Two Pages Away From Greatness There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. Flannery O'Conner

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Dawn

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Dec 13, 2006

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Saturday, November 03, 2007

Yes alien pods have taken over and made me post.
Category: Writing and Poetry

It has been too long since I posted. I got busy around summer residency for school and then then the more time passed the more I avoided posting. I get that way about writing too. When I finally do it, it think "That wasn't so bad, so why did I wait so long?" I'm a procrastinator. It is my nature.

The semester has been going well (only one left after this!!). I have Ann Cummins this semester and she has been great. I've been lucky to have good professors who get to the problem with my writing right away. It would be great if the problem wasn't the main character's personality, but like Fitzgerald said "Better to hear it from a friend than read it in the New York Times." Not that the Times is going to review me any time soon.

My literary novel is on hold for the moment. I'm going to revise it for my master's thesis and there is no point in continuing to submit until I've re-worked the main character. My mystery is being revamped because I'm changing the main character and the story line some. Introducing 2 new characters and tweaking a few others. I hope to finish it by the end of the year so I can devote all of next semester to the rewrite of the literary novel and getting my craft seminar ready for my final residency.

Family life has been busy. My 2 yr old is very active now and I've started working 4 days a week now instead of 2, so the day gets away from me before I realize it. I also go a little Martha Stewart crazy during the holidays (starting with Halloween) and decorate everything that doesn't move. I've got to get serious with a writing schedule so I don't fritter the time away with making pilgrim bonnets and Chrsitmas snowflakes!

Currently reading :
Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers
By Sarah Stone
Release date: 05 October, 2004

10:24 AM - 0 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

I'm posting...is it a sign of endtimes?
Category: Writing and Poetry

I have been very bad about blogging as of late, haven't I? I haven't worked as much these last few weeks and work is where I do most of my posting. My daughter has entered this phase where she takes off her diapers if she isn't constantly supervised. I will spare you the gory details, but let's just say I'm glad I have an industrial steam cleaner. As she progresses into the potty trained phase my productivity should skyrocket!
I got a good final critique from my professor. He really liked the final chapter (that took me months to write). Now if I could only make my heroine more likable ( he thinks she's whiny and bitchy)...really how hard is it to rewrite the book and change the main character?? Probably not that terrible. I wrote the first draft of the novel in a year, but the revision took almost two. I have intentionally not worked on the book for 2 reasons: 1) It's already with publishers and if someone buys it I wanted to wait and see what the editor wanted changed. 2) I got to where I hated the book. I wanted to kill all the characters off in one firey crash or explosion. Perhaps a violent storm. Not the best mindset to be in when doing a revision. I'm letting the book sit for awhile, maybe even another semester. Get another round of comments of the last chapters and then go at it one more time. I'm going to use the novel for my thesis, so even if it doesn't sell it will be worth putting in the additional work.
I encountered a minor issue when critiquing a manuscript for a Sisters In Crime group about the use of "blonde vs blond". I'm a stickler for the traditional usage of blonde for females and blond for males--mainly for clarity. Another person commented that Random House Dictionary said blond was acceptable for females. I don't think the comment applied to this manuscript because the author used both forms (some men were blonde and another blond), so it was a lack of consistency that caused confusion. But what about consistent use of blonde or blond for either gender. My first question is : Did Random House say it was acceptable because so many people incorrectly use it that is has become acceptable? Is is some sort of anti-French grammatical backlash? And, even if something is acceptable in main-stream usage, is it okay for writers? If adhereing to grammar rules wasn't important to writers why are there so many style guides? I understand that language is fluid and that we manipulate grammar and syntax for creative purposes, but when does it become laziness? When does the word irregardless become acceptable? Why has normalcy replaced normality? Perhaps I am over-sensitive about grammar rules. I was a biology major. I haven't had a grammar class since the 6th grade, so when I learn a grammar rule I like to use it. It makes me feel more writerly, more professional. When these rules can suddenly be tossed aside I feel cheated. It isn't like I have my firm grasp of comma and semi colon usage to fall back on (as if you couldn't tell).  I need my blond/blonde, Scotch/scotch, who/whom. I've learned them and now I want to dazzle others with my vast grammatical knowledge. It is the same feeling I got when I learned the 4 kingdoms in Biology 101 my freshman year  and then found out in my senior year that they were going to make only 3 kingdoms. Bacteria are animals?? What's next? Talking blonde chimps named George?

5:54 AM - 3 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Easy Fix
Category: Writing and Poetry

I'm posting this article from Absolute Write Newsletter on editing your writing. There are lots of great tips for new writers and a checklist for those of us who may have forgotten. Still nothing back on the manuscript yet. No news is good news! I'm looking forward to the residency at Queens University next month (even if I am way behind on my reading...as usual), but I'm sorry the program is going by so fast. It's hard to believe that I only have a year left, and then I have to find a real job--and I was just getting into Noggin's cartoon lineup. By the way, am I the only one who wonders where Max & Ruby's parents are and why Dora's parents let her run all over creation with a possibly rabid monkey?


Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See

(But Can Easily Fix When They Do)

By Pat Holt

Like many editorial consultants, I've been concerned about the amount of time I've been spending on easy fixes that the author shouldn't have to pay for.

Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic. But most of the time the author either missed that day's grammar lesson in elementary school or is too close to the manuscript to make corrections before I see it.

So the following is a list I'll be referring to people *before* they submit anything in writing to anybody (me, agent, publisher, your mom, your boss). From e-mail messages and front-page news in the New York Times to published books and magazine articles, the 10 ouchies listed here crop up everywhere. They're so pernicious that even respected Internet columnists are not immune.

The list also could be called, "10 COMMON PROBLEMS THAT DISMISS YOU AS AN AMATEUR," because these mistakes are obvious to literary agents and editors, who may start wording their decline letter by page 5. What a tragedy that would be.

So here we go:

  1. REPEATS
    Just about every writer unconsciously leans on a "crutch" word. Hillary Clinton's repeated word is "eager" (can you believe it? the committee that wrote Living History should be ashamed). Cosmopolitan magazine editor Kate White uses "quickly" over a dozen times in A Body To Die For. Jack Kerouac's crutch word in On the Road is "sad," sometimes doubly so - "sad, sad." Ann Packer's in The Dive from Clausen's Pier is "weird."

