Why It's Hard For An Author To Give An Honest Book Review

 



I don't give book reviews unless it's a four or five-star review. I don't even like to give four-star reviews. For obvious reasons.

As an author myself, to give anything less than a great review is ludicrous. I mean, who the hell do I think I am?  ...

But c'mon ... writers are constantly reading. When we aren't writing, we're reading. And lately, I've read some pretty awful stuff. But can I say what? Of course not. I'm not that stupid.

You can be sure when I review a book, it's because it's fabulous. In my review, I'm sincere, meaning every word.

I love a great read, stuff you haven't seen before, the kind of book that roots in my soul, creating great vines of tangled prose I will never escape from. Godamighty, it's the stuff legends are made of ... great stories to soothe the mind of the tormented and stir the rage of the stoic. There's nothing better than a life-changing story. I've read a few in my life that remain close to me to this day.

But back to the "terrible-awful". (Love those words from Kathryn Stockett's novel, The Help) ... I recently spent a couple days with my nose in a novel that was heralded as one of the top five of 2012. And I'm not talking about 50 Shades of Gray. That's the one exception I made earlier this year, and I won't waste another breath on it. The novel I'm talking about was recommended to me by numerous friends and so, I bought it and could not for the life of me, get through the first 100 pages. I gave it 100 pages and stopped. Ugh. I was so disappointed and figured it's just me. Me. Everybody loves this. There's something wrong with me.

So I read ten more pages, stopped, took out my book marker, and put it back on my shelf. I wish I could say why I didn't like it, but it would give it away ... so I'll just leave it at that.

Writers, authors -  we cannot give honest book reviews. Not of the books we don't like. It's makes us look haughty. Prideful. Like a Kardashian at a country club. Nose in the air know-it-all.

And I'm not so ignorant to think everyone will love everything I write. That's the beauty of books. There's something for everybody.

As an author, it's just not a good idea to be anything other than humble. If I don't have something nice to say about another author's work, I don't say anything at all. Raised by a southern mother, it was the code she lived by. A code I've passed down to my own daughter.

If I'm asked to critique a manuscript, that's between me and the writer ... but once the book is published, then as an author myself, it's best left to the readers to judge. Not me. I live in a glass house. I never throw stones.

Blessings to you and yours.

What Does It Take To Write A Thriller?

An excerpt from TELEVENGE ...

The rain fell in torrents the last time I saw them. I was a grown man. A beautiful man, made in God’s perfect image. It was a hot July day. I remember because it was my birthday. Approaching their peeling porch steps, I flung my suit jacket over my shoulder, undid my tie, and rolled up my sleeves. While one aunt shook with a palsy and the other chewed a cud of something between her gums, I sat on a step and read from the book of Leviticus. “A woman that hath a familiar spirit, a wizard, shall surely be put to death, they shall stone her with stones; her blood shall be upon her. I’m going to preach,” I said.

They stared through me, like a couple of deaf mutes.

I’d come to pick a bone with two old women; to rid myself of an infected snakebite, a poison that had infiltrated even the most anointed parts of my life.

“Can you understand? I’m an overcomer! Quench not the Spirit, saith the Lord! Don’t you see? The audible voice of God speaks to me and through me daily. I once was lost, but now I’m found. You chastised me, but He chose me. I crossed over into the Land of Milk and Honey and I found it. I found the sweet honey in the rock. Sucked out the sweetness and emptied the cone, tasted and seen that the Lord is good. He found no guile in my mouth, no He did not. I spend my days speaking in tongues, yes, true, the tongues of angels, and fall asleep easily every night with God’s words inside me, His anointing upon me.”

A violent storm erupted. Lightning cracked amid a fast and furious rain. I grabbed them up, two rail-thin old women, dragged them inside and kicked the door closed with my heel.

 

 

 ... a novel not for the faint of heart ...

When You Can't Find Your Courage



 

To me, the hardest jobs in the world are … coal miners, deep sea divers, living on a submarine, painting high bridges, skyscraper builders and window washers, prison guards, firefighters, policemen, garbage men, working with the mentally challenged, roofers, emergency room nurses, street pavers, brain surgeons, and farmers.

The physical stamina required for these positions is near god-like. It's tough to find the words needed to describe the courage that must be found to wake up every day and face these jobs.

It doesn’t take much physical stamina to sit at a desk and type all day. I don’t want to be a brain surgeon, or even a coal miner.

I just want to write great literature.

But I have to wake up … every day … and find my courage. Just like the brain surgeon.

The next time you can't find the courage to face your day, think about the iron men teetering on that steel I-beam 70 stories in the air. Those New York City skyscrapers don't build themselves. Think about the coal miner dropped miles underground to dig coal in the dark, cold earth. Think about the emergency room nurse fighting to save the next car accident victim.

We writers may not put our lives on the line, but we put them on the page. And that, my friend, still takes courage. Writers can do without a lot of things. Courage isn't one of them.

Remember that.

Blessings to you and yours.

Do Writers Brainstorm Better In A Group?

It's me, brainstorming. I sat with a group of writers in the kitchen, throwing ideas into the air, and bouncing names and places off the walls. I remember thinking how productive is this, really!

But for a writer, brainstorming with friends can produce massive amounts of storyline, character traits, and titles to refer to when you're pushing hard for that next book. So you've got a few thoughts rolling around in your head, but they're not going anywhere. You see a character. What is this person doing, how are they dressed, where are they in terms of time and place?

Literary Agent, Donald Maass has a unique system he uses to flesh out these characters. If you are blessed enough to take any of his classes and/or seminars, do it. It flushes out the gunk so you can think. Not to sound gross, but taking a class from Don, is like a colonic for writers.

In one particular brainstorming session, the light bulb went tilt! tilt! over my head.

When I finished Televenge, I contemplated my next novel. I love writing about the gritty south, the pretentious north. The religions of both are just as gut-wrenching, but from a totally unique viewpoint. My group threw out a few ideas and my subconscious went to work.

Over the next weeks, I knew I wanted to write a novel that included the possibility of the paranormal, spirituality from different points of view and a character-driven plot. I also knew I wanted to write in first-person, and last but not least, I wanted the story to include an animal that has fascinated me all my life—the wolf. I decided on the timeline between November 1959 until March 1960, which was a different route entirely for me. Televenge, my debut novel coming to you in October of 2012, spans thirty years, from 1972 to present day.

But for my new book, I focused on a young girl with fuzzy red hair who wore thick eyeglasses. For a while, all I had was an image of Neeley. A skinny, lonely, parentless country girl who lived on a tobacco farm. I quickly fell in love with her and needed to write her story. Placing my little red-headed white girl in the caring hands of the most opposite character, a seventy-year old African-American male, a rugged individual who wasn’t afraid of his gentle side, the novel took shape. The what-ifs began to roll, and each morning the characters revealed a little more of their story.

It wasn't long, however, and I got stuck. Back to my brainstorming group of friends.  

In a brainstorming session, bring a tape recorder, because you really can't write fast enough. Ideas and thoughts and words fly at the speed of sound. To capture it, you must record the session. But it was at that second brainstorming session that the plot began to thicken.

I contemplated the one social issue I feel strongly about. Prejudice. To me, racism is the biggest white elephant in the South. I know some southern writers have grown up under the care of an African-American woman hired by their family to cook, clean and care for them. They fondly remember her as a precious piece of their childhood inspiring them to write such books as: The Help by Kathyryn Stocket; Plantation and Sullivan’s Island by Dorothea Benton Frank; The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid, and The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin.

I wish I could say I experienced the wonderful memories of the above authors. But that is not the case. My experiences were quite different. Thus, creating a new perspective and a fresh voice.

Although my parents taught me respect for all people, I soon discovered blatant prejudice in other families around me. As a young girl, it affected me so deeply, I never forgot it. This began my quest to write a story about the evils of racism.

On January 29, 2010, The Greensboro News & Record published a special magazine dedicated to the new International Civil Rights Center and Museum, located in the old and newly restored Woolworth’s building in downtown Greensboro. In an act of courage, four black students sat peacefully at a whites-only lunch counter on February 1, 1960 and changed the world. The civil rights movement had begun. From that publication, my imagination took off once again. I wrote dialogue, paragraphs, whole scenes, and sketched it into my outline.

The area in which I lived at the time, is rich in tobacco history. Historically saturated with horse and tobacco farms, today they still dot the landscape. I also discovered James W. Cole (1924-1967) was ordained into the ministry in Summerfield, NC at the Wayside Baptist Church in 1958. He toured the Carolinas as a tent evangelist and broadcast a Sunday morning radio program, becoming an active member of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and eventually the Grand Dragon of North and South Carolina. The man intrigued me. Since the story was shaping up to take place in North Carolina during that time period, writing Reverend Cole into it was a perfect fit.

As I further pondered the civil rights movement, I checked my notes from my brainstorming session and saw I had written down the word, Cherokee. I began to think of civil rights for all people, which led to the Native American plight in my story. According to my father, our family’s historian, my great grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. Listening to the pain of the Cherokee voices inside my head, I knew I had to include them.

The wolf finally appeared in the story. Wolves are about family and order. The wolf is a subtle character, but still a voice to be reckoned with. I had studied the wolf carefully, and found there were people who loved wolves enough to create sanctuaries for them. Later, I discovered a wolf sanctuary only a four-hour drive from my home. A wolf sanctuary in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the town of Bakersville. We drove up the side of a mountain leading to a sign that read, The Wolf Sanctum. From that moment, I called my novel, The Sanctum.

 

When I pulled my outline together, I sat for one last brainstorming session with my dear friends. It didn't take long before I felt I had the inciting incident. The book is complete and hopefully, with God's blessing, it will be published.

 

Televenge was such a personal story, I didn't feel the need to brainstorm. But for future books, you can bet I will gather my brainstorming group together for at least three sessions per story. In addition to your research, a writer should not be afraid to ask for help.

 

Brainstorming. It's a writer's boost from ideas rolling around in your head, to getting it onto the page.

 

Try it.

 

Blessings to you and yours.