JOYS & HEADACHES OF

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JOYS & HEADACHES OF ( Writing Life while Living With) A RETIRED HUSBAND

by Nan D. Arnold


The Good

There are many pluses, of course, ones that spring to mind are: Lets me sleep late most days, and brings me coffee in bed!!! Even though I’m now on the other side of the big five-oh, his drive-by kisses on the back of my neck still make me crazy amorous. Charming when he wants to be. Kills flies using a swatter with the dexterity of a tennis pro at Wimbledon, ditto other creepy crawlies. Perhaps best of all, he can program the remote control.

The Bad

Hogging the remote control. This is a universal complaint. I’ve often speculated on forming an international organization: WAR (Women Against Remote Control) but between friends, family, writing, etc., haven’t gotten around to it. Bought My Guy a rocking chair as a joke upon his retirement. Turns out joke’s on me. My Guy never leaves it. Back to the remote control problem, ours sits on end table next to The Rocking Chair. If I even think about grabbing it to change channels, My Guy’s left hand whips out and retrieves the device faster than Matt Dillon drawing on a bad guy. And, My Guy’s right handed.

Holiday lighting. Takes My Guy forever to put up and longer to take lights down. If only there was a combined holiday for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. You know, Merry- Thank-o-Ween? We could have a single strand of lights which could be put up once and left). Say, three twinkly red and green miniature lights, followed by a neon jack o’ lantern, followed by a glowing turkey. (Surely an enterprising fabricator somewhere offshore is working on this).

The Useful
Recently when I couldn’t persuade My Guy to leave The Rocking Chair for some (what seemed vital at the moment) project, I contemplated taking down one of my Le Creuset skillets from the pot rack and fracturing his skull. But. Fortunately, my writing instinct took over. I stepped back and allowed the old What If crank to turn. What if instead of dispatching My Guy to The Big Rocking Chair In The Sky, and me to a local police precinct for bad mug shots and panicked search for a high-priced criminal defense attorney, I changed the situation to another woman with a retired husband. What if I changed the locale from my family room to a retirement community…in Florida? What if women there had secrets in their marriages so egregious only murder could make amends? Voila. Merry Acres Widows Waltz was born.

***Thanks to my crit pard, writer Cheryl Dale, for use of “My Guy”.

Nan D. Arnold
http://nandarnold.com
www.nandarnold.blogspot.com

Take a Vampire to Lunch

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Take a Vampire to Lunch By Lucy Weston

Despite having been on this earth for more than a century, and having had more than my share of experiences both good and bad, I found myself unprepared for the arcane rituals surrounding publication of “The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer.”

To begin, it is far from easy to explain to an editor in a New York City publishing house that one is (a) a vampire (b) not crazy and (c) no, most emphatically not the Lucy Weston from the Bela Lugosi movie version of “Dracula” who was herself an adaptation of the character Lucy Westenra first depicted in Bram Stoker’s novel of the same name. That Lucy is fiction, not to mention a fluffbrain, and I am neither.

However, all things considered, I must say that editors are a resilient breed. Once over the initial surprise, all concerned have rallied nicely and even gone out of their way to be friendly and helpful. Of course, I do realize that they have a sensible desire to avoid annoying a being who can sink her fangs into their throats and drain the life from them as quickly as she can say ‘What do you mean, you want revisions?’ Not that I would ever behave in so uncivilized a manner.

Which brings us to lunch. So far as I am able to understand, there is a requirement that editor and author must lunch together at least once during the process of readying a book for publication. A large number of restaurants exist in proximity to publishing houses for no other apparent purpose. I understand that editors welcome a chance to escape their cramped offices, surrounded as they are by precariously balanced piles of manuscripts that may fall and crush them at any moment. A little fresh air and the chance of a decent meal is scarcely too much for them to ask.

Fortunately, since the advent of SPF 45 sun lotion, vampires have been able to move about the daylight world with a degree of ease not possible before, although precautions must still be taken. On a nicely overcast day, I joined my editor at a charming little bistro near her office. We had not met before in person and I perceived a certain anxiousness on her part, which I hope I was able to ease by keeping my fangs sheathed at all times. Over Bloody Marys--her suggestion, not mine--we discovered a shared love of London theatre, beaded evening bags, and the writings of Anaïs Nin. Indeed, so diverted were we by these topics that we never got around to actually discussing the book.

But never mind; I am reassured that it is in excellent hands and that very soon readers will be able to acquire it for themselves. When you do so, kindly remember that the publication of any book is a collaborative effort in which everyone--even vampires--have a role to play.

Lucy Weston
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Lucy-Weston/71241284

Writing Advice for Newbies

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Writing Advice for Newbies By Vincent Zandri

Lately, a lot of interviewers have been asking me to lend some advice to newbie writers, especially young people just starting out. So for better or worse, here it is:

1. Stay in school. No writer who has to work three jobs as a dishwasher just to pay his rent ever managed to write the great American novel. Course I could be wrong here.


2. Read everything you can, starting with the classics, the Hemingways, the Faulkners, the Fitzgeralds, the Mailers, the Conrads, the Tolstoys…Skip the Dickens except for Tale of Two Cities. Especially read novels in your favorite genre. If you love noir, read all the Parker, Hammett, Spillane, Huston, and Zandri you can get your hands on. Then read some more.


3. Write like crazy, even if its just character sketches. Learn to pack the biggest punch using the least amount of words possible. And always keep a notebook with you at all times.


4. Be a newspaper reporter first. Write for an editor who demands timely, terse, 100-300 words pieces twice a day. Pieces that require a beginning, a middle and a resolution in the smallest amount of space possible. The job should be extremely low paying, and extremely high pressure. But do it anyway. Not only will you build up clips, but you will learn to work under pressure, when you don’t feel like it, when you’re hung over, when you’ve just found out your girlfriend is sleeping with your best friend behind your back, when an asteroid is approaching planet earth… Trust me, even Hemingway will tell you there is no better training for a would-be novelist.


5. Don’t be a newspaper reporter for too long. 3 to 5 years max. Then become a freelance writer and split your creative time between articles for magazines and newspapers, both online and paper (by 2020 it will be all online), and writing fiction. Write some short stories and try and get them published. Then start your novel. Don’t stop writing the novel until you have a complete draft, even if it’s crap. You can always edit or start another one.


6. Don’t get married or have children. You won’t be able to afford it. Also, for ten years or so, your writing will be both spouse and mistress. You're legal sig other won't be able to compete. have a boyfriend/girlfriend instead.


7. Share an apartment with friends if you can and don’t buy a new car. By a beater.


8. Get a passport and travel to as many destinations as you can. Never stay home for more than a couple of months at a time.


9. Live in Europe for a year. Europeans are different from Americans. They don’t place as a high value on making money the way we do.


10. Persevere, even when the dream seems impossible. Never give up!

To order the bestselling The Remains and The Innocent...just click on the titles!!!!!

Vincent Zandri is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called “Brilliant” upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Other novels include the bestselling, Moonlight Falls,Godchild (Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Presently he is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.

His latest book is the bestselling thriller novel, The Remains.

You can visit his website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com.

Inspiration?

Enter to win a print copy of "The Boyfriend of the Month Club" by Maria Geraci!

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Where Does Inspiration come from?

People always ask me where I get my ideas from and I’m always a little chagrined to admit that my ideas come from them! I get inspiration from the everyday events or people I come in contact with. Today, I’m going to talk about the inspiration behind my newest release, The Boyfriend of the Month Club. First, a little bit about the book. It’s a romantic comedy about a woman who turns her dysfunctional book club into a boyfriend club where women come together to discuss the men they’ve dated, comparing them to classic literary heroes and villains.

The idea for the book came to me one night while I was attending a friend’s book club meeting. The meeting started out the way most book clubs do- a little socialization, a little wine, a little discussion on the book- and then the meeting morphed into something very different. As the evening progressed the topic of conversation changed from the book to husbands, kids, work, and family life- the things most women talk to their friends about. That’s when it occurred to me that book clubs are very much like other social groups in that it’s a wonderful excuse for women to get together and talk about the things that are important to them.
Once that idea stuck in my head, my vision of Grace (the protagonist in my book) and her single friends grew into full fleshed characters. It only made sense that if married women talk about their husbands and kids, then single women would talk about the men they’ve dated. And voila! The Boyfriend of the Month Club was born. I wrote up the synopsis, sent it to my agent (who loved the concept) who then in turn sent it to my editor. Luckily, my editor loved it too and I began writing the book. Soon after that, the sale was announced in Publishers Weekly. It immediately started getting a lot of film attention and while this made me really happy, it also put more pressure on me. The idea for the book was obviously high concept, but would the finished product meet the expectations? I plowed through the writing and prayed that it would.
Once I had a first draft of the book, my literary agent sent it to a film agent. He read it and he loved it too, and offered representation. The book has gone through several near buys and is now in the hands of a prominent producer. At this point, whether or not she ends up buying the film rights is inconsequential (although I’d love to see this book turned into a movie!). The most important thing to me was that the reader response to the book was exactly what I’d hoped for. People were drawn to the concept and the book delivered on the promise of that concept.

Thanks again for hosting me here at Night Owl Reviews. I loved talking about my book and I hope you’ll love reading it as well!

Maria Geraci
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Bio: Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women’s fiction. For more information on her books, please visit her at www.mariageraci.com or join her facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/MariaGeraciBooks.