    Crutch words are usually unremarkable. That's why they slip under editorial radar - they're not even worth repeating, but there you have it, pop, pop, pop, up they come. Readers, however, notice them, get irked by them and are eventually distracted by them, and down goes your book, never to be opened again.

    But even if the word is unusual, and even if you use it differently when you repeat it, don't: Set a higher standard for yourself even if readers won't notice. In Jennifer Egan's Look at Me, the core word - a good word, but because it's good, you get *one* per book - is "abraded." Here's the problem:

"Victoria's blue gaze abraded me with the texture of ground glass." page 202
"...(metal trucks abrading the concrete)..." page 217
"...he relished the abrasion of her skepticism..." page 256
"...since his abrasion with Z ..." page 272

The same goes for repeats of several words together - a phrase or sentence that may seem fresh at first, but, restated many times, draws attention from the author's strengths. Sheldon Siegel nearly bludgeons us in his otherwise witty and articulate courtroom thriller, Final Verdict with a sentence construction that's repeated throughout the book:

"His tone oozes self-righteousness when he says..." page 188
"His voice is barely audible when he says..." page 193
"His tone is unapologetic when he says..." page 199
"Rosie keeps her tone even when she says..." page 200
"His tone is even when he says..." page 205
"I switch to my lawyer voice when I say ..." page 211
"He sounds like Grace when he says..." page 211

What a tragedy. I'm not saying all forms of this sentence should be lopped off. Lawyers find their rhythm in the courtroom by phrasing questions in the same or similar way. It's just that you can't do it too often on the page. After the third or fourth or 16th time, readers exclaim silently, "Where was the editor who shoulda caught this?" or "What was the author thinking?"

So if you are the author, don't wait for the agent or house or even editorial consultant to catch this stuff *for* you. Attune your eye now. Vow to yourself, NO REPEATS.

And by the way, even deliberate repeats should always be questioned: "Here are the documents," says one character. "If these are the documents, I'll oppose you," says another. A repeat like that just keeps us on the surface. Figure out a different word; or rewrite the exchange. Repeats rarely allow you to probe deeper.

 

  1. FLAT WRITING
    "He wanted to know but couldn't understand what she had to say, so he waited until she was ready to tell him before asking what she meant."

    Something is conveyed in this sentence, but who cares? The writing is so flat, it just dies on the page. You can't fix it with a few replacement words - you have to give it depth, texture, character. Here's another:

    "Bob looked at the clock and wondered if he would have time to stop for gas before driving to school to pick up his son after band practice." True, this could be important - his wife might have hired a private investigator to document Bob's inability to pick up his son on time - and it could be that making the sentence bland invests it with more tension. (This is the editorial consultant giving you the benefit of the doubt.) Most of the time, though, a sentence like this acts as filler. It gets us from A to B, all right, but not if we go to the kitchen to make a sandwich and find something else to read when we sit down.

    Flat writing is a sign that you've lost interest or are intimidated by your own narrative. It shows that you're veering toward mediocrity, that your brain is fatigued, that you've lost your inspiration. So use it as a lesson. When you see flat writing on the page, it's time to rethink, refuel and rewrite.

 

  1. EMPTY ADVERBS
    Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally - these and others are words that promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the meaning out of every sentence.

    I defer to People magazine for larding its articles with empty adverbs. A recent issue refers to an "incredibly popular, groundbreakingly racy sitcom." That's tough to say even when your lips aren't moving.

    In Still Life with Crows, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child describe a mysterious row of corn in the middle of a field: "It was, in fact, the only row that actually opened onto the creek." Here are two attempts at emphasis ("in fact," "actually"), but they just junk up the sentence. Remove them both and the word "only" carries the burden of the sentence with efficiency and precision.

    (When in doubt, try this mantra: Precise and spare; precise and spare; precise and spare.)

    In dialogue, empty adverbs may sound appropriate, even authentic, but that's because they've crept into American conversation in a trendy way. If you're not watchful, they'll make your characters sound wordy, infantile and dated.

    In Julia Glass's Three Junes, a character named Stavros is a forthright and matter-of-fact guy who talks to his lover without pretense or affectation. But when he mentions an offbeat tourist souvenir, he says, "It's absolutely wild. I love it." Now he sounds fey, spoiled, superficial. (Granted, "wild" nearly does him in; but "absolutely" is the killer.)

    The word "actually" seems to emerge most frequently, I find. Ann Packer's narrator recalls running in the rain with her boyfriend, "his hand clasping mine as if he could actually make me go fast." Delete "actually" and the sentence is more powerful without it.

    The same holds true when the protagonist named Miles hears some information in Empire Falls by Richard Russo. "Actually, Miles had no doubt of it," we're told. Well, if he had no doubt, remove "actually" - it's cleaner, clearer that way. "Actually" mushes up sentence after sentence; it gets in the way every time. I now think it should *never* be used.

    Another problem with empty adverbs: You can't just stick them at the beginning of a sentence to introduce a general idea or wishful thinking, as in "Hopefully, the clock will run out." Adverbs have to modify a verb or other adverb, and in this sentence, "run out" ain't it.

    Look at this hilarious clunker from The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: "Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino."

    Ack, "almost inconceivably" - that's like being a little bit infertile! Hopefully, that "enormous albino" will ironically go back to actually flogging himself while incredibly saying his prayers continually.

 

  1. PHONY DIALOGUE
    Be careful of using dialogue to advance the plot. Readers can tell when characters talk about things they already know, or when the speakers appear to be having a conversation for our benefit. You never want one character to imply or say to the other, "Tell me again, Bruce: What are we doing next?"

    Avoid words that are fashionable in conversation. Ann Packer's characters are so trendy the reader recoils. "'What's up with that?' I said. 'Is this a thing [love affair]?'" "We both smiled." 'What is it with him?' I said. 'I mean, really.'" Her book is only a few years old, and already it's dated.

    Dialogue offers glimpses into character the author can't provide through description. Hidden wit, thoughtful observations, a shy revelation, a charming aside all come out in dialogue, so the characters *show* us what the author can't *tell* us. But if dialogue helps the author distinguish each character, it also nails the culprit who's promoting a hidden agenda by speaking out of character.

