2010 Best Books: If this book were an animal, it would be...

Booksters, here is my contribution to the 2010 Book Lists circulating through the online reading community these days.

My rating system is not as much a rating as a barometer of mood. I usually like something about every book I read. But what I remember is the mood it put me in. So I thought I would assign an animal to some of my favorite reads this year to give you an idea of its mood. Maybe one of these moods will strike you.


An APE... would be Gary Shtyengart's Absurdistan. Most definitely. The main character, Misha, comes off as big, clumsy, genitally deformed, block-headed, sex-driven. I actually didn't like him all that much (what a surprise, I know), but Shtyengart really is a magician with language so for that alone it's worth watching Misha stomp around for a few hundred pages.

An OWL... would be my perennial favorite, which I read again this year, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The owl is, above all else, wise. So is this book. Wise, quiet, big-eyed, melodious and furry.

A HYENA... would be Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I just had this idea of Roth hanging in the wings laughing at me for buying his 'alternate history' that Lindbergh became president of the U.S. in 1940 and America turned into a country as anti-semitic as Nazi Germany. But I did buy it. My favorite scene is when the main character, Philip (see, it even reads like a memoir!), gets locked in a bathroom and his friend's mother talks him out.

An EAGLE... would be Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin. This novel swoops in wide arcs and returns again and again to the same circle of earth that we know as New York City in the year 1974. It's majestic, commanding, beautiful to watch in motion.

A SQUIRREL... would be Ian McEwan's Atonement. This novel sits with its nut and chews and chews and chews. It did get a little tiresome, all that chewing, but McEwan's humanity shines through in every nibble and it's why you go along for the read. People are complicated. Jumpy. Jealous. Hoarders of their own fates. It's a book you'd like to pet, but it leaps out of reach just as you put out your hand.

A CHAMELEON... would be Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex. It's about a woman turning into a man, so this seemed the only appropriate animal. Its whole mood is transformation, but not just of Calliope into Cal.

A GERMAN SHEPHERD... would be Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. For obvious reasons. Hanna is a fascinating character. She survives on her instincts, and her instincts drive her from one bold handling of her teenage lover to the next: Rescue. Clean. Dominate. Scold. Fear. Hide. Woof!

Happy reading and a Merry Christmas!

"I wish I had a little more talent"

I was sort of tied in knots yesterday. I did, at one point, make a noise at the computer screen that sounded like a growl. I wasn't sure. I know things are wrong with my novel that I just don't seem to have the juice, or skill, or both to fix. I just have to finish it. I stopped editing at Page 280 out of 349 pages. 70 more to go. And most of the pages I don't love, and I see the machinations of the author on practically every scene. Amateur hour.

After we put the kids to bed last night, I left my husband in the living room watching "The Wire," and I went to the little corner of our bedroom where my computer sits. I turned it on. I had the intention of working more on the novel, but instead I went to YouTube and typed "Stephen King" into the search. There are just some people who can calm you down with their homespun view of the world and the people in it. He's one of them for me.

Around minute 9:00 of this video, he looks the interviewer in the eye and says that the thing he thinks about a lot is that he wishes he were better. I wasn't sure I even heard him right. "I wish I had a little more talent, a little more originality," he says. "I wish I were better."

Perfect Is For Suckers

I spent a hard three hours revising on Tuesday. Doesn't sound like much, I know, but it turns out that Stephen King only spends three hours a day writing. Eight? Forget it. Although you could convincingly argue that his three hours are more efficient than mine, I'm not worried. He has a few years on me. I am where I am.

I probably started my editing today somewhere around page 185, so I got through close to 50 pages. Out to Page 229 of a total 347. You could say I'm a woman on a mission. Something about gnawing my way through retail the past two weeks has put an edge on me.

Wednesday I will get myself to Page 275. The nice thing about being in Draft 4 is that I know the story like (yes, I know, this is a cliche) the back of my hand. I know what needs fixing and where. At least to the extent I'm capable as a novice novel writer.

