I Found My Writing Home

Publishing this post scares me, because the subject is so personal. I'm going ahead with it anyway with the hope that I can get across my meaning. Deep breath.

From my first attempt at writing in second grade, I began my journey making up fantasy stories. Many long-time readers will know that those early plots were largely inspired by Beverly Cleary and her mouse Ralph, resulting in several stories involving rodents.

Even in high school, when I co-wrote an entire novel with a friend, it was a re-telling of a fairy tale (this was waaaay before doing that was cool or commonplace).

The first novel I tried my hand at by myself as an adult: also a fantasy.

So it came as a surprise to me when I began getting ideas for books with a specifically Mormon angle to them. Of course, those ideas turned into the books that got published.

I did two contemporary novels that you could call romance, and I generally do, but I've never been entirely happy with that label. Not because I don't like romance; I absolutely do, as evidenced by THIS and THIS and the fact that we're doing more of Timeless Romance Anthologies and having a ball with it. Not to mention that I went on to do historical LDS novels, and every single one of them has a romantic element.

But those first two books especially had something else in them too, something I couldn't put my finger on, but which made me hesitant to classify them strictly as romances.

So there was Lost Without You, and then At the Water's Edge (although they were written in the opposite order). Then came the four historicals: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength. Each of my historicals, with the exception of Spires, which is a romantic comedy in spite of the serious-looking cover, had that same "other" quality.

Then I was told not to write any more historicals. And I wondered what in the world I'd do next. I'd already started researching my next one, and I had to set it aside and find something else to write about.

Enter my childhood friend Chris and her husband's deployment, which in a roundabout way led to me deciding that I had to write about what it's like to be home with a soldier gone and in the line of fire. In categorizing that book, romance never entered my mind, because, well, it's totally not. Band of Sisters is clearly women's fiction.

Some people think romance and women's fiction are the same thing, but they're not. Not even remotely. Women's fiction doesn't have a love story as the primary arc, and it deals with issues and conflicts that wouldn't normally appear in a romance. I loved writing that book, and it even took the Whitney Award in its category that year.

Yet I still thought that one day, I'd return to my fantasy roots and write books for kids. That feeling was strengthened by the fact that here in Utah, we have more successful writers of youth fiction than probably any other state in the nation. Tons of New York Times bestsellers, a Newbery honoree, and more. Youth writers here are rock stars. It's the market and genre that are most respected in these parts, likely because Utah has a lot of kids, families are serious about literacy, and we tend to like clean books, which often means youth fiction. Take this piece in the news, for example. (In case you don't click over: a launch party for Brandon Mull with Tyler Whitesides, Richard Paul Evans, Chad Morris, and Christopher Paolini. NOT KIDDING.)

Then I had a good chunk of my critique group also writing youth fiction, and this one and this one have had significant success with it (young adult and middle grade, respectively) on the national stage.

Yet I also loved mysteries, and I had a bunch of cool ideas for some. I loved romance, and could see myself writing that. I loved historicals, and would be happy doing more. And so on. What on earth should I focus on?!

My publisher couldn't/wouldn't give me direction on what they wanted next besides no more historicals even after I handed over a list of ideas and asked which they'd be most interested in.

I floundered like a boat without a rudder. I had a total and utter writer identity crisis that lasted two and a half miserable years.

The go-to advice for this kind of situation is to write the kind of book you like to read. Problem: I read all kinds of books, and I enjoy just about every genre. So that suggestion was no help.

Then one year for NaNoWriMo, I decided to write something totally wacky and weird and fun to shake myself out of the awful funk I was in. I drafted 50,000 words of a futuristic, science fiction-type young adult story. And it was a lot of fun. But contrary to my hopes going in, the experience didn't make my future writing path any clearer. (And no, that book will never see the light of day.)

Yet I knew I needed a clear path, something to sink my teeth into and identify as my own. I needed a map to plan my writing future.

I ended up deciding to write the sequel to Band of Sisters even though I had no assurance that my publisher would take it. They did (yay!), and Coming Home was released in January.

During the last year or so, a few things happened to cement my writer identity. One was researching and writing Coming Home. Another was being part of The Newport Ladies Book Club series with my novel Paige and the forthcoming Ilana. 

And then during the 2012 LTUE conference, Luisa and I went out to dinner to brainstorm. She knew of my identity crisis and suggested we hash it out over food. I brought along a notebook with ideas that included young adult fantasy, historical, romance, and everything in between. We picked a story with a really cool premise, and by the time we paid our tabs, we had a rough plot sketched out.

In writing that book, which I'll begin major revisions on soon, I finally came to realize that this was the genre I belonged in. It was women's fiction. And women's fiction is my home.

I realized that my first two books were women's fiction in disguise. That was the element I could never quite wrap up tidily in the romance bow. Women's issues popped up in my historicals too.