    An unfortunate pattern within the dialogue in Three Junes, by the way, is that all the male characters begin to sound like the author's version of Noel Coward - fey, acerbic, witty, superior, puckish, diffident. Pretty soon the credibility of the entire novel is shot. You owe it to each character's unique nature to make every one of them an original.

    Now don't tell me that because Julia Glass won the National Book Award, you can get away with lack of credibility in dialogue. Setting your own high standards and sticking to them - being proud of *having* them - is the mark of a pro. Be one, write like one, and don't cheat.

 

  1. NO-GOOD SUFFIXES
    Don't take a perfectly good word and give it a new backside so it functions as something else. The New York Times does this all the time. Instead of saying, "as a director, she is meticulous," the reviewer will write, "as a director, she is known for her meticulousness." Until she is known for her obtuseness.

    The "ness" words cause the eye to stumble, come back, reread: Mindlessness, characterlessness, courageousness, statuesqueness, preciousness - you get the idea. You might as well pour marbles into your readers' mouths. Not all "ness" words are bad - goodness, no - but they are all suspect.

    The "ize" words are no better - finalize, conceptualize, fantasize, categorize. The "ize" hooks itself onto words as a short-cut but stays there like a parasite. Cops now say to each other about witnesses they've interrogated, "Did you statementize him?" Some shortcut. Not all "ize" words are bad, either, but they do have the ring of the vulgate to them - "he was brutalized by his father," "she finalized her report." Just try to use them rarely.

    Adding "ly" to "ing" words has a little history to it. Remember the old Tom Swifties? "I hate that incision," the surgeon said cuttingly. "I got first prize!" the boy said winningly. But the point to a good Tom Swiftie is to make a punchline out of the last adverb. If you do that in your book, the reader is unnecessarily distracted. Serious writing suffers from such antics.

    Some "ingly" words do have their place. I can accept "swimmingly," "annoyingly," "surprisingly" as descriptive if overlong "ingly" words. But not "startlingly," "harrowingly" or "angeringly," "careeningly" - all hell to pronounce, even in silence, like the "groundbreakingly" used by People magazine above. Try to use all "ingly" words (can't help it) sparingly.

 

  1. THE 'TO BE' WORDS:
    Once your eye is attuned to the frequent use of the "to be" words - "am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "be," "being," "been" and others - you'll be appalled at how quickly they flatten prose and slow your pace to a crawl.

    The "to be" words represent the existence of things - "I am here. You are there." Think of Hamlet's query, "to be, or not to be." To exist is not to act, so the "to be" words pretty much just there sit on the page. "I am the maid." "It was cold." "You were away."

    I blame mystery writers for turning the "to be" words into a trend: Look how much burden is placed on the word "was" in this sentence: "Around the corner, behind the stove, under the linoleum, was the gun." All the suspense of finding the gun dissipates. The "to be" word is not fair to the gun, which gets lost in a sea of prepositions.

    Sometimes, "to be" words do earn a place in writing: "In a frenzy by now, he pushed the stove away from the wall and ripped up the linoleum. Cold metal glinted from under the floorboards. He peered closer. Sure enough, it was the gun." Okay, I'm lousy at this, but you get the point: Don't squander the "to be" words - save them for special moments.

    Not so long ago, "it was" *defined* emphasis. Even now, if you want to say, "It was Margaret who found the gun," meaning nobody else but Margaret, fine. But watch out - "it was" can be habitual: "It was Jack who joined the Million Man March. It was Bob who said he would go, too. But it was Bill who went with them." Flat, flat, flat.

    Try also to reserve the use of "there was" or "there is" for special occasions. If used too often, this crutch also bogs down sentence after sentence. "He couldn't believe there was furniture in the room. There was an open dresser drawer. There was a sock on the bed. There was a stack of laundry in the corner. There was a handkerchief on the floor...." By this time, we're dozing off, and you haven't even gotten to the kitchen

    One finds the dreaded "there was/is" in jacket copy all the time. "Smith's book offers a range of lively characters: There is Jim, the puzzle-loving dad. There is Winky, the mom who sits on the 9th Court of Appeals. There is Barbie, brain surgeon to the stars...."

    Attune your eye to the "to be" words and you'll see them everywhere. When in doubt, replace them with active, vivid, engaging verbs. Muscle up that prose.

 

  1. LISTS
    "She was entranced by the roses, hyacinths, impatiens, mums, carnations, pansies, irises, peonies, hollyhocks, daylillies, morning glories, larkspur..." Well, she may be entranced, but our eyes are glazing over.

    If you're going to describe a number of items, jack up the visuals. Lay out the scene as the eye sees it, with emphasis and emotion in unlikely places. When you list the items as though we're checking them off with a clipboard, the internal eye will shut.

    It doesn't matter what you list - nouns, adjectives, verbs - the result is always static. "He drove, he sighed, he swallowed, he yawned in impatience." So do we. Dunk the whole thing. Rethink and rewrite. If you've got many ingredients and we aren't transported, you've got a list.

 

  1. SHOW, DON'T TELL
    If you say, "she was stunning and powerful," you're *telling* us. But if you say, "I was stunned by her elegant carriage as she strode past the jury - shoulders erect, elbows back, her eyes wide and watchful," you're *showing* us. The moment we can visualize the picture you're trying to paint, you're showing us, not telling us what we *should* see.

    Handsome, attractive, momentous, embarrassing, fabulous, powerful, hilarious, stupid, fascinating are all words that "tell" us in an arbitrary way what to think. They don't reveal, don't open up, don't describe in specifics what is unique to the person or event described. Often they begin with clichés.

    Here is Gail Sheehy's depiction of a former "surfer girl" from the New Jersey shore in Middletown, America:

    "This was a tall blond tomboy who grew up with all guy friends. A natural beauty who still had age on her side, being thirty; she didn't give a thought to taming her flyaway hair or painting makeup on her smooth Swedish skin."

    Here I *think* I know what Sheehy means, but I'm not sure. Don't let the reader make such assumptions. You're the author; it's your charge to show us what you mean with authentic detail. Don't pretend the job is accomplished by clichés such as "smooth Swedish skin," "flyaway hair," "tall blond tomboy," "the surfer girl" - how smooth? how tall? how blond?

