Date: Wednesday, March 10

Where: Hastings Round Rock

Time: 6 pm

I will also be speaking with the paranormal romance readers group later that evening. Please stop by and say hi!

I would like to thank the students of Melony Kempf’s classes for being so engaged and interested in my talk this morning at Pflugerville Middle School. I had fun and hope you all did too.

I talked about how I started writing when I was a little kid and wrote lots when I was in middle school and high school. I brought one of my typewritten short stories from when I was 15 years old, and told the kids they probably had never seen anything typewritten before. I also brought a selection of magazines with my short stories and of course copies of Red Gold Bridge and Gordath Wood.

I gave my writing “rules:” write every day. Commit, don’t give up. Keep everything. Get to the end. You have a writing brain and an editing brain. Don’t try to edit as you go, because you will only hurt your feelings.

I told them that all the entertainment that they enjoy — video games, books, and music — all start with the written word.

We talked about rejections, and they were suitably impressed by the 45-50 rejections I got for Gordath Wood.

And we talked about favorite books. They like Twilight, the Hunger Games, a new book called Unwind, which sounds absolutely fascinating and I must pick it up, so thanks to the kids who recommended it, and Uglies. One young lady is a fan of John Grisham. There were also the Alex Rider series, James Patterson, and Lightning Thief.

People say kids don’t read. Pshaw.

Thanks again, everyone, and read on!

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I thought the towers were built for me. — Philippe Petit, wirewalker

In 1974 Philippe Petit, the French wirewalker, pulled off a sensational coup. As recounted in the documentary Man on Wire, he set up a cable between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and for 45 minutes walked and danced between them.

To hear eyewitness reports, magic was created that day. People kept on repeating that word; magical. Petit even said it himself.

Magic is real. It’s not just sleight of hand or the flash-bang magic of fantasy books. Petit’s magic is Goethe’s magic, powered by boldness and vision.

Yet we can’t think of Petit’s coup outside of the context of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

On the one hand: magic and wonder. On the other: horror. There was nothing bold or visionary about the 9/11 attacks. After all, with sufficient fire anything will come down. Petit created magic that day; Al Qaeda created disgust.

I keep miscalling the Twin Towers the Two Towers, because after 9/11 they became a part of a bigger narrative than just being the stodgy, somewhat boring, seat of world trade. But even before that, even before the abortive 1993 attack on the towers, they were something else.

In 1974, they were magic.

“One of the things I always tell my kids is that it’s OK to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful, you’re gonna have to pass through all right,” Withers says. “When you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it, because that may be as far as you’re gonna go.” –from the NPR story on “Still Bill,” a documentary on Bill Withers.

So I’m looking around and I’m thinking, is this it? Is this all right? Cause I expected wonderful, and maybe now I’m thinking I have to accept all right.

I loved writing Gordath Wood. It wasn’t effortless and I made lots of creative changes, and threw out a third of it and started over, and when it sold I couldn’t believe it. And there it was. My book, in my hands. In stores. I  get fan mail and it still blows me away. I wrote something that people loved so much they stayed up all night to read it and then wrote to me about it.

That right there, that was getting to wonderful.

I wrote Red Gold Bridge in a state of stark panic. Again I threw out a third of it, and wrote in utter terror because I had a fast approaching deadline and I wasn’t sure it was any good. My editor and my readers reassured me it was good, but I didn’t believe it until I gained some time and distance, and kind of cracked the book open and acknowledged that yes, I had actually done what I set out to do. And also it is possible to write peering through one’s fingers.

That was another kind of wonderful.

So I have two beautiful books that have entertained and moved people. I get letters from fans. I still think my best work is ahead of me, but these books — these books are wonderful.

But I think I passed through all right without looking closely enough at it.  Because here’s the deal. The books didn’t sell well. They were wonderful, and getting published is wonderful, but the reality is, they just weren’t good enough. I’m trying not to think that means I’m not good enough, but there’s that monster lurking on the edges of my psyche.

This might be it. I might never sell another book again. Oh sure there’s Lulu and all, and nowadays we’re all just a vanity press away from being an author, but to really sell a book, in the old-fashioned, dead tree, terribly inefficient, working with an editor kind of way? The book that I’m currently pouring my heart and soul into will likely not be published that way at all. The sad reality is, if the first two don’t sell, you sure don’t get to sell the next one.