While I was thrilled to finally latch on to my writer identity, it came with a price. Remember, I live in the land where writers of youth fiction are rock stars and are most respected by colleagues. Even my own daughter recently asked if I could please write a cool book like the fantasy we were reading together, and it broke my heart to say that I'm writing for grown-ups.

Then there are those packed, celebrity-style launch parties like the one I linked to above. It seems that most writer events for fans tends to lean more toward youth fiction as well. There was one a few years ago that included my friend Janette Rallison (who writes YA), and at the same event was Scott Westerfeld and Stephenie Meyer, among others. Really.

I've had to come to terms with the side of my ego that would like acclaim. The reality is that if I become very successful with women's fiction, it will be with limitations. In some ways, I'd like my youngest to look at me like her hero, but that can't happen if I'm not writing kids' fantasy books. Which I'm not.

Plus, youth fiction has a crossover readership from kids to grandparents, while women's fiction is read almost entirely by, well, adult women. So the numbers are different: simply put, the sales potential for youth fiction is much greater. Unless someone waves a magic wand and I become the next Jodi Piccoult, I won't be getting rich writing women's fiction. (I wouldn't mind becoming the next Kristen Hannah, though... Seriously. Her interview in Writer's Digest pretty much blew my socks off and confirmed my writer identity.)

While I'm not greedy, I am a professional, and I do rely on the money I make through my writing. Making a conscious choice to essentially limit my potential income was hard.

I also had to choose to basically walk away from earning the respect of certain peers who almost look at youth fiction as the one and only true market. Would I like my ego to be stroked a bit? Sure. Could I write youth fiction? Sure. I love the genre, and I've developed  the chops over the gazillion years I've been writing to do it.

But when push comes to shove, I believe that I'm supposed to be writing women's fiction now. When I look at my list of story and research ideas, it's all women's fiction now.

I've wondered why, and why now. Why didn't I figure this out 18 years ago when I first started submitting? There may be several reasons, but I think a major one is the fact that while youth fiction isn't any easier to write than grown-up fiction (they're both hard to do well, and anyone who tells you differently is lying), in order to write good women's fiction, I simply had to be older. I had to experience more, see more of the world, encounter more situations, gain more maturity. On the other side, I've already been an adolescent. As long as I can write well and tap into that part of my brain, I could write youth fiction.

But I couldn't have written good women's fiction at 21, because back then I was barely a woman.

A bit of irony: Turns out that the old piece of advice was right after all. While I do read all kinds of books and love almost all genres, if I had to list my top books of all time, most of them are, yep, women's fiction.

Writing Journey: Pronunciation Guides

Up today: Answering a question L. T. Eliot (also known as Lexicon Luvr) posed some time ago:

[Writers creating pronunciation guides for audio recordings] is a new phenomenon to me, and I've only ever heard it mentioned once. How long has that been going on?

I can't speak for other writers and their experiences with their publishers, of course, so what comes below is based on my experience.

For my first five books, Covenant released an audio version on either cassettes or CDs (in one case, both). In each case, the book was abridged.

My first two novels (Lost Without You and At the Water's Edge) are my shortest ones. I had to cut them down to 48,000 words, but since they were each right around 70,000, that wasn't terrible to do. It wasn't fun by any means, but I could cut out descriptions, shorten dialogue, delete actions and tags, take showing portions and make them telling, and the like. Abridging took out a lot of the voice and personality of the book, but the basic story was left intact.

And then . . . well, THEN I had to cut House on the Hill. It clocked in at 102,000 words. Remember, it had to be hacked down to 48,000.

Yeah. Had to cut that puppy by more than half. The final version had entire scenes and subplots stripped out. For example, readers didn't see Abe's father or even know much of Abe's background. There just wasn't time for it.

At the Journey's End was even longer, by more than 10,000 words (I think it was around 114,000 words total). By that point, they were toying with whether they'd still do a cassette version. If not, I'd get to keep an additional 5,000 words because CDs hold more. But the final decision wasn't made early enough, so even though that book is only on CD, I still had to cut it to 48,000.

Spires of Stone was a bit shorter than At the Journey's End, and I got to cut it to 53,000, so it wasn't quite as miserable to cut, but I still hated it.

If memory serves, Spires was also the first book they requested a pronunciation guide for, but what they asked for was relatively minor. I had to clarify any names or terms that might be confusing. I remember writing character personality descriptions, but not much else. That book was released fall of 2007.

In hindsight, had my sister not been the one reading At the Water's Edge (2004), I probably would have needed to submit a guide, because it has Finnish names and words that would totally throw off your average American reader. That's why I requested that Mel read it: she knows Finnish pronunciation as well as I do, so she didn't need a guide.

