Category: Blog

I’m a foodie – I love to cook, bake and eat; I collect cookbooks and leaf through them for fun; I visit epicurious.com more often than most websites.
As a reader and a writer, I find it fascinating when food is central to the plot. Is food plentiful or not, and why? Do meals reflect the state or region? Do the foods featured give us an idea of the character’s upbringing? Are meals used as a device to bring characters together?

I just finished reading “The Dinner” by Herman Koch. The entire book takes place at a restaurant over the course of a meal. Two brothers and their wives are the diners. The restaurant is quite posh and this provides tension, as one brother is wealthy and the other is not. I love how the book is segmented by courses, from aperitif to digestif. Of course, this is all background to a truly horrific story involving the couples’ sons but food is a central character in my mind.

Food plays a major role in every book I write. In FACING FIRE, the 16-year-old protagonist loses her sense of taste and smell because of a traumatic event in childhood. For her, food is about texture and temperature only. Eating is a chore instead of a delight. It affects her health and her relationships.

In the book I’m writing now, THE LAST SUPPER, the protagonist is a cook in a Louisiana prison in the 1950s. She’s obsessed with creating the perfect last meals for death row inmates. The planning and preparation of these meals helps her avoid the trauma of her father’s death and the execution of his murderer. This same character is also worried that she relies too much on her senses of taste and smell, and that her other senses will suffer if she doesn’t exercise them more.

When there is no mention of food (or meals or hunger) in a book or movie, I find it quite odd. Food is such an important part of the human experience.

Do you have a favorite book or movie where food is a leading character or where food is noticeably absent?

It’s a little harder to explain to non-writers. In sharing my news, I’ve stirred up a mess of confusion that I feel obligated to clear up.

Signing with an agent does not mean I have a book deal.
In today’s publishing world, authors do not pitch their manuscripts directly to publishing houses. Literary agents serve as a writer’s advocate, selling the story idea, and ultimately negotiating the deal. They serve as a mentor and partner, helping shape a writer’s overall career. One book may have attracted an agent, but the agent/author relationship goes on for years.

Authors do not pay literary agents.
Legitimate literary agents do not charge writers for the opportunity to represent them. Agents make their living purely off commission — a percentage of what the author makes on any given deal.

Literary agents are not obligated to try to sell everything an author writes, especially previously written books.
The relationship is a partnership but an author trusts that the agent knows what will sell based on a lot of complex and competing factors.  Sometimes those earlier books are just great practice leading up the one that captures an agent’s interest.

Authors don’t (and shouldn’t) share all the gritty details of the publication process.
What JL does now is magic…not really, but kind of. She’s the professional. The book is in her hands; the process is in her hands. My job, as a writer, is to be patient and to write the next book.

Authors don’t get rich overnight, land movie deals and go on nationwide book tours.
Well, maybe about .0001 percent of authors do and they are ones with blockbuster hits, and their names are usually in a larger font size on the book cover than the actual title of the book. Most writers want to have steady, solid careers in writing and that’s a worthwhile goal. Don’t be sad if your friend or family member is not the next J.K. Rowling.

Thanks to everyone who’s offered congratulations! And I honestly don’t mind the questions. And for you writers who have recently landed an agent, feel free to use this Q&A with your circle of people.

It’s not a new concept. Visualization, meditation, lists, journal entries, vision boards, intention boards all help us clarify what we want from life (in a career, in a partner, in friends).  My sister faithfully creates vision boards each new moon. Now before you react to the woo-woo-ness of that, let’s look at what such boards accomplish.

Thoughts usually run willy-nilly through our addled brains. In the busyness of daily life, we rarely take the time to think about what we want…what we really want. But when we start looking at pictures (from magazines or catalogues or Pinterest or Google images), we engage a different part of our brain. Pictures help us create a child-like sense of play without the judgments that often crop up in journaling (this happens to me!).

I thought about how this might work for authors. Even before I start outlining my next book, I’m exploring how to use a vision board to capture the feelings that bubble up when I think about the characters and the time period – the visuals that will lend themselves to words later on.

I stumbled across an author who uses a Pinterest board in that way. It’s cool that we can go as low-tech or high-tech as we want when setting our goals and intentions.

Have you done anything like this before?

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.” – Mark Twain

I just saw this Maya Angelou quote on Twitter: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

• “What?! Can’t you see X loves you? Don’t go out with that other guy!”
• “That’s dangerous! Why wouldn’t you tell X or Y so they could help?!”

When I was a kid I thought the summers flew by too quickly. That’s nothing to how I feel as an adult! With business trips, a week being sick, family visiting and numerous writing projects (on top of a busy day job), June disappeared before I could even say hello.

1. Rejection created surges of anger and aggression.
2. Rejection sends on a mission to seek and destroy our self-esteem.
3. Rejection does not respond to reason.

Whoa. The article convinced me that all types of artists need tender loving care as they put their art in the public domain. No matter how much we tell ourselves not to take rejection personally, our BRAINS do a number on us. Perhaps zombies are altruistic when they run around eating those dastardly brains that try to sabotage our work.

Let’s remember that the literary agents (readers, friends, etc.) who reject our work aren’t the enemy. Often, it’s just our dumb old brains.

Yesterday, I was at a park enjoying the sunny day and the live music at Animas Riverfest. I ran into a former work colleague I hadn’t seen in three years or more. I faced the same dilemma I face every time someone asks what I’m “doing” now.

“Oh, I’m still a marketing and communications specialist for Goodwill Industries International,” I typically say.

And, then I must decide whether to share that I am also a writer — of fiction. If I do share, then the conversation ALWAYS goes the same way. I kid you not. EVERY SINGLE TIME. First, they ask if I’m published. Second, they ask if I’ve considered self-publishing.

No, I’m not published. Yes, I’ve considered self-publishing. Most aspiring authors do consider self-pubbing but must carefully weigh 1.) their reasons for self-publishing and 2.) how it fits in their overall writing goals.

More and more, I find myself not sharing my writing life. I find it tiring to explain how tough an industry it is — even if you self-publish (especially if you self-publish). And I don’t want to feel defensive about something so important to me.

And did I tell this former colleague I’m a writer? Yes, yes I did. And yes, it played out as I described above. But that’s okay.

One of my best friends was up on stage, playing the bass guitar. Like me, she’s a communications professional by day. But she had the guts to say, “I want to create music.” And she went out and did it. Took bass lessons. Plays in bands. Puts herself out there.

So, like Tracy, I’m putting myself out there. I want to write, no matter the end result. I think I need a cool hat like hers, though.

Writer blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media have made it easier (and faster) for authors to get their work noticed by other writers, agents and publishing houses. One phenomenon to arise from this instant accessibility is the CONTEST!  Your first 250 words! Your query letter!  Your most suspenseful scene! Your best dialogue!