Goodbye, Ms. McCaffrey!

When I'm asked to name the influences on my writing, Anne McCaffrey is always one of the first names I mention, but I'm not writing this as an author. No, I want to say goodbye to her as a reader.

I first came to Pern by way of Half-Circle Hold and Harper Hall.

It was one of those summer days in Irondale, Alabama when no matter how much Mom ran the air conditioning in the car, my shirt stuck to my back when I got out. We were at the library, and I had wandered from the hardback section and found the round shelves that housed the young adult paperback books. One cover caught my eye, that of redheaded girl who looked about my age and who was surrounded by tiny swooping dragons in different colors. She stood on some rocks by the ocean and held in her hands what looked like a set of wooden pipes. It went into my pile, which would be finished within the week. I don't remember any of the others I picked up that day, but that book was Dragonsong, the first book in the Harper Hall Trilogy.


I don't remember exactly how old I was, just that I was struggling with the things most adolescents do: not fitting in, feeling unappreciated, and general annoyance at the stubbornness of the adults in my life who insisted on silly things like curfews. I escaped through books and found in the Harper Hall trilogy a heroine I could relate to and who did the things I could only dream of. In that pivotal scene, I was Menolly running my feet ragged over a pebbly beach trying to escape from the pressures that wanted to mindlessly devour me, the ones that hissed, "Be thin! Be perfect! Live up to everyone's expectations!"

Then, in the second book, Dragonsinger: Harper of Pern, I understood Menolly the misfit who had to deal with the silly shallowness of the paying female students at Harper Hall. It's tough to be a girl, especially a smart girl. Ms. McCaffrey got it, the struggle between being good at something and not wanting to stand out too much. Oh, and the importance of sassy boots. Finally, in Dragondrums, Menolly finds love, and it gave me hope that a geeky girl like me would eventually find someone. I did, and I didn't need the help of any randy fire lizards.

In spite of wishing hard and taking long walks on the Destin beach to find a deserted-enough spot (there aren't any), I never found a nest of fire lizards. It wasn't until I had cats that I figured out where McCaffrey had modeled her little psychic dragons from. My tuxedo kitty rubs me with his wedge-shaped head and rumbles when he's happy. He gets very persistent when he's hungry, although thankfully his eyes don't turn red.

I did eventually read the rest of the Pern books to get the context for the Harper Hall Trilogy, and I enjoyed meeting Lessa, F'lar, F'nor, Jaxom, and the other dragonriders, holders, and thieves. Menolly will always have a special place in my heart, and if I ever have a daughter, I will give her my well-worn copy of Dragonsong. Maybe she'll be able to relate and find hope like I did.

Happy flying, Ms. McCaffrey! Don't forget to bundle up well – it gets cold between. We'll miss you.

On Process and Progress: Verbal Shortcuts

My heart got blessed when we were in North Georgia a few weeks ago, except I don't think it really did. Hubby and I were checking out at one of the many apple orchards near Ellijay and chatting with a friendly older gentleman behind the counter.

"Where are y'all from?" he asked.

"Atlanta."

"Oh, bless your heart!"

When we got to the car, Hubby looked at me and said, "I think we just got insulted."

That classic passive-aggressive Southern phrase got me to thinking about what kind of language shortcuts we use. As a psychologist, I can't help but wonder what they help us to say without saying directly. Consider the "Bless your heart" above. It was really, "Oh, you poor things! Our quality of life up here in the North Georgia Mountains is vastly superior to what you city folks experience."

Yep, nothing nice in that mound of condescension. The phrase actually means the opposite. Consider these other phrases in common use and what they really (really?!) mean:

"Not going to go there," but by saying this, you prompt your listener to.

"Awesome" can go either way.

"Wicked!" may be a musical, but my Yankee cousins were using it to mean awesome long before Gregory Maguire ever wrote the book the musical is based on.

"Oh, no you didn't!" and I can't believe you did!

The tricky thing with using these phrases in dialogue is that tone of voice conveys as much of the message as the words. My characters sometimes ask, "Really?" but for clarification, not as in, "I can't believe how stupid that was!"

There's also the timeliness of the phrase. Not everything spans generations like "Bless your heart." I recently read a draft of a Civil War era novel in which a character said, "Don't. Just don't." I marked it as "too modern." It could go the other way. I wouldn't have any of my characters set in a novel in 2011 say, "All that and a bag of chips!" That one always puzzled me.

What are your current favorite shortcut phrases? If you don't have any, well, bless your heart!

What I did with those apples:

What I learned about writing from Bad Movie Day

One of my writing/drinking buddies – yes, it's funny how those go together – hosted a Bad Movie Day at his house yesterday. Apparently his wife was out of town on a girls' camping trip, so she couldn't object. Even better, he home brews, so there was plenty of alcohol to help us cope with the visual and logical carnage that ensued.

Although the festivities started at noon-ish, Hubby and I didn't arrive until later, so we only had the pleasure (if you can call it that) of watching the last four selections. Here they are, with the IMDB descriptive blurbs and links should you care to read more about them yourselves:



Chupacabra Terror (2005): When cryptozoologist Dr. Peña traps the legendary Chupacabra on a remote Caribbean island, he smuggles it aboard a cruise ship with disastrous results.

Creepers (1993; original title Contagion .7): People from a small town are attacked by evil radioactive tree roots growing in the forest.

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000): After enslavement & near extermination by an alien race in the year 3000, humanity begins to fight back.

Birdemic: Shock and Horror (2008): A platoon of eagle & vultures attack the residence of a small town. Many people died. It's not known what caused the flying menace to attack. Two people managed to fight back, but will they survive Birdemic?

Movies start as ideas that are turned into screenplays by writers and made visual by producers, actors, and directors. Not surprisingly, the same things that make for a bad story or novel can also happen to movies, but at many different layers. So what makes a bad movie?

1. A single-dimensional hero with ill-defined motivation:

It's not surprising that many of the films that made it into the bad movie day queue are horror films because they tap into the most basic of human motivations: survival. The problem is that a hero needs internal motivation and conflict beyond that to be interesting to an audience.

Apparently Battlefield Earth got universally panned for many reasons, but the biggest problem I had with the movie was that I didn't care about the hero. Sure, he was gutsy and smart and somewhat good looking, but I just couldn't identify with him because he lacked internal conflict. Even his name, Johnny Goodboy Tyler, warns there's not much to him.


2. A single-dimensional villain with ill-defined motivation:

Okay, when you're dealing with murderous mythical creatures, tree roots, and birds, you can't really ask too much, especially when tree roots with their sassy whipping sounds are the best actors in the film. I actually liked the villains in Battlefield Earth better than the heroes because although John Travolta's acting wasn't great, his character Terl had some dimension to him.

With the other films, I wanted to know why these things were attacking people. In Chupacabra Terror, all we know about the creature is that its name means "goat sucker" because it feeds off the blood of goats. Okay, is it hungry? If so, it should've been sated after about two people because it's not that big. Is it pissed or scared that it's been trapped and taken out of its natural habitat? That would've been something that the cryptozoologist could have enlightened us about. In Birdemic, all we get to know are that the birds, which have somehow become explosive (and angry!), have started attacking people, and it just might have something to do with global warming.

Okay, so it's probably a stretch to think too much about radioactive tree roots, but if an author or screenwriter is going to use a device like that, they need to establish both the why and how. Sure, the roots had turned "carnivorous," but we were left wondering how, aside from asphyxiation, the tree roots were killing people. It's mentioned that they've turned into "predators," but how do they suck the nutrients from their victims? That would have made for some more interesting information and added a dimension of scariness.

3. Bad editing:

The best example of this was just about everything in Birdemic: Shock and Terror. You know something's wrong when the whole room is chanting, "Cut! Cut!" at the screen. The lesson for writers is to know or get feedback on what information is extraneous and cut it out. Stephen King in On Writing recommends cutting ten percent of your word count. Birdemic director James Nguyen should have cut about forty.

Another problem is transitions. After watching the Powerpoint-type curtain fade-ins in Battlefield Earth, not to mention the awkward tilted camera angles, we were all seasick. I once attended a talk by Alan Gratz, author of Samurai Shortstop, at the Harriette Austin Writers Conference. He suggested smoothing out transitions by ending one chapter with an image and bringing it back in a different way at the beginning of the next. Perhaps he should consult on films.

4. The preaching – make it stop!

I'm not going to say much on this one. I edited a translation of a book once that had a long, preachy section at the end that the author would not cut out. You have to trust your viewers – and readers – to know what the moral of the film or story is without beating them over the head with it.

I was told several times yesterday that I was thinking too hard about what I was watching, but as a writer, I just couldn't help it. One of my Twitter friends reminded me at the Decatur Book Festival that we learn as much if not more from reading bad fiction than good. These movies were so bad they were good for some laughs, both at them and the audience comments. Sometimes it's good to be reminded about what not to do and to do so in good company.

Metapost: A Little Light Self-Promotion...

In January, I entered publisher Buddhapuss Ink's Mystery Times Ten contest, and in March I got an email that I had been selected as one of the twenty finalists. This meant a lot because my story had impressed the teen panelists, who I figured would be the toughest of all. Then I got an email on a Friday in April that I was one of the ten finalists, which excited me because it meant that, even if I hadn't placed, I would be able to skip the slush pile if I were to ever submit a Young Adult novel to them. The following Monday, I got the very happy news that I'd placed first! Yep, I got a Kindle. This is somewhat ironic after my long debate over what kind of e-reader I'd buy. Between that and my Nook Color, I now have access to just about everything.

The books themselves came out on July 22, and my story "The Coral Temple" is the first one. One of the judges said the following:

"[This story] was fantastic! Seriously, so well-developed with a multitude of characters that come alive at once, a tautly wrapped up mystery, and that wonderful element of a mysterious far off place we’ve never been. The social hierarchy, the setting description, and the emotional pieces all work, too. Plus the characters are teens. Oh joy!"

This is my first major short story publication, so of course I'm very excited. You can order the book directly from Amazon here, or if you would like a signed copy, please email me at cecilia {at} ceciliadominic {dot} com, and I'll send you details about shipping, payment, etc.

On Process and Progress: Playing the Numbers Game

Three years ago, I joined a short story class led by a friend of mine who has published nine of them, but none for pay. I went on the first day, and when the teacher and other students asked what I wanted out of writing fiction, I gave them the honest answer: I want to do this for a living.

"Oh, that's going to be so hard!" one of the other students said, and (seriously!) wrinkled her nose as if to say, "Oh, that's so cute!"

The teacher* was even less encouraging. "There are three hundred million people in the United States," he said, "and less than four hundred of them are able to write fiction full-time without any additional support like spousal income or from another job."


(File by Jim Irwin on Wikimedia, used by general permission)

Well, damn. That means I have such a small chance of actually making it as a full-time, professional fiction writer that my computer calculator doesn't even want to give me the number without using scientific notation with a negative decimal point (1.333*10^-4%, or 0.0001333 percent). Giving that perspective, when I applied to a Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology in 1998, the acceptance rates for those programs were between six and eight percent, which is, by the way, less than for medical school.

But this got me to thinking. That number is way too low considering the context. Let's break it down...

First, how many people actually want to write fiction? Let's start with how many people want or like to write. Okay, I'm pulling this number out of my ass, but as we all know, 36% of statistics (including this one) are made up on the spot. So, thinking of the people I know, let's say that one third of them actually write, and that's probably a generous representation of the general population considering I tend to hang out with other writers. That brings the starting number down to one hundred million. Forty percent of the book market goes to fiction (this seems to be a fairly consistent number across sources), so the starting number equals forty million.

So, 400/400,000 = 0.1% At least we're out of the scientific notation.

Let's go a step further. Of that four hundred million, how many of them are actually serious about writing? By serious, I mean putting regular time into it (better than I have been about blog posting) and learning about the craft. For guidance, I turned to magazine circulation for the three big writing magazines: Writer's Digest, Writer Magazine, and Poets & Writers. Yes, my assumption is that people who are serious enough to study the craft of writing will subscribe to magazines. Here are the numbers:

Writer's Digest: 110,000
Writer Magazine: 30,000
Poets & Writers: 60,000

Sure, I'm not hitting everyone, but I'm sure there are others like me who take more than one, so we'll make the assumption that non-magazine reading serious writers are covered by the overlap. The total is now 200,000, and thank you, statistics gods, for the nice, round number!

