Writing Dialogue

Garrett Breedlove: I like the lights on.
Aurora Greenway: Then go home and turn them on.
Terms of Endearment

That exchange (between Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson) is one the best bedroom lines ever. I want to write awesome dialogue just like that. And I want to write a male character whose last name is Breedlove, because, honestly, how great is that?

I took a break from my long wip (The Ugly Girlfriend) to finish up a project that was due July 1. It's a short story titled, Noche Buena, and like Garrett and Aurora, the main characters are a little older (late forties). I had no idea how hard it was to write a story and keep the word count at under 8000. No idea whatsoever. But I do now!

I hate cute too

"Cute? Baby ducks are cute. I hate cute! I want to be exotic and mysterious. "
Bull Durham

And can I just say I've always agreed with Susan on that one.

But some days, even cute is hard to come by. That's why coffee was invented.

Slept most of the day away after a night of working. Maybe I can write some later...

Casting my story

When I'm in the process of writing a story I like to put a face behind my character. It helps get me in the mood so to speak. So in my current wip, I have a character whom my protagonist has a huge crush on (her boss!) He's gone through 2 name changes but now that I'm over 1/3 of the way through I've settled on his name- Ben Gallagher. It took me a bit to realize it but every time I wrote him I had Matt Bomer in mind. Suddenly, it's very easy to get in the mood.

I'm back

And not just back from Atlanta. I'm back physically. And by that I mean I'm almost 100% better now. This flu I had lasted almost 2 weeks. Yup. 2 weeks! I still have a lingering cough, but that's almost gone too. So now that I'm better I have loads to catch up on. Which means I'll be writing my butt off today (if only) to catch up with blog posts and interviews I'm behind on. No one ever tells you (or maybe they did but I didn't pay attention) that writing a book is only about 50% of the work. The rest of the 50% is spent promoting the book. Which means answering emails, responding to requests for interviews and blog posts, keeping up with social media, etc ...

I love doing all these things, but when your head is full of snot (sorry, I had to go there) it's no fun.






We got back from Atlanta last night (Thank God Mike Geraci came because I cannot drive on ice!). Remember, I live in Florida and snow is like some strange aberration that paralyzes me. Atlanta hadn't seen snow in something like 15 years and the city was under siege. Schools were closed all week and reports down here (down here being Tallahassee) was that the city was in chaos. Coming in on the tail end of the chaos I can say that Atlanta was very much open, although we saw dozens and dozens of stranded cars on the highways and were told by natives that the past week has been horrendous. Schools and lots of businesses closed and everyone had major cases of hermititis (sick of being home all week) and were anxious to get going again.


Megan (my youngest) went for her first college audition (BFA Musical Theatre and Acting) for Emerson College (in Boston, but doing regional auditions in Atlanta) and the whole thing went very smoothly. Having been a performer since the age of 7, she's such a pro! She won't know if she got accepted until late March and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her. She's applied to 6 different schools and it's all such a crap shoot. Kind of like submitting your manuscript to a publisher. You can be good, but then everyone is good and you never know what they are looking for.


Things to do today:

Give Charlie (my 100 lb mutt a bath)- don't worry, Mike Geraci will be helping me with this one.

Catch up on emails.

Watch Downton Abbey!

Oh, and make Baked Potato soup. Yummy!

What I learned at Ninc

Yesterday I attended the opening day workshop at Ninc's (Novelist's Inc) conference which was held in beautiful St. Pete Beach. I'm not a member of Ninc (although I'm definitely going to join) but they opened up the first day to non-members and I'm so glad they did. I had a great day, learned a lot, and even got to see a few friends.

The day consisted of 4 panels with the theme: Brainstorming the Future of Publishing.

This is what I learned:

1. Publishers aren't going to market your book. They don't have the time or money to truly promote all their authors. So unless you're Nora Roberts, you better be out there doing something to help yourself.

2. Print advertising does not work. The only thing that really helps promote a book is WORD OF MOUTH. Social marketing (blogs, twittering, facebook) is a way to get word of mouth out there.

3. Traditional publishing, as we know it, is in turmoil. Digital Publishing is huge and will take over the world. Bottom Line: You want your book to be available in ALL forms- print, ebook, audio, etc, so that it can reach the largest audience it can.

