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Remarkable

January 8, 2008 by Jane · View all 14 comments

I wrote today. And I’m not talking about email or blogging, either. I’m talking about the drive to Tully’s, set up computer, set up keyboard, put on headphones, play Death Cab for Cutie a half dozen times kind of writing. I was working on Chapter 1, scene 1 of my next 5 Spot novel, a book I’m calling Hot Seat for now for lack of better title.

It’s hard starting a new book. I usually don’t like it as the words seem awkward, all rough angles and bare spaces. The problem when I start a new book is that I don’t know the characters. I know the over all story but I don’t know what motivates her, or those around her. I don’t know what she wants, or where she’s going, or why she even needs to exist.

Fortunately today I was prepared for the difficulties. I ordered a huge green tea sweetened with just a pinch of stevia. I had a CD case full of music options to lull me in. I even had an apple and a protein bar in the event I was ‘suddenly’ hungry. And even more importantly–I had the perfect amount of time. Not quite two hours. Perfect.

By the time I set everything up and settled in I had maybe 90 minutes to write. Not too long, but long enough to get the book started. And all I had to do was write a scene. One scene, any scene. It didn’t have to be the first scene in the book, or an important scene. It was just a “it’s okay to write scene”, or in other words, “you’re safe, you can write badly now, I will still love you anyway” scene.

You see, I like writing when I can write crap and have time to write crap. I like writing when there isn’t a clock ticking or a gun to my head. I like trying to figure out my characters and find the surprises each story holds. I like being entertained by my own imagination and intrigued by potential conflicts. But to find the good stuff in a story I need time, and lots and lots of work, which requires energy. And patience. And courage.

I’m proud of myself for writing today. I know it’s my job, and my career, and identity and all, but still, it’s hard work and it feels good to meet my goal. Maybe if we writers (women?) were nicer to ourselves, we’d find it easier to meet our goals.

New Year

January 2, 2008 by Jane · View all 4 comments

I’m about to board my Hawaiian Airlines flight back to Seattle and sit here by the gate with the same lump in my throat that I get every time I have to leave Ty. You’d think after three and a half years it’d get easier going. You’d think that knowing I’ll see him in three weeks would make the lump not so big, or the ache in my gut not so heavy, but it doesn’t.

I tell myself lots of people have lives like this. I tell myself lots of people travel for their work and partings and goodbyes are only temporarily but still…still…

On the positive side, it’s easy to be aware of my many blessings. I have an amazing guy that loves me. We’re so happy together we’re talking about family and babies. We’re both doing what we want to do in life and our careers are doing well. We have homes and friends and good health. Essentially, we have everything one could hope for.

I guess then that I can’t be sad going home. I go back to my boys and my one-eyed bulldog Abi. I go back to a new book as I’m starting to want to do the pre-writing I do before I actually pound out a novel. Tiana’s story has been simmering for a long time in my head and now it’s time to get scenes down on paper. To write the dialogue. To find out who she really is and what this story is really about.

Everything is good. Everything’s great.

I just wish my guy wasn’t staying behind.

More Words

December 29, 2007 by Jane · View all 5 comments

Having finished The Thirteenth Tale I had to have another book. I’m in my book a day mode at the moment and it’s a bit selfish of me to just be reading like this, and yet it’s also so lovely. At the beach this afternoon I finished Water for Elephants and loved it. It reminded me of Geek Love, a book I read years ago that remained on my top 5 favorite list for ages. But then, who doesn’t like stories about the circus and side show curiosities and tortured humans (and elephants), especially when the story ends happily? I like the happily. I stopped reading contemporary fiction because so much of it wasn’t happy at the end. Not conclusively happy and that’s what I want. Crave.

Tonight after dinner I went to the Barnes & Noble at Kahala Mall and picked up another four books. I bought Game Over by Adele Parks, The J.A.P. Chronicles by Isabel Rose, The Alchemist by Pauolo Coelho, and Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell which was originally published in serial form between 1864-1866 before being published in book form in 1866. I found the Gaskell book because I was looking for a book by a contemporary Gaskell but decided that the 1864 pub date book more immediately appealing as: a) I love serialized novels from the late 19th century, and b) my great great grandmother, Caroline, was born in 1864, exactly one hundred years before me so I think 1864 is a very good year. Besides, who can resist a back cover blurb that reads: “An enchanting tale of romance, scandal and intrigue in the gossipy English town of Hollingford around the 1830s”?