    Or try this from Faye Kellerman in Street Dreams: "[Louise's] features were regular, and once she had been pretty. Now she was handsome in her black skirt, suit, and crisp, white blouse."

    Well, that's it for Louise, poor thing. Can you see the character in front of you? A previous sentence tells us that Louise has "blunt-cut hair" framing an "oval face," which helps, but not much - millions of women have a face like that. What makes Louise distinctive? Again, we may think we know what Kellerman means by "pretty" and "handsome" (good luck), but the inexcusable word here is "regular," as in "her features were regular." What *are* "regular" features?

    The difference between telling and showing usually boils down to the physical senses. Visual, aural aromatic words take us out of our skin and place us in the scene you've created. In conventional narrative it's fine to use a "to be" word to talk us into the distinctive word, such as "wandered" in this brief, easily imagined sentence by John Steinbeck in East of Eden. "His eyes were very blue, and when he was tired, one of them wandered outward a little." We don't care if he is "handsome" or "regular."

    Granted, context is everything, as writing experts say, and certainly that's true of the sweltering West African heat in Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter: "Her face had the ivory tinge of atabrine; her hair which had once been the color of bottled honey was dark and stringy with sweat." Except for "atabrine" (a medicine for malaria), the words aren't all that distinctive, but they quietly do the job - they don't tell us; they show us.

    Commercial novels sometimes abound with the most revealing examples of this problem. The boss in Linda Lael Miller's Don't Look Now is "drop-dead gorgeous"; a former boyfriend is "seriously fine to look at: 35, half Irish and half Hispanic, his hair almost black, his eyes brown." A friend, Betsy, is "a gorgeous, leggy blonde, thin as a model." Careful of that word "gorgeous" - used too many times, it might lose its meaning.

 

  1. AWKWARD PHRASING
    "Mrs. Fletcher's face pinkened slightly." Whoa. This is an author trying too hard. "I sat down and ran a finger up the bottom of his foot, and he startled so dramatically.... " Egad, "he startled"? You mean "he started"?

    Awkward phrasing makes the reader stop in the midst of reading and ponder the meaning of a word or phrase. This you never want as an author. A rule of thumb - always give your work a little percolatin' time before you come back to it. Never write right up to deadline. Return to it with fresh eyes. You'll spot those overworked tangles of prose and know exactly how to fix them.

 

  1. COMMAS
    Compound sentences, most modifying clauses and many phrases *require* commas. You may find it necessary to break the rules from time to time, but you can't delete commas just because you don't like the pause they bring to a sentence or just because you want to add tension.

    "Bob ran up the stairs and looking down he realized his shoelace was untied but he couldn't stop because they were after him so he decided to get to the roof where he'd retie it." This is what happens when an author believes that omitting commas can make the narrative sound breathless and racy. Instead it sounds the reverse - it's heavy and garbled.

    The Graham Greene quote above is dying for commas, which I'll insert here: "Her face had the ivory tinge of atabrine; her hair, which had once been the color of bottled honey, was dark and stringy with sweat." This makes the sentence accessible to the reader, an image one needs to slow down and absorb.

    Entire books have been written about punctuation. Get one. The Chicago Manual of Style shows why punctuation is necessary in specific instances. If you don't know what the rules are for, your writing will show it.

    The point to the List above is that even the best writers make these mistakes, but you can't afford to. The way manuscripts are thrown into the Rejection pile on the basis of early mistakes is a crime. Don't be a victim.

Pat Holt is former Book Review Editor and Critic for The San Francisco Chronicle. Her website, Holt Uncensored, is her take on books and the book industry. Visit http://www.holtuncensored.com for archives.

2:38 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Google Homepages
Category: Writing and Poetry

I just wanted to let you know about the Google homepage. This may have been around forever and I just noticed it, but they have these cool things called "gadgets" that you can personalize your homepage with. I love the Eiffle Tower cam, the fortune cookie, Bushims known as the Chimp-O-Matic, haunted house, literary quotes and the coolest Shakespearean Insult generator--currently at "Thou vain ill-nutured minnow!" My favorite is "Thou puny onion-eyed flax-wench!" That's almost as good as the puny sheep-biting flap-dragon. I have to work a character into my novel who hurls these kinds of insults. You can also add the desk top grammar book, entemology dictionary, various news headlines, oil painting of the day. If you want something to procrastinate with online (as if  youtube wasn't enough), check it out.

1:32 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I am officially the Queen of Rejection
Category: Writing and Poetry

I have been officially crowned the "Queen of Rejection" by the Sisters In Crime online group. I won the contest for the most rejections garnered from Jan 1st to March 31st. I guess this is better than having a stack of rejections and not even winning the rejection contest. Since my book is out with 10 more publishers, I am sure to exceed my own winning numbers! On the up side, most of the past rejection queens are published. You've got to get it out there to be published...or rejected.

Writing is still going slow. I am certain my WIP will not be completed by the end of April...perhaps May.

My husband, Joe (click on his photo on my profile and visit his page!), won several awards from the Georgia Press Association and the Georgia Associated Press. We're going to an awards ceremony on Saturday to collect his awards for Story of the Year, Beat Reporting award and Hard News award. We can add them to his other awards on the bookcase upstairs.

Well I'm off to work on my book and get a Cheerio-tossing, screaming toddler out of her highchair.

5:33 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Farewell Kurt Vonnegut
Category: Writing and Poetry

Kurt Vonnegut passed away today at the age of 84.  His unique style of satire will be greatly missed.  I wrote a large portion of my novel that is out with publishers under a chalkboard with Vonnegut's lecture notes on it.  He visited USC-Aiken several years ago and the school shadowboxed the chalkboard in the Writing Room to commemorate the event.  I don't remember what words he'd written on the board (there weren't many), but I do remember the infinity sign that took up half the board.  My friend, Rhonda Jones, interview Vonnegut for her newspaper and I thought it was funny that he said she couldn't be a great writer because she had a degree in English.  That always made me feel I had something in common with him.  Vonnegut studied chemistry and I studied biology.  I always wondered if my writing would be better if I'd studied English, but Vonnegut thought otherwise!  Kurt Vonnegut suffered from depression and had attempted suicide in the past.  His mother committed suicide in the 40s, and he went into a POW camp in Dresden not long after.  It is obvious that his time in Dresden was the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five (he survived the bombing of Dresden by taking cover in a meat locker labeled Slaughterhouse-Five) but I wonder if his general view that mankind would destroy themselves came from his depression, his mother's death and war experiences.  Vonnegut reminded me of Mark Twain in that respect, but I'm glad Vonnegut didn't digress into a hateful mindset (or at least it doesn't appear that way).  The literary god's were looking out for Vonnegut and us when his suicide attempt was unsuccessful.  If it had been we wouldn't have Galapagos (one of my favorites), Bluebeard, Hocus Pocus, Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s,and Timequake.

