Photo by Cara Lopez Lee I’m living a double life: promoting the new edition of my memoir while also pitching my novel to agents. In one life, I’ve arrived at a pinnacle. In the other, I’m standing breathless on a false summit, staring up the steep slope ahead, wondering if I’ll ever reach the top. The view always promises to be better up there, but I find it important to pause and appreciate the climb. Back in 2006 to 2007, I began researching my historical novel. I explored East LA and El Paso from my grandmother’s and father’s point of view; interviewed family, locals, and historians; read books about Chinese-American and Mexican-American history; and studied archival photos and articles. That same year, I sent fifty queries to agents to pitch my recently completed memoir, They Only Eat Their Husbands . In 2007, I registered a synopsis of the novel I planned to write, Daughter on the Borderline , with the Writers Guild of America, West. That same year, I landed an agent...

Years ago I used to fight with my kids for my sacred space to write in. I had a room that was called my study where I had a desk and a typewriter --- yeah, I started writing in the dark ages. Problem was, the study soon became the room where stuff was stored when nobody knew where else to put it. So I would have an odd assortment of boxes and bins and things stacked in and around the desk and filing cabinet that made finding my space a challenge. Then if we had company, either the company stayed in the office and slept on the sofa bed or one of the kids did. First obstacle to overcome was finding the sofa bed under the piles of things "stored" in the office. Then came the challenge of figuring out if it was an invasion of a guest's privacy if I went into the study now and then to work. Now that the kids are grown and out of the house, I have an office all to myself. Or at least I thought I did, until the cats decided they would like to share the space ...

Today we welcome a new third-Friday regular to the blog - Debby Harris who last visited us here . Welcome aboard, Debby!   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m an Honorary Lecturer for the School of English at the Scottish University of St. Andrews (a town probably better known outside of Scotland as the historic Home of Golf).  Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of providing editorial support for two Ph.D. candidates in Creative Writing.   To help them evaluate their own work during the writing process, I prepared a check-list of practical questions for fiction writers to ask themselves.  This check list has since proven so useful to me as a tool for  editorial assessment/self-assessment that it seems churlish to keep it to myself. So here it is: A)  Plot 1)  Does the work feature a strong/striking central idea around which the action of the plot revolves? 2) Is the central concept sufficiently robust  to be conveyed in 25 words or few...

Years ago I wrote a humorous column in the vein of Erma Bombeck, and recently I compiled many of the columns into a memoir. This is an excerpt from the book, A Dead Tomato Plant and a Paycheck , titled for the wonderful Mother's Day gift I received one year. Enjoy.... If anybody ever bothered to ask mothers of pre-schoolers what they would wish for if they could have anything in the whole world, I’m sure the unanimous answer would be, PRIVACY! The privacy to be able to close the bathroom door and know that it will stay closed until she opens it again. The privacy to be able to take a shower without the kids and any number of their friends coming in to see if they can have a snack. The privacy to sneak a piece of candy without having to swallow it whole because one of the kids just walked into the room. The privacy to be able to talk on the telephone without someone picking up the extension and yelling in her ear. Or without someone jumping up and down and waving his arms t...

First published March 12, 2010. Writers often discuss development of their own writing "voices" but there is more to the idea than just this one aspect. Let's discuss some other voices in the writing process. I once reviewed a young adult manuscript that had many characters, all of whom had different voices. In this case, the reader was dealing with teen slang and regional dialect, foreign and biblical characters, as well as talking fantasy animals. Few of them at this point in the writing had really well-developed voices, easily distinguishable from each other, and they often left me confused as to who was saying what. It’s an issue that’s very important to the readability of a story, especially with an audience of young people who have shorter attention spans than adults. Each of your characters must sound distinct, and this is where revising plays a major role in honing a well-crafted story. The above scenario illustrates various kinds of character voices a writer...

FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS This is the time of year we all count our blessings, and like you, I’m grateful for oh, about a hundred things!  But since this is a site about writing and editing, we’ll keep it to that. It’s funny; a decade ago, when my brother (a renowned psychiatrist) and I wrote our first book together, Five Keys for Understanding Men ,  we were in NYC promoting it via the network broadcast stations.  Gary looked at me and said, “This isn’t going to work for you as a career path—it’s too risky.” Now, I know my brother loves me, and has my best interests at heart. And from the outside looking in, it’s very difficult to dispute his reasoning. Publishing is the iffiest of businesses in the world. I could go into all of the depressing facts about getting a book published, actually making a living at it (and how few folks do so), and all of the other nightmares included herein. But what I’ve learned over the many, many years I’ve been involved in it, is that fa...