I’m a sucker for the 19th century English novel. I’m also a sucker for the turn of the century novel. And the American ex-pat writers at the turn of the century living in Europe and writing about misplaced Americans, particularly Americans with money who failed to realize that wealth might allow you to travel and even rub shoulders with blue boods, but it doesn’t buy friendship or respect abroad. Not many of my close friends love the same authors I gobbled up–Henry James, Edith Wharton, EM Forster, DH Lawerence. Of course I loved Jane Austen, and the Brontes, but what I loved most…best…was the self struggling to place itself in and against society. It’s the self–the woman–trying to carve her own place, and her own identity and how difficult it is to do, which makes it even more important, and necessary.

We women have a diffcult go of it, and will always have a difficult go of it because we are women. We’ve got estrogen. And until we hit menopause estrogen influences us far more than we know. Estrogen encourages us to smooth things over. Work things out. It turns us into peacemakers and we try to find compromises and in so doing, we make sacrifices. Indeed, we expect to make sacrifices. Of course, some of us had no idea how many sacrifices we will eventually make.

Fortunately I’m not having to make many sacrifices at the moment. At the moment I’m ten pages into The Alchemist and eager to get back to the story, but first let me share good news: Anna Campbell, author of Untouched, the book I just raved about in my last blog, has agreed to help kick off 2008 as my first guest author over at my bulletin board here on my website. Anna will be talking about her work, including Untouched, from January 1-7th and then Harlequin Presents author Kate Hewitt will be talking about her debut novel the second week of January.

Until then, I’ll be reading my new books, but in the event I run out, does anyone have a must read recommendation for me? I’m going to want some good books for my flight back to Seattle on January 2nd.

World of Words

December 26, 2007 by Jane · View all 5 comments

Since I’m not writing and the children are with their father in Arizona, I am reading. It is what I do when I am free. It is what I want to do even when I am not free. But when I write I do not let myself read very much as the desire to read overtakes the desire to write. I am far more enchanted by someone elses’ words than my own, and the thrill of falling into a story and being led from one point to another is never as satisfying if you know the story arc in advance.

Flying to Hawaii on Sunday I read Anna Campbell’s newest, her second historical romance and the follow up to her stunning debut, Claiming The Courtesan. I read the new one, a December release, Untouched, voraciously, starting and finishing it in one long blissful day of reading while flying over the Pacific from Seattle to Honolulu. This new book, this second book, is an incredible follow up to the debut novel. I loved the first but Untouched wowed me at a deeper level. It’s impossible and unfair to compare books but somehow I do, and despite loving Claiming the Courtesan it seems raw and youthful next to Untouched.

Untouched is everything a great novel should be: intriguing, tender, heartbreaking, rich, taut, and quietly sophisticated. In short, Anna writes the stories I want to read. Somehow she has managed to crawl into my imagination and discover all the secrets there–the shadows, the fears, the hungers, the desires and then she crafts her magic, taking characters and stories that hint of the familiar and beloved and makes them all new, and endlessly fascinating and impossibly magical. I did not want Untouched to end. I did not want to ever stop reading. Anna, Anna where is your next book? When will it be released? I am your devoted fan.

Following a brilliant read with a new book is always difficult and I often struggle to lose myself in a new book after I’ve just finished one I adore. To make the adjustment easier I decided I would read outside the romance genre, going for something I knew was a hot pick with the book club group and I’m glad I did. I’m just twenty pages shy of the end of The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and it’s been a fascinating and comforting read. It’s one of those books that draw you in little by little with fierce precise prose and an unassuming protagonist but soon you’re snared–the protagonist is rare and talented and wounded and the story landscape unfamiliar which tempts with questions and mysteries, and one reads on to learn more. And more. And more.

