Big night

Just got back from seeing Sex and the City. I'm surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. I hate to jump on the bandwagon, but go see it w/ your best girlfriends. In the meantime, I'll tell you the story of the time I met Chris Noth.

I'd first "met" him when I watched the old Law & Order reruns on A&E back during my undergrad days. I liked his character, liked his acting, liked him. When SATC came out, I used to watch it in secret, without the company of my roommates. I knew it was a sensation back then, and I'd written several essays on my own relationship to it, which was love-hate, at best (and "love" may even be too strong a word -- infatuation, maybe?). In fact, it partly inspired my first novel. Furthermore, my male character was more or less a younger version of Mr. Big, as far as looks and charm went.

Anyhoo, in 2000, Chris Noth was starring in a play on Broadway, Gore Vidal's The Best Man. A bit of unintentional art imitating life, it was about a presidential election that ended in a stalemate. My mom and sister and I attended a Thanksgiving weekend matinee. He was very good in that, too. At the end of the show, they announced that the actors would be in the lobby collecting money for a charity.
My mother and sister excitedly nudged me: "Now's your chance, Leese!"
"Nah," I said. "He won't be there-- they'll get the supporting actors to do it."

Sure enough, there he was: tall and towering and standing right smack in the middle of the lobby, holding his bucket. Since I only had dollar coins dispensed from the ticket machine at the train station, I was afraid he'd think I was cheap, only dropping a few quarters. Nevertheless, I plinked them in, touched his arm, and looked up (way up) at him.
"You were really terrific," I said. "Thank you so much."
He looked right at me and smiled this incredible, electric smile. As if he'd just met the love of his life, me, wearing a heavy parka.
"Thank you!" he said.
The power could've gone out and the sparkles in our eyes could have kept the room lit.

I wish I could end the story there. But the truth is that I spoiled the moment by hanging out, waiting for the rest of his fans to leave, and as he tried to hurry out of there, I blocked his path and asked him to sign my Playbill. He obliged, but was clearly impatient and this time didn't even look at me. It ruined the moment. I ruined the moment. And it meant nothing afterward to me that I had a Playbill autographed by Chris Noth. Big deal.

I vowed at that moment never to bother a celebrity for an autograph ever again. Don't get me wrong -- I've attended readings and waited on line for an author to sign his/her book, and I cherish those. But should I ever have the opportunity to meet someone in a similar way that I met Chris Noth, I'm simply going to thank him/her for his/her work, and maybe shake a hand. That's it. Because really, that's worth more, to them and to me. And they're just people like you and me.

So Mr. Noth, if by some miracle you happen to stumble upon my blog and this post, please accept my sincere apology for getting in your way that day. And keep up the good work.

Next post I'll tell you about the time I saw Jon Stewart in the Sag Harbor drugstore.

Say good night, Gracie...

should I just count them myself?

Good grief, my head is spinning.

More and more agents have blogsites now, which prove to be very helpful, since many them are answering specific questions about what they will or will not accept. I cannot stress enough how important it is to read these blogs and these websites from cover to cover, metaphorically speaking. It's the one regret I have about querying my first novel -- I didn't do enough of this kind of focused research, and I think if I had I'd be blogging about the pending release of my novel right now instead of this. I went more for volume than content (the more agents the better, along with the generic cover letter), which is ironic considering how I'm constantly telling anyone who will listen that I do very poorly with high volume- high content.

But, as usual, I digress.

Anyhoo, I was looking for possible agents to query for my nonfiction book. In the course of my research, I stumbled upon an agent's blog in which the subject of Word Count came up.

I am more confused than ever.

It seems that when agents figure out word count, they are calculating the number of pages of your manuscript multiplied by 250 words, the average count for a page w/ 1-inch margins, courier font. I've been using the Microsoft Word word count number. And so far the number one comment from agents regarding my novel is that it isn't long enough.

So I did a little test.
For my first novel, MS Word has my count at approx 64,000 words and 275 pages. When I put it into Courier, it comes out to about 350 pages. Mulitply that by 250 words and you've got....... (drum roll, please).... 87,500 words.

Shit, man!

So, does that mean that all along I've had a decent word count?

