Trade Shows

Posted by Lynne Griffin

I had the privilege of attending the New England Independent Booksellers Association trade show last week. My publisher sent me there to sign advance copies of Life Without Summer. The event, held in Boston's Hynes Convention Center, buzzed with publishers, booksellers, authors, and other vendors all passionate about books.

Sales representatives, who cover the region, man booths showcasing the next season's books. Galleys and finished books are everywhere. Author receptions, signings, educational programming, and general schmoozing make up the agenda.

My expectations were to go and do my best to represent my novel to booksellers. I had my two minute pitch down, along with my backstory on how I came to write it. Armed with gorgeous new book/business cards, I'd expected to go there and be generous with my energy. I ended up walking away with so much more than I offered.

Spending two days with the sales representatives who will bring my book all over New England was invaluable. They had the chance to ask me questions about the novel, thankfully because they'd already read it. Each wanted to know more about my background, including my connections with my writers' group and to Grub Street. On my second day there, they set me up to sign advance copies in the booth, in addition to my formal signing to take place later that afternoon. This gave them a chance to see my ability to speak to my story and to demonstrate the way I would represent my work and our publisher.

Another unforeseen benefit of attending the trade show was that I got to see first hand how booksellers and avid readers would respond to my title, my cover, my blurbs, and my pitch. All of this was reassuring, and all of this provided valuable information for fine-tuning my press materials and talking points.

I'm grateful to have attended NEIBA, and urge other writers to discuss attending regional trade shows with their editor and/or publicist. Getting out there early builds buzz and allows an author the chance to add the personal touch. Two things debut authors very much need to do.

New England Crime Bake 2008

By Amy MacKinnon

Yes, I'll be there, as a panelist no less. Imagine? What a difference a year makes. The organizers have asked me to help spread the word and so without further ado, here are your Top Ten reasons for attending Crime Bake 2008:

Top Ten Reasons To Register For Crime Bake Today

10. Early bird members who sign up soon (before October 1st) get a $30.00 discount. Put that in your gas tank for the drive to the commodious Dedham Hilton where Crime Bake will be held November 14-16.

9. After arriving at the Dedham Hilton, feast on pizza and conversation at the Free pizza party where you can meet and greet mystery readers, writers, agents and editors.

8. Following the Free pizza party, you get to choose to attend one of two fabulous and Free Friday night workshops: Practicing Your Pitch with Lynne Heitman, a huge hit at previous Crime Bake conferences or Creating Your Wave with publicist Susan Schwartzman about how to effectively market your mystery in today’s tough market.

7. Yes, another Freebie! Crime Bake conference attendees are entitled to sign up for a Free 5-minute one-on-one session to pitch their work to a literary agent. This year, attendees will have the opportunity to list their top three agent choices. Don’t wait to take advantage of this fabulous opportunity.

6. The agents are coming, the agents are coming and they include some of the finest, including Janet Reid, Donna Bagdasarian, Susan Gleason, Christine Witthohn, Ann Collette, Esmond Harmsworth, Sorche Fairbank and Gina Panettieri.

5. Great Master Classes are offered again. Choose two from Planning The Plays: Painless Research with Kathy Lynn Emerson; Who's On First: Point of View with Hallie Ephron; Hitting It Out Of The Park: Ten Key Ingredients For a Successful Thriller with Gary Braver; and Peewee League: Writing for Young Audience with Peter Abrahams.

4. Manuscript Critiques are available. Attendees may submit a 15-page writing sample (novel or short story) in advance and receive a one-on-one critique with a published mystery author during the conference.

3. A fountain of forensic experts, including the popular Poison Lady, will hold panels where you can fill your writing well with ideas on how to commit those dastardly deeds.

2. You can dine elbow to elbow with agents, authors, editors and forensic experts at the Saturday Night Banquet where the menu includes delicious food and maybe even a book deal. Your fabulous Saturday night will be topped by “Mystery Bingo” hosted by our own prime-time Hank Phillippi Ryan.

1. The number one reason to register for Crime Bake today is the Number One New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times author and our Guest of Honor, Harlan Coben.

Making a Literary Life Friday: Conference Highlights

Do you go to a conference thirsting for new content? Or is it your style to treat yourself to deep conversations with your writer friends, while savoring the chance to meet new people who truly understand what it means to live a literary life?

All four of us are just back from the Muse and the Marketplace conference, and it delivered a banquet of literary sustenance for writers, editors and agents. It ended several days ago, and we're still full of wonderful memories, epiphanies about writing, and conversations to recount. So here are our conference highlights.

Lisa Marnell
I could listen to Lois Lowry speak for hours and hours and hours. A true highlight for me this weekend was meeting a legend. She has written 35 books and, as amazing as this is, they vary enormously in style, content, and the age group for which they were written. I just finished reading Gathering Blue, sequel to The Giver - OMG!

Karl Iagnemma and Scott Heim were inspirations to me this weekend. To blog readers, it must come as no surprise that Michael Lowenthal gave me food for thought - Avoidance sits in its place beside my laptop this very moment. Michael's insights regarding the differences between commercial and literary fiction led me to ponder my reasons for writing: it's love of the craft and the journey, to be honest.

And bonding with Amy, Hannah, and Lynne, now THAT was a treat, too!

Amy MacKinnon
First and foremost, thanks to Chris Castellani, Whitney Scharer, and Sonya Larson for what may have been the best Muse ever! I left there crushing on too many people. For those of you about to query agents, may I recommend Dorian Karchmar, Collen Mohyde, Julie Barer, and Mitchell Waters? They are the ones I met and whose workshops I peeked in on. Smart, gracious, and very kind. Of course spending time with my lovely editor Sally Kim was a highlight. Did I mention how exciting it was to talk to Asya Muchnick about David Sedaris's upcoming book? Truly surreal.

The literati abounded! Julia Glass (a goddess to me; I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE will be out in October); Jonathan Franzen (you all read what he said at Harvard, didn't you?); Jenna Blum (beautiful, brilliant, and hilarious; she loves doing book clubs, if you're interested); Margot Livesey (it's Lynne's story, but I was there!); I hand sold Michael Lowenthal's CHARITY to several publishing types because he is one of the most brilliant writers of our time (please tell me you've read CG; no excuses, it's out in paperback), and I had the chance to spend time with another of my favorite, truly brilliant writers, Scott Heim, he of WE DISAPPEAR fame. We're all sort of crushing on him.