When Ty finished teaching today and returned from the beach I could barely look up from my book. My head is so happy. It is thick with words, a tapestry of words that have contrasting textures–layers of velvet, cotton, silk, wool. Squares of fabric an upholster shows a customer. Look at this. See this. Touch here.

How I love to read. How right it feels to read. How right I am when I read.

How wonderful our world of words.

New York Holiday

December 19, 2007 by Jane · View all 7 comments

I’ve been in New York since Sunday with my guys–all three of them–and it’s been fun but cold!

Fortunately I have lots and lots of layers on: undershirt, shirt, vest, maybe another vest, coat, scarf, hat, gloves. I might not have to wear so many layers if my coat was thicker but alas, its not.

The great thing about layers is that you can wear more, or less, depending on the temperature of the venue.

Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink: every layer. Museum of Natural History: two to three layers, depending on the floor and wing. Back of taxi cab with youngest son smashed on my lap and two more guys smashed against me: one layer if that because I’m so damn hot.

We’ve had a lot of fun. Some of it being more fun than other times. Waiting in line for Statue of Liberty was brutal. It was low thirties and the wind felt like it’d just blown off from the Siberian Steppe. Fortunately the cold just made getting onto Ellis Island and into the immigration museum more exciting. I loved the museum, too, and even convinced the guys that they had to watch the movie at 1:30 which wasn’t hard to do since they really weren’t in a hurry to return to the icy gusts of wind.

Everything’s going smoothly, so smoothly that I joked tonight as I retrieved the theater tickets for tomorrow night that it would be funny “if the tickets were really for last night.” And guess what? They weren’t for last night. They were for Monday night.

Happily our hotel conceirge was able to help me out. Since the kids really wanted to see Phantom she managed to get tickets for tomorrow night. Too bad I had to pawn my youngest son but I should have him back for Christmas.

We’ve two more days here, or a day and a half as we fly back to Seattle Friday night. My boys say the best part about this trip was the NBC Studio Tour and skating afterward at Rockefeller Center. I say the best part is being able to see New York through their eyes.

And through their eyes, its pretty cool.

And cold.

When You Know

December 12, 2007 by Jane · View all 17 comments

When you know what matters.

When you know what’s true.

When you listen to that little voice inside yourself and the little voice is so damn tired of telling you its so damn tired…

The books are all good. But this many? This much? For what?

Yes, to pay the bills, and yes, because I like to create but what ever happened to photography, flower arranging, baking, entertaining, scrapbooking, gardening? What happened to poetry? What happened to dreaming?

Feeling?

Being?

Jesus, how did wanting to be a writer consume the soul?

Once upon a time I wrote and hoped to be published. I wrote and wrote and imagined how amazing it’d be to have my stories in print. I wrote through both my boys pregnancies, wrote during ART with Jake and in-vitro with Ty. Wrote and wrote and wrote despite the rejections and the dead ends and the editors who didn’t like or want my queries, never mind my stories.

But now I am published. I’ve written 30 books since January 2000 for two different publishers. I’ve written novellas, online serials, category romance novels and modern lit novels. The books are sold all over the world, are in print format and as eBooks. One book is being made into a Lifetime movie for Christmas 2008. Odd Mom Out and Mrs. Perfect has just been optioned. I should be on top of the world, right?

Right?

But my kids. I miss them. And writing takes me away from them. It makes me distant, makes me distracted, makes me feel busy, hectic, impatient.

I hate how writing takes over not just my head, but my life. I can’t cook dinner when I’m writing a book because I have to obsess about the storyline. I can’t drive carpool and talk to the kids because my characters are talking to me. I can’t even sit around on the couch and just be in the moment because I live in a multitude of different worlds–the one my kids are in, the one my publisher is in, and the one where I create, the one that is messy and passionate and fierce and hopeless.

I can’t stop being a writer but I have to try to contain the madness of it.

And I’ve already started. I’m not writing a book right now. I asked my publisher if I could buy the book that was due in December back and they said they’d give me a year to write it. I’m not going to start on the book that’s due in May for awhile. One month, two, maybe longer. I might even have to push the May book back.