I will leave you with a quote that Vonnegut thought we should carve into the wall of the Grand Canyon as a message for future interplanetary visitors:

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard ... and too damn cheap."

 

On the novel front, my book is out with 9 independent/small presses and another editor at a large publisher that we'd previously submitted to.  I know literary work is hard to sell because publishers aren't sure about the market, but I just learn that cozy mystery series are hard to sell now unless the editor came up with the series concept.  As fate would have it, I am writing a cozy mystery that I'd envisioned as a series.  Since I have no problem finding a cozy series on the shelf in bookstores, I will assume that cozies have gone the way of Chick Lit—everyone says it's dead, but they're still selling.

 

 

I'm posting this from AbsoluteWrite newsletter because I thought these were good tips.

 PUGS* Pointers

(*Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling)

By Kathy Ide

 

In this column, freelance author, editor, and speaker Kathy Ide shares tips on punctuation, usage, grammar, and spelling ("PUGS"). For more PUGS Pointers, see Kathy Ide's website: www.KathyIde.com. Or get her book Polishing the PUGS, available at www.kathyide.com.

 

 

PUNCTUATION TIP
 

Exclamations

Use a comma after exclamatory oh or ah if a slight pause is intended.

 "Oh, what a frightening cover!" Marilyn said when she saw Jim Bell's latest novel.

"Ah, how charming!" Rachel said when she finished Deb Raney's sequel.

 

No comma after vocative O or Oh.

 "O mighty king!"

 "Oh great warrior!"

 

"Oh yes," "Oh yeah," and "Ah yes" are written without a comma. When spoken like a single word, "Yes sir" and "No ma'am" may be written without a comma. If "sir" is used in direct address, use the comma.

 "No, sir, I disagree."

 

 

 

USAGE TIP

 

breath/breathe

breath (always a noun) refers to the inhalation/exhalation of air.

"Tamara's breath was frozen in the cold air."

breath (noun) can also mean "a slight indication or suggestion."

"The faintest breath of a scandal."

 

breathe (always a verb) means "to inhale or exhale air."

"If you breathe deeply you will feel better."

breathe (verb) can also mean "to feel free of restraint."

"Martha needed room to breathe."

breathe (verb) can also mean "to permit passage of air."

"This fabric really breathes."

breathe (verb) can also mean "to utter or express."

"Don't breathe a word," Kay begged.

 

 

GRAMMAR TIP

 

Opening with Pronouns

As a general rule, you don't want to start a new chapter or section with a pronoun. If you open with "He pulled out a gun and aimed it at her head," your reader will have no idea who these characters are. Chapter and section breaks often indicate a change in time, place, and/or point of view, so your reader cannot assume that the people referred to in the new chapter/section are the same ones talked about in the last one.

 

NOTE: If you're writing a suspense novel, you may want to keep the identity of a character a mystery. This is tricky, but can be done if you know what you're doing. If this is your goal, try using a first-person pronoun (I, me) for that character, or an ambiguous noun "the man" (or better yet, something more descriptive like "the handsome foreigner") instead of just "he" or "she."

 Dawn's comment: I once read a novel titled "The Statement" where Israeli assassins were given initials for names and when the writer used "I" as an initial, I was confused for several paragraphs because I thought the POV (point of view) had suddenly shifted from distant 3rd to 1st person.  Keep this in mind if you give people initials instead of names.

 

SPELLING TIP

 

airmail (one word)

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Count Your Blessings
Category: Writing and Poetry

This week has been a slow writing week. I got a new laptop which has an amazing DVD player. Combine that with the entire season 2 of House and I haven't done a whole lot on my book. I'm bad…bad I say. This apathy also screwed up my new YMCA fitness plan…. Today I'm going to knuckle down and get back to work…right after this blog. I wonder where the fire went that use to make me write 5 pages a day? Probably the same place that my motivation for daily exercise disappeared to. 

Check out Lisa Silverman's blog at http://www.beyourowneditor.com/category/book-marketing/

 

Lisa was the agent I originally signed with at PMA Literary and Film Management.  I'd lost touch with her when she moved on to greener pastures, then I read an article about her and found her blog (just sent her a "what've you been up to?" email). She was the best agent anyone could ask for and I was lucky enough to get an equally great agent in her assistant, Kelly Skillen. Lisa has lots of good advice on her blog and it's worth a read. Hummmm…I wonder if she would buy my manuscript? I don't think production editors acquire stuff.

I found out 2 things yesterday that made me thankful for my life—even if I've become accustomed to slacking. First, I found out that the company I work for lost their federal contract, but instead of being unemployed with 2 days notice, I was offered the same job with the new company plus a $4 an hour pay raise. I know how fortunate that is in this economy. Second, a friend of mine has suddenly become ill with a serious autoimmune disease (this friend was the inspiration or my comic relief character in my mystery). Her illness caused her to be unable to work; resulting in the foreclosure of her house, and on top of all that, her mother is in the middle of battling cancer. Most days we take our crappy jobs, our reasonable health and the house that needs to be cleaned for granted. Talking to her made me realize how lucky I am just to have sinus problems, the non-dream job, a messy house and most of all—a healthy family. Perhaps being reminded of these things will give me the kick in the pants I need to finish my novel by next month. I could finish this book if I adjusted my schedule (translation—I don't watch an entire TV series season on DVD in one day), let the cleaning slide, and hope my daughter won't end up in therapy because I let her watch cartoons while I pounded out a chapter. I let my motivation slide because I think "Well, I can finish that chapter tomorrow. Right now, I'll …fill in the blank…", but there may come a day when I physically can't write a chapter tomorrow, and it could be sooner than I think. Enough blogging. I'm going to finish that damn chapter!!! What are you putting off?