My motto for this week has become: Perfect is for suckers. I might make a button out of it. I've been quite hung up with being "perfect" or at least "very, very good" as I get closer to finishing the novel. As if my brain is trying to say: now it's time for the rock 'em, sock 'em. But I'm realizing now that locking into that state of mind has been slowing me down. I took the bar and not only raised it, but loaded it onto the the space shuttle and sent it on a Mars mission. Enough of that.

Oh, and that narrator thing. I did go back to Page 1 today and started to write her in. The woman on the Finnair flight. Honestly, I really like her. But after three new paragraphs, I realized how sick I was of being on Page 1 (I spent a lot of time there back in November). I saved her material and tucked it away in the event I need her later (read: in the event I am rejected wholesale by the industry and need to rethink my opener). For now, I'm going to smooth out the flashback and present-day voice and keep moving. I will probably clean up each flashback to put it into the point-of-view of different women in the story, to have some point-of-view synergy with Agnes's in the present day. But that's, as my mother is fond of saying, "good enough for government work."

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

And remember: Perfect is for suckers.

(I just proofread and can hear the literary agents saying "then good luck getting me to read past the first two sentences... ha ha." The corollary to my motto might be: Perfect is for published authors, but I'm going to ignore that I just wrote that.)

A Writer's Favorite Things

I'm about to sign off and edit another 25 pages. But before I go, given the season, I thought I would share a few of my favorite things. Things that soothe and things that help me stand the hours by myself. Or help me think. Or frankly, just taste good.

12 - Earplugs!

11 - My egg timer (I have trouble transitioning from one writing activity to another... so I'm treating myself like a toddler. It works.)

10 - Scented candles (I'm trying Tyler's candle called "Paris" right now.)

9 - Ellen DeGeneres's opening monologue + dance (4 - 4:05 EST) (where else can you get a joke and a hip-hop dance move in the same five minutes?)

8 - Peppermint tea

7 - 10 minutes of watching Ina Garten stir something (gosh, how I wished she lived next door!)

6 - My necklace of a 1 zloty coin (Polish money - I put it on when I sit down to work on The Orphan's Daughter and it signals to my brain 'time to get going.')

5 - A long, soft scarf around my neck

4 - Fig newtons

3 - The ceramic mug from my sister-in-law with an elephant on it (it makes me think of 'strength')

2 - My blog and tweet friends

1 - Any sudoku puzzle (after hours of writing, my favorite thing is a number!)


What are the favorite things that get you through your workday? Leave a comment - I'd love to pick up some new favorites!

My Favorite Place To Read A Novel

I've spent the last week fiddling with the problem I have in The Orphan's Daughter with narrator.

Just to remind you: the problem my critiquers pointed out was that the voice in the flashbacks felt entirely different from the voice in the present-day story. The options I played with to solve were using another person as a narrator (either Edmund Hitler or the female writer on the Finnair flight) or just using what I have but with a more consistent voice between the present-day sections and flashbacks.

During this time, I was finishing Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. It's a great book to read if you're thinking about narrator and voice, either as a writer or reader. There are 12 voices in that book (if I counted correctly). Some are done exceptionally well, like the Tillie Henderson chapter, and some are even beyond the ambitions of Mr. McCann. The voice of his Guatemalan immigrant character, Adelita, for example, just sounds a bit too literary: "The white sheets move with his body. A man's beard is a weather line: an intersperse of light and dark, a flurry of gray at the chin, a dark hollow beneath his lip." It didn't hurt my enjoyment of this jewel of a novel, but I realized during Adelita's whole chapter how everything felt over-observed. The way a novelist would over-observe, maybe, but not a single mother raising two kids in the Bronx.

As for my own book and its narrator, my thoughts kept coming back to that woman on the Finnair flight. She's someone who has a little bit of her own baggage, so to speak. She's flawed. And for this reason, she feels relatable. She's someone I wouldn't mind having tell me a story. I think she could be especially good at pulling in female readers.

