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Guest Post by Susan Mallery
For Writers

Guest Post by Susan Mallery

Susan Mallery, author of ALREADY HOME

Susan Mallery has entertained millions of readers with her witty and emotional stories of women and the relationships that move them. In her latest novel, ALREADY HOME, Jenna Stevens, still reeling from a recent divorce, is unpleasantly surprised by the arrival of her birth parents, who seem to want her to feel a family bond immediately. She was perfectly happy with the loving, traditional parents who raised her. Can she learn to love a second mother without damaging her relationship with the woman who raised her? Join Susan’s Members Only area at www.susanmallery.com for exclusive sneak peeks, short stories, and more.

Chick Lit Plus: Susan, what advice would you give to an unpublished writer who wants to break into the business?

The publishing industry is experiencing a lot of changes right now, but my advice remains the same: Write what you love to read.
You can only read what’s being published, meaning that there’s a market for that type of book. Now, if what you love to read are books that were published in the 1930s, for example, then you might have a tough time finding a market for that type of story today. So try to find books you love that are being published today. If no other author has written a book similar in theme, content, and tone to your book, then you might have a tough time selling it to a publisher.
Once readers discover you and fall in love with your writing, they’ll want more of the same type of story from you. That’s fabulous if you’re writing stories you love. But it would be confining, uncomfortable, and ultimately impossible if you published a story that doesn’t truly fit who you are.
Which is not to say that write the same story over and over again. What I mean is that readers will want to get the same emotional experience from reading your subsequent books. If you don’t like reading scary books, then don’t write one. If it’s fabulous, you could be stuck for years writing books that give you nightmares.
I started my career writing romance novels because that’s what I looooved to read. I still do, and I still adore writing them, too. Now I’m also branching out to write stories about the other relationships that touch women’s lives.
While ALREADY HOME isn’t a romance novel, I do fulfill the promises I have made over the years to my readers: They will get an emotionally complex story with characters who feel like real people, a lot of laughs along the way, and a satisfying ending. (There are romantic subplots, too, so readers who love love will get plenty of sigh-worthy moments.)

April 12, 2011
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Guest Post by Michael Baron: Writing Fiction
For Writers

Guest Post by Michael Baron: Writing Fiction

Writing fiction isn’t like competing in the Olympics in terribly many ways. This is, for the most part, a good thing, as my training regimen falls a tiny bit short of Olympic standards (actually, it’s just this side of couch potato standards). One way in which they’re similar, though, is that, like many Olympic participants, writers get extra credit for degree of difficulty.

I’ve always shot for a certain degree of difficulty with my novels. In When You Went Away, I tried to express an entire father-daughter relationship through journal entries. In Crossing the Bridge, I created a major character that readers don’t see speak until one of the last chapters of the novel. In The Journey Home, I doubled down on degree of difficulty (do I get extra points for alliteration?) by having one viewpoint character with dementia and another with amnesia. Now, in my new novel, Spinning, I tried writing a romantic story where the protagonist falls in love twice.

Writing friends advised me that this was a risky move. There are certain conventions to love stories, they told me. One of these is that you can’t ask readers to invest in two relationships involving the same guy. Come on, I thought, is that really tougher than landing a triple axel/double salchow combination in figure skating? Since I can barely stand up on skates, I can’t answer that question, but I do know that it was tougher than I expected. The novel begins with Dylan, our protagonist, opening the door of his apartment in the middle of the night to find Diane, an old lover, and her three-year-old daughter on the other side. Over the first portion of the novel, they rekindle their relationship and truly fall in love this time. But soon tragedy strikes and Diane is gone. Then, somewhere around the middle of the novel, Dylan falls in love with a close friend, leading to all kinds of complications.

When I laid out this plot, I figured I’d have no problem with the two-love-affair issue. It all worked out rather neatly on the Excel spreadsheet I use to storyboard novels. When I started writing Dylan and Diane’s relationship, however, I really liked the way they were together. I wanted to see them make it. If I wanted to see them make it, were readers going to want to see them make it as well? How were they going to feel about the fact that they don’t make it? How were they going to feel about Dylan when he lets himself fall in love again so quickly? Would readers give their hearts to this new relationship if I broke their hearts over the previous one?

