Wait…let me back up. I love starting a new book. My head is swimming with characters and ideas and a book that sounds so fabulous to me that I can’t imagine how it won’t be a huge bestseller. I can’t wait to get started. People and things become obstacles to opening that new document and getting it all down. Life (husband, dogs, bills) is an intrusion on what I suddenly believe is a true artist’s mind. I think to myself, “Can’t you understand that I have a genius book in me? Can’t you understand that I don’t have time for dinner or laundry or sex or anything else? That I have to get it down on paper NOW?”
Miracle of miracles, he and the dogs say, “Yeah, okay. Go for it.”
Hoo-ray! There is nothing but me and my imagination and as state-of-the-art computer that will somehow, probably magically, help me transform these thoughts into an incredible book! I crank it up, smile at the pristinely white blank page before me, and I type, CHAPTER ONE.
And then I stare. And stare. And ponder. Where are all those brilliant words? I type a sentence. What happened to my three dimensional character? How did he suddenly become so flat? I type another sentence. No, no, its all wrong, and I backspace over the two sentences. And I start again.
And I will probably start several more times. It’s a sad fact but true that the brilliant ideas running around in my head hardly ever come out on paper like I envision them. I can’t understand what is so hard about it, but there is something between the thought and the translation to words that is very difficult. My books rarely turn out as I first envisioned them. Sometimes they are close, sometimes they are something else entirely. I still get excited about starting a new book—which I am about to do—but I am still intimidated by that opening page. It’s a canvas that needs to painted, but I am never confident of the color I’ve chosen.
When I talk about sagging middles, I am usually talking about one of my works in progress. I don’t know why, but the middle is always the hardest part of the book for me to write. I bog down, wonder why I thought the idea was so great to begin with. I begin to question my characters and their motivations, second-guessing myself. Its weird—the first part of the book usually flies. The last part usually flies because I am on a deadline and I have to wrap it up. But that sagging middle takes the most work to de-sag it.
Working through that middle takes a lot of mulling over, muddling, and really crappy writing before I have something I can work with. Once I have something down on paper, and I can go back and trim it, tighten it up, tone it into an appealing middle you’ll want to read.
And then there is the sagging middle. This book writing biz leads to a lot of stress eating and other sagging middles. Yep, I’m talking about the one that is bulging over the button of my jeans and slowly encroaching on my breasts. I freely admit it—I am growing a tire. It’s come on slowly, a little bit each year. But in the last few months, it sort of exploded with the stress of trying to produce a whole bunch of books in a very short time frame and keep a family life intact.
The only problem with this sort of middle is that I can’t trim it down and tone it in a couple of weeks like I can a book. My sagging middle—given my age and sort of lazy lifestyle—is a whole lot harder to change.
I am telling you this because I need to out myself to keep me honest. I figure if I announce to you that I am going to lose 20-25 pounds, then I have to do it to save face. If I say it out loud, I will feel compelled to give you updates, or live in horror that the next time you see me, nothing has changed. YOU, dear reader, or going to motivate me to stick to it just be visiting my website.
I have to be this dramatic about it because I have noticed the older I get, the less inclined I am to suffer. Dieting means suffering. But now I have walked out on the plank and I must jump.
So wish me luck, and if you have any great and easy low-point recipes or snacks, I’d love to hear from you! Email me at julia@julialondon.com.
I will see you 20 pounds of carrots in the future!
How I Ended up Writing a Tie-in Book for a Soap Opera!
Lots of readers have wondered how I ended up writing a soap opera tie-in book. Where here is the official scoop how I came to be the author of The Guiding Light: Jonathan’s Story:
It’s not what some people seem to think: I did not decide on my own to write a book about the popular character of Jonathan Randall. This was a classic “work for hire” situation: the Guiding Light crew wanted a book with a specific story, and they needed an author to write the book. I was approached about writing the book by my publisher, who had a detailed plot the Guiding Light folks had developed, and one that would tie in to their show. They flattered me immensely by asking me to write the book. How fun was that?
