WICKED Winner

Oops! The Pens forgot to announce the winner of guest blogger Jennifer Haymore's book, A HINT OF WICKED.

The lucky winner is Robyn Lee. Thank you to Robyn and everyone who takes the time to visit PensFatales!

Fan Shui

I'm pleased to welcome our guest for today: Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace, prolific author, career scientist, and unrepentant New York lover. When I was taking my first unsteady steps as a fledgling author, Camille welcomed me with open arms, a big smile, and a confident "of course you can do it". She has helped more authors along their professional --and, I'm sure, personal-- paths than she knows. Oh, and she's also an engaging, witty, fabulous author!
--Juliet


Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace:

It's such a treat to visit Pensfatales, which I've had bookmarked since its opening day.

Here's what I think of as the ultimate fangirl photo:Supposedly, the breeze was made by a passing subway train. What are the odds? I've always thought that a fan put a fan under that grate just to fan prurient flames.

I'm a big fangirl myself, with an object of my devotion in each of many categories: books, movies, television, science, hobbies, politics. I won't get specific here lest we go off topic and argue about my choices. (It happens at breakfast every morning.)

Surely my most obsessive fan days were when I almost followed the Boston Braves to Milwaukee. Lou Perini (the bad guy) moved his baseball franchise when I was junior in high school. All my meaningful life to that point had been given over to the Braves, the perfect friends for a shy girl. I never missed a game on the radio and my room, in typical teen style, was plastered with photos of the players. "Like a boy's room," my mother called it.

Fandom is usually accompanied by superstitions and promises—I gave the Braves a lot power over my life: If the Braves beat the Brooklyn Dodgers tonight, I'll never swear again; if Earl Torgeson hits it out of the park, someone will ask me to the dance; if Eddie Mathews is safe at second, then I'll be safe at home and in this world. I had no plan for If the Braves leave Boston ...

One time I signed a card to a boy I had a secret crush on, Merry Christmas from Lou Perini and the Boston Braves, as if my own name had too little weight to hold ink. Other girls were pretty and confident. They had the right to say "hi" without apology. I could only say, "Did you see that third inning catch last night?" or "I'll take Spahn and Sain over Mel Parnell any day."


I was devastated when the Braves abandoned me. I applied to the University of Wisconsin so I could be with them! (Is that a fangirl, or what?) Once I realized the Boston subway didn't go that far, however, I had to reconsider.

It took a while for me to absorb the fact that baseball was a business, not a sport played for the pleasure of its fans. It was a rude but necessary awakening, one I would need for every undertaking (and they are legion) in my life.

Ouch. It's a tough lesson, but all fans have to learn it.

One exciting thing my fandom got me was my very first published piece: a letter printed in the Boston Globe. In it I begged Tom Yawkey (the other bad guy), owner of the Boston Red Sox, to share Fenway Park so the Braves could make it financially. I pleaded with the fans of Boston not to be taken in by the Sox leftfielder who treated his followers with crowd-pleasing, obscene gestures every game. It didn't work, but maybe seeing my name in print in a major newspaper was what started me down this blog path!

Fandom can go very wrong and I should be grateful that I got out of it when I did, whether I liked it or not. Remember Robert De Niro, the out-of-work knife salesman in "The Fan"? I keep this still from the movie nearby:

-- along with a line De Niro spoke: "Excited and anxious I await my dream / To escape, applaud, and embrace my team."

Creepy, huh?





Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace, has eleven published mysteries. The latest, "Mourning in Miniature," will be out October 6 from Berkley Prime Crime. Available now for pre-order! Visit her at http://www.minichino.com.

I Believe in Miracles

--Adrienne Miller

I held my boyfriend’s hand as he stepped up to my parent’s porch. Though I could tell he was doing his best to hide it from me, he was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? Meeting the parents is a stressful thing.

The door swung open and there was my dad--a formidable man--blocking the entrance.

“So, you’re Tom, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like hockey?” my dad asked. We both got the sense that our entrance depended on his answer.

“I love it.”

Now I was nervous. I knew Tom had never seen a hockey game in his life. The only little bits he knew of the game came from what I had told him on the car ride over--the basics of offsides and icing and interference. That was it.

Tom was going to have to bring his A bullshitting-game to survive the next three hours with my family.

Turns out, my future husband--himself no scrawny weakling--was up to the challenge. One game, that was all it took and he was hooked.