So maybe for some people, you pass through all right on the way to wonderful. I’m thinking I got to wonderful and well, it doesn’t get wonderfuller.

Do prologues work or are they just authors marking time?

I added a prologue to GWIII and brought it to my writer’s group for their perusal. Here’s what I heard: “lacks urgency.” “Needs to start earlier at a more crucial moment.” “Characters aren’t engaged.” And my favorite — “It’s a fat guy eating whilst looking at a map.”

Fred, he of the last comment, brought three books with prologues and read from them. Two failed. They conveyed no useful information and were static. The third, from The Lies of Locke Lamora, worked (no surprise). There was action, conflict, and crucial information, and as the prologue took place years before the rest of the book, it was rightly a prologue that introduced Locke to the reader and to his world.

The thing about the prologue is, I’m not sure I want it or need it. I know there has to be some connection to our world but I’m not sure this is it. I know I want a framing device around the main story, but I’m not sure this is it either. So for now, I’ve taken that prologue out. I may try again with something different.

In general I don’t approve of prologues anyway, and this might be a case of forcing myself to do something I don’t want to do and that’s why it doesn’t work.

“Yo, white boy! You just gonna stand there or you gonna play?”

Colar started. He’d been watching the black kids play a fluid, fast game of basketball, and kind of forgot where he was. The kid who hollered at him bounced the ball impatiently, waiting.

He knew he shouldn’t play. He didn’t know how, his wounds were still healing, and the surgeon had told him not to exert himself too much or he could pull stitches, or start bleeding again. He reminded Colar he had to take out his spleen, and Colar nodded, not even knowing what a spleen was. He nodded a lot since crossing the gordath.

But he knew more than anything that if he walked away from the basketball court, he’d end up walking away from everything. Soldier’s god, be by my side he thought, as he loped over.

The black kids cheered and laughed and waved him onto one side. He fell in with them, adopting their stance.

The kid who called him over blew past him like he was standing still and leaped into the air, palming the ball and plunging it into the basket. Colar figured out a couple of things – that had been for his benefit, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

#

Thirty minutes later, they stopped, panting, and flopped into the shade of some skinny trees beside the cement court.

“Damn, white boy, you suck,” said the kid who called him over. His name was Darius.

“Yeah,” Colar said ruefully. He was bruised and scraped, and his new jeans had a hole in the knee where he’d been knocked to the cement. He dripped with sweat, and his shirt stuck to his back, stinging his still-raw scars. Despite the cold spring air, he stripped off his shirt. At the sudden silence he looked up. He shrugged. “Long story.”

“Shit,” Darius said.

“You ready?” Colar said. They all looked at each other, and then Darius got to his feet and held out his hand to Colar, and helped him up. Another kid tossed the ball at him and he caught it, feeling the pebbled surface smack into his hands, in a good way. It had been a long time since he moved like this, free and easy, his muscles loose and tired and worked. He had been cautious for so long, recuperating for so long. He wanted to play hard, lose, then win.

He couldn’t go home to Terrick, but he could do this. He could play basketball.

Colar bounced the ball a few times and then dribbled, passed to a teammate and moved up the court, took the pass and shot.

The ball bounced off the rim, and sailed off course into the gravel outside the cement square.

“Colar!”

He turned. They all turned. There were Kate and her mother near the community college entrance, with the papers they said they needed for Kate. He could tell they were staring. Darius nudged him.

“Your momma and sister?”

“Yeah,” Colar said. He looked around at everyone. “Gotta go.”

He got his shirt, knew better than to wave, and walked away, drawing the t-shirt painfully over his red scars and sweat-stung skin.

“Hey, Cole!”

He turned around. Darius nodded.

“Work on your game or I’ll kick your ass twice as hard.”

Colar laughed. “Maybe, maybe not.”

#

Mr. and Mrs. Mossland scolded him in their own way, earnest and serious and talking of consequences. They also mentioned his spleen and skirted the subject of the kids, who seemed rough but fine to Colar but there was something maybe not right about them, the way Kate’s parents were not scolding him and even avoided mentioning them. He figured he’d ask Kate later.