There was one little problem: I had not watched the Guiding Light before I was approached (but I do now!). My experience with soap operas was Days of Our Lives in college. If you are thinking it would be hard to write a book about a story or characters you don’t know, you would be right! Fortunately, the Guiding Light people were prepared for that. They sent me hours and hours of DVDs with past episodes of Jonathan Randall, the subject of the book, and his wife, Tammy, and his mother, Reva, and lots of other characters in Springfield. They sent me detailed character backgrounds for him and everyone else so I could read what had been going on in Springfield for the last twenty years or so. With all that material, I got a feel for Jonathan, the other characters, and the history of Springfield.
So then I took the Guiding Light outline and turned it into a novel. The turnaround was much quicker than I am accustomed to, but I had lots of help from several people at my publishing house and at Guiding Light, who read the book numerous times to make sure it was true to their characters and their show. The result was a collaborative process, and I think the end product is good.
I’ve had several people ask me what happens in the book. Of course I won’t tell them, as that sort of defeats the purpose of having a tie-in. But I can tell you that hints are being dropped this summer and fall. I can tell you that it is a wild ride and a compelling story—just what you’ve come to expect from Guiding Light.
This has been such a great experience for me, personally! I like to try new projects to stretch my writing wings, and this was certainly a stretch. Even though the plot and characters were handed to me on a silver platter, it wasn’t easy to do, and in some ways, was harder than a lot of things I have written. Now that it is all said and done, I am glad to know that I have the chops to do something really different like a tie-in book…but I think I can safely say I much prefer creating my own worlds and characters.
If you are a Guiding Light fan, I hope you will pick up the book this fall!
I still have the greatest job in the world. But for me, there are roughly three times a year that my world gets a little hectic and a little more frantic—when one of my books is released to you, the unsuspecting public.
It’s a nerve-racking time because I generally have promotional responsibilities—book signings, a few public appearances (and I don’t mean at the grocery store, but in front of people. You know, places that require full metal make-up), and lots of on-line interviews and guest blogging spots. These are great—you get to connect with fans. But they usually require I write new, original copy, which takes up time I would normally spend watching soap operas. Kidding! I would spend it writing. At least I would spend it thinking about writing.
Then there are the reviews that start to trickle in. I’ve been around long enough to know that you can’t please everybody all the time. I am lucky—I usually get good reviews. But with every book, there is the one bad review that comes out of left field, the one you didn’t see coming, and often from a reviewer you know (it’s hard not to know them—most have been in the business longer than me) and who has liked your work before. It is a universal truth among authors that you can have 1,000 glowing reviews, and the one you will remember is the one bad one.
The other thing that makes you frantic is whether or not the book is selling. This is completely out of my control, but my livelihood depends on book sales, and I need lots of those puppies to sell in order to pay the mortgage. My publisher is fantastic about giving me great publication dates. I don’t go out with really big names that will detract from my sales. I get plenty of pre-publication notice from their large accounts. But sometimes, things happen to derail even the best laid plans. Most books are release in the early part of the month, and on Tuesdays. Remember September 11? I did not have a September book that year, but book sales suffered along with the rest of the economy. Christmas is dicey, too—lots of holiday books are competing for shelf space and consumer dollars. And in the paperback world, everyone knows the perfect months are spring and summer, when people need beach reads. What about the cold dark months when no one is at the beach?
Like I said, these are all things that are completely out of my control. The best advice is to write the best book you can and go on about your business. Best advice, but very hard to follow. I have already begun to sweat the release of my next book, The Perils of Pursuing a Prince, because my publisher gave me a special release date. They gave me one because they expect the book to do well (check out the freebies page for an explanation). I wish I could believe in my book like my publisher believes in it. But that one tiny bad review is already banging around my head and the panic has set in.
I have the greatest job in the world. I get to work on my own schedule. I’m in competition with no one but myself. The world is as big as my imagination and people actually write me to tell me they loved my book. I can tell you unequivocally that no one ever wrote me to tell me I was doing a good job when I was a public administration schlub.