Now, I’m not sure this is really how it went down, it was over a decade ago. My parents might have a different account of the story, but I swear this is how both Tom and I remember it. And it gives you a pretty good idea how crazy my family is over hockey.


I love hockey. I love the speed, the athleticism, the intensity and the tension. I love the feeling of being a fan--I’m a San Jose Sharks girl, in case you haven’t noticed--the sense of belonging, the hope, the pride, the rivalries.

To me a big part of hockey is family. We have a family high-five-handshake-thingy that we do every time someone scores. My dad and I call each other after every goal. I even talked to my parents about what they thought I should write about in this post.

My mom joked that I should write about how hockey is a metaphor for life. Which is funny, since we all know that its the other way around, right?

But it's a good a theme as any, so here goes: What hockey has taught me.

If you want something you’ve just got to get in there and put on your warrior face. There are going to be times where you have to face off against someone with better stats. Every now again you’ll have to battle it out along the boards, and you’re not going to win if you’re worried about getting hurt.

Celebrate every goal. You worked hard. Have your moment. Then get back in the game. Some days you’ll win and somedays you’ll lose, but every goal along the way is awesome.

Sometimes you can do the impossible. You can make that jaw-dropping save, snatch victory out of thin air, make something out of nothing. Really. I’ve seen it.
Of course, when all else fails you can do what Tom did and just fake it.

Juliet's showing her age...what's a fangirl, exactly?

The first time I heard the topic for this fortnight, "Fangirl", my mind went immediately to fan dancers.
I do like the idea of fan dancers -- a great deal, actually-- but having never been one I wasn't sure what I should write about the topic.

I did have a brief fantasy of using this topic as an excuse to go out one night and give fan dancing a whirl, but I'm going to have to put that on my list of Things To Do One Day on Lower Broadway, right after pole dancing (Sophie Littlefield and I saw some great pole dancing in L.A., and felt inspired...)

But I quickly realized I must be wrong. As my 17-year-old son likes to remind me with many scathing I-can't-believe-I'm-related to you eye rolls, I'm not exactly up-to-date on modern lingo.

So I looked it up. According to the fabulous Urban Dictionary, a fangirl is:

1. A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor.

2. A female who has overstepped the line between healthy fandom and indecent obsession.

Hmm, rabid AND indecent obsession. Sounds right up my alley. But I'm having a hard time thinking of someone --or some character-- for whom I've felt that kind of love and devotion...other than, of course, my childhood wonderdog, a cockapoo named Princess:

(We did share a rather indecent closeness, bordering on rabid obsession. On my part, not hers. She was a very patient, mature canine, while I was very young and in love.)

Then there's always David Cassidy. I know my age is showing like a frilly undergarment below a 1970s miniskirt, but y'all don't know quite what the Partridge family meant to me, back in the day. And David Cassidy's total awesomeness...well you kind of had to be there. It's a little hard to explain to those coming to maturity in the world-weary 2000's. I know we have great characters surrounding us today, but please -- do any of them ride around with their singing family on an old schoolbus with a Mondrian-inspired paintjob? I ask you, is that not worthy of fangirldom?
Plus, that feathered hair was sigh-inspiring....

Ah well. As for current fangirl squeeing...hmmm. I did enjoy Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I Javier Bardem raises my temperature whenever he walks on the set. I got tongue-tied when I met Maya Angelou, and was pretty fluttery when Octavio Paz made a pass at me at a cocktail party (he was pushing eighty at the time, but still).

But when it comes right down to it, I still think fan dancing sounds like a whole lot more fun, not to mention squee-inducing.


ssree

Rachael Is a Fan Girl

There's an ad campaign where a famous person is lounging in some hotel (I want to say it's W, but I can't swear to it, so I guess it must not have worked that well) and the copy just says, for example, "Judy Dench is a fan." I could be that kind of fan. I'd like to try.

But none of us are ordinary fans. Sure, we get everyday crushes. I'm a fan of Alexander Skarsgard. Of course. Yum.

But I'm also a fan of African violets.

I'm a fan of Shetland wool.

I'm a fan of Venetian lace and the smell of diesel on a wet Venetian morning.

I'm a fan of broken pens from the fifties.

I'm a fan of cleaning the grease from around the edges of stove tops.

I'm a fan of forgetting to dust baseboards for years on end.

