Stranger than Fiction: Are Industry Lies Keeping You Down?

To all writers out there who are dutifully following the rules laid out in guidelines and at conferences about submitting your work: getting frustrated much? How well I know that feeling.

If you play strictly by the rules, the whole process could take so long that you just might give up before your manuscript is seriously considered by an agent or an editor.  The following article is for anyone who has a tightly edited manuscript and wants to speed up the whole submission process without completely pissing off the gate-keepers to the publishing world.  I hope it helps you get closer to your dream of publication.

Stranger than Fiction:
Are Industry Lies Keeping You Down?
by Marie Lamba

Never send simultaneous submissions. Always tell you are multiple submitting. Never email. Do this, don’t do that. Yada yada yada. Guess what? Lot’s of this advice might be actually keeping you from getting ahead! Let’s sort some of this stuff out.

The Big Lie:
Never send simultaneous submissions. If you do simultaneous submit, you must tell the editor/agent.

The Big Truth:
Never send simultaneous submissions to two editors or agents in the same company. Other than that, all is fair in love and publishing. Hey, what other business expects you to do things one at a time and wait for months to hear anything? Makes for very poor marketing. And you don’t need to tell anyone it’s simultaneous. Just don’t mention it. Do you really think you are getting two offers from two different people at the same time? Seriously?

I know that if you talk to editors on a conference panel, they’ll tell you just the opposite. Think about it. Why would they want you to flood everybody with submissions? And if you were a buyer, wouldn’t you love to avoid all chances of competition? But talk to professional authors, and they will tell you to simultaneous submit. If they didn’t, they’d still be waiting by the mailbox for a response.

Caveat: Make sure you carefully target your submission to editors and agents who actually handle your type of work, or else you’re wasting everyone’s time. Also, if an agent asks for an exclusive read and you agree, make sure it is an exclusive or be up front if it isn’t. You don’t want to start things on the wrong foot.

The Big Lie:
Be patient.

The Big Truth:
Patience is sometimes stupidity. In every submission, include a SASE postcard with a check off that they’ve received your work in good condition. If after a month the card is nowhere in sight, email the editor or get on the phone and call to track it down. Otherwise you may be waiting for 4-6 months to hear about a book that they never even received. (Been there, done that.) Of course, if you’re multiple submitting, it won’t be a huge tragedy, but still.

Also, if you haven’t gotten a response to your manuscript in their promised reading time, do a follow-up by email, phone or mail to make sure you’re still in the queue and not lost in a junk pile. Be polite and no nonsense about it. Don’t waste everyone’s time chitchatting.

The Big Lie:
Never Email

The Big Truth:
Email is amazing. Email queries are fast. Agents love these. You can find most agent and editor emails by Googling “their name” plus “email.” Email is also great for a quick follow up on a return postcard that wasn’t sent, or if the manuscript is past the reading time promised. But I wouldn’t email a manuscript unless you got a go ahead for this first.

The Big Lie:
When going to a conference, leave your manuscript at home.

The Big Truth:
Okay, nothing screams AMATEUR more than hauling out that huge manuscript and foisting on an editor at a conference, but it is useful to have the manuscript tucked away just in case. When I was at a pitch slam and the editor liked what I said, he asked, “Could you quickly read me some of it?” I yanked that pile of paper out pronto and started off. Also, I like to bring to conferences a few stapled sets of my first chapter with a one-paragraph summary and contact info attached to them, just in case.

The Big Lie:
If an agent/editor doesn’t get back to you, give up.

The Big Truth:
Always hope. Agents and editors are swamped. They may say response time is 4 months, when in reality it could be 9 months to a year. They lose manuscripts, their computers fail, emails get lost in cyberspace. Always put in that SAS postcard to confirm receipt. If emailing a manuscript, ask for an email confirmation that it was received. Follow up every few months to make sure you’re in the queue and ask if you should resend. You’ll find that most feel really bad about making you wait and will be kind when you touch base with them.