Taking her on, however, will mean I will have to spend more time with the writing than I planned. If I have to connect all the pages back to the woman on the plane, they will need to have her tone throughout. The present day sections can probably stay as-written, but what to do with the flashbacks? I'm thinking of bringing her voice out, more self-consciously, as she alludes to research, and interviews, and then tells the story of different family members as she heard it from Agnes.

Using her also gives me more freedom to drop in historical explanations where I need them. This has been one problem that's come up again and again in critiques: the need for more historical context. The lebensborn program is something most people have never heard of. And I haven't let my narrator say much about it, maybe because I was trying to only say and "think" things on the page as they would be said and thought by Agnes. But Agnes struggles along until the climax when many things are explained, both to her and the reader.

There's another plus with the woman on the plane, and it's harder to articulate. It's a certain aesthetic, or vibe, you might call it. I like the feeling of "cozying up" inside a plane, in the dark, under the dome of a reading light, to hear a story. As a reader, it's one of my favorite places to read. When I think of that woman as narrator, I want to stop time. Things feel quieter. Farther away. Into thinner air where birds can't fly. Thinking of that quiet, high space and slowed-down time gives me an energy to finish writing the story.

And if there has been any truth to writing this novel so far, it's that I should go where the energy leads me.

Other People's Novels: The Bronte Sisters. Sort of.

Booksters, I think all of us may be a little strung out on holiday preparations, so here's something light and funny for this Friday. Thanks to my good friend Susan for sending this to me. She's always on the lookout for things that will help me develop as a writer.

5 Tactics to an Authoritative Voice

If I had to put one thing at the top of the list of what distinguishes a 'market competitive' book versus a mediocre one, one that might never find an agent or publisher, it's voice. There are three things I've observed that the publishing world looks for in voice: it's likable, it's 'new' and original, and it's authoritative.

As a new writer, I've spent a lot of hours experimenting with how to get an authoritative voice into The Orphan's Daughter. Here's the bottom line conclusion I've drawn: it takes years of experience. It's a pithy comparison, I know, but 'authority' is like wine. Some vintages just taste better after many years have passed. And because I don't really aspire to be the Beaujolais Nouveau of writers, I need to be patient.

Outside of patience, I think there are tactics any writer can stick to from the get-go that will contribute to how authoritative their voice is on the page. These are the 5 that have been most important for me so far.

#5 - Respect your schedule. Be a professional. If you don't take your story seriously, how can you expect the reader to?

#4 - Read other voices. Study them. See why they attract or repel you. Why you believe the voice or not. Why you like it. Then examine your own voice and think about how those ingredients fit in.

#3 - Write reviews about your book. Imagine it's published to rave reviews. Here's a few I wrote for The Orphan's Daughter. I'll admit, they got me pumped.

"Romo's novel explores the themes of cowardice, guilt, loneliness and artifice with subtlety and grace. Her story contains one of the most insightful and honest views into humanity that I've ever read." - Jonathan Franzen

"Agnes Mueller is a timeless American heroine. You'll want to root for her from the very first page." - Publisher's Weekly

"The Orphan's Daughter moves like the crack of a whip right from page 1. Never have we seen the Hitlerian nightmare in this way." - The New York Times

#2 - Know the world you're writing about, or spend time there. Research. Talk to people. Think about what they say and expand on it in your fiction. Yes, fiction is essentially about making things up, but you have to make them up in the context of what the reader will agree is plausible. Also, getting a blatant fact wrong will sink you. The jig will be up.

And the #1 tactic is - Believe. Suppress your negative, self-doubting inner voice. Lock it up. It will leak into your writing. If you don't have stacks of published books to your credit, all you can do is march onto the stage with your chest out.


In many ways, voice is very much a matter of taste. The voice that turns on one reader may be uninteresting to another. But outside of taste, the voice has to be unarguably in control of the story. For most new writers (and I include myself), this is one of the toughest snakes to charm.