I'm a fan of medals with no purpose.

I'm a fan of yoga and accidental Buddhism.

I'm a fan of mothers and sisters and wives. Brothers, sons, and fathers ain't too shabby, neither.

I'm a fan of novels with dangerous curves.

I'm a fan of memoirs that make me homesick for someone I never was.

I'm a fan of yellow.

I'm a fan of kissing, even though I sometimes forget to practice enough.

I'm a fan of fans (electric, in particular).

I'm a fan of ukuleles.

I'm a fan of sweetened condensed milk, eaten with a spoon.

I'm a fan of tomorrow.

And I'm liking today, too.

Bad Reviews, I Scoff At Thee

by Sophie

I'm not much for celebrity. I'm not a very good "fan girl". I don't care who a person is in a media/fame context - at least, not nearly as much as I care who they are on the inside...

Anyway, I think today I'm going to use one of the "Get out of jail free" cards that were issued to us Pens upon incorporation, a limited number of instances when we are allowed to ignore the topic of the week and instead address the subject burning most brightly in our minds.

Today I am thinking about reviews...specifically, bad ones.

It has been an interesting exercise, to say the least, waiting around for my first bad review. I knew it was coming - all the Experienced Authors told me so - but it took its sweet time. But the other day, I checked around and there it was in all its snarky glory, a reader who did her job and read the book and was most unimpressed, which if you believe in the author-reader contract at all, you must recognize is her right and privilege.

I read the thing, took a deep breath, and waited for it to destroy me. While I was waiting, I found another negative review, someone who thought even less of my book than the first reviewer did.

I knew what to expect next, because I had many years of rejections on which to practice, many agents and editors who expressed their skepticism of my potential with form letters and the occasional laundry list of ways my writing was inadequate. Oft was the time I dissolved into a puddle with the pain of it all and rued the day I took up a pen.

I kept waiting for these reviews to sink in so I could get going on the misery process, so I could have a good wallow in the hurt and get it the hell over with. Only, it just wasn't happening. I read the reviews again, focusing hard on the parts where they were possibly just a little bit meaner than strictly necessary, working it like a loose scab and waiting for the blood.

Finally I got bored and distracted and spent the afternoon doing something else. Much later when I remembered that I was supposed to be having a wretched day, I had a realization: I have done all the handing over of my self-esteem to complete strangers that I am going to do.

And that was a revelation worth celebrating. The ability to let the negative stuff slide - well, that's like high-grade heroin in the publishing business. It just feels so damn good. I don't know how many authors have been stymied in their literary ascent by negative criticism, but I think it's probably lots and lots. I'm thrilled to know I won't be joining their ranks.

I think I got my confidence the hard way - by burning through my considerable self-doubt bit by painful bit over a long and hard journey. Still, if I could bottle it, I would, and I'd have a giant party and give out sweet little beribboned bottles of confidence as party favors to all the other writers.

. . . . . .

Okay, I am feeling a little guilty about skating on the whole fan girl thing. So here - and it pains me greatly to divulge this list - are a few folks who could probably get me all hot and bothered by their mere presence:

Daniel Woodrell
Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Pablo Casals (yeah, he's dead, I get it - you ever hear of time travel? LGC, Gigi, somebody write this story!! And make me the heroine!)
Alan Rickman
Elizabeth George
Nathan Fillian, but ONLY if he renounces that mortifying stint on Desperate Housewives

Nathan Fillian: hot, but only as Mal

Did Dickens Delete Scenes? I Think Not!

Today the Pens welcome debut author Tracy Kiely, whose MURDER AT LONGBOURN was released this week. Fun disclosure - Sophie and Tracy share an agent and an editor! Romantic Times BookREVIEWS raves about LONGBOURN, saying "Jane Austen fans will thoroughly enjoy this cerebral mystery.”


My book, Murder at Longbourn, is something of a mishmash of my favorite forms of entertainment. I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, and watching Alfred Hitchcock movies (I am something of an Anglophile, much to the consternation of my Irish Catholic family). I love the twisty, deviously clever plots of Christie, the sublime wit of Austen, and the “average man caught in extraordinary circumstances” themes of Hitchcock.

When I began to think of writing my own mystery, I realized it would have to have those elements. I began to wonder how the characters in Pride and Prejudice might fit into a mystery. What if, after years of living with unbearably rude and condescending behavior, old Mrs. Jenkinson up and strangled Lady Catherine? What if Charlotte snapped one day and poisoned Mr. Collins’ toast and jam?