This required quite a bit of finessing. In the end, I think I found a way to make both relationships work. Did I get enough rotation on my turns, though? Did I stick the landing? Did I enter the pool with the minimal amount of splash? That’s up to readers to decide, but I hope they’ll give me at least a bit of extra credit for degree of difficulty.

April 1, 2011
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Guest Post by Cavanaugh Lee
For Writers

Guest Post by Cavanaugh Lee

Chick Lit Plus – Guest Blog
How To Balance Writing with a Day Job

My first novel, SAVE AS DRAFT, was released on February 1, 2011. I spent the past week in my home town, San Francisco, promoting the book and I just flew back to Savannah, Georgia, my current state of residence, where I had the honor of speaking to a bunch of aspiring writers this weekend. I head to Atlanta on Tuesday where SAD (as those of us in-the-know appropriately call it for short) is set. All in all, it’s been a whirlwind of a week. Had anyone told me a couple years back that I would one day walk into my local Barnes & Noble and see my dream come true – my book on the shelf at the front of the store – I would have, well, laughed out loud.

For any writer, you’ll never have a moment like it. I’m an attorney by day (a federal prosecutor), and the closest I’ve come to feeling like I felt at B&N was when I won my first criminal trial. I was an idealistic new prosecutor (I still am) when I heard the jury read the verdict aloud – “Guilty”. I sat there stunned as my co-counsel, a very seasoned trial attorney, leaned over and whispered into my ear: “Take it in. You’ll never have a first again. It’ll always feel slightly different after this.”

I’ve often wondered if he’s right. Will it feel different after SAD? I only have one book to go on so I only know how it feels now. And it’s a thrill!

It’s also simultaneously hard and wonderful to go back to your day job. I haven’t officially returned to prosecuting full-time as I still have another week and a half to promote SAD. I took two weeks off from work to devote to promotion. I did, however, return to my office for one day – last Friday – to make sure that none of my cases had imploded, check voicemails, respond to emails, etc. As I walked inside, I felt a tremendous surge of excitement and fear. And fatigue… I was pretty darn tired.

For the last year, those three words have summarized the process of writing a book while working a challenging day job, all at the same time: excitement, fear, and fatigue. It’s tough. Tough, I tell you. But, all you writers reading this already know what I’m talking about – unless you are fortunate enough to be either independently wealthy or married to a millionaire. Alas I have neither so I kept my day job.

Oddly enough, that is the question I’ve been asked the most while promoting SAD: Are you going to keep your day job as you write your second book? My immediate response was always the same:

“I would be presumptuous to assume that there will be a second book although I sure as heck hope there will be one (I mean, two). And, I would be even more presumptuous to assume that I would be paid a “Stephanie Meyer advance.” These sorts of things just don’t happen too often. So, my assumption (and presumption) is that I will likely have to keep my day job while I write my second book. Sigh…”

But is it really a “sigh”…? If a genie in a bottle granted me one wish – to be able to write full time and quit my day job – would I do it? My answer is:

I don’t know.

I don’t know?! Shouldn’t it be a resounding YES??!!!

I don’t know…

When speaking to fifteen aspiring writers yesterday, that same question was posed to me yet again:

“Are you going to quit your day job if given the chance?”

One woman volunteered:

“I mean, that’s every writer’s dream. Harper Lee’s sister and brother gave her enough money to live on for a year while she finished TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. That is the greatest gift that any writer could be given.”

Hmm. I thought about that for the rest of the day. Is that really the greatest gift that any writer could be given? A year off to do nothing but write… I think it isn’t. The greatest gift that any writer can be given, that was given to me two years ago, is this:

A great story.

Maybe the second greatest gift any writer could be given is a year off to write. Although I’m not so sure about that even. As hard as it is to work two full-time jobs, I don’t know how well I’d write if it became a “luxury.” Isn’t there some truth to the saying, “the greatest inspiration is often born of desperation?” Didn’t Hemingway write his best when he was over-worked, poor, and sleeping on a couch at The Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris? Of course, there is Harper Lee…

I just don’t know.

