The stark beauty of this memoir hit me the moment I began. Marianne Leone’s narrative, written with an unrelenting immediacy, yanked me into her world.

Leone’s son Jesse owned me from his first moment on the page. By the end of the prologue, Leone had so engaged me that I put it aside. Because I knew how it would end. Because I was a coward. I’d already fallen in love with the family and I needed to build up courage to continue.

Sometime later I began reading again. This time, thank God, I couldn’t stop, because Jesse, A Mother’s Story gave me one of the greatest gifts of my reading life. I learned that you could go on. You could have utmost love, and then the worst possible pain, and, though you never lose the grief, you could still find that love. That connection between mother and child can continue to envelope you in your dreams and soul. Perhaps that’s what keeps you from total madness.

Jesse, A Mother’s Story is a written by a mother who loves her son with ferocity—the ferocity parents of disabled children needs more than others parents. Jesse Cooper had severe cerebral palsy, was unable to speak, and was quadriplegic and wracked by severe seizures. He was also stunningly bright, funny, and loving.  His parents, Marianne Leone and Chris Cooper needed both rage and ferocious love if Jesse’s light was to come out in full.

Leone writes so close that I felt the cigarette she held as she “paced the floor of our apartment above the store, smoking, crying and feeling helpless . . . Our session with the physical therapist was a disaster. She roughly stripped Jesse of his outside clothes, and he began to howl. “Well, I can’t work with him if he’s going to cry all the time,” she said.

Jesse was failing physical therapy. Or was the therapist failing Jesse? To watch your child handled roughly is to have a piece of your soul crumple into ash.”

Marianne Leone brought together a band of parents and professionals to fight the system—a battle that continues serving children in the region where Jesse went to school—ensuring her son and others could be fully integrated into the school system, get the services they needed, and write essays poems, like this one written by Jesse:

Courage is like one ant trying to cross a roaring stream.

It may seem impossible but you have to try.

Jesse and his parents lived not only with candor and courage, but with edgy humor and street-fighting reality. Jesse, A Mother’s Story is not a worshipful account of saints, but of parents who reach into every pocket of strength they can access to help their child live fully in this world. Leone’s narrative pulled me like a page-turning novel—I needed to know what would happen, especially when, despite promises made and a law guaranteeing Jesse’s inclusion in a regular classroom, the school system fails not just by sins of omission, but by dedicated commission.

Leone’s realizations of these sins—after sending Jesse’s wonderful home aide, Brandy, to observe Jesse’s school aide and teacher in his classroom—radicalizes her. Thinking that Brandy hates her job, as obviously they do, the aide, in front of a non-verbal, but totally cognizant Jesse, says “he don’t belong here,” and “between you and me, Brandy, we both know where he’s gonna end up.” Jesse’s teacher talks in front of him, as though he were invisible, about the “life-expectancy of a CP kid,” speaking with faux-sympathy, though in truth with criticism of Leone, about how Leone needs to “learn to let go.”

Thus is set in motion a battle that ends up including the entire school district and a newly formed group of parents of special needs children, beginning with Leone’s thoughts:

In the last few minutes I had joined the berserker tribe of mothers, those who go into battle without any armor but rage. Mad as dogs, fierce as wolves, they fight to the death.

We who are unaffected might turn away from the Leone-Cooper’s story, from all stories like Jesse’s. We might want to protect our own denial, but oh what a loss. Jesse, A Mother’s Story has a plethora of happy endings before the ultimate sorrow.

That is what this book taught me: Sorrow doesn’t erase joy. We can hold both.

I, probably like you, am a constant reader. Sometimes I forget titles even as I turn the last page. Some books are appetizers, some momentary candy, some are solid meals. The moment I finished Jesse, A Mother’s Story I wanted to read it again. This book is an account of how we manage to rise further than we ever knew we could.

Leone does not sing her own praises in this book, but I can. She showed me a way. Mothers, even through moments of exhaustion, exasperation, even as they doubt they are up for the task, can find the way to lift that truck off their child. This book lives on my ‘read again and again’ shelf. Jesse, A Mother’s Story was not a book of a disabled child, but a story of being able to move on after a tsunami has hit your heart.

Jesse, A Mothers Story releases today. If you are a parent, then you, like me, fear losing your child more than anything in the world. Screw up your courage and buy this book.

JESSE, A MOTHER’S STORY slideshow

I never met a book by Ruth Reichl I haven’t loved, and my adoration continued with this book.

