The Writer's Bookshelf

• Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
• Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• Love, Sex, and Astrology by Teri King
• The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition
• Slang and Euphemism, Third Revised Edition, by Richard A. Spears
• Starting from Scratch by Rita Mae Brown
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White
• Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions by Harry Shaw (not available new)

The Business of Writing

Blazing Bedrooms: 10 Tips to Keep Your Reader Satisfied

1. Acknowledge your sexual self. What do you find sexy? What movie stars turn you on, and why? What would be your ultimate seduction? What are your fantasies? Do you have fantasies? If not, indulge!
2. Find out what other people think is sexy. Do your research! Investigate the sensuality section of library and bookstore. Boldly. This is an important step. You’re owning your sexuality, and you’ll write a better sex scene as a result of taking that risk.
3. Move outside your comfort level. Get a little kinky even if it’s only a wee bit. Type “sex toys” into your browser and see what’s out there. Watch an X-rated movie.
4. Get out of the bedroom. Start looking at your environment in sexual terms. As suspense and mystery writers think “this would be a good place to hide a body” start thinking “this would be a good place to have sex.”
5. Take a light-hearted approach. Inject some humor into the scene. (Check VLT books for this )
6. Analyze your love scene style. Do you like plain speaking or lots of euphemisms? Is your language lush or irreverent, teasing or intense? Whatever you decide is your style, stick to it. Be consistent.
7. Fine-tune your writing environment. If possible, set up your environment the way you would for a real-life love scene. Most writers, like most lovers, need some privacy. Some like music, some like absolute quiet. I don’t use candles or aromatherapy, but you might. I also don’t dress the part, because it’s too much trouble, but you might. Whatever puts you in the mood.
8. Spend the time. Writing sex scenes is hard work for me, but I love it. I know I’ve done a good job if I turned myself on in the process of writing it, and if I did, then I also know there will be almost no rewriting.
9. Write the scene in sequence. I’ve heard of some writers who skip over the places where they plan to have a love scene and then go back and write those later, all together. Yet the love scenes aren’t separate from the plot and characterization. The love scenes color the action before and after it, or at least I want them to.
10. Forget about your personal sex life. A man once told me that his wife wouldn’t make it as a romance writer because they don’t do all those things in bed. It doesn’t matter if you yourself swing from the chandeliers on a regular basis. It doesn’t even matter if you have a current partner. Your personal sex life is irrelevant to the writing. This is a fantasy sex life, and you don’t have to try out any of it, or live any of it.
    But on the page, you have to live every minute of it, go through it with your characters, get turned on, and end up satisfied at the end. If you’re satisfied, your readers will be satisfied, and your books will sell like hotcakes.

• 365 Ways to Improve Your Sex Life by James R. Petersen
• My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday
• The Kama Sutra by Anne Hooper
• The New Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
• 101 Nights of Grrreat Sex by Laura Corn

Weasel-Wording

In my reporter days we had a phrase for those instances when we didn’t have all the facts for a story and didn’t have time to get them. We’d weasel-word it. I picked up another phrase from those days – that story sucks dead donkeys. We used that when the weasel-wording didn’t work out. But I digress. I’m here to talk about weasel-wording. Which I openly admit to doing.

Oh, come on, you do, too. Don’t tell me you don’t sometimes run out of time for looking things up, or you’re sick of looking things up, or in order to really know what you’re talking about you have to interview your cousin’s husband’s uncle who happens to be an anal-retentive jerk who would spend two days of your precious, deadline-infested time explaining ad nauseum something that you’ll have to reduce to two lines in the story.

Yeah, I know there’s Google now, and everything anyone could ever imagine is somewhere on Google. But there are times when even Google just doesn’t cut it. Or – be honest – you don’t dare go online to look something up on Google because then you’re liable to notice that you have fifty-eleven new email messages, and who can write with that knowledge perched in your fevered brain? So you weasel-word it.

Recently some author friends and I had a lengthy discussion about accuracy in fiction. I dunno. Is that an oxymoron? At any rate, it came to light (that’s weasel-wording for several people who shall remain nameless pointed this out) that a recent Big Bestseller was riddled with inaccuracies. Don’tcha know, it sold anyhow. Me, I gobbled it up, inaccuracies and all.

I’m thinking all those inaccuracies could have been avoided with some judicious weasel-wording. Instead of naming certain streets the characters raced through, the author could have simply said they raced through the darkened streets, turning right, turning left, whatever it took. Or something to that effect.

I would never presume to tell someone who has made a gazillion bucks on one book, and a few gazillion more on backlist books as a result of the impact of aforementioned book, how to address his/her craft. But weasel-wording is a useful skill that might have avoided some these problems. I’m just sayin’. Of course, it might have dried up the other market for books rushing to point out the mistakes in the aforementioned megaseller.

And, after all, we are talking about fiction. In the newspaper business you’re supposed to dish out facts. That’s pretty much why I quit that job. Brutal reality is not my thing. I like a world I can manipulate to suit me, and then I don’t have to depend on the weasel-word factor nearly as much.

My author friends suggested that certain standards wouldn’t have been expected of this aforementioned publishing juggernaut if the author hadn’t claimed in the front of the book that pretty much everything in it was true. I’m taking a lesson from that, sports fans. Here’s how the front page of my next book is gonna read: I made this up! I made it all up! I changed anything that needed changing, so if you’re trying to reconcile anything in this book with reality, forget it! That should do’er.

So here’s the moral of the story: Start with a disclaimer, and when you get to Stuff You Don’t Know and Don’t Have Time to Research, weasel-word it. Then, when you get that megaseller riding the charts for umpteen weeks, you won’t be plagued by annoying accusations of inaccuracies. Wouldn’t you just hate that?

Snatching Time

My all-time favorite book is Charlotte's Web. What's not to like? Good writing saves a worthy pig from being turned into bacon. If that isn't high-concept, then I give up.

On top of all that wonderfulness, the book's protagonist is a writer, which always warms the cockles of my heart. In these troubled times I sometimes question whether the pen is mightier than the sword, but in the case of Charlotte and Wilbur, it works out exactly that way. And let's not forget Charlotte's most excellent epitaph: "A good friend and a good writer." I'm definitely stealing that one.

As far as I'm concerned, E.B. White rocks, and now I've found yet another reason to love him.

Thanks to my buddy Colleen Collins, I present you with the following E.B. White quote: "I think the best writing is often done by persons who are snatching time from something else-from an occupation, from a profession or from a jail term-something that is burning them up, as religion, or love or politics, or that is boring them to tears, as prison, or a brokerage house, or an advertising firm."

Relax. This is not going to be a discussion about Martha Stewart's recent incarceration. She already has enough PR. This is a discussion about us--commercial writers with lives.

As I hear from romance writers, both published and aspiring, I don't notice anybody lollygagging. I don't think there's a lollygagger in the bunch, if you want to know. And yet I've always had this picture of the writerly life as being somehow more.. . serene.

Early in my career – a poetry period which is better left undocumented – I sat in a critique group listening to a woman describe her life as a writer. After a leisurely breakfast, she read a little in the classics before settling down to her desk to pen a few lines. I pictured her at a Victorian writing desk in her peignoir using a feathered quill, but I doubt she gave us that much detail.

At noon she broke for lunch. After lunch she revised those lines and took a break for tea. Then, following a stroll through her manicured garden, she reread the lines she'd written and called it a day. In the evening she visited with other writers for fascinating discourse or read more classics.

She spoke not a word about interruptions or writer's block. Nothing about submitting her work to publishers and certainly nothing about rejections. I assume she had pots of money buried in the back yard because she didn't mention being worried sick about whether a royalty check would cover the rent. She lived the creative life.

And that was the life I wanted. It was not the life I got. I'd be willing to bet it's not the life any of you got, either. I thought that was because I was doing something terribly wrong, and that surely if I had that kind of nurturing existence I'd be the most creative person on the planet. If ideas didn't always flow it was because of my helter-skelter environment. I mean, who can think in the midst of chaos?

E.B. White, that's who. He wouldn't have written that about "snatching time" unless he'd had to snatch a fair amount of it himself. No, I haven’t studied his life, so if you have you may be able to prove me wrong, but I sense a busy man in that paragraph, a man who had to grab his writing time when he could.

And guess what? He thinks that’s when the best writing is done. All of a sudden this pressure-cooker I live in is not a detriment to my writing at all! It'll make me brilliant! E.B. White says so. I don't know about you, but I'll choose to believe him, because the pace isn't letting up for me, and probably not for any of you, either. Write anyway. It'll be a masterpiece.

Those Who "Get It"

You know you're in serious deadline avoidance mode when you make an appointment with the dentist. And you don't even have dental insurance. So off I go for my 10 a.m. session with a Steve Martin look-alike (think Little Shop of Horrors) although I have not a thing drastically wrong with my teeth. What can I say? It beat staring at a blank screen.

These days, as some of you might know, you don't spend much time with the dentist during a dental appointment. Instead you get cozy with the hygienist, who in my case is named Heidy. And did she have a treat in store for me- Deep Cleaning.

There I am with the slobber-sucker dangling from the corner of My mouth and the chair at full tilt, and Heidy the Hygienist starts to chortle. "Now we'll have some fun," she says. "Mmph," says me. Heidy giggles. "Well, I'll have fun. It might not be quite so much fun for you."

No, really?

Thereupon Heidy begins to work me over. If this is making any of you squirm in your seat, feel free to get yourself some chocolate to release the tension. Ready to continue? All righty, then. The bottom line is that Heidy had a frickin' blast digging debris out of my mouth. She could barely contain her excitement. "This is so rewarding," she'd cry after each excavation.

She was so into it that she gave up lunch in order to finish the right half of my mouth before she turned me loose. By this time my blank screen looked a whole lot more inviting, so I told her I couldn't come back to do the other half until . . . oh, maybe 2007. I was on a tight deadline, you see. Hey, did I know this avoidance schtick was going to hurt?

I could see that my reluctance had wounded Heidy to the quick. She looked exactly the way I feel when an editor turns my favorite idea into mincemeat. And I was strongly reminded that writers aren’t the only ones who want to be valued for what they do. They aren't the only ones who whoop with glee when the work goes well.

I'm sometimes guilty of thinking non-writers just won't get it, but I'm here to tell you Heidy would. So would anyone who loves his/her work with a passion. The difference could be that writers have to love what they do because satisfaction might be the only payoff. That makes us special, but there are others who are equally devoted to the job, equally special – hygienists and taxidermists and IRS agents . . . okay, maybe not IRS agents.

When I made the second appointment for ten days later, you would have thought I'd given Heidy a million-dollar advance. She was so excited she twirled on her stool, which unfortunately was tangled in the line for the slobber sucker still tucked in the corner of my mouth . . . . But I'll heal. And Heidy's joy was worth it. Mostly.

In Love Forever: Rekindling the Affair with Your Muse

If you’re anything like me, you were seduced into writing fiction. But whether it turns out to be a temporary fling or a passionate, life-long relationship – Nick and Jessica or Bogie and Bacall – might depend on how well you understand the dynamics of an affair.

Picture yourself in a dull but stable marriage. (I know, it’s a stretch, but give it a try.) Life’s tolerable, but the thrill is gone, and from all indications, it ain’t comin’ back. Then HE appears in your life. He’s Heath Ledger, Antonio Bandaras, George Clooney and John Cusack all rolled into one. He’s mysterious, dashing, funny and sexy. He feeds you outrageous ideas while the rest of the world is sleeping. He arranges an intimate rendezvous during your lunch hour, then lures you to a lost weekend with him. He fills your mind with forbidden dreams.

Before long you believe that if ONLY you could be with him forever instead of snatching these stolen moments, your life would be complete. And then a fairy godmother appears and poof! Your wish is granted. You and your new lover will be together forever and live happily ever after.

Or will you?

What if those precious stolen moments become a daily grind of tedious availability? What if your Adonis leaves his socks lying around and the toilet seat up? Forgets birthdays and monopolizes the remote? What if he becomes, in short, exactly like the man you left for him?

Think back – when you first encountered it, didn’t the prospect of writing romances seem as exciting as the appearance of a new lover in your otherwise humdrum existence? Some of you are just entering this heady phase when you steal a few moments to type a few lines, a few pages, and dream of a day when you will spend unlimited time with your new love. Others have been carrying on the affair quite long enough and are ready to throw off their shackles and run away with this seductive charmer. I did.

Many long years ago I quit my job to write romance full-time even though I hadn’t sold anything yet. (I’m easily seduced.) And in the beginning I wallowed in the ecstasy of whole days to pound on my electric typewriter and dab correction fluid on my mistakes. (I told you it was many long years ago!) Anyway, I loved it all – my own coffee, my own bathroom, my own dress code. Ah, freedom!

Ah . . . drudgery. In an embarrassingly short time I was making statements such as the following: I can’t go out for lunch because I have to write. I have to finish this chapter before I can go shopping with you. I would love to take that little trip but I have to write a proposal this week. Have to? Uh-oh. My Adonis was turning into Homer Simpson. My dream career, my avocation, my most passionate interest had become a JOB.

And in the time-honored American tradition, I began to complain about my job. My check was late, or my editor slow, or my butt sore, or my computer broken, or my reviews bad. Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen. If you’re reading this still bathed in the glow of infatuation and are sure this could never happen to you, think again. Forewarned is forearmed. If you’re reading this with deep recognition because you are in this spot at this very moment, I offer you hope.

It’s not so different from rekindling a love affair, for that’s what you used to have with writing. Think back to what seduced you about this endeavor in the first place. You fell in love with make-believe. Is there anything more fun in the whole world than spending your day playing make-believe? Reality is for those with no imagination.

Remember when you used to build a tent in the backyard and take all your treasures out there for the day? Wherever you write, pretend it’s that tent. Take your treasures, whatever they might be. I had to buy a few. I splurged on a CD player and music I like. I write to music now because it helps me create, but that might not work for you. Try aromatherapy. Hang crystals in the window. Buy a tabletop fountain or make one. I can tell you how. Get a lava light.

Take snacks. Be a little careful with this one. Take a snack with you when you go out to the tent, but then stay in the tent. No fair sneaking back in the house for more snacks, because every time you do that you’re re-entering the world of reality. Also, too many snacks make you fluffy. Besides that, each time you come out of the tent you run the risk of someone reminding you to do your chores.

Crawl into that cozy tent you’ve made for yourself and play make-believe. You used to be able to do that for hours when you were five. Now you’re back, and if you’re very, very lucky, you’ll be allowed to play in that tent for the rest of your life. Don’t you love it?