Edges

When I pitched the Blackbird proposal to my agent, one of the first things he said was, That’s ambitious. I didn’t fully appreciate what he meant at the time. The book existed beautifully in my head, ticking backward through time from the murders to the causes, a delicious bite of fucked-up psychology in each chapter along with a through-line of sexual pathos to keep the fuse crackling. It’s a good story. I feel it there still, at the back of my mind. But in trying to pin the words to the page, it’s becoming clear that this back-to-front structure is a sonofabitch. Instead of writing the scenes in order, I find I’m having to take runs at the story by first laying down the current-day action, then working in the subtext as I revise each scene. Later still, I’ll make a third pass to add the back story, which at this point exists only in my head, but which is driving the characters onward (to death and destruction, cause I live for that shit).

What I hope I’ll have when I’m finished is a story that’s structurally complex but easy for the reader to follow. What I have right now is a table full of puzzle pieces, turned every which way, and a rising sense of frustration at how long it’s taking me to assemble the edges.

How do you build the structure? Does it take shape as you write the first draft? Do you begin with an outline? Or do you throw scenes at the wall to see if they stick.

Concept

Photo by Ellen Von Unwerth

Yesterday I received an email from my editor. The cover concept for Alice Close Your Eyes is here! I wish I could show you, because I’m freaking out right now. The title will be debossed in huge red letters over a rumpled white bed sheet, my name at the bottom, and the whole thing will be scattered with what looks like shards of broken glass, done with a combination of gloss and embossing. This is one tricked-out motherfucking cover, let me tell you. And MIRA must be thrilled with it, too, because even the galleys are going out with a fully executed cover treatment, embossing and all.

I think this may be my proudest day as a writer. (Well, except for the day August gave this book the thumbs up, when I sat on the floor sobbing for two hours, memorizing his emails.) But the cover is different. The cover is something that was made for me, for the book. It’s the tangible evidence of my editor, pushing hard on my behalf; it’s someone else saying, I get what we’re doing here and I can help. We work so much on our own as writers that it comes as both relief and vindication when a whole team assembles around the project and it begins to take off.

Happy, happy day.

What’s your high-water mark?

Mouse

Our friend Laura Maylene Walter has posted a video in which actor Blair Leatherwood reads her work for an event called Stories on Stage. He’s a wonderful reader, and his voice opens the story to a rich new dimension. It gives me a vicarious thrill to imagine what it must be like for Laura to hear her work this way. What a beautiful trip.

I’ve never had this experience. No one has read my words to me, and I’ve never read them to anyone else. I’ve noticed that some writers talk about reading their work as though it’s something to look forward to, part of the experience of publishing, or of attending a workshop or retreat. I can’t really get my mind around it. Public speaking terrifies me, and finding an appropriately non-smutty section of my book to read would be a chore in itself. I have long made up my mind that I can’t do it, won’t do it, will never make the attempt. But I hate the idea of caving to stage fright before I’ve begun, or letting my books down by refusing to get out there and talk about them. I keep reminding myself that other writers manage to get over their fear, that readings and publicity in general are not about me, they’re about trying to connect readers with stories they might enjoy. Surely that’s a benign enough intention. And one squeaky, red-faced spokesperson is better than nothing.

How do you feel about reading your work in public? What do you like to hear from other writers at book-related events?

Hard Drive

I’m wedged into my draft at 30K. Everything I write seems shallow and off-putting and juvenile, even the sexy bits, which sound as if they were written by Elizabeth Hasselbeck for Ladies Home Journal. Since when am I afraid to drop a c-bomb?

Why is writerly confidence such a fleeting thing? In the space of an afternoon, I can go from self-congratulatory laps around the living room to gnarled up in the corner at the thought of dying before I can erase this draft from my hard drive. (As if, but for my ongoing vigilance, someone would break in to my computer and steal The Precious away.) Why do we invest so much of our self-worth in these stories, these awful repetitive stories that in the end will probably be read by our mothers and a handful of people who happen to be tuned to the same frequency? Why is it all so fucking important? The top-selling book of all time is crack fiction mommy-porn, in which the POV character carries on a running conversation with her inner goddess while her boyfriend slicks her up with baby oil and swats her bottom with a gray silk tie; do we really think someone’s going to notice that metaphor about the crow on page ninety-four?

Do readers ever read the way we wish they would?

Lacey

I mentioned a while back that we’ve been on the hunt for new digs. The payment here is too high and we really can’t swing it for the long haul, so I’ve been poring over the rental ads, running hither and yon to find a place we can afford in a neighborhood we’d love as much as this one. A tall order, I have to say, and avoiding the scammers is nine-tenths of the work. But yesterday I drove to Lacey, Washington and found the most wonderful house. It’s actually bigger than our current home, in a lovely old neighborhood with a private beach and a small dock for our non-existent boat. The catch—obviously, there is a catch—is that the inside of the home is scruffy and therefore it has failed to catch a renter’s eye. But yours truly has negotiated new carpets and paint throughout, and a thorough scrub-down which it badly needs. We’ll have to do something ourselves about the linoleum, and I’m dying to take an SOS pad to the cupboards, but the floor plan is great and the yard is huge both front and back, shaded by pine trees and lined with lilac bushes and pink rhododendrons.

