An outrageous boo for a book!

Will baritone Leandro Vasquez obtain the release
he is seeking, with Jeannie Jacobs, an older opera patron?

What's a book boo? Not a bad review, if that's what you're thinking.

A boo is an audio clip made using Audioboo, a site that allows you to upload or record sound from your smart phone or, in this case, from my laptop.

I thought about all the writing I could record as I experimented with Audioboo. One obvious choice came to mind: an excerpt from my novel DEVILED BY DON, which I read at a residency in the Wilkes University Writing Program.

It's my favorite scene from the entire book. My Wilkes classmates loved it.

Now you can listen to it, too. And read the accompanying text below, if you like, since the boo finishes a few lines earlier than the scene.

In case you're wondering, this is definitely a PG-13 boo! Just click the round button below to hear my boo!

DEVILED BY DON, Chapter 20, "The Divo"

New Yorkers reacted to Leandro Vasquez like he’d come out of nowhere. They said things like, “Where were you hiding?” and “Who kept a delectable thing like you under wraps?” And not just female New Yorkers either.

Well, he wasn’t hiding now. Leandro Vasquez, who had been a lowly gaucho in Argentina who sang to his cattle, was performing in New York City of all places. Now that he’d been seen by New York critics, producers, and agents, finally he was somebody in a way he’d never been before. And he had wanted all that. But tonight, more than anything else, now that he’d earned the applause and the reviews and the critical acclaim he sought, he needed release. He was bursting with sexual energy. He wanted to get the head.

“I want to—get the head,” he whispered in the ear of the blonde actress seated beside him.

“I want to get ahead,” she said, “but first I have to use the little girl’s room,” and slipped out of her chair with a rubbery ease signifying she was more than tipsy.

“Get the head?” That was the expression; he was certain of it. So, why had the lovely blonde deserted him?

A matronly woman slipped into the empty seat beside Vasquez. As he turned to face her, she held out a hand with rocks the size of coffee beans on more than one finger but wore no wedding band. He took it, kissing her wrinkled flesh which felt thinner than parchment to his full lips. Though intially the feel of her skin had put him off, her overall appearance was very pleasing. She looked trim in an off- beaded gown the color of casaba, falling off her shoulders. Her eyes were aquamarine and reminded him of Vivian Perelli’s. Soft, full, dewy.

“I’m Jeannie Jacobs,” she said with the confidence of a woman who lacked for nothing. “And you are an incredible specimen of a man.” Then she shuddered, and the beads lining her décolletage rattled softly against themselves, creating flashes of light tinkling against heaving, freckled breasts.
Vasquez marveled at the reactions of American women. In Baltimore, they were wild for his Giovanni. What was it about American ladies, that they couldn’t tear themselves away from bad boys? Unfathomable—this weakness for men who used them and then discarded them. He intended to take full advantage of this baffling inclination.

He wondered if this older lady gave the head. Could he ask her that? Could he pull her aside and say, “Madam, you intrigue me. Would you like to give me the head?”

Back in Argentina he would say, “Haceme un pete.” If he said that now, would she understand what he wanted?

“Now that you’ve conquered New York, Mr. Vasquez,” Jeannie said, “what’s next?”

He leaned in close, tasting her flowery scent, and said in a husky voice, “Haceme un pete.”

*

He slipped the key card into his hotel room door and let her in first. Wordlessly, he removed his jacket from around her shoulders and tossed it on the floor. Jeannie unraveled his bow tie and began loosening the studs on his tuxedo shirt. She slipped her hands inside, first stroking then kneading his bare chest, moaning softly. Leandro slipped the strap off her shoulder and eased her gown down to her waist. He expected to see bare breasts but was surprised by a little strapless bra barely covering her nipples. He unfastened it with a one hand and massaged her generous breasts with the other. He bent over and said in a low voice, “Haceme un pete.”

If he said that to a girl back in Argentina, she would crack him across the mouth. Then she would go tell her father. Then her father would shoot a hole in his heart.

“What is this ‘Haceme something,’ Leandro?” she said breathlessly.

She didn’t know Argentine Spanish? How to explain this. You’d think a woman who’d been around the square as many times as she has surely would know what he wanted. What he needed. He took her hand, placed it on his crotch and moved it up and down. She rubbed him a few times before reaching up, unfastening his pants, and undoing the zipper. Little Leandro sprang out from confinement.

“Un pete. Mi pija. Mi pija,” he murmured, grazing her lips with his, placing her hands on his penis, trying to impart understanding to her bejeweled hand just like Annie Sullivan spelling “wawa” into Helen Keller’s dainty palm.

Jeannie rubbed and rubbed his pija. Enough with the rubbing, he thought.

“I could buy and sell you many times over,” she said, covering his face with kisses. “But I didn’t have to—did I?”

Leandro heard her say, “Buy and sell.” She was a prostitute? A little old for a whore, he thought. But if she needed the cash to give him un pete, he was in no position to argue at the moment. With his left hand, he fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. He wasn’t sure how much he had. Enough to buy a couple rounds of drinks. Probably enough for un pete from a woman her age. He slipped the bills into her hand, closing it around them.

Jeannie tightened her hand around the money and stopped rubbing. She pulled her body away from his, yanking up her dress, gasping. “You think I’m a hooker? A goddamn hooker?” She raised her right hand, turned her palm towards his cheek and cuffed it. She clenched the money balled up in her left hand and threw it at him. “And here I thought you were a nice boy,” she said, turning her back to him. Then she stalked out of his hotel room.

# # #

So, did you like my boo? Then go boo, yourself.

Writing for life? Use common sense and self care.

Against daunting odds, you’ve just completed your novel, your memoir, your chapbook. You’ve received strong feedback from a beta-reader or an outside evaluator through your creative writing program where you’ve received unprecedented access to the almighty gatekeepers—agents and editors. Maybe you attended a conference and pitched your book to an agent who requested a complete manuscript. Nothing can stop you now. Surely, you’ll have a publishing contract in hand within months, right?

