Happy Fourth!

Happy fourth of July weekend everyone! we'll see you back here on Monday...

On Elizabeth Lyon

ROBERTA: When I began the quest to get my first mystery published back in 1998, I didn’t know a soul in the publishing business. I did all my research like the lifetime student I was: Locate the best books on the subject and study their advice. One of the most useful books I found was Elizabeth Lyon’s THE SELL-YOUR-NOVEL TOOLKIT. And I’ve recommended it to hundreds of aspiring writers since then. Now JWR is absolutely thrilled to have Elizabeth as our guest blogger, here to talk about writing and her brand new book, MANUSCRIPT MAKEOVER.

All the way from Oregon, welcome Elizabeth! I have so many questions. Let’s start with this one: Can good writing be taught or are you born with talent?

ELIZABETH: Yes and yes. We all learned how to write the equivalent of “See Spot run.” We can all learn the fundamentals of good writing. We are all born with talent--differing in degrees and manifestations. I don’t believe you need talent to get published. Polished good writing founded on authenticity of character and author passion can win the day.

ROBERTA: When we hear panels of agents talk about what excites them, the number one answer is probably “voice.” Please talk about what that means and where the heck we can find ours.

ELIZABETH: Voice is the expression of individuality in a writer’s choice of words that is appropriate to her characters and stories. We’re each unique so in theory all writing should be stand-out original. But for the fact that we learned how to write through conforming--to grammar and syntax, diction of the culture and times, and other forces of expectation, social mores, and censorship.

We can find our original voice behind the big rock of these factors--by practicing riff-writing--free-associating and pushing what you let out on the paper to an extreme. Take tight or “right” writing and open it up by letting the outrageous come through. Later you can revise to delete what you don’t want. We’re great monkeys, too, so imitate by replicating or modeling other authors’ writings. Imitate to then innovate.

ROBERTA: What would you say are the top mistakes beginning writers make?

ELIZABETH: Quitting. Expecting instant success. Not finishing a first draft. Revising till the cows come home. Not revising till the cows come home. Writing in a vacuum--without critique, support, or editing. Repeating the same mistakes but expecting a different outcome and blaming the agents for rejection. Using “look” too often.

ROBERTA: Any advice for writers who are discouraged about the publishing business today?

ELIZABETH: Broaden your repertoire; write in a different genre. Write as much as you can as often as you can. Study marketing and get savvy. Go to workshops, author talks, conferences, and get-away retreats. Enter contests and apply for fellowships. Study and apply what you learned. Use your connections and be as helpful to every other writer you encounter as you can. Use a print-on-demand outfit like Lulu to complete the artistic circle and share with family and friends. Then keep writing; keep marketing. Be as flexible as Gumby and as persistent as Wiley Coyote.

ROBERTA: What are you working on these days?

ELIZABETH: I’m writing a memoir set in 1967, in Greensboro, North Carolina. I was 17 years old, and the only white student at a summer humanities program. I’ve started this memoir in various forms at least half a dozen times over the years, never finding “the voice” or the entry into the whole piece. Now I believe I have found both. That experience was my coming of age about race, about community, and about writing. After completing this work, I have two other memoirs, one novella revision, and a new novel all circling O’Hare waiting for landing instructions.

And drum roll please, for the JRW quiz:

Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot?
Miss Marple. She’s fearless at examining corpses, including autopsied body parts.

Sex or violence?
sexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsexsex
Pizza or chocolate?
Dark chocolate with Grand Marnier at its core.

Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan? (We won’t even include Sean Connery because we know the answer, don’t we?)
None of the above, even Sean Connery. After Johnny Weismuller, I didn’t “bond” again.

Katherine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn?
Katherine Hepburn, who was a great Taurus role model, throwing her little body into the ice cold Atlantic every day. I always admired her pluck.
First person or Third Person?
Yes, one or the other or both in the same novel. I love first-person protagonists and third-person viewpoints used in the same book and even with different tenses. And if a work has many characters, third-person often works best, I think. I don’t like multiple first person.

Prologue or no prologue?
That is the question. A prologue can be compelling and necessary. I dislike the big, indigestible block of narration types, however.

Making dinner or making reservations?
Wanted: a chef who uses primarily locally grown and organic foods to cook for me every night. Sadly, I make my own dinner 99% of the time.

And finally: STUMP THE READERS in The Jungle Red Quiz: Tell us four things about you that no one knows. Only three can be true. We’ll guess.

I was detained and questioned at Checkpoint Charlie as the unaccounted for person on the bus from East Berlin.

I wore two different shoes to a College Board Entrance Exam.

I got a 4.0 throughout high school, college, and graduate school.