This move is a tradeoff, as are so many things in life. It’s not easy to leave Portland, or this neighborhood we love so much. But Seattle is big and beautiful, and it’s where my oldest son wants to settle down. By inching northward, we can help him get his feet on the ground and be close enough to see him often once he does. He’ll be here in a few days, to stay. Our new place will have a bedroom for him, reasonable access to the train into the city, and a terrific new school for the little guy.

We’re aiming to move around the middle of June, and after that I’ll be on to my next project: the job hunt. Walmart greeter? Hamburger flipper? Greeting card saleslady at the local Hallmark store? The possibilities are endless!

What have you found? What are you looking for?

Home sweet home.

Breakers

Do you wonder where you’re going? When you walk in circles around your house, or in jagged lines leading out and back, Etch-a-Sketch rectangles around that dot at the center, do you sometimes wish to bend your steps for the long road and keep on walking? I woke up this morning in a fever of shame and exasperation, thinking I’d do almost anything to rid myself of me. If I kept walking through the rain and wind, would my clothes fall away in tatters, would my mind finally empty, would I be reborn on the shores of a distant sea and dive like a porpoise through the breakers and lick the salt from my lips on a bed of sun-warmed sand? Would the tide wash away my footsteps. Would I finally be forgotten, having left no mark behind me. How does one disappear? I’ve made children, I’ve made a home. I’ve left my writing like graffiti on the library walls. I’ve carved my name on the tree and there’s no way now to remove it. Even the smallest child, who dies without taking a breath or a pull at the breast, is remembered by its mother. How do we escape that. How do we go softly away and leave no scar behind us?

Do you wish to be remembered or forgotten?

Photograph by Russell James

Cocks and the Hen

This morning I wrote a scene I’ve been dreading for several weeks. In theory, not a hard scene. It’s mostly dialogue, a handful of guys sitting around an Alaskan ski cabin, shooting the shit. Dialogue wouldn’t seem to be my biggest writerly conundrum; after all those sex scenes, a conversation not spoken through clenched teeth should be like juggling one less ball, ba-dum-dum. But in this case I feel intimidated by the fictional testosterone. I’m on the outside, the only chick in the room, and in spite of the Ron & Fez tutorial, I find myself at a loss.

For a while I wrote around it. I wrote twosomes and threesomes and fight scenes, some murders, a suicide, and an unkeepable amount of female contemplation. All difficult—newsflash: writing is hard—but I could at least get in there and do my job without lingering awkwardly at the door like I’ve been doing with this one.

But last night I ran out of work-arounds, and when I woke up at 3am this morning, I thought, Fuck it. I’m going in before I get enough caffeine in my system to talk myself out of it.

I wish I could end on a happy note and tell you the scene looks great, that I’ve been insightful, clearheaded, 3am brilliant. Actually, none of those things is true. The scene is a hot mess. You should see the paper, it looks like a hen dipped her feet in purple ink and did the merengue all over my pages. The only thing I can say after my morning’s work is that at least those pages aren’t empty.

So. Onward.

How’s your weekend writing going? You have been writing, haven’t you?

Wand

I have a magic wand. Here’s what happens when I wave it over DC:

1. No filibuster. A simple majority passes the legislation.
2. The President would serve an 8-year term. House, 4 years. Senate can keep its 6. No one gets reelected. You serve your term and out you go.
3. Elected officials would not be permitted to work for lobbies once they leave office.
4. Anyone citing their 2nd Amendment rights would be made to repeat the words “well regulated” ten times in a row, and recite the definition of “regulation” afterward.
5. Marijuana would be legal and heavily taxed by the States. Proceeds go toward public schools.
6. Marriage would be defined as existing between two people.
7. Massive tax incentives for green energy, massive tax burdens for anything manufactured to run on gasoline.
8. The military budget would be cut in half. That jobs program would be directed at infrastructure instead.
9. Pharmaceutical companies would be prohibited from advertising to the public.
10. Costs of medical care would be regulated to adhere to the CMS fee schedule, no matter who’s providing the goods or service.

Bonus swish:

Government subsidies would be rerouted from burgers and fries to apples and carrots. It should not cost twice as much to buy a pint of blackberries as it does a Happy Meal.

If you’d like to borrow my magic wand and wave it over your government, be my guest. In fact, just keep it. The fucker doesn’t work at all.

