History is a Bitch - a weblog by Jeanne Kalogridis

I never planned to write historical fiction; it just happened.

In fact, the whole writing thing just happened. Sort of. But maybe there were hints in the fact that as a kid, I wrote my own Supergirl and Wonder Woman comic books, and lots of stories featuring characters from popular TV series. Of course, the real hero of my adolescent stories was always, always a feisty young girl who made the older (male) protagonist look like a schmuck. (Example: There are probably a handful of decrepit fellow Boomers out there who remember the Raymond Burr TV series IRONSIDE about a wheelchair-bound detective. I wrote a story in which Ironside can’t quite keep up with a spunky, also wheelchair-bound twelve-year-old girl who just happens to be better at solving crimes. He goes to her hospital bed to cheer her up --“It’s okay, little girl, life isn’t so awful without the use of legs” – and as thanks, she solves a case that’s been tormenting him for years.)

So anyway, in 1981 I learned that I had sold my first book, an original STAR TREK novel (called MINDSHADOW – is it just me, or do most first novels contain the word “shadow” somewhere in the title?).

I immediately sat down and wrote another, DEMONS, and sold that one, too, then a TREK take-off on vampires, BLOODTHIRST (you may notice a bit of a dark streak in my fiction). The STAR TREK career took off pretty quickly, and by 1988, I was writing the novelizations for the movies.

So what does this have to do with Mary Sue?

I do Google myself at times to get a feel what readers are saying, and I’ve learned that many of you appreciated the afterword I wrote for THE BORGIA BRIDE. (When I wrote early scenes in that novel, I thought, “Everyone’s going to think that I came up with the unbelievable, gruesome notion that Sancha’s grandfather kept a ‘museum’ of his mummified enemies.” Also, the Borgias’ behavior often strained credibility, so I wanted my readers to know that the more fantastic parts of the novel weren’t just the result of a histrionic imagination.)

Quite honestly, I was late delivering I, MONA LISA and didn’t have time to write an afterword again. So here’s a bit of “insider information,” if you will, about the way I put the story together.

Check out Chuck Palahniuk's website.

Who is Chuck Palahniuk, you ask? Only the author of the awesome FIGHT CLUB, a novel I heartily endorse.

A lot of good stuff here: take a look at the Writers Workshop link.

So you wanna be a published author? Have a polished manuscript just quivering in readiness, but don’t know where to send it?

Then get yourself a copy of WRITER’S MARKET. It has everything you need to know about submitting your manuscript to a publisher: format, submission protocol, and contact information for all the editors who are dying to take a look at what you’ve written. And it’s updated yearly.

STORY is all about how to write a screenplay. But it’s also useful to those in the novel-writing business. I have A Writer Friend who doesn’t much care for STORY, but I think that’s because she never really got past the first part about structure and genre. (She didn’t feel she really needed help trying to decide between writing a mockumentary or a social drama.) It contains so much information that I think it can be intimidating, perhaps, to someone who has never actually been through the writing process before. It might seem like a lot of theory, but it’s actually the result of a lot of practice, practice, practice.

A book about Catherine de' Medici, actually. The U.S. title will be THE BLOODIEST QUEEN, and the U.K. title will be THE MEDICI QUEEN. (Understandably, "bloody" plus "queen" just really doesn't go over well in Britain...)

The great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Catherine became Queen of France through marriage. For centuries, she has been blamed for the horrific St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which scores of thousands of French Protestants were slaughtered. Me, I'm thinkin' she got a bum rap.

I often hear the question: “How much of what you write in your historical novels is actually true?”*

A lot. At the beginning stages of a book, I sit down with all the reliable recorded information that I can find about my hero. I write a timeline of notable events in the woman’s life, then study up on the most important people in her life and how they interacted with her.

Then I meditate on those things, and using those events and people, come up with a dramatic overlay of a plot with a strong theme and gradually-building conflict. It’s usually pretty easy to spot the most crucial moment in my protagonist’s life, and the big pay-off centers around that moment. In most cases, I focus on a particularly dramatic time in my character’s life; right now, with THE BLOODIEST QUEEN, I’m tackling Catherine de’ Medici’s entire earthly existence.

Everyone has her secret passion. Mine happens to be writing pens, and chastising those who leave the tops off of writing pens. I actually do a fair amount of writing by hand, especially in the early morning hours when I need my left hand free to clutch a cup of coffee.

So my new best friends are these. Aren't they great? I'm especially addicted to the purple (for my prose, har har, yes I know) and the turquoise.

Laurell K. Hamilton writes lovely, ghoulish novels; this weekend, I'm hoping to steal away a little time to tuck into the book that launched the Anita Blake, vampire hunter phenomenon, GUILTY PLEASURES.

So I visit her LKH Blog, right? And I come across this line:

Okay, I just did twenty-seven pages today. Twenty-seven pages on the Jason novel/novellite. I went back over my calender and found when I started the project. I have done 147 pages in ten days. Ten non-consecutive days, which for me is even more impressive. I usually have a fits if a project is interrupted even a little bit. But my muse is hitting me heavy on this one.

Twenty-seven pages? Twenty-seven pages?

On a good day, I'll have six or seven. Granted, that's writing a historical, where I have to fact-check every paragraph a dozen times, but even so...

I feel so very, very inadequate.

Okay, I got thirty-three pages written this weekend on THE BLOODIEST QUEEN. *And* I found time to drag myself into the kitchen (and outside to the grill) and make Mama Jeanne's incredible BBQ chicken with from-scratch BBQ baked beans and sweet Southern cole slaw. (Hint: Used incredibly good white balsamic vinegar is one of Mama Jeanne's secret ingredients.)

I'll never get twenty-seven pages in a single morning, a la Laurell K. Hamilton, but I'm feeling a bit better about myself.

That's a line from Stephen King; he used it to refer to the delicious experience of so enjoying a novel that you forget you're reading. You're that utterly absorbed.

I had that experience today, except that I was writing the book, not reading it. I worked today from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. on THE BLOODIEST QUEEN, with a minimal break for lunch. (That post that appeared this afternoon at 3-whatever-o'clock -- that was written two days ago.) Not healthy for the spine or the waistline, sitting still so long. But there's no more exhilarating experience than watching plot and characters come alive and start working together to birth something fine. This sort of madness only comes over me when the story is well under way, as it is with BQ. (My agent and I refer to my books in abbreviated fashion; THE BORGIA BRIDE is BB, THE BURNING TIMES is BT and now we have THE BLOODIEST QUEEN and BQ. Our joke is that BQ is the lovechild of Burger King and Dairy Queen, har har.)

I now know more than anyone should about the magus (Wise Man) Gaspar (aka Caspar). Does anyone else find it fascinating that the Wise Men were Persian astrologers, members of a priestly caste of Zoroastrians, and that the Star of Bethlehem might well have been the planet Jupiter?

I love writing historicals.

Dramatists -- whether they write screenplays or plays or novels or, in this instance, teleplays -- have a responsibility to their audience and to their creations.

Take, for example, the final episode of the television series THE SOPRANOS. I didn't watch the whole show but I did see the ending where the family sits munching on onion rings and absolutely nothing happens.

It's just plain wrong. Viewers were cheated. The series itself was cheated. Tony Soprano, the protagonist, was cheated.

Why? Because there are certain elements to a drama that make it a drama. These elements aren't there because Aristotle or some literary theorist said they should be. These elements are there because they please the audience -- the listeners, the viewers, the readers -- and have pleased us for thousands of years. Drama is created for us, and when it fails to satisfy us, it fails, period.

So what satisfies us?

Sure, everyone has a to-do list.

But over at 52 Projects, they have something even better: a NOT-to-do list.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have now entered the phase known as the 2007 Writing Olympics, where Jeanne gets up at 5 a.m. every morning, seven days a week, and just keeps writing and writing until the damned book is done.

And the only way to do that? My not-to-do list. Ix-nay on the New York Times' ossword-cray uzzle-pay and udoku-say.

Sure, everyone has a to-do list.

But over at 52 Projects, they have something even better: a NOT-to-do list.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have now entered the phase known as the 2007 Writing Olympics, where Jeanne gets up at 5 a.m. every morning, seven days a week, and just keeps writing and writing until the damned book is done.

And the only way to do that? My not-to-do list. Ix-nay on the New York Times' ossword-cray uzzle-pay and udoku-say.

For your enlightenment and pleasure, George Orwell's Six Rules of Effective Writing:*

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Oh, my. Shall we all grab copies of my books and count the millions of times I have broken these over the years?

*Okay, his name really wasn't George Orwell. It was Eric Blair. And most people ignore the last rule and refer to "George Orwell's Five Rules of Effective Writing."

I've been dreadfully remiss about posting. My apologies. It's just that I'm in the throes of finishing THE BLOODIEST QUEEN (aka THE MEDICI QUEEN).

I'm crazed, and will continue to be crazed for the next two months or so. Let's just say that Donna Giovanna has vacated the Palazzo Kalogridis kitchen, and she and poor Ser Giorgio are reduced to living on take-out.

My eyes are constantly pin-wheeling with eyestrain. I know I've said it before, but I really do feel like Kathleen Turner in the opening scenes of ROMANCING THE STONE -- you know, where she's at her typewriter in her bathrobe, unbathed, hair a mess, sobbing her eyes out and blowing her nose as she writes the final scenes of her lusty romance novel?

Well, that's me. That's me, for the next two months, except that the typewriter is actually an Apple. Powerbook. 17". And there are crumbs all over my keyboard. When I click the touchpad mouse, it goes crunch. And Sweetie Pie the Labrador is glaring balefully at me because she didn't get her hour-long walk this morning.

But I promise not to forget you, gentle reader, in the midst of it all. I will post. I will bravely blog.

That is all.

I have fallen in love with a blog that is no longer being updated.

But oh, the archives!

Miss Snark was a literary agent (she has since gone on to marry George Clooney, according to her blog). She answered questions about submitting fiction manuscripts -- and she did so with style and grace and no small amount of snarkiness. Those of you who are authors, aspiring or otherwise, could learn much about the publishing world, submissions, and the courtship of agents from Miss Snark, even though she has left us for a time.

My own experience with agents: If you haven't sold a book, it's nigh impossible to find one. Once you sell -- and become a marketable commodity -- they'll catch wind of it and come to you.

After a false start, I found an agent I adore. I've been with him almost twenty-five years now. His name is Russ, and you can't have him, girls. He's all mine.

In the meantime: six polished pages so far today, perhaps one or two more to come this evening. I have a nicely gruesome scene coming up, which always puts me in a chipper mood.

It's the single most-asked question of fiction writers. I used to reply with Harlan Ellison's snappy comeback, "From a post-office box in Schenectady."

But it doesn't answer the question, of course, because if we writers had any idea where our inspiration came from, the technique would have been patented long ago.

Over the years, I've paid attention to where my best ideas strike me: in the shower, walking the dog, drifting off to sleep. In fact, I was mowing the lawn last Saturday when I experienced a sudden insight about the novel I'm working on, and a marvelous idea for a critical scene came to me full-blown. (I started mowing the lawn as a teenager and kept up the practice when I discovered how much problem-solving I got done while pushing those deadly blades over my little green patch of suburbia.)

What do all of these places have in common? I'm in a meditative state. My mind is free and somewhere else, not on the book. I'm not thinking.

I formally meditate, though I've been irregular about it lately. I can't recommend it highly enough; I gain insight and reduce my stress level significantly. The core of the practice is freeing your mind from the problems that plague you -- i.e., the chatter, the noise of thinking.

Here's a post on Zen Habits (a great lifehacking blog with tons of how-tos for organizing your life) about non-sectarian meditation.

Give it a shot and see if you don't become inspired. Me, I'm going out again this morning to mow the lawn (for real).

Here's some advice from Scott Berkun over at The Berkun Blog, subtitled "the short honest truth."

I have to agree: Most people balk when they realize the work involved. It's ridiculous, really -- most day jobs in corporate America pay more per hour than the average novelist makes, when you break down the amount of time spent working. Sure, there are a few lucky souls who hit the bigtime with the first book, but most of us toil in the salt mines for years before achieving a modest degree of success.

As for glamorous lifestyle that follows publication: I'll be mowing the lawn this morning, then tucking into another Sunday spent at the computer.

Saw a cute meme over at Booking Through Thursday . It asked

So, this is my question to you–are you a Goldilocks kind of reader? Do you need the light just right, the background noise just so loud but not too loud, the chair just right, the distractions at a minimum? Or can you open a book at any time and dip right in, whether it’s for twenty seconds, while waiting for the kettle to boil, or indefinitely, like while waiting interminably at the hospital–as long as the book is open in front of your nose, you’re happy to read?

Well, I'm not so much a Goldilocks kind of reader -- but I'm definitely a Goldilocks kind of writer. I need quiet, lots of it -- at least in terms of words. Maybe it's crazy of me, but hearing another person's words -- when I am trying hard to listen to the ones emerging in my head -- "drowns out" what I'm trying to get down on paper.
I've tried writing to music, but the same problem occurs there. No lyrics, please. I can handle a little Bach or Mozart if the volume's really low, otherwise forget it.

Interestingly enough, the sound of dogs snoring actually increases my writing output and enhances my concentration.

Or your best friend, either. Especially if you're struggling to break into the writing business and/or aren't brimming with confidence.

Why?

Well, read the following comment posted on writing coach Emily Hanlon's blog:

The first draft was twelve hundred pages, and when I was about three quarters done, I proudly announced to my parents that I had just finished writing eight hundred pages. My father was delighted and he congratulated me. My mother laughingly said, “Who would want to read eight hundred pages you wrote?” I laughed with her. After all, I was used to Mom’s brittle humor. Ha! I blocked for three months. I couldn’t write a word.

Friends, family members and significant others can do more harm than good -- unless they're experienced writers or editors. Take the case of my Beloved Consort, aka Mr. K.

I've been enjoying Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools lately over at Poynter Online. Clark is a journalist with a lot of solid advice about improving prose.

He's collected a good deal of his wisdom on his blog. It doesn't matter whether you've been published, or how much you've written: we all need to review the basics. So here are fifty writing tips, in a convenient list -- and podcast form, too.

For those of you who would yearn to see your own fiction published: here's some more unasked-for advice from yours truly.

I honestly was too shy to contact any writers, go to any fiction workshops or even ask a friend to look over my manuscript before I sent it off to the publisher. I'm of the opinion, even now, that those who schmooze, lose in the novelist's world. It probably pays off bigtime to network obsessively if you want to write screenplays, but if not if you want to write a book. Why? Quality, not "who you know" still counts in the literary world, and agents and editors are always hoping to stumble across a well-written manuscript by a first-time author. It's the work, not the connections, that count. Give up the lattes and gabfests at Starbucks with other wannabe authors and hightail it to your writerly hovel and pen a few pages instead. I really do believe that talking out a story too many times saps the energy you need to write it down, and dilutes your enthusiasm for it.

So how did I break into publishing? Well, I wrote a book and mailed it off with an SASE that I never got back (though I'm not complaining). But FIRST I 1) obsessively outlined the plot of at least a dozen novels I admired in the genre I wanted to break into, because of all my skills, plotting was my weakest; 2) studied WRITERS MARKET and made sure I submitted the novel to the right editor using absolutely perfect formatting; and 3) worked my saucy derriere off making sure the book was as good as I could possibly make it.

I think I got the idea for outlining novels I liked from a book on writing by Lawrence Block. I forgot to mention 4) reading every book I could find on writing by published writers. A few I found useful: The two books by Lawrence Block (TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT is one), ON FICTION by John Gardener and THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING by Lajos Egri. Now that I'm familiar with writing lingo, I love STORY by Robert McKee, but most beginners find the jargon and technical stuff off-putting. It's the most concise, inspired explanation of plot construction I've read.

If you're not a stickler for detail, if you're not an utter perfectionist, then enter a different line of work. If, however, your friends and significant other(s) have labeled you a nit-picker, then novel-writing just might be your niche.

Bartleby.com is a must, only the coolest site ever invented for readers and writers. It features a mind-boggling slew of reference titles (we're talking hundreds), poetry anthologies, novels (the classics), and nonfiction titles. You can read anything from Roget's Thesaurus to Bartlett's Quotations to the King James Bible to Gray's Anatomy. Need some free Shakespeare fast? Bartleby.com has it. In fact, it probably has every reference title or classic work you can think of.

So bookmark it already!

Send a media mogul a pencil!

It's the brainchild of the WGA strikers -- Hollywood writers trying to get a fair deal. They've put their pencils down in order to strike; as a little reminder, they're sending the Six Most Powerful Media Moguls boxes of pencils. Truckloads, in fact.

You can support a fair deal for the writers by contributing a few pencils of your own. Just go to the United Hollywood site.

Speaking of pencils, here's an interesting article by artist Matthew James Taylor on how to properly sharpen them.

In all honesty, I don't write with a pencil anymore. In my old age, I've grown accustomed to typing faster than I can think. However, I still write my first pages of the day by hand, using a disposable fountain pen. How else can I guzzle down my morning coffee at the same time?

"I have been an author for twenty years and an ass for fifty-five." -- Mark Twain

Mark Twain has always been one of my favorite authors; I got hooked on him back in tenth grade, when I played Twain in a skit for Mrs. Dodamead's English class. (Alas, she wouldn't let me light that cigar, but I spent a year toying with Swisher Sweets...)

So for those of you who wish to know the rules I l write by, here they are, both large and small, as Twain designated them:

Large rules:
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.