Of course I loved spending whole blocks of time with Hannah, Lisa, and Lynne. Can we do this again soon?

And while this has nothing to do with the Muse, I have to congratulate my dear friend, Hank Phillippi Ryan on receiving the prestigious Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Didn't I tell you her PRIME TIME series was delicious?

Oh, and my web site went live today. Check it out.

Hannah Roveto
As you can tell, it was quite the amazing weekend. First, it was so good to have all four of us in the same rooms at the same time! It was also a huge treat to spend time chatting with our long-time faves like Michael Lowenthal and Scott Heim, as well as newer faves like Jenna Blum and Paul Yoon. And a shout out to Trish Ryan!

Mameve Medwed was gracious and fascinating; she agreed to be interviewed for the blog, so look for that in about two weeks. Her writing "group" partner Elinor Lipman has also agreed, so once the whirlwind that is her new movie, Then She Found Me, slows to a Nor'easter, that will come your way as well. We met fabulous Anita Shreve, as well, and perhaps yet another interview will be forthcoming from that? Fingers crossed.

I was impressed when the agent who'd read my MS two years ago at the Manuscript Mart said I looked familiar. It's the little things, isn't it? Hearing I will be done this summer, and that not only is it complete, but stronger and better, she said to send it her way. Yay! The agents and editors were every bit as giving as the authors; one example was the Agent Idol sessions the geniuses at Grub set up: three agents on stage, one reader presents submitted pages of up to 250 words. Each agent would raise a hand if/when he or she would put the MS down. If two raised their hands, the reading stopped, and in each case, the agents explained why they would or wouldn't be interested in more. Kudos to the brave writers, for whom anonymity was beside the point. Your words out loud in front of agents in public? Formidable.

One other session attended not mentioned elsewhere: D.Y. Bechard's Vicious Intimacies, Mourning the of Monsters, was an unbelievable review and set of exercises in making antagonists -- and protagonists -- rich and round and intriguing. Check out his book Vandal Love for these insights in action.

And last, it was great fun just plain meeting other writers, no matter what stages their work has reached. To write is to live in your head, and to have the chance to hang with a couple hundred people who know what that means is invaluable. Thank you, Grub Street, for a great weekend!

Lynne Griffin
One of my highlights was spending some social time with my fantastic editor from St. Martin's, Hilary Teeman. It was a real treat to get to know her better.

I will always treasure my Margot Livesey moment. At a cocktail party, I introduced myself and thanked her for her wonderful blurb for LIFE WITHOUT SUMMER. She put one hand out to Amy, and her other to Hilary and said, "You two should really read this novel, it's wonderful." When we smiled and told her Amy was in my writers' group and Hilary was my editor she said, "Well then you know how great it is, don't you?"

I was really pleased with the job my panel did on sharing tips for promotion and publicity with our audience. I'm grateful to Janet Reid, Alison Bass, Jocelyn Kelley and Jenna Blum. Thanks for making a moderator's job so easy.

I took three fabulous workshops. I learned everything Lisa Scottoline knows. Learned to build characters with Julia Glass. And have now adopted a wonderful revision process outlined by Karl Iagnemma.


You'll be hearing so much more from all of us as the weeks progress. There is simply too much to share in one post. But I know I speak for all of us when I say one very special highlight was spending time with Scott Heim.


And if you haven't bought his book, We Disappear, yet, get thee to a bookstore. Haunting and lyrical, it is a beautiful novel.

Congratulations, Scott!

The Other Side of the Table

By Amy MacKinnon

I've been attending Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace writers' conference since they began seven years ago. Seven years ago, I had only just started writing fiction while reporting and writing the occasional op-ed. It was after Jonathan Franzen said on Fresh Air that the days spent writing The Corrections were among the most fun of his life. I remember that first conference clearly, the workshops, the other writers desperate to learn the secret to getting published, and a memory I've kept close all of these years, a class taught by the author of Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden. In that workshop, he told us of his struggles to write that novel, that the most important part of this writing life is to never give up. I believed him and soldiered on.

Through the years, I've sat in the audience while on the other side of the table were the likes of author Margot Livesey, Little, Brown editor Asya Muchnick, and the great literati Julia Glass, Grace Paley, Charles Baxter. It was only a table. A six-foot by three aluminum job, made pretty by a starched tablecloth and dotted with crystal water goblets. To me, sitting on the other side, it might as well have been an ocean.

Last year, I decided I'd attended my last conference. I'd worked with my agent for over four months on my manuscript and revisions were at a standstill. My book would never be published after all. I found myself weeping through Mr. Baxter's speech appropriately titled, Losers. Was it a sign?

But it did get published and I did go this year. How could I not? Jonathan Franzen was giving the keynote, Julia Glass was teaching a workshop, the inestimable Lisa Scottoline too (she is fantastic!). Invited guests this year included the lovely Sally Kim, Asya Muchnick again, and Dorian Karchmar (we all loved her). But there was someone else sitting on the other side of the table alongside the others. Me.

**********************************************************************************
We'll give you all the good stuff that happened at the Muse in Friday's Making a Literary Life post. Promise. For now, let me say that when I arrived home from the Muse, there was a package waiting from my Orion editor, Sara O'Keeffe. It was my UK edition of TETHERED, copies of which she's handing out to every employee at the publishing house! This is what they'll see in England and my husband's home country of Australia. Unbelievable.

Reflections on the Muse

This is what Lisa posted last year after attending Grub Street's Muse & the Marketplace. Today, she's recovering from jet lag and will try to post her thoughts from this year's conference. One thing is for certain, everyone was thrilled to see her.

Posted by Lisa Marnell

Being Alone. That’s one of the things that draws me to writing. Some of the time, anyways. This past weekend, we in our writers' group enjoyed spending time at Grub Street's Muse & the Marketplace Conference. The comraderie, the sense of togetherness. The tangible evidence that this pursuit is not truly an alone journey. That was nice.

Meeting, seeing, chatting with the talented writers who spoke at the Muse. It’s inspiring. It’s humbling. It makes it seem possible. That could be me. That could be you. But when we leave, as we drive home alone or with a friend. We go back to our quiet, or not so quiet worlds. To the spaces where we work, where we plot, where we gather our thoughts and expend our energies.

Being alone is easier when you carry with you an understanding of Gregory Maguire’s approach to plotting which is so like your own. Or when you hear Michael Lowenthal’s deep voice resonate in your memory, sharing his insights, his inspirations. Being alone is easier when you aren’t alone.

