“God-given ability only takes a person so far…From there, where one goes is a witch’s brew of intangibles–will, opportunity, desire, timing, commitment, personalities, vision, and luck.”– Scott Gummer in PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY

The line reads like this in my mind:Last night I dreamed I went to Manderly again…

…but goes like: Last night I went to Random House.

It was actually two nights ago, but who’s counting?

I am. The first time I got to walk through my new publisher’s doors will be imprinted on my brain, and all days will for at least a while be counted from it: Two days ago I was there; a week ago today I was there; one month ago…

When I arrived I waited outside to meet my agent (and for this event, hand-holder) and across the street I saw several silver hanging signs with one word on them.

Dream.

Why yes, it is, I felt like saying aloud. My dream, that is. But how’d you know?

Turns out Dream is a hotel right near the lofty offices I was about to enter. Or at least it was there for that night, now two days ago. In the way of dreams (and eerie novels) I have the feeling it might’ve been plunked down to make the point and now if I called to make a reservation, someone might answer and say, “No, there’s no hotel called Dream in the city, and there never has been…”

The lobby of RH, which must be forty feet or higher, has wall to wall and floor to ceiling bookcases, with just some of the books all the imprints have published stored behind glass.

I used to spend play dates and birthday parties curled up in front of the host child’s collection of unknown books , and so you might understand how strong my impulse was to just sit…and read.

Instead we took the elevator up to the 25th floor. Dozens of people were milling about, mostly women, some in the kind of nice garb I never wore when I was part of the working world, and others (the romance authors for whom this party was held) in colorful frocks like a bouquet themselves.

The cocktail of the night was champagne with strawberries and rose water tinting it scarlet. Wait staff circulated with plates of finger tidbits that looked oh so tempting (beef with caramelized onions on toast? coconut shrimp with a chili dipping sauce?) except that I was too nervous to eat.

My new editor is one of the most gracious people I have ever chanced to meet, and she–who was something like the bride at this shindig and by now had maybe upwards of a hundred people to greet–managed to come over and speak to me at least three times during the night.

I met some lovely RH employees, and could’ve stood around listening to details about their jobs all night.

I even got to say hello to Tess Gerritsen, one of the shining stars there, an author who was kind enough to answer a letter and offer her agent’s name back in the days when I hardly knew what an agent was. It’s fantastic when someone you’ve had a mental image of for a long time surpasses it in person. Tess was interesting–and interested. A wonderful combination.

One of the best things to happen since I got my offer has been getting to spend more time with my agent. Now that the initial leap has been made, we can talk at least some of the time about other things, get to know each other on other levels. That made the night special as well.

It was, as the sign proclaimed, a dream.

I’m very happy to welcome back author Jim LePore to the blog. For one thing, Jim wrote the very first Made It Moment almost exactly two years ago! Since we have now passed 75 Moments I feel as if Jim is a little part of history, at least the history of this blog. For another, Jim writes some of my favorite psychological fiction. His debut, A WORLD I NEVER MADE, still ranks as one of my all-time favorite novels, one I recommend to everyone who reads, and he has now gone on to release two more, all with the same interesting-for-these-times small publisher, The Story Plant. Today Jim muses about the role of naming, something that inspires him as he begins a new book.

The Myth of Naming In Fiction

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
 by any other name would smell as sweet.

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

My Basic Premise

There are no ideas or emotions unless first there is a human being (Character 1) who thinks something or feels something. That human being cannot exist of course without context, that is, time and place. Character 1 must be placed in the world (or a world if you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi) at some point in time as we know it. Action does not necessarily follow. Another human being (Character 2) must first be added to the context, someone present, past or future, who has done or said something that motivates Character 1 to act.

What I Do

I start with a name. I know this sounds crazy, but getting the right name for my central character somehow triggers the mysterious process of writing a novel or a story. I suppose that starting with a place, like a medieval castle or a colony on Mars, would work as well, but you will quickly need a person, a person who feels and thinks. That person will have to have a name. The story, for me, is in the name.

Let’s say Character 1 is Jane Scardino. The first thing that comes to mind is that her friends call her Scar. Does she have a scar somewhere on her body? Maybe. Will it be integral to her story? Maybe. Does she like her name? Is she Italian?

What does Jane look like? Is she young, old, beautiful? What is she wearing? Let’s say she’s in her mid-forties, worrying about her fading beauty and not happy to be so vain. She’s wearing something comfortable, but fashionable, yes, attractive, a black high-collared sweater, black slacks, funky shoes decorated with faux gems and sparkling rhinestone (or are they diamond?) earrings. Vanity wins, it seems.