The Biggest Truth of All:
If your manuscript is shoddy, nothing will work. If your manuscript is excellent, GO FOR IT! No one will turn you down, unless you are a complete jerk. So be professional and courteous. When these two qualities are mixed with an excellent work, it is the true formula for success. No lie!

Why Conferences? (Or, How I Got My Editor and My Agent)

It’s conference season. Tons of workshops with authors, editors, agents. Panel discussions. Pitch sessions. As you receive glossy brochure after glossy brochure, you’re probably wondering, is it worth it? Why go to a conference at all? Well, here’s an article I wrote a few years back, and I’m including it here in the hopes that it might motivate you to step out of your house, and meet some editors and agents face to face.  Some seriously great things can come from it.

Why Conferences? (Or How I Got My Editor and My Agent)
by Marie Lamba

Take the time to network with others in the writing biz.

Okay, none of the following can help you if your manuscript isn’t ready. I mean completely free of errors, completely interesting, completely wonderful. But what if it truly is? How can you get on the speedy (and speedy is a relative term here) road to publication? In a word: conferences. Seriously. Here’s how it worked out for me.

First I applied and was accepted to the amazing One on One Conference held annually at Rutgers University (children’s writers only). If you are writing for children, this is the ultimate place to be. The editors and agents there know you have some semblance of talent to be able to get in, and they are extremely available to talk with you throughout the day. You are paired up with an author, an editor or an agent who works in your genre and you get to talk with them one on one for 45 unbelievable minutes. Then you get a 5 on 5 round table discussion with your match plus four other pairs. Plus there’s chatting with anyone you dare to over lunch. Plus there’s a keynote and a panel discussion. Absolute heaven.

I was paired up with the very kind Alvina Ling, editor at Little Brown. Not only did she enjoy my first few pages and ask to see the whole ms (yeah!), but she also asked if I was interested in finding an agent. She recommended a small handful of agents she especially respected that dealt in my genre, and said I was welcome to say that she had referred me. I’d say that was the best $75 dollars I’d ever spent, wouldn’t you?

You know how they say never email an agent a query, especially one who says on her website “no emailed queries?” Well, ha! I decided to be bold, and I found out that when your message line says “Recommended by (insert the name of the editor or top author here…only if they’ve actually recommended you, of course),” that they would in fact read your query immediately. And if all goes well, that agent will email you back in a matter of hours asking to see your whole manuscript. It went well. So I jumped the queue, saving myself about 3 months of waiting just to hear a response to my query. So far so good.

I’d like to say that the response to the manuscript was as fast. You know. The agent waits with baited breath, reads your manuscript overnight, gets back to you immediately. Well, that didn’t happen. So I figured if I didn’t hear back in the next week, or at least the next month, then I was toast. One month went by. Two months. Three. I sent a cheerful little note to check on its status. Three and half months went by.

Blah. So, time for another conference. This time I decide to attend the BEA Writer’s Digest Conference in New York. The agent I’d hoped to get would be there. Perhaps we could meet? I email her. She’s too busy. Still, I’m hopeful about the conference. I tell her I’ll try to get on her line for the one-minute pitch session to say hi. There seems to be a large number of children’s editors on the roster, and I hope to talk to lots of them. Surely not every attendee will be a children’s author, right?

To my relief I am right about this. The lines for the adult fiction editors and agents snake out the doors and through the corridors. People in those lines are lucky if they can see one of their choices. In the room featuring the children’s editors and agents, the lines only have about 20-25 people on them. I’ll get to talk to as many of these folks as I wish. I’m the first in line at the desk of Jim Thomas, Editorial Director at Random House Children’s Books. The format is rigid. The organizers ring a bell, and you race to a seat and give your pitch. After one minute, the bell rings again, and it’s time for the editor or agent to talk with you and ask questions. One minute later, the bell rings again and you have to evacuate the seat for the next person. The hope is that by the third bell you’ll have that person’s business card in hand with an invitation to mail your manuscript to them.