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

The Fault In Our Stars

Dear Mr. Green,

I’ve never written a fan letter to an author before. It has always seemed self-evident that anyone who could write something as funny and romantic and achingly tragic as The Fault In Our Stars should know his book is going to leave a wide swath of toppled readers in its wake. Far be it from me to add unnecessarily to the inbox. But in this case I really must stuff my note into the metaphorical Hefty bag, because I loved Hazel and Augustus and even horrible old Peter the Doughboy (okay, maybe not him so much), and I want to thank you for the experience you’ve given me. I am grateful for every second these characters spent in my mind. They will never leave it.

All best,

Averil Dean

 

Next Big Thing

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Erika Marks to play the Next Big Thing. Erika has a new novel coming out this June called The Guest House: “The lives and hearts of a wealthy Southern family and a local family of builders become tangled through several generations of summers on Cape Cod.” You should go read about it right now. The cover makes me swoon.

Here’s my Thing. I hope to have a cover of my own soon, maybe even this week (!!!), but for now there’s just the little intruder in her penciled-on mask.

* * *

What is the working title of your book? Alice Close Your Eyes

What genre does your book fall under? Psychological thriller

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Mmm, I don’t know that I do this so much when a book is finished. By then the characters only look like themselves. But I remember thinking of Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara for Jack and Alice when I started writing, so I’ll go with them.

Photo by Aneta Bartos

What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I’m cheating here because I want to show you the back cover copy, which my editor sent last week. She is ever so much better at summarizing than I am:

Ten years ago, someone ruined Alice Croft’s life. Now, she has a chance to right that wrong—and she thinks she’s found the perfect man to carry out her plan.

After watching him for weeks, she breaks into Jack Calabrese’s house to collect the evidence that will confirm her hopes. When Jack comes home unexpectedly, Alice hides in the closet, fearing for her life. But upon finding her, Jack is strangely calm, solicitous…and intrigued.

That night is the start of a dark and intense attraction, and soon Alice finds herself drawn into a labyrinth of terrifying surrender to a man who is more dangerous than she could have ever imagined. As their relationship spirals toward a breaking point, Alice begins to see just how deep Jack’s secrets run—and how deadly they could be.

With haunting prose and deft psychological insight, debut author Averil Dean spins a chilling story that explores the dark corners of obsession—love, pain, and revenge.

How long did it take you to write the first draft your manuscript? Ten months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? I’d like to call it the creepy lovechild of Sharp Objects and 9 1/2 Weeks, but I adore both of those books so much that it seems cheeky to mention them.

Who or what inspired you to write this book? When I was brainstorming ideas for this book, I happened upon a low-budget neo-noir film called Following. In the movie, two men break into a London flat for no particular reason other than curiosity, a voyeurism of objects. This idea hooked me immediately, and I began to imagine the erotic possibilities and play with some ideas for how to incorporate this strange habit into a psychological thriller.

What else about your book might pique a reader’s interest? The book is not erotica, exactly, but there are more than a few drawn-out sex scenes which become increasingly fraught as the characters’ relationship starts to unravel.

When and how will it be published? It’s coming out with Harlequin MIRA in January 2014.

* * *

If you would like to play, or if you already have, leave me a link below. Or copy and paste your answers. Or write them here for the first time. Or tell me to take a flying leap off the Bridge of the Gods because you don’t wanna play, no way no how. I will love you anyway.

Open

This week I’m working on my first scene. I’ve got about 20,000 words written in strategic places throughout the book, which is enough of a framework for me to start nailing down an opener. I’m here at sentence one with a list of possible suspects in my notebook and none of them quite right.

In my last book, I had a clear idea that I wanted to open with the protagonist in a stranger’s house—a stranger who would become her lover. It was the right place to start, but in early drafts my opening was long and convoluted and tried to do too much of the wrong thing. I later tightened the writing throughout, starting with a new first sentence: I am inside Jack’s house. Much better. Intimate, a little creepy, just the right tone for the rest of the book. I finally understood what CJ meant when she told me, Don’t be afraid to write the story. One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received, and the one I’m trying hardest to follow.

Yet I’m failing at the moment. My first chapter is set in the present, after which the story moves back in time as a triple murder unfolds and the motives are gradually revealed. Because of the unusual structure and the sex and mayhem throughout, it’s going to be important to keep the writing unadorned and somewhat restrained; otherwise, the whole thing will tip into melodrama, the worst of my writerly tendencies. (And the chapter begins with a character standing on the edge of a cliff, so I’m already halfway there.) But instead of applying the good advice I’ve received and really taking the book by the balls as I would like to do, I’ve been blathering all over the page, as if I don’t know what the hell I’m trying to say.

A pretty good representation of where my book stands right now.

What makes a good first sentence? Examples gratefully accepted.

