Is any coast the best coast?

We just flew back from a week in Seattle, where my writing goal was to take simple setting notes, in case I ever want to set a book there.

Did I accomplish that? No.

I was alone with two toddlers almost the whole week. The goal was unrealistic to begin with.

We had a great time doing kid stuff, seeing the 1960's neon lights of Pike Place and waving to the grungsters, fishmongers and folk artists. Now, back on the East Coast, I'm reflecting on what it meant to be in a place I've always dreamed of visiting: The Great Pacific Northwest.

For starters, we didn't do this trip right. The way to visit the Northwest is to go hiking. We spent the whole time in downtown Seattle. A situation that frustrated me.

But the views? Even from the city? Breathtaking. The cloud formations could spur a million-word masterpiece alone, not to mention the sweeping landscapes of Puget Sound and Mount Rainier that can be taken in from Seattle, a city much steeper than I expected. Steep like San Francisco.

And the food was awesome. Everything is so much fresher on the West coast.

Many on my Facebook feed observe that “The Left Coast is the Best Coast.” I believe that sentiment refers to the views combined with the laid-back attitudes. But I found myself getting frustrated with the laid-backness, and halfway through a short trip I was longing for the East Coast again.

Where people “Get stuff done.”

Five out of five mornings at the W Hotel, the coffee urn wasn't full, or the cups weren't stocked, or their were no lids or creamer or sugar, and the beautiful receptionists were standing there five feet away doing F-all about it. Five out of five days I walked up to an establishment to find it randomly closed during normal business hours.

Here is my observation: laid-backness is a great asset in the human condition. It makes for more vibrant, artsy societies. I adore the fervor in their commitment to let themselves, and you, be exactly who you want to be.

When you combine that fleeting quality with a mind for business it becomes an unrivaled combination. Microsoft. Google. Apple. Starbucks. Hollywood.

But when laid-backness becomes an excuse for laziness, that is not okay.

People are affected by their surroundings. The West Coast seems to be a place where city battles the need for wilderness to overcome, with mountains looming over you in every direction, as opposed to East Coast cities that have beaten down the wild until it bent to their warped desires.

I think most of us agree the wild is better out there. I also think it's fair to observe West Coasters have grown up with a constant sense that a lot of what goes on in their country goes on three thousand miles away. How that has shaped psychology and mentality of the people is endlessly fascinating to me.

Just an aside: I'm not discounting the importance nor beauty of the Mid-West, I just haven't spent a lot of time there.

Regarding the West coasters and their distinctive attitudes: Be a hipster, but do your job. You work at a hotel in the service industry. Better yet, come up with a new system so you're not running out of coffee supplies every ten minutes. I will say no more about the coffee situation at the W.

But for me this begged the question: Could I live on the West Coast? The place I have dreamt about, longed for, lusted after for much of my life? (When I first moved from Boston to London I found it surreal and ironic that I always thought I'd be making the opposite migration, rather than East>Further East.)

I am not sure. The lack of service-mindedness is one of the things I find most difficult about living in Europe. Just try asking for a glass of ice water in a non-Michelin-starred restaurant. Seriously, just give it a try. But in Europe, the fact you live in “a living museum” makes up for a lot. The history on every corner lends perspective about our modern cumpulsion for instant gratification. Plus, the fact that I walk on borrowed land makes my expectations suitably leaner.

I love nothing more than comparing the psychology of various cultures and the pros and cons of living in different lands.

Maybe I'd need to live in Alaska to get the real West Coast experience of which I've often dreamed. Or perhaps California's Lost Coast. But, then the weather....

Shall we just sum this discussion up by saying the grass is always greener. But in the Pacific Northwest (as in Ireland), thanks to that frustrating wet weather, it truly is.

Indie authors on the future of publishing (Part 3)

For this third and final part of the series, I've asked for predictions on the future of publishing from Bennett Gavrish, an indie author who also pens an incredible book review site and has a personal stake in the publishing business. His newest venture, BookDigits, a smarter way to measure books, will launch to the public this summer. The site uses an innovative system for rating, reviewing, and recommending books – all of which will change how you think about reading. [Readers can follow @bookdigits for Twitter updates on the service.]

Here are Bennett's thoughts and I'll conclude the series with a few of my own predictions.

Thoughts on the Future by Bennett Gavrish

For indie writers like myself, it can be fun to speculate on the future of publishing. But all we know for sure is that the next big shift or trend will be instigated by the companies who own the distribution process – specifically Amazon. Self publishing was a joke of an industry until Amazon launched the Kindle Direct Publishing program in 2007. Aspiring writers had always been out there, but KDP was the first platform to offer broad access to readers thanks to the ebook boom.

I expect the evolution of publishing to continue at a gradual pace, and here are a few trends that I could envision becoming realities over the next five years.

• The Rise of the Middlemen – This is already well underway. New websites and companies pop up all the time claiming to be experts in ebook publishing and offering to walk new authors through the process for supposedly reasonable fees. In most cases, these operations turn out to be little more than scams, and unfortunately, we're only going to keep seeing more of them. My advice to indie writers is simple: remember that this is self-publishing, and therefore you should always be in total control over the creative and business processes. You can't do all your own editing, cover design, and ebook formatting, but make sure you use the free resources that are out there or work with freelancers that you trust before you hand over a pile of money to a mysterious company.

• Barriers to Entry – It's free to publish on platforms like KDP, and we as indie writers take that for granted. The self publishing business model could easily change in the future. The Kindle Store has a serious spam/quality issue, and one way Amazon could choose to attack it would be to add barriers to the KDP program. Maybe one day, writers will have to pay a $500 upfront fee to get listed in the Kindle Store, and in response they'll get to keep a higher ratio of royalties. Aside from fees, Amazon and others could implement stricter editorial standards to their self publishing systems in an effort to block out those pathetic books with 7 pages of content and typos in their titles.

• New Approaches for Publishing Houses – Traditional publishers won't disappear overnight, but more and more well-known authors are already beginning to consider self publishing as a viable option. The old-school publishing houses will have to reinvent themselves during the next decade. Some may transition into author marketing firms that specialize in post-publication promotional services, rather than trying to remain in control the entire editorial process. Other publishers could make a big push for international growth. It's easy for indie writers to get their books into the hands of American readers, but traditional publishing houses have the size, ability, and experience to reach other valuable markets.