What is Jane doing? Perhaps she’s getting ready for work, putting those earrings on, thinking about her mother’s boyfriend, who she’s worried is stealing her mother’s money. Yesterday she saw her mom going into the bank with Harry, her charming, silver-haired, Cadillac-driving beau. Jane is going to see a lawyer after work to talk about this, a lawyer she met at work last week who asked her out. She had declined, but why then did she pick him?

I think I might have the beginning of a story here, a story that started with a name, a name that somehow has a story in it.

Shakespeare was using things as metaphors for people. Could Romeo Montague and Juliette Capulet have gone down in history as John and Jane Smith? We’ll never know, but something tells me the answer is no.

I practiced law for twenty-five years before retiring in 1999 to write and take pictures. I have written a number of works of short fiction that have evolved from my novels. After each novel was completed, its characters continued to live in my head, telling me, it seemed, that they wanted to go on living on the page. The stories that grew out of A World I Never Made will be published in February, 2011, in a volume entitled, Anyone Can Die. My second novel, Blood of My Brother, is available now at Amazon and all other online booksellers.

Last summer Tim Hallinan, author of the Poke Rafferty series, among others, wrote his Made It Moment. I still remember sitting outside a Barnes & Noble in Spokane, WA and putting it up on the blog. Today, just before my family is about to embark on another cross country odyssey, Tim returns to Suspense Your Disbelief with a very special book, a book that takes this enormous planet of ours and shrinks it down to a community of people helping people.

Books can change the world–or at least transport the reader to a different one. This book, which Tim is about to tell you about, has the power to help fix a world that quite literally was torn apart. Read on and see what happens when some of the most talented people writing today got together and decided to help Japan.

“MADE-IT MOMENTS” – FOR JAPAN

I knew I’d made it when I read, “He had not yet seen her, but he knew when she brushed her hair, took a shower and went to the toilet. He knew when she was home, cooking some strong smelling meat, and when she was speaking on the phone with her lover.”

I knew I’d made it when I read, “My mother was destined to die on the sea.”

I knew I’d made it when I read, “Tom Hickey batted smoke away and caught a breath.”

And I absolutely knew I’d made it when I read:

loneliness
hung on a nail
a cricket

The first three quotes are the opening lines of short stories by, respectively, Naomi Hirahara, Vicki Doudera, and Ken Kuhlken. The poem is a haiku written by the 17-century master Basho and translated by Jane Reichhold.

All of them appear in SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN, a collection of twenty original stories by twenty terrific writers, with one hundred percent of all royalties going to the 2011 Japan Relief Fund administrated by Japan America Society of Southern California.

I had the idea for the collection while watching the coverage of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, pretty much at the moment I teared up at the site of hundreds of people waiting patiently in line, those at the end fully aware that it would run out before they got there. I asked myself why writers couldn’t pool their talents in a good cause the way musicians and actors can.

And, of course, I realized we could – thanks to the fast publication turnaround of e-books. Within twenty minutes I’d contacted 30 writers to ask for a donated story, and almost everyone had said yes.

But I didn’t know what I’d get, and I didn’t know whether I was capable of editing the collection.

And then the stories began to come in, and I had my made-it moment. I’d made it because we had a great book, and I’d made it because these particular stories needed so little editing that even I could do it.

The book is available for the Kindle on Amazon, and it’ll cost only $3.99. The Japan Relief Fund have pledged to turn over ever penny to nonprofit organizations already at work in the disaster area, without retaining so much as a penny for overhead or supervision.

The writers are a great mix – every one of them tremendously talented and individual, and with very different styles and subject matter. Alphabetically, they are Brett Battles, Cara Black, Vicki Doudera, Dianne Emley, Dale Furutani, Stefan Hammond, Rosemary Harris, Naomi Hirahara, Wendy Hornsby, Ken Kuhlken, Debbi Mack, Adrian McKinty, I.J. Parker, Gary Phillips, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Jeffrey Siger, Kelli Stanley, C.J. West, Jeri Westerson and me. Among them, they’ve won Edgars, Anthonys, Barrys, Shamus Awards – you name it. And they’ve sold hundreds of thousands of books.

I had three other made-it moments during this project.

First was when I saw Gar Anthony Haywood’s cover design. Gar is one of my favorite writers in the world, but I had no idea he could do this.

Second was when Jane Reichhold gave us permission to use her translations of Basho’s haiku. Reichhold’s beautiful 2008 volume, Basho: The Complete Haiku, has been praised by poets and scholars alike. We now have a haiku linking each story with the one that follows it, and I think it adds greatly to the book.