Where others were hearty meals, Not Becoming My Mother (retitled for the paperback as For You Mom, Finally) was a deceptively simple snack. (I’m certain that Ms. Reichl, editor of Gourmet Magazine, would find a more elegant food analogy, but I, alas, am but a quick and dirty cook, though one who loves reading the work of educated ones—like Ruth Reichl)

In her previous books, the author consistently folded her cooking and restaurant reviewing skills into personal memoir—making a mixture with the consistency of magic. Her work has always been fascinating, down-to-earth, and erudite—and always offered the reader fascinating glimpses into the world of food and Ms. Reichl’s own intriguing life, which often included portraits of her sad, unusual, and, to the author, exasperating, mother.

This 110-page gem boils it all down to the author’s mother true story. It is not an apology for what she’s previously written. Or, perhaps, it is.

Any daughter whose lived her life under the thumb of her mother’s quirks and enraging mothering mistakes will fly through this book, reading of Reichl’s brave attempts to find out the truth of her mother’s life. She writes of living her life on “Mim tales”—a trait with which my sister and I can over-identify, having dined, perhaps too long, on a pathetic treasure trove of Mom stories.

But as I read the author’s unearthing of her mother’s truth (her now-realization of her mother’s eccentricities as representing being crammed into the tiniest of housewifery boxes and the narrowest of work roles) I found it hard to catch my breath, amazed at the author’s courage in uncovering her own perhaps lack of generosity towards her mother, and deeply admiring her ability to now find the heroic in her mother.

Because I was with her every step.

Like Ruth Reichl, I too berate myself for not managing to rise above the role of daughter to my mother, and become a woman and friend to her. However, perhaps when one grows up with a larger-than-life mother, that’s an impossible goal. Maybe only after death severed a relationship that held us so emotionally hostage that we spent our lives holding our breath, can we step back and offer perspective.

So, thank you, Mom for being a role model of friendship, you who offered such a striking portrait of being a loyal companion to so many wonderful women.

Thank you, Mom for showing such a flair for beauty.

Thank you for showing us the wonder and fun of work.

For laughing very hard.

For always appreciating a good story. For your advice on men.  And women.

Yes, you were often right. About many things. I can now consider you a hero, because you lived your life trying very hard. And I know that now.

We miss you. Happy Mother’s Day.

Do book trailers sell books? Is that the question, or should you ask which book trailer could help sell my book? Trailers aren’t monolithic products that work or don’t. Like books, like movies, like songs—some work, some won’t; the difference it’s a medium to sell another medium.

According to the New York Times,

“In 2002, Random House approached Jefferson Rabb about creating a promotional Web site for a promising new historical thriller. Rabb, known for his elaborate Web sites for clients likeMTV, Sephora and Elie Tahari, had built only one site for a book before. The finished product, with its eerie original music, crisp graphics, and intricate quizzes and ciphers, looked more like an up-market video game than an ad for a novel. The book in question was “The Da Vinci Code,” and whether or not the Web site had anything to do with its success is beside the point: Rabb’s name soon became synonymous with both originality and sales.”

Some book trailers are entirely entertaining: this self-effacing satire on reviews from Brad Meltzer for The Book of Lies is a worthwhile watch simply for being fun:

But would it make you buy his book? One person I spoke to (a thriller fan) told me he immediately bought the book–which makes you wonder if it’s true: all advertising works–even negative mentions of things make you aware of it, I guess.

This one from Midge Raymond (for Forgetting English) and John Yunker (for The Tourist Trail,) might be the funniest I’ve seen:

Did it increase Raymond and Yunker’s  sales? It certainly increased their author presence (and both books are now waiting on my nightstand.). Plus, how could you not love them after seeing the trailer? So perhaps, not unlike what people say about book store appearances, it’s not just about the books sold that moment. Perhaps trailers are another way in which book titles and authors’s names become embedded in our heads.

I made a trailer for The Murderer’s Daughters, but I don’t have a clue if it helped sales. On the other hand, I did it with my sister for the cost of buying images and with the help of her talented musician friend. Rumor has it that some are paying thousands of dollars to produce these mini-films.

As I weigh the pros and cons of making a video for my next novel (releasing in February 2013) I took a spin around You Tube and beyond, seeing which trailers Iif any) actually made me want to read the book, and why.

For the most part ‘talking head’ trailers have me hitting pause in seconds (of course there are also some where I linger for a few extra seconds, like Jonathan Franzen’s talking head for Freedom, fascinated and frozen as he begins with by scolding: “this might be a good place for me to register my profound discomfort at having to make videos like this.”)

So I should offer this advice: Be stronger than Franzen! Don’t allow your publisher to hold a gun to your head, forcing to make a book trailer. Shame on you, Picador!