Then one day I was watching the news and - I kid you not - there was a story about a woman who killed her husband at a B&B after they attended a Host-A-Murder Dinner. I was off to the races! The final result is a humorous cozy that weaves in many elements of Pride and Prejudice.

Which is why the big harem scene where the main character is daringly rescued by the devastatingly handsome stranger (who later reveals himself to be a vampire), really didn’t fit the overall story line. Although, it was beautifully, nay brilliantly written.

Okay, I’m lying.

When I was first asked to write this blog on deleted scenes, I thought what a great idea! As one of those (geeky) movie buffs who loves watching the deleted scenes on the bonus dvds and scans imbd.com to find out even more “behind the scene trivia,” I really liked the idea of doing the same for books. As a reader, you get the treat of “seeing” more of your favorite characters as well as getting a sense of the author’s creative process.

Unfortunately, I’m not only one of those people who talks you ear off at cocktail parties, at the airport, in line at the grocery store, I tend to do it on the written page as well. Once I had my main story down, I was forever going back and adding to it rather than deleting. I am the living antithesis of George Bernard Shaw’s quote of “I’m sorry this letter is so long, I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” I had loads of time and just kept adding additional layers. Like an onion. Shrek knows of what I speak.

In my defense, though, as I wrote about my characters, they became more and more real to me. I’d picture them in various situations, wonder how they’d react and find myself adding in those scenes. Cozies are just as much about the people as the action, so I think it makes for a more satisfying read to feel that you know the characters.

But now that I think about it, I’m staring to warm to this vampire idea…

Tracy Kiely graduated from Trinity College in 1990 with a degree in English. This accomplishment, however, merely seemed to prompt most job interviewers to ask "how fast can you type?" Her standard answer of "not so fast" usually put an end to further questions.

She was eventually hired by the American Urological Association (AUA), who were kind enough to overlook the whole typing thing, mainly because they knew just what kind of stuff she'd be typing. Beggars can't be choosers, you know. After several years, Tracy left the AUA taking with her a trove of anecdotal stories that would eventually result in her banishment from polite society.

Murder at Longbourn (St. Martin’s) is her first novel.

What's the Matter With This Scene? (No, Seriously)

by Gigi

I'm a big fan of writing very messy first drafts. The kind that digress and excite and bore -- and eventually gets at the heart of the story you never knew you had until it appears in all its sloppy glory.

Yes, this approach also means lots of deleted scenes.

Most of the time I'm 100% okay with this. But sometimes... Sometimes I don't get it. There's a scene that I just LOVE, but nobody else gets it. Below is the original opening scene from my first mystery novel. Every single person who read it told me to ditch it, because the book got better right afterwards.

Huh? Really? But I loved that opening! I finally took their advice, and that next version is what got me a writers grant and then an agent. Apparently those wonderful critique readers were onto something...

***

The last thing Rupert Chadwick had said to me was: "Our paths will cross again someday."

Clichéd. Sentimental drivel. Whatever you’d like to call it, you'd be right.

Normally I'd be the one leading the charge to declare succumbing to such romantic drivel beneath a woman. But at the time, those words he uttered had exactly the effect on me he'd intended. They struck me as the most romantic parting words conceivable at the end of an affair.

The problem was that he lied.

I sat down on my couch, inadvertently dropping the rest of my mail and knocking over a potted plant, unable to notice anything besides the newspaper clipping still clasped in my hand – an obituary telling of the premature death by automobile accident of Rupert Chadwick, age 28.

***

Is it too heavy on the romance for a mystery novel? But the dead body of the story is right there, people!

I've learned to deal with deleting that opening (okay, I mean I've mostly learned to deal with it -- I saved one line from that scene for Chapter 2).

Besides my beloved deleted intro, there are a few other things I've deemed worthy of saving in my SAVE FOR LATER file.

I have a habit of informally addressing the reader. It's a style I love in novels -- when it's successfully pulled off. It's a tough thing to do, I realize. In those first drafts of mine, I can be a bit heavy-handed in speaking directly to the reader.

I love some of those lines, though, so they go in that SAVE FOR LATER file. I'm hopeful that they'll miraculously fit in perfectly in some later book where I haven't sprinkled in too many asides to the reader.