The ability to tell a good story can come in handy for more than publication. Just take it from my friend, Tracy Farr. Life has a way of making perfect sense until you wake up and find you are 20 minutes late for work and there's no way on Earth you're going to tell the boss you overslept, so you come up with some ridiculous lie about how you came upon a nasty accident, and since you were the only one around who knew the number to 911, you were obligated to stay and render whatever aid you could give, to the best of your ability. The horrific wreck, which was 20 miles south of the Middle of Nowhere, was burning when you came upon it, bodies were strewn across the county road like dropped matchsticks, and the smell of gas fumes meant an explosion was imminent. With only moments to spare, you moved the helpless victims away from the wreckage, beat the fire down with your jacket, performed CPR on three victims at the same time, set the broken leg of a middle-aged woman who kept sc...

Some writing tips from the funny papers.... From Sherman's Lagoon : Turtle: And what's young Ernest up to this fine day? Ernest: Writing. Turtle: Isn't that refreshing? A youngster using his brain for creative purposes. These days we see way too many kids just playing video games. What are you writing? A short story? A poem? A song? Ernest: Computer virus. And a whole series from Pearls Before Swine: Goat: What are you writing, Pig? Pig: A romance novel. But I'm struggling with the main characters' names. So far all I have is the woman's name... Juliet. Goat: Well, Juliet's a great name. Harkens back to the most beautiful romance of all time. "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare. What's the man's name? Pig: Bean Dip. Goat closes his eyes in disbelief and Pig says, "Really kills some of the intimate scenes." The next day, Rat is trying to get his share of the millions earned by authors: Goat: Hey, w...

Thanks to humorist and friend, Tracy Farr, for letting me share some of his humor here. It is always good to just stop all the work for a few minutes and de-stress with a little chuckle. Enjoy.... What was that again? Putting together a newspaper, whether it be national or small-town, is a BIG JOB. Millions of words have to be spelled correctly, names have to be right, photos have to match stories, headlines have to entice the reader to read -- and all of these are subject to criticism by us, the reading public. It's not right, but that's just how it is. Speaking of headlines...I ran across a few headlines recently in my local daily that made me pause and ask, "What was that again?" They just hit me as funny, or confusing, and I thought I'd share: American orders 460 new airplanes I thought to myself, "Holy cow, that must have been some wealthy American." Preparedness net stretched taut across county Shoot, how could I have missed THAT?...

Maybe someone should invent an early detection system for gullible writers. Sirens and whistles would go off the next time we’re approached by a big talker who sweeps into our life with enough patter to sell vacuums to Kirby salespeople. You know the people I mean. The blowhards who convince us that we’re on our way to stardom and incredible riches because they recognized our talent and are ready to make great things happen. We see these people at conferences or any other place where writers gather. They’re surrounded by a crowd of rapt admirers who cling to every gilded word like barnacles on a boat. I am not too proud to admit that I’ve been suckered in. There’s the film director I met at a writer’s conference who was going to hand-carry my screenplay to the biggest producers in Hollywood. I should’ve realized that if he really had that kind of clout, he wouldn’t be in Houston, TX taking money from a bunch of starry-eyed scriptwriters. But he just smothered my ability to reason i...

Listening? We writers listen all the time. We listen and watch. In fact, we’re avid observers of human behavior. Our realistic characters result from our studying fellow humans with all their imperfections and foibles. Great listeners that we are, however, we should ask ourselves whether we have selective hearing. Turning a focused ear to others from our fly-on-the-wall perspective highlights our capability to pay close attention and discern details that others may miss. But do we give the same careful attention to our editors, our manuscript readers, or our critique group as they point out shortcomings in our stories? Do we put ego aside, cut the umbilical cord that attaches us to our words, and listen to what they’re saying? It’s difficult to listen to others who may not share our enthusiasm for our manuscripts exactly as they are written. They may even dare to suggest changes, sometimes big ones. And we may think they are way off base, out in left field, totally oblivious ...

I have never written a book that I didn’t get bored with somewhere in the middle. I think this happens to many writers. The excitement of a new project has worn off, the end is a long way away, and you have read, re-read, thought, and re-thought so much about it that if you weren’t bored there would be something wrong with you. In the past, when this happened as I was writing my own “stuff”, I would often take a break. (To be honest, sometimes I still do.) I’d put whatever I was bored with away, and start something else – something shiny, exciting, and new. The downside to this is that I might never come back to it, or come back years later, when the momentum had to be built up all over again – and guess what, another spate of boredom would ensue in the middle, so I had really gained nothing. Yet another downside is that I always had a niggling in the back of my mind that a story wasn’t being told, that should be. In fact, I can’t think of many upsides to taking a break, except...

In the spirit of this holiday season, I thought I would share a memory of a special gift my husband got for me one year.  He has always supported my writing habit, and this year was no exception. They say - whoever "they" are - that when it comes to gift-giving, it's the thought that counts. While I don't always agree with everything "they" have to say, I have to give them this one. My husband puts a great deal of thought into not only the present but the presentation. It isn't enough to merely hand over a package for some occasion, he has to somehow turn it into an event and over the years we've been together he's devised numerous, and often complicated, ways of surprising me. Once he initiated his Christmas charade the week after Thanksgiving. It began with the announcement that this year he was going to be practical about my gift. Perhaps he'd build the bench in the kitchen I'd been wanting. Since I really liked the bench when he...