The below video for GLASS CASTLE made me want to re-read the book. How I’d react seeing it if I hadn’t read the book, I’m not sure. It breaks my rules: it has the author talking and it’s longer than a minute—but what it has is an authentic passion:

Shalom Auslander’s trailer for Hope: A Tragedy took me from the zone of “hmm, I think I want to read this someday,” to noting it for my next trip to the bookstore. And it upended my belief that a serious novel can’t have a funny trailer (it didn’t hurt, of course, that it stars Ira Glass with the author and together they hit my particular NY Jewish vein of dark things that make me laugh.)

The Passage by Justin Cronin’s trailer builds u intrigue on a small scale writ large and drew me into buying it:

Tweak by Nic Sheff did it for me with simple pictures and great copy—and in under a minute:

I don’t have a problem with headaches, but after seeing this trailer (which had the best music of the bunch,) I still wanted to buy Chocolate and Vicodin by Jennette Fulda (about conquering her headaches.):

Jillian Lauren’s trailer for Pretty hits it hard and straightforward, in a great low-cost seeming way:

 http://youtu.be/cSPCTUcMXj8

This trailer is for The Taker by Alma Katsu, a book totally outside my usual genre, but it drew me fast enough that I will now put it on my bedside:

Truth: I already read (and loved) 32 Candles by Ernessa Carter; but I did look at her trailer previous to reading it, and while it wasn’t the deciding factor, it might have pushed me over the edge to buy it.

When I first saw this effortless-seeming and terrific trailer for Little Black Lies by Tish Cohen it served two purposes: one, it made me buy the book (despite it being  YA) and, after finding out from Tish that her high school son had made the trailer, it gave me hope that my sister and I had the possibility of trailer success:

While hopping around, I found this trailer for From Animal House to Our House by Ron Tanner and I fell in love with it and with wanting the book. It’s low budget, has a bit of the talking head, but it charmed the heck out of me.

Do book trailers sell books? Some might. Some won’t. I’ll do one again. I won’t invest a ton of money–but I’ll be VERY nice to my beautiful, creative, smart (oh, Jill–you are SO much smarter than me!) sister and once again have fun putting one together. (Pretty please with sugar on top, sis?)

The first time I went to Muse and The Marketplace in 2006, Grub Street’s annual conference, I was so frightened that I could barely hold to the promise I’d made to myself: to speak with one agent. That’s all, I promised myself. One agent. (I don’t remember who that agent was . . . well, maybe a little–but it’s too embarrassing to remember all the way. I think I drooled.)

I did it. Nothing came of it, but I did it, and believe me, that was pushing myself way out of my comfort zone. I sat at one of the tables where you paid fifty dollars to sit with authors, editors and agents. I remember none of them, because I held my breath the entire time, certain they wondered why this middle-aged lady was shelling out fifty bucks when it was so obvious that she was a complete and utter loser. (I could not wait to get away from that table–so certain that they were all rolling their eyes at me.)

I spoke to two people:

1) A man who told me he was writing a (humor) book on menstruation (really) called “Riding the Red Pony.” I am not lying. (I am still not lying.)

2) I briefly spoke with a young woman, Becky Tuch, who was young and beautiful, and I was certain was wondering why this middle-aged complete loser was at this conference, rather than home fluffing pillows or ironing her velour pantsuit. (She is still young and beautiful. I do not wear velour.)

But I did listen to Andre Dubus III, Matthew Pearl and Gish Jen as they spoke about their lives as writers, and though I felt very nose-pressed-against-the-glass, I felt myself being pulled ever more towards my goal and dream of publishing a novel. For me, there were no celebrities, no actors, or rock stars, who could excite me as did these writers. (Am I lying? Is there a rock star who’d excite me more? No. Sad. How nerd-like I am.)

Last weekend, I had the great good fortune of being on a panel at the Muse. Even more fortunate for me, it was a panel led by the most generous of writers, Jenna Blum, to whom I owe a great deal after having the great good fortune of participating in her Master Novel workshop at Grub Street. (Still haven’t paid that huge debt.)

Jenna, like so many at The Muse, is a giving writer, who understands the importance of putting out a hand after her own success (having become a NYT bestseller for her first book, Those Who Save Us, her legions of fans await the May release of The Stormchasers.) (And now we await more, more, more!!)

Lunchtime, I sat with Elinor Lipman (at a table where others were paying fifty dollars—though I am certain it was a connection with Elinor, the editors and the agents they lusted for) who was as accessible and caring as she is multi-published. (She probably wouldn’t remember me if she fell over me, but she really was nice.)

