More Book Hijinks from Your Favorite Schlemiel

Whew. Another release week in the rear view mirror, and this one was a doozy.  Launch day is always a roller-coaster: will people buy my book, if they do will they LIKE it, will I stumble across a terrible review that will emotionally cripple me for days … It’s a bit like watching someone juggle your newborn baby and a live chainsaw.

We’re all works in progress, and I’m no exception. Always learning valuable lessons. This year, I learned two very valuable lessons—perhaps the most important one about vetting something you read at an author event. 

I was honored to participate in this year’s Fox Cities Book Festival, at which I read a scene from my novella Closer Than They Appear. It’s a cute little tale about missed connections, featuring two characters who meet at the same stoplight every morning during their commutes. I write from each character’s perspective, male and female. You should know that I don’t believe in tidying up the male point of view. Guys are crude. They’re raw, real, and warped, if they’re being honest.  (This is important for the story.)

The scene I chose to read was from my male character’s point of view, and he’s in a particularly miserable, heart-broken frame of mind at a bar with a friend. Oh, and did I mention it takes place in Oshkosh, the city in which I live? (This is also important for the story.)

So I’m reading, and everyone is laughing and enjoying themselves. Excellent! I think, and file the piece away for another day. I whistle a jaunty tune on my way home.

Fast-forward to Tuesday night, launch night, and I’m giving a chat in Oshkosh at a fundraiser for the Winnebago Literacy Council. I know, I say to myself, I’ll read the same piece that got such a great reception at the Book Festival! It takes place in Oshkosh; people will like that.  This is the best idea I’ve ever had!

The Literacy Council is a terrific organization, and that night they introduced five young men, recent refugees from Burma, Ivory Coast, Uganda, and Pakistan, to showcase and put faces on the great work the council is doing.  They’re sitting in the front row, listening to me very politely. I finish my author spiel and begin the reading.

And I get to the part on the very first page where my main character, annoyed at being jostled around while trying to order a drink, says to his friend, “Jesus Christ, remind me why we came here again? I feel like I’m in some third-world country waiting for bags of rice to be tossed out the back of a United Nations truck.”

A few people laugh in a kind-of shocked way, like you do in church when an elderly woman in the pew behind you audibly farts. My blood turns to ice in my veins. Oh dear GOD, how did I forget about this line? I very nearly stop reading. There are almost fifty faces staring at me, waiting to see how this plays out, waiting for the juggler to drop the chainsaw on the baby. A small voice in my head says, No—you have to keep going. Own it! Be real! And never, ever write from the male point of view again!” 

I continue, and so does the fun, because soon we get to three song references that are totally unfamiliar to the crowd, followed by a reference to “Pretentious Asshole Bingo,” which I forgot to set-up before the reading, and a reference to an ex-girlfriend who used to send really dirty texts.

I begin to feel faint. I’m sweating profusely. The words feel like rubber in my mouth. Ah, and then I remember how I end this scene:

 ___

    From somewhere behind him: “Hey, if it isn’t Steinbeck 2.0!”
    Zach gritted his teeth and manufactured a smile for the second time that evening. “Matt Nelson. What’s up?”
    Matt Nelson was another local writer. Privately, Zach always tacked a GD to his name, as in, “GD Matt Nelson.” It stood for Grammar Destroyer. He’d self-published a thriller last fall and now routinely posted screen shots of his Amazon ranking to his Facebook feeds: Cracked the top 100! I’m on fire! “Dude, just sold my forty-thousandth copy of Archer Falls. Can you believe that shit?” 
    Forty-thousand people actually paid to learn that you can’t tell the difference between they’re, there, and their. Jesus wept. “Hey, congrats.”
    “Still writing?”
    “Yeah,” Zach said, thrilled he actually had a positive update to share. “I just sold my novel, actually.”
    Matt’s smile hitched ever so-slightly. “Oh yeah? That’s great! Who picked it up?”
    “It’s a small indie press. They specialize in gritty, urban fiction.”
    “Huh. I thought your book took place on a farm. So what kind of advance they offer?”
    Zach took a swig of beer, growing increasingly uncomfortable under GD Matt Nelson’s scrutiny.
    “Not much, but they do a great job with their authors.”
    But Matt had stopped paying attention. “Hey, I gotta split. Just saw Kara Peterson. Chick’s got nipples like fuckin pencil erasers.” He grabbed his beer and disappeared into the crowd.
    After he left, Zach let out a strangled sob. “How can such a gross human being win at everything?”
    Josh craned his neck to see where Matt had gone, wearing a vague expression of curiosity. It looked like he was trying to solve a sexy riddle. “Pencil erasers. Huh.”