By the time Tower of Strength came out, a new decision had been made: Covenant heard its customers asking for unabridged books and agreed to do them! (And there was much rejoicing in the land!)

However, there was a consequence to that decision: unabridged books are (obviously) longer. Therefore, they cost more to produce (both in actual CDs as well as in paying for a reader and other costs). Ergo, they couldn't afford to put every book onto audio.

So while they'd have fewer novels on audio, those that got audio versions would all be unabridged.

The result: Tower of Strength (2009) wasn't given audio. I was rather relieved: no butchering of my book! On the other hand, if it had gotten audio, there wouldn't have been a need to butcher it. But cutting it down wouldn't have been as painful, since Tower is my shortest historical.

I didn't have a 2008 release, so between the small guide for Spires in '07 and no audio for Tower in '09, the first "real" guide I've had to do was for Band of Sisters. (Did you catch that? It's on unabridged audio!)

The pronunciation guide for Band of Sisters was rather involved. I was surprised at how many names and terms they wanted me to explain. I had to include actual pronunciation symbols based on Merriam-Webster's style.

I also had to describe the characters, but this time it wasn't only their personalities. I had to describe their voices. Does Nora have a high or low voice? What about Kim? Does Marianne have a noticeable accent? Does Jessie have a unique tone? What about Brenda? Does she talk fast? And so on.

I had to go reread portions of the book to really listen to my characters talk so I could describe their voices. (That probably sounds bizarre to anyone who isn't a writer, but to me, these women are real, and I can hear their voices in my head. No, I don't need medication.)

Back to the question: How long have the pronunciation guides been going on?

Short answer: somewhere in the ballpark of three or four years, and in that time (at least in my experience) they've become more specific and detailed.

That's a good thing, I think. I don't mind spending a little extra time on a guide since I'm no longer sweating over abridgments. And the guides really benefit everyone. The final product is better, since the actor reading the book knows going in how every person should sound and how to say possibly confusing terms, and the listener has a better experience with the story.

The guide avoids problems like the actor finding out 2/3 of the way through the book that whoops, this character has a southern drawl or this one has a gravelly voice, and this one speaks low for a woman . . . and that they've been reading it wrong the entire time!

Lots 'o Giveaway Winners

I've had two giveaways going on at the same time over here, and today I'm announcing the winners.

FIRST GIVEAWAY:

Rachelle Christensen's OfficeBox/Wrong Number giveaway has two steps. First, the 25 blogs participating each pick a preliminary winner who gets a prize package that includes:

• A ScrapMaBob
• A self-healing cutting mat
• A ribbon box

(That's a retail value of about $48.00.)

The 25 preliminary winners go on to be part of the grand prize drawing for an Original OfficeBox and a copy of Rachelle's new novel, Wrong Number.

The Lyon's Tale preliminary winner of the prize package is (drum roll, please . . .):

THE MOTHERBOARD from Crazyland with her first (required) entry of simply commenting on her favorite item. (It pays to enter!)

SECOND GIVEAWAY:

This one was to encourage readers to spread the word about our super-successful Triple Book Launch (more to come on that in another post). Thanks again to every single person who came and supported us. It was such a great night!

I promised a full set of my four temple novels (House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength) to the grand prize winner, plus two runner-ups who'd each get a copy of my grammar guide, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Winners:

The four-book set goes to . . .

Alexis of One Cluttered Brain!

She was bound and determined to win by getting as many entries as she could, even though she's not in Utah and couldn't attend the launch. Thanks for spreading the word, Alexis!

The two people who get copies of There, Their, They're:

1) Krista

AND

2) Elizabeth Morgan

Congratulations to all three!

(Ladies, be sure to e-mail me your snail mail address so I can get your prizes to you!)

Share the Launch Love

It's almost here!

Sarah M. Eden, Julie Coulter Bellon, and I are revving up for Friday's Triple Book Launch Party!

THIS FRIDAY, March 12

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Deseret Book at University Village

(East of University Mall in Orem)

Get ready for a bunch of great door prizes. (They'll be announced here soon. We've got a bunch of awesome stuff!) Friday will be a ball.

Whether you love Regency Romance, Thrillers with lots of suspense (and a little romance thrown in!), or women's fiction (or know someone who does!), you won't want to miss this event.

But WAIT! There's more for YOU.

We want to spread the word about the launch as far and as wide as possible.

Welcome to the "Share the Launch Love" drawing!

The more YOU do to spread the word, the better your chances of winning. (I'm totally not above bribery.)

THE PRIZES:

An entire FOUR-BOOK set of my temple books: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength.

(That's a value of over $60.00!)

TWO runners-up will get a copy of my grammar book, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

HOW TO ENTER: SPREAD THE LAUNCH PARTY LOVE!