One more step: lots of people start books, but who is serious enough to actually finish a manuscript and go through the agony of submitting it? For this, I turned to the acceptance rates for M.F.A. programs. These are the type of talented, driven people I feel like I'm up against. According to the Almighty Google, who has been very helpful with this process, creative writing M.F.A. acceptance rates are between 2.5 and 5%. So, that brings our number down to a range of 5000-10,000. Going with our initial starting point of 400 successful career fiction writers, the chance of success then becomes four to eight percent. This was actually close to my chances of getting into a clinical psychology Ph.D. program, which I did. And took four semesters of statistics, in case you couldn't tell.



(File from Wikimedia)

Am I making a lot of assumptions with this process? Yes. Do I know for sure what my chances of making it as a fiction author are? No. But I have time to find out, a supportive spouse, and a day job that I enjoy. By the way, the teacher who first handed down that dour statistic has since become one of my biggest supporters who has said that he thinks I have what it takes. I'm going to take him up on his challenge to become number four hundred and one.

The kind of math I like: dessert on graph paper plate at Chocolate by the Bald Man in Philadelphia.

Book Review: Pandora's Succession by Russell Brooks

It's hard to write, finish, and revise a book, and it takes courage and money to get it out there. Readers who are interested in self-published books but who don't want to waste their time on low-quality ones need a place to go for reviews. I'll post a review of a self-published book the first weekend of every month so that authors and readers can connect with each other.

If you're interested in getting your book reviewed, please email my assistant at bert{at}ceciliadominic.com



Title: Pandora's Succession
Author: Russell Brooks
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: CreateSpace (paperback), also available as an e-book from major outlets

First, apologies to Mr. Brooks and my blog fans for the delay on posting this one! Life has been hectic with all 2.5 jobs going full-tilt and some exciting writing-related news (see who's in first place). I also didn't want to post on Mother's Day.

Hero Ridley Fox was all set to leave the exciting life of an undercover agent to settle down with his fiancée Jessica when she was killed by the Arms of Ares, a Russian weapons ring. At the start of the book a few years later, Fox infiltrates one of their bunkers, where they are manufacturing Pandora, a nasty microbe that eats its victims from the inside out within seconds of exposure. The microbe is then stolen by Japanese pharmaceutical company Hexagon, which is under the control of a cult called The Promise, which wants to use the microbe for world domination. Or something like that. The head of the cult explains the entire plan like a good Bond villain when the hero is captured.

I almost designated the genre for this one as being "guy-lit." As opposed to chick-lit, where the single characters end up married, in guy-lit, you can pretty much predict the married guys are toast. It also has some of the hallmarks of my husband's favorite television shows and movies: a hero with a tragedy in his past that motivates him for revenge, bad guys with automatic weapons and good guys with handguns, women who tend toward uber-bitchiness, and lots of explosions, gunfights, and even ninjas.

The first two thirds of the book move quickly, and sometimes it's hard to keep the large cast of characters straight, especially since each of the evil organizations seems to have an unlimited supply of bad guys. The double-crossing is fairly clear, although sometimes the characters' motives aren't. The author does a good job of explaining a fairly complex set-up without dumping too much backstory in, and he keeps the action moving.

Everyone seems to have a tragedy or secret in their past, and one of the themes of the book is that people have a choice as to what they do with the pain. Fox uses it for revenge. Scientist Nita Parris is motivated by her past hurts to become an undercover operative. The villain decides that government and religion are behind his or her pain and moves toward an extreme solution (trying to avoid a spoiler, although the identity of the mastermind is revealed about a quarter of the way through the book). The Promise cult uses the pain of its victims as a psychological gateway for their brainwashing drug Clarity.

Characterization is one of the weaker aspects of the book. Although I applaud Brooks for trying to make his hero rounder than a James Bond or Jack Bauer, Fox's introspection can feel clunky. His eventual reconciliation with Parris, whom he dated and stood up in the past, seems awkward, and the final relationship between the two characters isn't clear. Parris also demonstrates some inconsistency in that she is obviously uncomfortable with the research she is doing at Hexagon, yet she's shocked when she discovers it's related to a cult. What else would she be brainwashing people for? I wasn't sure what she thought would happen to the research subjects after she was done with them.