 ___

Did you get that?

"Chick’s got nipples like fuckin pencil erasers.”

Did I mention that two of my nice young audience members in the front row were from Pakistan? 

I looked around for a box I could crawl into, or maybe a bathtub of vodka, or a candle I could light myself on fire with. Finding no such retreat, I ended with a vaguely mumbled, “Um, so it’s kind of colorful. Just a fun little thing.”

OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP. 

People clapped politely. Some were still laughing (with me? Nah, probably totally at me).  My whole body is still unfolding from a nearly semi-permanent and disabling cringe.

So the lesson here is: something that plays well in Peoria may not play as well in Albuquerque. Check your audience and triple-vet anything you share before you get up on stage. And write something new as quickly as possible, if only to scour your latest shenanigan from your brain.

(Thank you, everyone, for the support and kind words this week; you kept me from soaking in that bathtub of vodka, which actually sounds kind of relaxing now that I think about it ....)

Let's Make it Official, Kids: Mandatory Release is Here

I spy, with my little eye, A BOX OF BOOKS!

Hi! How are you? I'm a nervous wreck, thanks!

Well, I could whip myself into a neurotic frenzy over the last bottle of discount ranch dressing on double coupon day, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

But I'm distracted, which leads me to do things like wish my husband's late aunt a happy birthday on Facebook. You know how this works. You see the birthdays up there in the corner, and you absently click through them all (Happy birthday, Dave! Have a great day, Eleanor! Enjoy your big day, Steve!), get your daily post-liking frenzy out of the way, and then you whisk your palms together and head off to tackle the day, feeling so accomplished. Just look at everything you've already achieved. Maybe you'll work out. Shave your legs in the shower! Make a home-cooked meal for dinner! And--could it possibly be--actually get some writing done? Oh, the joys! Your day is a rainbow-hued quilt of possibilities sewn with spun gold. One hour later, you get a call from your beloved husband: "You wished my dead aunt happy birthday on Facebook."

Individually-bagged Doritos. I told you I was neurotic.

And you crawl under the couch and die a little and eat an industrial-sized bowl (the bowl you'd give your kid to puke in if he stayed home sick from school and you had a kid) of stale granola with chocolate soy milk and can't stop shivering.

Also, you have a book in the "soft-launch"* phase on Amazon, the book you've been working on for 14 years, the book that people cock an eyebrow over when you explain the plot ("It takes place in a prison? And the main character is a guy in a wheelchair? And it's a really weird love story with a sex scene and everything? But it's HILARIOUS, trust me!") and people are finding it and buying it which is awesome, but you haven't made it official and you're already feeling slimy and spammy as hell for uploading your cover art and linking to blog reviews on Facebook and just want to crawl back under the couch again and where did you leave that spoon, anyway?

So yes, let's just make it official and put me out of my misery. Mandatory Release is now available on all platforms: high and low diving boards, ceremonial award stages, all of them. Also Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble. I'm also giving away two signed paperback copies on Goodreads, if that's your flavor of choice. I love this book, I miss these characters, and there's something in it to offend just about everyone, so let the games begin!

If you'd like to celebrate with me, I'll be doing a reading at Becket's Restaurant in Oshkosh on Tuesday, July 16 from 5-7 pm--it's a fundraiser for the Winnebago County Literacy Council, so we won't get TOO out-of-hand. Unless it's decided by popular vote.

A lovely woman in a book club I met with last week asked me what happens at my launch parties, and here are your multiple-choice options:

a) I sweat through my dress and have trouble remembering the word "orientation."

Gene Simmons? Is that you? (Guy in front: "We're number one!")

b) A bunch of us end the night at the gay bar AND the strip club.

c) Everything I eat gives me diarrhea except cheese and wine, which works out fine because those are my two favorite food groups.

Thanks for reading. If I could buy all of you ponies and peonies, I totally would.

 *Soft-launch is just a fancy way of saying 1) that you've uploaded your book and haven't announced it yet; and 2) you're playing some kind of kinky sex game with a Nerf replica of the space shuttle.

You're Terrible.

I am married to a very funny guy whose humor is delightfully subtle. He’s incredibly laid-back, nonchalant, sweet, and unassuming, and then BAM—he’s delivered the perfect, understated one-liner that has me gasping for breath. Much of his humor is incredibly inappropriate. For example, while watching The Voice, I’ve averaged three “You’re terrible!” comments per episode in response to his twisted jokes and observations. 

A strong case can be made that I’m just as terrible, but we balance one another here; two terrible people in the household at the same time is too much.

At any rate, this is how it goes:

J: (warped, sick comment about some poor contestant)

Me: “You’re terrible!”

J:  “In a hundred years, the future Ghost Hunters team will come through this house with their EMF detectors and MEL meters and FLIR thermal cameras and discover a residual haunting loop of your disembodied voice saying, ‘You’re terrible!’ over and over.”

Me: (long pause) … “You’re terrible.”

~~~~

Other breaking news:

I have managed to recreate most of the 1,500 words lost in the new novel when my flash drive died last week, though something about the *new* version still bugs me.

My garden is waterlogged but mostly happy, and I'll do a photo diary soon.

I have been downsized at work, but there are many silver linings--we'll be tightening our belts, but I'll have more time to write ... hopefully the new material doesn't revolve around double coupon shopping trips or a taste-test of ALDI wines or cat food.

We are now 33 days from the release of Mandatory Release. I can tell because my insomnia and nervous pukey feelings have been increasing daily. If you'd like to help me celebrate launch day on Tuesday July 16, I'll be doing an event at Becket's Restaurant in Oshkosh for the Winnebago Literacy Council's. Reading, chat, and book sales from 5-7; tickets are $25 and include snicker-snacks. All proceeds go to support the literacy council.

Now Presenting: Leslie Lehr

I'm so happy to have the luminous, TALENTED Leslie Lehr on the blog today to celebrate the release of her latest novel, What a Mother Knows: an unsettling, emotional and suspenseful novel of the unshakable bonds of motherhood, in which Michelle Mason not only loses her memory after a deadly car crash, but can't find her 16-year-old daughter, the one person who may know what happened that day. But the deeper Michelle digs, the more she questions the innocence of everyone, even herself. A dramatic portrayal of the fragile skin of memory, What a Mother Knows is about finding the truth that can set love free.

NYT Bestselling author Caroline Leavitt called it an "achingly moving suspense drama. Dark and unsettling, but with a ray of hope like a splash of light, and a knockout ending you won't see coming."

Leslie has stated that it will be a few years before her next novel is available, so savor this one--I know I plan to!

1) What inspired you to write What a Mother Knows?

When my daughter was in middle school, she started crying at night, every night - and I felt so helpless. I imagined the worst. I wrote an essay called “Parenting Paranoia” that Arianna Huffington excerpted in her book, On Becoming Fearless. But I was still afraid.

Then I had jury duty on a manslaughter case in which two women were suing the driver of a car that crashed into a sports bar and killed their sons. We had to decide on the value of their loss. And so, in the worst of what-ifs, I started worrying about what my daughter’s value was to me, who I was without her…and how far would I go to protect her.

2) Who are some of your author idols? 

Different novelists inspire me for different reasons. Starting out, I idolized Carolyn See, Margaret Atwood. and Isabelle Allende. I love current authors who combine beautiful language with solid storytelling, like Leslie Schwartz and Carolyn Leavitt. I love Jane Porter for writing as if she’s my best friend telling me a story. I like Heather Gudenkauf and Jillian Medoff for sucking me into their worlds and making me race to the end. I love Megan Abbot for being so snarky and Megan Crane and Emily Griffin for making me smile.  And I’m loving all the authors in the Girlfriends Group Book Club – so much diversity and talent like you, Jess, in this one group, it’s hard name everyone! I do favor women authors, not just because I can relate, but also because I do think it’s harder to carve out writing time, let alone a career.

3) What teenage memory makes you cringe?

Tumbling down the stairs in front of my first date and his hunky big brother, who was driving us to the Eighth Grade Dance. My girlfriend sewed a new dress for me  - a short flowered number – and I had a new pair of platform shoes that I forgot to buckle. I’d been crushing on this boy for months and was so excited that he asked me instead of a girl with bigger boobs. I thought I’d make a grand entrance when he arrived, and did I ever. He ended up being my boyfriend all through high school, but I could never look his big brother in the eye.

 
4) Are you a cat or dog person?

Both. I adopted a cat and named him Puppy when I started out on my own, because my apartment didn’t take dogs. My younger daughter had several kittens - Buttercup, then Cupcake - a friend asked of number three would be named Cup ‘O Soup. But they died tragically, so my older daughter adopted a black lab and named her Scout after the girl in To Kill a Mockingbird. When she left for college, I was traveling a lot, so we gave her to a family with another dog to play with. (We see happy pics of her on Fb all the time.) Both of my girls made up for it by adopting dogs as soon as they moved out after high school. It drives me crazy, but they love those dogs, so what can I do?

 
5) What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

1. Read!

2. Love the process, that’s all you have control of.
3. Lock your refrigerator.
4. Write something good enough to make your family proud, but don’t let the thought of your family stop you from writing something good.
 

6) If you could have any super power, what would it be?

I would like to zap my kids from afar to be happy and safe all the time.

~~~~
Isn't she lovely? Leslie is a prize-winning novelist, screenwriter, and essayist; What a Mother Knows is her third novel. She's also incognito as "Chemo Chick" in Karen Rinehart’s breast cancer blog, Sick of Pink. Book clubs, Leslie would LOVE to Skype with you after you read What a Mother Knows! (Which you're going to do, right???) She's got a beautiful website (www.leslielehr.com); you can also find her on Facebook (www.facebook.com/authorleslielehr) and Twitter (@leslielehr1).

Presenting Sam Wilde: I'll Take What She Has

I'm so excited to have Samantha Wilde on the blog today to discuss her new novel, I'll Take What She Has. Sam is such a sweetheart, and isn't that the most adorable baby on the cover?? I'd buy it based on the cover alone (but the story inside is wonderful, too!)

Tell us about your new novel. What inspired you to write it? 

Here’s a brief synopsis: Best friends since kindergarten, Nora, a reserved English teacher, and Annie, an out-spoken stay-at-home mother, wrestle with the green-eyed monster when the new history department hire at the suburban Boston prep school where they teacher, Cynthia Cypress, arrives on campus. A missing grandmother, a depressed sex therapist, and a financial crisis add to the comedy in a novel about imperfect friendships, mixed up families, the messiness of motherhood, and the quest for the greenest grass.

My running joke about this book is that I wrote a novel about envy and had to do extensive research! I really didn’t need to look much farther than my own grassy yard to come up with the felt experience of the novel. I started with three women, Annie, Nora and Cynthia. The novel, which underwent years of extensive revisions under three separate editors, has morphed almost completely since I first plotted the story. The heart of it, the meat of it, concerns friendship and motherhood and how envy changes both of these things—and changes the women, too. The book explores the idea that envy can eventually change someone into something better.

Book readings, signings, and events: tell us one wonderful memory and one awkward one.

When my first novel, This Little Mommy Stayed Home, released, I had a book launch at the amazing independent store, Odyssey Books. Because I’ve lived in this area for so long and have taught yoga to so many people, serving as a minister to others, a large crowd gathered. At the end of the night, the owner had to turn a friend away without a book. She had sold out all the copies of my novel and told me that in all her years that had never happened before! (I didn’t sell out, by the way, for my book launch of I’ll Take What She Has on Wednesday night and I tried not to be disappointed!)

Around the same time, I went with my mother, novelist Nancy Thayer, to do a book signing in Connecticut. When we arrived, the most amazing, enormous arrangement of flowers greeted us. My wonderful Aunt had sent them and they were clearly meant for two important, famous, awesome novelists. Then, we had about three people attend the talk! It was a beautiful, sunny July day after three weeks of rain…still, it can be hard. We had a lovely time with our three audience members and our flowers. I wanted to have an event equal to the flowers. Only in hindsight could I see what really mattered: spending that time with my mother.

How do you unwind after a horribly stressful day?

A good book. A good book can fix everything. I find reading so relaxing and healing and restorative. On a really bad day, after the children go to sleep, I might put on my pajamas early and dive into my bed. I really love my bed. My husband makes fun of me, but I get a lot of pleasure from hanging out in bed (reading, people, that’s all I meant!). Talking to friends also, the kind of long, meandering conversations I can’t have when children are awake. I often end my day on my bedroom floor with some gentle yoga poses, sometimes listening to an uplifting podcast.  Also: curling up beside my husband, knowing I have chocolate in my cupboards, watching my children sleep.

What advice do you have for your fifteen-year-old self?

I love that question. I’ve been thinking about it lately because a friend who started babysitting for us at twelve has just turned eighteen! I thought about what I would like to tell her if I could speak candidly. I would say the same to her as to my younger self: You are precious. You may not feel it, but you are. Live with a sense of your own value. Know, regardless of how others may treat you, that you are deeply loved. At fifteen, I struggled so much with wanting beauty and thin thighs and the adoration of boys. I wish I could pull that girl into my arms and give her a piece of the satisfaction I have now—much of which came through motherhood—from simply being myself.

What’s next from you?

The laundry. Then sweeping up underneath the kitchen table. I have to unpack the duffle bag from our trip last week and try to locate the playroom floor underneath the toys. But that’s probably not what you had in mind! Right now, I’ve got my whole focus on getting I’ll Take What She Has into the world. I call it the “little book that could” because of all the editorial changes it survived. I’ve put my third novel on the back burner; it’s there though, patiently waiting. I have two memoir books I’d love to finish. I wouldn’t mind another child either…. Probably what I should do is finish my cup of tea, floss my teeth, and go to sleep. Sometimes, what’s next is so ordinary! 

 ~~~

Thanks, Sam! For more on Sam and her books, visit her Facebook page, her website, and check out the terrific book trailer for I'll Take What She Has. 

Psst: The New Book is Out (And I Have Copies to Give Away!)

Okay, let’s get this party started. I am THRILLED to announce that four years after Driving Sideways hit the shelves, I finally have an answer for everyone who has ever asked when my next novel will be out. That answer is TODAY! All the Lonely People is out today. 

*faints from excitement...gets back up to finish the post*

So Jess, you may be asking, what’s it about? Glad you asked! Here’s the synopsis:

After losing her beloved mother to cancer, 37-year-old Jaime Collins must confront the ugly fact that she and her siblings don't actually like one another. At all. Fueled by grief and an epic argument at Thanksgiving dinner, Jaime decides to 'divorce' her siblings and posts an ad on Craigslist for a new family for Christmas.

What happens next is a heartwarming, funny, and surprising journey to forgiveness and healing. Is blood really thicker than water? And how far do we have to go to find our way back home again?

Dedicated to anyone who has ever wanted to unfriend a relative on Facebook, ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE is about family: those you make ... and those you make peace with.

What are people saying?

"If your family is perfect and you've never felt lonely, or lost someone, or feared losing someone, or loved someone too much, or not enough ... if your heart is made of stone and you have no sense of humor ... well, even then you might love this book. All the Lonely People is a gorgeous, deep, layered, nuanced, hilarious and fabulously written novel that will suck you in and hold you hostage to the very last page ... and you'll be grateful it did."
--Danielle Younge-Ullman, author of Falling Under

"For every person who wishes they could choose their family, All the Lonely People is a perfect blend of heart and humor. Packed with quirky characters and honest emotions, you won't be able to put this book down until the last page."
--Eileen Cook, author of Unpredictable, Do or Di, and Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood

I didn't even have to get them drunk first! Also, a lovely woman in a book club I visited last Thursday told me she liked it even better than Driving Sideways. Check's in the mail, Tracy! Just kidding. But I will buy you a cupcake for being awesome.

It’s available exclusively for Kindle via Amazon for the first three months, mostly because I checked a box online without realizing it was a 180-day contract. This is yet more evidence of my impulsivity (see Exhibit A, my first marriage), but we’re OKAY! We’re okay. We’ll get to Nook and Kobo and other platforms soon. Also! The paperback is in production; a few unexpected kinks to work out, and I’ll let you know the minute it’s available. 

To make up for my impatience in rolling out the e-book first, I am giving away three autographed copies. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or “like” my Facebook author page by December 1, and you’re entered to win! 

The Eleanor Rigby earworm is a free bonus. You’re welcome!

If you don’t want to wait for other formats but don’t have a Kindle, you can easily download the Kindle app for your smart phone, iPad, tablet, or computer. 

And here’s a final teaser: I’ve included the opening chapter for Mandatory Release. Yep, this is the prison book you may have seen me write of, and I've filled it with all kinds of goodies, including a recipe for "seg loaf"--something to wow the book club members!

Over the next few weeks I have all kinds of exciting new books and contests and such to tell you about, so stay tuned. (It's like I have a blog again or something!)