I had practiced my pitch ahead of time, driving my whole family nuts in the process. I felt ready. I even had my manuscript with me in my bag (something they tell you never to do…but still). So the bell rings, and I start my pitch and Jim reacts with shock and interest at the topic, and then, to my total surprise, asks if I could read the manuscript to him. (See? It’s a good thing I had it, right?) I fumble through some papers and yank the book out and start reading in a fast and steady pace. DING! Times up. Jim is smiling. “You see that person on the end? That’s Lisa Findlay. She works with me at Random House. Get on her line. I think she’ll like this.”

Wow! Another referral. So I jump onto Lisa’s line. Tell her Jim sent me. Pitch her the book and she hands me her business card asking me to mail sample chapters. Things are really going great here.

I get on the long line leading to Jennifer DeChiara, my sought after agent, and finally get my chance to chat with her. She seems tired but attentive, and I tell her she’s already got my book, but I just wanted to say hi. I discover that even though her website says she responds in 3 months to manuscripts, 6 months or even a year are more realistic dates. Good to know.

Flash forward several months. I haven’t heard from Jennifer DeChiara or Lisa Findlay. Sigh. That’s okay, right? I start working on a new book. I try not to think about it. BUT NOTHING SEEMS TO BE HAPPENING. Then something happens. It’s September and it’s like the publishing world has returned to work from a long long summer break. Lisa Findlay asks to see my entire novel, so I send it. Great!

Then I get an email from Jennifer DeChiara. Something to the effect of: I am reading your manuscript tonight. Okay. Is this one of those form emails or something? I try not to read too much into this.

Then, THE phone call comes. It’s Jennifer, in person, saying all these incredible things we writers only dare to tell ourselves in our deepest slumbers. Would I sign with her? Would I?

So now I’m absolutely floating. I dare to dream and all that stuff. But it gets better.

Within a week, Lisa Findlay gets in touch. She loves the book, has some suggested changes, but would love to sign me at Random House. Me? Me! Okay, after I get up off the floor, and call my husband who seems to only be able to say, “You’re kidding. You’re kidding,” I immediately contact Jennifer to deliver the amazing news.

So both of my pursuits for an amazing editor and an amazing agent were successful, and within a week of each other. Pinch me!

And sign up for conferences. Lots of conferences.

Excerpt from DRAWN, my newly completed YA novel

DRAWN, Marie's latest novel, is full of castles, ghosts and passion

DRAWN is my latest novel, just completed a month ago, and now in the hands of my wonderful agent. Thought it would be fun to share an excerpt from it with you all here…

It’s about NJ teen artist Michelle DeFreccio, who moves with her dad to England in search of a fresh start and a normal life…a life far from her past. In New Jersey she was pretty much shunned, and everyone called her family the De Freako’s. But in England everything is different. Better.  Then someone starts showing up. He appears in her artwork and invades dreams. And when Michelle finds herself intensely drawn to him, her freaky past catches up to her in a big way. Is he a stalker, a ghost or a delusion? Is she falling in love, or losing her mind? Only one thing’s for sure: nothing will ever be normal again.

an excerpt from
Drawn
a young adult novel
by Marie Lamba

Back in the courtyard, a group of tourists, probably Americans judging by their baggy jeans and baseball caps, waits by the sign announcing the next guided tour.

Roger takes off his feathered hat and runs his fingers through his hair. “That’s my cue.” He suddenly looks very tired.

“Mrs. Reilly is right,” I say. “You need some rest. And some food.”

“And you need to mind your business,” he snaps.

I should be mad, but instead I find myself worried. “You okay?”

“Just go find this guy, but don’t let him bother you, got that? If you see him, come find me. I’ll be here in the courtyard or in the first set of castle apartments nearest to the dungeon.”

I nod.