“Well,” Mrs. Mossland said brightly, as she offered a yellow curry dish that reminded him of the spices of home. He took more. “We got Kate signed up for community college classes this summer. All she needs now are some volunteer hours to keep her busy.”

“Ah, volunteering,” said Mr. Mossland. “So what good do you want to do, Kate? Reading to little old ladies? Ladling soup at a food shelter? Candy striping?”

This was one of those conversations that Colar didn’t understand so he stopped listening and attended to his curry and noodles.

“Well,” Kate said with due deliberation. “I think, that I would like to apply myself to the janitorial arts.”

Her mother rolled her eyes and her father snorted.

“You cannot muck stalls for volunteer hours.”

“It’s not like the horses can do it themselves. Besides, I like mucking stalls.”

That made Colar look up at her. He hated stablework. Horses were fine, he was a good rider, but if her world had one thing that was better than home, it was cars. And airplanes. Especially planes. Her parents said they would find time in the summer to maybe take a plane trip. They mentioned the Grand Canyon.

“If they were disadvantaged horses, I’d say maybe. As it is, that place is like a country club for equines.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “I’ll candy stripe.”

Colar was back to having no idea what that meant.

#

“So, why were your mother and father angry?”

They sat in his bedroom. It had been Mr. Mossland’s office, hastily reconfigured for his arrival from the hospital. He had a bed, a dresser for his new clothes, a computer desk and chair, and a computer. He had no decorations, not like Kate’s room where she had lived forever. Her room was filled with books and ribbons and horse pictures, especially of her little horse, Mojo.

His closet held his weapons and his gear, all hanging neatly. Mr. Mossland had cleaned it for him, the man said proudly and a little hopefully. Colar had to ask Kate for materials to reclean it himself. At least the man had gotten most of the blood off.

Kate sat at the computer desk, and he sat on the bed, propped up by the pillow. He was aching again, and he knew it was because of the basketball game. He would have to take a pain pill. Two things, he thought, better than home. He wondered if he would lose count.

“Well,” Kate said frowning. “The community college is kind of in a bad part of town, and the kids might have been, well, not so good.”

“Bad, you mean.”

“Yeah. But, it’s not fair to stereotype just because they’re black. So my mom and dad are conflicted. And then there’s your–”

“Spleen. Yes, I know.” He thought about what she had told him. “I thought they were like me. Like they’d seen a lot, older than you and the other kids your age. But they weren’t dangerous. They just wanted to show me they could play better than I could.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Boys are weird. Anyway, you looked like you were getting along with that one guy.”

“Darius. He reminded me of Skaylar, sort of. A good leader.”

She laughed. “Well, there you go. It’s in his name. Darius was a great king and he fathered an even greater one, named Alexander.”

Maybe that’s why they got along, but he didn’t say that to Kate. He and Darius, both named after kings.

Salon’s Laura Miller has an excellent article about what readers look for in a compelling novel. Published writers and aspiring writers can learn much from this column. I especially liked this bit:

3. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting. Of course all these elements are interlinked, and in the best fiction they all contribute to and enhance each other. But if you were to eliminate these elements, starting at the end of the list and moving toward the beginning, you could still end up with a novel that lots of people wanted to read; the average mass-market thriller is nothing but story. If you sacrifice these elements starting from the beginning of the list, you will instead wind up with a sliver of arty experimentation that, if you’re very, very good, a handful of other people might someday read and admire. There’s honor in that, but it’s daft to write something with the deliberate intention of denying readers what they love and want and then to be heartbroken when they aren’t interested. If you want to engage with more than a tiny coterie, take storytelling seriously; if you think that’s incompatible with art, you are in the wrong line of work.

We won’t be finished arguing about art vs. commercial til the end of time, I imagine, and Miller’s argument here is a succinct and compelling case for the need for both.

I went out with friends tonight to Momo’s in Austin and had what was one of the best nights I’ve had in a while. Good friends, good music, and a “find” — a musician we never heard before and we’re still talking about.