Third was when I saw the final e-book, as produced (for free) by Kimberly Hitchens at booknook.biz. It’s just beautiful.

SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN may be the first e-book ever designed solely as a find-raiser. I’m thrilled to have played a part in it, and I’m looking forward to one more made it moment- when Japan Americe Society tells me it’s raised a whole bunch of money for the families in the north of Japan.

Tim Hallinan has lived, on and off, in Southeast Asia for more than 25 years. He wrote songs and sang in a rock band while in college, and many of his songs were recorded by by well-known artists including the platinum-selling group Bread. He began writing books while enjoying a successful career in the television industry. Over the past fourteen years he has been responsible for a number of well-reviewed novels and a nonfiction book on Charles Dickens. For years he has taught a course on “Finishing the Novel” with remarkable results – more than half his students complete their first novel and go on to a second, and several have been, or are about to be, published. Tim currently maintains a house in Santa Monica, California, and apartments in Bangkok, Thailand and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is lucky enough to be married to Munyin Choy-Hallinan.

Ellen Lynn of the intriguingly named My Mother Stuttered blog (to find out why her mother stuttered, you’ll have to visit Ellen was kind enough to nominate this blog for the Irresistibly Sweet Blogger Award.

I don’t know if I deserve it. I mean, you’ve read some of my tongue-firmly-in-cheek back story posts. But Ellen goes on to say that not everyone she nominates is in fact sweet. Maybe they just have interesting blogs. Or blogs that try and spread good will.

Well, both of those are goals of mine. So, in that spirit, thank you, Ellen. And to fulfill the requirements of the prize, I offer 7 random facts about myself:

• I was not premature but only weighed 4 lbs 13 oz when I was born
• Desserts are my biggest vice
• I wanted to be a writer before I could write (told bedtime stories to my mother)
• Lois Duncan, Stephen King, William Peter Blatty, David Selznick, and Doris Miles Disney were some of my favorite writers as a kid
• If it wasn’t for libraries I might not have survived middle school
• I love the color copper
• Driving is my cool down activity

and nominate in utterly no order 15 other irresistible blogs:

1. Colleen Thompson et al’s Boxing the Octopus
2. Lelia Taylor’s Buried Under Books
3. Sara Backer’s American Fuji
4. Peg Brantley’s Suspense Novelist
5. Hart Johnson’s Confessions of a Watery Tart
6. Kaye Barley’s Meanderings & Muses
7. Megan Bostic’s The Angsty Writer
8. Warren Bull et al’s Writers Who Kill
9. Poe’s Deadly Daughters
10. Mystery & Me
11. Rebecca Georgsson’s Kindle Fever
12. Ted Krever’s musings on writing
13. Steve Piacente’s Bella
14. Karen Cantwell Author
15. Lesa’s Book Critiques

Thanks again, Ellen! I’m in the process of updating my blog roll–it was great to get down some of 2011’s new discoveries…

Lorie Ham, of the online magazine Kings River Life, which focuses on life around the Kings River of California, is having a book sale.

There’s little I love more than a book sale. When I was a kid in school the yearly book sale got me through. I can still remember when it came my class’s turn to get to go down to the cafeteria, which had been magically turned into a utopia and cornucopia of books.

Tables usually reserved for the humdrum task of eating (and I love to eat) were now spread with one book after another, each ripe, bursting to be turned over to learn about the world to which a mere four or five dollars would buy transportation.

If any of you feel the same, please support Lorie in a very important quest, and pick up a treat or two for yourself at the same time. Just look over the list below, then contact Lorie at mysteryrat(at)gmail(dot)com to arrange shipping!

Special deals can be made if you purchase several books:

Spring Special-pick any 8 books for $30 (higher priced books), or get 10 for $10 for books $3 and under—first come first serve.