• Analytics for Authors – This one is less of a prediction and more of a wish. I published my first book in 2011, and since then, nothing has changed about the type of data that indie writers get back from ebook sites. Retailers will tell you how many books you sold each month and maybe what days you sold them on – but that's it. Over the past two years, I've experimented with advertising campaigns on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Google Adwords, and I have no clue which of those led to actual book sales and which were totally worthless. Indie authors are craving analytics, and I hope the big ebook stores realize it soon.

.... And a Few Final Predictions by Emily McDaid

• Lengths Will Change -- The novel as a form will become less important than good storytelling. With indie authors not needing to adhere to archaic word length restrictions, they'll end their story when it feels right, rather than try to meet some arbitrary "average novel length". The 'Zon is already on this with its Shorts program.
• Mass Defection -- Waves of traditionally-published authors like Stephen King will work out their current contracts, ditch their publishers and go indie. Why on earth wouldn't they? The power of indie will only grow.
• Monopoly versus Monopoly -- Just as the 'Zon will continue to own ebookselling, the Big Six will conglomerate. It's a scary thought, but I wouldn't be surprised if they became one monopoly over the next decade.
• Multimedia Rises with Ereader Improvements -- More authors will include video, audio and other multimedia with their ebooks.
• Libraries Will Catch Up -- This might be my wish, but I think libraries will eventually realize they need to carry indie books via ebook readers. At the moment my local library only carries traditionally-published works whether in paperback, hardback or ebook. This has got to change!
• Genre? What Genre? -- Indie authors don't need to categorize (or pigeonhole) their books the way publishers have for decades. I believe we'll see more examples of genre-straddling fiction, as well as a greater number of works that defy genre conventions. Who says a mystery has to begin with a body?!

I hope you enjoyed this series. If you have predictions that haven't been included, please leave a comment or get in touch via my contact form.

The real apocalypse: a Live Preview button for parenting

The beloved t'interwebs has delivered up a host of articles lately about the dysphoria of parenting small children. 

There was the article from a Pastor about how he wants to hold other adults under water when they tell him to "Enjoy Every Minute" with his three under-five-year-old boys. He admits to being "bone tired" every.single.day. There was also the open letter from a mom to all moms about how we're not perfect. She says we all feed our kids chicken nuggets. Just some of us don't admit it.

I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon a week late, which is the kind of punctuality with which I complete all tasks lately.

You know how in blogging, you pick a theme and you live in that little world with its quirks, colors, and look-and-feel? And then you can sometimes stumble upon the "Change Theme" and its ever-so-tempting "Live Preview" button? And you can just let your blog dance in that live preview for awhile and dream of what it would be like to have lavenders instead of corals over your masthead?

Yeah, you SO know what I'm talking about.

Now think about the zombies, aliens, werewolves, witches, robots, Schwarzenegger and other creatures who inhabit the typical tale of apocalypse.

The Live Preview button is what apocalypse REALLY looks like, if only we could apply it to parenting. if you could give a young couple about to embark on the journey of "trying to get pregnant" a live preview of my Saturday morning, I  guarantee you, the human race would die out. Fast.

No one would choose this:

• A 5am wakeup. So.harsh.
• Followed by a 6am accident in MY BED while he dragged his fingernails across my iPad. (The night always ends in mom and dad's bed, just so you know).
• To which I was so dang tired I just pulled the sheet up off the mattress, told him to pick a new spot, and rolled back over. No clean up required when a) it's ONLY pee and b) your personal standards have slipped THAT FAR and c) it's 6 freakin' am on a Saturday for goodness' sake.
• A hugely embarrassing attempt to eat breakfast inside a Dunkin' Donuts when my daughter morphed into a Strawberry and Lemon Coolata Flinging Rattlesnack. Where the heck have all our drive-throughs gone, Massachusetts? Don't you know they were parents' only outpost on a rainy day?
• A playground experience that included said daughter BULLYING a two-year-old boy. She chased him through the park screaming "SHOES" (her current obsession), then pushed him over, and he cried his little eyes out. The father looked at me and my kids like "Where is your wolf den?"
• A playground experience that also involved holding a diaper IN MY HAND while my son squatted in the bushes and POOPED into it.
• A ride home that did not involve any naps. Not one IOTA of sleep.
• I could go on. And on... and on... and on... but it'll suffice to say that being a single parent on a rainy Saturday freakin' sucks. 

Before I hit the "live preview" button, here's what I was spending my Saturday doing:

• Dressed in cute clothes. With makeup on. And my hair washed and dried within the past twelve days. Sipping a latte in a coffee shop, flirting with my man across the table and Reading.A.Book.

I'll say nothing more about whether the lavender or coral is preferable here.

But then you sit down to write about your day and start to feel better. And then the kids shriek with delight when you open the freezer for the raspberry-flax-seed-smoothie-popsicles you made with them yesterday. (Which they insisted on sharing with the neighbors. The twenty-four-year-old neighbors were PSYCHED to pre-party with that, let me tell you.) And then they sit down and read themselves a book (before they can read) and remember to say "by Sandra blah blah blah" as you always teach them to do, to respect authors. And then they make a "machine" out of a puppet and a cat toy that will "grab candy." And then they smile at you.

And then maybe the human race doesn't die out.

Not such a guts and gore apocalypse tale then, I guess. Back to the zombies. Or in my case, conservative religious cults (the latest villain lurking in the dark shadows of my mind).

I'll end this random-as-heck blog post with a shout-out:

To all the moms who know exactly what I'm talking about. Happy Mother's Day. You're doing an amazing job.

Indie authors on the future of publishing (Part 2)

As I stated in the first part of this post, I recently asked indie authors to give their opinions about "What Publishing Will Look Like in Five Years."

Frankly, I had grown sick of seeing agents and publishers' viewpoints on this topic and I specifically wanted to see what self-published authors thought.

It's been a big hit so far.

This installment features Bianca Sloane, suspense author and master of the plot twist, and Gamal Hennessy, the multi-talented author, lawyer and head of Nightlife Publishing. 

Thoughts on Publishing by Bianca Sloane

There will be new gatekeepers:  In the old days, agents and publishers held the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, and self-publishing was seen as the scourge of the industry, a last resort for hacks who couldn’t get a book deal with a “real” publisher.  Agents and publishers determined what was commercially viable and critics told us what was worth reading.