I exist because Dale Evans dragged my sailor father to Marble Collegiate Church in NY, where he met my mother.

Thank you so much for coming Elizabeth! Now the floor is open for questions....

On What's in a Name

From our ancestors come our names, but from our virtues our honors. ~Proverb



ROBERTA: I was standing in line at Southwest Airlines a couple of weeks ago. With the new SW procedures, you have to cram into the holding tank according to the section letter on your ticket. And you’ve received your section letter because you logged onto your computer exactly 24 hours in advance of the flight to get it. If you care about where you sit on a plane, it’s an obsessive’s nightmare. Anyway, I digress. I was in line and a woman tapped me on the back.

Le crap, I thought, she thinks I’ve pushed in ahead of her. Instead she showed me the name on her ticket: Roberta Gilbert.

“You don’t meet too many of us,” she said. I laughed and asked her if she’d grown into the name.

“Finally,” she said.

“What was your nickname?” I asked.

“Bert or Bertie,” she said, shaking her head grimly.

“Did your father want a son?”

“I was the sixth child,” she explained. “And three of them were already boys!”

Which got me thinking about my name—Roberta Ann. I was the second child of four, following my sister by 11 months. I was definitely supposed to be the son, named after my dad, Charles Robert. Then my brother came along and could have absorbed his legacy quite nicely. Though the other name my parents considered was Priscilla…so in the end I feel lucky. (No offense to any Priscilla’s out there!)

It’s not been an easy name to carry—half female, half male, closely tied to my father, but not exactly, as it’s his MIDDLE name: he goes by Bob, not Charlie. People often need me to spell it: “Robert with an ‘a’,” I tell them, dreading the move to my last name.

Next week I’ll be visiting my dad, who’s in an assisted living facility, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But I can picture exactly how his face will light up when he sees me. “This is my daughter, Roberta,” he’ll boast to anyone who enters the room. And I’ll be grateful for the connection of our common names.

How about you guys? Where did your names come from and how do you feel about them?

RO: I was named after my father's two sisters Rose and Mary, which is, I suppose better than being named after any of his six brothers which could have made me Lou Bob or worse, Ben Ludovico. My sister got the cool name, she was Paula, named after my mother's brother.

I hated my name growing up - there weren't any other Rosemarys - except for Rosemary Clooney or Rosemary Kennedy. And neither of them made a hot role model when I was sixteen. I've gotten over it though.

HANK: Yes, okay, fine. I know this is just a sneaky way to get me to tell.

My name is Harriet Ann. Apparently there was a great uncle Harry, who was not in good shape when I was born. So Mom decided to give him a gift, and told him she and my Dad were naming me Harriet. In his honor. Mom tells me--and maybe this is one of those possibly-apocryphal family stories we were talking about last week--that his response was "Oh, that poor girl."

He was so right. When all the cool girls are Debbie or Linda, you don't want Harriet. (As in Ozzie and.) So, until college, I was always called Ann or Annie. When I go home to Indianapolis, I still instantly answer to Ann. Here in Boston, if someone says "Ann" I don't connect at all. (I now think Harriet is kind of hip and competent, and wouldn't mind being her.)

To make things worse, Mom and Dad had decided on Alexandra, a perfectly wonderful name, until the Uncle Harry thing came up. And then, Mom told me, she had decided I didn't look like an Alexandra. I was ONE DAY OLD, for gosh sake.

To make things better, my Dad was the music critic at the Chicago Daily News back then, and he was pushing to name me Harmony. Yikes. But, in the funny way the world has, perhaps little Harmony still would have turned out to be Hank.

ROBERTA: Ro, actually Rosemary is the perfect name for a master gardener and the author of PUSHING UP DAISIES! And Hank, you dodged a bullet with "Harmony." But we'll start calling you Harriet whenever you're ready--just give us the word!

Name stories, anyone?

Digging Bones and Dishing Flicks

"Starts scary and only gets better."
...John Lescroart on Michelle Gagnon's "Boneyard"

Our guest today is Michelle Gagnon, a fresh voice in crime fiction. She mines our darkest fears, and a critic called "The Tunnels," her bestselling first novel: "'Silence of the Lambs' meets 'Wicker Man.'" It tells a tale of ritualized murder set in an abandoned network of tunnels underneath a university. Creepy, creepy, creepy.

In her new novel, "Boneyard," a mass gravesite is unearthed on the bucolic Appalachian Trail, and FBI Agent Kelly Jones finds herself trying to track down dueling serial killers.

This former dogwalker and modern dancer comes to us from San Francisco where she's in the middle of a slam-bang book tour for "Boneyard."

(Tune in tomorrow for Roberta Isleib and our take on the names that burden (and unburden) us; then guest blogger the talented and smart writer and editor Elizabeth Lyon on Wednesday.)