“Good.” He sets his hat on his head, takes a deep breath, then strides over to the tourists and says in a cheery voice, “Hi-ho! Welcome one and all to Blanchley Castle where history comes alive.”

I go into the castle building, wandering through some winding passageways, pushing past clusters of tourists crowding the halls until I finally recognize the steps heading up to the main hall where the Academy hosted the dinner. If I retrace my steps from that night, maybe I’ll locate that upper room where I first saw Christopher.

I find the main hall is empty and quiet. There is no lit fire in the fireplace now, and a simple, brightly painted shield has replaced the bear head over the mantle. Daylight spills into the room through the row of stained glass windows along the opposite wall, covering the rough floor in bits of colored light. There is one raised table at the back wall with a few tall chairs, and in the middle of the room is a single long wooden table, with benches along its sides.

I turn and bump into someone.

It’s Christopher. His glow-stick eyes are wide.

There’s a moment of tense silence.

“Leave me alone!” we both say.

“Me?” I say. “That’s a laugh. You’re the one following me.”

“You deny bewitching me? Infecting my thoughts, my dreams? Be gone, witch.”

“You have serious problems, you know that? ‘Be gone, witch?’ Who talks like that? And look at you? I don’t even think you work at this castle. I think you just dress like this to get your jollies or something.”

He briefly looks down at his green tunic, which is worn belted over a white linen shirt, and at his knee-high leather boots. “It is you who dress for jolly sake,” he says. He strides around me, studying my jeans, sneakers and jacket. “Bedecked in such harlotry. Showing yourself not a fine lady in the least, but as the witch you really are.” He grabs my arm and pulls me close. “You are the one who is not of this castle. No one knows of a Michelle from Jersey. Not one soul swapping the latest news in the castle courtyard has heard of you.” He shakes my arm. “Either you are merely sent to undo me, or you plot about things far worse, far more traitorous. Fool that I am, I had thought you were the one who would …”

We are very close now. His eyes are intense, yet sad. I am all too aware of his fingers wrapped around my arm. Of his face bent toward me. Of his auburn hair falling over his forehead. Of his soft full lips. I again feel myself drawn powerfully to him. Feel my breath catch as his grip loosens and his hand slides up my arm. This is crazy.

I force myself to step back. “Y-you’re crazy. Stay away from me, or I’ll tell the police or the Bobbies or whatever the hell you people call them.”

He seems stunned.

I run from the hall and down the steps leading back toward the courtyard.

“Michelle, I found him.” It’s Roger, striding up the steps, his hat in his hands. “That crazy bloke. You won’t believe it.” He takes my hand and pulls me downstairs. “Come on. I’ll show you before my next tour.”

“But I found him. He’s upstairs, right now.”

Roger draws his brows together, races past me up the steps and into the hall. I scramble to follow.

I find Roger, hands on hips, surveying the hall. A room that is suddenly filled with ordinary tourists. No sign of Christopher. I notice that the bear’s head is somehow again over the mantle. I look around wildly. In front of the windows are now suits of armor standing at attention – armor that definitely wasn’t there a few moments ago.

“So? Where is he?” Roger says.

“I-I don’t understand. He was standing right…” How could all the tourists possibly get in here so fast?  “I must have been mistaken,” I say, my voice shaky.

“Well, I’m not. Follow me.”  He leads me out of the hall, down the stairs, through the courtyard where a fresh cluster of tourists is waiting by the sign for the next castle tour, and into another doorway.  “I told you he looked familiar. I was leading the last tour when I spotted him,” he says, as we go down a dark corridor lit with electric lights that are made to look like torches hanging from the walls. He turns left into a large arched entry, which opens into a long, richly furnished sitting room. I remember seeing this room on the night of the dinner. There are paintings on the walls, lush Persian carpets on the floors, and worn, overstuffed sofas arranged around ornately carved low tables.  Roger says, “I was taking the group through this wing, describing all the Victorian era additions, and I was just launching into an apology about the Earl’s missing Mating Chair, when I saw this.”