What I do know is this: I wrote SAVE AS DRAFT while working full-time as an attorney. I stuck to my schedule like glue – I practiced law Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 6 PM, and I wrote from 7 to 11:30 PM; on the weekends, I wrote five to eight hours. I rarely strayed from my rigid plan. I turned down late nights out with my friends at cool new bars. I declined dates from possible suitors, thereby eradicating any semblance of a love life from inception. I skipped out early on holiday dinners to go back to typing away on my laptop. I did (or didn’t do) all of these things except for one:

I did not quit my day job, nor did it even occur to me to lessen my caseload.

Why? Because our day jobs keep us grounded, remind us what is “for real,” and preserve our honest outlook on life and everything that comes along with it. Sometimes our day jobs can even inspire our writing. My story for SAD in many ways was borne from my day job two years ago. And I have a feeling my second book will follow a similar pattern. While it’s hard… so hard… to live on a little less sleep at night in order to get that chapter finished and somehow squeeze it in between cooking dinner and watching an episode of “Modern Family,” if you manage to do it – and do it successfully – you’ll appreciate the result all the more.

Yes, the greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.

Let’s face it, how desperate can one really be when she has everything she’s ever wanted in life in front of her computer screen?

So, back to that Barnes & Noble… and Harper Lee… You cannot imagine my joy at seeing that my first book – the one I wrote while working hard prosecuting crimes and fighting hard to keep our streets a safer place – was somehow miraculously placed on the bookshelf right next to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD…

(INSERT PICTURE)

Wow. Wonders never cease…

So to all of you who have to work a full-time day job in order to reach your dreams at night, I applaud you! It’s so worth it.

February 11, 2011
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Guest Post by Author Lou Aronica
For Writers

Guest Post by Author Lou Aronica

Back in the mid-seventies, Elvin Bishop released the now-classic hit “Fooled Around And Fell In Love.” Since I wasn’t in the publishing business (or any business, for that matter) in the mid-seventies, I assume Bishop had something else in mind (I don’t know, perhaps romantic love?) when he penned this tune. However, the title adequately sums up my experience with the business side of the book world.

When I graduated college, I intended to get a job as a high school teacher. However, the economy was dreadful, school budgets were especially bad, and there were no teaching jobs to be had. As a fallback, I sent my resume to every book publisher in New York, and Bantam Books hired me. From the time I’d been a teenager, it had been my ambition to be a writer, so it seemed to make sense to work in a place that dealt with lots of writers. Still, I didn’t intend to stay in this field for long. My expectation was that I’d either get a teaching job eventually, or I’d start writing books. Either way, I assumed I was only going to be dabbling in the publishing biz.

But then I fooled around and fell in love. I was only weeks into my first position – a dreadful job that required me to cart cover materials from one executive’s office to another’s for approval in the days before the electronic conveyance of such materials – when some of those executives started talking to me. They’d ask my opinions of the covers, ask whether I’d read the book in question, and ask my thoughts about books in general, and I found these conversations far more interesting than I imagined they would be. My love for the business end of the industry started then. It ratcheted up several levels a few years later when I started editing books. Working directly with writers to help them craft their stories was the best kind of work I could imagine, as was doing everything I could do within the organization to make sure each writer had a high profile in the house.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t “fooling around” any longer. I was flat-out in love with the field and everything that came with it. Admittedly, some parts of the job were more appealing than others. Eating in four-star restaurants three or four times a week to court agents, for instance, or going to benefit film premieres. But even the budget meetings and paperwork had some appeal because the end product meant so much to me. I became so attached to this side of the business that it was twenty-four years before I published my own first book.

Ultimately, I decided that the daily commute to New York from my home in Connecticut was causing me to miss too much time with my family, and I embarked on a full-time writing career. In 2008, I stepped back over to the publishing side while continuing to write with the launch of the independent house, The Story Plant. And then, when I decided that I wanted to publish my new novel, Blue myself, I set up an entire publishing imprint, The Fiction Studio, to do so, and the slate of writers for that program is growing quickly.