I love to create. I resent worrying so much about the market value of what I create. Will this book sell? Will it do well? Will I disappoint my publisher? Where will the numbers be?

My readers, now I don’t worry about them as much, because I know they’re along for the Jane Porter ride. If they’re buying me–and repeat buying–they’re here for whatever I can give them and they just want a good read. But my publishers, they can publish whoever they want, and whatever they want and I hate hate hate feeling as if what I’ve created isn’t good enough. Or up to snuff.

So I’m changing it all, mixing it up. I’m going to be a mom more, a mom first, a mom last. I’m going to enjoy being a woman and the life I have. I’m going to scrapbook and cook and sit with my kids at night and not look at my watch and wonder when they’ll go to bed so I can get back to my computer. Nope. None of that for now. None of that for a long while.

I need to write. But before I do that, I have to take care of me. And to take care of me I have to have more time with those that I love. I need more hugs and more smiles and more kisses goodnight. I need so much.

And you know, when I look into my boys’ faces, I know they need so much, too.

A Proper JP Rant

December 3, 2007 by Jane · View all 16 comments

Author friend Michelle Rowen told me last year–to my face, no less–that she loves it when I go off on one of my Jane Porter rants here on my Janeblog. She thinks its hilarious. Even when I sound positively crazy.

She should like this one. Because I’m going to tell you what’s wrong with the world. At least, the writing/publishing world.

Another author friend of mine, who shall go nameless, but lives across a big ocean is disgustingly successful in her genre. She’s won oodles of awards and sold a gazillon books, books that are really beloved by readers and writers alike.

So what’s the problem?

Recently she got a rude reader email about one of her books and there was no reason for it other than this reader (who claimed all her friends felt the same way) wanted to make my friend feel bad.

The thing is, reader critics and armchair reviewers, its easy to have an opinion but damn hard to write a book.

The thing is, writing a proper review is also very difficult but sending an author a private nasty gram is just too easy in today’s cyber age. Anyone can pop off a mean, virtually anonymous, email. Anyone can open a hotmail or yahoo account and froth at the mouth. What’s tough is sharing your thoughts without the fake name. Sharing your thoughts–in public–with your real name and your real email and your real contact info. Because that’s what we writers do each and every time we have a story, essay or book published. We put it out there. With our name. With our reputation. We don’t–and can’t–hide.

One, writing is our career.

And two, we have balls.

So to my dear friend across the ocean–the ‘reader’ that emailed you her helpful thoughts on why your book sucked and how you should be a better writer, just remind yourself she’s probably not published and probably very jealous that you are, and sadly, the world is full of people who want others to be as unhappy as they are.

I do feel sorry for these miserable folks. It’s sad that they’ve got to attack others and break people down instead of build them up, or God forbid, learn to think positive thoughts, but that’s how it is. It’s easier to wallow in misery than fix problems, including problems that require self-evaluation and change. It’s easier to lash out instead of focusing on yourself. But the unhappy people in the world aren’t going to go away, and we writers aren’t going to be intimidated or wounded and quit writing.

We writers aren’t going to please everyone. Nor do we have to save folks that don’t want saving. We don’t have to be perfect, either, or even write perfect books.

All we have to do is please ourselves.

That’s it.

Please ourselves, and oh, be happy.

Maybe it’s not easy, but it’s a heck of a better goal than flinging feces and shooting off nasty grams just because we can.

They Call Her Mrs. Perfect

November 29, 2007 by Jane · View all 22 comments

I’ve just heard from my editor in New York and we have a winner, which translates into a new title. I’m very happy with the title selected and am delighted to introduce you to my May 2008 novel, Mrs. Perfect. And here is the back cover text from Mrs. Perfect:

WHERE’S A FAIRY GODMOTHER WHEN YOU NEED ONE?

For Taylor Young life is very good. She has a handsome husband who loves her, three gorgeous children, a personally designed and decorated dream house. Suburbanite trendsetter and super mom—life couldn’t be more perfect. And as long as no one notices the fragile woman beneath her coifed and polished image, things will stay that way.