I'm sure there are other important things to keep in mind. If you're a writer... please share what works for you!

My 10 Platform-Building Goofs

With the book in much need of editing, I'm a little ashamed to tell you I've spent the whole day on social media. It's addicting, right? Especially when the other thing on my plate is to edit a novel. Tweeting and blogging with folks seems, well, easier. And more fun. And it probably releases some optimal hormones.

And I know if I can say to an agent or editor that I have thousands of fans and followers, that will help my case vis a vis my little novel. So I'm trying to figure out this thing everyone in the publishing industry keeps raving about called "platform."

I did some homework today to see what I might be doing wrong on that front. Dan Zarrella, a Social Media scientist, played a big role in my education today - so thanks, Dan. I could spend about a week reading all the content on his website.

Based on Dan's research (data from hundreds of thousands of blogs and millions of Tweets and Shares), I made a list of my biggest platform-building and blogging goofs. Maybe some of them are yours, too?

10 - I'm talking about myself too much. Honestly, if my blog is about writing a novel, I'm not sure how to get away from that one. But I'll have to think on it.

9 - My shares on Facebook are too technical (publishing hoo-hah and otherwise). Dan's best line: "Facebook is the Jersey Shore of social media."

8 - I don't always use spellcheck. Turns out grammar counts.

7 - I'm not putting up a post on Saturday. The biggest day for comments seems to be... Saturday. Who knew?

6 - I could be posting more. Even several times a day. People seem to like up-to-the-minute timeliness.

5 - I'm not posting early enough. Other bloggers go looking for links early in the morning... and my post isn't out there until 10 am sometimes.

4 - I'm probably rehashing too much of what everyone else is saying. I need to inject more of my own unique opinion and insight - what the ad biz calls a 'unique selling proposition.'

3 - My posts are too long.

2 - My posts don't have enough videos and pictures.

1 - I wasn't using the Facebook "like" button (only the "share" button). Until today. Now it's there.

Check out some of Dan's research and see where your goofs are. Leave a comment if you already know them!

NPR: Indie Booksellers Pick 2010 Favorites

Booksters, every spare word is going to our Orphan's Daughter at the moment, so I'm going to punt you over to this lovely article I found yesterday. You can always rely on NPR to support the little guy. On my wishlist from this list are several, but at the top is A Week At The Airport by Alain de Botton. In it, the philosopher describes the vibe in Heathrow's new Terminal 5 over the course of a week. Talk about rich material.

Not only have I not read any of these books, I've never even heard of them. So they must be good. Take that, New York Times Bestseller List!

Enjoy!

Fresh Delivery: Indie Booksellers Pick 2010 Favorites

A Narrator?

When I boarded the Finnair flight from Helsinki to Chicago, it looked like planes always look to me. Final resting places. Tombs. Coffins. The flight attendants milled. Their hair was as yellow as a legal pad. I went to my seat and sat next to another blond with high cheekbones, her jaw and face full of as many angles as her legs and arms. Not like the apple-cheeked blonds handing out newspapers. I knew the plane had come from Warsaw and I figured she must be Polish.

Eventually, we spoke, and I heard her Chicago accent. We hit it off. Turned out she had the same thoughts about planes that I did. The only difference between us was that she smelled like vodka.

"Screwdriver," she said. "When it's a morning flight, I figure at least there's some orange juice mixed in."

At one point, I asked her if she really believed her grim view of air travel. She sighed and looked toward the nipple of the air vent. Her hair fell away from her face and I realized how young she was. Maybe thirty, if that.

"I figure you can't be disappointed. If you land safely and walk away, it's like finding out you have more time than you thought. Time to fix things."

I nodded politely and she smiled with a tiny wince of apology. We both knew she had said something that required a line of inquiry from me, but I wasn't biting. I didn't even know her name.

