Lynn Raye Harris

Words written today: 2290
Pages, minus prelims and works cited: 58
What’s left: the conclusion

I finished the chapter on Orlando!!!! That’s all four books analyzed, the intro done, and nothing but the conclusion left. OMG! I finished Orlando a day early, in fact, so I hope to hammer out the conclusion tomorrow. If I do that, then I will be done with a complete draft of this darn thing. In which case, champagne may be in my future for tomorrow night. But, really, I’m giving myself until Monday because that’s the last day of the month.

You will notice that the thesis bar is past 15,000 now. I think I’ll end up with 18,000 words or so.

Anyone who has or wants a career as a writer has come up against the question of new versus used book sales. We know that not supporting writers means less slots for the kind of books we like. We know that midlist authors get drummed out of the business because their books didn’t sell enough copies. We also know we can’t buy every single book new, but we know we have to support the system we want to be a part of and buy authors at retail when we can.

So why doesn’t the general public seem to realize this? I read a great post over at The Lipstick Chronicles today that talked about this very thing:

“I’m so upset,” a mystery lover told me. “My favorite series has been cancelled. I love his work.”

She named a writer I’ll call John D. Christie.

“I have all his books,” she said. “Now there won’t be any more. It’s so sad.”

“Where did you buy his books?” I already knew the answer.

“At that cute used bookstore near the tea shop. Why?”

“You killed him,” I said.

She looked shocked.

“I know you didn’t mean to, but every time you bought a used book, you put a nail in his career coffin.”

I sent the post to a non-writer friend, one who doesn’t buy books but who does use the library quite often (also a good way to support writers since the library buys the books it lends). His answer shocked me. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I don’t think so. (And if he reads this, I’m not picking on him; this is a topic that is both interesting and frustrating to writers and he is representative of what we don’t understand about the reading public.)

I think he’s a good guy who doesn’t quite get that writing is a business for a lot of people and that they deserve to be paid for the entertainment value they provide. He looks at it like television or movies (though he pays for both of those, of course, but only because he has to in order to gain admission to the images on the screen) — quick entertainment that is meant to provide him with an escape for a little while, but not necessarily intellectual property that someone somewhere worked hard to create. It’s just words, after all, and words are free. As we writers know, however, what takes a day to read can take months, if not years, to create.

We all justify things to ourselves all the time. I’ve shopped used bookstores, of course. These days, I’m looking for out of print books mostly, or new to me authors to try, though I will most definitely pick up a bargain if I see it. (I always buy Rachel Gibson new, but when I ran across one of her books I hadn’t yet read on the library sale rack for a quarter — well, can you blame me?) I also use the library, though not as frequently because I really, really like to make notes in the books I read. The library frowns on that sort of thing, so I’m forced to get my own copy.

My friend reads a lot, but he rarely buys books. And when he does, he doesn’t usually pay retail. He also reads at the bookstore, usually short things that he can read in their entirety in one visit.

Living requires money, of course. And most of us have a limited supply of it. Some people choose to save money by skipping the luxuries. Books often fall into the luxury category for people. Why pay $7 for a paperback when you can pay $3 at the used bookstore or get it at the library for free?

But a book lasts longer than a movie or a television program. You pay $7 or so to see a movie once. Plus the gas to get there, and the food if you eat out. Cable television costs $40 a month minimum, right? So why not pay the $7 for a book that you can read again and again? (My friend rereads some of the same series because he likes them so much and there’s nothing new that strikes his fancy. Hmm, could that be because the publishers don’t feel the genre has enough sales to justify putting out more new series?)

In an ideal world, we’d all pay for everything we used at a fair market value. The truth is that we cut corners because we have to. I shop Amazon all the time. I use my coupons in Borders. I hit the UBS when I want something I can’t find elsewhere, or don’t have time to wait for. I even, gasp, buy repeat NYT bestsellers at the UBS, or books that have been on the list forever.

I lend books, but not frequently. I hate it when someone borrows a book and I don’t get it back. I trust few people with my books. I discovered the pleasures of Elmore Leonard and James Lee Burke via a friend who loaned me books (a signed HB copy of Get Shorty, no less! Talk about pressure!) so I think loaning is a viable option. But, I’m a writer, I GET it that writers need to be paid and I do my level best to make sure I’m contributing. I’m not perfect, and I can’t buy them all, but I do what I can.

So what do you do with all those books you read and no longer want? I take them to the library, usually, though I have been known to send them to friends (I have a box for you, Cyn, that I’ll mail eventually — and yes, I know you will read them and then go out and buy the authors you like again and again.) I know that the library often puts them in the Friends sale, but the money benefits the library so I’m not complaining.

What’s your opinion about supporting the authors you like to read? Think they’re all so rich they don’t need your dollars? Or willing to give them their cents on the dollar for the entertainment value they provide? Should you always ride for free, or maybe pony up the fare once in a while?

I said in my previous post about the RWA conference that Alison Kent wasn’t going but would know where all the good reports were. Well, spank me with a wet noodle, but I was wrong! She is there and will no doubt have good info for us.

Damn, wish I could be there too.

Words written today: 532.
Thesis pages, not including preliminary pages and works cited: 50
All pages: 62.
Prediction: 80 pages when all’s said and done.

The thesis is cracking along. I’m at 87% now. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m pretty sure I’m going to go over my original estimate of 15,000 words. So I’m not really 87% there. More like 75 – 80%, I think. I am SO ready for this to be done. I can’t even think of the possibility of revisions, though I know my committee won’t just take the thing the way it is and say, “Bravo!” I can dream, though.

The RWA conference kicks off in Atlanta this week. I so wish I could be there, but maybe next year. I’m sure the blogs will be hopping with reports, so I’m not too worried about posting good stuff this week. Check out Alison Kent, for sure, because even though she isn’t going to the conference she’ll know where all the good posts are.

I don’t really have time to write my own brilliant (I wish) post today, so here’s a sampling of stuff from some of the blogs I like:

Want to know how booksellers decide which books to order? Check out Bookseller Chick’s post from a few days ago. Very insightful.

Who’s the craziest self-promoter in the book biz? JA Konrath, of course. Go check out his posts from the 500 bookstore tour and thank God you’re at home reading about his stints in roach motels instead of doing the same yourself. (Okay, I’m sort of kidding. I admire Joe and his enthusiasm, and I read with awe. You go, dude!)

For another take on promotion, check out the fabulous and insightful Alison Kent. This post is really good. Alison discusses promotion and writing the best book possible. I like the way she thinks, and I’m always pondering the hows and whys of this stuff. Joe is incredible with what he does, and Alison is incredible at what she does. Maybe it all depends on the individual? I’ll be darned if I know the answer, but I do like reading the different opinions.

Diana Peterfreund is in the midst of a book launch and she’s having all sorts of fun over at her blog, so go check out what it’s like to be a debut author.

Need help with a word choice? I have Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day on my feeds. It’s fun. Today’s word:

limn: to draw or paint; also, to describe.

And, finally, to end on a shocking note, here’s an NPR program I saved but haven’t listened to yet about why Nabokov’s Lolita remains shocking and a favorite.

Aloha.

I’m so thrilled I had to come crow about it.

Words written today: 2044. Yahoo!!!

I am EXHAUSTED. My brain is totally fried.

Monday, it’s Orlando. And then the conclusion. And then, pray to God, no major revisions.

If you were an English major, as so many of us writers were and are, no doubt you spent more than your share of time pouring over Lit Journal articles for your papers. And no doubt you more than once stared at some critic’s interpretation of something in a book and went, “Huh?” I mean, it is funny, right?

That cigar that Sally Seton smokes in Mrs. Dalloway is much more than a cigar. It’s an appropriation of a male power symbol. What about those muddy drawers in The Sound and the Fury? Hawthorne’s scarlet letter A? Or, as my friend Michael asserts, the lighthouse in To the Lighthouse is definitely phallic (no, I’m still not talking about the bloody lighthouse in my thesis, Michael!).

I could, of course, go on and on. Sometimes these things are illuminating. Sometimes they’re mind-boggling. And sometimes they are downright amusing.

This article, found via Booksquare today, is a side-splitter for all you English majors out there.

In the latest issue of ELN, pride of place goes to an article by Jason Sellers entitled Dracula’s Band of the Hand: Suppressed Male Onanism. “I argue,” Dr Sellers announces, “that the mediation of the unavailable lover and the subsequent urgent need for autosexual satisfaction is the sexual force that propels much of Dracula.

“I will explore both the physical and psychological autoerotic imagery with which the novel suppresses, in light of that taboo, the masturbatory endeavour pursued by Dracula’s vampire-fighting crew of men – our, by way of physical allegory, manly Band of the Hand.”

The article gets even funnier after that, but I shan’t spoil the fun by posting what he says about Sellers’s theory. You’ll have to go check it out for yourselves.

And speaking of academic blowhard stuff, my thesis bar down there keeps creeping upward. I passed the 10K word mark yesterday. I can’t wait to be done with this thing! Goal for today is 4 pages, though I’ll certainly take more if the muse is feeling inspired.

Lynn Raye Harris at Kapolei Library, HI
Originally uploaded by lynnraye.

Okay, I’m trying out this Flickr thing, so not sure I’m going to get it right. Here’s moi. The link for the other photos I’ve uploaded so far is here.

It was a good session. It was also my first time reading to an audience, and yeah, I was nervous. The first glitch for me came when I had to use a microphone (all the ladies did, though our one gentleman, an accomplished public reader, did not). I had planned to hold my excerpt up, podium style, and read from it while making good eye contact with the audience. With the microphone, I had to leave the binder flat on the table and look down (I’d printed my excerpt in big type and put it in a 3-ring binder for ease in reading). Now, I’m not too tall, so I couldn’t hold the microphone directly beneath my mouth and look down because there wasn’t enough room between my face and the table to comfortably do that for long. So, I had to hold it kind of sideways.

Secondly, my husband tells me after that he could barely hear me at points. I’m like, “Dude, I asked if everyone could hear me when I started and you said yes!” He said, “Yeah, but then you moved the microphone away. Not always, but sometimes.” He found the librarian to turn up the speaker AFTER I’d finished. *sigh*

I followed Michael Little, who is a great reader and hilarious too. My story is not hilarious, but I managed to get laughs in appropriate places. And I started off funny by introducing myself as Lynn Raye Harris, not to be confused with E. Lynn Harris, the bestselling author who is male, African-American, and writes about gay characters. That got a good laugh, which made me happy.

But, yes, I felt my hand shaking from time to time, and that made me conscious of it all the more. And, though they provided water for us, my mouth got really dry as I read. I’d failed to follow Michael’s advice to suck on a cough drop right before the reading.

We had a couple of questions afterward, one by a young girl who wanted to know why we wrote books and what made us want to do it. I answered first. I tried to relate it to her by telling her it started when I was a little girl and I wanted to draw, but couldn’t, so wrote instead. Then I told her about going into the bookstore and realizing they didn’t have the story I wanted to read so I went home and wrote it. I think that’s how a lot of writers get started is by writing what you want to read and can’t find.

We spent some time after talking to the people who’d come for the reading, and we sold at least one book. Not a lot, I know, but it’s a library reading, not a bookstore, so I was pleased with that. And, she asked each of us to sign our stories, so that was fun. I’ve signed this book a few times now, and each time is still a thrill.

Finally, we wrapped it up and the four of us, plus my husband, went to dinner. I resisted the temptation to have a margarita, but I sure wanted one (we’re back on our workout diet, damn it).

I learned a lot by that one reading, let me tell you. I learned that I don’t like it, but that I want to do it again. I learned that cough drops are probably a good thing. I learned that I need to practice with a microphone. I learned that I need to prepare some answers to hypothetical questions. I learned that it isn’t a good idea to rattle on and on about yourself (no, I didn’t do that). I learned that even if I think I’m loud, I’m not. I learned that people like to be told stories and they’re there because they want to be. I learned that even when you don’t think you’ve done anything very important, there’s at least one person out there in the audience who looks up to you and wants to be where you are someday.

So, overall, it was a fun and educational experience. And it was kind of like being a princess for a couple of hours too. I’ll do it again, if I’m so fortunate, and hopefully I’ll be more polished when I do.

So today is the big reading day. And since that’s on my mind — the preparing, practicing, planning — I’m not getting as much done on the thesis as I wish. I’ve read one journal article. I’ve fiddled with my Works Cited page, because of course that always evolves as the paper gets written. I’ve reread the intro I’ve written on To the Lighthouse. It’s time to analyze the book, so of course I’m here, writing this post instead. It’ll gel soon, and I’ll hammer out a page or two (hopefully more) before time to figure out what I’m wearing tonight.

The cats have been driving me to distraction this morning as well. First, Nimitz has been a typical kittenish young cat: climbing screens, racing around the house, attacking Thumper, getting onto my sideboard and rattling crystal, attempting to use the desktop computer in the other room to spam the universe, and all the shouting in the world hasn’t helped.

And Thumper keeps coming over and begging for food. Soon as Nimitz calms down for two seconds, there’s Thumper, sitting at my feet, pawing at my leg, and meowing. It’s enough to make a girl want to go to the library!

But, this is a writing blog, so I thought I’d see if I could relate the process of thesis writing to fiction writing. I know I seem to be like any young college kid (oh, if only) who’s cramming and writing at the very last second, but the truth is I’ve been reading these texts for the last two years. The info is in there, so I’m not truly writing a 60+ page master’s thesis from scratch in three weeks. Apparently, I just don’t work in nice, manageable stretches. I meet my deadlines, but I’m usually doing it all at the last minute. I’ve prepared for it, but I just can’t seem to make it coalesce until I’m under pressure. Is this an indication of how my fiction-career is going to be?

When I write this fast, I don’t do much changing. I edit, of course, but what comes out is pretty finalized. I think it’s more natural, too. Fiction is somewhat different. I have no problem scrapping the execution of an idea and trying it another way. (Well, I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.) I’d throw a screaming fit if I had to do that with the thesis.

In the meantime, as I work at academic writing, ideas for stories keep popping up. I think it’s a natural avoidance response. My brain wants to stop working and start playing. That said, do you think it’s possible to trick your brain into working on your fiction when you feel blocked? What if you decided to write something really boring and technical, gave yourself an assignment and started researching and getting down to business? Do you think your brain would, assuming it works like mine, suddenly want to work on that story about Aunt Petunia that you’ve been stuck in for the last month?

Just a thought, and one I’m sure has been written about in various writer magazines. I do think, maybe, that for some people comfort equals diminished drive (hinging on the previous self-sabotage post). Don’t you know people who have day jobs and want so badly to be full time writers? They write all the time, whenever they can get a scrap of time, and work hard to achieve the goal. Some of them get there, too.

But what happens when you get the free time? When you don’t have to work or worry about the bills being paid or having health insurance? Is there a human tendency to slack when in comfort, or is it dependent on individuals? Do we need pressure to write?

I’d be interested in knowing how you feel about comfort versus pressure. (Speaking of pressure, I’m off to the land of the Woolf….)