At a party the previous evening, I met one of my all-time writing heroes—Dr. Pauline Chen, author of Final Exam, who, as she listened to me gush, put forward the warmth of one’s dream mother and who seemed genuinely thrilled about my book. (This was really where I humiliated myself and everyone in a two block radius.)

The Muse and The Marketplace is sometimes a place where one’s nose is pressed against the glass, and yet it is also a great equalizer. It’s where NYT bestsellers and multi-prize winners happily offer advice to those still climbing the ladder—no matter their age. (And if you see me in May, rejoice! I will be an example of someone who published at an older age than you!)

Actually, age disappears with the shared joy of books and writing. For instance, that beautiful young woman, Becky Tuch? We ended up sharing the joys of Jenna’s Master Novel workshops, being in a writing group together and are now partners with 11 others in a multi-writer blog. (Plus we email each other all the time–which drives some of us insane. We have basically become a warm, wonderful, highly dysfunctional family.)

Oh, and we’re also friends.

Thank you Grub Street. You’ve supported and grown a community of writers in Boston and beyond (neophytes to Pulitzer Prize winners) with respect and love for all. (It’s still true.)

Update: I’ll be speaking on a panel at this year’s Muse (May 5, 6) meeting and greeting friends, learning, and gazing at writer too famous or intimidating to approach.

“I distrust styles . . . To have a style is to be trapped.”

I love books. Reading probably kept me from teen pregnancy, heroin, and robbing convenience stores with a badass boyfriend. I’ve read great books, good books, mediocre books, and book so awful they damaged my eyes, and it wasn’t genre that determined their ranking.

The opening words above from Milton Glaser, (whom Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, describes as “a living legend . . . having created a number of the most iconic illustrations of the twentieth century, from the I ©NY ad campaign to the 1967 Bob Dylan silhouette poster) define my voracious love of words.

Like so much in Imagine, Glaser’s words provide a deep click. Unless writing within a strictly proscribed genus, most of us are giving voice to a story struggling towards the page. We don’t know what it is, except that it’s a . . . novel. Then, after it’s been sold, titled, and covered, it’s framed within a particular list: perhaps by the publisher, perhaps by critics. (Literary! Is that the prize? Women’s fiction? Because a women wrote it? Because women will read it? Does mens’ fiction exist or is that simply . . . fiction? Contemporary? Upmarket? Is there then a Downmarket?)

Books are my constant companion: Novels deemed literary that twisted my guts (in the good way) and others so filled with over-wrought metaphors that I wanted to bang my head on my desk.  Thrillers that lifted me out of moments of despair–some that went to Goodwill unfinished. Mass market novels that got me through bleak times–those that made my life bleak.

Martha Quest (Doris Lessing!) taught me rebellion; Marjorie Morningstar (Herman Wouk!) helped me understand the appeal of bad boys; A Stone for Danny Fisher (Harold Robbins!) introduced me to gritty adulthood; Goodbye Columbus (Philip Roth!) educated me about men; Peyton Place (Grace Metalious!) small town sex: Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton!) isolation and rural poverty, and, of course, there was Beyond The Valley of the Dolls (Jacqueline Susann!!)

Which formative reading hours would I have lost if the book police determined my choices? If I’d been told (growing up in my decidedly not-intellectual home) that Edith Wharton or Doris Lessing or Isak Dineson would be too difficult for me, would I have never picked up their books? If my mother made popular fiction off-limits, would I have missed being lost in Australia with Colleen McCullough and Thorn Birds?

It’s a sticky situation: judging, eschewing, or making fun of books (often without reading them) because they’re popular. A friend (who’d written a well-reviewed  and book-club-popular book) told me that her offer (to a friend) of a blurb was rejected because the publisher was looking to position the book with more ‘literary writers.’  Were they afraid the ‘popular’ writer would drag the other book into the gutter of commercialism—gasping for more rarefied air?

My own book has been labeled everything from literary fiction to women’s fiction to suspense—because of the title—to the newly coined ‘upmarket.’ Goodreads readers have shelved The Murderer’s Daughters as literary, chick-lit, thriller, contemporary fiction, and dysfunction (I can only hope they mean the book, and not me) and more.

When seeking blurbs for The Murderer’s Daughters, and for my upcoming novel, The Comfort of Lies, I queried authors I admired because they’d written books that I found engrossing. These authors represented a spectrum of outlook and presentation. I don’t believe people read all one type of book, any more than we listen to one type of music.