Roger points to an empty spot in the corner of the room now occupied by a little sign that reads “Exhibit Temporarily Removed.”  I notice the wall behind it, and I gasp.

There, in a large gilt frame is an oil painting. It’s Christopher, complete with his long brown hair, his light eyes seemingly on fire. His bear pin gleams on his cape. The artist’s technique is crude, the paint thickly applied and cracking, but Christopher’s intense look is accurately captured.

I step closer. Read the plaque beneath the painting. “Christopher Newman of Watley Manor, circa 1460.”  My knees tremble. My hands start to shake.

“What’s the matter?” Roger says. “You look like you’ve seen a – ”

“Don’t,” I say in barely a whisper. Now my lips are trembling, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I back away from the painting.

“Michelle? What is it?”

I can’t speak. Can only shake my head over and over again. And run.

I run through the bright castle courtyard, tears blurring the daylight into a rainbow of colors. I slam into a man taking a picture of his wife and kids beside the Instruments of Torture sign, and murmur an apology as I make my way past them and through the arched gateway.  My shaky legs somehow take me down the path to the visitor’s lot, where I fumble with the lock on Mary’s bike.

Then I ride, my legs pumping hard, as if I can outride what I now know is happening to me. Wasn’t my brother, Wayne, around my age when he started mumbling in class? When he got that crazed look and said, “They are talking to me. I’m just answering”? But he could never explain whom he’d answered. My mom had an explanation: he had the psychic gift. The doctor had another explanation: schizophrenia.

I’m soaring along the road that passes St. Paul’s Church. The wind whips at my face.

“Shelly honey,” my mom had said to me, “you got the gift.”

By the church’s roofed gateway, I squeeze the hand brakes and throw the bike down. I drag myself through the graveyard, stumbling on bits of broken gravestones. I find myself at that tomb, wiping my cheeks and nose with the back of my hand. There is his figure. Christopher Newman of Watley Manor. I wonder if Wayne’s delusions seem as real to him as this one does. I pant as if I can’t breathe. As if I’m being buried alive. I sink to my knees, rest my forehead against the cold stone monument, and whisper, “No.”

Just Finished Writing a New Novel

Last week I did it. I finished revising my third novel (well, fourth if you count the one I’d written before my first novel WHAT I MEANT… was published by Random House last year).

Finishing a novel is a feeling like none other. First I’m all wrapped up in the drama of the ending, feeling bittersweet and teary, yet hopeful, just like the heroine. Then, it’s a flash of pure joy. I did it, and it’s saved multiple times in multiple locations, and therefore it will continue to exist even after I move on. I’ve created SOMETHING, and that something is a huge part of me, even though it is its own entity too (kind of like a child).

The novel (which is a young adult, like my others) is called DRAWN, about Michelle De Freccio, a teen artist from Jersey who is running from her family’s freaky past. Her dad is transferred to teach at an academy in England, and this is a new beginning for Michelle. A clean slate. How many second chances do we get in life to become what we really want to be? In Michelle’s case, she wants to be normal. But when Michelle starts channelling a ghost through her drawings, a young man who she then meets and feels inexplicably drawn to, normal soon flies from her grasp as she’s pulled into a world of conflict, mortal danger, and boundless love.

Writing DRAWN was an all-consuming experience. I fell in love, I fought for my life, I ran from madness…I became my character, all while trying to pursue my own version of a normal life with its routine of driving the kids around, and cooking dinner, and sometimes even vacuming. The moment I finished writing, I ran out to celebrate by picking up some sushi and dumplings for lunch and popping in a Bridget Jones DVD. I was free, and carefree, and blissful…for about two hours.

Then I missed my book, and my characters. It’s kind of how you feel when you read a book you absolutely love, and you so want to get to the end to find out what’s happened, but then you feel really depressed that it’s done.