Obviously, we’ve seen that notion get blown out of the water, as the self-published are now being lavishly courted by publishers – after being rejected by agents and building their own fan bases hungry for their work.  However, in spite of all the amazing success so many indie authors have achieved, there’s still a bit of a taint due to the literally millions of self-published books on the market brimming with typos, bad grammar, sloppy story structure and bad cover art.  Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should. 

I think the new gatekeepers will be book bloggers, who already wield considerable influence.  They have devoted followers who will buy books on their recommendation, tend to be thoughtful in their praise and fair in their criticism, which can only help an author. 

A great number of “traditionally” published authors will have gone indie: Indie publishing affords you incredible freedom: you choose your publishing schedule, cover art and titles.  Big name authors at traditional publishing houses don’t get that luxury (well, maybe Stephen King).  I think we’ll see those more of those authors step away from the traditional publishing model and take greater creative and editorial control over their backlist and future releases.

Traditional publishers as we know them will become distribution houses:  A lot of indie authors who sign with traditional publishers are holding onto their digital rights and relying on their publisher for print distribution.   There’s just no substitute for that kind of muscle.

There will still be print books:  I love my Kindle, but I still love print books.  I still buy print books. In hardcover. In paperback. I still check out books from the library.  There’s still something about walking into a bookstore or library or looking at my bookshelves  and seeing… books.  As much as people have decried the eBook as the death of the print book, I just don’t think hard copy books will ever die.  There’s room for both.

Indie Publishing Between Now and 2018 by Gamal Hennessy

Here are a few thoughts that I had concerning where independent publishing might go between now and 2018.

I think all these ideas stem from two basic concepts. First, technology will play a larger role in consumption of stories and second, the increased fragmentation of markets will alter the way writers interact with their audience and with other writers. I’ve put in some links that connect to other essays I’ve written about the same subject.

Technology

1. Evolution from Print: Writers could attempt to reach non-reading customers by releasing more of their work beyond print. This could mean a rise in independent audio books if and when the costs come down. It could also mean more collaboration between writers and artists to create more independent graphic novels, especially for YA, horror and sci-fi titles.

2. More Competition: More potential writers will enter the craft and tools will be developed to make writing and publishing "easier". This will increase the overall pool of writers and the amount of competition for existing writers.

3. The Future Brings Back the Past: A shift to reading on the mobile screen will create new opportunities for shorter work and a revival of the serialized shorts that used to thrive in matinee movies before television and in magazines like Omni, Playboy and Reader's Digest.

4. The Writing App: Somewhere, someone will have a best seller complied or written largely by a computer program or phone app. The book will be soulless and horrible in terms of quality, but its success will lead to a wave of "writers" who will release stories that make the current independent offerings read like Shakespeare.

5. Better Book Suggestions: Personalized sorting tools will be created to help connect independent publishers to more readers. This might work like an extension of Amazon's suggestion tool, unburdened by their corporate influence. It will flourish...until Amazon buys it and absorbs it like the Borg.

Fragmentation

1. Increased Collaboration: Writers could try and reach new audiences by creating independent anthologies of their work. Each writer would bring their audience to the party, in the same way a music festival combines niche audiences into a much bigger event.

2. Personal Growth: As competition rises and revenue streams continue to shrink, more writers will write for reasons other than money. The desire to make money will exist as long as we have money, but like exercise or learning a language, writing will also become more of a personal growth activity.

3. Tighter Niches: In the same way music has become granular in its focus with the rise of digital music, writing could go down the same road, leading to micro genres specific to each writer and group (See tribe books)

4. "Tribe" Sponsored Books: As audiences fragment and niches become more narrow writers could begin to write for highly specialized audiences. Goodreads, Facebook and LinkedIn groups of 500 or more whose members all enjoy a specific type of book could sponsor and support writers in their group who write in that specific style.

5. More Experimental Writing: A flood of writers will definitely lead to more banality but there will also be more people desperate enough or free enough to break conventions and take a chance. Many of these will end in failure but there will also be one or two books that will turn into wild successes that will outlast their initial fame.

The one thing that I think will never change is the journey that writers have to take in pursuit of their craft. Every writer has to face insecurity, frustration, rejection and all the other milestones of artistic expression. It's been the same since Homer and technology can’t change that.

###

Thanks so much to all my contributors for giving such thoughtful responses! I'll post my own thoughts in Part 3 soon.

Indie authors on the future of publishing (Part 1)

I asked several indie authors for their predictions on "What Publishing Will Look Like in Five Years."

I got a varied response, which says something in itself.

For Part 1, we'll begin with Shawn StJean, author of Clotho's Loom, and end with a more lighthearted take on the subject from Rachel Creager Ireland, author of Post Rock Limestone Caryatids.

Take it away, Shawn!

Self-Publishing and the Tides: A Five-Year Vision by Shawn StJean

I’m no pundit, and my experience is limited to publishing several dozen articles and three books (two by university presses, and a self-published novel) over the past fifteen years. So I’m not interested so much in prognosticating, as extrapolating from other known systems in the universe, such as the ocean tides, or 1970s Hollywood (not appreciably different from the sea it resides near). Where will book publishing go in the next five or ten years? Some developments do seem nearly inevitable.

I have no hope, fear, or belief that the major commercial publishing houses will collapse, or that print books will go out of style. Vinyl LPs and cassettes and CDs and mp3s have their day and go extinct, but these are only delivery modes, after all—recorded music is the point of all of them. This should mean that the paper codex is also nearly obsolete in 2013, with its expensive material production (versus the portability, cheapness, and instant deliverability of ebooks.) However, printers like Lightning Source have innovated and come up with Print On Demand, and this is no fly-by-night technology: alone, it should guarantee a certain stability for a decade. Many of the inventory concerns and marketability difficulties of the past will be permanently solved by it. And the quality and speed are a reality, and improving every day. The only thing that can really doom the print book is a collapse of demand—for that, I’m afraid you’d have to wean people from their fondness for material objects.

The same for the Big Six. Major coporations can adapt—one might even say, it’s the business of big business to adapt. This keeps everybody in a job. Staying one step ahead of the other guy, copying his moves, dodging his thrusts—publishing is capitalism incarnate. I doubt five or even ten years is enough to shake the veneer of legitimacy folks like Random House give to a writer’s work. Even if every author with name-recognition today were to jump ship and self-publish from now until death (it won’t happen—they’d simply be offered better terms)—the big publishers could simply move to their B-listers, their slush piles. There’s endless content. It’s not like we’re really talking about quality of the literature anyway. When we talk books, we’re talking about a product in the marketplace. People haven’t stopped buying thermoses because the factory was moved overseas—it was a mediocre product before, and it’s still a mediocre product, but it’ll get you to lunch with at least lukewarm coffee.