Later, when we were somewhere over Greenland, the flight got rough. She started talking nervously to the back of the seat in front of her, but loudly, like she wanted me to be listening. So I did.

"I figured," she started, "that if there were maybe two hundred thousand people like my father, there have to be half a million like me. The kids. And the grand kids? There will be millions of them."

This time, I thought I ought to be polite. "And what about them?"

She drew a long sip on another screwdriver and bit nervously into the mini straw. "They aren't who they think they are."

"What do you mean?"

She turned towards me. "You're a writer? Can you write about something, if I tell you? But you have to change our names. Can you do that? People should know." The plane shuddered. I wasn't sure I wanted to write about something that had to be so cloaked in anonymity. Then who would believe it? But I had been writing too long about herbal remedies and caribou. This felt like a story.

I took out my notebook, the one filled with interviews with Helsinki horticulturalists about the likely extinction of a rare yellow buttercup. I skipped two pages. I started at the top of a fresh one with a blue pen that still had plenty of ink.

This is what she told me.

My 9 Memories of Colum McCann

Image from www.visitdublin.com

My husband and I went this week for the first time to the Symphony Space in Manhattan for a program they have called Selected Shorts. This past Wednesday, the program was hosted by National Book Award-winning novelist Colum McCann. Three acclaimed short stories (one of which was his) were read aloud by three actors. It was about as low-tech as entertainment gets.

It didn't matter. It was sold out, every seat filled. I'll remember 9 odd little things from sitting four rows off the stage that night. I was close enough to tell you if he had bad breath or not (he doesn't). And if you can't tell, I would have been awed by watching him chew gum for an hour. After all, he knows how to do what I so desperately want to do myself.


9. He said tonight was his last appearance for a long time because he needed time to sit in a room and do what he does. Write.

8. He said novels are an "exploding universe" and short stories are an "imploding universe." The short story is small and tight and compact. But novels? They can spin out of control and spray their shrapnel everywhere.

7. He didn't shave for the occasion. (I would have been disappointed if he had.)

6. He said "People say the short story is the chamber music of literature. I think it's the whole orchestra."

5. He wore the professor well: wrinkled khakis that were at least one size too big, a scarf and a blazer with elbow patches.

4. He rocked on his heels and shoved his hands deep in his pockets when he seemed at a loss for words. "Honored" was what he called it, with the "r" tightened by his Irish brogue.

3. He came back from the intermission with a little buzz from his wine, which he was happy to tell us about.

2. He heard his story, Everything In This Country Must, read aloud for the first time. Ever. (It was ably read by Amy Ryan, who plays the character of Holly Flax on The Office.)

1. He wanted to call his "mum and dad" in Dublin and tell them his name was in lights on Broadway: "An Evening With Colum McCann." But he didn't because it was too late in Dublin by then. Ah well.

Will Readers Hate Me For This?

(Sorry this post is a little long, Booksters, but I do need your help working this one out...)

I have some issues with the narrator in The Orphan's Daughter that I've been avoiding. That might partly explain my recent stall (though I will still pin some of the blame on Santa and his time-suck of a holiday).

The narrator, it turns out, is pretty important. It's the sound in the reader's head from page 1 until the end.

To point to my favorite example, the narrator in To Kill A Mockingbird is, of course, Scout as a grown woman. I can't read the novel now without hearing the sound of the adult actress who spoke as grown-up Scout in the movie version. I can't. That lilting, quiet, reflective voice with a steady pitch of longing all wrapped in the cadence of a southern accent. That's the narrator of the novel for me. The voice. The authority to believe what is, essentially, all made up. And it's what makes me like Scout and want to know what happened to her brother, her father and poor Tom Robinson.

To boil down the narrator problem with The Orphan's Daughter, it basically has to do with time. There is a present-day story (Agnes's story) and there are handfuls of flashbacks between the years 1941 and 1948, in Germany and Poland.