Maybe. Maybe not. According to Putting Your Passion into Print, more than 150,000 books are conventionally published every year. That’s an incredibly large number of publishing opportunities compared to the number of screenplays actually made into feature length films every year. There’s plenty of room for good books—yours included.

Statistics such as less than five percent of popular booksellers' total sales are bestsellers provide reason enough to be optimistic that you may one day join the ranks of published authors. That is, if you don’t expect too much success too soon. That’s the fastest route to burnout. Expecting to be the next overnight writing sensation might be the single greatest handicap to the writing career you so desperately seek. Prepare instead for a long slog. Commit yourself and your faculties to writerly habits and a lifestyle that can sustain you and your writing career.

Keep writing. After I wrote my first novel in 2005, I was so proud of the fact that I’d completed a work of fiction, I used to carry it around with me wherever I went. After a few months, a pair of tired arms, and only one nibble from an agent, I realized that completing a novel was only the beginning of my writerly journey. I began writing flash fiction, short stories, and humorous essays while I began plotting my next novel. One of the writers I follow on Twitter who is also a literary agent never sold his first book—the one he was certain would sell. But sold plenty after that. So, keep writing. It’s never good to pin your hopes to one manuscript. Not to mention that editors and agents want writers who are good for more than one book. One of the Wilkes’ faculty members Lenore Hart sold her latest book The Raven’s Bride before it was written. Her publisher was banking on Lenore’s reputation for producing another publishable novel.

Keep submitting other work elsewhere. As long as you continue writing, you’ll not only be honing your craft, you'll have work to submit to publications and contests. For most of us, rejections far outweigh acceptances. You have to submit a critical level of work before the odds start turning in your favor. Once they do, every acceptance is validation to stay the course and builds confidence which you’ll need for more rejections and the inevitable slog.

Set reasonable goals. In recent craft classes at Wilkes, writer Lori A. May shared a framework for goal setting for a rich, focused writing career. Her model encourages writers to think in bigger chunks beyond the next story, the next month, the next acceptance. Set goals that will stretch you. But don’t doom yourself to failure either by comparing yourself to someone who’s achieved instant publishing success or setting irrational goals, such as, “Will have literary representation in one month.” Perhaps you won’t. I just interviewed a writer on this blog who has published four books but doesn’t have an agent. Make your goal instead, “Will query five agents every month.”

Volunteer to judge a contest. Reading others writers’ work with whom you’re not competing head to head, within your cohort or in the Wilkes program in general, can be eye-opening. It’s a productive way to learn from others’ mistakes and successes while being a good literary citizen.

Look for outlets to read your work. If none exist, create one. One of the great privileges published authors enjoy is the chance to read their work in public venues. In Wilkes University's creative writing program, students are given several opportunities to do that. Once you’re out of the program, it’s one of the things you miss most. At least I did because I love reading my work. Not seeing anything available in her hometown, one of the students in my cohort Ally Bishop went out and created an outlet for writers in Central Pennsylvania to read their work—published and unpublished—readings in which I’ve taken part. I know other Wilkes students are following Ally’s example, approaching galleries, book shops, and coffee shops about offering literary readings.

Get a writing group together. Writing is an insular life. If you don’t have an editor to give you pause to think about your narrative arc, to redirect your work, you would probably benefit from participating in a writing group. I said a writing group, not a shredding group. I’ve been in a shredding group—an utter waste of time and potentially devastating. If you can find a handful of other writers committed to careful reading and constructive criticism, it helps fill the gap left between working with a faculty mentor or a professional editor and writing in solitude.

Explore other avenues of sharing your work, like Scribd. I just learned about www.scribd.com, a social publishing site, where tens of millions of people share original writings and documents. One young woman who wrote a memoir but couldn’t obtain any interest from a conventional publisher shared her memoir in segments on Scribd, obtaining three thousand readers per post. Few bloggers can attract that volume of readership. It may be worth your time investigating.

Write something for sheer enjoyment. I’m not sure where I heard about this online writing community at The Write Idea (http://www.helenwhittaker.net/Home.html), an international group of poets and prose writers, but for three years now I have participated in a nine-round fiction contest with some of the most generous, talented writers I’ve ever met. It is sheer fun to receive the prompts, chat them up on the site, and see how everyone fares following each round of judging. This contest is something I do just for the love of writing and as such, the sustenance it offers me is invaluable.

Create something for sheer enjoyment. I read Jane Friedman’s blog There Are No Rules (http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/) regularly, which is how I learned about Scribd. In one of her columns, Jane also mentioned a site called About.me (http://about.me), which allows writers and other creatives the chance to create a free splash page, in lieu of a full-blown website. It was a great exercise trying to encapsulate my writing experience and persona into a splash page (http://about.me/GaleMartin), and lots of fun doing so.

Strive for a more balanced life. Shortly after I finished the Wilkes program, I needed a month to thaw out, having combined my studies with a demanding full-time job. Then I looked around my very untidy house, threw myself into some cleaning projects, and planned an anniversary celebration. I also recommitted myself to regular church attendance and singing in the choir, which meant rehearsing one night a week away from my *sigh* laptop, which I was certain was attached to my fingers. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the level of life balance I enjoyed before I began writing creatively, but the writing schedule a master’s or MFA program demands wasn’t going to sustain my marriage or a life well-lived. I simply had to make some changes.

Steel yourself for a long slog but fully appreciate any smaller success along the way.

The single best writing tip ever . . .

No build up. Just going to come right out with it. Today's post has one purpose only: To pass along the best single piece of craft advice I've ever gotten.

It actually comes from Kevin Oderman, my creative non-fiction teacher in the Wilkes University Creative Writing Program, and an outstanding craftsman himself.