What will emerge in a significant way is a competing mode of publishing, and it’s no surprise that it’s self-publishing. (Wow, Sherlock!) But how will self-publishing adapt to the traditional establishment’s counter-moves?

Somewhere, somehow, somebody is going to start a publishing service that takes a writer’s rough manuscript all the way through to print or e-book (editing, formatting, doing covers, providing ISBNs, distribution, and the rest) and find a way to do this affordably and allow indie authors to just write--thus stealing a lot of business from entities like Createspace, which today offer the same services for more money than the average indie book could hope to make in profit. Currently, these services profit most from the authors themselves, not readers.  And of course, once such an efficient company becomes viable in the market, a host of imitators will follow, the software will improve, and the original innovators (I’d guess around age 23) will sell the concern, make millions, and retire.

That hurdle overcome, the overwhelming glut of books in the market that many are already predicting will become a hard reality. Supply massively floods the gates of demand, and the value of the individual product drops. Meanwhile, to keep their own heads above water, the big publishing houses continuously seek ways to differentiate their “professionally produced” stuff from the “counterfeit” books: logos get bigger, seals of approval spawn everywhere, more money gets staked on fewer authors, and we see the rise of the novelistic “blockbuster,” with obscene amounts of money spent promoting a tiny, elite bunch of name-recognition authors. The rest, rejected, fall out and into self-publishing, which then sees a consonant resurgence—everything is ebb and flow—of popularity because of them.

On what logic do I base these predictions? Inductive. The same phenomenon got Hollywood where it is today. After a decade of stagnation in the 1960s, the major studios (also a Big Six) turned to the youngsters—the so-called film-schoolers, though not all had formal training—Hopper, Fonda, Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, to name a few. Indie film went mainstream, and a renaissance of imagination held for about five glorious years. Watch the films of the late 1960s / early 1970s, produced by outfits like United Artists and American Zoetrope. There’s no greater contrast to traditional, predictable storytelling inside of this country.

Having gotten back on its feet, the industry was quick to commodify its youthful talent. Spielberg’s Duel was followed by Jaws, Lucas’ THX-1138 and American Graffiti by Star Wars, Coppola’s Godfather by Godfather II. Great content, sure. But the age of the blockbuster was upon us, and ever since we’ve had more and more money staked on fewer and more formulaic films, to the point where an $200 million opus like The Avengers ought to be a source of societal shame in a world of undistributed wealth. (Yes, even Joss Whedon has his price.) And yet, we Americans don’t see it.

That’s about as far ahead as I care to look. Details aside, the point is a continual struggle for equilibrium. The ocean has many tides and ripples, and the water may appear higher or lower outside your house, from hour to hour, but true sea change is exceedingly slow.

A Slightly More Irreverent Take on Publishing, by Rachel Creager Ireland

*Barnes & Noble will team up with big publishers to open the first print bookstore in Antarctica. The store will list 25 titles at a price of $80 each. The retailer will be perplexed at disappointing sales.

*Amazon will establish a special algorithm-writing department staffed entirely by monkeys. At first people will be dumbfounded at the recommendations they get, or the disappearance of reviews they have written, or the varying rankings of books; but the public will come to understand that these monkeys are typing ALL THE TIME, so they are bound to come up with something great eventually.

*New releases of books will continue to skyrocket. There will be more books than people to read them, and this glut will drive prices into negative numbers. Authors desperate for sales will actually pay consumers to purchase their books, and make a living by buying other peoples' books.

*Seriously, the future is wide open. We are in a revolution. The possibilities are infinite, and where the industry is going is as predictable as the weather. I can't think of a more exciting time to be a writer.

Author Q&A on BiancaSloane.com

I'm delighted to share a Q&A I did with my critique partner, suspense author Bianca Sloane. We are both about to release our second novel, so we're getting the marketing engine greased.

The interview, found here, covers my writing process, a little more about my forthcoming book, and the process of critiquing.

If you love plot twists, check out Bianca's books. She is the master of the unconventional plot, with twists and turns you never see coming!

Tetherbird cover revealed!

I'm incredibly excited to release the cover of TETHERBIRD..... In my second suspense novel, a Duke squares off with a damaged, dangerous war veteran, exploring whether our homelands are more treacherous than war. It's coming to Amazon Kindle in a few weeks!

The full jacket copy is available here.

AD Wheeler is responsible for the photography and Torrie Cooney for the ebook cover design. I am overwhelmed by your artistry and cannot recommend you both enough! Thank you! And thanks, too, to Bianca Sloane for introducing me to Torrie and PBS for introducing me to AD.

Supporting it all

One of the themes I often explore in my writing is the role of the supporting character, the behind-the-scenes person, the one who is actually controlling the plot, even if they seem like a minor player.

Readers of The Boiler Plot will see that straight away. My protagonist Alex is a PR person, always orchestrating the limelight for others, never in the limelight herself. My forthcoming book, Tetherbird, explores the same theme except about military wives, using a plot twist you won't see until Part III.

This is a problem with which I can relate. Spending twelve years in PR, I worked myself to the bone helping others chase their dreams, but at the end of the workday, I was too tired to practice my own creative writing. The writing part of my brain was completely spent on my clients, not on my own work. I have since traded that lifestyle for a lower paid, less glamorous, dream-chasing career. I haven't given up on PR altogether, but I only want to do it part-time. The loss of my own dream gave me too much angst.

Here's a little secret about me: Every time I flew on a plane, which was upwards of thirty times a year in my Euro-cruising lifestyle, I thought, If this plane crashes I haven't been doing anything to achieve my own writing dream. What has my life been worth?

Sad, huh? But I no longer feel that way. Having kids helps. But through my writing career, I now understand the inner peace we can achieve by putting aside things that don't matter (money, wealth, fashion, greed) and doing what inspires us. Creating a legacy for ourselves that will last long after we leave this earth.

There is another, even more personal, reason why I am quite taken with the role of the supporting character. My mother-in-law is fond of summing my life up by saying “Behind every great man, there's a great woman.” A more PC way of saying this is, if one partner has a high-flying career, their spouse is taking a major hit for the team which often goes unrecognized.