Now it’s on to the next phase: critiques. This is where my amazing writer’s group gets its hands on it, and I have to wait an excruciating month to hear what they think. And this is when my two teen daughters devour it, after waiting for too many months for a read, and they report back on their thoughts. Then I’ll process their opinions, and send the shiny revised version off to my wonderful agent, hoping she’ll be as in love with it as I am.

Okay, quite frankly, this phase is a tough one. In many ways, much tougher than writing the book. What if people don’t like it? What if I’ve somehow failed to convey the thrills and drama and heart-stopping love? This is where we lonely writers have to find some way to believe in ourselves and in our vision, even when others might not. I hate doubting, but I love input. And I want my book to sizzle. I want my readers to flip the pages eagerly, and to feel as touched when they read the last word as I did writing it. I want them to set the novel down when they are finished, VERY sorry that it is done. So, as Dr. Suess would say, I’m in The Waiting Place.

I’m more of a doer, frankly. I’ve even got a twinkling of an idea for another novel ahead of me.  But in the meantime, in The Waiting Place, I’m getting to all the things I told myself I’d look forward to doing once the book was complete and sent to my first readers. I’m washing my car, and sorting through papers, and shifting away the summer clothes, and washing windows, and wishing wishing wishing I was still writing DRAWN. I’m in writing withdrawal.

I wonder if all writers feel like this. It’s been a few days. I want to create some more. And I really want to linger in that world I’d just created. Maybe I’ll read DRAWN through one more time, just for old times sake.

On Pulling an All Nighter (and how it saved my novel and my life!)

We freelance writers have it hard. It’s true, we do get to go to work in our jammies. We do get to take breaks whenever we want, even go back to bed if we feel like it! And we do get to bring our moody poodle to work with us every day. Still, we have it hard.

See, I write because it is my passion. It’s what I love. But when you work at home, life can easily take over your productive hours. I’m not talking about the whole gotta watch “Divorce Court” on TV, or gotta yak on the phone with my friends for hours, because that is not me. (Well, I DO waste way too much time playing Spider Solitaire, but let’s not go there right now…) 

What I’m talking about is real life. Like a family member needs minor surgery, so guess who takes them to the doctor’s office, the hospital, and nurses them back to health. That’s right, the person with the stay at home job and endless flexibility. And when my parents come into town because they are in the process of moving into my area, guess who spends an entire week with them driving them to appointments with electricians, and helping them find furniture and appliances. Yup. That’s me.  And when a niece comes in from India that I haven’t seen in years, and spends the week, it’s miss flexible freelancer who takes her to see the sites and shop, etc.

And I’m not complaining about any of that. It was all valid and important stuff to do, and I’m happy to help. BUT that represented an entire MONTH that I did not get to work on my newest novel. A month!!!! Who else but a work-at-home person could do such a thing? Sure, it represents flexibility, but it also represents lost productivity and lost potential earnings. If I were an office worker, I’d pass on much of that time spent. I’d have to. But how do you tell people, sorry, I can’t help you, I have to sit over here in this other room for a while instead. (And it doesn’t help that my office is also the guest bedroom!)

So I’ve got this novel half written, and I’m feeling really frustrated at this point. That’s when I decided to declare I was pulling an all-nighter. Yes! That was the answer. Come what may, I was going to lock myself in my studio, and everyone else would have to manage without me for 24 hours. Ha!

I picked a Saturday, and warned my husband and kids to plan around me. The first glitch was that my husband had a class he had signed up for that morning, which meant that I had to ferry my daughter to voice and piano lessons. Then get her lunch. But that’s okay. That just meant my stint would start at 1:30 p.m. Fine. Before I descended into my cave, my husband pointed out that I didn’t really need to work all night. I could just go to sleep at a normal time. I explained that I couldn’t. In my mind I had a deadline, and my novel was due to my imaginary college professor at exactly 1:30 pm tomorrow. My husband asked me what was for dinner. I gave him a blank stare and closed the door to my cave.

Yes! I’d made it. The funny thing about writing a book is that it is so open-ended. How long will it take? No one knows. What will you write? Anything! But as soon as I began my all-nighter, I started thinking in finite terms. I had a deadline, dammit!  I spent the first forty minutes clearing my office space of all distractions like bills, and pending college stuff for my daughter, and unanswered correspondence, until my desk was clear of everything but my manuscript, notes, and some writing supplies. Wow, was that energizing. It was like saying: This is what matters most to me.

Next I made a list of the tasks I needed to accomplish on my book. Just putting down these items helped me to focus and plan. I hadn’t done this before because, hey, I’d had all the time in the world!  I began going down my list of tasks. I incorporated edits from comments at my last writer’s group meeting. I reviewed scores of notes I’d jotted on historical elements in my novel, and thoughts about character, structure, etc., culling this pile and organizing it into logical groupings, and finally filing this info. This all took nearly two hours.

I got coffee and a snack, and brought them back to my studio.

Then I faced my biggest task: structure. I have a time-travel story thread in my book, with visits to the past altering the present, and lies in the past which are revealed and altered. Without a sound structure, I knew I was floundering with plot. So I grabbed huge pieces of construction paper and colorful markers, and made out sheets I labeled THE WAY IT WAS KNOWN, THE WAY IT REALLY WAS, THE WAY IT CHANGES, and THE CHANGES IN THE PRESENT ALONG THE WAY. I taped these all over my walls, along with a sheet for each character that displayed their main motivations, their secrets, and their motto.

By now it was 11 p.m., and I’d worked nearly 10 hours on my novel, not adding a single page. But all of this had to be done first.  I crossed out these items on my list. They were done, and I was energized. I could so go all night long like this. I could go days!  The house had become quiet. Downstairs, lights were off, my family was snoozing. I got more food and brought it up to my room again. And began, finally, to write. The ideas flowed, and my book grew. I’d started this night with around 150 manuscript pages. Could I possibly finish with my goal of 300 completed pages by tomorrow afternoon? I had to. If I didn’t, wouldn’t my imaginary professor give me an imaginary failing grade? Unthinkable.

Things whirred along until around 2:30 a.m. when everything went dark and then bright again. For a moment I thought I was blacking out from exhaustion, even though I wasn’t that sleepy yet. Then it happened again, and there was a weird noise downstairs. Huh.

I opened my door, and listened. Nothing. Still, I thought I’d better explore. Plus, I had a ton of dirty dishes on my desk that needed shifting to the sink in the kitchen. So I went down, and turned on another light. There was that noise again, along with the flicker. It sounded like a buzzer from an old-fashioned doorbell, and it was muted. Very weird. I went into the family room, and heard it again, and the air smelled acrid. Like burnt rubber.

My eyes grew wide as I realized what might be happening. I’m no expert, but I know the beginnings of an electrical fire. So I raced upstairs and woke my husband, and we spent the next half hour trying to find the source, and feeling the walls for heat, and finally identifying and shutting off the offending circuit. He went to bed, but I spent the next few hours alert, near the source of the smell with my cell, a lantern and my shoes at the ready for a possible emergency evacuation. I wrote on my lap top, checking every few minutes or so to make sure the air continued to clear and the threat was under control.

So did I finish my novel and make the grade? Well, after a few more hours of writing, I kept nodding off with my finger on the spacebar, adding many many useless pages of nothing, until I finally packed it in around 5 a.m. and conked out completely. I’d completed an additional 50 pages of writing, so, yeah, I failed in the eyes of my imaginary professor, but in my own mind the result was an A plus. See, I’d catapulted my book past boundaries that had ground me to a halt, and the structural work saved my novel.

That next day we had an electrician in. He cut open the ceiling where we’d heard the noise, and found the burnt and damaged wire, repairing the problem. If I hadn’t been awake, we might have all slept through this until the fire really took hold, and then…

So one all nighter. One saved novel. Four saved lives (five counting my moody poodle). Now that’s time well spent.

 

On Writing Novels

I haven’t done any book reviews for a while because I’ve been too busy writing my latest novel Drawn, which is about half-way done right now. Writing a novel means that I lose track of time, that my house is a mess, that my kids are asking me at 7 p.m. what’s for dinner and I don’t have a clue. And this doesn’t just happen for a day or a few days. It happens for weeks.

If I wasn’t a mom and didn’t have other responsibilities, I’d probably go on crazy writing jags late into the night, foregoing any sort of food, except for maybe the junkiest of snacks. But we writers live in the real world, so we are forced to reconcile our other world with schedules and reality. It does work, but it does feel like a balancing act that I’ve never really perfected. The same thing goes for all those author appearances I’ve done. All those hours, days and weekends even, when I’ve had to abandon my family. I met a writer last fall who explained it really well, telling me that at first she always felt she had to make a pot roast or some other amazing dish ahead of time, before she could leave the house with a good conscience.

Well, dealing with reality is one aspect of writing I have to work out. Another aspect is plotting and structure. As I zoom ahead with this book, I continually find ideas and scenes that I need to plant into earlier sections. Thankfully, computers make this a breeze. Can you imagine the mess manuscripts used to be in before word processing? Or how many authors looked at their neatly typed pages and decided the new scenes weren’t THAT important, and gave them up? But we can edit with ease.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is how elastic a piece of writing really is. I didn’t always get this. When I first started out, every word felt so final. Every chapter, once completed, felt brittle and done. If I were to alter it, I thought the whole thing would shatter into meaningless fragments. Now a draft feels like skin that can shrink or stretch in incredible proportions. I’m constantly amazed how accommodating a chapter can be to additional thoughts and scenes, yet still hold together. 

Today I’m devoting to inserting two new chapters into the first third of what I’ve written. Then I’ll pick up at the end of what I’ve written and, with any luck, sprint to the end. I’m so glad I know what the final scene will be. I usually do, and it stands in the distance like a finish line I’m eager to cross. 

Stay tuned for updates and some sneak peaks!

Over My Head: A synopsis of my new YA novel

Just sitting here wondering about my second novel titled Over My Head.  Yeah, the title does come from that great Fray song. In fact, I played a lot of the Fray while I was writing it, and their tone inspired some really important scenes: fights with friends, the anguish of love, the out-of-control drama we all go through.

Right now the Over My Head manuscript is making the rounds at various publishers, trying to find its home. This is the first time I have an agent doing this, and that is a great thing. But being removed from the process doesn’t make a writer any less obsessive about what is going on. Who has it at this moment? Are they feeling connected to the characters? Are they falling in love? 

For the curious, I thought I’d put the synopsis of Over My Head here. I’ve definitely written this book for readers who enjoyed my first novel What I Meant…(Random House 2007). If you like the synopsis, please send out those good mojos into the universe for its success! And I’ll let you know as soon as I hear back from the great world of publishing.

SYNOPSIS FOR Over My Head, a new young adult novel by Marie Lamba:

High school senior Ani Bahadur vows she’ll say ‘I love you’ to the guy of her dreams by the end of the summer. But things quickly get complicated as she discovers her guy is crazy for someone else, and another guy (who is sweet but not her type) suddenly thinks she’s his girl. And things really heat up when Ani falls big-time for 20-year-old lifeguard Cameron Cerulli, the one guy EVERYBODY agrees is completely wrong for her. To further complicate her life, something is going on at home – something huge involving mysterious calls from India, vast sums of money, and the fate of her very favorite uncle. When her Indian cousin Raina suddenly arrives for a stay, the mystery and worries compound. Can Ani survive all the drama? Save her family from destruction? Perhaps even find true love?

Over My Head is a steamy summertime tale filled with sticky situations, hilarious awkward moments, and a twist that will melt your heart.