Warp

Yesterday Drew and I made the last of our excursions to scope out the area around Portland and find a new place to live. We made a wide circle through Troutdale and Cascade Locks, over the Bridge of the Gods and home again through Camas and Vancouver. We talked the whole time about where we would go and what we’re looking for in this next house. We have always imagined ourselves in the country, but upon further inspection it seems that our imaginings are not entirely practical. For me, a daily walk has become as necessary as coffee. I adore our park across the road with its paved footpaths, children playing on the grass, the familiar faces of my neighbors and the neverending squabbles of the water birds. Walking alone on a country road—I’m not so sure. And with Drew gone most of the time, I wonder if I’d be uneasy living outside scream-distance from the nearest neighbor. (Actually, I don’t wonder; even in suburbia, I check the closets each night.) For Drew, who’d have to commute, and for Ashton who’d no longer be able to see his friends every day, the country house is probably not going to work at all unless we can find one perfectly situated and within our price range.

So we talked about it. Alternatives are plentiful and so are our dreams. We will reimagine this one and find a way to shape our ideas of what life can be around the reality of what life has become. Maybe happiness today is a quirky little Craftsman in downtown Vancouver, or a split-level in deepest suburbia, or some spiffy new townhouse with a pool and a writing room in the clubhouse. Maybe the lives we’ve lived and the habits we’ve formed are not to be discounted so easily. Maybe reality should have been part of the dream all along.

We got home last night and I sat for a while with my pages, wrote a little, made some notes. My story, which I’m writing to an outline for the first time, is behaving oddly. On the surface, the plot is moving along according to plan. But the tone of the writing has gone very dark. Creepy bits of back story have appeared, and the connections between characters are becoming warped by fear and obsession. There’s a weird undercurrent here, the result of my active mind at work on the inert idea of the original story.

This is the writerly version of dreams reimagined. That pure, clear story, like my country house dream, can’t exist; it has to bend to the way my mind actually works in a practical sense, one word at a time. It has to give way.

It has to die a little in order to live.

How have you reimagined a dream?

How Books Are Made

I happened upon this lovely set of videos by Lauren Oliver, who describes how her book, The Spindlers, went from idea to finished product. The videos are probably intended for children but I watched some of them twice.

Nine

Within an arm’s length of my laptop, there are nine books about the craft of writing, plus the e-reader I set aside to write this post. Four of the books are to my right, on my bedside table, and the others have taken up residence in the hollow where my husband used to sleep.

Nine-plus seems like a lot to need in such proximity, and that’s saying nothing of the twenty or more scattered around the house, so I ask you: how many books does it take? How many classes? How many teachers, mentors, workshops, degrees? How much learning is enough to make the writing feel legitimate? Does there come a point when you can look at your work and say, Now I can write. Or are you doomed to dog-ear the pages. Break out the highlighter. Memorize snippets of advice or write them out on post-it notes, a paper-tiled frame around your pages. Do you get stuck in your writing and remember how someone, in one of these books beside the bed—or possibly downstairs, which really would involve a hunt—someone knew how to bridge this impossible gap in chapter twenty-four. Do the books pile up when you get frightened? Are they your bossy friends, always should-ing you and urging further thought? Or do you disdain these do-gooders altogether in favor of your own fine taste.

What’s in your writing-book library?

How do we get there from here?

Roundhouse

Our friend Tetman posted this quote from Elizabeth Gilbert the other day, and I can’t stop thinking about it:

You have to write the thing you feel is missing from the world, that’s not on the bookshelves, the book that you would want to read if you’d heard about it, the book that you long for. And you have to be really honest about what that is. You can’t necessarily write the book that will earn you the respect of other people who are the guardians of the culture. Because you appointed them to be. That can’t  be the motive. You have to write the book your heart wishes existed.

You have to write the book you long to read.

This simple idea has helped me out of so many writerly dilemmas, and it helped me out again today, when I reached a scene I wasn’t sure of. To write it or not is about more than the story I’m trying to tell; that it matters to the story is only the most basic criteria. There must also be a craving behind it. There has to be something intense driving me to write not just the book but every part of the book, every page and chapter and scene—and I think that driving force is me, the reader, who wants what she wants. My reader-self loves the darkness. She loves fights and passion and the unwinnable war of the sexes, and misplaced moments of tenderness, long shadows, rough sex and hazy motivations and everyone working his agenda. She loves slaps and kisses and roundhouse punches to the jaw—all in one scene if it can possibly be arranged. My reader-self wants the conflict to surge and retreat a little, then come roaring back. She wants a volatile story with solid words for ballast. She wants me, the writer-me, to bring it.

I am trying my best to write the book my reader-self would want to consume. She’s a needy bitch. At the moment I’m feeding her a three-way in the back row of a seedy theater, two guys and a girl whom the bitch insists on saddling with deep-seated guilt and perversion. God forbid anyone should get along.

What does your reader-self want from you?