My husband saves lives every day at work. The gratitude that he receives from his job is that he is directly responsible for people being alive. He looks after a ward of patients with liver and kidney failure, patients who are incrementally creeping up the registry for the New England Donor Bank. When a patient is sick enough to top the list, the next time a poor soul perishes in this region with an Organ Donor card, my husband and his surgical team travel to that donor's body (via ambulance, helicopter or even sometimes a private jet). They harvest the organs, bring them back to MGH in a cooler and put them in their patient, much of the time saving that person's life.

The word miracle is cliched and overused, but organ transplantation really is one.

He also does live kidney transplants. (Live liver transplants happen too but are still rare.) There is an incredible fifteen minute film called The Search and the Gift (in which James briefly appears) about one woman's experience receiving a kidney from a kind stranger she found on Facebook. There is a term for donating a kidney to someone you don't know: altruistic donation.

James and the other doctors sacrifice a lot for this line of work. He's never not on call. His beeper goes off all the time, and that dreaded Blackberry is never more than twenty minutes away from its next interruption.

But the kids and I suffer too. And we don't get the gratitude. We never get to look into a patient's eyes when they thank him for every breath they take. I'm not bitter about it,  I am honored to support him in this miracle work that he does. But that doesn't mean I can't recognize that it's a peculiar state of being. One that has affected me so deeply that I intend to explore this theme throughout my writing career. I consider myself blessed to be James' supporting character, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard when a typical night at our house goes something like this:

• 9pm – Phone call. Donor might happen tonight
• 10pm – Phone call. Donor is happening in four hours
• 10:01pm – James heads to bed for a precious couple hours sleep. I finish watching Homeland. (I'm obsessed.)
• 11pm – Baby wakes up wanting milk and for reasons unknown cries for the next two hours
• 12am – Phone call. Something pertinent James needs to know
• 1:30a.m. - Texts and emails about the patient
• 1:45 a.m. - Alarm goes off
• 2-2:30 a.m. - James showers and rustles around in the kitchen making himself breakfast at a time when most people are just heading to bed. He then leaves for work, at which point my role is relinquished, and I can try to get a couple hours sleep before....
• 5am - Cats wake me up to be let out
• 6am - Toddler wakes me up for good

As you can see, no one in my household gets much sleep (apart from my toddler who's a sleeping champ, for reasons unknown). We have grown used to being tired. But the eye bags aren't cute.

One of James' and my favorite dreams is the day my book gets made into an Oscar-nominated movie and my career surpasses his. We can dream! :-)

Anyway – now that I'm back to fiction. I love to explore the theme that supporting characters can carry a film, a book, a life, while the protagonist is more of a figurehead. Who are your favorite supporting characters? My recent one is Leo Dicaprio in Django Unchained. He made the creepiest villain I've seen on screen since the late Heath Ledger's Joker.

And if you, yourself, are a supporting character in life, I would love to trade stories. Get in touch here or on my comment form.

The final compile

Just a quick update on the status of TETHERBIRD. Today marks the first day it's gone from "manuscript" to "e-book." It's off to my proofreader. I'm done drafting/revising/editing and I'm now in the final push to completion.

I'm reviewing book cover designs by Torrie Cooney - the amazing designer I'm delighted to work with. I'll release the cover as soon as it's finished.

I'll be spending the next two weeks reveling in the feeling of finishing my second book.

I'm still on track to release TETHERBIRD by Memorial Day. I can't wait. And I cannot thank the people who've helped me with this book enough. 

Because I'm a glutton for punishment and I have no idea how to relax and do nothing, I'll be spending the next two weeks working on a memory quilt made out of my kids' baby clothes. I need to stock up some creative energy before I start another novel!

I love that dirty water

I had the best day ever in Boston yesterday. Did you hear me, terrorists? Best.Day.Ever.

Here's what I did.

• Got a babysitter for four hours -- happy, happy, happy freedom day
• Felt the sun on my face on a perfect 68 degree day - not a cloud in the sky
• Sat in the Public Garden amongst the spring blooms and read the FINAL, FINAL draft of my forthcoming book, Tetherbird -- I am so proud. I can't wait to get this book out there. (May launch to be announced soon)
• Got a mani/pedi - Springtime girly treat ;-)
• Listened to VP Joe Biden's speech at the MIT Police Officer memorial....which was inspiring... and then saw his cavalcade drive past on Charles Street in Beacon Hill
• Smiled into the faces of strangers who look truly happy, despite what happened last week

Take that, terrorism. You'll never win. Like Joe Biden said, you won't win because nothing can beat our philosophy of openness and inclusion.

I walk amongst terrorists

I run past Norfolk Street. It takes me two minutes from my front door, where I'm raising two kids, to their front door, where they built pressure cooker bombs. I run past the mosque on Prospect. Gaze at the shiny, painted tiles.

Morbid curiosity diverts my Saturday jog.

I want answers. I want logic. I want sense.

I know I won't get it.

I pass beautiful cherry blossoms set off by perfect white picket fences. I breathe the scent of cedar--a constant perfume in this big city. I fill my lungs with the fresh ocean breeze rejuvenating us every few minutes. I look up at the clear sky. 

I feel grateful I finally slept last night after the manhunt and murder spree ended. I feel relieved the emotional hangover I've had since Monday is lifted. But I feel nothing but sorrow for the families affected, for those whose emotional hangover will last for months. For years. Forever.

I run and I wonder about all the runners who didn't finish. Those who had a personal goal of 4:30. Did they turn down Dartmouth, keep running down Newbury? Did they refuse to let terrorism stop them from running down their personal goal?

I wonder how a young man turned radical in a country which gave asylum, a country which wanted him to succeed. How a local family turned murderous. I run a tally in my head of their perceived advantages. They got out of a war-torn nation when millions did not. They had the opportunity to live in beautiful Cambridge. They were blessed with good looks. They had each other.

And yet they turned on us. They killed a kid. A cop. Two lovely young women. I ask myself again and again, how does this happen?

I walk past Rindge and Latin, a school so multicultural it must offer the best social education of any public high school in America. I think of the forty-seven languages spoken in the terrorist's graduating class. I walk past the library connected to it which must be the best library in the world.

My high school had one language: Bad English. Many of my fellow high school students read one book: TV.

I think of how I left a close-minded town in Upstate NY to live in a city so open-minded. A city where people read. A city where people think. Educate themselves. Help each other out.

A great city. My city.

My corner of my city. Inman Square, a place I feel honored to call home.