Readers of the manuscript have tended to love the flashbacks, but many of them have said they don't know who's 'talking.' The flashbacks have this 'voice of God' sound, disembodied. I wanted the flashbacks to be an omniscient narrator - someone who can see and know everything - but the narrator is coming off so disembodied that the effect is only far, far away. Too far.

In the present-day story, the narrator is an adult looking back. Not Agnes, but someone who knew her well, and can tell you all about her journey inside and out. Maybe a great aunt or uncle. But the narrator is close in terms of psychic distance, and the point of view is solidly Agnes's. Readers don't know what any other characters, or the narrator, think or feel. Only Agnes.

The effect of the 'omniscient' flashback and the 'close-in 3rd person' present-day story is that the flashbacks sound too different from the present-day story. Whenever a flashback starts, my readers seem to be losing that sound in their heads. They spend the first few pages of every trip backwards trying to fine-tune their reception. I somehow have to unite the voices.

These are some of the options I've been playing with to try and solve it -

-- Have one omniscient narrator who jumps from the present to past, close to Agnes, and close to one character in each flashback. Maybe close to all the women - Agnes and her grandmothers? (There are several. It's complicated.) He's not any person, he's anonymous, just a voice.

-- Create a new character who has heard Agnes's story and is retelling it, flashbacks and all. Does Agnes meet someone and confess all, somewhat guiltily? Begs them to tell the world? Maybe this is a failed, middle-rate journalist who feels Agnes's story is his chance to write about something important? (This was approximately the technique Robert James Waller used in The Bridges of Madison County, to somewhat of a nice effect. The characters of Kincaid and Francesca seemed hyper-real because the narrator told us he 'researched' them.)

-- Put the story in the words of someone important from history, with him as a more self-conscious narrator, who expresses opinions about what he's relating. There's only one person I have in mind here, and that's a real boy named Edmund. Edmund wasn't important because of anything he did. He died on February 2, 1900 when he was six years old. Measles. My thought is that, after that point, beyond the grave, he had a ringside seat for the whole messy unfolding of the 20th century. And better than an anonymous narrator, he has something at stake in Agnes's story. A desire for atonement. A desire to be relieved of any guilt by association. Because Edmund is Adolf Hitler's younger brother.

I probably wouldn't reveal his identity until the end, maybe in an epilogue, that this voice in the reader's head all along has been this poor, dead Austrian boy. I worry that readers will be furious. That the book will be viewed as an apology for the Holocaust. But how can you fault a dead 6-yr-old just because of who he's related to? But then, isn't that what Agnes is afraid of all along? Being faulted because of who she's related to?

I wrote a prologue with Edmund and Adolf playing together as boys and then scrapped it because readers said it seemed miles away from 1970s Chicago, where Chapter 1 kicks off. It is. But maybe there's something to do with Edmund that is more subtle than a whole scene of his own. Maybe this is partly his story? Maybe he would want us to know what he knows? And what does he know?

Edmund as narrator feels ambitious - am I a good enough writer? - and risky. But he has dogged me since I read about his early death during some research I was doing about Hitler. He somehow wants to be in this book. Somewhere.

Booksters, which way do I go with this?

World. Go. Away.

Booksters, whether you're trying to get through a dense book that you refuse to abandon, or trying to write one, do you ever feel like everything is getting in your way?

Kids need dinner. Every night.

Presents need buying.

Then there's Christmas cards. This year, I told my husband I was going on Christmas card strike. But now I'm guiltily answering the ones we do get with a quick note.

Dinner reservations need to be made for a family visit.

Kids want to go to Radio City. Need to buy the tickets.

Kiddie gloves get lost and the temps drop below freezing. Can't wait. Must go buy more.

Need to read for my novel class and my critique group. Hundreds of pages a week. Thankfully (though I love the company), the class is almost over.

Then there's Colum McCann. And tonight should be a fun night, but it just feels like it's... in the way.

And according to the goal I set for myself back in November, I should be at around page 250 with my editing for The Orphan's Daughter by today and I am only at page 160.

Everything's getting in the way. And I'm letting it. And I wake up more upset about it the next day. I feel so ravenous for quiet minutes that I don't even want to stop to shower. How bad is that?

I love you world, and I want us to be friends. I want to make something for you that you will love. But now, can you just please, for a little while, go away?

Amazon's Book Discounting: How Much Is Too Much?

As I mentioned yesterday, J.A. Konrath's blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, has given me lots of hope that an "Indie" writer (meaning self-published) has all the tools at their disposal to build their own writing career. They don't necessarily have to wait years for the New York publishing establishment to "choose" them. Not anymore. I was even inspired to rant optimistically on the topic after attending the Self-Publishing Book Expo in New York in October: Self-Publishing? Thumbs Up or Down?

One of the reasons Indie writers have such a shot is because of Amazon. Bookstores mainly ignore Indies, which used to be a problem because that used to be where most buyers went to buy books. To be in most bookstores, you have to have been "chosen" and nestled into the bloodstream of that ages old Establishment.

But not at Amazon. Amazon has unlimited shelf space for an unlimited amount of books, a reliable infrastructure for reviewer comments ("was this review helpful to you?" was a great innovation on that front), and a reliable and easy purchasing experience for the buyer.

Then I found this article about Amazon: Books After Amazon in the Boston Review. It is long, but seems to be well-researched and it is full of anecdotes about Amazon's many tactics strong-arming big publishers on pricing, either removing an author's "buy" button or entire product if the publisher refuses to set the discount price where Amazon says. This has become such a problem, that the Author's Guild created a website that tracks the location of an author's Amazon "buy" button and notifies the author if it goes missing: WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com

Reading this article, it underlined for me that in the entire cycle of writing and selling a book, the most important aspect of the process is this: Price. I might even go so far as to say that Price is more important than the Writing. Really, think about it. How many times have you purchased something that wasn't entirely great quality and found yourself saying "But it was only X dollars..."

And on Price, this article makes clear that Amazon calls 100% of the shots. Publishers aren't setting prices. Amazon is. But, you say, isn't this ultimately good for the consumer? Everything's cheaper? But what about the worker who brought you that product? What do they get? What about the worker in Bangladesh who made that cotton t-shirt that Target is selling for $6.99? What do they get? Same thing. Close to nothing.

Any party involved in the production and distribution of a good deserves to earn a wage in exchange for their labors. If this basic economic principle does not hold up, you've lost the means of production. You've lost the basic incentive to produce. You're left with either slavery or shortage.

Amazon appears to favor slavery. The "wage" is evaporating. This is part of the reason Indie writers are going Indie. There's no money left for anybody except the writer. And who knows how much of the writer's earnings will be chipped away in the coming months and years.

I suddenly found myself sympathetic to the likes of Random House and Simon & Schuster. Yes, they have to adapt. They have to trim back. 2011 is no longer the world of the Midtown Agent/Editor lunch and they need to get over it. But these firms do add something to the process -- experience discerning good writing from bad, quality editing, design, distribution, marketing (a little) -- and they deserve a wage for that. Less, in my opinion, but they still deserve it.

If the publishing world changes entirely on Amazon's terms, what will happen to the quality of what we are reading? It will have to get worse. If you've ever held one of those $6.99 t-shirts up to the light, you will notice something: you can see right through it.

If you're a reader, writer, editor, or better yet, somebody from Amazon, I'd love to know your thoughts on this topic. What can a lone writer do? How much control over their own product can they really have?

eBooks vs Paper? Who Will Win?

Like I've said once before, one of the rules of taking writing seriously is to learn, learn, learn.

Even though I quit my marketing job to write, I have found a surprising outlet for my business head in trying to figure out the publishing industry these days. With both ebooks and advances in self-publishing coming together like a perfect storm, they way authors write and publish and the way readers read is in a total upheaval. Any writer these days can't afford to ignore those dymanics if they hope to write for an audience.