 

Currently watching :
House, M.D. - Season Two
Release date: 22 August, 2006

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Working Away and Killing people
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hope everyone is doing well in the virtual world. The MFA semester has been going swimmingly. It is hard to believe that it is almost time to start another residency! I'm already behind on my reading for it (as usual!)

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Still working away on the mystery for the April deadline—that I'm sure I'll miss by at least a week! I decided around page 100 that I needed to add a new main character (and her husband and kid) and a new setting (I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner that I needed a church in my southern cozy mystery!)  Hopefully this will make it better and not muck it up. I might want to stop reading other cozies until I'm done!

 

I bought a new laptop today, and I have to say I'm not in love with Windows Vista. It made it 10 times harder to load software onto the laptop and Word 2007 looks funny. I know it will take getting use to, but when I'm on a writing deadline getting to know a new keyboard layout was enough of a challenge without having to spend 10 mins trying to figure out how to save a document where I want it. I'll give it some time, but I might end up putting XP on this system.  I've said it before and I'll say it again DAMN YOU BILL GATES!!

 

I got a new book in the mail, "How To Write Killer Fiction" by Carolyn Wheat. I like the 4 arc story structure for mysteries and her meta novel suggestions.  I've incorporated them into my work-in-progress (since that is what I was doing naturally!)

Well back to writing. Take care!

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I'm a bad bad blogger
Category: Writing and Poetry

I notice that I haven't posted in a month! Sorry about that. I do have good excuses: the cold turned out to be the flu, and I'm still not 100% better, I attended the AWP writers conference in Atlanta (though this only accounts for 3 days) and the biggest reason...my agent wants me to finish my cozy mystery ASAP. I have to write 168 pages and then edit the entire book by mid-April. So the last few weeks have been spent editing the existing chapters, writing new pages, and outlining the remaining chapters. Starting tomorrow I will have to write 6 to 7 pages a day to finish by deadline and still have time left to get ready for the May residency at Queens (this semseter has gone by so fast!) Editing this novel is taking a bit of time because it's 1st person POV, and I was lax about passive voice and wordiness.  The POV and genre made me think I could write sloppier and be okay, but who really wants just to get by?  I've fixed those mistakes!

My agent has prepared a second submission list for "Peace of Wild Things" to mid-sized and smaller presses. She thinks getting the mystery novel in editors hands might make a large press reconsider on their pass on the novel. The bad thing about these rejections are they don't have anything helpful or insightful in them.  Everyone said they really liked it, but I guess they didn't fall in love. Oh, well the perils of writing literary fiction.
My daughter is napping, so I'm going to use this time to work on the mystery. I will post something use for you this weekend!

9:17 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Do You Need Higher Education to be a Writer?
Category: Writing and Poetry

I'm reading Gardner's The Art of Fiction again and something Gardner said got me thinking. He writes about authors needing a formal education in order to be good writers. In fairness to Gardner, he didn't say you had no chance of being a decent writer if you didn't go to college, but he does think you at least need a solid education in the classics at some level of schooling so you may learn more on your own.  I agree and disagree with his idea on different levels. First, I think it is safe to assume that Gardner is talking about literary writing (even when he discusses genre). His assumption is that if you are reading his book, you want to create art regardless of the type of fiction you write. If this is true, then I agree that you must have higher education. One of the major skills college classes teach you (or at least they should teach you) is critical thought.

My undergrad major was biology and critical thought is essential to studying the sciences. My professors spent a great deal of time teaching us how to look past jargon and flashy claims and get at the essence of what a journal article or lay person claimed, and then use fact and reason to determine if it was true. Throughout history (and in current evolution debates), faulty scientific arguments have been used to justify the murder and/or subjugation of ethnic groups, genders, and entire nations. Critical thinking allows someone to step back from the rhetoric and see something for what it is. That skill alone is worth the 4 yrs and tuition. Without the ability to see truth in the world, you will have a hard time writing it.

Even as a biology major, I studied history, religion, and literature (enough to have 2 minors and an extra year of school!) I've read most of the classics and modern writers of note, the Bible, philosophers, and studied events that shaped the world. Because of this, I can tackle Shakespeare on my own (or at least with a Dummies guide on hand), read Poetics and get the greater picture on dramatic structure. I might not master all the techniques of great fiction, but I at least have a grasp of the fundamentals and know the techniques exist. Gardner's idea that you can't write better if you don't know any better is true. It is possible to educate yourself in these areas, but then you are subject to the ideas of the author of the book you're reading, and without any other point of reference, you have no way of knowing if this author's ideas are valid. If you do choose to self-educate, read as many sources as possible and then form your opinion.

I disagree with Gardner when it comes to commercial fiction. There are basic rules that apply to all fiction writing, so no novel should get away with a bad plot, stilted dialogue, bad characterization, but I think you can teach yourself these things with lots of reading, writing, and being critiqued by others. If your writing is concerned with story in the most superficial sense (pacing, plot, character, dialogue) then you don't need much more than knowledge of what works in commercial fiction and how you can develop that in your writing. The Bridget Jones Diary was an enjoyable read and well written, but there weren't any literary allusions, overarching themes, or experimentation with form.  Fielding didn't need to understand what made the closing paragraph of Joyce's The Dead a masterpiece in syntax or why Macbeth nears perfection (she might know, but she didn't need to. She only needed to read Austin's Pride and Prejudice to get her story structure). I worry that someone who has a burning passion to write romance novels, chick lit, spy thrillers, or a murder mystery might read Gardner's book and get discouraged because they've never taken a formal writing or literature course. I think you could write a good commercial book with an understanding of the basics without knowing all the advanced stuff. And I am sure there is a genius or two out there that can create great art without the benefit of the university. Read Gardner and get the benefit of his wisdom and experience, but don't let it stop you from taking a chance and writing that novel.