In response to one of my assignments, Kevin said something like, "Everything you do must serve the story."

Basically, what he was saying was that writers must control their impulses to use a piece of dialogue or add a character or go off on a tangent or employ a certain phrase and ask themselves, "Does it serve the story?" It amounts to making good choices--intentional choices--to advance plot, character, and all the other fictional elements comprising your story.

Pretty simple test. If it doesn't serve the story, it has to go.

I actually used this test to evaluate a piece of stage business in a performance I was reviewing. It didn't serve the story. Not only was it extraneous, it detracted from the story. One piece of stage business weakened an important plot point. And it smacked of indulgent stage direction as a result.

Whatever story you tell, in whatever form (play, screenplay, prose), I challenge you to ask yourself whether the device you've employed or the scene you just added serves the story. The story is master--ironically, not you--and you need to pay slavish attention to it.

If you don't put your story first, who will?

How about you? Does this tip work for you? What is the single best piece of writing advice you've received?

Sarcasm is lost on cats . . .

Frodo, the wonder kitty

Our cat Frodo likes to jump up into the bathroom sink whenever we turn on the spigot to stick her paws in the water. It's a bad habit we indulge by, in fact, turning on the water for her. Then, to communicate the pain and suffering she's causing us by hogging up the sink, my husband and I say things like:

"We hope we're not getting in your way, Frodo, trying to brush our teeth."

Something clever like that. Clever, perhaps. Effective, no. Sarcasm isn't an effective way to communicate when your audience is a housecat.

Sometimes as writers we forget the audience we're writing for. Much as we don't like to be constrained by formulas--I don't write formulaic romance, I always say--if we want to be published, conformity might be a smarter course of action than writing something that isn't easily categorized, then wondering why it's not readily publishable.

As part of their course work for the MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, some of former classmates closely analyzed books in different genres to observe the use of technique or other literary element such as character. Such an intense examination can be very useful in helping to discover how the book you're writing either conforms, betters, of verges too far afield from the body of work in that genre or sub-genre.

I find revision the equivalent of a mental triathlon. Yet, in order to make a couple books ready to shop, I'll need to consider what category into which they can and should be slotted, rewriting them and their queries accordingly.

Because sarcasm is lost on cats.

To share or not to share?

Recently, I learned an acquaintance was writing a book. Excitedly, I asked, "Oh, what's it about?"

Is there a more glorious moment when someone takes an interest in your novel, wanting to know what you're writing about? Not for me. I'm more accustomed to people muttering, "That's great," their eyes glazing over like fasnachts on Fat Tuesday. My experience has been that people only want to hear about your books if you have a track record for publishing them. When someone asks me about my novels, I can't wait to try my pitch out on them. What if I get stuck in an elevator with an editor from Berkley Books, and she says,"What's your book about?" I have to be ready.

So, I practice my pitch. I write it and write it again. As I am wrapping up a book, I revise my logline. I've entered assorted contests--pitch, premise, first page, and novel-in-a-paragraph--seeking feedback on my pitch--my hot idea. You need as much practice as you can get. Not to mention, that sometimes by defining and honing your logline or your premise, you realize your book is getting off track in time to steer it back onto the rails.

"Sharing your pitch is important," said Rick Fellinger, a fellow Wilkes University Creative Writing program alum. "Do you know how many ideas for story content I've gotten when I've told people what I'm writing about?"

"I'd rather not say much about it," the woman said. "I don't want to give it away."

I had asked about her book--in earnest. I was giving her the chance I live for. But she didn't want to talk about it. I asked a follow-up question, and she disclosed a few vague details about her book.

Why didn't she want to talk about her book? Did she think I was going to steal her idea? That's not usually how it works. I can't write her book or anyone else's. Most people can't. Maybe that's why I've experienced very little theft of my intellectual capital despite participating in lots of online writing communities and contests. My god, you're lucky if someone in a position to advance your book sees your book, and its potential. Period.

Hillary didn't get my vote...
and I didn't get a column

Once I submitted an idea for a column to an online magazine with the headline, "Hillary or Bust?" the premise being a sardonic one: Society expected me to vote for another female Democrat because I was a woman, but Hillary wasn't my candidate of choice. The publication didn't accept my column--apparently they were voting for Hillary. However, in the very next issue one of the headlines of their articles was, "Hillary or Bust?" In almost six years of furious writing and submission, that's the worst case of idea theft I've ever experienced. And I never submitted a column idea to them again.

So, what do you think? Are you reluctant to share your writing? Your pitches? Your premises? Do you see the value in sharing them or do you think I'm being too trusting, which I've been known to be? Has anyone ever stolen your writing--premise, pitch, copy?

A view inside with author Lenore Hart -- on her latest book

Author Lenore Hart

I am pleased and proud to be interviewing author Lenore Hart, whose new historical novel The Raven's Bride (previously reviewed on this blog), was released last month by St. Martin's Press.

And what an interview! In answer to my questions, Lenore has shared a trove of great information giving novelists of every stripe and genre and student writers a primer on how to tackle writing historically based fiction. And every visitor who leaves a comment on this interview will be registered to win a signed copy of The Raven's Bride.

Before we get to the interview, here's some brief professional background on Lenore Hart:

Lenore Hart is a fifth-generation Floridian, holds a BA from the University of Central Florida, an MSLS from Florida State, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Old Dominion University. She has been a grant recipient and writer in residence for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florida Fine Arts Council, and a Visiting Writer at Flagler College in St. Augustine. She is also a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts at Sweetbriar College, and was writer in residence at The New College of Florida in Sarasota in 2005. She has served as the Visiting Writer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and also at Elizabethtown College, and also teaches in the graduate writing program at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, which is where I met Lenore. She was my instructor in the killer class of all killer graduate classes, Fiction Foundations.

Welcome to Scrivengale, Lenore! 