Crime writer J.A. Konrath's blog has literally become my classroom. His latest post gives his paper and ebook sales figures, which you don't often run across in blogs. I love all the numbers, as it helps me to think about the financial end of what I myself am doing.

If you're a curious writer or even a reader who is reluctant to move to ebooks, this post is worth a look. There's some interesting fortune telling about the future of books.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath Self-Pubbed Sales#links#links

Other People's Novels: Colum McCann Pt. I

I finally had to give up on Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep part way through. It's an excellent novel, but I kept wanting to write my own novel in a similar voice. As if I could put Agnes on a chaise lounge with a feather boa smoking a cigarette and calling everybody "Darling." My own writing was starting to sound kind of... off.

The next book in my queue is Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin. McCann's list of honors is too long to mention here, but this particular book won the 2009 National Book Award. It might not be the best criteria, but when books win awards I tend to pay more attention. The writer must have done something right.

Having not read through much of it yet, I'll let the author's publicist tell you about the book. This is from Colum McCann's website http://www.colummccann.com:

The novel begins in August 1974 as a tightrope walker makes his way through the dawn light across the World Trade Center towers, stunning thousands of watchers below. Using the true story of Philippe Petit as a pull-through metaphor, McCann crafts a portrait of the city and a people... Elegantly weaving together... seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory of 9/11 comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the tightrope walker’s “artistic crime of the century.” McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Let the Great World Spin has already been described as a triumphant American novel.

My husband just finished the book. This was one of the only times I've ever heard him gasp while he was reading. When I asked him what was wrong, he just said "this writing is just so unbelievable." Forget the book awards, right? What a writer really wants is for the everyday reader to lose his breath. And I should also note that neither my husband nor I are big fans of "9/11 books", but my husband says this book isn't so much about that.

We are going to an event with Colum McCann on December 8th in Manhattan. I'll post "Part II" next Friday about that, and hopefully, I will have finished the book, too and can tell you more of my own impressions.

If any Booksters out there have read his book or have questions they want me to ask of our friend Colum, just let me know. If my husband pokes me in the ribs enough, I might get up the courage to raise my hand during the Q&A.

100% Guaranteed Funk Busters

OK, Booksters, I've decided that this week is all about stamping out the writer funk. I have some Grade A, First Class, Rot My Brain In Front of the TV FUNK. I can hear the flush of my writing career swishing down a toilet bowl. It's time for drastic measures.

When I feel the wheels coming off my wagon, I read everything I can to try and re-inspire. Here's a paragraph from Ann Rittenberg's "Your First Novel" that usually makes me feel like I'm back on top (or close), no matter what my funk:

And look at it this way - millions of people say they want to write a novel and never do anything about it. Thousands buy books on writing and never read them. Thousands read the writing books but never get around to starting a novel. Thousands read the books, take seminars and workshops, start a novel, and then never finish it. When you finish writing a draft of your book, you are already ahead of millions of other people.

Ahh... what soothing words to my Type A personality. Terrible, but that's what this writer needs to hear.

On the inspiration front, I also must give a shout-out to fellow writer and blogger Holly Bowne and her blog - Write Expressions. It's a great home base for writer inspiration so check it out if you're so in need. http://hollybowne.blogspot.com/

What Holly doesn't know is that her blog sits on my Blogger dashboard and many days, I careen though my posts and my dashboard, read her "inspirational quote" and feel all buoyed by it, and then speed on through to the next thing I have to do. More love must come your way, Holly, as you pick me up more days than you know.

Now, For Something Funny

After yesterday's post, I thought I owed you all some laughs. Thanks to my college friend and fellow aspiring novelist, David Kazzie, I have just the thing! "So You Want To Write A Novel" is, unfortunately, all too true. But fortunately, it's also hilarious. Thanks, Dave. You put this up just in time to help me dig out of my writer funk.

My favorite line: "I better warn them not to steal my idea because it's copyrighted."

Enjoy, Booksters!