The classification topic seems omnipresent. “How would you describe your books, commercial or literary—or something else?” a member of the audience asked at a book festival I attended last year.

We panelists snuck furtive looks at each other, no doubt vying for last place. I was eager to hear anything but my own voice, fearing that I’d say “I wanna sell like a mutha-***ka, and be treated with the reverence accorded Marilyn Robinson. “ Instead, when the microphone was passed my way, I mumbled something along the lines of “My agent describes it as upmarket women’s fiction. I’m not even sure what that means. I’d probably describe my novel as mainstream.”

Am I not willing to stand up and be counted in one camp or another? Or am I not willing to declare myself as being either without plot, or without literary merit?

According to Dummies.com, “mainstream fiction is a general term publishers and booksellers use to describe both commercial and literary works that depict a daily reality familiar to most people . . . Mainstream books deal with such myriad topics as family issues, coming of age initiations, courtroom dramas, career matters, physical and mental disabilities, social pressures, political intrigue, and more.”

Okay, I feel better. Mainstream fiction works for me.

One panelist declared that she absolutely would define her work as literary fiction, because she really cared about the words she used. Does that imply that I, by defining myself as mainstream, don’t care about the words I use or how I craft sentences?

Who makes these definitions, and who determines where your book belongs? Is it one of those “you know it when you see it things?” Is it self-defined or other-defined?

Agentquery.com, the sweet spot of online sites for those seeking agents, gives an in-depth definition for everything from horror to multi-cultural writing, defining the commercial vs. literary this way:

“If you marvel at the quality of writing in your novel above all else, then you’ve probably written a work of literary fiction . . . Although some literary fiction can become “commercial” by transcending its niche market and appealing to a broader audience, this is not the same as commercial fiction, which at its core has a commercial, marketable hook, plot, and storyline—all developed through literary prose. Literary fiction often merges with other fiction types to create hybrid genres such as literary thrillers, mysteries, historicals, epics, and family sagas. “

Whoa!!!

Is the above true? Do writers become literary by marveling at the quality in their own writing? What about shrinking violets too shy to stamp themselves ‘literary,’ afraid that they’ll be then stamped ‘full of themselves?” What if your book has a page-turning plot? Can you use the ‘L’ word, or are you setting yourself up to be knocked down?

I give up on defining myself. I’d be grateful, thrilled, and eternally satisfied to learn that a reader gave up sleep to turn the pages I’d written (as I do so many nights with others’ books.) If my prose is solid and hold up the story, then dayenu.

I always remember what Chris Abouzeid wrote in his post “The Decomposition of Language”:

What makes a work like The Odyssey immortal?

Story.  Structure.  Setting.  Character.  Passion.

Great writing (for me, as reader) isn’t such because it’s fancified or cluttered with metaphors. It’s because the story soars off the page and burrows in my heart.

There may be occasions when magnificently crafted sentences married to essential observations are enough, but I question the hierarchy of literature that places the less storied as more important. Do we need a caste system of fiction?

Can it be simple? Story + well written = something terrific. Let’s call them, um. . .  novels.

Upon hearing about Atria Book’s plan for a multi-author twelve-city bus tour, I could only be grateful that it wasn’t me who’d be stuck in a bus for umpteen days (Eight? Twelve? Two hundred? ) However long, I could only imagine bad food, cramped quarters, and the wheels of the bus going round and round until I needed Dramamine.

Now I’m wondering who to bribe to get invited on the next one.

I went for my friendship with M.J. Rose, and for being a fellow Atria author; I left clutching four new books and wearing an energized smile. In our age of pajama-clad, social media isolation, this in-person (I went to the Framingham Barnes & Noble) event engendered a yearning to read more and a sense of reading community. These four Atria Mystery Bus Tour authors thoroughly engaged me:

John Connolly’s declamation on books as touchstones of our lives brought uh huh’s, you tell it, brother, church nods, from the audience. William Kent Krueger’s stories of mid-life crisis, dire winter settings, and earrings for men had me eager to read his books.  Liza Marklund’s vibrant descriptions of her character—Annika Bengtzon—intense, demanding, and vulnerable, left me dazzled. M.J. Rose’s explanations of how Cleopatra’s lost book of fragrances stimulated her novel, wrapped her story in history, and merged it with the ‘what if’ we seek in great fiction. (And she actually had perfume–designed by a niche perfumer after reading Rose’s book–to give to the audience.)

