"I want to be Stephen King!"

Full disclosure: I love King's work and admire him tremendously. He is a writer's writer who loves reading, who writes every day, who walks the walk, as they say.

Photo: Reuters

Too many writers claim to want to be King when what they really want is his money and success.  Or they want to write like him.  They want his freedom and his fans. I'm not going to tell these writers they shouldn't want these things. People write for all kinds of reasons, although honestly, if they want a guarantee of money and fame, they should probably do something else.

When I say I want to be Stephen King, I mean I want to write with passion and to touch people the way he has. His work leaves a lasting impression on readers and that is what I would like to achieve. To attempt to write "like King," writing horror stories or thrillers or gore the way he does, can only lead to a mediocre interpretation of a master. And mediocrity is not an option.

King admonishes all wannabe writers to read as much as they can.  To him, that separates the wheat from the chaff.  If you can't manage to read regularly, how can you be a good writer? And honestly, why would you want to write if you don't like to read? I teach ballet because I love to dance. If I can't pass along that passion, why do it at all?

Puberty again? or, Is My Voice Changing?

I just had a great conversation with a close friend who is also a terrific writer. Together we've shared ups and downs as we've negotiated the publishing path. As I am currently in the midst of a crisis of writing faith (should I be writing this or that or nothing at all?), she helped talk me into a place of peace.

When I related to my friend my woes of feeling uninspired by characters and storylines I previously was quite passionate about, she suggested my writing voice was changing.

"Like a 12 year old boy going through puberty?"

"Yes, exactly like that," she said and then went on to remind me that our relationships with books go through phases as we mature.  Books we found fascinating as younger people no longer interest us.  It's a rare novel that I loved as a teen or 20-something that I still love today.

It's not only our ages and life situations that change our way of writing but also the times in which we live.  How many of us want to read about swinging singles living sexy, carefree lives in Manhattan or London, shopping every day, and not caring a whit for debt or credit card bills or their aging parents? As our lives necessarily become more austere as we deal with the economy and job loss and housing crises, many of us buckle down spiritually too.  Not that we find God, but that we find our own god. We discover what's truly important in our lives: family, friends, a fine cup of coffee I can sip on a quiet morning, good health and mental well-being.

When we read books, we don't need to see characters going through the exact same situations as we are going through.  That exact mirror isn't crucial to identifying with them.  But we do need to see characters of substance that reflect our own internal crises: How do I give my kids what I had when I can't find a job? How can I care for my aging parents?  How do I find what I truly love in life when all around me is crumbling? Even when we look to Escapist Lit (books that are not contemporary realistic fiction), we don't need human characters - only human characteristics.  Stories about vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, angels, etc. may be fantasy but if they suffer as we do, we will love them.

I sat down to write what I thought would be Escapist Lit for me - I was writing the third book of a trilogy with characters that I thought I knew well and wanted to spend time with again. Easy-peasy, right? But the story was suddenly not me.  It no longer had anything to do with what I was going through - and so I couldn't relate to it anymore.  The voice had changed - my voice had changed - and I was no longer interested in telling a story in a voice that wasn't mine.

For me, Escapist Lit must be deeper in substance, the characters reflective of my need to connect with the greater world, for what is writing but a literal version of your soul? My desire to tell a story hasn't changed at all - I still love writing and have a million ideas in my head - but I'm looking for more from the time I spend at the keyboard. I'm in search of the Why...why tell this story?  Why construct this character? Why use this word?

Why write at all?

There will be a Fat Girls book 2!

For those of you who have enjoyed ALL ABOUT VEE, which is the first title in my FAT GIRLS IN LA trilogy (and if you haven't, why not give it a try? here!), I just wanted you to know that there is a second book in the series.  It's called THE RISE OF GINNY and it will be out very soon.  Also, I'm currently working on book 3, called VIVA VAL!

If you couldn't tell, each book is about each of the Vees: Veronica, Ginny and Val.  Veronica, you know, is the actor.  Ginny is the writer and Val is the model.  Each of these books takes place sequentially so Ginny's story happens directly after Veronica's ends and Val's starts not long after Ginny's ends. And of course we get to see all of the girls in each of the books so we know how their lives continue.

I'm really having fun with Val!  I don't know what I'll do when her story is over.  More Vees, perhaps?  Who knows?  There is always (Vivian) Reed, the fourth Vee who came out to LA before Big Vee did. Might she have a story to tell? Hmmm....