Michelle Gagnon

Sure, writing crime fiction is a gas, but what I really want to do is direct.

Kidding. Actually, my dream job would be film critic. I would love to take over Ebert's seat for a day. I guest blogged on First Offender's last week about what I consider to be the biggest blockbuster flops I've ever seen (if you missed it, the comments were hilarious). Today, we turn to happier things: films I've recently enjoyed.

This is a much shorter list, partly due to the fact that sadly, I don't get out much these days, and partly due to my glass-half-full world view. I'm a vicious critic when it comes to film just ask M. Night Shyamalan), so for a movie to pass my muster is rare. But these lucky few made the cut:

Ironman:

This film officially kicked off the summer blockbuster season and man, it did not disappoint. Great special effects, a decent (if somewhat predictable) comic book storyline, directed with a light touch by Jon Favreau. There were some real gems in here. The casting of Robert Downey Jr. was a master stroke--who ever would have figured him for an action hero?--but the success of Ironman should salvage him from a lifetime of roles as a junkie (if he can stay sober, that is). He was brilliant here: witty, charming, likeable and completely believable. I absolutely loved the little touches, like the scene in his workroom with the robot and the fire extinguisher. In my opinion, the best superhero flick to hit the screens in years. (note: stay through the credits, they're long but there's a brief bonus scene at the end).

Sex in the City:
I loved the show, and went to see this warily, especially since the trailer appeared to give away most of the storyline. But whoa, Nelly--not in the least. The movie version manages to recapture the sleek look of the series, set in a largely idealized version of New York City.

I lived in Manhattan for four years, but for some odd reason never possessed fabulous clothes and accessories, or went to any bars or nightclubs like the ones these four ladies treat as their personal playground. In fact, my memory of New York City bars at night elicits the odor of stale vomit, cigarette smoke, and the close press of bodies (not in a good way). And none of ladies, not even the struggling writer, lived in a fifth floor walkup with a loft bed, which is odd to say the least. Ah well, I bought into the fantasy regardless.

But I digress. What I really enjoyed about the film is that it presented Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha all grappling with the issues women face in the forties (and earlier), namely: Is this really it, in terms of what life has to offer? Who can you trust? And how much of yourself do you sacrifice to share a life with another person? Interesting questions all, especially the last one. And for three of the women, I found the portrayal realistic and satisfying. But the grand finale really let me down. It felt contrived, hokey, and contrary to how any sane person would behave. But then, they were never all that sane, were they? I still had a lot of fun watching.

The Incredible Hulk:
It wasn't as good as "Ironman," but compared to the Ang Lee film of a few years ago, this was Citizen Kane. Again, brilliant casting of Edward Norton. He's not as hunky as Eric Bana, but in some ways that's a good thing (who among us believed that Bana could ever be considered an unlucky-in-love nerd?) Liv Tyler is no Jennifer Connelly, but she was sufficient in her role as love interest. Honestly, if this was the only Hulk film ever made, I would probably have been disappointed by it. But after viewing the first one (and I'm generally a huge Ang Lee fan, Ice Storm was one of my absolute favorites) it was great to see the story handled onscreen the way it was meant to be. Comic book heroes do not lend themselves to arty drama. The trick is to have some fun with the story, not try to turn it into Shakespeare, and director Louis Leterrier succeeded in that.

On the horizon I'm eagerly anticipating the next Batman film (especially since it will be Katie Holmes-free; she almost managed to sink the last one, in my opinion). Hancock also looks like a lot of fun, I always find Will Smith entertaining even when the rest of the movie disappoints. I'm also feeling cautiously optimistic about the new X files and the Mummy (but then, I'm admittedly biased, being a member of "The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to David Duchovny.")

Ah, the promise of early summer. All of those appealing trailers, whose final product so frequently disappoints. So what have you seen lately that you enjoyed? Let's hear it, the good, the bad, and the ugly--best comment garners a signed first edition of "The Tunnels" (not yet a film, sadly). And if you don't win, console yourself by signing up for my newsletter at www.michellegagnon.com, which will get you entered in a drawing for fabulous prizes such as an Amazon Kindle, iPod shuffle, Starbucks gift certificates.many wonderful things.

JRW: Thanks, Michelle! Now, just a few questions from us at JRW, because curious minds need to know… How did you learn about Quantico--parts of the novel take place there?

MG: Honestly, mostly online via the FBI website, and also by reading some non-fiction by former agents. I also double-checked the descriptions with an FBI agent who once worked in that building.

JRW: Your books deal with dark subject matter, but you seem pretty upbeat. How do you "go there" in order to write?