It’s a wonderful thing to be in the community of readers—and it was clear that these four authors were first and foremost, book lovers. I’m sorry if any of them get car sick, but it’s a great ride for those of us lucky enough to catch them in action. Check the schedule. See if your city is included. Take off your pajamas and get thee to a real life bookstore.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since Pia Lindstrom, an interviewer from Sirius Radio, shocked me out of my I-can-handle-any-question mood when she asked something to the effect of:

So, I was surprised by how much sex is in your book. You did it so well. People say it’s hard to write about sex. How did you do it?

Um. Um. Um. Now there was a question I hadn’t been asked before. Sex is included in my work. (Ask my mother-in-law. When she read one of my earlier works—an in-the-drawer-book—she told my husband that I wrote ‘sex novels.’)

Wait! Before you run to the bookstore in hopes of getting a fun sex novel, save your money. Buy something by Jackie Collins. The sex I wanted to convey in The Murderer’s Daughters was the gritty emotional side of the bedroom; the stuff we hate to admit is true.

I had to answer Pia (and fast.) How did I write about sex?

By praying no one would ask me about it.

By telling myself that my husband knows I am not writing about him (except for the good parts, of course.)

By realizing that writing about sex isn’t about insert Tab A into Slot B—it’s about the emotion behind the writhing.

By remembering what Elizabeth Benedict said in her wonderful book, The Joy of Writing Sex:

Benedict: A good sex scene is not always about good sex, but it is always an example of good writing.

It’s easier to write about sex when it’s ‘bad,’ when the character is damaging herself through the act, or using sex as panacea or cover-up, than it is to write about good sex. Perhaps it’s a variation on Tolstoy’s famous aphorism about happy families vs. unhappy families. All fantastic sex is remarkably similar in how it lights up the brain, while “I gotta get through this somehow” sex is a textured way to reveal the problems in a relationship, which leads to Benedict’s next point:

Benedict: A good sex scene should always connect to the larger concerns of the work.

When writing about my main characters, sisters Lulu and Merry, I wanted to show them reacting in wildly divergent ways to the same trauma (the murder of their mother by their father.) Naturally, their experiences of sexuality were defined by that horrendous act. If I wanted to reveal the ways they were affected by witnessing their mother’s death, I needed to go into their bedrooms, and not in a polite manner.

Benedict:  The needs, impulses and histories of your characters should drive a sex scene.

Most readers can tell when in a sex scene, the writer has stepped away from the character and inserted a boilerplate moment. It’s easy to understand why a writer might avoid writing deeply about sex. Nobody’s comfortable with the idea that readers who know them might think they are reading a page from the writer’s life.

Which means, if you want to be true to your reader, you have two choices. 1) Take the readers off your shoulder and be willing to go all the way (sorry about that—couldn’t resist) in revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly, or, 2) Skip the sex and use the f a d e – o u t.

Benedict: The relationship your characters have to one another—whether they are adulters or strangers on a train—should exert more influence on how you write about their sexual encounters than should any anatomical detail.

Can I just say how much I hate clinical words in novels? I want writers to capture the inner monologue so well that there is only a very small space between character and reader. Thus, for me, the clinical terms leap out from a page as though the writer is shouting. It becomes a ‘look at me’ moment, rather than a ‘be in the character’ moment. Unless, of course, the character is a sex-ed teacher.

What goes on in a character’s mind as Tab A meets Slot B? Are they actually describing their partner’s body? In The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey, the following passage of a couple embarking on their first sexual encounter reveals the emotional and physical relationship of this particular couple without a single clinical detail:

From then on it was all haste and confusion. He undid a few buttons on her blouse and left her to manage the rest while he wrestled with his own clothes. She undressed quickly, eager to be hidden between the sheets. Edward, clumsy with his underwear, took a few seconds longer. Then he was beside her, the whole shocking length of him, and they were clinging to each other. It seemed to Dara that they were struggling to surmount some huge barrier—the barrier between not being and being lovers—and they must do whatever necessary to get over it.

From this passage, the reader immediately knows that Dara is not chasing an orgasm and that she is bringing to this encounter a truckload of emotional baggage.

This is what I want from sex scenes—secret glimpses into the soul, which are possible only at our most vulnerable moments: when we break apart and when we come together—and sex is often a time when those moments collapse into one.

Writing great sex is sort of like having great sex, I suppose—losing yourself in the truth of the moment. Except when you’re writing, you get to go back and edit it until the moments are just exactly what you want.

When I was a kid, nothing was better than listening to my Aunt Thelma’s stories. She’d take humiliating awful situations and transform them into eye-popping, comic-tragic tales. Her pain was our gain.