My hometown indie bookstore closing

I was saddened to learn of the decision to close The Alphabet Garden, a children's bookstore in Cheshire, Connecticut where I had an amazing event for my first book, LOVE, MEG (newly-released as an e-book titled, JENNIFER ANISTON IS MY BEST FRIEND).  Back in the summer of 2007, Karlene Rearick, the store's owner, held an event for my friends and family at her small store which was in the Watch Factory Shoppes at the time.  We had cupcakes and cake and I read from the book and signed lots of copies. I was incredibly nervous but it was a ton of fun. Not long after I returned to LA, I posted some photos from that signing.  It reminds me of a very special time in my life, one that I know not every author has a chance to enjoy.

A book signing for a debut author is really not for the masses, unless you're a celebrity and your first book is a juicy memoir.  Typically, the signing event is for the author and her friends and family.  They are excited for you and want to share in your book's release and since they were planning to buy the book anyway, they might as well do it as part of an event. It's fun to choose a theme that ties into the book - whether it's food or music or other entertainment - and it can be a great way for a bookstore owner to introduce her store to new customers.  So it's win-win-win for everyone.

But not all authors can do this.  First of all, the number of indie bookstores is dwindling and there's really only one chain left, B&N.  Then too, not all books are released as paper or hardcover so there may not be an actual book to sign.  And finally, they don't draw the numbers of people they used to. If you're a friend of the owner, that might be incentive enough to hold a signing.  If you're a good customer, that's another reason.  But let's be honest: with fewer stores and more e-books, chances are not good that you're a frequent customer at any store.  In fact, when I mentioned to my husband that The Alphabet Garden was closing, he said, "When was the last time you were in a bookstore?"

I don't know.  I don't have much money to spend on books, frankly, so I rely on free classics and other low-priced books from Amazon for my Kindle. I buy friends' books at their signings, of course, or as a download for my Kindle, but no, I don't go to bookstores often.  I used to love Borders but they're all gone and I never did care for B&N because they rarely stocked my books. Truth, okay?

People bemoan the demise of bookstores, and I agree with them to a certain extent.  There is a charm to stores and to physical books.  I have always loved libraries, even more than bookstores, because I could spend hours in the stacks, uninterrupted by someone asking if they could help me find something ("Yes, help me find an author I've never heard of who I will love instantly"). I discovered more authors that way.  And the thrill of seeing my own book on the stacks is indescribable.  One of the most amazing things to me in the world was seeing my titles shelved in the local library, and knowing they're available all over the world in other libraries.

A really big part of me wishes I could have continued to publish with Penguin.  I had major plans for my books and they did too - until the books didn't sell as fast as they wanted them to. But I still have plans and I still have stories to tell and I want to share them with readers.  What am I  supposed to do now that publishing isn't what it used to be?  Now that bookstores are tanking and the only books published by major publishers are high concept series, am I supposed to simply stop writing?

Here we are: five summers after my first novel was published and I held that awesome signing at The Alphabet Garden, the store is closing - and I just released the same novel as an e-book.  I'm very disappointed the store couldn't make it through this terrible economy and I wish Karlene Rearick the best of luck in whatever she does next.  I will forever be grateful for that signing in her store, for her support of me as a local(ish) author, and for all the friends and family who made it there to celebrate with me.
Adapt or perish, right?  It took me a while to accept e-books as real books and even longer to accept self-publishing as a viable alternative to traditional publishing. But I want to continue to write and to sell and to make a literary connection with other people.  So you do what you have to do.

Here's a link to the article about The Alphabet Garden's closing.  Thank you, Karlene!

Choosing character names

Ask any writer about the name of one of their characters and he or she will spend an hour talking your ear off about its genesis. It generally takes me a very long time to pick character names - sometimes I will have an idea but then I have to "vet" it:

- do I know anyone with that first or last name?
- what does the name mean in another language?
- is there a character from a more well-known book or person in popular culture that this will reference?
- and if so, is that a good or bad thing?
- how will this name fit in with the names of the character's family and friends?
- does the name begin with the same letter as any other character in the book?

That last consideration, believe it or not, is one of the most important things to me, personally.  I hate reading books in which many of the characters' names begin with the same letter and/or look similar on the page.  Even if they are pronounced very differently, names like Mary and Marie look an awful lot alike and when you're reading, your eyes may not make the distinction quickly.

When I chose to give my "Fat Girls in LA" characters names that began with the letter V, I knew that they all had to be different-looking on the page.  There's Veronica (also called Big Vee), Val, Virginia (called Ginny), and Vivian (called Reed). So Veronica is the longest name, Val the shortest and then the other two girls have nicknames that don't begin with V.  They are therefore very distinct on the page.