So for about 300 days a year, I get to bask in the sublime pleasure of my fantasy world. But there are about 65 days a year that fantasy collides with reality, and I am suddenly in a gut-wrenching panic. It’s all about the deadlines. Not the ones set by the publisher, because chances are I am already way past that. I am talking about the date after which I know my book will get slid to another month, if not another year. The date after which publishers and editors will call my agent and ask if there is something they need to know—like, do I have a terminal illness, are my hands broken, that sort of thing.
You are probably wondering how on earth I could reach this fatal state. After all, I have all the time in the world to write the book, right? I am a professional. I do this for a living, so surely I have some discipline and control, right? Right!…to a certain point. Unfortunately, there are times the creative process will not cooperate with my deadlines. My muse deserts me, or I have written hundreds of pages of crap that must be rewritten, or I have been so caught up in promoting a book that is coming out while the next one is due.
When I hit that last-ditch, absolutely-cannot-miss-this-deadline, the panic sets in. And I sit my gym-shaped ass into a chair (talk about more work going down the tubes!) and I write. And I write. I rewrite. I rewrite some more. I tell my family I can’t come out of my office to make their stupid supper or wash their dumb clothes. I don’t answer mail or phone calls. The slightest thing—and I do mean the slightest thing, like a dog barfing on the rug slight thing—will throw me out of the rhythm of the story and I start snapping heads off with words or really sharp, laser-kill looks. I convince myself the career is over, that the book sucks that bad. I suddenly don’t care how much chocolate I eat, because what does it matter? I will be living under a bridge in a few short months anyway.
And then, miraculously, one day the book is finished. And it’s not that bad. I don’t know how I do it. I don’t know why I do it. I really do plan each book carefully—plots, characters, and the time to write it. But I have written more than 15 books now and it is the same every time…the panic sets in, deep, deep panic, and I emerge two or three weeks later swearing it will never happen again.
How to Title a Book: Punt it to “They” in New York
Writing a book is hard. You have to have a cogent idea, and an opener the draws the reader in, and then 400 pages give or take of a plot that actually fits together and has enough pizzazz to keep the reader turning pages. On a good day, I am lucky if I can do one page, and trust me, it has to be reworked several times over. What about grammar and punctuation? Ever heard of a subjunctive verb? Yeah, right—the last time I actually heard that phrase spoken out loud, I was drifting off in English class and thinking of the cute guy behind me. I didn’t exactly pay attention. But my copy editor sure did—she paid attention to all that grammar stuff. I keep expecting the s/he to email me several sentences to diagram to see if I have even a rudimentary knowledge of the English language. But hey, that’s their job and I digress…
There is nothing harder for me than titling books. This is how it works: You, the author, come up with a scintillating title for your work that will separate it from the thousands of other very similar titles. You submit that title, along with your work, to the publishing company, who will take all that hard work and with alarming speed, say something like, “That’s a great title/plot/character. But that’s not what we’re looking for.”
Granted, I suck at titles. I come up with winners, like once, I titled a book The Lion’s Mane. It looks stupid sitting there without a cover or a book, but I knew the mystery of the title would be revealed in my magnificent character study. It was summarily dismissed. Authors talk about getting rejections for their books. I get rejections on title ideas. Usually, I toss out my best ideas—dozens of them—hoping something will stick that won’t make me look like too much of a hack. My editor goes through my ideas, then comes back with titles that the mysterious “they” in New York have come up with. Between the two of us, we mutilate those titles until we have something we can both live with.
The Hazards of Hunting a Duke started off with my idea: A Field Guide to Hunting a Duke. We sort of laughed at that, then cogitated. We came up with A Lady’s Guide to Hunting a Duke. We liked it. We checked it out on Amazon and BN.com. Seriously. You don’t want to have a title that someone else has used recently or is going to use in the near future. Guess what? Someone was using A Lady’s Guide to something or other. Probably a duke. So we noodled on it some more and finally came up with The Hazards of Hunting a Duke. My editor worried, will it fit on a mass market paperback? It did. What did the sales department think of it? They thought it was snappy. Was it a go? Yes!