How did you decide where to start The Raven's Bride and on its frame-story structure? Well, I could’ve started almost anywhere, except usually when you’re writing an adult novel you don’t want to open chronologically starting from early childhood, as that makes it seem more like a kid’s book. I needed to cover that period though, so I opted for more of a flashback approach. My main concern was to somehow make the story of their financially impoverished, short, and in some ways tragic lives also be entertaining and funny and occasionally joyous. I wanted the finished novel to have a hopeful feel, not end on a tragic note. Quite a challenge, considering the real life facts. But there were positive facts also. They clearly loved each other very much. They did have some fun at times! I hit upon the idea of a reverse Orpheus/Eurydice tale, in which the wife, Virginia – who up till then had played more of a student/muse role – took the lead and came back to escort Poe to the “underworld,” instead of vice versa. So that comprises my opening and closing frames.


Hart's newest book

Did Poe’s being a gothic writer give you license or inspire you to include gothic elements in The Raven’s Bride?
Oh yes. There is of course the ghost story element – not only of the opening and closing frames mentioned above, but also throughout the novel. I portray Virginia as somewhat sensitive to the presence of the dead, from an early age. Later when the ghost of her brother Henry visits her, it is both a continuation of that theme and a foreshadowing of her own approaching mortality – but also a glimpse of the future and a nudging of hope and the existence of a world beyond the often-harsh one she is living in.

The language of the book (for one set in the early to mid-nineteenth century) was so accessible compared to other works written in a comparable time period. How did decide and then cultivate the style and cadence to your prose for this book? I used her voice, first of all, to narrate, and so had to take care not to make her sound like some 19th century scholar. She had to sound believable as a young woman and as a person of that era and of her experience and education level. Sometimes writers make a common mistake of thinking they must cram as much as possible of their historical research on a time period into a novel. They seem to forget they’re writing fiction and instead turn out something closer to a nonfiction history or an extended philosophical essay. The novelist’s job is not to lecture on the past, but rather to suggest with carefully selected details and then recreate place, people, and events in a series of vivid and well-integrated SCENES. Summary plays a part but is usually best kept to a minimum. Oddly enough, when a writer is true to the facts and also good at characterization and plot, it makes the past much more immediate and vivid and engrossing and REAL to a reader than even the most copiously detailed, date-pocked history text!

Was "Muddy," Virginia’s name for her mother, your invention or drawn from research? It was what they called her – Virginia and Poe. She was a surrogate mother to him, as well. His own died when he was two, and his father had long since abandoned the family. I also did not invent the other nicknames – “Sissy” for Virginia and “Eddy’ for Poe. Those being what family members called them; shortening names or inventing nicknames and endearments as close relatives tend to do. The amusing thing is that some biographers have seized on Poe’s use of “Sissy” as proof they had more of a brother-sister relationship, rather than the husband-wife sort . . . when actually it was simply a common family endearment.

Were some of your scenes—Virginia’s singing at the tavern, sighting the tame elk—sheer flights of fancy or were there historical underpinnings to these scenes?  His sighting of the tame elk really happened, though there was no indication Virginia too was there when he saw it on the banks of Wissahickon Creek. However, It seemed a good incident to use in the novel since it was amusing, and I didn’t have many other opportunities to get them both outside, much less out in the country. The scene at the tavern was wholly my invention. I was looking for a way to give her a wider experience of public singing beyond those parlor performances for friends which we know about. And her not telling Eddy about her public debut is in keeping with restrictions of the times on women, and makes it seem logical that it escaped the biographical “record.” Other scenes I made up were the supernatural frame (of course), childhood ones with her little friends Juliette and Claudine, the ones with both music instructors, and the slightly racy scene with the Scottish proprietor in the music store. I figured for a poor aspiring singer, the proximity to so much sheet music (quite expensive back then) might easily serve as an aphrodisiac! In any case, even when I had factual events to portray, the demands of fiction necessitated that in order to convert these to full-fledged scenes I sometimes had to invent appropriate details of setting, dialogue, thoughts, actions, or of the senses, as biographies mostly do not include those.

Lenore Hart presenting with Roy Blount, Jr.
at the Savannah Book Festival last week

Virginia seemed wise beyond her years. Was this quality embued by you the writer or did you have bits of research that indicated the kind of woman she was? To have her shoulder the entire burden of narration of the story, this seemed quite necessary. Fortunately, my research and readings seemed to indicate that she was indeed intelligent, talented, and interesting enough to keep Poe fascinated with her for twelve years. And, although I do not go into great detail about her lessons, as I mentioned in the novel, he undertook to educate her as well. I can’t imagine having a more sophisticated and thorough literature tutor than Edgar Allan Poe. Besides his writing abilities, his critical faculties were prodigious; his sensibilities and inventiveness ahead of his time. While many other critical pieces of the day don’t hold up now, thanks to the tendency back then to only say nice things about other writers’ works in noncritical “puff pieces," Poe’s honest, sometimes scathing, but pretty much accurate reviews of his contemporaries’ works are still held in high regard today. They won him no friends while he was alive, though.

How much did you feel beholden to being accurate to the events of Poe’s life—was it constraining to know where your narrative needed to go or freeing? Initially I think I felt very beholden. Too much so, in fact. I was worried about insulting her, I think. My first draft was too focused on Poe still, since almost all the information I had was about him anyhow – very little about her – and also I did not agree with the ways many biographers portrayed her as silent, childish, nearly simple-minded. Children – no matter how young and unformed – eventually grow up. “Folks often mistake a quiet nature for lack of wits,” I have Virginia comment to herself, in the narrative. And yet it is of course often the opposite case. Anyway, I have a very good editor at St. Martin’s Press, and she told me flat-out: “There’s not enough about Virginia and too much about Poe. You have to get creative with events to give her a fuller life.” And so, given that challenge and (it seemed to me) the official permission, I set out to add more events, in a logical, “could have happened “context.” These were the interrupted music shop “seduction,” the tavern singing scene, and some more childhood scenes that featured her great desire to learn as much about music and voice as she could. I think these came off pretty well. And anyhow, it IS fiction, after all!