These days, I spend about half of my time writing and the other half publishing. For me, nothing appeals to me more than writing fiction, even when a novel like Blue takes six years to come to completion. Publishing is a very, very close second, though. My love for it has never faded.

January 3, 2011
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Guest Post: For Love of Writing by Donna VanLiere
For Writers

Guest Post: For Love of Writing by Donna VanLiere

For Love of Writing
Donna VanLiere
The Christmas Journey
www.donnavanliere.com

At every writer’s seminar or symposium you’ll hear someone from a publishing house or literary agency say to write about you love or what you know. Red Smith, the first sportswriter to win the Pulitzer Prize, said, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” That’s easier said than done and impossible to do unless you’re pouring your heart into the words and writing about you know.

It’s those books, the ones that come from the place of knowing that are the ones worth reading—ones where the writer poured herself into the writing. Those are the novels that touch the reader to the core, prompting her to care more deeply or give more generously. Those are the stories that reach the far places of the reader’s heart making her angry at injustice or more passionate about the homeless. Eloquence and style have their place but for my money I’d rather read a book that was written with passion because it’s within those pages that I feel something.

In Hebrew, the word dabar means both word and action. A good book shouldn’t just say something but make you feel something. When I give a book away as a gift it’s always because the book did something to me. As a writer, you should always ask yourself, “What do I want the reader to feel?” because it’s not all about the words. There’s more. There’s helping the reader feel a little wiser, a little less alone, a little less afraid, a heap more grateful, a little more understanding, patient or loving, a bit more human and a lot more alive. Those are the books worth reading and the only ones worth writing.

December 14, 2010
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Why Should You Hire An Editor?
For Writers

Why Should You Hire An Editor?

When I first started taking my writing seriously, I pounded out a rough draft in a few short months. I read it over, made a few changes, and thought it was perfect. Time to start agent querying, right? So wrong. I read on a few different blogs that you should always have someone else read through your work before you start the query process, so I found a writing contest, entered, and paid $40 to have an editor give me a critique on my first chapter and synopsis. The response came back positive; I was told I was a good writer with a definite story-telling ability, but that my characters needed some tweaking and possibly my plot a new direction.
I was so confused! I thought my manuscript was perfect and I would have agents lining up to represent me. I asked a few Twitter friends to critique my first chapter for me, and their comments came back similar to what the editor had said. Before I began writing, I didn’t have any professional training in the world of fiction. I focused, signed up for workshops and seminars, bought books on writing and editing, and began the process of learning how to be a great writer. Now, I am hard at work on my fourth rewrite of my manuscript, and finally can really grasp character development, the mechanics of dialogue, syntax, proportion, and so much more!
So why should you hire an editor? Perhaps you are like me last year, new to all things writing and publishing, and need some guidance along the way. Without having this editor and my virtual friends look over my chapters for me, I would have started querying agents who probably would have laughed at my work! Another great reason for hiring an editor is simply to have a fresh set of eyes looking at your writing. Writers become invested in the characters, they know how they will act, interact, fight, love, etc., so it can become increasingly difficult for the writer to see flaws. Readers will find them easily, and they can be a huge distraction, possibly even having the reader give up on the book.
As an editor, I read through your manuscript one time, just simply reading. If anything real jarring stands out, I will make note of it, but the first read-through I am just getting to know your story, your characters, and your voice. The second time I read through is the in-depth session, where I will make notes on anything that I think doesn’t work in the story. I don’t want my critiques to be all negative of course, so I also add the elements I think work and should be kept. My goal is to never re-write your scenes, instead give you a fresh take to help you go back and edit your own work. I don’t believe editors should go in and change everything on your manuscript. I think editors should give opinions and suggestions, but in the end, help the writers understand, so eventually they can do the majority of editing themselves.
I can say with conviction that hiring an editor was the best choice I made in my writing. Without her help, I would have continued thinking my first draft was the best I could do, without understanding why readers wouldn’t be as invested in the story. I hope that you will give a serious thought to hiring an editor, whether it is myself or someone else, because I believe than can be a huge asset to your writing career. If you would like to contact me regarding my editing services, please email me at Samantha (at) chicklitplus (dot) com.