Thanks to my friend Tracy Farr, we have another installment of his very important advice for writers.... The final step to becoming a writer is to let someone read what you've written. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But it's not! After you've spent weeks, months or even years on your story (I limit myself to an hour, and I'm sure it's quite noticeable), the hardest thing you, the writer, can do is hand over what you think is a masterpiece to someone who may or may not like it, may or may not give you honest constructive criticism, and may or may not still be your friend depending upon what they have to say about your story. "Well, I think your opening really caught my attention, especially the part where the bad guy is chasing the good guy on a John Deere tractor through a hay meadow, looking to turn the good guy into goat feed, but I really think the second page was, how should I say it...it really sucked, and it kept sucking from that page to the end!...

What does writing have to do with music? When you are in the revision and self-editing mode with your Work In Progress (WIP), it is helpful to read it aloud, whether to yourself or to someone else. This not only helps you catch errors you might not have seen on the computer screen or printed page, but it also helps you create a musicality with your prose. “What?” you may protest. “I’m not a musician.” You don’t have to be, to create a beat or a rhythm with your sentences. You don’t want to have them all sound the same. Here’s a very simple example: He went to the cupboard. He looked at the bare shelves. He took out a can of soup. He heated it. He sat down to eat. For one thing, all the sentences begin with “He.” The second is that they all have the same rhythm or beat. To vary them, you might write something like this: Joe stared at the dusty shelves in the cupboard. Nothing but soup. He selected a can of tomato, opened it and heated it. With a deep sigh, he sat at his lone...

Terri, one of the writers who follows this blog, asked this question on our Free For All Tuesday post earlier this month: "I'm certainly not opposed to hiring an editor. I'd love one. But I realize I must do a lot of fixing up before I'm even ready for that. My question was about how a writer would go about editing after the first draft of a novel. After I get that done, I'll pray for the money to go the next step and hire an editor." I had to laugh at her comment that she would pray for the money to hire an editor. If you find some benefactors, Terri, send them my way. I need to hire an editor for my next book. I take a 3-step approach to editing after finishing the first draft, looking first at the big picture. Is the story holding together? Are the characters consistent? Does the time-line make sense? Then I start looking at individual scenes to see where things can be tightened and improved. The final go-through is for more detailed editing, mostly gra...

For a change of pace from all the serious posts on writing, I am pleased to offer this bit of nonsense from my friend, Slim Randles. While this one might not be laugh-out-loud funny, it is a bit of a groaner. Enjoy... “I can’t stand winter,” said Herb Collins, who had dropped in at the Mule Barn’s philosophy counter for a quick cup. “There’s nothing to do.” “Get out and enjoy it,” suggested Doc. “Go skiing. Go ice fishing. Build a snowman. Do something. Then you’ll feel better.” “I don’t think your advice will take,” said Dud. “Herb seems to be intransigent on this one.” We all looked at Dud. "You see, he said he couldn’t stand winter,” Dud continued, “which shows he has a proclivity for intransigence on that particular subject.” We looked at him some more. “If he were to take up a winter hobby,” he continued, “he could stop being intransigent and enjoy things more.” Even Herb was staring at him now. "I usually,” said Herb, “enjoy a proclivity in that direct...

For those of you who were following the plotting tips from Dud, I thought you might like an update on how he is doing with his book. Dud is the creation of humor columnist and author, Slim Randles, but he has become very real for the many followers of Slim's column, Home Country . I, for one, had to know if the truck driver and the duchess were ever going to get together.... “You know what we forgot to do?” Anita asked. Dud shook his head. “We forgot to dig out those promises we made to ourselves on New Years last year.” “Right,” Dud said. He was trying to remember what he’d written down as a promise to himself. Right after dinner is a bad time to be disappointed. “I can’t remember where we put them,” he said, picking up the Weekly Valley Miracle. “They’re in my desk, silly,” Anita said, brightly. “I’ll go get them.” Dud put the paper down and looked out the window at the snow where the lawn should be. He felt a little dread coming on. Not a big one, just a regular shrug-of-the-...

In looking for some old posts to link to in a new blog post, I discovered that my post about what drives this editor crazy had 43 responses. Some of them made good points that encouraged me to rethink some of my editing pet peeves, a few were personal attacks -- but okay, I'm a big girl, I can take that -- and several defended the use of ordinary, common word usage.   One responder, who doesn't have a full Google profile wrote: "It seems editors feel they MUST be picky or they're not doing their job. The things you bring up are a matter of opinion. Some readers might enjoy flowery language and some don't have great imaginations and need things spelled out for them. Should we just ignore all those people and only write for the extremely literate? Should we only write to the level of editors?"   To her, and the others who said this is all just a matter of personal opinion, I remind you to think about the craft of writing. It is not enough to get a story down...