Be sure to leave a comment FOR EACH SEPARATE THING YOU DO so I have a fighting chance of keeping track of the entries.

-TWO ENTRIES: Put the Triple Book Launch Party button on your side bar. (The image is at the top over on my sidebar. Just copy and paste it to your blog). You must also LINK the button to the event's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=338177993233&ref=mf

HOW-TO UPDATE: For Blogger users, simply copy the image and add it to a picture gadget. There's a spot in the dialog box where you can add a URL to link the picture to. Copy and paste the FB link above, then save.

-THREE ENTRIES: Blog about the launch party, including date, time, location, and name all three authors involved, including links to all three authors (author websites or blogs).

-TWO ENTRIES: First you must do the blog post (above). In that post, include all three book covers featured at the launch. (Courting Miss Lancaster, Dangerous Connections, and Band of Sisters).

Here are the covers, just to make things really easy for you:

-ONE TO FIVE ENTRIES: Tweet the event. (Include a link to your tweet in your comment.) Receive an additional entry each time you tweet the launch (maximum once a day) between now and Friday. (Leave a comment each time, with a link for each tweet.)

-ONE ENTRY: Mention the launch party in your Facebook status or news feed. (Include a link in your comment.)

-ONE ENTRY: Follow The Lyon's Tale. (If you're already a follower, just say so in a comment; an immediate entry!)

-ONE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter.

-ONE ENTRY: Become my fan on Facebook (use the nifty Facebook fan badge in the sidebar).

-ONE ENTRY: Follow Sarah M. Eden's blog.

-ONE ENTRY: Follow Julie Bellon on Twitter.

-ONE TO THREE ENTRIES: Link back to THIS POST (not just my blog; use the permalink) and share it via Facebook, Twitter, on in a blog post (the same blog post as above works!).

(It would also be awesome if readers would invite their Wasatch Front-living friends to attend. If they're on Facebook, go to the event page and click on "share." I have no idea how to track invitations like that, but we'd sure appreciate it!)

Drawing ENDS Friday, March 12 at 4:00 pm Mountain Time.

Winners will be announced after the launch (and, quite possibly, a long nap).

***TOTAL POSSIBLE ENTRIES: TWENTY-ONE!***

Ready . . . go!

(Hope to see you Friday!)

So Subjective

What makes a good book? What makes for good writing?

You'd think those questions would have pretty straight-forward answers.

Mmmm . . . not so much.

This is my second year serving as a Whitney Awards judge, and we're rounding the bend on finishing up the reading of the nominees so we can cast our ballots for who we think should be the finalists in our category or categories. I'm judging two of the six categories, and there are five judges per category.

I know every judge has their own way of looking at quality. Every judge is qualified to serve as one. Yet we all rank different elements as higher importance or lower importance. (Is the plot arc more important than character? Is the writing on a sentence and paragraph level more important than plot? And so on. The list is endless.) Whatever we use as our personal guidelines, we are to apply the same ones to every book we judge.

I'm not going to discuss specific categories or titles (although since my own book is eligible in Historical, I'm obviously not judging that one). What I'll do instead is offer some general observations.

In one category, I thought there were three clear front-runners. While I still had a couple of books to read in the category, I would have been very surprised to see any of those three knocked off my list of predicted finalists. The last two slots would be fought over by the others. Actually, not all the others, because there are always a handful of nominees that just don't hold a candle to the others. But there were several that could have filled those last two slots.

Then lo and behold, I find out that one of the judges absolutely detested one of my top 3. Um, what? Every other person I've talked to who has read this book has love, love, loved it. Except this judge. I'm dying to know what the other three judges think, and now I'm wondering whether this book will be a finalist after all. I think it absolutely deserves to be. But I'm sure this judge has their reasons.

It's so subjective.

In my other category, something similar happened, only I was on the other side. I read a title I thought without a doubt was on the "um, yeah right, this has no chance" pile. And then I heard another judge in the same category lauding it. I had to do a double-take. I had half a mind to shake the judge and say, "But no human being acts like that! The characters were cardboard, the plot was contrived, and the writer was trying too hard to have a specific tone and missed the target by a mile. Can't you see that?"

Or maybe I'm the one with no clue. So maybe that book will be a finalist even though I couldn't stand it.

In a little less than a month, the finalists will be announced. I'm sure there will be plenty of excited people. Others will be sad they didn't make the list. There will be lots of buzz about why certain titles are there while others are not, and whether LDS fiction has improved or not over the years and what were certain judges thinking, and whether the Whitney system is accurate and all kinds of stuff.

But the bottom line is this: everyone likes different things. Even "quality" is, largely, subjective. And as frustrating as that can be at times, it's the reality. It's why I have a daughter who loves brownies but hates chocolate ice cream. They're both chocolate. As far as I'm concerned, they're both delicious. But she has a different taste.

And that's okay.

On the other hand, I really hope that one title is a finalist and one isn't.

And since I'm being honest, I kinda wouldn't complain if Tower of Strength ends up on the list too.

Writing Journey: Audio Double Hockey Sticks

I entered the publishing world at a rather odd period: right as cassette tapes were making their exit and CDs were making their debut.

As a result, my first novel's audio was put on cassette. My second was available on both cassette and CD, and my third was only on CD. I was right at the transition period.

This was also a period where nearly every Covenant novel was available in both print and on audio. Slight problem, however: audio sells less, but has new costs like paying an actor to perform the thing, so they always insisted that the author abridge the book down to a particular length to help on production costs.

When the full transition to CD was complete, it brought me a slight measure of joy. This may sound like a small thing, but for a writer, it was huge: the CDs they used could hold 5,000 more words of air time than the cassettes could.

That meant less abridging. Instead of cutting my book down to 48,000 words, we had to cut books down to only 53,000.

Let's put those numbers into perspective.

Abridging my first two books wasn't too hard. Oh, at the time, I thought it was a hideous brand of torture, but I had no idea how good I had it. Those books were in the neighborhood of about 70,000 words. Cutting them to 48,000 was taking out roughly 1/4 of the book.

I could take out descriptions, condense paragraphs, summarize sections, and so on, but keep the entire story intact. It wasn't fun by any means, but it was quite doable.

With At the Water's Edge, I was particularly concerned about the Finnish words and names being pronounced correctly. I could do it, in theory, but I knew I'd probably talk way too fast and get ridiculously nervous and end up sounding like a fool. So I had them audition my sister for the reader, and they used her. Mel and I sound remarkably similar (to the point that her husband has mistaken me for her on the phone), so if you ever listen to the audio of that one, you can pretend it's me!

My next book, House on the Hill, clocked in at about 102,000 words. It was book #3, which, as you recall, was still on both cassette and CD. I had to cut it down to 48,000 words. That means more than half of the book had to be at the mercy of the delete key.

Entire characters and subplots from the original don't exist in the audio version of that one. I listened to my first two audios, but nearly 5 years after that one, I still haven't listened to it. I don't have the heart.

Next book: At the Journey's End.

In theory, I should have been dancing with glee, because this was when the transition to CD was complete, so I had an additional 5,000 words to work with, right? After all, I had to cut the book to 53,000 instead of 48,000.

Yeah, well, slight problem: the novel was 114,000 words. Ahem. So even with those extra 5,000 words, I still had to cut a higher percentage, because the book was so dang long. ARGH! I think I managed to cut it well enough, but again, I haven't listened to it. I hope it makes sense.

When you cut a book that much, it becomes almost a summary; you have to suck out any personality and flavor of the original. You lose the essence of the real thing. That's why I almost cringe when I hear that people have listened to my books; I know they have no idea what my writing and my stories are really like.

I just hope the audios aren't butcher jobs. (On one hand, I do count my blessings in that I get to do the abridging and not someone else!)

Next up: Spires of Stone.

The book and its rewrites and edits gave me fits for months on end. By the time I had to cut it for the audio, I was ready to torch it anyway. I think I managed to cut it all right. The audio part of the process was such a blur that I don't really remember. I just did it and handed it in.

Haven't listened to that one, either.

Now here comes the interesting part: Covenant has changed their tune. I don't know what was behind the decision, but I'm guessing they've realized that most people don't want abridged books. If they're going to listen to a book, they want the whole thing.

So here's the latest: Covenant's putting out fewer audio books (because they can't afford to put out everything unabridged) but whatever they are putting out is unabridged.

Can I hear a hallelujah?!

The result of this is that Tower of Strength had no audio at all. That was bittersweet. For once, I didn't have the misery of having to hack away at my own book and leave a bloody mess on the floor. (Especially since authors pretty much never, ever saw any royalties on audio books anyway. Long story there, but the whole audio thing was an exercise in futility. Something we had to do, but it really did no good.)

On the other hand, a contract clause was changed that meant I would now be far more likely to get royalties from an audio book, not to mention that with a book unabridged, people would be more likely to buy it. Plus I didn't have to abridge anything.

Regardless, I didn't get the audio on Tower. Like I said, bittersweet.

This time around, with Band of Sisters, I haven't heard either way whether I'll get the audio. That'll be a decision up to the marketing department, what other titles are being released during the same period, and which they figure will be most likely to sell audio copies.

For now, I am simply grateful that never again will I have to sit at the computer wondering, How in the world can I tell this story in so few words and have it make any sense whatsoever?! ARGH!!!!

Those days are gone! YES!!!

PS #1: Today is the 4A State Football Championship. My nephew is playing in it (He's #24 for Timpview). It's also my alma mater. Today's their shot for a 4th consecutive state title. Cross your fingers for the Thunderbirds!

PS #2: The Utah Chocolate Show runs today and tomorrow at the South Towne Expo Center, 11 am to 9 pm. Tickets are $7 at the door. If you see my sister Mel (the director) say hi for me! My other sister, Michelle, will likely be hanging around the demo stage and running stuff there. Say hi to her, too! Mel may need to jet at some point this morning to see part of the game. I don't know how she'll manage to even open the show while her son's in a championship game. Yowza!

Linkage & An Upcoming Giveaway!

Links about the Hero's Journey

First, for those who attended my presentation on The Hero's Journey method of plotting at the League of Utah Writers meeting in Provo in June, (or those who didn't), Jordan McCollum has posted many of her notes in two different posts.

I used a lot of fantasy stories as examples (Star Wars, Harry Potter), but some attendees asked how the archetypal structure applies to romance. Good question. It does, since I use it and write romance myself. (In fact, I think using it helped me plot out my last book, Tower of Strength, quicker than any of my others.)

Today, Jordan has a guest post addressing that very thing. See it HERE.

Read her other posts about my presentation and The Hero's Journey concept HERE and HERE.

NOW FOR THE UPCOMING GIVEAWAY ANNOUNCEMENT:

Coming very soon (dates and details TBA), I will be doing a review and giveaway through Accent Furniture.

I get to review a particular product, which they'll be sending me to try out, and then one of my blog readers will get one of their own as well.

I won't reveal what that product is until I review it and the giveaway begins (stay tuned!), but even though mine hasn't arrived to test out, let's say that I think I chose well, and that the winner will thank me.

This should be fun.

Writing Journey: Part XXVIII

Terrified over the idea of doing something so far out of my comfort zone as a cookbook (talk about getting out of your box . . . I couldn't even SEE my box at this point, I was so far out of it!), I debated. Could I do this?

Several questions bounced around in my head.

First off, was if it even feasible for me to do a chocolate cookbook on my own?

If so, what kind of angle would I take on it?

And if I managed to pull this whole thing off, could I get Covenant a manuscript as fast as they wanted it?

First things first, I decided.

I really couldn't think about it at all until after the blog tour for Tower of Strength and the LDStorymakers conference and Whitney Awards gala were all over. (Oh, yeah, and ironing out that little grammar book . . .) I just didn't have the brain power or the time to devote to yet one more thing right away.

But as soon as the dust cleared from the conference, I gave the cookbook some thought, and realized a few things.

The most important one was this:

Largely thanks to Mel, I really do know a few things about chocolate that the average Joe does not.

No, I'm not an expert (far from it!), but she's taught me a lot over the years. We sisters got together often around the holidays to make neighbor gifts, and it was always something to do with chocolate, of course. Over the years, I've made things that I never in a million years thought I could . . . things that were now demystified and things I now learned were EASY but just looked hard.

And then I'd go home and make them myself with my kids. I made one of those things for a book club I hosted. It was something insanely easy, but the ladies were so wowed they ooohed and awed. I was stunned and tried to tell them that no, really, this really wasn't a big deal, but they wouldn't believe me.

Then there was the time I made chocolate bark for the birthday of a gal I was the visiting teacher for, and she was blown away by it because the bark looked so amazing. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I made the bark because I was in a hurry and that it took me less time and effort than a batch of chocolate chip cookies would have.

So the realization that I actually did know a bit about chocolate was quickly followed up by the answer to the next question:

What kind of chocolate cookbook would I want to write?

Thinking back on my own experiences, the answer was simple: a book the takes the scary out of chocolate.

It would be a book that makes people realize that they, too, can make cakes and brownies and cookies and chocolate bark and dipped strawberries and all kinds of other things from scratch. Yes, you can. And it's not hard.

Really. It's not.

Plus, you can do other really cool things, like chocolate tulip cups, and those gourmet pretzel rods, and so many other neat things that look impressive but aren't hard. They really aren't.

So that clinched it.

I am a kitchen idiot, and if I can do it, so can anyone else. I said yes.

Mel agreed to help me out as my go-to person when I ran into walls. She helped find some recipes as a payback for some of the work I'd helped her with on the show. I had others willing to give me aid in other ways. I figured that when summer hit, this would be the Lyon Summer of Chocolate (not unlike the Summer of George . . .).

I knew Covenant was hoping for a 2010 release, either for Valentines of for fall, right before Christmas. I told them I'd do my best to get them a manuscript with 120 recipes by the end of August.

I took a deep breath and dug in.

That's when question #3 came to haunt me:

Could I get Covenant a manuscript as fast as they wanted it?

Sure, I figured. I'd have to work hard, but if I kept an even pace and did 30 recipes each month between May and August, I'd hit my target. I'd be right on time.

Right?

Murphy likes well-laid plans. They don't call it Murphy's Law for nothing.

Writing Journey: Part XXVII

(Above, left to right, the "chocolate" sisters:

Me, Michelle, and Mel.

Photo by Jolley Photography.)

Mel's "fun" idea that she had while driving north on I-15 through the desert on her way from Arizona to Utah was about what kind of business she would like to do.

She'd been a caterer, done the whole dip the chocolate strawberries and make the wedding cake yourself thing.

She'd done event production, such as with receptions for businesses and the like (think Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner, the gal with the headset running the show).

As Mel drove on the open road, she thought that while she enjoyed the catering side, she liked the production end more. Hmm. Ideally, if she could produce any kind of event, what would she produce?

An event centered on chocolate. But what would that be?

By the time she reached Provo, the embryo of an idea had grown. It evolved into what eventually became the The Utah Chocolate Show, first debuting in 2004.

First we took a girls' trip with our mom to New York to see their chocolate show. (And take in a Broadway show, visit Ellis Island, walk through Central Park, see the Met, go on the Kramer Reality Tour [a must for Seinfeld fans!], yada yada.)

We three sisters were the founders of the show, with Mel, the brainchild and oldest sister, as creative director. I wasn't planning on being overly involved, more of a helper and cheerleader, since I was writing and mommying and everything else.

When Mel first asked if I'd help out, I said sure, of course. We all assumed I'd be writing website content and press releases and the like.

Here's the thing: We had no idea how much work this kind of event takes, especially in its first year. We also didn't know that in basically every case but ours, large corporations with huge staffs and massive budgets are the ones putting them on, not three stay-at-home moms. We were taking on something massive.

The result? Next thing I knew, I was Mel's assistant director. I was making executive decisions. I was doing sales and PR. I was freaking attending meetings with ABC and the executive producer of Good Things Utah. (And I've been on GTU a few times.)

Talk about surreal.

As you can imagine, trying to balance family, the show, and my writing career (especially as it grew), all became too much, particularly when the show's preparations reached critical mass each fall.

The show is always the weekend before Thanksgiving, so production craziness peaks beginning in September and never quits until the show is over. For a couple of years there, I had fall releases. Which meant I had a book to promote AND a new book to turn in AND a show to produce all at the same time. Falls were ugly for awhile there.

As a result, each year I gradually pulled back from my involvement with the show a bit more, until now, well, I'm not part of it anymore, which is truly bittersweet.

I attended last year with Will Call tickets waiting for me at the box office and walked through the hall, sat at a demonstration, saw all the booths (many of those business were mine; I first got them into the show), saw the chocolate wedding cake and photography competitions, peeked in at the classes, talked to my sisters, and so on.

In truth, I got a bit teary-eyed. It was hard to not be part of the show anymore, but the change was a necessary step. One person can do only so much, and if I had to pick between the show and my writing, my writing had to win.

So here's where this whole story comes back to my writing journey: Covenant has been well aware of my involvement with the show all along (because I, oh, gave them free tickets and whatnot).

Several years ago, they asked if Mel and I could co-write a chocolate cookbook. Sure, I thought. No problem. Mel is the kitchen and chocolate guru. She can provide the recipes. She's a good writer too; I could do most of the writing, and between us, we could do a great book. We had a 3-4 month window each year post-show where things were quiet enough that and we could get plenty of work done on a cookbook before show work ramped up again.

Two years in a row, starting in January (we gave ourselves a six-week break for things like, oh, CHRISTMAS), we tried to collaborate.

Two years in a row, it just didn't work.

We are two people who function on different wavelengths. (We are also two people with two versions of ADD. That made it interesting.) So while we love each other to pieces and can sit together chatting for eight hours straight (not even almost kidding), we just couldn't seem to write together. I sighed and reluctantly shelved the manuscript, such as it was. Collaboration just wasn't something that would work for us.

Then this last March I got an e-mail from Covenant's managing editor. It arrived right in the middle of writing There, Their They're, doing my blog tour for Tower, getting ready for the annual LDStorymakers conference, and finishing up my work on the Whitney committee--including doing all the Whitney reading I had to do . . . basically as I was doing my headless chicken dance.

The e-mail basically said: "Remember that chocolate cookbook we talked about years ago? There's an increasing demand for it. Could you do it alone? We want it out next year. How fast can you get us a manuscript?"

Mel was the chocolate guru. I was the show's writer and assistant director.

I stared at the e-mail like a deer in the headlights.

Umm . . .

WNW: "Then" Help

Reader question day here on Word Nerd Wednesday.

UPDATE: I originally wrote this post on a headache brain. Hence, I used the term contraction when I meant conjunction. (Yeah, I know. DUH. Like those two things are anything like one another.) Thanks a million to the alert reader who pointed it out so I could fix it and not look like a total idiot into the eternities.