I run past beloved local bars where FBI agents rested for a few well-deserved minutes after twelve hour shifts, declaring how awesome those spots are. And I think, "Damn straight."

I walk amongst terrorists and I wonder, how could this be? In this place?

I look into the faces of my three-year-old and my one-year-old and I wonder how I'll convince them there's more good in the world than evil. I wonder how I'll convince them crowded public places are safe. Especially when every time I'm in the Cambridgeside Galleria I wonder if I walk amongst an active shooter. When every time I see a film that looks good I weigh up the decision to go see it with the helplessness of sitting in a theatre where I'd be a sitting duck if someone brought a gun.

I walk to my mailbox and wait for the delivery of my Stay Strong Boston t-shirt. I think how they will never intimidate us, even if their stupidity baffles us.

I wonder how the world would look if we hadn't invaded Baghdad. How our country would look if Congress wasn't on the payroll of oil and guns. I feel angry at people posting messages on social media that one life isn't more valuable than another, as if we don't think that, as if we don't know that. I wonder what Chechnya would be like if the Cold War never happened. I wonder what the world would look like if Afghanistan was the world's leading flower exporter, not heroin exporter.

I wonder, but my questions bounce around a hollow mind.

I want to believe there is an end to this. I want to believe it will get less frequent, not more. I want to believe there is a future where less weapons will be available to people with crazy, illogical ideologies. I want to believe our children will invent answers that we have not.

I walk amongst terrorists, and I focus on my neighbors' wide smiles as I pass. In those expressions I see that good always prevails over evil. That we will win.

An army of dung beetles and a wish

The night his baby sister pooped in the tub, I told my three-year-old that while he was sleeping, I called in an army of dung beetles to come clean up the mess. His wonderment was precious.

He's never forgotten it, though it happened more than two months ago. Nearly every day, usually spurred on by our daily reading of The Beetle Book, he brings up the army of dung beetles. He wishes they could come back. Plus I think he likes to check and make sure my story is the same.

For me, this ritual is a reminder of the power of storytelling. Kids don't forget anything they are read or told. Similarly, I never forget a strong story I've read, whether it was thirty years ago or last night.

May my novels--someday--have this power over people that the tales I enjoy concocting for my kids seem to have over them. That's my wish. 

Can writers read?

I was chatting to fellow indie author Shawn StJean over email today, discussing how I'm struggling to read.

Yes, struggling to read.

My problem is that while I'm in the middle of editing my own novel, I have an editor's hat on, and I overanalyze EVERYTHING I read. It's such an annoying habit when you just want to kick your feet up and read a damn book. Especially right before bed. I just want my writer's mind to switch off at that point.

I want to know how other writers accomplish this.

Shawn felt the answer was picking up good quality stuff. But I am having trouble finding it. (Always an issue, non?)

I have a goal of 250 books this year. 80% will be novels. The remaining 20% will encompass nature writing, books about writing, and memoirs.

I don't finish books that I'm struggling to get through, which is how I think I'll reach that goal, because some books will be skimmed or just put down.

Please, tell me what to read to get myself out of this rut. My go-to authors keep disappointing me. Which is a larger story -- the disappointment I've been feeling lately with traditionally-published works. To give concrete examples, at the risk of sounding like a literary snob, here's a list of stuff I've felt very "MEH" about lately--and I'm sorry to be so harsh on these writers, but I'm banking on the fact they aren't going to read this post!

-Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna, while fascinating, needed to be edited with a chainsaw--a problem I feel big brand writers who've been around awhile often suffer from. Once they become REALLY famous, their editors seem to lose the nerve to edit their books properly. 

-John Irving's latest stuff is one disappointment after another for me. I can never get past chapter one. The characters just aren't doing it for me.

-Many great authors are aging and it feels to me like they are writing stuff aimed at older people, stuff I have trouble relating to. Richard Russo falls in this camp. So does Booker prize winner Julian Barnes.

--Younger writers are writing in such a stark style, with a lack of interesting vocabulary, that I'm getting bored with their writing and I find it lacks emotional feeling. Stewart O'Nan and Michael Dahlie (and he won a PEN!) both fall into this camp. Although, to be fair to O'Nan, his stark style is really good and I would continue to read his books even though they don't give me an emotional reaction. I give more details of Dahlie's work in my review of The Best of Youth found here.

--Edgy writers like Chuck Pahluniak and Chad Kultgen have fizzled out after a few interesting chapters, and failed to capture my interest,  even though I typically love edgier fiction.... the books I've picked up by these two authors have just turned out to be boring.

--I read the latest Nordic mystery prize winner -- The Boy in a Suitcase -- and it was nowhere even approaching Stieg Larsson's league, however, he's tragically dead. I think I need to try some more Henning Mankell. He's alive, after all. 

I should note, in the event any of these writers read this, I'm aware I have just lambasted years worth of work in a very snobby sounding post. But I just wanted to demonstrate why I feel like I'm in a rut.

In contrast, I really liked Liz Jensen's The Uninvited, and some of the indie stuff I've read lately has been awesome, such as Post Rock Limestone Carytids and Bianca Sloane's forthcoming novel, Sweet Little Lies. Does that tell me something????? Yes, I think it tells me two things. Indie work is interesting to me. I think it has more guts. Speculative fiction is also interesting me right now.

So, indies, tell me: What do you do when you're in a reading rut? And how can writers read?

10 things I've learned about self-publishing

Writing, editing, proofreading, publishing and marketing your own book will teach you many things. Here's a quick list of 10 things I've learned so far on my strange and beautiful self-publishing odyssey:

1. Marketing a book is about meeting one new reader at a time. You're not going to attract thousands in one go, no matter what tactics you use. The literature industry is just not as big as some markets. But every happy reader will tell another new reader about your work.
2. An industry veteran recently said there are more writers than readers. Anyone new to the publishing industry needs to understand that supply and demand is dramatically not in your favor. There are more than a million books on Amazon. It's important to be realistic about what your real goals are. Money, fame, fortune... those things only happen to a select few. Touching readers' lives, making people feel and think -- not to mention the internal peace you will feel that you have chased your dreams and produced a book -- those are the real goals, and those things are happening to hundreds of thousands of authors as we speak. The rainbow is the prize -- not the pot of gold. So, forget all the crap that doesn't matter and keep writing! Keep writing! Keep writing!
3. Once you're done, critique partners are necessary for making your book the best it can be. LadiesWhoCritique is a great place to meet one. That's where I met mine (Bianca Sloane) and I worship the ground she walks on.
4. The trend in literature right now is simplistic language with very little, if any, flowery description. Buck that trend, by all means, but realize that some reviewers are probably going to dislike your work. If you want to maximize the number of readers, you need to cut down on the descriptive narrative and get on with the plot. If you want to write a book with poetic description, or pursue lengthy Dickensian subplots, and still sell a few hundred thousand copies,  I believe you have to teleport yourself to another century. If someone can prove otherwise, please leave a comment, because I'd love to believe this isn't so. 
5. Adverbs are bad. That is all.
6. A positive review from someone you've never met is the best rush in publishing. Better than a royalty check.
7. Royalty checks are pretty awesome, too, I'm not gonna lie. For me, every $1 that I make on my writing dream is equivalent to every $10,000 I make in the corporate world.
8. KDP Select is the way to go. I have sold zero books since I left to put my book on Smashwords. Before I left, I was making royalties (albeit small) on readers who were both buying and borrowing my book. Even though I disagree with Amazon's monopoly ('cause it definitely is one) and think the SEC should break that shit up, I'm still going to set my personal morals aside, and rejoin that gravy train. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
9. Fix typos or problems that readers find in your book and re-upload. Don't have a "you get one shot" attitude. A writing career is about constantly improving your work.
10. Self-publishing offers a level of freedom of speech that hasn't been seen in centuries. Scratch that. Ever. For that reason I believe it's one of the most exciting things to happen in my lifetime. Get your pen out. Write 300 words a day. You'll have a book done in 9 or 10 months. Get onboard! It'll be the best thing that ever happened to you.
11. Bonus tip: Write your book in Scrivener, not Word. It will save you immense amounts of time in the end. Especially if you write in a non-linear fashion. It's worth the $49. And no, I don't do their PR. ;-)

Movie review: Zero Dark Thirty: 4.5 stars

James and I finally sat down to watch the much-anticipated Zero Dark Thirty and we were not disappointed. Director Kathryn Bigelow is one of my favorites, although this movie wasn't in the same league as the outstanding Hurt Locker.

Jessica Chastain did a good job with an odd character... never met a woman like Maya. However, I also don't have a lot of friends who are in the CIA, so I'll let that one pass. We speculated whether there really was a character like her obsessed with OBL's courier, and we decided probably not, and for that reason it was even more awesome Bigelow and Mark Boal made her a woman. Hollywood's come a long way since the Bond girl.

My complaint with the movie -- and why I only give it 4.5 stars rather than 5 (and my husband gets the credit for pointing this out first) -- was a problem with pacing. The beginning was too dense and overly complicated and the ending was a little too simple because you already know that OBL is going to die. (And he died too quickly. The bastard should have been drawn and quartered.) 

I thought some of the earlier subplots could have been simplified... the drawn out torture scenes and the building friendship with the other female CIA agent, who was never named, cleverly.

I did like the obvious pacing trick when Bigelow slowed down to real-time during the raid itself. She definitely gives credit where credit is due -- to the SEALs.

This is the area my forthcoming book, Tetherbird, questions. The point of my book isn't to take anything away from the SEALs, just to make us question how we accept the narratives that the government feeds us. More on Tetherbird is here. Sorry for the shameless plug. I promise I'm not going to link to that from every blog post!

Back to Zero Dark. During the raid, I kept thinking, what in the world are they going to do with all those kids? Especially when they hinted they were brainwashed. (The young girl not giving OBL up after he was dead). But that's just the mom in me.

I also didn't like how the SEALs seemed stunned by how they'd killed him. That's their job. I doubt they were overly stunned they managed to kill someone in their pajamas. I think they were probably celebrating, in fact. But other than that I found it incredibly realistic.

Overall, a fascinating way to spend 2.5 hours, but it didn't blow me away (excuse the pun) like Hurt Locker. Still, I cannot wait to see Bigelow's and Ward's next film. 

Hear, hear for strong women!

We judge in life, but we have no time for it in fiction

Fiction is a mirror of real-life, except blown up into dramatic proportions.

Most of the time.

Lately I've been doing a bit of critiquing, and I've learned an amazing amount from this activity. One thing that's crossed my mind is that certain characteristics very prevalent in real-life are not so acceptable to us in fiction.

Number one: the characteristic of being judgmental.

We simply don't want to see characters in fiction that are racist, ageist, who look down upon obese people, who think of people as stupid or ugly or unfashionable, etc.

I say "we" because I'm exactly like any other reader in this regard. I don't want to see it either.

But the fact is 90% of people I've met in real life are at least partially judgmental, even if they don't voice their judgments. When you make a new friend, surviving their personal gauntlet of judgment is one of the most rewarding aspects of human socialization.

One thing I often talk to other moms about is parenting and judgment. I can't speak about other cities. But as a parent in Boston/Cambridge, you cannot walk ten feet out your front door before you encounter someone judging how you're looking after your kids. Kid won't wear a hat? People tsk that you're "allowing them out in the cold without a hat." (Even though that's not the issue.) Kid too loud? People shoot you daggers. Their look says that you're too soft on them. Kid too quiet? People tsk that you're raising a mute, not letting the kid have a voice.

There are days when the judgments feel so harsh and so prevalent I don't even want to bring the kids out.... and forget about bringing them to a restaurant! God forbid they make a peep in a public restaurant while people are eating.

As a psych major I can't help but wonder why we are so judgmental in real-life but don't have any time for judgmental characters in fiction. Is it because we feel the characters' judgments are just the author's judgments, thinly-veiled, and we don't care about what the author thinks? We just want the author to tell us a story, not stand on a soapbox. I get that.

(There is one notable exception... humor. If a character is funny they're allowed to judge away. I'm reading a book right now called Average American Male where the number one characteristic is judgment, but this character is loathsome in a funny/shocking way, and that's the whole point of the book. But even so, Chad Kultgen gets a gold star for bravery for his level of honesty).

Back to my main point. I think it goes a little beyond not wanting an author to stand on a soapbox. I believe there are corners of the human psyche so dark that we are afraid to taint our fiction with them. I believe that we want fiction to rise us up, not to act as a mirror, but to act as a funhouse mirror, where we look more even-handed, intellectual, reasonable and less impulsive than we really are.

I submit that this is an aspect of literature that indie publishing can change. We can explore the taboo without the pressures of a multinational conglomerate hanging over us.