November 21, 2010
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Guest Post from Author Heather Wardell
Chick Lit Authors

Guest Post from Author Heather Wardell

I don’t believe in writing absolute garbage just to have words on the page, but I also don’t believe in editing while writing a first draft. I’ll write, “Ian smelled great” in the first draft, and by the final draft it’ll be, “I closed my eyes and breathed in Ian’s scent of fabric softener and lumber. Only the wife of a carpenter would find the smell of wood sexy.” The short version is fine for a first draft, and it avoids me sitting there staring at the screen or page trying to find the perfect words. The first draft isn’t about perfect words. It’s about words that do the job.

So how do you get from “Ian smelled great” to the more detailed lines? Here’s how I do it.

This picture shows a page from one of my current projects, which I plan to release in early 2011. The main character, Mary, has just been turned down for her dream chef job and is now camping out on the restaurant’s doorstep until the owner Kegan agrees to hire her. On this particular page, Mary goes to a nearby coffee shop and is then confronted by one of Kegan’s staff members.

Note that I am working on a print-out, double-spaced and single-sided, of the manuscript. It might seem like a waste of paper, but take a look at how many notes I’ve added (and this is an average page, not one with unusually high changes). Trying to squish those into tiny margins would make the process impossible.

I use my own code to mark up the pages. There’s a “No P” scrawled about halfway down, which means that I don’t want a new paragraph there, and “New P” in the second last paragraph where I do want one. There are official proofreading markings out there, but I find them too hard to remember. These are just for me so I can use whatever I want.

Before going through the book scene-by-scene, I like to read the entire book top to bottom. I do my best not to fiddle with or peek at the manuscript between revisions, so this read brings it back to my mind and also lets me get an overview of what’s really on the page instead of what I think I’ve written. It’s amazing how different those two can be.

After that, I start with the first scene and read it sentence by sentence. At least, I try to. In practice I bounce around the page, making a correction in sentence five and then going back to change the change when I hit sentence eight. But I do give each sentence my full attention at least once.

I’m watching for emotions and physical sensations and people’s movement in space. I’m making sure that I haven’t over-complicated a situation. (In the first draft I had Mary carrying a cushion around so she didn’t have to sit on the cold concrete in the rain. I removed it because it didn’t add anything but an unnecessary prop.)

I’m also analyzing how I’ve put the words together: if I repeat words or re-use a structure, I want to be sure I’ve done it intentionally. (I learned so much about this from Margie Lawson’s “Deep EDITS” online course; while I don’t use her actual editing technique I still refer to my notes for the rhetorical devices that can add such depth and interest to writing.)

Be especially vigilant in the early scenes. Finding a character’s voice can take a while, and I for one tend to do the written equivalent of running around in circles yelling, “Hey, where are you?” at the beginning of a book, which results in a lot of unnecessary elements.

When I’ve finished a scene, I type it in right away. (Take another look at the notes above. If I left it until I’d finished the whole book, I’d have no idea what I was trying to do!) I don’t type mindlessly, though. I read as I go and pay careful attention, and often change a word here or there as I enter the corrections.

After the typing, I re-read the scene, out loud if I can and in my head if I can’t, to make sure it all flows, and then it’s on to the next.

I won’t bore you with the second draft of the entire page shown above, but I will give you the before-and-after versions of the last few paragraphs.

First draft:
“He’s said it himself and it didn’t make any difference.”

She squatted down in front of me. “I’ve worked for Kegan since he opened Steel, longer than anyone else here. So listen up. What you’re doing is pointless. If you think he’s going to feel bad because you look so pathetic–”

“I don’t think that.”

Second draft:
I wouldn’t have expected him to do such a thing. “He’s said it himself and it didn’t make any difference. Why does he think sending you would work better?”

She didn’t bother answering. “I’ve worked for Kegan since he opened Steel, longer than anyone else here. So listen up. What you’re doing is pointless. He’ll never hire you. He said as much yesterday when we asked why you were out here.”

My stomach twisted at this revelation. He really didn’t plan to hire me if he’d told his staff. But she’d probably pass along whatever response I gave, so I made myself smile and say, “We’ll see.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you think he’s going to feel bad because you look so pathetic–”

“I don’t think that.”

