead of plugging on. To me there is no greater waste than turning your back on your dreams and your talents.

I'm sure by the time I finish the fourth novel I'll have a whole new list of things but for now these are the things that come to mind. Would like to hear from some fellow writers on anything that they agree or disagree with. There are a thousand ways to write novel but I know we've all made many of the same mistakes and I'd like to hear how you keep from repeating them.

Better late than never

Have you ever shown up late for a party only to discover your friends are five or six drinks ahead of you? It’s the same whether your friends are sipping glasses of wine, guzzling bottles of Shiner Bock, or downing shots of tequila. Regardless of which setting fits you best, coming in late is a drag. You can bet something you missed, -- a joke, a song, a funny story -- will be brought up over and over, and with every confused frown from you, somebody will say, "You had to be here."

That's a bit how I feel starting this blog. I have a long list of worries on top of showing up late to the party. Number one, what will I say each day. Number two, will anybody care. Number three, where will I find the time on top of starting a new novel, tweaking the one I'm currently trying to sell, composing query letters, corralling my two young sons, not neglecting my wife, and working my regular job. Okay, enough whining. I'm late but I'm here and that's what counts.

Now the late arriver has a couple of options. One, start pounding the booze until you catch up, or two, try to act as if you'd been there all along. If your not careful the first option will leaving you praying to the porcelain gods. the second requires a bit of bluffing. I could say lying, but liar is such a harsh word and since anybody that writes fiction is a liar by definition I try to shy away from that description.

Back to bluffing. Sure you'll have to smile at some lame comments that only a six pack of beer can make funny, you might get stuck talking to Rick, Jeff, Jim, or (feel free to insert the name of your most boring acquaintance here) sure you might have to jump in there and dance to Baby Got Back while you 're still stone-cold sober. I know it's hard but sacrifices have to be made, and trust me bluffing makes it a lot easier to get out of the bed come morning.

So that's what I'm going to do, BLUFF. Act like I know more than I do.

In the years since I decided, hey I too can become a published author I have learned a few things. A lot of things actually. And over the coming days weeks and months I plan to share what I've learned and as we go along I'll find out that the meager knowledge I do possess is no where close to what I still need to learn. My critique group would beat me over the head with a stick for using the word learn so many times in one paragraph but certain sacrifices have to be made in the name of speed.

Hopefully some of the things I bring up will help a few other writers out there and hopefully some of you will comment and teach me a few things about the craft as well. And of course I hope that this blog will help me meet new people all across the country who will rush out and buy my novel the very day it hits the shelves. But before that could happen I have to first write an interesting and informative blog that people will actually want to read and convince the publishing world that I am deserving to be called an author.

For me, writers write, but authors get published,so I will only say I'm a writer. I guess I could count the few short stories of mine that have found a home but the focus of my writing goals, and the focus of this blog will be about the the pursuit of a publisher for my novels. Even though I said publisher, right now my goal is to acquire a literary agent.

So if you are a writer, an author, or, just some body who is curious about what it takes to get a first novel published welcome to the party.