I also rarely choose to name characters after people I know very well (there will never be a Jay or a John or a Maurice or a Rosanne in my books unless there is a really important reason) and I rarely give someone an L name.  Inevitably, writers who name their characters something similar to their own names invite comparison to themselves.  Readers will want to know if that character is a stand-in for the writer herself.

Hint: ALL characters are stand-ins for the writer.

I recently read 2 books in which the character names were, in a word, lazy.  I could tell the writers did not put much effort into choosing the character names and as a result, I couldn't take the books seriously. Character names have to have their own backstory - you need to know what the character *is* called, what she *wants* to be called, what her nicknames might have been growing up, and so on.  All of that influences your character's personality and makes her a 3-dimensional person, someone we can believe is a real individual.

New e-book on Nook: Jennifer Aniston is My Best Friend

Hey...it's a book!  An e-book! And it's on Nook now!

(Nook now, Nook now, Nook now...that's a tongue twister!)

A few weeks ago my e-book, JENNIFER ANISTON IS MY BEST FRIEND, launched on Amazon and a whole bunch of people said, hey what about Nook?  So my Ninja Webmaster/Cowboy Book Designer just put a version up on the Nook so it's now available at Barnes & Noble's website.  Here's the link for you to head straight on over there and get a copy for yourself or buy it as a gift.

Speaking of gifts, have you had a chance to gift an e-book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble?  It's super easy.  I did it recently on both sites and it was so tempting to send a whole bunch more to other people.  And it's also super easy to loan books on Kindle.

(And by the way, my e-books are loanable because I don't believe in Digital Rights Management! You buy it, you loan it.  That's your choice.)

So in case you forgot, here's the link to my Amazon author page where you can see my e-books and e-shorts yourself.

Something Wicked This Ray Comes...

When Ray Bradbury passed away last week, the internet poured out its collective heart and soul into beautiful posts about the impact the author had on so many lives. His influence on writers, readers, television watchers, moviegoers, and theater audiences was tremendous.

I loved his "The Illustrated Man," a collection of short stories including the insanely-good "The Veldt" and of course, the amazing "The Illustrated Man." His novels "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "Dandelion Wine" always spoke to me on a child-like level.  Although our upbringings were so very different, I still felt like I could relate to his Iowa-cornfields-on-a-late-summer-night sentiments.

When I think of Bradbury's work, I feel it in my bones.  I feel the longing for something beyond us, the playfulness of never-ending childhood, the wonder of the universe.  But although he believed in the ultimate good of humanity, he never forgot how razor-thin the line was between good and evil.  In his short stories and novels, his villains might have been vanquished - or not.  They might have been us.  In many instances, such as "Fahrenheit 451" we were our own worst enemy.

I can't overstate his influence on how I write or read. The very first novel I began writing (which remains unfinished) had its beginnings in his work.  I have re-read more of his stories than I have of any other author.  When I need a strong shot of good stuff to inspire me or comfort me, I'll pick up "The Martian Chronicles."

Not long after I moved to LA, I was fortunate to meet Bradbury for the first time at a bookstore signing - for someone else's book!  It was a collection of his covers, put together by Jerry Wiest, who was there for the signing.  Bradbury came too.  He did speak but kept his part short; he was gracious about leaving the floor to Wiest since it was his show, not Bradbury's. 

I soon learned that Bradbury was - despite his age and increasing inability to get around well without assistance - incredibly generous with his time. He appeared at the same tiny book fair I did when my first novel was published.  He spoke - lovingly, passionately - about writing, about doing what you love with little regard for fame or fortune or public acceptance.  He was the embodiment of that belief.  He wrote what he wanted when he wanted.  He did TV and movies and he wrote shorts and novels - and refused to be classified as a science fiction author.  He was a fantastist, a writer of fantasy.  That he loved space and wondered about our place in the universe was secondary.

The final time I met him was at another book fair, this time in West Hollywood.  Lines, lines, lines - everyone wanted to see Ray. I didn't get as much time with him as I did at the previous smaller fair because so many people were waiting but I did tell him what a major influence he was on my books.  I told him I was at the fair because of him, because what I'd written had been published. He smiled and told me he was glad he could help me fulfill my dream "in some small way." Small?  Hardly.  A dream? Definitely.  A dream inspired by him and his writing.

Read Bradbury if you haven't already.  Find a story, a novel, a play, a movie, an episode of The Twilight Zone.  I dare you not to be inspired.