Fans of action and adventure in exotic locales will brush aside character concerns for the fast-paced plot. The final confrontation, with ninjas battling Russian operatives for Pandora, and Fox having to defeat both to sabotage the disaster that Promise wants to unleash on the world is very well-written. Brooks' pacing is perfect, and it's easy to follow the complicated battle scene through the eyes of the two main characters and one of the bad guys.

I got this one from the author as a .pdf file, which I read on my Nook, so I can't comment on the physical book. There were a few typos and rare verb tense issues, but they weren't excessive. All of the plot threads tie up nicely at the end. Some of the descriptions of Pandora in action were a bit gory, but I think that's standard for the genre.

Bottom line: Not for germophobes, but thriller fans will love it.

Previous Reviews:
Gint Aras' Finding the Moon in Sugar
Perry Treadwell's From Sea to Shining Sea on U.S. 20
James Huskins' Silent Scream: A Groovy Mystery Caper
Laura Eno's Don't Fall Asleep: A Dream Assassin Novel
Donna Carrick's The First Excellence -- Fa-Ling's Map
Kenn Allen's The Golden Cockerel

Up Next: The Handbook of the Writer Secret Society by Carrie Bailey, et al.

Book Review: Finding the Moon in Sugar by Gint Aras

It's hard to write, finish, and revise a book, and it takes courage and money to get it out there. Readers who are interested in self-published books but who don't want to waste their time on low-quality ones need a place to go for reviews. I'll post a review of a self-published book the first weekend of every month so that authors and readers can connect with each other. Interviews have been put on hold for now due to time constraints.

If you're interested in getting your book reviewed, please email my assistant at bert{at}ceciliadominic.com



Title: Finding the Moon in Sugar
Author: Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas, aka Gint Aras
Genre: Tragicomedy, Coming of Age
Publisher: Infinity

Andrew Nowak hasn't figured out how to get it right yet, "it" being life. He tries to do the right things – hold down a job, take classes at the community college – but he ends up in debt and dealing drugs. He has a mother with a sixth sense about when he has money and who applies the right balance of guilt and insult to get it away from him. His sister is a meth-head who ends up living with her mother-in-law. So when lovely Lithuanian internet bride Audra takes an interest in him, he goes with it even though she's married to someone he fears. He's so smitten that when she gets an American passport and returns to Vilnius, he sells everything and follows her.

In spite of the interesting premise, it took me a while to get into this book for two reasons. First, Nowak isn't the type of narrator I find sympathetic, and he spends enough of the book either drunk or high that after the second or third time, I was thinking, "Enough, already!" In fact, the title is taken from something he does while out of his mind on vodka after a funeral. Second, it's written as though it's his memoir, which he's writing to look at the past and "figure stuff out." It took a few chapters for me to ignore the misspellings and grammar mistakes that are part of his writing, e.g., "cauze" instead of "because." Also, after he goes to Lithuania, he starts substituting "make" for "have" like his Lithuanian friends do, but outside of dialogue.

In spite of his substance use and writing difficulties, Nowak grows on the reader, especially after Audra becomes unstable, and he has to take care of himself and find his own way in a strange country. Aras demonstrates his own prowess with language while staying in Nowak's voice with phrases like, "And she blew this line of smoke, like a rope for Gidas to hang himself" (page 109). I also really liked, "I could feel the big difference between a girlfriend and a wife, like how a wife would get old if you don't [mess] it up" (page 178, language lightened for the blog). There are also several interesting parallels between Nowak's history and his experiences that were fun to ponder after reading the book. Sure, Andy has fried a few brain cells, but he has good observation skills and insight into his own and others' motivations, which is how he survives Audra's most self-destructive act.

The book for this review was a courtesy paperback copy from the author, and it's beautifully done from the cover to the layout on the inside. It was hard to tell what might be a typo since the narrator isn't a proficient writer, but nothing stood out. You can get signed or electronic copies from Aras' website.

Bottom Line: A sweet novel from a rough narrator. Well worth the time to read.

Previous Reviews:
Perry Treadwell's From Sea to Shining Sea on U.S. 20
James Huskins' Silent Scream: A Groovy Mystery Caper
Laura Eno's Don't Fall Asleep: A Dream Assassin Novel
Donna Carrick's The First Excellence -- Fa-Ling's Map
Kenn Allen's The Golden Cockerel

Up next: Russell Brooks' Pandora's Succession