You can see that I did make additional changes as I typed in the corrections, adding a few short sentences and reorganizing some words. I view the typing stage as one more chance to make the book shine.

This book’s edit took me about seven weeks (I work Monday-Friday) and I did about ten pages a day. It’s tiring, and occasionally frustrating when the right word just won’t come to mind, but it’s important. This is a tough industry, and you don’t want to send out your book with any rough edges that might bother agents and editors. If you choose to self-publish instead, you still need a thoroughly edited book written to the highest standard you can reach, because readers deserve that. Put in the time and you’ll be amazed at how wonderful your book can be!

November 4, 2010
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Guest Post by Author Karen White
Chick Lit Authors

Guest Post by Author Karen White

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN

Not too long ago, I was driving in my convertible with the top down (and my little dog in his car seat in the back seat) and a large hawk appeared from out of nowhere, approaching at a ‘v’ trajectory until wham!—he hit the side passenger door. I was stunned (as was my dog—although I believe he was a little relieved, too, that the hawk hadn’t made it inside the car). Despite the damage to my car and the attempt on my dog’s life, the most upsetting thing about the whole incident was that I must have appeared invisible. To a hawk. Isn’t there an expression “eyes like a hawk”??
I usually wouldn’t be so paranoid except for the fact that it keeps happening! I recently made a drastic change to my hair color. My hairdresser loved it, I loved it and when I got home…nothing. My husband didn’t say anything. My children didn’t say anything. My dog remained silent, too, the traitor.
And then it was everywhere—at four-way stops people would proceed through the intersection as if I wasn’t there. Was it my imagination, or were people not responding to my emails as quickly as they used to? And why did my husband wait until bedtime to let me know that I had a smear of toothpaste on my forehead—something I’d apparently had on my face all day, including the time spent sitting across from him at the dinner table?
So where am I going with this and how does it relate to my writing (besides giving me tons of material to work with for future novels)? Basically, it’s justification for my answer to the question, “Do you ever bring your family with you on book tour or other book events?” In a word, “no.”
In a few weeks, I will be speaking in front of about 650 readers in another city as part of my book tour for my November release, FALLING HOME. I’m also booked to speak with lots of book clubs, do magazine, television and radio interviews, and appear at quite a few bookstores where I’ll meet and chat with readers who actually believe that I’m interesting enough to make them want to leave the comfort of their houses to come meet me! In other words, I will be basking in being visible.
I guess I’m admitting to living a double life. In one, I’m a mild-mannered housewife who carpools, drags recalcitrant children to hair and dental appointments, and does so much laundry I’m thinking of moving my desk into the laundry room. In that life, the people I live with (husband, two children, dog) are vaguely aware that I have some kind of hobby that has something to do with books. Their main concern is that they have clean underwear when they need it.
In my second life, I’m a sort-of celebrity who sometimes gets recognized in malls and cruise ships (yes, that’s happened twice), and whose books have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. I actually get paid to speak, and have even been known to have a captive audience of several hundred laugh at my jokes! Booksellers are happy to meet me and invite me to their stores to come speak and sign my books and I get to stay in some really cool hotels with spas. I’m never even expected to be within 300 feet of a laundry room!
So, really, why would I want to mix the two? I actually enjoy being visible. Meeting booksellers and readers is one of the best parts of my job, as is getting to dress up like a girl and wear heels and makeup. I could do that all day—if only I didn’t have to actually spend time writing. 
To be honest, though, it’s also always good to come home; to sleep in familiar sheets, to pull on my favorite sweats, and curl up in my writing chair with my dog and favorite coffee mug. Occasionally, my children and husband actually notice me and say something nice (usually as a precursor for a request for money or clean socks, but still) and they’ll even include me on fun family vacations!
I have to admit that my two lives coexist happily in my head, and I can’t imagine my life without both. One allows me to follow my dream of writing books, and the other allows me to share them with readers. I love them both, and I hope I’m lucky enough to live this double life for a long time. Or at least until my family finds a way to get dirty laundry to me when I’m on book tour.

November 2, 2010
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