Did you murder any darlings in the writing of this book? Not nearly so many as I had to do in my previous novel, BECKY. I actually took out very little this time.

What was particularly challenging for you about writing this book? Aside from the initial hesitance to make up too much, as mentioned above, time was a real problem. I was teaching both graduate and undergraduate students at two different colleges at the same time, in Pennsylvania, while I actually live in Virginia. So I had to compartmentalize teaching and writing more so than usual, and had a very regimented schedule in which I would write for about five or six hours starting early on Wednesday mornings every week. In this way I turned out a complete first draft in two semesters – about eight months of work.

Do you write the story and then heavily research it to ground it, or did you start with lots of research? I start out with research, and read quite a bit. I read all of Poe’s biographies and many of his letters and other documents available thanks to the good work of the various Poe museums. I already had a three-page outline and three chapters (about thirty pages). The book was sold to St. Martin’s in advance, before I actually wrote it. However, I know better than to get carried away with research by now. I don’t try to pin down minute details till later. Things change as you write a novel, and allowances have to be made for unexpected plot twists or ideas that, in execution, turn out not to be so great after all. As I write I might look for a detail or date or missing name or event, but I never let that stop my progress on the first draft. That way lies madness! You can always add more details later, so it’s best to press on and not get bogged down in minutiae. The fact is, I dread the first draft process, and I LOVE revision – it’s so very satisfying, like cleaning a long-dirty window. Gradually you begin to see, more and more clearly and in startling detail, the fantastic view outside!

There are two pages of reading group questions at the end of the book? Who saw this as a reading group book first, you or your editor? My novels are known to attract the notice of reading groups (should I call them reading groupies?) perhaps because I like to tackle themes that have a history but still resonate with readers today, and also because my latter ones have focused on some well-known fictional or real people. We are still essentially curious monkeys, and I think secretly or not so secretly want to know the “real” story behind famous people and events.

Though you were named for Lenore in the poem "The Raven," what things about Poe did you discover (or relearn) in writing this book? After I began, initially I was a bit worried about the age difference. I know what the knee-jerk reaction to such a relationship would be now, of course! There was Jerry Lee Lewis and his young cousin, a few decades ago . . . we are immediately suspicious now of anything to do with an older guy and a very young woman. So I was worried briefly that I might’ve signed up for something I’d later kind of regret. Though women sometimes married quite young in the nineteenth century, Virginia was a bit too young even by their standards. But there was their dreadful financial straits, and then the family situation (the early-orphaned Poe had no other real family by then and badly wanted to keep this one). So it seemed clear to me the original (unused) marriage license had been for formality’s sake, so Virginia and her mother could decently move to Richmond and live with Poe in the same boarding house and be supported by him and not raise too many eyebrows. And I felt that they finally married almost a year later because an eternal engagement would also look odd. But I believed by then they probably did not consummate the marriage until much later, and that was an intriguing plot element to deal with, also! This hunch felt confirmed when I came across a mention of Poe making a comment to a contemporary that they had not lived as husband and wife until Virginia was several years older. As a Victorian and a Southern gentleman, he could have hardly said much more than that about it!

What’s next? Now I’m working on a new Young Adult novel which is set in the present in Florida. It’s a bit complicated to coherently explain at this point, but the first person narrator is a sixteen-year-old girl who was driving when her father was killed in a car accident, and the plot involves love, death, cult religion, and string theory. It will be a nice change from copious historical research! After that I’ll either write another historical novel, most likely, or a contemporary murder mystery set on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I have the beginnings of each already in hand.

* * *

See, I told you she gave a killer interview. Lenore even includes references to one of my favorite operas La Cenerentola by Rossini (based on the Cinderella story) in The Raven's Bride, and it is fascinating to hear it discussed as a popular work in the context of the book. Given the pace at which Lenore Hart writes her books, perhaps this time next year we'll be discussing her next release. And don't forget--anyone who leaves a comment on this post will be registered in a drawing to win a signed copy of The Raven's Bride.

'Raven's Bride' marries history and pathos, lore and love

Book: The Raven's Bride
Author: Lenore Hart
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (New York: 2011)
Reviewed by: Gale Martin

As someone who appreciated Edgar Allan Poe's stories from my first reading of them as a teen, I was intrigued by the premise of Lenore Hart's newest book, The Raven's Bride, a fictionalized account of the short life of Poe's young wife, Virginia "Sissy" Clemm.

I'd even heard Hart share vignettes from her book (a work-in-progress at that time) during faculty readings at Wilkes University's creative writing program, finding her scenes entertaining and memorable. Who wouldn't appreciate fly-on-the-wall glimpses into the master mind of the most haunting stories ever published: "The Tell Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat"? My only misgiving before reading the entire work was this: Could a story centering on Poe's wife--not the tormented artist himself--intrigue over the span of a full-length novel?

Unlike Becky, Hart's novel immediately preceding The Raven's Bride based on Mark Twain's fictional character Becky Thatcher, Hart had the added challenge of rendering an accurate accounting of a real person's life while telling a robust story from his wife's point-of-view.

Poe aficionados will be pleased to know that Hart remained scrupulously faithful to history's record of the lives of  Edgar ("Eddy") and his wife "Sissy," including many of the expected milestones of Poe's writing life--the sales of his first and most well-known tales and poems; his relocations up and down the East Coast, to Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York; and even his reputed drinking binges, as he both chased and reclaimed a career in publishing until two years before his death.

Hart accomplished all this while crafting a story that surprised, entertained, and chilled, employing some of the conventions of Poe's own gothic tales. Yes, it is part ghost story that captures rather than strains the imagination. Wholly, it is a consummate love story that begs the reader to consider whether true love ends with death--or only begins there. Unrequited love at first, then romantic love, then tainted love.

But The Raven's Bride is is too intricately crafted to be just a love story. Poe and Virginia's love is too complex, tinged with sacrifice and slavish devotion, foreboding martyrdom and doom.

Virginia was only thirteen when Edgar proposed. She herself contributed no single work to the annals of American literature. She never worked--it wasn't seemly--she only sang and played pianoforte a little and therefore never contributed to their household income even though they nearly starved to death more than once. Considering all these variables, Virginia Clemm was still remarkable and worthy of Hart's novelization. Had Virginia Clemm not devoted her life to her cousin and husband "Eddy," he might have extinguished his own flame at even a younger age than he did, and the world wouldn't have the body of work that generations of readers have loved because it's always "been there." Some later writer would have had to invent the detective story because Poe wouldn't have been around to do it.

He was a tragic figure riddled with tragic flaws, who staved off death from alcoholism or suicide because of the abiding love of his adoring cousin, then spurred by a co-dependent (by today's standards), desperate need to keep her alive once it was clear that consumption would claim her life at a young age.

Here is a passage taken from the middle of the book, when Edgar takes Virginia on what he hoped was a pleasant outing, but they are caught in a rainstorm on the way back, which dangerously aggravates her consumption and nearly kills her. Eddy, stricken with guilt, goes on a two-day bender, before returning to her bedside, dirty, reeking of alcohol, and desolate:

He sank to his knees by the bed. "I couldn't bear to see you lying there, it was happening--you were dying again." He laid his forehead on my hand like a child. He was my child--the only one, I dimly understood by then, I would ever have. (p. 209)

As historical fiction, the overall plot of The Raven's Bride is readily accessible in any biographical blurb of Poe published in print or online. Since Hart is a master of her craft--storytelling, I don't want to spoil the unique literary experience for the reader she contrives to set up the book. Let me just say that this handling of the gray, misty world between life and death, Clemm's and Poe's, between heaven and hell that Hart wraps around the historical record, envelops the reader and doesn't let go until the last page and constitutes some of the most surprising and satisfying elements of The Raven's Bride.

Author Lenore Hart

I've read books where accomplished writers become so bogged down in their historical research that they lose the story. This is not that kind of book. Hart's research illuminates her characters and their plights and elevates the overall reading experience. The reader has a front row seat to many of Poe's literary triumphs and his most crushing defeats. It's the kind of book that makes you feel smarter while you're reading it, conjuring the feeling that you are have been initiated into a select or insider's group having read it--you now know more about Poe's life and times than lots of other people in the world.

Because they suffered so much privation, Poe and his child bride did not have a happy life. But Hart has given voice to many happy moments with such color and vivacity that you are buoyed along at times while still able to take measure of the downward spiral of their entwined lives.

If you want to feel as though you are much smarter than the average person and love that happy-reader glow of superiority, as I do, which can be derived from reading certain kinds of books, you'd better rush out and buy The Raven's Bride (available February 15). A Brazilian publisher just bought the rights to the book, so it won't be long before potentially 180,000,000 readers are just as smart as me and you.

My rating of The Raven's Bride:

Four out of four noggins

Want to learn more about Lenore Hart and her work? Visit her website.  

Writers and Social Media--Get On It!

This week, one of my former instructors from the Wilkes University Writing Program, Christine Gelineau, emailed me prior to the next residency for current students. (Alumni are always welcome on the community email forum--a neat feature of the program). Christine, an accomplished poet, and playwright Jean Klein teach the "Business of Writing" module, a series of upper-level craft classes that I found invaluable.

my opera blog

Christine asked if she could include a mention of my opera blog and networking successes at establishing my credentials and building an audience for my manuscripts even before they've found a publisher. She also was also interested in sharing any comments about the value/drawbacks of Twitter to student writers and the vast would-be published.

If Christine thought it might have value to graduate students in Wilkes creative writing program, perhaps it may have value on Scrivengale, too. Hence, this post.

Building an audience for a book

Here's a little history on my attempts to integrate social media with creative writing. While I was finishing my novel with opera as a backdrop (Spring Semester of 2010), in February of 2010, I established a blog called "Operatoonity: Everything you never knew you wanted to know about writing," which logged 12,000+ visitors since then. At the same time I set up two Twitter accounts, one as me (Gale_Martin) and one as my Operatoonity persona. There are lots of Twitter tools to help you quickly target people by interest, and I began following nearly everyone I found with an interest in opera: performers, houses, fans, conductors, and composers, thereby giving me a ready pool of people to interview for the blog. Through Twitter I also learned about opera from the content links others posted and about specialized contests such as Washington National Opera's songwriting contest, which I ended up winning first place (and an embarrassing number of cool prizes.)

Writers on Twitter

This October, as I began other manuscripts with themes other than opera, I realized I needed a writing/publishing blog, a stepping stone to an author's website, so that's when I established Scrivengale. I believe it was agent Janet Reid who said if fiction writers don't have a website they needed to at least have a blog or she'd be hard-pressed to consider their work.

Blogger has made so many improvements in their platform that a Blogger blog is a good stand in for a website because of all the pages you can add. Just by visiting other writing bloggers' sites, you can get a great overview of how these pages can be used to flesh out and plump up your blog. If you don't believe me, take a look at this writing blog, "Unedited," hosted by Jennifer Daiker, which has all the robustness of a website because of the extra pages she's created in addition to the home page.

If you have a writing blog, and you're not on Twitter, or not sending your content to Twitter, you are missing an invaluable opportunity to take advantage of built-in syndication features. The technology is there to Tweet your posts--even on Wordpress--and you are silly not to avail yourself of it. A quick review of my Scrivengale stats proves Twitter is the highest ranking single URL sending traffic to this blog and one of the top referring sites.

If you blogged back in the day (circa 2006-2008) as I did--sans Twitter and before the Facebook revolution--when you posted and prayed to the Google Gods that people would somehow find your blog, then you know how invaluable the social media are to bloggers developing followings and readers today.

As I told Christine, there are hundreds of agents, editors and publishers on Twitter that you can follow. If you are an unpublished, unagented author, you're lucky--very lucky--if they follow you back. However, I had an editor for a major publishing house follow me back because I asked her a thoughtful question after one of her Twitter posts.

Even if the glitterati from the publishing world aren't following you, you can always ask them questions by posting a mention to their attention, by using their Twitter user name preceded by @. If they check their mentions and deign to respond, you're in luck.

Regardless of whether they follow you or not, lots of agents and editors post links to their blog content--filled with pearly advice for would-be authors. And they dole out lots of industry tips, 140 characters at a time, too. Sometimes they make spur-of-the-moment offers to answer questions on a certain topic, read partials, and even whole manuscripts if you are willing to make a video, for instance. Even then, they may not always follow through on Twitter "promises" made. So be wary of that aspect of Twitter, too, that it encourages more impulsivity than regular email would because it has its own psychic energy or momentum. That energy is one of the great things about Twitter. Just don't fall prey to the impulsivity it allows.

Be professional

I read a hilarious essay about shopping for e-books while drinking heavily. While such a bald-faced confession seemed to buoy this memoirist's image, writers need to be careful when putting content out there, and not to say things you later regret, that tear down the personal brand you've been trying to build, one Tweet at a time. Once you launch your sentiments into cyberspace, they're gone--irretrievable--but perfectly able to come back to haunt you at the most inopportune times because Twitter content never dies.

I can sack my reputation with
one irresponsible Tweet?
Inconceivable!

Right now, there's a lot of information circulating on Twitter about writers acting unprofessionally, and that if they say anything to run down an agent or an editor, they are a tight network growing tighter all the time, and their gaffe will eventually come back to haunt them.

Yes, social media is making the world smaller, one byte at a time. You could conceivably sack your chances to be published with one foul Tweet flown in front of hundreds of publishing professionals. But the increased connectivity can work to a writer's advantage if you're smart and strive to be professional.

Unless of course, bad behavior is part of your writerly persona (like @BadBanana) or you're channeling an investigative reporter or something. Then by all means, skewer away.

Three wishes for the Creative Writing Genie

O, creative writing genie of the lamp. You have come to grant me three wishes? 

Shazam-a-lam-a-ding-dong!

You'll be happy to know that I've given this some thought--roughly four-and-a-half hours driving to Wilkes University and back--and here's what I wish for.

1. I wish that one of the publishing gatekeepers I queried (agent/editor) would have an epiphany (a visit from three ghosts would be okay)--that people like to laugh when they read books--and, as a result, find potential in my comic novel about the opera guild.
2. I wish that I could find enough time every day to finish three more novels and complete rewrites to another this year.
3. I wish for more discernment, to know when to change my writing based on the feedback of others and when to listen to my own instincts.

How about all of you, dear readers? What would you ask of the CW Genie?

Book Pick Contest: Win Burroway's 'Imaginative Writing--The Elements of Craft'

One of the many things I appreciated about being in Wilkes University's Creative Writing Program was the texts and instructional materials. Really first rate stuff. I've already featuring Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer on Scrivengale, which we read for the program.

Now, I'd like to introduce (or reintroduce) you to a craft book by bestselling author Janet Burroway that is in a word mind-blowing (no one said it couldn't be a hyphenated word) with a mind-numbing title called Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft.

If the title makes it sound like a textbook, that's because it is a textbook. But it's hardly dry. It offers accessible, practical lessons and examples (including excerpts from published works) on all the craft elements--image, voice, character, setting, and story--across multiple genres.

And the ideas? It's a 400-page book including the glossary and index filled with ideas to launch and revise and refine and polish your writing. More tools and ideas and information then you can use in a lifetime of writing--as least if you're middle-aged to begin with. I really appreciated this book because I never considered myself a rank beginner. Remember, before I started the program, I had read a bookshelf full of handouts and books on writing--the craft and the business of it--and had finished writing two novels.

In case you're not convinced, let me say without equivocation, that I LOVE this book. I love it so much I loaned it to a very good friend because I wanted to share the secrets of the writing universe with someone whose writing career I cared about. When she told me she misplaced it, I must have made a face like nothing she'd ever seen before because she went out and bought me a new one. Then, a month later, she found my copy with all its highlighting and tiny post-it tabs throughout. So, I gave her the new one, happy to welcome my trusty old Burroway back into my home library.

It's laced with reminders like, "Metaphors are comparisons that convey abstractions or judgments" (p. 13) or "Everything we know about people we know through our five senses" (p.79). Perhaps many of you intuited as much in your writing, but it's nice to be reminded how readers must fundamentally learn about our characters.

She shares some of her own missteps, too, which reminds me that she's human. I'll warn you, however, that if you read even one-third of this book, you'll soon be thinking Burroway is a writing deity. That's one of the reasons I became so incensed with a Narrative Magazine fiction contest. I entered a contest--no, I paid to enter a short fiction contest--that was won by Burroway, which seemed like an unconscionable money-grab that Narrative would allow someone with her stature to come in and win the top prize.

I mention this (because I'm still disappointed in Narrative) and because I still adore this book despite that experience. Yes, this post is simultaneously a rant and a rave. I used one of Burroway's exercises to start a story that won first prize in a fiction contest. The judge commented that the first line of my story grabbed her, which is why I won.

Be a follower. I need more followers.

Since this blog is newer rather than older, I do the happy dance every time a new follower appears in the sidebar. I'd like to build my follower base by offering two followers a chance to win this book (a $40 value). Anyone who's officially following "Scrivengale" either in my Blogger Followers gadget or using Networked blogs as of Friday, December 10, will be eligible to win a copy of this book. How new do you have to be? This blog is only two months old; you're all new followers the way I see it.

I'll be giving away one new copy for every 20 new followers (up to 40). All colorful highlighting and post-it tabbing is up to each winner. Winners announced on Friday, effective immediately of course, which I mention twice since I'm the kind of person who likes to know when things start and end.

If I haven't made this book sound splendiferous enough, here's an excerpt from one of the Amazon reviewers, "indypoet":

...it offers dozens and dozens of recent examples to illustrate its points. As an anthology alone, this book would be a good read. But Burroway's comments aptly help a reader to understand what is working well in each of her excerpts.

And it's really important to note that Burroway's book is great for writers working on their own--you need not be in a formal program to benefit from using this. It was also mentioned in this wonderful roundup of books every writer should read published by online universities.com.

So, tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell people you feel lukewarm about. I don't care. Anyone can win just as long as he or she becomes my follower.

Five clues you're ready for a master's in creative writing . . .

Kidnapped, Great Expectations
Jane Eyre, Les Miserables--
been there; done that.

Thanks to my undergraduate degree in English, I'm a fairly literate person in Western Literature studies. Because of teaching English in lower high school grades and middle school for ten years, I've also read lots of good-for-you YA and many of the required classics for young adults.

I've read for pleasure (Lawrence Sanders' McNally mystery series) and also for pain (went through a box of tissues reading Cold Mountain, and it still haunts me today.)

Baby Dionysus fresh from the calf of Zeus

Reading is great for writers--a necessity--like water for fish. But it doesn't make a writer. Well, at least this writer didn't spring from the leg of Zeus, bestseller in hand. When I first started writing creatively at age 47, I knew about themes and symbolism from literature studies, but not about scenes and character arcs. I had to take baby steps when learning to write. I had to learn the hard way--by doing.

Within a year of embarking on this midlife writing venture, I published my first short story. Then several others followed. I entered a gazillion contests. I ordered at least a dozen books called "Writing Novels for Dummies," and "Everything You Need to Know to Write a Novel."

I took one-day workshops, extended online workshops in fiction and mystery writing, and attended a few conferences. I joined writers' groups--online and in person. By 2009, I had bled every possible free or low-cost resource to learn the art and craft of creative writing that I could. But I hadn't published a novel. That's when I thought that some formal study might be in order, and I enrolled in Wilkes University's Low-residency Master of Arts in Creative Writing program.

How do know when you're ready to pay big bucks to learn to write?

1. When you've filled a six-foot bookcase with 3-inch binders overflowing with handouts you got from Internet writing sites, and it's time to buy another bookcase (and more binders).
2. When you no longer derive any substantive value from your writing groups--online or otherwise. If you apply yourself to your writing, you're bound to improve. As a result, in two years, I outgrew my writing groups and needed to ply my skills in a more competitive arena to get better. I never got to be a better tennis player by challenging weaker opponents. The same holds true for one's writing.
3. When you need to belong to a serious community of writers. I met a few terrifically dedicated writers, but quickly wearied of the many amateur writers in online workshops who make all kinds of excuses for not turning in their work or reading yours (and they paid for the class).
4. When you need some kickass criticism from people who really know what they're doing because they are published authors with advanced degrees themselves, who teach and are evaluated in professional settings.
5. When your husband doesn't want to read your work, and you don't want to spend any more money paying a so-called professional editor to vet your manuscripts.

If you're considering doing advanced study in creative writing, you might want to get ahold of Lori A May's new book called The Low-Residency MFA handbook, coming out in January, to find a program that fits your needs.

For those of you who pursued a graduate writing degree, what led you to enroll?

Stop back for upcoming posts entitled "Five Clues you're NOT ready for a master's in creative writing" as well as some informal assessment of the virtues of the low-residency MA, from this graduate's perspective.

Book Pick: Becoming a Writer

One of the unsung perks of a formal creative writing program is the curriculum, the books recommended by the program as well as the book list prepared by faculty by genre.

In the Creative Writing program at Wilkes University, they recommend you read three craft books before you arrive for your first residency: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, On Writing by Stephen King, and Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande.

While I found them all useful, my favorite was Dorothea Brande's, which believe it or not, was first published in 1934. Is the material dated? Not in the least. Though the materials and tools have changed, the organic process of writing hasn't changed in the least.

Here are a couple pointers from Brande's book to get you thinking about your writing life:

• Stick to a schedule of early morning writing to get the full benefit of your unconscious mind. The best way to do this is to rise an hour earlier than is customary. Without any other distractions, getting the paper or a cup of coffee, sit down to write anything that comes into your head--last night's dream or something that happened the day before. The real value isn't what you write but that you write in that twilight zone between sleep and your full waking state.
• Set a time to write during the day and stick to it--come what may. This is what Brande calls your debt of honor. If you have decided to write at seven o'clock after dinner or dishes, then at seven o'clock, "Write you must!" Write anything--blank verse, nonsense, limericks, a fragment of dialogue. Do this day to day, but each time choose a different hour. The important thing is that on the dot of the moment when you promised yourself you would be be writing that you are.

[Sidebar: I love how she says things like, "Write you must!"]

• Take pains to recapture the innocence of eye. Take Henry James recommendation and make it a vow: "Try to be one of those people on whom nothing is lost." Set yourself a short period every day to take thought and recapture a childlike "innocence of eye." For roughly 30 minutes, transport yourself back to a state of "wide-eyed interest" as if you were five years old. Turn yourself into a stranger in your own streets.

I had forgotten how rich and inspiring this book was until I picked it up again to write this post. I'm off to Vermont for the weekend, but I plan to take it with me, to reinvigorate myself, to recommit myself to the goal of Becoming a Writer