1. The Silent Oligarth by Chris Morgan Jones-hardback brand new $5
2. Unnatural Selection by Aaron Elkins-hardback pulling away from the spine-$2
3. Little Tiny Teeth by Aaron Elkins-hardback good condition almost new-$5
4. The Miracle At Speedy Motors-No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series by Alexander McCall Smith-hardback-some tear on one corner of dustjacket-$3
5. Tea Time For The Traditionally Built-same series-hardback good condition-$5
6. The Double Comfort Safari Club-same series-hardback good condition-$5
7. The Tears of the Giraffe-same series paperback good condition-$4
8. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective-same series-paperback some water damage-$2
9. Morality For Beautiful Girls-same series-paperback good condition $4
10. The Kalahari Typing School For Men-same series-paperback-few bent pages-$3
11. Paperback ARC of Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson-new $5
12. Hunt the Mood-Karen Chance-paperback-new with a couple dings on one corner (fantasy) $4
13. Rule 34-Charles Stross-hardback-new $5 (SciFi)
14. The Chocolate Castle Clue-JoAnna Carl-hardback-new but slight tears in the dust jacket at the bottom $5
15. The Worst Thing-Aaron Elkins-hardback-good condition no dustjacket $5
16. Final Curtain-R.T. Jordan-paperback-almost new-$3
17. Monk’s Hood by Ellis Peters-hardback library copy $2
18. Murder In The Smithsonian- hardback library copy $2
19. A Savage Place (Spenser) by Robert B. Parker- hardback library copy $2
20. High Midnight-A Toby Peters Mystery by Stuart Kaminsky- hardback library copy $2
21. The Howard Hughes Affair-A Toby Peters Mystery by Stuart Kaminsky- hardback library copy $2
22. The Children’s Zoo by Lillian O’Donnell- hardback library copy $2
23. Dragonfire by Bill Pronzini- hardback library copy $2
24. The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly-hardback, new a small messed up spot in back of dustjacket-$5
25. The Spy Who Jumped Off The Screen by Thomas Caplan-ARC little damage on cover-$5
26. Clobbered By Camembert by Avery Aames-new paperback $3

As Monty Python says…and now for something completely different.

You may know comedienne Marcia Wallace as the talkative receptionist on The Bob Newhart Show or as the Emmy-award winning voice behind Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons–or from any one of a number of other roles on television. You may know her as a breast cancer survivor, public speaker, or even as a memoirist.

But for sure you don’t know Marcia in her latest incarnation–a subject we talk a lot about here on Suspense Your Disbelief.

Like many other writers, Marcia Wallace is entering the brave new world of e publishing, making her memoir, DON’T LOOK BACK WE’RE NOT GOING THAT WAY! available digitally. The move coincides with a Simpsons contest to which fans will flock. And there are other reasons Marcia decided to do this now, not least because *not* having your book available digitally is quickly becoming less typical than having it available that way.

Is everyone rushing to the e frontier like pioneers to the gold rush? Or is this decision borne of a certain uniquely Marcia quality–an ability not just to invent but to reinvent herself, then reinvent again, as many times as it takes, to reach continued levels of success, no matter how many rocks life strews in her way?

I was lucky enough to get to speak with Marcia Wallace, and here is what she told me.

“Everywhere I go, I ask about vertigo.” Vertigo is one of those rocks Marcia has kicked aside, and when she met CUPCAKES, LIES, & DEAD GUYS author Pamela duMond (who just happens to have a healer’s touch as well) Pam had a light bulb moment: Marcia’s memoir should be made available electronically. You can’t ask for a better writer’s companion than Pam, and before Marcia knew it, she was striding into the e spotlight.

It’s funny because Marcia isn’t necessarily an e book reader herself. “I love to hold a book in my hand, love bookstores, libraries, real books, even real newspapers,” she says, a sentiment all of you know I can relate to. Call her a “reluctant but willing book whore” but still, “However people read my book, I’m honored.”

And DON’T LOOK BACK is well worth reading. I’ve just begun, but it has a catchy, immediate style with such a ring of truth to it that anyone who has ever faced life down–or tried to–will get something out of this read. Making DON’T LOOK BACK available as an e book just plain makes sense because so many people are reading that way these days.

Because this is Suspense Your Disbelief, I had to ask Marcia what her Made It Moment would be. And because Marcia is Marcia she gave me a brave, unexpected, truer-than-true response. “I don’t think I look forward to that Moment. If you don’t come up with other things…new things from what you set out to do…The thing is to be excited about something,” she said, before concluding, “but have no expectations.” Then she paused. “And I always try to do what scares me.”

Does Marcia have expectations about what her e book will do? Will publishing this way gain her a wider audience?

Marcia originally self-published, and has gone on to sell over 6000 copies of her memoir, many of them after public speaking engagements. The question she’s wondering about now is whether this brave new world can offer her a limitless, virtual speaking engagement–a chance to connect with fans and new readers in a whole new way.

Whole new ways are what Marcia is all about. When her first agent pulled a disappearing act and moved to Utah, Marcia found a friend in New York Times bestselling author Bruce Cameron (A DOG’S PURPOSE: A NOVEL FOR HUMANS), who helped her learn the self-publishing business.

So in some ways the progression to the new e frontier was natural, just Marcia as usual. Nevertheless, she suddenly found herself going on Facebook–something she never expected to do–having a fan page and a website. Learning a whole new world.

Which, as Marcia would be the first to tell you, in her book or in person, is what she’s always done best.

