Dead Authors I Would Like to have a Conversation With

As a longtime author, I have had the pleasure to meeting face to face or through the Internet and phone many authors of prominence , as well as those lesser known.
I was thinking to myself the day: If I were able to travel back in time and have a conversation with authors I have admired who are no longer among the living, who might they be?

Given that there are many writers I have admired or been inspired by over the years, narrowing these down to say, ten or so, is not easy. But I wanted to not only keep the number reasonable, but also zoom in on dead authors who most left an impression on me--be it by their style, personality, genre, success, or other feature that defined the writer.

Without going into detail on choices or necessarily placing in order, here are the ten deceased writers I would most like to converse with over a cup of tea or coffee:

1. Daphne du Maurier -- I love her novels, particularly Rebecca, and the times in which she wrote them.

2. Thomas Hardy -- his novels and short stories are marvelous, with Tess of the d'Urbervilles, one of my all time favorites.

3. Dashiell Hammett has long been a favorite of mine with his hardboiled novels, such as The Thin Man, inspiring other novelists who followed.

4. Chester Himes was great with his crime and mystery novels, many dealing with racism--with If He Hollers Let Him Go an interesting read and better than the movie adaptation.

5. Jane Austen wrote some wonderful romance novels, some of which I have also enjoyed the screen adaptations, such as Pride and Prejudice.

6. Charles Dickens was certainly a terrific English writer during the Victorian era, with A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield two of his best works. I especially enjoyed the first version of the former as a movie as well.

7. H.G. Wells, the great English author of science fiction novels, with The Time Machine one of my favorite all time novels and movies.

8. Sidney Sheldon wrote a number of good novels of romance and suspense, often featuring strong females. I especially liked The Other Side of Midnight. Would be nice to talk to him as well about one of my favorite TV shows he created, I Dream of Jennie.

9.Katherine Woodiwiss---I've enjoyed her historical romance and romantic suspense novels, as has my wife, such as Petals on the River.

10. Mark Twain--who wouldn't want to meet him and ask about the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, controversies and all?

If you could go back in time to have a conversation with some of your favorite authors, who would they be? What would you like to say?

Greatest Movies Ever. Or Not

Lana and I watched a show on TV the other night about the greatest movies of all time, as voted by—well—people like me and you. There were a number of different lists, greatest overall, greatest musical, greatest action/suspense, etc. Apparently a group of “experts” narrowed the choices down initially and then people were allowed to vote for the top five in each category. Gone with the Wind was first in the greatest overall category, which told me one thing right away: More women than men voted in the poll. I’ve never actually even seen the movie and have no plans to do so. The vote did nothing to change my mind that I probably wouldn’t consider it the greatest movie of all time.

I was much more interested in the picks for greatest Science Fiction flicks of all time. Here’s the TV voters list:

5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
4. The Matrix
3. Avatar
2. E.T.
1. Star Wars

This list is, of course, incorrect! Although, the only real travesty here is Avatar, which does not deserve to be in the top ten even.

The “correct” list(s). That is, “my” lists are as follows:

General SF:
5. Jurassic Park
4. Blade Runner
3. Star Wars
2. The Matrix
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

The first three of these are separated by a bare fraction from each other. And honorable mentions in this category include War of the Worlds (Original version), E.T., Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, and Logan’s Run.

SF/Horror/Thriller
5. Predator
4. The Terminator
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (first version)
2. The Thing (Carpenter version)
1. Alien

The first four of these are very close, and honorable mentions that come very close to unseating number 5 are The Road Warrior, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Aliens.

I also struggled a bit with some assignments. Does Jurassic Park go with general SF or SF/Horror/Thriller? The Matrix is certainly a thriller with strong elements of horror. In the end, though, I didn’t think the horror elements of either were the primary strength of these movies. So there you have it, the TV lists and the “true” lists. I’m sure everyone will agree! Feel free to tell me how much you agree. :)

The finance of romance… a characters’ POV

I am a writer. I write poetry and short stories, I dabble in kids’ fiction, I write culturally based short stories and of course there is the writing I do for my day job. But I published two romance novels. Consequently, I am a romance novelist. It doesn’t matter how many other genres of stories reside in my head or on my hard drive… nobody sees it. What matters is the material that I have published. So I am a romance writer.

What makes a romance interesting? I know many people have different views, but one common thread to an interesting romance is strong lovable characters. But have you noticed that most characters in romance novels are financially secure? If they are not there already, they get there by the end of the story, or they marry someone who is.