It gets better. Because you should have seen the discussion following the post. Commenters say that in Times New Roman, you've got to multiply by 350 words because the font size is so much smaller. So, 275 pages x 350 words = (another drum roll).... 96,250 words.

AGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

What should I do?
Should I stick w/ the MS word count? Should I average out the two and say it's at 75,000 words? Should I specify on my query letter? ("At 64,000 MS Word ct, 87,500 traditional count, 75,000 avged, my novel is just too fabulous...")

Unfortunately, the blogger-agent didn't clarify beyond that, except to say that she uses the formula and not MS word. So now do I have to ask every single agent?

@#!!!

Anyone have any insight or experience w/ this?
Help!

Dilemma #2: Many of the same agents who look for chick lit fiction also look for self-help/spirituality non-fiction, which is what my non-fiction book falls under. Trust me, the subject matter of my fiction could not be more different from my nonfiction. I'm afraid to query these same agents for this nonfiction book because I'm afraid of pigeon-holing myself as just one type of writer. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot when it comes time to query for sarah's and my current novel (which, given the way things are going, will likely happen by the end of the summer). And given a choice between the two, I'd much rather hold out for the novel.

Is this foolish thinking? Is my inexperience w/ all this showing itself again? Again, I ask: does anyone have any insight or experience w/ this?
Help!

oy vey!!!

audacious

Last week I downloaded a program called Audacity. For those of you who attended the QRB panel on May 17th, Stacey and I both talked about this during the discussion for those interested in podcasting. I'm finally getting a chance to play around with it.

For one thing, I'm at quite an advantage because I have a brother in NY who has been a professional audio recording engineer and producer for about twenty-five years. He's got the gold records to show for his talent, too. Before he made money from it, he and my other brother used to record their demos from their studio in our basement. I used to love sitting in on the sessions and watch (and listen, of course) them put together a song track by track. These days, recording is all digital w/ much higher end programs than Audacity (and yet, my bro said he heard good things about Audacity, so coming from him, that's a solid recommendation for me). But I've watched him in his present-day home studio as well, so I came in having just an inkling of an idea of what to do and what to listen for.

And yet, I've been telling people that Audacity is also the 21st century equivalent of playing w/ your dad's tape recorder (although you can't leave it under the bed and tape your sister and her friends w/out their knowing...). Up until this morning, I haven't done much more than "testing one-two-three-four" or reading a few lines from a story.

So this morning I decided to try recording the first chapter of my first novel. It took well over an hour to get four pages done. That's right -- four pages! And it wasn't just manuvering through the program and my cheap mic, but also learning to read, so to speak. I have newfound respect for audiobook readers. (My respect for my brother, of course, still hasn't changed -- it's as high as ever.)

Pretty cool what you can do w/ a laptop and a mic though, for starters...

My intention is to put together an audiorecording of my novel and then make it available either in podcasts or podiobooks, or even through my own web domain, which is on my Get Aggressive list. I realize I've taken on quite a task -- most authors get actors to read their work. I don't know if it's a control issue, a money issue, or a learning experience issue (or d: all of the above?), but I've always imagined that my books would be Read by the Author. Why not give it a try?

getting aggressive

Ever since I finished Nancy's book, the words "Get agressive" have been replaying in my mind. So today I brainstormed a list of things to put into motion this summer in terms of giving my writing career a swift kick (in a good way, of course), and just making the list empowered me. But I've got to make sure I follow through. I think I'm going to put the words on a post-it and stick it on my bathroom mirror.

In terms of writing, today was one of those days when everything went right.
When my characters told me what they had to say.
When my writing partner and I were thinking the same things faster than we could tell each other.
When I had no choice but to write more because I was dying to read more.

And sorry to bug you w/ more Duran Duran news, but I learned today that former guitarist Andy Taylor has written a memoir about his time in the band. It's called Wild Boy (of course!) and it comes out in August -- I am so on it!!!

(and is it me, or did it turn into summer overnight?)

your favorite words

One of my all-time favorite assignments from my Stylistics grad class (that I have since stolen and passed off as my own brilliant exercise) was first to make a list of 100 of my favorite words, and then somehow whittle it down to ten.

