Story Anthology of Bozeman-Area Writers

I'm pleased to announce that my young adult short story Jewels is included in an anthology of stories by Bozeman-area authors. The anthology is part of a set of three books - the other two feature authors from Missoula and Billings/Livingston - and will be available in limited numbers beginning in early May.

There will be a book signing of the anthology on May 20 at 7PM. If you're interested in copies, contact Country Bookshelf for details.

SIRENS In the Time of Gatsby

When blogger Gabrielle Carolina - one of the sweetest bloggers out there - asked if I'd like to participate in a blog tour highlighting SIRENS around the release of Baz Luhrmann's new film version of The Great Gatsby, I jumped for joy. For one thing, Gabrielle has treated me royally in the past. For another, I was thrilled to support her in her new enterprise, ModPodgeMarketing.

She suggested that I write guest posts for each of ten stops. I decided to make them kind of "mini-lessons" on the 1920s - hopefully not dry lessons, but interesting little facts and tidbits. They are, in a way, linked; if you are curious, you might want to read them in sequence.

Sybil's pants! Downton Abbey

So...we're on the tour now, and here are the stops and the topics en route. And I want to give a shout-out to the fabulous bloggers who participated - and those who reblogged or reposted - THANK YOU!!

1. Alice Marvels blog - How the "Great War" (World War 1) led directly into the Roaring Twenties.

2. Mod Podge Bookshelf - Women's Suffrage in 1920 and those awful corsets (gone forever, we hope.)

3. Rebecca's Book Blog - Women's fashion in the 1920s (one of my favorite subjects): Coco Chanel and those sweet slinky styles.

One of the best clubs of the '20s

4. Chapter By Chapter - How flappers and gents of the 1920s partied like it was 1999.

5. Reading Teen - Prohibition! Or...why speakeasies were also called "blind pigs."

6. Little Library Muse - Gangsters may be cool but really...not. And their molls lived equally short lives.

7. Mundie Moms - There was a Wall Street bombing in 1920? Yes, and the similarities are uncanny.

Flappers!

8. Fire & Ice - Ghosts, spirits, life after death, and Harry Houdini - and what that had to do with the Roaring Twenties.

9. The Book Rat - All that jazz. Satchmo and more. Yeah, baby.

10. Pieces of Whimsy - The Gatsby itself: Scott and Zelda, the novel, the times.

I hope you enjoy these "histories" because I had fun putting them together!

And if you like 1920s fashion, as I do, check out this cool video:

Jingle Bell Hop! Blog Hop Post

I was tapped by my friend Jan Godown Annino to participate in a blog hop. In case you don’t know Jan’s work, she’s the author of an acclaimed picture book biography, SHE SANG PROMISE, illustrated by Lisa Desimini. It would be a wonderful addition to any library.

I’m answering here the questions that she passed along to me. And I thought I’d talk about one of my WIPs. I usually keep this stuff to myself until the very end, so as not to jinx anything. Fingers crossed!

What is the working title of your book?

THE NETHERWORLD.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I had a dream that I was suspended in a place between life and death, and when I woke up, I knew I had to write about how that felt. This novel is a bit dark and dreamlike.

What genre is your book?

Middle grade fantasy.

What is the synopsis of the novel?

Jake, a boy who is trying to deal with a school bully, causes an accident that renders his sister Eliza unconscious and near death. Jake is told that if he sells his soul he can rescue her from the Netherworld, the place between life and death. He agrees; but his mission is not as simple as it would seem. By entering the Netherworld Jake sets in motion other and bigger events. Jake and Eliza and the Netherworld guardian Mab must find a way to save Eliza, Jake’s soul, and the Netherworld itself.

How long did it take to write the first draft?

I’ve got a very rough first draft that took me about four months to write. But most of that draft will disappear...I started the novel as a workshop piece at Vermont College of Fine Arts and it grew.

What other books are comparable to this book?

Middle grade fantasy is booming and rich at the moment - something that excites me greatly. I’m reading THE PECULIAR by Stefan Bachmann, and just finished GOBLIN SECRETS by William Alexander, and I think they both have things in common with THE NETHERWORLD. And I love Lauren Oliver’s fantasies – especially LIESL AND PO.

I’ve tagged my friends and fabulous authors Bethany Hegedus and Joy Preble, so please check their blogs in the next couple of weeks for their blog hop posts!

Bethany's link: http://www.thewritingbarn.com/category/blog/

Joy's link: http://joysnovelidea.blogspot.com/

Revision! Tools and Techniques

Now that NaNoWriMo is almost over, it’s time for the next step in the process...revision!