I was recently asked something akin to the following (rephrased since I didn't get around to asking to use it . . . but I'm just going with it, because it's what I have in my head right now, and I'm guessing there are more people out there who have the same question . . .)

According to some advice I have received in the past, I should technically NOT write a sentence like this:

I tripped on the sidewalk, then dropped my keys.

My question is about the ", then" part.

This is all over literature. Good literature, too.

[The questioner went on to list several bestsellers, including a recent award winner]

So why do people say I'm wrong? I try to use both the comma with "and" as much as possible, but sometimes it sounds too heavy like that.

This is especially true when my priority should be trying to maintain a true teen voice. So what's the rule there?

Here's the gist:

I don't think there IS a rule about using a comma before then, beyond the almighty Word putting the squiggly green line under it and proclaiming it wrong. (Can you tell how much I love that program?)

See, Word is wrong about 1/3 of the time on things like lie/lay, so you can't count it on it. Which is really a problem, because I think a lot of people, including editors, are starting to believe Word and its pretend rules. The idea of a second-rate program dictating our future grammar rules? That's scary to me.

Off my Word soapbox and back to using commas before then. Feel free to do it.

Granted, if you do it too often (just like if you do anything too often in writing), it'll get repetitive, and you don't want that. Oh, and then can't stand alone as a conjunction, so don't use it that way, but otherwise, heck, use it, I say. I do.

Okay, so follow-up issue: What's a conjunction? (So you can avoid using then that way.)

Conjunctions are words like and, or, for, nor, yet, but, so: something you add a comma before and then use to combine TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES THAT CAN STAND ON THEIR OWN.

(Note: You'll find much of this in There, Their, They're. Not verbatim, because I'm just writing it off the top of my head, but I use similar examples in it, and the concepts are there. You get it free today. You're welcome. :)

Here's an example of a sentence with two complete sentences inside it that are then combined with a comma and a conjunction:

He gave his wife flowers, and she smelled them.

If you take out the comma and the and above, you have two complete sentences, grammatically speaking:

He gave his wife flowers.
She smelled them.

Totally lame examples, but they give you the idea.

Here we're using then correctly, because we don't have two complete sentences:

He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

See how you can't take out the comma and then and have 2 complete sentences?

He bought his wife flowers. [Complete sentence.]

Gave them to her. [Not a complete sentence.]

Therefore, we can combine the two without a conjunction--just with then. Once again:

Correct: He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

**Incorrect** He bought his wife flowers, then she smelled them.

This time we DO have two complete sentences:

He bought his wife flowers.

She smelled them.

Two complete sentences. We need a conjunction with the comma to make it right.

Since then isn't a conjunction, it can't combine the two by itself.

Correct: He bought his wife flowers, and then she smelled them.

Now we have two complete sentences grammatically and a conjunction combining them.

All is well with the world.

But while it's technically correct, people often hate the pairing of AND and THEN or other pairings of conjunction [OR and THEN, BUT and THEN, etc.] because it starts feeling heavy, as our questioner pointed out.

So here's my trick to avoid using both a conjunction AND then: just rephrase one of the grammatically complete sentences so it can't stand alone. That way the conjunction isn't necessary and you can throw in then without it.

BUT we still have the question as to whether you can use the comma before then when there's an incomplete sentence (or subordinate clause, if you're getting all technical).

I say yes, the comma is fine, like with this sentence we used above:

He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

Almighty Word, with its green squiggle, says no, that's wrong. It should be like this, without the comma:

He bought his wife flowers then gave them to her.

Both can work, but there's a subtle difference in tone and pacing between the two. Sometimes you want that comma pause. And that's OKAY.

My editor tends to lean toward taking out the commas before then. Sometimes I prefer to leave them in for the sake of pause length or rhythm. Sometimes I let him take them out, other times I push to keep them in.

But if you've read all my books, you might notice far fewer commas before then in Tower than in any of my other novels.

That's because I let my new editor take a lot of my commas out. It was kind of interesting getting used to a different style. I sort of liked it. That, and I spent my time fighting to keep em dashes and semi colons. (Those tend to be more important to me.)

I've done a little digging, and as far as I can tell, there really is no a rule (or much consensus) about commas before then being wrong besides Word hating them.

But then, Word has been known to mark so many things with that stupid green squiggle that I know for a fact are correct that I don't generally trust it with grammar issues anyway. Since we can't trust Word's grammar feature, don't stress it.

(I could do an entire post about how much I loathe Word . . .)

So there you have it: commas before then are okay, but not if you're using then as a conjunction.

Remember: I have a running list of possible topics for WNW, but if you have a specific question, please do pass it on (e-mail me or drop it in the comments), and I'll throw it onto the list.