One book down, two to go. That’s where it gets complicated. We are packaging a series. We needed more titles with that sort of alliteration and the same type of nouns: hazards, dangers, perils, fears, etc. I asked my friends for ideas, and they would toss some out there, but they just weren’t as vested in my title as I was. My husband came up with The Madness of Macking a Marquis. He thought that was so clever that he came up with other variations that I will not repeat here, although they would probably get a snicker out of them like I did.
For the second book, I knew that my character was in pursuit of something, so we landed on that title relatively quickly—relative meaning, it still took forever. We tossed lots of ideas back and forth and finally came up with The Perils of Pursuing a Prince. Once again, “they” loved it. And it fit the paperback. And it didn’t sound like anything else out there.
By the time we got to the third book, I was exhausted (which makes it sound like we did it in one day instead of over several months, like it really happened. I just don’t like to have to think too hard). After much alliterative title mangling, we finally landed on the last title of the series: The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount, or, as my husband likes to call it…well. Never mind.
Now I have three clever titles that are different than anything else out there right now and are sitting on some really fabulous covers. If all goes well, the titles and covers will leap out at you, the unsuspecting reader walking by, and people will buy the book. Anyway, I hope that when you read the books, you will appreciate all the hard work that goes into making a title. It’s not a process for big-baby thin-skins like me.
A Day in the Life of a Professional and Disciplined Fiction Writer:
7 am: Wake up to dog head-butting the bed because he/she is hungry or needs to go out. Have not used an alarm in one hundred years. (Warning: When shopping for cute sweet puppies with sweet sweet puppy fur, be forewarned: Puppy will grow into stinky, smelly old dog who demands his breakfast at daybreak every day).
8 am: Dogs fed, coffee made, Dear Carolyn laughed at (losers), horoscope scrutinized for hidden meaning about career suicide (who’s the loser now, Julia?).
9 am: Still in pjs, but in front of the computer, surfing email, celebrity news, obscure little links to funny You Tube videos.
9:30 am: Dogs demanding walk. Inner Martha Stewart demanding you get off your fat ass and sweep up the dog hair. Inner you thinking maybe you ought to at least brush your teeth.
10:30 am: Dogs walked, dog hair swept, teeth brushed, and now screwing around in the back yard watering plants and thinking about swimming.
11:00 am: Out of shower (non-gym day).
11:01 am: Snack time.
11:30 am:. Email checked again for any late-breaking info. Internet horoscopes surfed for something a little more exciting than the one in the paper.
12:30 pm: Blogging for the day completed. Except for periodic check-backs to see if anyone commented on my comment so I can comment on their comment.
12:31 pm: Lunch time!
1:30 pm: If it is a gym day, go to gym. If it is not a gym day, lulled into false sense of security and plenty of time. Do a little research into next project. Why waste time on the project they’ve paid you for? They’ve paid you for it – what’s the rush?
3:30 pm: Back from gym, showered, refreshed, ready to start the day. Okay. Chapter one.
3:31 pm: Snack time!
4:00 pm: Quick check to see if Oprah has any child molesters, cheating spouses, Jennifer Anniston…or if she and Gayle are still driving cross-country. Yawn.
5:00 pm: Okay. Chapter One. He saw her across a crowded ball room, her hair luminous beneath the glow of one hundred beeswax candles in crystal chandeliers. Her eyes, which he could see from where he stood in the shadows, sparkled with amusement. Anh. Not the opening I was looking for. Wonder how other authors have done it. Surf the net to find out.
6:30 pm: two paragraphs written. Husband wondering what is for dinner. Inner me has been wondering since last snack. Time to investigate.
7:00 pm: Deal or No Deal, which Husband so should go on. He always knows when to fold. If he’d just go on that damn show, I wouldn’t have to work as hard as I do.
9:00 pm: Panic sets in. Not enough pages accomplished today!!! Cannot make deadline at current rate of production!!! Ohmigod must check into hotel to be away from all these distractions and interruptions!!! No one understands how hard this job is!!!
10:00 pm: Finish surfing email. Chapter One.
12:00 am: Vision too blurry to see. But two hours of solid work—not bad, considering all the stuff I had to do today. But tomorrow…tomorrow I will really get on it. No, no, I mean it this time. Seriously.
You’ve heard of that illusive muse, right? The thing or person that inspires us to create fabulous stories? She’s usually depicted as a Greek goddess with long flowing robes and one of those round cherubic faces. That’s the kind of muse I’d like to have. Unfortunately, my muse is an overweight, sloppy broad who smokes too much and drinks like an alcoholic and thinks flatulence is funny.
Seriously, I had to kick her out the other day. She’s been bugging me awhile—she’s hasn’t been inspiring me to anything other than eating, and really, once I thought about it, I realized she hadn’t contributed to much of anything but the grocery bill. So the other day when she started in on me with those subliminal reminders that there was a pan of brownies in the kitchen, and maybe if I had one…just one…I could finish the chapter, I said, “That’s it. You’re so out of here, Fat ass!”
She wouldn’t leave! I had to shove her out on the back porch. She had a smoke or two, then hovered around for awhile, peering in the windows, making noises about needing water because it was so hot, then just flat-out calling me names which I will not repeat here. But eventually, she faded away like all my other bad muses, and I set out to find a new one.
Some people panic with the muse deserts them, but not me. I love getting a new muse, because I find them between pages of good books and in the frames of good movies. For a few days, I do nothing but read and watch movies, absorbing different characters and settings and ideas. I take long walks and listen to music, paying attention to the lyrics. It is amazing how just a little bit of creative input will suddenly kick start your brain into thinking. Suddenly, ideas that have been knocking around in your head start to blossom. It’s magic. It’s inspiring. It makes you want to open up a blank page and get to work.
The trick is being cautious. When you see that fat broad poking her head around the corner whispering there are brownies in the kitchen, or wouldn’t a glass of wine relax you and help you think, or, hey, let’s knock off and go for a swim to clear the cobwebs, just be careful. A little of that is okay, sure. But if you let her, pretty soon she’ll be smoking in your house and lying around with the zapper in one hand and a Bud in the other. When that happens, get rid of her and pick up a good book instead.
Want to know how I came up with the idea for the Desperate Debutantes series? I was watching the Charles and Camilla nuptials…okay, honestly, I was watching the hats (what is it with British women and those hats?)…but I wondered what would have happened if Charles had actually fallen in love with Diana after they married like she so desperately wanted. Would he be standing there marrying Camilla?
I should back up and tell you that I am such a celebrity news junkie and Anglophile that I have read most of the books written about Diana and Charles. I wanted to believe in the fairy tale like everyone else, but life is rarely a fairy tale, blast it all. In the case of the Windsors, Charles and his family looked for the most suitable match to be the future Queen of England, and lots of women with pedigreed blood lines were presented as possibilities. Even one of Diana’s sisters was considered. It has been the practice of the aristocracy since the stone ages to take great care not to muck up their bloodlines with people like us, and Charles did what he was supposed to do. Diana was really the one who made a mess of everything by falling in love.
It would have been the perfect ending if Charles had loved her and they’d raised two hunky princes together and had dinner parties with all their pals and told stories about Will and Harry and invited Mum over, and so on, but that’s not real life, is it? It is, however, great fiction.
In Hazards of Hunting a Duke, I made up two characters with the same dilemma as Charles—Jared must marry a woman of proper pedigree and produce the obligatory heir and spare, and Ava must marry so that she may be kept in the style to which she has become accustomed. But she makes the mistake of falling in love with her husband. And he, well, he is less interested in that sort of thing, just like Charles. But the difference is, I gave Ava better tools than what Diana apparently had, and a little license in the bedroom, and of course it was my book, so I could have it turn out any way I wanted, and…and you’ll have to read it to see if Charles and Diana lived happily ever after in the fictional version. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they lived happily ever after!
Now if you want a real modern day fairy tale, go read about Prince Frederick of Denmark. This prince went to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and met an Australian woman in a bar and fell in love. Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was just like you and me—a marketing consultant, working for a living, just chugging through life like most of us with no great pedigree or connections. But on that day in 2000, fate took Mary to a bar, and who is Mary now? Senior VP of some marketing firm? Nope. Mary is the Crown Princess of Denmark. Now that is a modern day fairy tale!