MG: I have no idea. My mother insists that when I'm asked this question I seize the opportunity to state that I had a happy, relatively uneventful childhood. But I've always been one of those worst case scenario people-my husband knows better than to book a romantic weekend at a cabin in the woods, because I'll spend the whole night wide awake wondering if there's an ax murderer outside the window.

JRW: You were a modern dancer, bartender, model, and Russian supper club performer? Come on, tell more, especially about the Russian supper club.

MG: Ah, Club Versailles. The funny thing is, in the end that turned out to be the most fun I ever had onstage. Up until that point I'd worked with a lot of very dramatic modern dance companies, and most of my performances involved rolling around the stage in a black leotard in what was supposed to be a portrayal of the situation in Rwanda. But the Russian supper club was pure fun. There was a spaceship coming out of the ceiling, lots of fake smoke, foot-high powdered wigs, and at the end we gathered up mobsters from the audience to do the Macarena with us. Someday I'm going to have to write up the full story.

JRW: When people as you now what you do for a living, what do you say?

MG: I say writer, and if I'm feeling particularly cheeky I tell them I lie for a living.

JRW: How does this second book feel different from your first?

MG: I feel like in many ways writing The Tunnels was a learning process for me, especially since I had never written any crime fiction before and initially had no idea what I was doing. With Boneyard, I'm hoping I managed to take a leap forward as a writer. In my opinion that's all any of us can hope for, really, to improve with each book.

JRW: And finally our JRW quiz... Stephanie Plum or Kay Scarpetta?

MG: Stephanie, definitely.

JRW: Sex or violence?

MG: What, not both? Ok, if I must, I choose sex.

JRW. Pizza or chocolate?

MG: Oh god, chocolate, no question.

JRW: Daniel Craig or Pierce Brosnan?

MG: If Sean's not an option, then Daniel (when is the next Bond film coming out? I loved Casino Royale).

JRW: First person or Third Person?

MG: I prefer third, personally. I don't enjoy getting too bogged down in the mind of a single character. JRW: Prologue or no prologue? MG: That's a good one. I have prologues in both of my books, but not intentionally. My editor changed my first chapter to "prologue" in each, I still have no idea why.

On babymaking pacts

By now, everyone in America knows about the sixteen-year-old girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts who intentionally got pregnant.

JAN: After the town was overwhelmed by media attention -- calls from Oprah, the whole nine yards, the high school principal began to back away from a notion that there might have been a "pact." But whatever you want to call it, there are an unusual number of young girls (18 by last count) carrying babies in high school.

The problem, I think, isn't that the controversy is stirring debate. But that its stirring the wrong debate. Birth control education versus abstinence education. Neither is relevant if the girls set out with the goal of getting pregnant.

These girls don't need education about contraception. They need education about reality. They need to learn that no one is going to make a film out of their noble decision to give up their baby to Jennifer Garner (JUNO.) And that paparazzi isn't going to even try to get a telephoto shoot of their expanding waistlines (Jamie Spears) And that Gisele Bundchen (spelling) is not going to send them designer baby gifts to enhance her media image.

Yes, just like Queen Victoria got the credit for influencing generations of sexual repression, I think the glamorization of unwed mothering by celebrities is to blame for the resurgence of the teenage pregnancy rate, after being on the wane for fifteen years.

But no one really wants to call out celebrities and suggest any sense of societal responsibility that might be too inhibiting to their lifestyles. And the media really isn't going to blame the media. So we talk about contraception.

That's my take anyway. What do you think?

ROBERTA: Honestly, I think it's a very sad story. I completely agree that talk about contraception is off the mark here. What seems to me more on target is the self-esteem and future dreams of this group of girls.

If the girls set out with the goal of getting pregnant, they couldn't have been thinking too hard about college and careers. That seems sad to me. They have no idea how limited their lives may end up as teenage mothers. Yes it's possible to go on to school but it sure is going to be a lot harder. (And that's not even getting into the lives of the babies, starting out with young mothers and non intact families...)

HANK: Can you imagine telling your mother, at age 16, that you were pregnant? We hardly said the P word.

The possibility that the "pact" story is completely untrue aside, it's indisputable that more than a dozen teen aged girls in one lovely town have unalterably changed their lives--and their children's lives!--and could not possibly know by how much. I mean--remember, there are going to be babies.

Maybe it's--the unreality of their lives? Movies, TV, glitzy magazines, video games, advertisements, maternity clothes, Demi Moore on Vanity Fair,--all making an unreal reality. Jamie Spears? Is pregnant at 16, and it's a one day wonder. And it's always more about the "mother" than the baby. It's so sad.

First, it was those little dogs. Now it's babies. The latest fashion accessory. But these items, you can't return to the store.