It could happen, right?

Well, I can dream.

Martha Bids Keanu Reeves Happy Birthday (aka Deleted Scenes...I'll make it work, trust me)

It's September 2nd. That means I need to bid Happy Birthday to my boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, who turns 45 years old today. But it's also the second Wednesday in post rotation which means I need to say something meaningful about Deleted Scenes.

We can do this, people.

1. I fell in love with Keanu Reeves the summer of 1991 at the age of 13 in a rural Georgia theater to repeated viewings of Bill & Ted's Bonus Journey.
2. I knew his costar, Alex Winter, from a prior obsession with The Lost Boys (the teen vampire obsession long before Twilight and True Blood). But Alex was never meant to be a screen heart throb. Not next to Corey Feldman. Oh yes, in the battle of Coreys, I went Feldman.

3. Corey Feldman suffered from a terrible case of child-star-itis which is probably why he was compelled to star in Dickie Roberts Former Child Star with fellow child star Christopher Knight.

4. Dis all you want on Christopher Knight, he's managed a decent non-reality career including this year's Spring Breakdown with female comic talents Amy Poehler, Missy Pyle, Rachel Dratch, and Jane Lynch.

5. Jane Lynch stars in this year's musical genius Glee! Guess what today is? The re-airing of the Glee pilot!! Even if you watched it back when it first aired in May, and even if you've rewatched it, oh, every day since then, you should still catch tonight's show because it comes with DELETED SCENES!!!!!!! Yes, DELETED SCENES! But wait - I'm not done - Glee stars Matthew Morrison as head of Glee Club.

6. And Matthew Morrison stars in this year's Taking Chances with Kevin Bacon.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week.

Exclusive Content (or the words formerly known as Deleted Scenes)

by Lisa Hughey

There’s a new buzz word, phrase really, in the book industry. Exclusive Content.

Exclusive content is an outlet for deleted scenes that don’t advance the plot or that need to be cut if your publisher says, “too long, darling, cut some” as if you’re snipping your bangs not cutting off the hair that took (sob) years to grow.


Now authors put the Deleted Scenes on their websites or blogs (loved Juliet’s from last week) and readers get a secret glimpse, a private peek into the lives of characters they love.



It’s somewhat voyeuristic in nature which makes them all that more delicious to read. And the Exclusive Content I’ve read has always been fun and taken me back to the story I loved--so much so I’m willing to go online and read the deleted scenes.

But, regarding my own work, I have a problem. I don’t have any deleted scenes. And no, this is not to suggest that I write a beautifully clean, fully-formed single draft (if only). No Jack Kerouac here. I have a ‘Leftover’ file for every book I’ve ever written. Pages and pages of notes, random thoughts, cut lines and paragraphs, but no full-fledged scenes. I do occasionally go back and cull a line or a paragraph of description from the file but by and large it’s just a jumble of sentences usually fragments, separated by line breaks.

Clearly, I do chop from my manuscripts. So why don’t I have any Deleted Scenes? I’m too stubborn. If I like a scene for it’s emotion or it’s setting or the plot advancement or because it reminds me of how good of a mood I was in the day I wrote it...I will revise and tweak and labor over every sentence until the scene works in the book. It may take (whimper) five or six passes to get it right, in which time, I’ll have added exponentially to my ‘Leftover’ file but I will, by damn, have a completed scene that finally works in the manuscript.

My 'Leftover' file does not resemble a miniature meal to be re-heated later, it's no chicken piccata with a smattering of capers and a few tablespoons of sauce with a side of steamed broccoli. My 'Leftover' file looks more like a decimated Thanksgiving meal, plates littered with the bits and pieces of turkey, chunks of celery from the stuffing, and smashed sweet potatoes divested of their crispy melted marshmallows, all mixed together into an unappetizing mess that no one wants to re-heat.




So deleted scene? No. Do I have absolutely brilliant snippets of dialogue, snappy repartee or hard wrought similes (sometimes I’ll come up with a great simile that fits the scene and the tone and the plot perfectly....I’ll smile over my cleverness and then whack that puppy with a thunk of my fingers on the keyboard because it suits everything except the character’s voice, dammit) or even pieces of scenes written from an alternate character’s POV? Yes.

But nothing that would qualify as ‘exclusive content’.

Lisa

ps. I had an ending, but I deleted it. :)