When you have met great writers, who have shared their journeys, you’re no longer alone. They are with you, completely, on some level as you work. So there you are, working at home, where you can write in your jammies, or bicycle shorts even. And you can’t do that at a writer’s conference. Or can you?

Fate

Posted by Lisa Marnell

“I was in the right place at the right time.” That’s how my father explained two things (good things) that happened to him in his life. He always said those words with a sigh and he seemed to forget where he was during his moments of blind staring afterward. If he was sitting in our kitchen in our suburban home outside of Montreal, he’d study the linoleum floor and not notice how the edges close to the door were peeling. If he was driving at the time, he’d relax his hands on the steering wheel and turn into a cool and collected driver for once.

It was fate, in his mind, that he got hired as a pilot for Eastern Airlines. It was destiny he should meet and marry my mom, a flight attendant, Calendar Girl for the airlines, no less.

There are moments, some small, some huge, that change the direction of our lives in some way, enough to make a difference.

In 2004, I bought the book, Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan. I had made the decision to write a novel. I didn't know her book would be the inspiration that would open the door to whatever talents and drive I had to write. It taught me the difference between good writing and bad, and it helped me to strive to improve my own skills.

In 2006, I attended Michael Lowenthal’s session at the Muse & the Marketplace, Boston’s Grub Street conference. Though Michael, alone, was inspiration enough - his enthusiasm and charisma were tangible – his topic, timeline in fiction, helped my writing enormously. Events in the imaginary worlds we write about happen chronologically, but their revelation in a story rarely do. As writers of fiction, we use flashbacks, flashforwards, foreshadowing, reflection. Where do we start a story? At the beginning? Most oftentimes that’s unlikely. As my peers in our writer’s group can attest, timeline and revelation of events is key in my WIP.

As some of you know, I moved in July, to sunny California. Boxes and boxes arrived from Massachusetts. Books were put on shelves, but some ??? were missing. Over the past few months I have turned to my bookshelf for two books I love and rely on for both inspiration and craft. Word Painting and Avoidance. sadly, were missing. Until tonight.

I’ll admit, I was not engaged in anything profound at the time; I was searching for my blow dryer – how mundane – and I reached into a box of winter clothes I had pushed to the back of my closet. I hoped my hand would close around the blow dryer’s cord, instead I felt the spine of a book. As I pulled out the book, I noticed the beige color, the light blue painting: Word Painting. I gasped (really, I did). As I reached into the box again, I wasn’t looking for the wire of my blow dryer. When my fingers touched the smooth cover of a book, I knew it was Michael’s book. It was Avoidance.

It was fate, of course, those books were together, those bound, neatly packaged, symbols of inspiration. Odd, too, I finalized my plot last night: it’s time for the writing, the meat, the revisions.

I never had a sign before though other members of our writing group have. Amy has. Lynne has too, I think. Hannah? Finding these books as I feel good about my story is a sign. Avoidance and Word Painting will sit on my desk, to the right of my laptop. I will read them when I need to remember what good writing sounds like. I will drink in their covers and feel their presence and run my fingers along their well worn pages when I need to know I was meant to finish what I started.

Writing Fiction and Nonfiction

Posted by Lynne Griffin

Next month--March 24th to be precise--I will be teaching my first writing class at Grub Street. I've been teaching at the graduate level for years, such things as techniques of counseling, group dynamics, effective teaching, curriculum design and writing for publication. But never writing to writers.

I can't wait.

In every writing class I've taken, the instructor uses the equivalent of an icebreaker, in the form of a writing exercise. While I don't mind them in class, I'm not one to use them personally to limber up my synapses or to work out my writer's block. Like sharing work in a writing class, I think their use can be risky. Beginning writers may feel intimidated. Advanced writers annoyed with what could be perceived as a time waster.

So I've decided, and I'd love your opinion on this, to start my workshop off respecting something everybody has and most people like to share. Opinions.

Each time the writers' group meets, before and after we critique pages, we discuss the subtleties of the writing process, and the complexities of the marketplace. Our individual and collective experiences are a tangle of thoughts, feelings, and actions that together shape our personal opinions.

Imagine sitting around a table, in a setting that inspires. With ground rules for respecting everyone's opinion established, and expectations that everyone who'd like to share can share, we'll challenge our thinking.

Here are just a few of the opinions I want to discuss with my students. Feel free to weigh in.

1. Excellent writers know exactly how they work and why their process is effective.
2. Writing nonfiction and fiction are two completely different experiences; they can't be compared.
   
3. A writer limits the likelihood of success if he or she divides time between writing fiction and nonfiction.
   
4. Agents don't represent writers who choose to write in a different genre once signed for another.
5. For the writer with a multifaceted writing identity, the marketplace won't know how to market the writer.

So what do you think? For these and other questions I'll pose, there are no right or wrong answers. Only opinion--formed through the personal experiences of the students. I hope getting a discussion going on what could be perceived as controversial topics will spice up my workshop. Feel free to toss more questions my way or offer your thoughts on the ones listed above. I'll report back after I run the class. Wish me good luck.

A New House

Posted by Lynne

I've never built a house, but I took a wonderful course on building a novel. When I was deep in to a revision of Life Without Summer, I took a course on story construction offered through Grub Street by the smart and talented Stace Budzko. It helped me then, but how was I to know that eight months later, as I delved into crafting my next novel, that things he taught me would flood into my mind with new relevancy.

The elements of our stories are not unlike those of a house. What we know about our characters--how they behave and misbehave--their desires, wants and needs are as important to the writer as the windows that allow light into the living room. Plot can be seen as the opening and closing of doors. Voice--the house's architectural style.

Having built and sold one novel already, I know that building a good foundation is critical to the novel's ability to stand out in the marketplace. For me, settling on point of view is an important first step in creating the right structure, telling the right story. Whose story is it? Which character(s) have the most to gain and the most to lose given the situations and complications I've chosen to write about? When I find the heart of the story, I know it. I love writing in two voices, so for me there is often more than one heart to consider.

At every stage of novel building it's important to use quality goods. For a writer, the raw materials are words. This time I'm finding it even easier to lay down the structure with care, partly because the more I write the more I fall in love with words. Though in truth, I'm confident, because I trust that even when a house is done, there is nothing wrong with moving a little furniture or hanging new curtains. Even brothers and sisters have been known to change rooms, and parents know when it's time to add a room over the garage.