4. As an author, you want the LARGEST print run you can get. A 50% sell through is considered a success.

5. Amazon has plans to take over the world and cannot be stopped. Google and Apple have similar plans as well.

6. Piracy is bad.

7. Piracy is good. The more people who read your books, the better. Overall, what you lose in sales, you'll make up for in more sales.

8. Contracts, copyrights, and digital rights are very confusing. Especially when you're daydreaming of the Starbucks kiosk in the center of the hotel...

9. The best way to ensure your book is a success is to write the best book you can.

10. Even the best books fail to be a success for a variety of reasons. Bottom line: Market your book!

11. Baby Boomers are the largest consumers of digital readers and the target audience for ebooks. This will change as digital readers become cheaper. Soon, everyone will be reading books on our phones (if we can still see, that is).

12. Kristen Painter looks nothing like Heather Graham from behind.

13. Al Zuckerman (head of Writers House) needs his own TV show. I'd call it Real Agents of New York.

14. Leigh Duncan and Kristen Painter are the best lunch pals. Ever.

15. It is not nice to be driving on 275 heading from St. Pete to Tampa during rush hour traffic, especially when the Rays have just finished a game.

I finished the day by having dinner with my daughter (Loinfruit) and her lovely friend, Tara. Then the girls took me to their favorite bar, where the bouncer tried to card me (I think he wanted a tip). After breakfast, I plan to head back to Tally, but first a stop at the U of F to visit middle child.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Why Twitter makes me Twitch

The first time I heard about Twitter was a few years ago, when my sister, Carmen (the one who doesn't read my blog or do ANY social networking) gave me an article on how Twittering could help authors market their books.

My response was something like, "Please, Lechuga, I have no time for this!" TRANSLATION: "Please, Lettuce, I have no time for this!" And if you're wondering why I call my sister Lettuce then just read my upcoming novel The Boyfriend of the Month Club and all will be made clear.

But, as with any trend that catches on so quickly it will make your laptop spin, soon, everyone I knew was Twittering, so being the impetuous fool that I am, I hopped abroad the Twitter Train. But I still really had no clue how to effectively Twitter or what I was supposed to do.

So while I was at the Romantic Times Convention in Orlando (2009) I went to an author workshop on Twittering. The workshop was run by some guy who is a famous Twitterer (can't remember his name) and a book reviewer whose site I find amusing and sometimes clever. I was expecting a killer workshop. Ten minutes in, I (and the other 4 people in the room) began to understand why these 2 are such good Twitterers (is that a word?). Lack of eye contact and effective oral communication skills would be one reason. It was probably the strangest workshop I'd ever attended, unless the point of the workshop was that face-to-face communication was a thing of the past (which I refuse to believe.) So I left, confused and thinking Twitter probably wasn't for me, since I'm not a slave to my cell phone and that seemed to be the best way to Twitter.

Then I found Twitter Deck. Yay! I could Twitter while I was on the computer. Except the temptation to run to Twitter Deck and read... well, most times, nothing really important, was too tempting. So even though I was essentially a Twitter voyeur (someone who reads Twitters but does not necessarily engage in the act itself) I had to take Twitter Deck off my computer. When you're writing on a deadline, it's just too distracting.

And then I read Jane Green's blog post on Addictions. Well, heck, if Jane Green doesn't want to Twitter, then why should I? After all, according to the Penguin, USA, book catalogue, fans of Sophie Kinsella and Jane Green will adore me. At least they should adore me. That, however, is still out for debate. And whilst you might say, "Maria, you are no Jane Green!" and I would agree (LOVE LOVE LOVE both Sophie and Jane's books) I couldn't help but take her words to heart.

And in that moment or two after reading it and digesting it a bit, I came to the liberating realization that Thank God, we are not all alike and that what's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. And while I believe I'm terribly witty and charming in real life (and in my books), I don't think I'm especially suited for the Twitter medium. And I know I don't have the patience it takes to build a Twitter audience that would have any sort of impact on my book sales. So while I continue to be a Twitter voyeur and an occasional Twitterer, it's okay that this is one social medium I won't be losing any sleep over.

Note: In an act of supreme semi-hypocrisy, I have just Tweeted this post.

Girlfriends Book Club!

It's Monday morning, vacation is over, school starts next week, and it's time to get back in a routine. I always love the beginning of summer. I love the end of it too;) Truth be told, autumn is my favorite season. Football games, cooler weather, holidays... I love it all! It's also time to start writing a new book, and of course, that's always exciting;)

Today also marks the beginning of a new blog. It's a group blog composed of 35 female authors (myself included!) celebrating everything about female writers, books by women, books women like to read... well, you get the picture. It's called Girlfriends Book Club. Go check it out. This cycle we'll be blogging about summer reads and The Call.

Calling Dr. Evil

Writing Goddess extraordinaire Jennifer Cruise put up a fantastic blog the other day about story structure. If you're a writer, go there now (then come back here!) As usual, her blog got me thinking about the structure of my own stories and about the characters in my stories. If there's any secret to writing a good book I'd have to say it's, revision, revision, revision. Can't stress that enough. The first draft is always crap. At least mine are, and I would suspect that holds true for the majority of writers. Even though I preplot in a bare bones minimal style, it's not until I actually finish the first draft that I have any idea what the story is really about. That's when the fun and the really hard work comes in and you have to look at your story structure.

As you know, every story is about a central character (the protagonist) who wants something. It doesn't matter what they want, it just has to be important to them. You make this character likable or sympathetic or empathetic or whatever you want to call it, and this in turn, makes their goal important to the reader. But there's always someone in the story who gets in their way. This is the really fun character. The antagonist. The nemesis. The "villain." The Dr. Evil of your novel. As elemental as this concept is to storytelling, I have to tell you, I always struggle when it comes to discovering who my Dr. Evil is. Dr. Evil doesn't always operate out in the open. He/she works in sneaky and mysterious ways. He doesn't always wear black and tote a gun or make plans to destroy the world with his super powerful new laser machine. Sometimes, at least in my books, Dr. Evil is actually a really nice person.

In my first novel, Bunco Babes Tell All, I thought my land developer Ted Ferguson was Kitty's (my protagonist's) nemesis. He was slimy, greedy and he wanted to build high rise condos on the beach. Boo! But in truth, Ted was actually an ally of Kitty's. Kitty's true nemesis was her own mother. Kitty's goal throughout the story was to buy her grandmother's old house. Her mother wanted to sell it for mega bucks (and not to Kitty). Hence, she was the character most in opposition to my protagonist's goal. Slimy Ted was actually aiding Kitty in her goal. It wasn't until I realized this (on a second or third revision) that I was able to flesh that out in the novel. BUT... then I got to about 3/4's of the book and Kitty's goal changed. Although yes, she still wanted to buy her grandmother's house, she wanted to save the Whispering Bay Senior Center even more. Kitty's new story goal was much more altruistic than her original one, and voila! Ted Ferguson, evil land developer, now becomes Kitty's nemesis.

I had to scratch my head over this one because the story structure of one goal/one central nemesis didn't fit my manuscript anymore. Eventually, I had to let go of that kind of thinking. Story structure/acts/turning points- all that stuff is great, and I believe if you're writing genre fiction you have to have these familiar elements to make the story flow, but you also can't be married to them either. There have to be allowances for things in your story that don't seem to "fit". Then I watched the movie Star Wars again and thought, hey! Star Wars is kind of like Bunco Babes Tell All (stay with me here). Like Kitty, Luke doesn't have just one goal in the story. Initially, his goal is to rescue Leia. He sees the video of Leia asking for help and gets motivated by lust and the chance for adventure and goes off with Obi Wan Kanobi to save the princess. But... once he's "saved" her, his goal changes (also to a higher, more altruistic one) to defeat the Death Star. His nemesis remains the same (Darth Vadar) but his goal gets "upped" in the story.


With The Boyfriend of the Month Club, it took me forever (call me dense) to figure out who Grace's nemesis was. Grace's goal is to turn her book club into a boyfriend club where women can discuss the men they've dated. She's motivated by the fact that she's hit rock bottom in the dating world and she wants to help other women avoid the loser dating pool she's been swimming in. She's aided by the other members of her book club, who also happen to be her best friends. But two of the members (Sarah and Penny) are initially opposed to the idea of the boyfriend club.

“Seriously? I just don’t know about this whole boyfriend club,” Sarah said. “It smacks of disgruntlement.”


But Ellen, the fourth member of the group, is totally on Grace's side. She helps Grace convince Sarah and Penny to go along with the agenda.

"So we're really going through with this?" Sarah said.

“Of course we are,” Grace said. “It’s going to empower us!”


So imagine my surprise (light bulb above the head moment) when I finally figured out that Ellen was Grace's nemesis. Yes, she's totally on board the boyfriend club wagon, but she has her own agenda. Ellen, who teaches English Composition and Poetry Appreciation 101, wants to use the data they collect at the boyfriend club meetings to expand her masters thesis, Undressing the Romantic Hero in Popular Literature (isn't that a great title for a thesis?) into a book. Slowly but surely, she and Grace start butting heads and Ellen becomes Grace's greatest opposition to achieving her goal. The thing is, Ellen is a totally likable and sympathetic character in her own right, which I think makes her a really interesting nemesis.

But about 3/4's of the way through the book, Ellen is defeated and Grace wins. So the conflict should be over. But not really. Because with Ellen's defeat, a new and much stronger nemesis rises from Ellen's ashes. His name is Speedway Gonzalez and he's Daytona Beach's hottest DJ and a Tucker Max wannabe. Speedway uses the information from Grace's boyfriend club as daily fodder for his radio show, humiliating not just the members of the club, but the men they've "critiqued." Now Grace's goal changes. She has to shut down the boyfriend club and try to make everyone in Daytona Beach forget it ever happened. But Speedway isn't just going to roll over and die.

“Hey, Speedsters! This is Speedway Gonzalez, taking you round and round Day-to-na Beach. Guess who’s decided to come out and play this morning? It’s none other than the head honch-ess of the boyfriend club, herself, Grace O’Bryan. So, Gracie, first things first. Are you fat?”

“Yes, I am. I tip the scales at four hundred pounds. Thanks for asking.”

Speedway chuckled. “It’s not that going to be that easy, babe.”

And Dr. Evil (I mean, Speedway) is right. The final conflict between protagonist and nemesis should be a fight to the death. I have to admit, of all the antagonists I've written, Speedway is by far my favorite. He's not really bad you know, he just wants to make a living.

On Florida Charlie's and setting and starting over

It's time to start a new book. Something that both excites and terrifies me.

The exciting part is obvious. At this point, although I still have copy edits and final proofs that will have to be done on Boyfriend of the Month, I'm sick of 'em all. I've lived, breathed, slept Grace, Joe, Brandon, Charlie, Sarah, Abuela and the rest of the gang for almost a year now and it's time to move on. Kind of like a relationship gone stale. I want the excitement of fresh characters. People who I don't know yet, but am interested in knowing. Not that I won't miss the gang from BOTM. I love those people! I made them up, after all. But I can't do anything more with them. Their story is over. Kaput. Finis. I gave everyone who deserved it a HEA, and everyone who didn't deserve a HEA, well, I gave them the potential of one, because after all, I do write fun, romantic women's fiction (After 3 books and much soul searching, that's the tagline I've decided on).

So back to the new book. The idea for the story started long before I ever actually wrote the first chapter ( I have 10 pages, yay!) It started just like Boyfriend and the Bunco books did, with the idea of a place, a community. Which is interesting, because I think I write character driven novels. But setting is character too. It lives and breathes with a life of its own. Even though Whispering Bay (the town I set my Bunco novels in) is imaginary, when I close my eyes, I can see it. It has real streets and real shops and the people who live there have a very distinctive mindset about them. Kind of like when you ask someone where they're from and they say, "New York city" or "Two Egg, Florida" (yes, there is a town called Two-Egg- it's not too far from Tallahassee). Whether right or not, I already have an idea about that person, because where you're from and where you've been raised has as much influence over the kind of person you become as anything else, I think.

Before I ever thought of the concept of Boyfriend of the Month (or even thought of the title) the idea of Florida Charlie's (the tourist shop where a lot of the action in the book takes place) had already come to me. It had been germinating like a seed in the recesses of my mind and had taken root. Although BOTM is set in Daytona Beach, a real town, the novel's true "location" is Florida Charlie's. A tourist shop still stuck in the 1960s. A place that gave away free samples of orange juice and shipped citrus, and sold old fashioned gifts and had a corny mascot. A place that was a bit of a Florida icon in its day but had been brushed aside by the big tourism machine (you know who I'm talking about here- the little guy with the ears). I think the one character I'll truly miss the most when I completely leave Boyfriend is that shop. Funny, but true.

Which gets me back to the new novel. Tentatively titled Girlfriends are Forever (but that could easily change). The seed for this book started with the Race for the Rock. A high tech scavenger hunt that took place back in May in Bainbridge, Ga (just about 30 minutes north of Tallahassee). The prize? A $10,000 engagement ring, hidden somewhere in the city. The idea of it is so brilliant, it gave me shivers. And immediately got me thinking about this new imaginary place. A town somewhere south of St. Augustine. A town that claims that Ponce de Leon actually discovered the fountain of youth in their neck of the woods. A town that's kind of dyin' and needs something big to revive it. And revive the people who live there. And voila... Exploration, Florida was born. Not sure if I'm crazy about that name but I'm already in love with the town. And the people who live there. And I think that's good.

A whole day just to myself

Just like Kevin in Home Alone who yearns for his own hot delicious cheese pizza, I yearn for a day to myself (what working mother doesn't?) Like Kevin's dream, my dream is pretty simple too, because I'm not talking about a spa day or a day spent leisurely reading, eating bon bons and going out to lunch with girlfriends, although that all sounds pretty damn good to me right now. But the truth is I just want a day to get things DONE. A day to clean the house (yes, because fur balls aren't pretty), to actually go outside for a power walk (but only if I can get it in before nine a.m. because after all, this is Florida in the summer time) and a day to finally organize all my writing stuff.

In the eight months or so it took me to write TBOTMC I had to let a lot slide. Hence, I am now in a heap of not-so-nice disorganization, which drives me absolutely bat crazy. Not that I'm the most organized person, not by a long shot, but I've reached the point where I can't find anything and that can't continue.

So... stuff to do today. Clean house. Make a flan that will flip properly. And if I have time, try the banana nut bread recipe I found on Jenny Crusie's blog this morning (under the comment section) because coincidentally, I have 3 very ripe (past eating) bananas sitting on my kitchen counter top that I'd been wonderin' what to do with. Now I know.

Oh, and one more thing. Could the Glee finale last night have been any more wonderful? I had about 20 kids in the living room, snacking on chicken wings and chips, etc, watching on the big TV while Mike Geraci and I were snuggled together in the den watching... yes, the Glee season finale on another TV.

I have totally hooked Mike Geraci on Glee which is a hoot because every 5 minutes someone starts singing on the show, which I totally love, and ordinarily he wouldn't, but hey, it's all about execution and it works here, so that just goes to show that anything can be done. It just has to be done right. The best part of the night? Listening to the kid's laughing and screaming at all the great parts while we smiled at them while sitting on the couch in the den. Oh, and while I totally called Quinn's water breaking spontaneously (because on TV that's how everyone goes into labor, but in the real world - NOT) I missed the timing because I really thought they would have her water break on stage just as they were finishing their big number. I'm so glad the writers didn't go there.

Round One goes to Me

I finally turned the manuscript that won't stop writing itself in to my editor this week. A huge sigh of relief was let out by all. Mostly by me, of course. And probably by Mel, who's been urging me for weeks to just turn the damn thing in. Of course, she's listened to me whine incessantly about it. How it just wasn't "done" yet, how it needed just a tiny bit more tweaking, how in the eleventh hour I've discovered *one* more loose end that needs tucking back in. I joked that I'd wake up one morning and find that instead of a word doc. on my laptop, my manuscript had grown hair and nails and teeth and fists and was ready to beat me up. In the end, however, I won round one.

As I sit back on day 3 of the waiting period (this is the excruciating period in which I wait to hear from my editor to see what she thinks of the book) I'm already thinking of ways to sharpen the plot. Because the book sold on synopsis, I had to pre-plot the book, something I think is important to do, because I need direction. But pre-plotting isn't written in stone and the last half of the book turned out to be very different than the original idea I had in mind. Once you start writing characters, giving them dialogue, they take the book over and there's not much you can do about that except go along for the ride.

Meanwhile, I'm taking a much needed break from the manuscript to do things I haven't had time to do. Like clean house. Catch up on emails (I have millions) and read:) I've already read the first 2 books in Madeline Hunter's awesome new series- Ravishing in Red and Provocative in Pearls. Loved them both. And have also read Kristin Higgin's newest The Next Best Thing. LOVED IT. I'm currently reading Table Manners by Mia King which has been on my TBR pile for months now. Next is Louisa's book On the Steamy Side. (can't wait) and then I'm going to try a new author for me, Julie James. Her new release Something About You has gotten some great reviews and I've wanted to read her for awhile now.

And in some extremely exciting news, Jim and Pam are having their baby tonight! I'll be glued to my telly, that's for sure.