I have noticed a little more diversity in the financial backgrounds of lead characters in romance novels recently. Some novelists make their characters rich and famous. They travel to exotic cities with nary a care for cost. Other characters represent the upper middle class. They are successful, educated, and financially independent and just need a partner to complete the fairy tale. This is supposed to inspire us into believing their lifestyle and their love is attainable to us. Then there are the characters who struggle financially. These characters almost invariably find love with someone more financially stable or out and out rich. It is rare for the hero and heroine to end up poor and broke at the end of the romance, even if they have each other.

I’ve always wondered why the characters in a romance are never a pair of losers who find love. Why don’t we see romance between two homeless people? Or two people who are just broke and struggling, living in subsidized housing and barely making ends meet? And I’m not talking about a back story where the person was struggling but has overcome the obstacles and now have their own business; or where the homeless wins a lottery when he finds a ticket on the park bench.

The answer: expectations. In a romance we expect a happy ending. Not just in finding love, but in all aspects of their lives. We are rooting for that poor girl to snag the tycoon. The readers really want that feel good Cinderella story. And the publishers know this. They outline set guidelines as to what constitute a romance novel. One publisher states in the guidelines, “The hero and heroine should be role models—upwardly mobile and educated individuals that our readers can admire.”

Don’t the uneducated fall in love? Shouldn’t we have characters that people from all walks of life can identify with? And when I write my romance stories, am I somehow perpetuating the myth that only the upward mobile, the successful and the rich find or even deserve true love? What are your thoughts on this?

Why I write

I know you think I feed my Internet addiction with Amazon wish lists chock full of delectable perfumes and femme fatale shoes. Well, you're right, but that's not the half of it. The Internet brings me everything I find fascinating: info on 'supermoon'; the last three US elections that kept me glued to news and commentaries for so many months; the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis in Japan, brought to my desk in high definition living colour; the uprisings in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia; and now, the contretemps in Libya.

There's something about Gadhafi that has caught my imagination since my youth: his flamboyant good looks (well, in his youth), his charisma, his refusal to be cowed by either the military or media (read 'propaganda') might of his enemies, primarily the US. I have the same sneaking admiration for Chavez of Venezuela, and open admiration for Cuba's Castro. (I've learned from my time spent in South Florida that if I stood in the middle of Miami and shouted the latter I'd be dispatched to the hereafter in short thrift.) Crunch the numbers and you might well find that far, far more innocent civilians have been murdered by the soi-disant protectors of 'freedom' and 'democracy' than by the aforementioned allegedly heinous dictators/leaders.

So, I've been refreshing my memory of the convoluted, violent relationship between Libya and the US and the Internet obligingly puts it all at my fingertips - the history, the facts, the conspiracy theories. The 1986 US attack on this sovereign state and attempted murder of Gadhafi, Operation El Dorado Canyon, interested me in particular; it was so controversial that Spain, France and Italy all denied the US overflight rights and use of their continental bases for the attack.

That time, Gadhafi and his family rushed out of their residence moments before the bombs dropped. What saved them? A telephone call from Malta's prime minister about unauthorized aircraft flying over Maltese airspace heading south towards Tripoli. I know Gadhafi isn't a saint - but then, neither are the powers that have wanted him dead for so long. Murder is murder, no matter what the perpetrators, state or individual, want to call it.

This isn't supposed to be a political diatribe. My point is that the more I read, see and learn, the more disgusted and horrified I am at the powers that run this world, that spout ideological rhetoric but which are really motivated by economics and power-lust. It's a process I've been through again and again. For awhile, I'm fascinated and can't turn away; before long I'm overwhelmed and depressed by people's gullibility, including my own, by the change that never comes, by all the hypocrisy, aggression and spilt blood.

This state of mind is not healthy for me and sooner of later I find, to paraphrase the poet William Wordsworth, that the world is too much with me. It is then that I feel the need to tear myself away from the danse macabre and return to a psychic space where goodness, justice and fair play win the day, and where I control all the outcomes.

That's why I write.

Footnote 1:
Normally reliable sources from the Library of Congress to Time, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and New York Review of Books (among others) can't seem to agree on the spelling of the colonel's name. Take your pick: Qaddhafi, Qaddafi, Gaddafi, Kaddafi, Khadafy, Qadhafi, Qadaffi, Gadaffi, Qathafi, Gadaafi or Qadhdhafi.