Authors: what other characteristics do you find difficult to write?

We're the Phish of publishing. We're the jam bands.

Yesterday I had my favorite celebrity sighting of all-time: Trey Anastasio of Phish, walking around the Museum of Science with his family. I couldn't help myself. I ran up, introducing myself and telling him I was a huge fan. He told me he's excited about his Broadway show, Hands on a Hardbody, which opened on Thursday.

Trey is super nice and down-to-earth for one of the most talented musicians on the planet.

And here's what my husband said to this legend: "Fish? What's that?"

Trey was cordial and said "Phish is my band."

Once we were out of earshot, I spent the next hour trying to explain to my beloved why Phish is the most.important.band.ever.

He was wondering why they mattered if they are never on the radio.

I explained to him that the very reason they matter is because they are never on the radio.

Phish is the most successful jam band in history. And the radio thing is a myth; actually they do have several radio hits. (Bouncing Round the Room, Farmhouse etc)

Phish never conformed to the music industry. They began at the time when bands were making money selling albums, and yet their entire ethos was that their music ought to be heard live, not on record. How ironic is it that now bands only make money through live shows?

I love irony like that. Not only did Phish stick two fingers up to music industry conformists, they also foresaw the digital economy by twenty years.

Pretty amazing huh?

Aside from their incredible musical ability and great songs, that's why many people consider Phish the most influential band of the 1990's. That's why Phish is a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor.

Here's the connection that my mind fired up last night. Indie writers are the noncomformists of the publishing industry. We're the jam bands. We're the garage bands. We are upending the publishing industry. What we are doing is really important. Even if we're not on the radio. 

Jam on Phish! Write on indies!

Making a case for the importance of setting

Out of the three elements of storytelling (plot, setting, character), writers seem to focus 90% of their energy on plot and character. I've read a lot of books on writing, and a lot of blogs on writing, and setting almost never comes up. It's definitely the overlooked element of storytelling.

Setting is the middle child; the forgotten one. I think it's a lot more important in terms of the elements of storytelling than we give it credit for.

Why? Two reasons:

1. Read a book that is devoid of setting description and see how weird it is. They're hard to find, but I recently stumbled across one, The Best of Youth by Michael Dahlie. For every 10,000 words of this book there were probably only 15 words devoted to the setting. As I said in my review, I felt like I was reading in a vacuum. It was the oddest feeling. Without any setting details, the characters and the plot lacked resonance for me. It made the book very hard to read.
2. Look over the list of your favorite books of all-time and think about what you took away from them. Do you remember characters' names? Do you remember plot twists? I often don't. But I always remember the setting. Especially when the book takes place somewhere very atmospheric, enchanting, magical or beautiful. I don't remember all of the heartbreaking things that happened to Anchee Min's Empress Orchid. But I sure do remember the way I pictured the beautiful ancient Chinese palace grounds.

Just something to think about. Setting can add resonance, suspense, drama... it can consolidate themes, change characters' thinking patterns and behaviors... there's lots to play with. And the bonus? I would submit that getting setting right is easier for inexperienced writers than developing a character or making your plot watertight/realistic/believable etc.

Books that make you cry

My three-year-old had a minor procedure today at the Children's Hospital so I'm feeling exhausted, emotional and relieved, all at the same time. I have no energy to blog anything original, so I thought i'd repost this great list of books that make readers cry, via MediaBistro.

I agree with many on here.. The Poisonwood Bible, Old Yeller, The Diary of a Young Girl, The Green Mile, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Sun Also Rises, Where the Red Fern Growns... and I would add Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden, and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

What would you add?

5 stars for great indie work of sci-fi women's fiction, Post Rock Limestone Caryatids

I was gifted Post Rock Limestone Caryatids from the writer, Rachel Creager Ireland, and I'm so glad I came across this wonderful work. This novel is truly engrossing. I was transferred into a very believable future world, where people live in "cubes" and have "virchsex" and don't physically touch their babies. The plight of the main character, Maeve, was so fundamental for me that it immediately drew me in... she simply wants to be able to touch and hold her infant niece, whose mother died during childbirth. I was so very glad I was drawn in, for this read continued to be very satisfying. I don't read a ton of sci-fi, but I would call this book more women's fiction than sci-fi, even though it is about the future. And a very probable future, at that: One where social networking takes over all other forms of socializing - even between the most basic familial relationships (parent/child).

Protagonist Maeve yearns for a life offering more than the virtual existence, and luckily some people are still living in Kansas in a farming community. Their community was both difficult to thrive in and welcoming at the same time. The writer delightfully avoided stereotypical people or situations. Her eloquence was impressive and I found myself often thinking, this is an intelligent writer. She knows when to stop, when to limit description, when to pull a reader into the story, when to add hurdles and create more tension for the characters. I loved that the writer didn't shy from the messy business of crossing genre lines -- for me, that's what is best about indie fiction.

I found the beginning of this novel particularly good. The setup of the plot, characters and setting was very strong, especially considering this is a debut!

(SPOILER ALERT: DETAILS OF THE ENDING IN THIS NEXT PARA) The ending of the book brings about a final meeting between the two main female characters hitherto separate (...and they like each other!) which was a satsifying conclusion for me as it wrapped up the two narrative arcs. I was a little disappointed that the baby didn't factor more into the ending, but that probably only demonstrates how involved I felt with these characters. I don't think the writer could add anything more about the baby without getting into cheesy Hollywood-ending-territory.

I also found the Kansas-based relationship between Maeve and hateful Cal incredibly believable, even though it was painful and dysfunctional for the character who I cared deeply about... I know so many women who've had relationships like that, including myself, and reading about it on the page brings insight into our mistakes being attracted to the 'bad boy.'

I loved little things about this novel, too, like how the book was split into so many mini chapters which were humbly delineated with a simple number. It always felt satisfying to get to the next section, and it kept the changing narration flowing. The writer gives her readers a lot of credit for being able to add their own imagination to what was going on in the story, which I appreciated.

From a writing standpoint I was consistently impressed with the author's economical use of descriptive language, while the setting was given the attention it deserved and the plot was always moving forward. This writer is super talented, and the work showed me that she's also thoughtful and has done her homework with regards to how to construct novels...and I will look to her future works with MUCH anticipation.

5 stars for this one. There is a lot of great indie fiction coming out now, and I'd say this is the best indie work that I have read.