Prior to her current Emmy award winning role as Edna Krabappel, Bart’s fourth grade teacher on THE SIMPSONS, Marcia was best known as Carol Kester on THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. She reprised that role when she guest starred as MURPHY BROWN’S 66th secretary, for which she received an Emmy nomination. She reunited with Murphy as a member of her breast cancer support group, with her old boss on GEORGE AND LEO and has had a recurring role on SEVENTH HEAVEN, FULL HOUSE and CHARLES IN CHARGE. Marcia’s voice has also been heard on several animated series, films and commercials.

This post on Murder by Type motivated me to add a comment today.

OK, Suspense Your Disbelief readers. Let the discussion begin!

Emerging writer Karyne Corum has recently launched a new website called Jerseywise Fiction, devoted to writing that is by New Jersey authors and/or takes place in this, my current home state.  In addition to featuring some great fiction, the site has a fun, handspun feel and it’s a comfy place to browse around in.

Full disclosure, sort of: I’m listed as one of the people behind the site (in the whodunnit page, ha!), but really, Karyne did all the work.

If you go over quickly, there’s an intriguing contest on the site: a real life, unsolved crime is laid out…and you get to solve it.

I know, I had trouble figuring out the name for this post myself.

I hope I came up with three iconic things that will make sense once I start typing.

It took me about as long to find a publisher as it did to find my soul mate. A little longer, but not much.

I’m dating the soul mate search from one day in eighth grade when I spun a long fantasy about my social studies teacher, who greeted me and the guy I was crushing on and said something like, “I always knew you two were meant for each other.”

OK, sure, it was the teen romances I gobbled by the dozens–Sweet Valley High, Sweet Dreams, Silhouette, does anyone besides me remember these?–and the model of my mom and dad, each other’s one and onlies, and married almost 49 years now, but I always thought the first guy I really dated would wind up being my husband.

And he was. It just took me 9 years more to find him.

What’s the relevance, you’re wondering, to this blog?

Well, here’s the thing. Even though I was only a college senior when we met and a recent grad when we got engaged that July, I *felt* as if I’d been looking forever. There were lots of letdowns and bitter disappointments and feeling lost and lonely along the way.

And I vowed that once it happened, and I became someone I could hardly imagine myself being–or even really relate to–that I would never forget what it was like to be single and hurting.

And I haven’t. I can still feel those times, I can still go out with my single or newly divorced or struggling in marriage friends and genuinely commiserate.

So is it with that other great divide–publication.

As most of you know from other posts, I’ve found a publisher now. An editor who believes in my work. I just sent her a card, and writing it didn’t feel *much* less meaningful to me than saying my marriage vows. When I found it, a piece of art with the word ‘begin‘ practically carved into the layers of color, and lace, and sparkle, I began to cry right there in the aisle.

It’s easy right now to say I haven’t forgotten anything, especially that feeling of not knowing if your work will ever find a home–but I promise the same thing will be true when as many years have passed published as not.

And after that.

I will always remember. I will always be able to empathize enough to offer support and hopefully concrete help to anyone else on this crazy road.

But just to make sure, I thought I’d jot down a few memories of my lowest points trying to get published over the past 11 years.

Like the games of ‘he loves me, he loves me not’, bonfires of photos and mementos with the girls, or dudes we make small copies of so we can stick a pin into their nether regions (sorry, guys…not *you*) some of these times may be recognizable to other writers.

So, low points on the road to publication…

• There was the time I was sure, absolutely positive, despite the monumental odds against me, that my novel was destined to win ABNA. That’s why I’d never gotten published all these years! It was because I was due to take the rose-strewn walk across that Seattle stage (*is* there a stage in Seattle?) to accept my award. And then it seemed that my husband had messed up my entry–included my name, grounds for automatic disqualification. And I howled, a bleat of pure, sheer despair, loud enough to wake (and scare) my children. Well, my husband hadn’t actually messed anything up. And I didn’t win anyway, or even come close.
• My second agent decided she had come to the end of our road one morning when my husband was pulling out of the driveway to go to work. My kids, then not even 2 and 4, awaited. A whole day of reading stories, and fixing snack, and dancing till we got dizzy, and I knew that I. just. couldn’t. do. it. Couldn’t do anything at all. Couldn’t keep an agent. Couldn’t run my day. “Come back,” I mouthed against the window as my husband started the car. And he did.
• One night I sat in the bath and my agent called and I spoke to her from in the tub. She was actually calling to give me good news–an editor at William Morrow was interested in my first novel, which my agent had submitted second. But this was still a low point because when I said words to the effect of, “Finally. