Writer's Notebook - James Rafferty Blog

Celebrating the Book - Boston Bookfest 2011

This past Saturday I attended the third Boston Book Festival, which took over Copley Square and environs for the day. We had cooperative weather -- mostly sunny and with temperatures in the sixties -- though the occasional gusts of wind were a reminder that we'd recently slipped into October. This was the place to be for anybody in the Boston area who loves books and thousands joined in.

I began the day by attending a workshop on Navigating the Publishing World. This session was conducted by Alan Rinzler, who has edited numerous well known writers including Tom Robbins and Hunter Thompson.  He's old school, but knows the publishing industry very well and recognizes the massive changes underway. He reviewed statistics from the first half of 2011, noting that ebooks make up about ten percent of the business, but are growing at a phenomenal rate of 163 percent. This compares to a decline in hard copy sales of 22.9 percent during the same period. He summarized the current situation by saying that the publishing industry is in a state of crisis, but couldn't resist saying that in his experience, "this has always been the case".

He confirmed that traditional publishing firms work exclusively via agents and wasn't very encouraging about the prospects for writers to find an effective agent. But he also said that doing well in self publishing is a good way to convince publishers and agents that a writer has both a platform and an audience. It was a good example of how the conventional wisdom on self publishing has changed radically in the past year due to success stories like Amanda Hocking.

After a brief diversion for lunch at the Atantic Fish Company on Boyleston Street -- which offered a delectable crab cake melt -- I returned to the Trinity Church and stepped into the magnificent chapel just in time to attend a session on Frontiers in Science. The three speakers covered very different subjects -- the ancient philosopher poet Lucretius, the current state of cosmological physics and cancer -- but offered a stimulating discussion that took me way out of my normal areas of knowledge, but reminded me of why I'd fallen in love with books in the first place.

The next session I attended took me to more familiar territory. Bob Blumenthal talked about his experiences getting to know jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins and following his work over the past fifty years. He recently collaborated on a book devoted to Rollins with photographer John Abbott. The next speaker was Tim Riley, who's recently been getting quite a bit of attention for his biography of John Lennon. Some of his more interesting comments were about the way that Lennon is viewed very differently by Americans as compared to the British. It seems when John re-located to New York and never came back to the UK, many of his countrymen were upset.

Next, I attended another workshop called Jumpstart Your Writing conducted by author and instructor Lynne Griffin. She had lots of energy and walked us through several warmup strategies.  She likes journals or free writing to warm up the writing muscles and tap the unconscious to write more deeply. After listening to other writers speak during the past several hours, I relished the chance to do a bit of writing myself.

My final session of the day was on learning. I had to leave early to catch my train, but first got to hear Nicolas Negroponte and Sugata Mita of the MIT Media Lab talk about their labor of love in trying to put laptops and tablet PCs into the hands of children within third world countries. Both of them shared numerous success stories on how young childen could quickly learn to use computers and how, with guidance, they could work together to solve complex problems. This was easily the most fascinating session of the day.

The entire day pulled me out of my normal patterns and help me reconnect with my love of books and lifetime learning. This is what weekends are all about.

If you love books, be on the lookout for book related events in your area. There is so much amazing work being published. This is an industry going through turmoil, but the book -- be it electronic or hard copy -- can still evoke the sense of wonder which originally drew me to books in my childhood.

Writer's Notebook: Book Review of Rock Paper Tiger

Several years ago, I finished my first novel and began looking for a way to get it published.   A few months into the process, I heard about a contest for novelists being held by Gather.com, a social network.  I entered the contest by submitting my novel’s first chapter.  By contest’s end, over 2500 entries had joined mine in the contest. 

Many of the writers stayed on Gather to comment on entries and watch the final stages of the contest play out.  Around this time, one of the other contest participants wrote an extended post expressing her frustration with the contest and all of the antics she’d seen to game the system.   A like-minded group of writers joined in and we had a lively exchange on this particular Gather conversation “thread.” In addition to discussion about the pros and cons of the contest, we talked about writing and the various routes to publication.  We were having fun with this, so she was cajoled to write a second post and the “Writin' Wombats” online writing group officially launched under her leadership.  

What does this have to do with the new novel, Rock Paper Tiger, published by Soho Press?   The woman who wrote that first thread on writing and formed the writing group was Lisa Brackmann and Rock Paper Tiger is her first published novel.  I’ve just finished reading the book and have to say that Lisa has written a thriller that really delivers the goods. 

Rock Paper Tiger begins in Beijing and we follow the first person account of Ellie (known to her Chinese friends as Yili), an American whose life is China is beginning to fall apart.   The first thirty pages set the stage well.    Ellie has an artist friend named Lao Zhang who lives in an out of the way suburb called Mati Village.   She takes the subway to see him, but he’s acting strangely.  Along the way, Ellie meets a few of Zhang’s acquaintances – lots of people like to hang around him.   She also begins to hear that some foreigners in suits are looking for her.  

Ellie takes us on a tour of the underside of Beijing as she moves around and it’s not always pretty.  The book is set after the 2008 Olympics have taken place and the city is a mix of the glossy new and much else that is run down.  Ellie loves Beijing, but is a foreigner and is never allowed to forget it.  When the men in the suits start getting nasty and Lao Zhang decides to leave Beijing for a while, Ellie decides to hit the road and visits several other Chinese cities.  

Interwoven within this story are flashbacks to Ellie’s experiences as a medic in Iraq, where she gets involved with a soldier named Trey and gets inadvertently pulled into treating prisoners who’ve been undergoing harsh interrogation.  Eventually we learn how she and Trey ended up in China and the tale cycles forward. 

Ellie is not always a likeable character, but she’s compelling and I found myself wanting to know what would happen to her even when it feels like every step she’s taking is the wrong one. Ellie moves from place to place but never manages to elude the “suits.” The tension mounts and leads toward an intense conclusion which draws together the threads of Ellie’s adventure in a satisfying way.  

Rock Paper Tiger dips into aspects of today’s headlines about China, including ethnic tensions, the aftermath of earthquakes and the censorship of online information, but all of this fits in well within the thriller and Ellie’s quest to make sense out of her life.  Brackmann puts the reader on the ground in China and we go way beyond the headlines and get a sense of what life in China is like -- both for the rising Chinese entrepreneurial class and for the many people who continue to live from day to day in lifestyles that haven’t changed for centuries.    The book feels like an insider’s look at today’s China, but manages to pull this off in the context of a character driven novel and a thriller with lots of bumps and chills along the way.   This is a fine novel and I recommend it to readers who enjoy thrillers, want to learn about today’s life in China or just want to read an offbeat, challenging novel written by a talented new writer.   

Writer's Notebook: Writer Idol at the Boston Book Festival

In my last post, I talked about my fun experiences attending the Boston Book Festival.  The event brimmed over with sessions that were helpful for writers who are on the path to publication.  

The first of these sessions was called the "Guided Open Mic," with our expert guide being author and investigative TV journalist Hank Phillipi Ryan.  Here's a picture of the Arbor Room of the Boston Public Library, where that session was held. 

I got a chance to do a reading at that session and had hoped to get my work read at a second session.  This one was across the street at the Old South Church about an hour later. 

Imagine this scene.  The room is packed with about 250 people.  Up on the stage, a panel of four publishing industry veterans is assembled, with representation from the literary agent, editing and publishing communities.  The session was named Writer Idol. 

Now that you've had a chance to visualize the scene, here's a photo of the session as it was about to begin (it's fuzzy, but you'll get the sense of it). 

The ground rules for Writer Idol were:

1. Participants were asked to bring in a 250 word beginning to a novel or piece of non-fiction and state the genre.
2. The entries were put in a box and a woman actor pulled them out and read from them.
3. There were four judges: a couple of agents and two other people from publishers.
4. The entries were read until two of the judges raised their hands to stop.

Depending upon your perspective, this might seem like either a writer's dream or, more ominously, their nightmare. 

 

I would estimate that about 40 entries were read over a one hour period.   My entry didn't get read, but the process was fascinating, a kind of live slush pile. The judges had different perspectives, so sometimes one hand would be raised but the reading would continue. Only a few pieces were read through to the end.

 

The process was anonymous; nobody knew who the writers were. However, there were some passages where the audience totally broke down with laughter, which no doubt was tough for the writers of those pieces.

For example, it turns out the judges REALLY did not like references to certain bodily functions that get activated when a character gets squeamish. TMI, I guess. There were three entries or so that went there; they all got shot down immediately.

Other no-no's included overuse of flowery adjectives, misuse of large words, and overuse of cliches. I'd imagine most writers that participated in a writing group wouldn't be surprised by these things, but seeing the panelists stop the reading because of these gotchas offered powerful reinforcement on these do's and don'ts.

 

My conclusion: Great session.  It's one thing to hear about what agents and editors want to see -- or not see -- but it's quite another to see it all play out in real time.  If you submit your work to an agent, they'll read what you submit and analyze it line by line just as they did here.  So, yes, you want to make your work compelling AND avoid miscues that will take the reader out of the scene and cause them to move on to the next item in the slush pile. 

 

That's it for this post, but I'd like to mention that I'll be having a guest blogger join me later this week on November 19.   Pat Bertram, author of Daughter Am I and two other novels published by Second Wind Publishing is on a whirlwind blog tour this month.  She and I have a lot of fun chatting together online and we've collaborated on an interview where we both talk about our writing and muse about topics such as writing outside of typical genres.  Please join us. 

Writer's Notebook: Boston Book Festival

Saturday I treated myself and took the train into Boston for the first ever Boston Book Festival.  What a great event.  I hope there will be many more which follow.  

I found out about the festival from the excellent folks at Grub Street, who also sponsored several of the sessions. 

Despite a shaky weather forecast, thousands of people were in attendance.  I grabbed a quick lunch, then headed over to one of the main venues, the amazing Boston Public Library.   I headed for the Abbey Room, soon to be the site for a session called "Guided Open Mic." 

On the way, this is what I saw: 

The Abbey Room is in the old part of the library, just across from the outdoor portion of the festival.  I headed out the door and stepped across Dartmouth Street (closed off for the day) and over to the booths of the festival.   Even with the threat of rain, one tent housed the festival stage and a variety of muscians, mostly from the local Berklee School of Music.  For a few minutes, I watched an artist named Liz Longley, who sang original songs, played keyboards and was backed by a tight quartet.  

The Fall colors flourished despite the rain, as seen in the following photo I took near the music tent. 

Time to head back to the library.   Along the way, I spotted this very cool banner advertising the festivities.  

 

Back at the Abbey Room, I signed up for the "Guided Open Mic" session. Our host was the very energetic Hank Phillipi Ryan, who is a TV news journalist on Boston Channel 7 and moonlights as a writer of 3 published novels in the thriller genre.  The event premise was simple.  Writers were invited to read a 3 minute excerpt from their work.  Earlier in the day, I printed out the beginning of a story I'd written earlier this year called "Fifth Season."  Hank offered started the session by offering us her tips on reading in public.  Most of it boiled down to "practice, practice, practice", though she also suggested we be very careful in choosing our selection and read the excerpt in a way which will keep listeners engaged.  

I thought the session worked very well.  It quickly became clear that good writing alone was not enough to carry the day in a reading, but several writers got the attention of the audience and held it.  After each reading, Hank offered a quick constructive critique on what worked and what needed improvement.   I got a chance to read my excerpt about 15 minutes into the event.  I speak a lot at conferences, but definitely had a few butterflies when it came to reading from my own work in front of an audience.  Afterwards, Hank suggested I needed to be more careful in choosing my microphone position in order to be able to look out and engage the audience.   The early part of the story that I read mainly introduces the characters; she suggested the excerpt needed to have more happening.  And more does happen -- later in story.    

The event continued for over an hour and lots of writers got a chance to read their work.  I felt I learned a lot from this and feel I'll be better prepared the next time I do a reading.  

Later that day, I attended another writer event, this one called "Writer Idol."   I'll write about that in my next post.   

Writer's Notebook: Creative Blogs

It's been a busy Fall for me and I've been enjoying the transition from the summer here in southeastern Massachusetts.  I got back from a trip last weekend and discovered, much to my surprise and delight, that my friend Pat Bertram, author of Bertram's Blog, had been nominated for a Kreativ Blogger award for her blog AND passed the nomination for that same award and recognition to this blog.  

The award looks like this:  

I'm very pleased to be nominated for this award and it's much more meaningful when it comes from Pat, a blogger and writer who has done a remarkable job in the blogosphere and other social media in leading discussions about writing in a way that builds community among writers and helps us all get better at what we do.  

About six months ago, I recast this blog to focus primarily about writing and travel, with occasional forays into other areas such as personal technology and music.  I still find it hard to make the time to post regularly, but I'll continue to post when I've got thoughts, pictures or other cool discoveries to share.  So, to Pat Bertram and Bertram's Blog, thank you very much.  

Now for the fun part -- passing on the nomination to three other deserving recipients. My stint in the blogosphere has included lots of interaction with both the community of fiction writers and with my many colleagues in the telecommunications industry.  I blog on matters related to Voice over IP for the Dialogic Corporate Blog and like the split of keeping my business blogging mostly separate from this more personally focused blog. 

So what do I like in a blog?  I like people who are innovative and use their diverse backgrounds and expertise to comment on topics in multiple areas, bringing new insights from these connections.  

With that in mind, I'd like to nominate the following blogs for the Kreativ Blogger award:  

Fractals of Change - written by Tom Evslin - I've known Tom since we worked together on fax standards in the early Nineties and he's had a fascinating career and so-called retirement in the time since.  After leaving his post as CEO of Voice over IP startup ITXC, Tom launched his blog.  He comments on a broad range of topics ranging from the high tech world to public policy.  Like me, he is also a writer and self-published a novel a couple of years ago.  His is a fine blog that I enjoy even when his busy real life reduces the number of posts.  

Communications - written by Brough Turner - I've known Brough over ten years and he has typically brought keen insight and a unique slant to whatever catches his eye.  This past year, we've worked together at Dialogic, and it has been fun to be able to talk without the constraint of being competitors in the workplace.  In his blog, he tracks topics such as the pace of broadband development throughout the world and the social implications as people from third world countries suddenly have tools that connect them with the rest of the world.    

Coming full circle, the third blog I'd like to recognize is from a writer that I've gotten to know over the past two years from our online writing group on Gather.com.  The blog is The Paper Tiger, by Other Lisa aka Lisa Brackmann.  Lisa blogs about writing, her cats, life in Venice, California and, most of all, about her many visits to mainland China.  Lisa is a fine writer and her first novel Rock Paper Tiger, set in China, is due out next spring.  In her blog, we get a current view about what's happening in China for real people in places such as bars, restaurants, museums and so on.  It's not political so much as chronicle.  Lisa offers fascinating glimpses from a western perspective into an often hidden country. 

So, I hope my readers will take a moment to check out these blogs and see if you like what you read.  Please let me know what you think or if there are other blogs you think are a good fit for the creative blog criteria I outlined.  Until the next time  . . .

Seeking Inspiration? Try a Change of Venue

This post is about writing, but it could apply to any work, especially when it involves creativity.  

I just finished editing my first novel, Growing Up Single, and there were plenty of times when I got stalled.   Here are some thoughts about how to get through that block.  

We've all been there   You are working on a story and it has come to a dead end.   The characters seem to have lost the spring in their step.  The dialogue is wilting.   It's time for a change of venue.   

 

Perhaps your characters will come alive again if you put them in a different place, maybe even a different country.  What happens when the steady mother of two ends up in Vegas?   Does love feel the same in Paris, Texas as it does in that better known Paris in France?   

Or maybe you need the change of place, scene and time.  Think how inspired you'd be if you pitched a beach umbrella along Waikiki and were able to look up at Diamond Head.  

Picture palm trees in the twilight! 

So, think about it.  What do you do to break the ice and free up your creative juices?   Do you try for a change in your life or a new writing space?   Is it time to head off down to Baja for that writing vacation?    Are your characters yearning for a latitude change?  

 
Spill the beans.  What do you or your characters do to get inspired?   

 

On Genre

As many of my friends know, I've been writing fiction as a sideline for quite a few years and finished my first novel, Growing Up Single, in 2006.  In the time since, I've entered chapters from the book in two of the First Chapters contests sponsored by Gather.com and spent a lot of time in several writer chat groups. I've done substantial editing and a re-write on that book in the time since and am in the process of marketing it.   I've also continued to write other fiction in my spare time.   

One of my writer friends from Gather is Pat Bertram, who writes a well-known blog called (mais oui) Bertram's Blog.    

In a chat group she leads, we were talking about genre last night and in the course of the discussion, I said:   "Transcend genre, change the rules and the world is your oyster. Lamentably, only a few writers are able to pull that off, but hey, nobody said this writing, promoting, and editing stuff was easy, right?" It was an off-the-cuff remark. I'd been noting that Stephen King and Tom Robbins had been successful enough in their early days of writing so they'd been able to bend the normal rules of genre and publish a variety of different kinds of fiction.

This morning Pat let me know that she'd liked the comment and had gone on to write a blog post talking about transcending genre.   It's probably the first time I've been quoted in a blog with respect to fiction writing and it's a good feeling.  I've put a lot of energy into learning the craft of fiction writing over the past two years and these chat groups are a great way to hone my thoughts on writing and learn from other writers.

Pat's blog is a good resource for writers and she often has guest bloggers, including several published writers.   The particular blog entry I've been discussing can be found here.  If you're a writer, may you also be able to create your own genre.  If writing what you want is your goal, it's definitely worth taking the shot.   

Holiday Weekend Musings

It's another 4th of July weekend and I'm enjoying the more relaxed and non-scheduled long weekend.   Even my online friends are being pretty quiet.   I spend a lot of time on Gather.com, but online activity this weekend is much reduced.   My recent articles there can be found here.  

My family has celebrated in the usual ways.   We went to a fireworks celebration on July 3rd in one of the neighboring towns.  Last night, we went to yet another local town and saw an oldies band.   The weather this weekend is sketchy, but the rain has mostly held off.  

I'm also taking advantage of the shaky weather and doing indoor activities like editing my first novel.   I want to do one more edit pass before querying again.  Several of my Gather writing friends have crossed the Rubicon into publication and I'd like to join them.  We shall see.  

First Chapters Romance Writing Contest

About two weeks ago, I took the plunge and entered a novel writing contest, known as First Chapters Romance.   Yes, this contest is strictly for romance novels.   I looked at some manuscripts that I'd been working on and decided I had something that might just qualify.  Moreover, I wanted to get some more feedback on the draft of this novel.   

My entry is called Summer Days of Desire and is posted on Gather.com for about one more week.   The rules are simple.  Any member of Gather can review the entries (of which there are roughly 300) and rate them.  In this contest, only "10" votes count.   Many new members have joined Gather in order to enter the contest, or, to read and rate the entries.   

On the whole, it has been a good experience.  I have gotten 80 comments so far, which is more feedback than I've ever gotten on any of my fiction writing.  I'm learning a lot about what readers like and what they'd like to see change.  However, as an author, there is a certain pride in your work, so it requires a thick skin when reviewers take a hard line on your beloved text.   

Before this, I did not know too much about the Romance genre, but I have been learning a lot.   I just read a book called "Writing Romance Novels for Dummies", which is actually an excellent book, written by Catherine Lanigan, an editor for Harlequin Books.   Much of what I learned in the book would have been great to know about 2 months ago, but so it goes.   The good thing is that even though my chapter has not adhered to all of the normal conventions of romance novels, it has still received a good response.   For a blurb on the novel and a really cool cover concept, go here.   I'd love to hear your comments.   You can read it even before joining Gather, but if you want to vote, you'll need to go through their short signup procedure.   

Fourteen Days of a Novel

From February 27th to March 13, the first chapter of my novel "Growing Up Single" was posted as part of the First Chapters writing contest on Gather.com  . 

It was a pretty different kind of experience.  My first thought was to invite a group of friends to comment on the chapter.  Good thought, I suppose, but the web site is bit sloppy and hard to navigate, so several people had difficulty signing on.   I got comments from several of my friends on the chapter, but mostly through private emails.   

In the first several days, I got about 6 comments and perhaps 8 votes.   The voting was on a scale of 1-10, so one low early vote was enough to keep my score low (like 3.4) for a while.  The comments were a mixed bag:  some were tuned in and quite constructive, whereas other readers just did not seem to get what the chapter was about.   

At that point, I got into marketing mode.  One of my relatives was also in the contest, so we helped refer various people to each other's entries and that seemed to help us both get more readers, better comments and higher scores.  I also wrote a couple of articles to plug the piece, which are here and here.  However, I was also trying to produce some value, so the 2nd piece is actually a book review of the new Robert Stone book "Prime Green", which is his memoir about the Sixties.   It just turns out that one of the themes of Growing Up Single is to take a look back at this time, but as seen through the eyes of a teenage boy from a small town.   Naturally, there is more to the book than that, as the links above indicate.   It is intended to be a story of the times from the Sixties to the Eighties, but there are also some timeless aspects of growing up which the novel explores.   

Good news: Some readers really love the first chapter and do feel it captures the time (1966) and experience of being a thirteen-year old.   Hurray!

Other news:  Some readers felt it dragged a bit, had a bit too much detail and could be otherwise tightened up.   There were also some useful comments about the transition from a prologue to the first chapter, with a variety of opinions on how well that transition worked.  Certainly good food for thought.   

After 14 days, my vote count was up to 24, the chapter was rated at 5.8 (down from a high of 6.2) and there were about 14 comments.   Then, per the rules of the contest, the chapter was removed.   

So, what did I learn from this experience.  First, it is a really good thing to get lots of people to comment on your work, especially if they don't know you and need to focus on what the actual text says.  However, I have also gotten excellent feedback from people who do know me and have a bit more context on the setting of the chapter in Connecticut.  Only the top 20 entries move into the next round and my 5.8 score won't get me there.  However, there is a wild card, based on votes of the Gather editorial staff, so there is still a slight chance there.  I personally believe my chapter is among the best I've seen there, though arguably not the best, but we'll just have to see how that turns out.   One of the difficult parts of this contest was the mixing of all kinds of genres; one goes from reading SF to light fiction to horribly gripping tales of a child rape.   

I now have more sympathy for the publishers and agents who wade through the "slush pile", that is, the submissions of queries from would-be authors.   The Gather contest attracted over a thousand entries, so there are a lot of aspiring novelists out there competing for attention.  My goal, like that of the others, is to get my book published.   I've lived with this book for many years, to the extent that it feels almost like my third child.   It did feel good to lift the covers a bit and let some readers have at it.   It confirmed my suspicion that there is a readership for this book; among the Gather readers, it seemed that woman readers were most receptive to this chapter.   That might change for later chapters, but the themes of exploring relationships and changes in gender roles should be of interest to readers of both sexes that enjoy character driven novels.  I also still feel there is plenty of room for good novels that truly capture the feel of the transition from the Sixties to the Eighties, which was one of my key goals when I set out to write the book.  My hope is that I can get the book published so that a much larger group of readers can read the book and decide for themselves whether they think it works.

Novel writing is a craft and I have learned a great deal just from the writing of Growing Up Single.  By the latter third of the book, the process of writing scenes and dialogue felt much more natural and one hopes, produced text which was that much better.  I'll now take stock of the book, consider some additional edits and continue to market it.  However, I've also got some other writing ideas which I've begun to pursue as well.   After all, writing a book is much more fun than marketing it, even if you are a marketing professional as I am.  The journey continues...