6:22 AM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Happy Valentine's Day!
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hope everyone is having a happy, chocolate-filled Valentine's day! Sorry I've been away so long. I've had a cold that like the Vanilla fudge song keeps hanging on.
At the MFA residency there was a lot of talk about author and character. Several times I heard the comment, "Your character can't do that. The readers wouldn't like it." There is some truth to the statement. I couldn't finish American Psycho because I hated the main character and didn't want to be subjected to his evil thoughts any longer. But short of having a character who sits around thinking of new ways to tourture his next victim, how bad can a character be before the reader ditches them? I think pretty bad. Silence of the Lambs, The Secret History, true crime books, all have bad characters in them, but readers love them. And what about the just-a-little-bad things people do everyday? An instructor commented that a character shouldn't be too condescending because readers wouldn't like it, but I think that insults the reader's intelligence.  Everyone has flaws and if a character is snotty to someone who has been rude to them, I think the reader will not only understand, but could even cheer the character on. We've all said or wanted to say something snarky to a person who wishes us ill, and readers will forgive a character for being human (isn't that the goal anyway?). I wouldn't advise you have a protagonist who kicks puppies or have readers invest themselves in a character who starts out as a jerk and ends up a jerk, but I think they are allowed to have flaws, even major ones. People are ruthless, hold grudges, gossip, make bad decisions, and if we sanitize our characters too much to please the imagined reader, we all end up writing Pollyanna (and how many of you were crazy about that girl??) If the character is fleshed out and behaves as a) most reasonable people would under the circumstances or b) in a way that the reader understands (like why Enda drowns herself at the end of The Awakening) readers will go along.
The only situation where I think a writer should be cautious about making a character flawed is in serial novels. If a protagonist is unethical or too snarky, then  readers aren't going to want to spend a lot of time with them. I might be willing to do it ( I like House eventhough the character is generally unethical, mean and selfish, but he's funny and gets the job done), but many who read serial cozies or serial small town fiction want a nice person--they can be flakey, unorganized, and at their wit's end, but they have to be nice.
Ultimately, the writer has to determine why the character is misbehaving. If it is essential to the character's journey, then I say go with it. But it the character is being bad just for humor or a splash of action, then you need to consider the damage you could do to your character's relationship with the reader and the overall value of keeping the behavior. If you're writing for me, I like my characters bad, just not too bad.

Currently reading :
The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
By John Gardner
Release date: 04 June, 1991

8:01 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Monday, January 29, 2007

And more rejections...
Category: Writing and Poetry

Why does it take 3 weeks to catch up from being out of town for 1 week?  Well, I'm more or less caught up and can get back to the task of blogging!  Hope all of you are doing well.  The MFA residency went great and I learned a few things to boot. My professor this semester is David Payne, author of Back to Wando Passo, Gravesend Light, Ruin Creek, Early from the Dance, and Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street.  He gave me some really insightful feedback that I plan to use even if the book doesn't sell (why not make it the best thesis possible even if I can publish it?)  I seem to have a really good pod this semester (though I will miss Tui and Sean!), so I'm looking forward to the next few months.

Turns out January 'tis the season for rejections.  So far I've racked up 16 rejections for the New Year.  There are still 7 editors considering the manuscript and my agent (Kelly Skillen) said she had a good feeling about one. This statement caused me to whip off the neurotic email asking a million questions—Why do you feel good? Did she say she liked the book or did she just like the pitch?  Can I wash her car, cut her grass, or give her my first born to seal the deal?  Actually, my first born would probably get an immediate rejection since he eats like a horse, is in the throes of teen angst, and would come with the electric guitar and Marshall amp he got for Christmas.  My agent said she could forward the rejections if I want, but since they had only say good things it would make me crazy.  If the other 7 pass on the book, she's working up a 2nd  list to submit to. At this point I want my book to sell just so my agent can make a commission.  I still find it amazing that not one, but two agents have been willing to work so hard for something I wrote.  I want her to make some money off me so she can buy herself something fancy.

Since I'm already on the subject of publishers, Sharon Wildwind (from Sisters In Crime) sent out this great bit of info in response to a question about the difference between major and small publishers.  It's kind of scary how much control these few people have over what we read.
Major presses:
Less than 1% of publishers (6 Sisters-Bertelsmann, von Holtzbrink, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster, Time Warner, and Hyperion) control more than half of all North American trade publishing. The other 99% is made up of 300-400 medium-size publishers, and 53,000 small presses and self-publishers ~Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents (2005 figures)
These companies control more than half of all mystery publishing:
Berkeley Prime Crime, Avon Crime, Hyperion, St. Martins/Minotaur, Penguin Pocket, and Warner. 2005 figures
In 2004 Penguin Group, was reported to be in trouble. Sales dropped 6.4%, to 786 million pounds ($1.44 billion), Operating profit down 41%, to 54 million pounds ($99 million). Excluding the impact of the weak dollar, sales for the group were flat, and earnings fell 24%. ~Publishers Weekly, March 2005

Small presses
[Sharon's note: the definition of small press differs, depending on who is talking, so it's hard to get a count. It's the old comparing apples and oranges thing, but here are some figures quoted by different sources.]

Small presses can be divided into sub-groups by what their annual revenue is each years:
63,000 small presses have an annual revenue of less than $50 million, and combined, these 63,000 presses generated sales of $14.2 billion.
3,600 small presses have annual revenue of between $1 million to $49.9 million, and combined, these 3,600 presses generated sales of $11.5 billion.
594,000 small presses have annual revenue of about $5,000 per year, and combined, these 594,000 presses generated revenue of about $2.7 billion. [Sharon's note: many of these small presses may be publishing one title a year, such as a church group that publishes a cookbook.] Book Industry Study Group, 2005

More than 7,000 new publishers come into being every year. ~Publishers Weekly, 2005


50,000 is a conservative estimate of the small independent publishing houses across the country. ~Small Press Center for Independent Publishing, 2005

A small press: less than $50 million in business every year. ~Laura Newpoff, The Business Journal of Phoenix, Nov 2005