I don't remember all of them, but the top ten included
cookie
classic
cupcake

(what can I say? I have a thing for the short "c" sound).

Others that likely made the cut:
bunny
soft
pedantic
ostentatious

In my first novel, I inserted these when protagonist invited her love interest to make a similar list. I added one of his to my own: lacivious. I also added a former student's all-time favorite: boob.

The other part of the assignment was to make three-word clusters from our 100-word list, choosing seemingly random combinations, although we all seemed to try to find ones that made meaning. I recall one classmate's:
gelantinous buddha belly.
One of mine caused the class to erupt with laughter, moreso because the way I said it than the words themselves, my Long Island accent still thick at the time:
maniacal pompous rat-bastard.

At the time, I argued that rat-bastard was one word rather than two -- certainly I said as one word. However, if one of my students attempted to pass such off as one, I'd probably argue otherwise. (The unfortunate result of this is that I became known to my classmates as the rat-bastard...affectionately, of course...)

Of course, I don't have my students come up w/ 100 words. For some of them, it's tough enough to come up w/ 10. I remember having a hard time paring down to 100, much less 10. Few of my freshman students, 99% of whom are not English majors, have ever given thought to words, or the role words play in writing. For them, writing is so rote, so unconscious, that thinking about why they like a word, why they would choose one over another, is baffling to them (baffle is a good word). But sometimes one word makes all the difference in the world. There's a world of difference between ired and irked, for instance. Or at least there can be. Between cogitate and think, between died and croaked. And part of the fun of being a writer is playing w/ every last word, trying those combinations, seeking meaning, soaking in all the etymoligical (is that a word?) delight.

And so, blog readers, please share your top ten favorite words (at least for this given day). You could be like Willie Clark in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys ("Words with a 'k' in it are funny") or you could choose it because of what it is or means (I've heard a lot of actors on Inside the Actor's Studio say their favorite word is yes), or how it looks on the page: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (oh, come on, you didn't think I could leave that one out, did you?). And so on.

Have a go. I look forward to seeing what floats your boat.

patience is a pain in the ass

Now it gets hard.

We know where the novel is headed, even have an idea of how it's going to end. We're about 35K words in.
And yet, I'm struggling to get from A to B, much less all the way to Z. It usually happens around this time for me. The flow slows from gusher to trickle. What's more, PIC not only has school to contend w/, but moving (ick!). But given the progress we've made on this novel in less than one month, I am by no means complaining.

In the meantime, I've finally started reading Nancy Peacock's book A Broom of One's Own: Words on Writing, Housecleaning, and Life. Read it! You'll recall that I attended a reading by Nancy at Quail Ridge Books last month, and really enjoyed it. She signed my book, "Get aggressive!" I've been thinking about that statement for the last few days as I mentally plan ahead for June. I'm not much of an organizer, and so far this month I've worked on what I've felt like working on (or don't work at all, if which is also just as important to my writing process), but I'm thinking I might need some sort of plan from here on in. I just hope June goes as slow as May has gone.

And now, I must get back to the novel.
Any minute now.
Yep, I'm doing it.
Let me just stare at the screen a little longer...
Damn, thought I had it there for a minute...
(anyone for tennis?)

new words, old friends

I wrote approximately 3000 words for the new novel yesterday, plus inserted a scene that my PIC wrote earlier this month. We're close to hitting the halfway mark for this novel, and I wish first draft could be final draft so we can start querying agents right away. I'm just so excited about this work, and can't wait to start getting it to the masses.

Meanwhile, last night some friends from Massachusetts are in town this weekend and it was just wonderful catching up w/ them last night. I filled them in on my writing projects (the nonfiction book was inspired by a talk I gave at a retreat weekend four years ago that they had attended w. me, so it was nice to finally spill the beans on that one), and they laughed out loud when I told them the title of the novel -- good sign! But we spent most of the night talking about the differences between NC and MA. And while I do wish I could magically make the distance disappear from the two states, it was very clear that life here is very, very good, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. Of course, I've been on a mega high this past month, and I'm sure to crash eventually, but that doesn't change the big picture. My life is friggin great -- no getting around that. and if I start complaining otherwise, someone please remind me of this post. :)