Stories bang around my head and crowd my mind. I’m stuffed with ‘what if’ and ‘why did s/he do that?’ As a child, I made twice-weekly trip to the library. Writers were gods to me, purveyors of that which I needed for sustenance. Food. Shelter. Books. Those were my life’s priorities.

As an adult, I still feel that way. I’m constantly foraging for books that offer glimpses into a character’s psyche, that go deep enough to make me part of the choir, saying, “Oh yeah, me too, tell it, writer. True that, uh huh.”

As a writer, I’ve learned that reaching deep isn’t always comfortable. (My daughters will read this! My husband will think I’m portraying him!) And, honestly, there is a place on my shelf for soothing books. Sometimes I want a comfort read, a total escape, a warm place to rest. But my favorite books, the ones I return to time and again, are those gritty enough to have emotional truth (which is very different than the truth of events.)  Thus, I work to write with a knife held to my own throat, so that my work will hold as much emotional truth as possible.

Do writers of dreadful happenings all come from dysfunctional families? I wrote a book that begins with two sisters who witness their father murder their mother and goes on to explore the myriad ways this event shapes their lives. Did my father kill my mother?

No. But he tried, and my sister and I were there. My sister let him in (after being told ‘don’t open the door for your father’) and somewhere in the background I stood, a silent four-year-old. Did that shape my work? I’m quite certain it did. Even though it is only the first chapter that holds my family DNA, the ongoing emotional tenor and the themes are all ripples from my past: invisibility, abandonment, neglect—much that was drawn on.

My next book, coming out in January 2013, The Comfort of Lies tells the story of three women connected by one small child: one gave birth to her, one’s husband fathered her, and one adopted her. The year their lives collide, they’re forced to make decisions about the child, their marriages, and face the damages of infidelity.

Did I give a child up for adoption? No. Did I adopt a child? No. But I struggled with issues of infidelity in ways that allowed The Comfort of Lies to come alive in my mind (and hopefully on paper.)

How does this happen, this weaving of truth and imagination? Does it always happen? One wouldn’t know without x-raying each writer’s past, but it’s a question I wonder about when reading my favorite books. What was that writer tapping into when they brought such depth to the page? Can a wrenching book be written without the writer taking a visit to their depths?

For me, writing transmogrifies fact into fiction, and thus, soothes my soul.

I used to play a song for my daughters, from Free to Be You and Me that swore that crying got the sad out of you. That’s kind of what writing does for me—it gets the sad, the mad, and the glad out of me.

Writing calms me. Writing excites me. Writing sorts out my world.

And writing lets me tell stories. Just like Aunt Thelma.

Tricks and Tactics

Hard writing makes easy reading. Wallace Stegner

I’m in the final gasps of revising a manuscript and, once again, I’m grateful that a friend’s fresh eyes gave me a proverbial kick in the manuscript. Whether I’m drowning in delight at my own cutesy-wootsy phrase, or persisting in beating the reader over the head with how important the d r a m a of the situation is, well for those times, I gotta have friends. Honest friends. Honest friends with eye for the ick.

Whether you’re ruthlessly judging your own work or a friend’s, you should look out for the problems we all tend towards:

1) Shrugging, grinning, and grimacing: Are your tics showing? All of us have writing tics—repetitive descriptors we repeat. Discover yours or have someone point them out (If I let them, all my characters will lean toward the other characters during times of stress) and remove them.

2) Let the reader rest after you jazz them up: Have you balanced scenes and sequels? Can you feel a good rhythm of active scenes vs. reflective sequels? (Scene: Maria snuck the diamonds from the dresser as Mama slept. Sequel: Maria researched the legality of taking her mother’s jewelry, anxious to see if she’d do time.

3) Don’t make the reader insane! It’s really not artsy to make the reader guess where the characters are in time and place. Are your Transitions clear and smooth? Are you moving the reader through time? Sliding effortlessly into flashback? Showing that settings have changed? Showing changes in mood, tone, emotion, weather, and POV?

Have your transitional sentences do double duty: The following day, rain kept Elliot from getting in his daily run. The enforced laziness made him nastier than usual—making it a good time for Maria to hide out.

Thus, in two sentences we learned: Elliot has a temper, he runs, Maria is scared of him, and it’s raining.

Practical strategies I use

1) The first read: After the first draft cools off (the longer, the better) read it from front to back like a book. Printed out.  I put it (double-sided) into a three-hole punched binder—so I can sit back and turn the pages, trying to fool myself that I am actually reading a ‘book.’ One smart writer I know actually prints out one paperback copy through Lulu.