First up was The Vermeers, a friend’s band. I love the Vermeers. They remind me of coming to Austin in 1987, when the music scene was exploding around me. They played some of their older stuff from the Sleepwalkers days as well as newer compositions. (V says they remind her of the Beatles and Elvis Costello. I just get flashbacks to those crazy slacker days when I could survive in Austin on sunshine, beer, and temp jobs.) They have a new member, Pamela Ryder (Rider?), whose voice is gorgeous and dreamy and like molasses. At one point I thought it was Allan singing! But it was Pam and it was fantastic.

Then came the real surprise — a guy named Jarrod Dickenson.

Remember this guy. He will be famous some day. We couldn’t believe what we heard. So listen up, Austinites — he’ll be playing at Momo’s every Monday night in March. You owe it to yourselves to hear him. His band included a violist who was quite simply phenomenal, a standup bass, and drummer, who one of my friends said, hey Middle Eastern drummer playing Middle Eastern beats to Americana-folk! It was that great.

I bought his CD and I’m listening to it now and it’s great, but seriously, catch him live. He was also sweet — came up to us after his set and introduced himself and thanked us for coming.

Next was Dustin Welch. Momo’s never got crowded, so we got a great show in an intimate setting. Outside the cold front was blowing in and inside the room was warm and cozy. Dustin asked us if he could wait for his mom to arrive before he started, as he hadn’t seen her in a while, since she lives in Nashville. She came about five minutes later, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and we settled in to another fine set. His fiddle player was unbelievable — wow, that girl could play. It was just Dustin, the fiddle and bass, and they were relaxed and laid back and beautiful. Probably my favorite song was Sparrows (?) which he said was on a compilation CD, Voices of a Grateful Nation, to support soldiers with closed head injuries and PTSD.

A word about Momo’s — I’m not a musician and even I could tell their sound system was amazing. We could hear every word, nothing was muddied or blaring. My friends who are musicians said Momo’s and the Parish have two of the best sound systems in Austin.

We left before the final two bands, only because we didn’t want to press our luck. We ended the evening on a perfect note, gathered out coats and went out into the growing storm.

Man, I need to get out more.

Attention, fantasy and paranormal romance fans in the Austin area: I will be at the Hastings in Round Rock on March 10, signing books and visiting with the paranormal romance readers at their meeting later that evening.

When: Wednesday,  March 10

Where: Hastings Round Rock (2200 South IH-35)

Time: 6 pm

I am looking forward to meeting local readers and paranormal fans. If you have any questions you’d like to have answered, email on the blog or save them up for the meeting.

I went out to the farm again today, this time to ride. Since the main ring is closed because it’s still too wet, there was a queue for the round pen, for which we have to sign up. So I got Frisbee, groomed him again (and despite yesterday’s hard work, he had clearly lain down at one point because he was pretty muddy) and tacked him up.

At that point the weather was beautiful: sunny, cool, and only slightly windy. When it was my turn to ride in the pen (which is 40 feet in diameter, so a decent size) I led him in and mounted and began to move him out at a walk.

Not five minutes later the weather turned. A HUGE gust of wind came down, the skies clouded over, and the temperature plummeted. A Texas norther had just blown in.

Well, shoot. Frisbee’s biggest fear is wind, because it blows stuff around, stuff that might LEAP OUT AT HIM AND EAT HIM ALIVE !!!! AGHHH!! So that sucked. And sure enough, a rag left hanging on the wash stalls fluttered and he leaped to the side.

But I was determined, so I kept him walking and trotting and doing circles and figure eights and serpentines (not easy in this pen) and so he had to think and pay attention to me instead of the wind. I was planning on at least making him work up a sweat, but decided that it was better to make sure that he was settled and calm under saddle so I rode for less than half an hour.

But boy I was attentive. I had to keep an eye on him plus the entire environment so I could anticipate a sideways leap, while at the same time insisting on his attention on me. (He does this crouch and swoop move that is pretty impressive.) So in a way, I was attuned to his way of thinking, in which everything is a potential threat. It was tiring, living on nerve endings that way, but also exhilarating. We tend to tune the world out, but I had to consciously tune in to everything.

All in all, it was a good ride. I am looking forward to getting back into the main ring and actually doing some real work on horseback. But this is Texas, in winter, and you take what you can get.