Some of you might think that revision is a dirty word. It’s not fun to go over and over something – especially if there seems to be no end in sight.

But I actually prefer revision to writing the first draft. I often don’t plumb my character’s depths until about draft 3; and the plot is pretty messy until draft 6 or 7; and it isn’t until the umpteenth draft that I can play with fun things like language and theme and tone and detail.

In a couple of weeks I’ll talk about holding fast to your initial vision, as you “re-envision” your manuscript, but this week and next I thought I’d share some of the things I do when I revise and some of the tools I find most helpful.

There are 5 specific tools that I use when I revise:

1.     taking stock of the “big picture”

2.     visual aids (charts, photos, graphs)

3.     checklists

4.     workbooks

5.     dedicated passes

one of my shrunken manuscripts

Here are the first two of these tools as I use them:

1. Taking stock of the “big picture”

The first thing I do when I’ve finished what I consider the initial draft is put it aside. Not for too long – I need the story’s momentum to keep moving forward – but I give it a few days rest, letting it marinate, and I do something completely different (like eat chocolate...)

After those few days I pick up the manuscript again and read it through, cover to cover. In this process I try to read aloud – there’s something about reading words out loud that allows me to find things that don’t work or sound awkward. (Yes, I get pretty hoarse.) I also try not to stop in the middle and change something huge – I’ll make notes in the margins as I go, but I want to get a feel for the entire scope of the story.

My favorite big picture technique is Darcy Pattison’s “shrunken manuscript”, which allows me to visualize the story at a very large scale. I highly recommend that you find a copy of Darcy’s Novel Metamorphosis, as it contains several similar techniques and one of the others might strike your fancy. But here’s the gist of the shrunken manuscript:

• Shrink your manuscript to 8 point font, single spacing, with no chapter breaks - you'll be able to read it, just enough to know where you are
• Highlight areas for different aspects of the manuscript – character development, description, subplots, moments of tension (or lack thereof), etc., etc.
• Stand back and just look 

You’ll see from that distance where you may be missing details of character that are crucial, where your subplots flag or disappear, where you’ve dropped the tension, and so on. This is a great way to discover if your manuscript is too description-heavy, or too action-oriented, or where you may have lost track of a character (as I did while writing my first novel, Faithful, and a main character at that!)

my plot board with notes and Martha Alderson plotline

2. Visual aids

I’m a visual person, and at some point in crafting a story the only way I can see whether I’ve developed it properly is to see it visually – usually on the wall of my office, where I can spread out the timelines and plotlines together with notes and photographs.

A tool I’ve recently become fond of is Pinterest, and I’ve created boards for each of my novels, allowing me not only to see the pictures that are inspirational to me but also to share those with readers as they develop.

plot planner in miniature

By far my favorite visual aid is Martha Alderson’s PlotWhisperer plotline (do check out her Plot Whisperer books and other tools.) I’ve made a corkboard with the plotline marked in masking tape, and from there I can use sticky notes to jot down scenes, emotional changes, conflict. Small sticky notes are perfect because I can’t write too much – just enough to direct my thoughts. Plus, I can work in color for different aspects of the story and that appeals to my visual sense.

On that board I also post head shots of my characters, and eventually I’ll post a miniature version of Martha’s plotline, one that I’ve integrated with the hero’s journey and other turning points.

Next week I’ll talk about the other revision tools I find helpful – but please share yours here, too!

SIRENS Launch Week, Plus

It's SIRENS launch week and I'm very excited to share my latest work with you. (As a reminder - during the entire month of November, every comment on every post on the Wardrobe elicits a donation to the American Red Cross. Plus you might win a copy of SIRENS! See this post for details.)

Now to the business at hand: my launch post! (I'm excited. Did I mention that?)

One of the most evocative scenes in American fiction takes place in a living room in a Long Island mansion and features two girls, Daisy and Jordan, long-limbed and lounging, dressed in white. The scene is in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY, set in 1925, the year of its publication. Although not historical fiction in the strictest sense, it is fine fiction in the best sense – and it brings to life the Roaring Twenties in America. Great historical fiction brings the past to life. I can't wait for the movie version due out this summer.

I couldn’t be happier that the 20s are experiencing, forgive the pun, a renaissance. Anna Godberson has released the BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS series, and Jillian Larkin has crafted THE FLAPPERS series; Libba Bray has launched THE DIVINERS.

I'm thrilled to have SIRENS join the mix.

When I did my research I was all prepared for flappers and bootleggers, for gangsters (Al Capone) and gorgeous skimpy clothes (Coco Chanel.) Women got the vote, and writers had the Round Table. The 1920s in America was a wild and crazy time of financial boom and liberated behavior, a period when a fluid and mobile society, combined with the freedom afforded by the automobile and the new working middle class, allowed teens to flee from their parents’ Victorian restrictions. Advertising - the "Mad Men" era - was born, in fact, in the '20s. 

Yes, everybody was on board with dancing and drinking (albeit not legally) and public necking. The 1920s in America were Party Time Central.

But the 1920s was also a time of quiet civil unrest and spiritual exploration. The Ku Klux Klan experienced a rebirth, with open marches and anti-black, anti-immigrant posturing. Immigrants of Italian, Irish, and Jewish extraction were pitted against one another and against society in general. A bomb went off on Wall Street in September 1920, targeting the rich capitalists of the stock exchange but killing clerks, runners and stenographers; it was said to be the work of radical Bolshevists, although no clear culprit was ever found. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle engaged in a long-running verbal war with his friend Harry Houdini over the question of spiritualism. Houdini was a pragmatist; he knew magic to be a performance. Doyle believed in spirits and the afterlife, and participated in a movement that experienced a resurgence in the 20s.

The parallels between today and the 1920s-1930s are all too evident: the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties echoed in the 1990s boom; the market crash of 1929 and 1930s depression echoed in the 2000s bust. Post-war trauma today found expression first after World War 1; we fear global pandemic today, but the deadly flu pandemic of 1918 killed millions.

Today we recognize the parallels of our own lives with the past, and maybe make sense of the present. I hope that I added to the "making sense" part of it with SIRENS.

Here's the full trailer for SIRENS, thanks to my talented son Kevin: 

Thank You!!!

This week I want to give a shout-out to some fabulous bloggers who are hosting give-aways and teaser reveals for my newest release SIRENS. You are all my heroes: we authors are forever grateful for the way you help to spread the word about new books.

So, thank you, thank you, a million times thank you! to:

My Friend Amy

Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf

The Compulsive Reader

Emily's Reading Room

The Mod Podge Bookshelf

In Bed With Books

The Story Siren

Poisoned Rationality

Check out the links - some of the contests are still open! I'll have more thank-you's very soon.

And don't miss the Crossroads Blog Tour on now. A bunch of fabulous authors, spearheaded by my friend Judith Graves, are on board that train, including me. Look for lots of paranormals. The grand prize for coming by this tour is a Kindle, preloaded with our books - wow!

We'll all be together for a Twitter chat, hosted by the awesome Mundie Moms, on Monday, October 29 - check it out.

And since this second baby is now out in the world, here's teaser number 2 for SIRENS, with a shout-out to my talented son, Kevin Fox, who makes all my trailers:

SIRENS Cover Reveal, Teaser Release, and Give-Away!

As many of you know by now, my next YA novel, SIRENS, will be out from Speak/Penguin on November 8! It’s available for preorder now. I’m excited to be able to reveal the gorgeous cover:

And here’s the synopsis:

SIRENS is a noire romance set in 1925. Josephine Winter, seventeen, is sent to live with relatives in New York City after her bootlegging father receives a threat, but bookish Jo harbors her own secrets. She finds friendship with lively Louise O’Keefe and romance with sweet jazz musician Charlie.

But haunted by the spirit of her missing brother, Jo uncovers a nest of family lies that threaten everyone she loves, and Lou, in the thrall of the dangerous, seductive gangster Daniel Connor, is both Jo’s best friend and potential enemy. As Jo unlocks dark mysteries and Lou’s eyes are opened, the girls’ treacherous paths intertwine.

Jo and Lou together will have to stand up to Connor in order to find their hearts and hang onto their souls in the “decade of decadence.”

This novel was so much fun to write, as I discovered much I didn’t know about the Roaring Twenties (see my earlier blog post on this – and there’s more to come.)

My son has made a series of video teasers and a trailer for the novel, and here’s the first of those:

Now on the really fun stuff! I’m hosting a giveaway of a long necklace strand of 20’s-style “pearls”, plus a feathery, flappery headband. 

Just leave me a comment (with an email contact, please, so I can let you know you’ve won). You get extra entries for (1) tweeting this post with the hashtag #SIRENS, (2) following my author page on Facebook or letting me know you already follow or posting it on your FB page, and/or (3) adding it to your Goodreads shelf.

Halloween is coming – here are your first flapper costume accessories!

And...take a photo of yourself in costume and I'll feature it here!

PLUS - I'll throw in an arc of SIRENS as soon as I have one in hand!!

Contest ends on midnight, September 30.