Read your work before you re-read collected critique from your writer’s group, before doing computer tricks, before micro-changes. Don’t revise as you read, just mark it as you go, writing  down thoughts such as: Make Maria older. Maria’s hair changes color in Chapter 4, 8 and 9! Chapter 3 is boring.

I write TK for ‘to come’ in large red letters next to the clumsy stuff that bothers me, as a way to say:  rewrite this junk. I can’t remember where I picked up “TK” (Editors mark?) but it lets me read through the junk without feeling that I have to stop and fix. I scribble MEGO (my eyes glaze over) every time my work doesn’t even hold my interest.  Trust me, if you’re darlings bore you’re your reader will fall asleep.

2) Post Draft Outlining helps you see what you have, which is probably different from what you planned. Taking the time to do this helps you envision the larger picture.

After finishing each draft, update your outline chapter-by-chapter outline. I use a spreadsheet to show POV, setting and main conflicts of each chapter. This serves not only to orient me, but helps me avoid repetition (like realizing I’ve set half my scenes in Maria’s kitchen.)

I enter chapters and main events into an actual calendar for a visual at-a-glance method of orientation. (You can print ones from Word and other programs.)

3) Search and Replace and Highlighting: MS Word’s Control F action (command F in Mac) helps me more than any other. I use it for universal changes (oops, I should have named the maid Zita instead of Jane.) I use it to find tics (wow, the word ‘lean’ comes up 2300 times!) I use it to locate weak writing (for instance by highlighting passive words.)

As example, the offending word “was” is insidious. I just looked at an early document vs. a more recent iteration and saw the number of “was” went from 1678 to 971. Highlighting all the ‘was’ in your manuscript will force you to re-work dull or weak sentences:

Original Sentence: I was making a mess as I was baking the blueberry pie

Revised Sentence: I made a mess when I baked the blueberry pie.

Better: After baking the pie, greasy flour and sugar covered the kitchen counter.

Removing Tics: Find and highlight your ‘tic’ words. I searched and highlighted ‘sigh,’ ‘sighed’ and ‘sighing’ in my last revision. (When I went from Revision 1 to my most recent, I only reduced ‘sighs’ from 29 to 15. Sigh.)

Overused words: Swearing in small doses, in fiction as in life, can be effective. Overuse waters down the impact and spoils the read. Find, highlight, and fix.

4) Reading aloud: I hate doing it—but I find it invaluable. Read the entire manuscript aloud. The bad parts, the clumsy parts, the rotten dialog, the typos, the unrealistic and over-blown, the underwritten, the lazy—it will jump out when read aloud. DO THIS!

I have moved from self-reading to using a text-to-voice reading program. I use two computers—while one reads out loud, I fix text on the other screen—pausing the program as needed (oh, and it is needed plenty.) For me, Natural Readers has been the best of the text-to voice programs. I found the version I paid for in Natural Readers superior to the free program.

5) Gut check. Sadly, often what we think is great isn’t necessarily so. What we think is groan-worthy in our own writing, generally is. Therefore, if you think it’s broke, fix it. In addition, if there is a line you love so much you’re willing to keep entire shaky or unneeded scenes to support it—kill that line!

6) Orphanage: Uncertain about a cut? Sad? Afraid you may need it later, but don’t want to search through entire manuscripts? Make a computer file labeled orphanage or excised scenes and put in your cuttings. I find it reassuring.

7) Websites I’ve used:

1. http://www.cliches.biz/clichecleaner/ the free download alone is worth the trip.

2. http://www.refdesk.com/ Dictionary, thesaurus, medical, government, statistics

3. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ Find the top 500 names for any year

4. http://www.infoplease.com/index.html Atlas, dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, etc

5. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#l Common English errors

7. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/index.html Guide to grammar and style

8. http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk Grammar view from Great Britain

9. http://scholar.google.com/ Research friendly

10. http://answers.google.com/answers/ Ask and answer questions

11. http://thesaurus.reference.com/ Thesaurus/dic-medical and legal dictionary, translates

12. http://www.foodsubs.com/ Cooking terms

13. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/

14. http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/ Art, architecture, geography

15. http://www.fao.org/aims/ag_intro.htm multilingual vocabulary/ terminology of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food, and related domains (e.g. environment).

16. http://www.howstuffworks.com/ What doesn’t it tell you?

7) Recommended Reading for Revision

Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writingby Jessica Page Morrell

The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop by Stephen Koch

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway

On Writing by Stephen King

Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

Roget’s International Unabridged Thesaurus (The old fashioned harder to use kind—nothing matches it.)

“The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him/her.” Rachel Carson