Footnote 2:
For a different perspective on the Libya situation, here's an insightful commentary from Countercurrents.org: Bombing Libya: 1986 - 2011

—Liane Spicer

Change of Heart

I was talking to a friend tonight about changes in my writing over the last ten years. I finally see myself as having changed from a wordsmith to a storyteller. I used to start with how the story was told, reveled in the use of clever phrases to achieve effect, and spent hours fine-tuning phrases. Somewhere in re-writing my first novel from top to bottom, I started streamlining the language I used, and finding myself saying more with less, and letting the reader follow the story in something more like real time. There were times when I could afford to drop back into longer, more lyrical passages that allowed me to explore a character or setting in greater depth, but my basic style had become cleaner, leaner and even meaner when it had to be.

Knowing how to use words first gave me a broad palette to work from, and in my new mode, I find myself more sparing in its use than I was ten years ago. For now, leading with what is happening to whom and where is working for me better than, “What is the first line?” That’s still important, but it comes from my moment, not the other way around. I know that may change again, and welcome that. One of the things I loved most about Truman Capote was that even after enormous critical and commercial success he chose to reinvent himself as a writer and learn his art from the ground up again. It’s a view of art that allows for growth and renewal.

I enjoy the writer I am more than I used to, and look forward to what changes lie ahead. There was a quote I saw in the Times once and clipped out, but it was never attributed, about seeing writing as a great rock and that any effective work has to take the form of shattering it with the hammer of your mind...I had a copy of the quote over my desk for years, but it’s only now that I see how hard you have to break down everything you know to make everything new again.

I’m sure one day the rush I feel with the way I work now will subside and seem dull and commonplace -- that’s when I hope I have the courage to make a leap of faith again. What about you? What do you do to recharge your creative engine?

The Exercise Problem

Thumbing through the newest Quilter's Home quilting magazine last night, I came across a survey of readers that asked about their favorite form of exercise. Twenty-one percent preferred quilting to any other "exercise." Seven percent chose "wine glass lifting" and seven percent said "coach potatoing." Only "running/walking" came in higher than "quilting." The writers among you can probably guess why: Creative people get new ideas when walking.

I know exercise is good for people in general and writers in particular (sends oxygen to the brain, builds stamina for long writing sessions, strengthens arm muscles so you can type longer, helps you live longer so you get more written), but I still resent the time it takes away from my writing.

It occurred to me that if quilting counts as exercise if one moves the ironing board to another room or rearranges heavy stacks of fabrics, we can start applying minutes spent on our writing-associated activities to our daily exercise goals. For example, all of the following burn calories and some build muscle as well:

• pacing
• fidgeting
• drumming fingers on the desk
• moving reference books from one spot to another
• shouting and pummeling the air when a story gets rejected
• shouting and pummeling the air when a story gets accepted
• getting out the Oxford English Dictionary to look up a word
• opening office supplies multiply and tightly packaged in thick plastic
• ripping open ink cartridge packages
• moving the printer to reach the secret area to clear out jams
• getting down books that live on the top shelf of a bookcase and later putting them away
• loading cartons of printer paper into the car and then carrying them from the car to the office
• procrastinating by ironing, carrying out the trash, unloading the dishwasher, etc.

What have I missed? Are there things you do while writing that should count as exercise?


See you again on April 4, when I blog at Novel Spaces again.

—Shauna Roberts

Reversion of Rights

After twelve years in the business, I've had the rights to two books reverted back to me. In 2008, once I realized The Chocolate Ship was out of print (originally printed in 2003), I contacted the legal department at HarperCollins and requested reversion of my rights - also, Something He Can Feel was reverted back to me late last year. In 2009, I self-published a revised trade and e-book version of The Chocolate Ship, and released an e-book version of Something He Can Feel just this month. I plan to do the same for each of my other backlist titles.

I've been told some publishers regularly order very small print runs, keeping the license term from expiring by keeping author's titles in print.

Would you prefer that a publisher continues to print your book, even in small amounts and keep it available, or would you prefer to have a time period on the rights, limiting it to a certain period of time as opposed to an open-ended term?

Do you think you might have a title that's out of print, yet you haven't inquired as to the status? I know Hot Boyz was out of print for a short period of time, yet when I inquired, HarperCollins decided to reprint it in another format.

If retaining our rights could improve our financial situation, I say we need to be aware and look out for each opportunity to gain more control, especially with the growing popularity of electronic publishing opportunities. However, it is also important to keep our books available to readers for as long as possible, traditional or self-published, as opposed to simply retaining our rights only to retire our works that will never again see the light of day.

Right on!