$1 million in business a year is very, very small by the traditional definition of a small press. We publish 40 books a year, and after costs, make $2 per copy sold. Typical for most small presses.
~Poison Pen Press, 2005 Global figures
172,000 new titles and editions were published in North America in 2005.
The number of small house titles declined 7%
The number of medium house titles declined 10%
The number of large house titles declined 15%
New titles from the largest houses fell 4.7%, to 23,017, while new titles from university press rose 1.8%.
Every broad non-fiction category, except legal, had significant declines. Children's books down by double-digits. Sports and rec up by 22%. Adult fiction up by 6.9%.
With costs increasing, publishers are being cautious about the number of titles they will publish in 2006.
~2005 figures, Gary Aielo, COO of R.R. Bowker
[Sharon's Note:  2004 is the last year for which Bowker has finished (or is close to finishing) actually counting books published, and the numbers are disputed to several people who responded to the article. Most people who responded felt that the numbers reported for books being published were too low. "Adult fiction" means all fiction regardless of genre.]
In 2004:
There were about 1,500 very large publishers other than Random, Simon, Harper, Penguin and Holtzbrinck who are publishing adult fiction.
7,000 to 8,000 "very respectable mid-size publishers who publish adult fiction."

The 12 largest New York trade houses published 5,125 works of adult fiction.
University presses published 295 works of adult fiction.
Major book review organs reviewed 7,752 works of adult fiction.
~Bowker, ISBN and data base provider

Here are some contests taken from various issues of FundsforWriters for those with a wanderlust:

CHARLES PICK FELLOWSHIP

http://www.uea.ac.uk/eas/fellowships/pick.shtml

Six-month fellowship commencing September 1, 2007. Award amount is £10,000. Must be a writer of fiction or nonfiction in English

and be unpublished in book form. Any age and any nationality. Submit application form with 2,500 words of unpublished fiction

or nonfiction. The fellow will be a member of the School of Literature and Creative Writing and will be required to reside

at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. No teaching duties. Deadline January 31, 2007.

WOMEN WRITERS' FELLOWSHIPS IN ITALY

http://www.creativityworkshop.com/writeraward.html

NO ENTRY FEE

Two Creativity Workshop Fellowships for Women Writers will be given to two women fiction writers, poets, or playwrights for

attendance at the Creativity Workshop in Florence, Italy, July 13 - 22, 2007. The two fellowships will be given on the

basis of a 500 word proposal to develop a new piece of writing in the applicant's field. The proposal should include a

statement of how being in Florence and attending a workshop that includes creative writing, drawing, storytelling and memoir

would help develop the project. The chosen writers will spend10 days in the city of Florence, Italy and attend the

Creativity Workshop.

1st PRIZE: Free tuition and 9 nights accommodations in a private room in Florence, Italy to attend a Creativity

Workshop July 13 - 22, 2007. (Airfare is not included).

2nd PRIZE: Free tuition to attend a Creativity Workshop July 13 - 22, 2007 in Florence, Italy. (Airfare and

accommodations are not included).

That's all for today. I've got a manuscript to finish critiquing before my writer's group tonight. In my next post I'm going to talk about how authors treat their characters--a subject that came up several times during the residency and got me thinking.

11:37 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Remember me?
Category: Writing and Poetry

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. My DSL line has been down since I got back from my MFA residency and myspace is murder on a dial up connection, so my posting will be brief until I'm back to high speed!
The residency went well. I have David Payne as my pod instructor this semester and his comments were very insightful at the residency, unfortunately I workshopped the novel that is out with publishers now, so I feel like the book is total crap and I'm sure no one will buy it. If only I had him last semester!  Oh, well. At least the manuscript will be better when I had it in for my thesis.
I've had 5 rejects on the novel so far. Still 17 editors to go. I've convinced myself that the novel won't sell, so the rejections are expected and a sale will be a pleasant suprise. I have a feeling the genre novel that I haven't put as much effort into will probably sell and the one I slaved over won't. Such is the publishing world. On the bright side, I do get to attend the AWP conference in Atlanta in Feb for free! Queens University had 10 free spots and I got one of them! There are some interesting panels (some meet at the same time, so I may want to buddy up with someone and exchange information!) and I'm looking forward to going.
Check out Borders.com for the first chapters contest. In conjunction with Touchstone-Fireside (they rejected me, not that I'm bitter) Borders is running a contest where the 1st prize is  a $5000 advance and a publishing contract with Touchstone-Fireside. Finalists also have their first 3 chapters critiqued by board. Good luck!

6:12 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Like, should I keep this simile?
Category: Writing and Poetry

Tillie Olsen passed away this week at the age of 94.  Her book Silences helped me feel better about the periods of time that I don't write.  Here is Mediabistro.com's writeup:

Many literary and publishing types are paying their respects this week to Tillie Olsen, who died Monday at the age of 94. Julie Bosman's obituary of her in the New York Times points out that Olsen's short stories, books and essays lent a heartfelt voice to the struggles of women and working-class people, while Hillel Italie's AP writeup sums up what made Olsen's work tick: "for her characters, the open road did not lead to freedom, but only to the next job."

In addition to writing, Olsen taught at various universities throughout the 1960s and 70s, including MIT, Stanford and the University of Massachusetts, and beginning in the early 1970s, she was an adviser to the Feminist Press. At her suggestion the press began reprinting feminist classics that had been lost, starting with Rebecca Harding Davis's LIFE IN THE IRON MILLS. Over the years, Olsen recommended many of the books the Feminist Press reprinted. She is survived by four daughters, a sister, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I always give my husband 3 or 4 novels at Christmas.  The bad simile in the first sentence of one thriller put him off from reading it.  Here's the sentence—"The storm blew up late in the afternoon, tight gray clouds hustling over the lake like dirty, balled-up sweat socks spilling from a basket."  Now whenever he comes across a bad simile, he reads it aloud to me.  "Beads of sweat poured out his pores like popcorn."  "The house was small and squat like a constipated man."  Uhm, where was the editor for these gems?  They are all well-known and very successful authors, so I guess editors let them slide, but they shouldn't have.  I'm a fan of similes.  They riddle my first draft like Swiss cheese (told you I liked them).   But, by the second draft many of them loose their luster.  Before I spare a simile the red pen, I ask myself the following questions:

-->[if !supportLists]-->1)      Does this make sense?  A house can't look constipated and if it does then I want more of a description of the house because that is something to see.  Do sweat socks hustle when they spill from a bas