Perhaps the single most valuable lesson I learned from Stace during that weekend in April relates to setting. I will be forever grateful to him for opening my eyes to the idea that setting can be compelling, not merely a backdrop "where characters do their thing". Whether you imagine the places in your novel as pleasing, forbidding or somewhere in between, setting embodies all the places that influence the way your characters see the world and how they respond to it.

Andre Dubus once said, "We enter the fictional world through memory". During my weekend course, Stace urged me to take every opportunity to pry, eavesdrop, stare, and otherwise gather the material I'd need to build a story. Little did he know that the perspectives he offered, I would remember, serving me well in my building projects down the road.

Questions & Answers with Gregory Maguire

Posted by Lisa

Last spring Grub Street Writers in Boston gave me the wonderful opportunity to interview Gregory Maguire, a fascinating and inspiring writer. Here's the interview, originally published in the Grub Street Rag...

For years, Gregory Maguire didn’t think of himself as a writer. He considered himself a person who liked to make things, who rearranged items in a pleasing fashion, whether elements in a plot, or colors and fabrics in a piece he was weaving. Majoring in both studio arts and English, Gregory says he knew one day he would have to concentrate on one thing or another.

Gregory Maguire is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999), Lost (2001), Mirror Mirror (2003), Son of a Witch (2005), as well as several children’s books. He received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University. In 1986, he co-founded Children's Literature New England, Incorporated, a non-profit that focuses attention on the significance of literature in the lives of children.

Gregory has lived abroad in Dublin and London, and now makes his home in Concord, Massachusetts.

How did you become a writer?

I steadily avoided ever taking any kind of degree that would prepare me professionally to have a job. Even when I was five, the only job I could think that I might like to have would be maybe a baker, and stand behind a bakery counter and sell doughnuts to kids. By the time I was about eight, I realized I wanted to be an artist of some sort and I didn’t want to work in an office. I didn’t want to have colleagues or a boss. I wanted to make things.

I made drawings. I made sonnets. I made plays. Anything I could touch and turn into something else, I did. I had the problem of having a modest amount of talent in a lot of directions. It was hard to settle on being a writer. At some point there must have been some sense that my writing skills were strengthening. I don’t remember that happening but I know it must have happened.

Tell us about writers who influenced you as a child.

When I was about twelve or fourteen, I began to notice how chapters were put together and which sentences stood out to me. I realized there are aesthetic beauties in the art of writing that are separate from the enjoyment of narrative. One of the writers who was a great influence on me is Jane Langton. She wrote a series of books, beginning with The Diamond in the Window, in which children of a somewhat impoverished background go through a series of dreamlike adventures at nighttime and in the daytime lived their normal everyday lives with family squabbles, trouble with money.

I was absolutely captivated because the entire book is a kind of metaphor about what the arts do, which is give us a broad and almost mystical other-worldly vision of our own lives. We go into a novel to lose ourselves and accidentally find ourselves more deeply than we intended. And I thought, wow, that’s why I want to become a writer. I want to influence people’s ability to approach their own lives with a little bit more nourishment, and a little more energy, and a little bit more courage. Though I don’t think I would have put it that way when I was 14.

What is your writing process?

It’s a little bit different for each book. I write fairly cleanly as writers go. That being said, I still go through anywhere from three and seven drafts of a book, but by draft very often I mean I am doing copyediting on myself.

One day I was on a train, and I was about halfway through writing my new book. I hadn’t really plotted the second half, but suddenly I began to see what was going to happen. It was like seeing a set of rooms: there’s the dining room, the kitchen, there’s the back pantry, the backyard, there’s the yard next door. I had a set of index cards with me and I just started writing what happens, one thing after another, and, in a sense, I outlined the entire second half of the book in minutes.

Once an outline is done I make a graphic chart of it that has several strands with the three or four main characters. I see where they come up in the book and then I will be able to look back and think of it as an aesthetic arrangement. Do I need more foreshadowing of what going to happen on page 80? Do I need something happening on page 20 so it doesn’t come out of the blue as much?

What I used to do for many years, for Wicked and for the books that immediately followed, was to work in the kitchen and use the doors of my kitchen cabinets as the sections. That’s why my first four books all have five sections, because there are five kitchen cabinet doors.

At Grub Street, many writers dream simply of being published. How does it feel to have met with such tremendous success?

One cannot attach any kind of shininess to the fact that I happened to have hit it. It is just luck. There’s no morality attached to luck. It’s not a question of virtue. It’s not a question of skill. It’s a matter of luck. It’s a matter, a little bit, of intelligence. I knew if I did Wicked well it would do well. If I did it poorly it may do well anyway. There are any number of novelists whose every sentence is polished and burnished and has a pearlescent sheen, and they have not had the luck that I’ve had.

What were your low points as a writer?

There were two low points and both had to do with Wicked.

One was eighteen column inches of my first New York Times review of Wicked. It was so bad I actually wept bitter tears of regret and venom. And I thought my career was over before it had begun. I thought maybe I should have stayed with drawing or playing the guitar. Maybe I had been feeding the quarters into this particular meter for nineteen years too long.

The other time was the night that Wicked didn’t win the Tony’s for best Musical. By then I had become such good friends with the creative team and many of the cast that I felt it personally.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a sequel to Son of a Witch. I now conceive that there will be four books in what I call The Wicked Cycle: Wicked, Son of a Witch, the one I have now, which is kind of a palate cleanser. It’s short. It’s a dish of lemon sorbet in between the rich first two courses, and the final flaming dessert. I’m trying to keep it short. I’m trying to keep it intense. I’m within about ten pages of the end of the first draft, and I don’t know whether it’s working at all. It’s very nerve wracking.

I also would like to write a play after almost thirty years of writing fiction. I did have a small idea for the opening scene about six weeks ago. Now that I’ve seen Wicked so many times, I’m beginning to see things visually on the stage rather than in a kind of omniscient way, looking down at a plot.

I would like to do something new.

Making a Literary Life Friday: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. It isn't really about the turkey and cranberry and pie. It's about taking the time to reflect on how fortunate you are, how blessed your life is. The members of the Writers' Group have a good deal to be thankful for this November 23, and much to look forward to in the coming months.

Happy Thanksgiving to you. May you be grateful for what you have, and positive about all that lies ahead.

Lisa
There are glass balls and rubber balls, and they're bouncing all around us. The glass balls are what counts, truly counts: family, dogs, friends. The rubber balls, well, they're nuisances, inconveniences - ever have a bird poop on your head? I give thanks for those precious glass balls suspended in the air around me.

Amy
It's usually late afternoon when I find myself in the kitchen, making dinner for my children. They whirl around me -- the kids, their same-age cousins across the street, Babe the puppy, my kitties -- and I can usually count on the phone ringing, too, a friend wanting to chat. But before it does, there I am standing at the sink, looking out over the backyard, maybe there's a flock of turkeys wandering through or a coyote skittering near the brush or a lone doe rooting for acorns, and I am thankful. Thankful that I don't have to put my children to bed with hunger pangs, thankful we're not living in a cardboard box by the highway underpass, thankful we're not winding our way through Boston's narrow streets to make yet another oncologist's appointment. My greatest blessing in life is to have been surrounded by truly remarkable people, people who share their lives with me, if only in passing. To each of you reading this, especially the women of my Writers' Group, thank you.

Hannah
This year has been one for learning many small lessons; applying them is always the trick, of course! I am truly thankful for everything I have been given -- and earned -- and am trying to live more in the moment with each piece of it so as not to miss a thing. Thank you to all of you for sharing your experiences, thoughts and support!

Lynne
While I am humbled by my good fortune in making my literary life--my books, my writers' group and this community-- it is in the bountiful blessings of family life that I am most grateful. All I can say is thank you all!

Conferences: There are some good ones coming up, but check the application deadline because they're looming.

Writers in Paradise includes some amazing writers such as Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Laura Lippman (What the Dead Know), and Ann Hood (The Knitting Circle). This is one some of us may be applying to next year.

New York City Pitch and Shop is just a couple of weeks away. If you're interested in having work critiqued by some of the key people in publishing, this is for you. There are no workshops on craft, rather this is for the writer who is ready for the next step.

And it's never too early to plan your trip to Boston. Don't forget Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace. This is for emerging writers at all levels. Whether you're just starting out or you have a finished manuscript and agent, the Muse is a great place to come network and learn. You won't want to miss Jonathan Franzen.

A to Z Travels

Posted by Lisa

(You've got to try this writing exercise: starting each sentence with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Grace Talusan taught it to me. She's a Grub Street instructer and writer extraordinaire)

New York City

Amazing, isn’t it? Brilliant writing was their first step in the right direction. Couple that with tenacity, and the end result was editor interest in both Amy and Lynne’s newly completed novels.

Don’t think for a minute that either of these members of our writers’ group had it easy. Either of them could have thrown up their hands in exasperation when they received feedback at our meetings. Forge ahead, now matter the challenge before them, that’s their philosophy, their way to meet with success.

Grub Street has an annual conference. Held each spring, the Muse & the Marketplace is an event not to be missed. I went for the first time in 2005, at Amy’s suggestion. Juggling writing with work and family, at first I wondered how it could be done. Kudos to writers for organizing events such as these that “show” and “tell” writers it can be done.

Looking back, I realize how far each of us in the writers’ group has come since those early days. Making the commitment to becoming a writer is truly a journey, in time, and knowledge, and confidence, and skill. Next entries, for both Amy and Lynne, will document recent trips to New York. Over the past week, each has traveled to the Big Apple to meet with their editors. Publishing their work is a dream come true.

Quoting Oscar Wilde,

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”

Risking failure is a chance any writer takes. Show me a writer, and I’ll show you a fool. Taking those dreams and turning them into reality is what Amy and Lynne did.

Usually, people hear someone’s writing a novel and they roll their eyes or nod politely. Very often, they imagine the whole idea must be a big waste of time. When regular people “pretend” they're writers, the rest of the world frowns. Xeroxing your butt at the office gains a person more respect than taking time to write during your half-hour lunch break in corporate America.

You are a regular person, just like Amy and Lynne. Zero in on their blog entries this week and learn that for regular people, dreams can come true!

Making a Literary Life Friday: Perspective

Perspective isn't simply a matter of point-of-view, first or third, a way to tell a story within our writing, we must also carefully consider whose perspective matters when it's time to share pages. Whose opinion matters most: your writers' group, agent's, editor's, or do you listen to that voice that's been whispering to you all along? We'd like to hear.

Lisa
To me, what's most important is that voice inside me. Funny how outsiders are sometimes the ones to remind us to listen to that voice. This past weekend, I had the honor of interviewing Gregory Maguire, a truly brilliant but gentle and genuinely kind person. His body of work speaks for itself: Wicked, Son of a Witch, Lost, Mirror Mirror, True Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Fantastic children's books. The list goes on.
That writer's voice inside me was singing after I spoke with Gregory. It chimed out and for once I was listening. "Let go and write! Write Sad. Write Happy. Write Magic. Write Odd.
Write!"
The article will be published in the summer quarterly issue of The Grub Street Rag.

Amy
The most important lesson I've learned over these past months is to trust that inner voice. The part of the writing process I expected to be the most difficult has indeed turned out to be the most frustrating: revising. This week, however, a break through, thanks in large part to Scott Heim. His advice was - and I'm paraphrasing -- to revise around the original idea, not away from it. It may sound convulted, he probably said it better, but it makes perfect sense to me. Also, HH LeCraw had invaluable advice about POV: make sure your reader isn't skimming through one character's chapters to get to another's. Obvious, perhaps, but how many writers have fallen victim to choosing favorites? Thanks to both of them, and most of all my amazing Writers' Group who always have the answers, I'm no longer lost.

Hannah
The inner voice is most important. Other voices can be helpful; I find considered assessment useful because my inner voice also tends to have sudden, wonderful ideas that lead me astray. Jennifer Haigh prefers to work in solitude, she says, without a writers group's offerings. There are as many approaches as there are writers. Still, even when you produce a draft worth handing off to trusted readers or an agent, the question is whether you did stay true to that original vision. Is whatever prompted you to spend hours at the keyboard or with pen woven into the final pages? Only the inner voice can make that decision.

Lynne
I traveled to NY this week to meet with my publicity team at Penguin. Like a job interview, I had the task of shining a light on why my book would stand out among others on the bookstore shelves and why I’m the person to represent my ideas. Enthusiasm filled the room, and since Tuesday my head and heart. Looking back on this whole process, I’m so grateful that I believed in my book through the search for my brilliant agent and through the angst filled days I waited for word of the sale. It all came together on a sunny day in the city, where I sat around a conference table in a room that has heard the fate of many books, and I heard bright eager professionals discuss endless possibilities for mine. My perspective: that moment was worth waiting for.

Debuts: If you didn't pre-order, run to your nearest independent bookstore and get your copy of Tish Cohen's just released novel, "Town House." Don't wait for the movie. Did we mention rights were bought by Fox 2000 and Pulitzer-Tony-Golden Globe Award winner Doug Wright (Quills, Memoirs of a Geisha) wrote the screen play? Congratulations, Tish!

Upcoming Literary Events: Tickets are on sale now for Post Road Magazine's fundraiser. Join us on Thursday, May 17 at the Radcliffe Gymnasium in Cambridge as bestselling author Dennis Lehane reads from his latest book of short stories "Coronado." Hit the link for more information.

On Wednesday, May 23 Buttonwood Books in Cohasett is hosting New York Times bestselling author William Martin as he reads from his latest thriller, "The Lost Constitution" at the Hingham Public Library. Look for this, and the rest of the Buttonwood series, at their web site.

One Step Up

Posted by Lynne

The conference was wonderful for so many reasons. Like Hannah, I reveled in each sophisticated word uttered by Margot Livesey. I will treasure her response to a question I mustered the courage to ask.

I feel so lucky I had the chance to attend Michael Lowenthal's class called Astonish Me. In less than two hours, he showed the audience how writers in charge of their work can do daring things with characterization, point-of-view, setting, dialogue and even punctuation to astonish readers.

Like Amy, I unknowingly plunked myself down at the same brunch table as our illustrious keynote speaker, Charles Baxter. It wasn't until he leaned over to pour me a cup of coffee that I realized. As if he were a movie star, I said, "Thank you, but since you are the guest of honor, perhaps I should be pouring you a cup." To which he replied, "See if you feel the same way after my talk."

Days later, words absorbed over the weekend still come into sharp focus as I drive, or prepare a workshop, or make a lunch for my children. If pressed to answer the question, "What did you learn that will have the greatest impact on your writing career," it is simply this. I want and need to be surrounded by lovers of language.

If you follow this blog, you can understand why spending two consecutive days with Amy, Lisa and Hannah would be a delight under any circumstances. And I had the pleasure of spending time with my niece, Stephanie, a journalist and emerging fiction writer, too. Everywhere I turned, I saw writers whose work I treasure. Sue Miller. Suzanne Berne. Or agents or editors who represent writers I admire and read faithfully.

At the Saturday afternoon cocktail party, I realized that this room of people--novice to expert--knows what it's like to love writing above almost all other things. On a morning set aside for writing, they too, feel the cautious optimism that goes with hoping this will be a day to produce wonderful sentences, paragraphs, pages.

In his keynote, Charles Baxter told his spellbound audience that each of us is on a step. Even if we are standing on the first step, we have done something glorious. I'm a writer. I love being surrounded by writers. And after this year's Muse and the Marketplace conference, I am content to stand on my step, until it's time to lift a foot to take my place on the next one. It feels glorious.

Magic

By Hannah

The magic has always eluded me.

I can write; people tell me it is true. But I never wanted to write a book just to have something I could hold in my hands, point to on a bookstore or library shelf. I wanted to write a book that had magic. I think, after this year's Grub Street Muse and the Marketplace, I can do it.

I've been to the classes. I've read the books. I've written. All the while, I felt like my final product, even if considered for publication, would be okay. Just okay, in my estimation, at least. I was missing something, some synergy of everything I knew. For some reason, this past weekend, it all came together.

Margot Livesey, talking about character, was everything I'd anticipated and more. She was funny and wise in addressing descriptive details that bring characters to life. She spoke, for example, of making one of her antagonists a beekeeper, an occupation the reader perceives as interesting, having depth, thus creating a level of sympathy. My own antagonist was swinging from two-dimensional to too nice, and now I know what to do about it.

As she continued, she extended her insights into how to use detail to not just describe one person or place or event, but to structure an entire story more effectively. Another light started to dawn for me, as I realized I could redirect reader focus to my character's hands section by section across the manuscript, and the depth I could achieve in doing so. The change is more than a repetitive action, more than a familiar behavior for the character. The shift works -- aha! -- on multiple levels.

The importance of synergy between the smallest details and structure came up again in Martha Southgate’s enthusiastic “Guardian Angels” presentation on masterful books from which we learn bits about craft, device, character, and courage in writing. Examples from Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to Charles Baxter’s Feast of Love reinforced the point as to why we consider books like those masterworks.

Which brings me to Philip Weinstein. He was humble before us, making clear that he had not written fiction, that he studies it, analyzes it, teaches it. As he made his opening remarks, I wondered whether I should have taken another craft class instead of his. I made the right choice; Weinstein brought everything I learned that day, and everything I have been learning as write, full circle.

In his talk on why fiction is important, Philip Weinstein said that fiction is magical in its manipulation of time. When a writer achieves a mastery of craft –in the details of how the pages come together -- a piece of fiction creates an alternate experience of time for the reader. We are transported, we lose track of reality, we venture outside ourselves. In short, the story’s message, if any, and even characters and situations are secondary to the architecture of a story in creating fiction’s magic.

I am perhaps minimizing what I understood before this weekend about the synergy required to create the magic. Still, I think I do understand fiction writing at a deeper, stronger level: to be honest, at a level that will satisfy my expectations. Draft two of my novel will prove or disprove this, but it will be long strides farther down the road than the baby steps I would have taken before. I feel like the real magic, at least a spark of it, is finally in me.

Lost

I admit to feeling a bit lost this past weekend.

On Saturday at the Muse, several friends told me of their experiences with the Manuscript Mart. Weeks in advance they’d sent in 20 pages of their manuscripts to either an agent or editor from some of the most exclusive agencies and publishing houses – 20 pages to be vetted by the best in the business. The reports back from my friends were glowing: each had a request (though not everyone does), one of whom I overheard being talked about later by editors paired off in a corner. Oh, the buzz.

Later that morning, I ran into a woman, Liz Kahrs, who’s regularly attended our Grub Street South workshops. She’s the kind of woman who makes an impression – the good kind – laid-back with an easy-going charm. She had news. An excerpt of her novel was picked up by Huffington Post. Naturally I read it once I arrived home. It’s good, something to be proud of, with clever phrasing that immediately calls to mind crisp imagery. Quite a coup.

Oh, and you should have seen Lynne shine on the marketing panel! Sitting alongside author Hank Phillippi Ryan, as well as the director of publicity at Da Capo Press and PR goddess Lissa Warren, assistant director of publicity at Houghton Mifflin Taryn Roeder, and president of Newman Communications David Ratner, Lynne offered the perspective of an author’s responsibility to both her in-house publicist and to her book. It was a side of her, the masterful public persona, I’d not yet seen. Gracious and utterly impressive.

Sunday was much of the same. Scott Heim told me he’d made it over the hump with his revisions – I’d been worried since we last spoke in October. He appeared despondent then, as if he couldn’t live up to the expectations that follow an astonishing debut. But this past weekend, his face was clear, nearly serene, he was pleased with the work he’d done. “We Disappear” is due out in February. Another success, no doubt.

Along the way, everyone asked the same dreaded question of me, “How’s the book coming?” To be sure, they were simply being polite, but I had no answers for them. Worse, none for myself.

When we sat down to brunch on Sunday, despondency swelled within me. How could it not? Over there was Michael Lowenthal, right there Pauline Chen, Michael Mezzo straight ahead, and oh dear God, I’d sat at the wrong table, because across from me was the conference keynote speaker, Charles Baxter. I was indeed lost.

After a second cup of coffee, Charles Baxter took to the podium and gripping either side, announced the title of his speech, "Losers." When he began to speak, sharing his own sense of inadequacy and alienation, I realized it’s impossible to be lost when so many others are on the same journey, stumbling over the same obstacles of doubt and desire. Here was the master, and now he was reducing himself to comparisons of the likes of me.

When he finished, I waited until the others had their say and then approached. The only words that could find their way past the catch in my throat were thank you, as if I were a child who’d been separated from the hand that guided me through the crowd of unknowns and he the kind man who steered me back.

So today, and hopefully for a while yet, I’m found again.

Going to Soak My Head

by Hannah

To refresh and revitalize, some love a long soak in a tub. Personally, I am easily distracted and soon find myself calculating the height of a wave that will just miss lapping onto the floor. I prefer a good writers' conference. Luckily for me, The Writers’ Group heads to Boston this weekend for Grub Street’s The Muse and the Marketplace, to soak in the presence, perspectives and wisdom of writers and authors, agents and editors.

(Has anyone mentioned a certain Lynne Reeves Griffin will be on the publicity panel hosted by Ms. Hank Phillippi Ryan, reporter and author of Prime Time?)

As my literary soak will be limited to one day, I will miss Sunday’s sessions with the likes of Sue Miller, Scott Heim, Michael Lowenthal, Ellen Litman, and the keynote speaker, Charles Baxter. So it is Saturday that is making me edgy with anticipation as I long for its arrival, readying for the day on which I will head into the depths.

Each session has so many wonderful choices, it's almost painful to choose. As with a day at a spa, I want to walk out feeling relaxed, yet invigorated. Thus, I am looking forward to Swarthmore College’s Philip Weinstein talking about how to “use” fiction. Christopher Castellani, artistic director of Grub Street, heard this lecture a few months ago and promoted it as inspiring. I am ready for every drop. I chose Martha Southgate, too, looking forward to what I am sure will be an entertaining discussion on serendipity and openness.

(Did I mention that Lynne's panel is one of the alternatives to Southgate, Sheri Joseph, Suzanne Berne and Carlo Rotella? How cool is that?)

Still, the single session that makes all of this year’s Muse worth it for me is the first. Margot Livesey will give a presentation entitled, “Mrs. Turpin Reads the Stars.” One of my very favorite authors is going to tell me (okay, plus fifty or so others) “what brings characters to life, the degree to which they are made by art, and how we can get better at practicing that art.” I was happy reading an interview with her in The Kenyon Review; now the author of Banishing Verona is going to dive into the topic in person, with me (okay, plus the others), three short days from now. This makes me happier than a week at Canyon Ranch. Really.

So if you will be at the Muse, look for us. If not, I suspect we will layer future entries with splashes of insight gleaned from this amazing get-together, and looking forward to your own thoughts and responses after long soaks in the literary!

Grace

By Amy

As a woman on the verge of forty, I’m not deaf to the sirens’ call from writers who beseech me to wear a plunging neckline while there’s still time; nudging bioidentical hormones toward me, promising to spark my libido; laying out all of my plastic surgery options, right down to big toe liposuction. They are all successful authors, all of whom have been on bestsellers’ lists.

But then I think of Grace Paley.

I ran into her at a The Muse writer’s conference last spring. I was rushing from the women’s room, on my way to have my chapters critiqued by an editor at a major New York publishing house. I wanted to look my best.

At an earlier panel, a literary agent said author photos mattered; they sold hard covers and booked writers on the morning talk show circuit. Think Sebastian Junger, Candace Bushnell, Jhumpa Lahiri.

But in that bathroom mirror, I saw a middle-aged woman whose laugh lines no longer disappeared when she stopped smiling; a woman with limp hair and a thickening waist from age and too many hours spent in front of a computer exercising her mind. Pulling the skin of my face back and up, I wondered at the possibilities. Something as simple as a shot to the face or a chemical burn to strip away the top layers could work. But it was too late. Hurrying through the halls, I thought let the work matter more.

Along the way, I bumped into Grace Paley. If not for the fact that she was supported on the arm of Chris Castellani, she would have been swallowed by the crowd. Her shapeless clothes were an afterthought, as were the frayed silver curls crowning her head. She was devoid of all sense of style or youth. Tiny and hunched, she appeared so utterly frail I thought she might not survive until her lunchtime keynote address.

After my meeting with the impossibly young and winsome editor, I met Lisa, Hannah, & Lynne in the dining room for lunch. Naturally, I told them all about my meeting (more on that another time). Once coffee was poured, feedback from a microphone squealed across the room. It was Chris introducing Grace Paley.

My heart broke. Her age, her diminutive size, that weak shuffle as she crossed the stage all spoke of a woman too fragile to offer much of anything to the crowd of hundreds before her. I wondered if even with the microphone she could be heard.

And then she began to speak. Her voice was strong, richly textured and inflected with a rhythm known only to poets. She told us of the day before, how she and her husband had been protesting in New York, had a terrible argument, and then parted ways before reaching the subway. Such passion, I marveled, for both politics and a man. At her age. She then read snippets of linked essays she’d jotted down on the bus ride north to Boston. Captured in those few hurried words were brilliant observations on the human condition.

Over the next hour or so, Grace told more anecdotes, read from some of her earlier writing. I, along with so many others around the room, reached for my napkin to wipe at tears, or flung myself forward, overwhelmed with laughter. Her vibrancy engulfed the room. At the end, we all stood and cheered for a woman whose life has been one of dignity, passion, and unparalleled beauty. The kind of woman – and writer –I want to be, a woman who knows what it is to age gracefully.

Compelling

Posted by Lynne

Saint James Church lies on a hill as if God himself placed it there. Fluted spires reach toward heaven, the cathedral begs to go back home. Stained glass stories march around the whole of it, promising you there is something inside you, too, can have.

**

Saint James Church is parked on the hill as if god himself dropped it there. The steeple gestures toward heaven as if to say thanks a lot for kicking me out of paradise. Oval glass saints, stained bloody, wander around the outside of it. These martyrs have no power to tempt me inside.

Compelling. As writers, the word compelling is bandied about in workshops, online and in print. The dictionary definition is wonderful. The word compelling means to force or drive a course of action, to unite by force or to have a powerful and irresistible effect or influence. Understanding the word, compelling, as it relates to story building is complicated.

Until last Saturday, when I thought of the word compelling I thought about characterization and plot. Of course, the trouble that comes into a life must move the action forward, there must be powerful irresistible complications-- plot. The characters must be three dimensional, have depth and motivation.

Now, after a weekend course on story construction, taught by the smart and talented Stace Budzko, I think about setting in a whole new way. Compelling and setting were two words I wouldn't have put together before.

The opening paragraphs about Saint James Church are my efforts to complete an in-class writing assignment. Stace asked us to think of a place and write about it from two perspectives. The first perspective was to think of the place as pleasing. The second, forbidding.

This exercise freed me from what I would have to call an area of weakness in my writing. In the past, my descriptions of setting were merely a backdrop for my characters. I fear my descriptions were stale and predictable. Dare I say, boring to read?

Realizing setting is one more way in which to make my stories compelling, equates to a light bulb moment. I want my descriptions of setting to be at times a pleasing vantage point from which my story is told. At times it can and should be forbidding or somewhere in between the two extremes. At the least, setting should unite all the aspects of my story with force. I want places, locations, time, and seasons to ground my characters. Like in the House of Sand and Fog or Rebecca, I want my setting to have an profound influence on my readers, too.

Do you have any craft secrets that you've discovered along the way that have informed your writing? Any light bulb moments that could help other writers better understand the word compelling?

What One Agent Wants You To Know

Posted by Lynne

Buttonwood Bookstore hosted a Grub Street South evening talk for writers on acquiring a literary agent. This informative program was facilitated by Eve Bridburg, founder of Grub Street Writers and literary agent at Zachary, Schuster, Harmsworth in Boston.

Eve structured her remarks around the reality of work at a literary agency and in the world of publishing. There was something for everyone in her suggestions for approaching an agent and then developing a good working relationship with one.

She was generous with her advice on what writers need to do to secure the attention of a reputable agent, given the reality of the current volume of submissions. Whether you already have an agent or dream of landing one, Eve recommends that you always submit your best work. She strongly urges writers to network with other writers, agents and editors at writers' events like the upcoming Muse and the Marketplace Conference in Boston. There, Eve says, you can meet and connect with other writers with whom you may form a writers' group or lean on as trusted readers.

When it comes to querying agents, Eve reinforced what anyone who's done their homework already knows--do your research, follow submission guidelines, and write well. Again, only submit your best writing. Query letter and sample pages must sing; they have to stand out among the hundreds of submissions an agent receives each week.

The insights Eve shared into a day in the life of an agent was compelling. Acquiring work, offering editorial feedback, proposal development, negotiating contracts--in short shepherding a project from inception to completion--is hard work. But wonderful and rewarding work, too.

I enjoyed the part of the program where Eve defined some of the new industry buzz words. She feels strongly that while it's a tough time for "quiet books" and literary fiction, she believes this will turn around. It's a good time to be a debut novelist, according to Eve. Publishers are all looking for the next brilliant voice in fiction. When asked to define the terms upmarket books and high concept projects, Eve said, agents know it when they see it. Upmarket manuscripts bridge commercial and literary fiction, while high concept novels have a more than compelling hook.

In the end, Eve says the writer's goal is to charm and seduce the agent into reading the work. Falling in love with the writing is required, since an agent will read and reread a manuscript to provide direction numerous times.

Feel free to post a question in the comments section of the blog. Perhaps Eve answered it during last night's program and I can pass along her insights. Already have an agent? What advice would you give someone looking to charm and seduce an agent into reading their work?

Donald Trump: The Writing Teacher

Posted by Lisa

Sure, he has bad hair days. But what millionnaire needs to worry about his hair? He's got money and cars, mansions, not to mention his own TV show. Let's face it, Donald's got it figured out. His mantra, if you don't watch the Apprentice, is this: "It's not personal it's business." Every writer should learn this lesson from the get-go. Why? Because every writer has reacted, at least once, probably more times, to a rejection letter as a personal affront.

So, sign me up. Get Grub Street's Muse & the Marketplace conference to put him on a panel. I imagine how he could help we needy writers. In fact, let me propose just what lessons he would want to get across to us:

Lesson #1: Never, Ever Quit
Donald HATES quitters. How, he asks, will you succeed at business if you give up before you reach your goal. If every person who hopes to write followed this single rule, you just know, most of them would succeed.

Lesson #2: Work Well Together
My writers' group is the one factor that made the difference for me between writing a lot of words and writing a novel. Constant support and solid constructive feedback raised the bar for me. I honed my craft and improved my final work.

Lesson #3: Don't be Late
Though there's no clock to punch, that laptop and chair are waiting for us. Structure. Dedication. It all adds up to pages and revision. That's the business side of it. That's the math.

Lesson #4: Be Confident
Taking chances. Testing new waters. Writer's ideas, their images and imaginations, suggest plots and characters that may seem too extraordinary. If Michael Lowenthal was never bothered by the plight of women detained with venereal disease in the Second World War, the beautiful novel, Charity Girl, would not have been written.

Donald Trump would help us. Surely, he's a mentor, a Muse even? Maybe not (the hair may be too distracting). But maybe lessons from business are fruitful to writers. In any event, it would be neat to meet him. I'll mention it to Chris Castellani, Grub Street's artistic director. Who knows? Next year's conference, maybe?