Then, a devastating secret bursts Taylor’s fairy-tale bubble, suddenly making her a cul-de-sac pariah, and stripping her of the role that defined her. With her struggling to maintain her alpha image, Taylor finds help from the unlikeliest of people, her nonconformist nemesis, Marta Zinsser. But to become the woman her family truly needs Taylor must first believe in the person she is hardest on—herself.

What do you think? Does the story sound interesting? Does the new title fit? For those of you who read Odd Mom Out, would you want to read Mrs. Perfect? The winning title was Amy Z’s suggestion but I want to thank all of you for taking the time to brainstorm and for sending in so many great suggestions this week. My editor was really pleased by the list of titles I sent her and I personally loved your support. You all helped take something that was really distressing and turned it into fun. I honestly couldn’t ask for better readers and friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And Amy, if you read this, email me privately with your address so I can send you your prize.

Throw Me A Title, Please!

November 26, 2007 by Jane · View all 26 comments

I got the bad news today. Alpha Mom, out in only 6 months, will no longer be called Alpha Mom due to someone apparently owning the title. It seems a clever woman has copyrighted the words (who would have thought?!?) and is threatening to sue me and my publisher if we don’t change the name of my novel. I’m a fan of women who accomplish things but not a fan of women who threaten legal action so Alpha Mom needs a new title. Fast.

I’m asking all my readers, fellow writers and friends to help brainstorm new title ideas I can send my editor this week. To get a sneak peek of the Alpha Mom cover (before the title change) visit my B-Board for the next few days and see what the cover looks like, and read the blurb about the book, before the cover and blurb disappear to be unveiled once the transformation is complete.

My editor has suggested three possible new titles:

Queen Bee

Alpha Female

Power Mom

Do you like any of them? Can you think of any other ideas? Want to send me some ideas?

If you suggest a title that gets picked by my editorial team at 5 Spot for the book, which is Taylor’s book (we meet her in Odd Mom Out) you’ll be rewarded with a $50 Sephora gift certificate, an advanced reading copy of To-Be-Retitled-Alpha-Mom, and a signed set of my 5 Spot books: The Frog Prince, Flirting with Forty, and Odd Mom Out.

So, if you’re creative and like brainstorming book titles send me your suggestions as I desperately need your help. Alpha Mom needs a new name right away.

Talking Turkey

November 23, 2007 by Jane · View all 8 comments

I’ve had a wonderful week in Hawaii. The book events went great–fueled in part by a big story on me in last Friday’s Honolulu Advertiser. My only blip was yesterday and considering yesterday was Thanksgiving it might be more than a blip. It might be a blop.

The turkey tanked.

It really did and even though Surfer Ty said, “I don’t want you to go and write something on your website about how horrible the turkey was but my boyfriend said it was good.” Yes, even though he did say that, I didn’t promise him. I just looked at him mournfully.

But the turkey was bad. It was tough. And dry. As though I nuked it or something.

I don’t understand.

Or maybe I kind of do. I tried something new. I tried one of those oven bags where you stick the bird in all seasoned and buttered and tie the bag up and put it in the oven. Unfortunately the bird seems to cook a lot faster in the bag. But when it comes to poultry faster isn’t always better. Faster just means you throw the turkey out after dinner instead of lovingly covering and nurturing in the fridge, trying to get as much delicious meat off the bones as you can for sandwiches and turkey soup, etc.

Etc.

Thank God it was just Ty and me yesterday (and to think I’d invited Megan Crane to join us for dinner if she managed to be in Hawaii for Thanksgiving…) because I would have been mortified serving that Terrible Turkey to others. And yes, Ty said he liked it, but Ty’s a surfer. He starves half the time. But I know better. I am a woman after all, and I’ve made some good meals in the past. I’ve been proud of my turkey. But now I’m confused. How can I get back to good turkey? How can I guarantee a great Christmas meal?

I suppose serving ham is a start.

But Thanksgiving will return. It always does. And I can’t have another Thanksgiving like yesterdays. I need help. I need suggestions. Someone’s tricks. Someone elses’ beloved recipe.

If you know how to cook a great bird, please let me know. I refuse to let yesterday’s failure shadow my future. I will learn. I will grow. I will overcome.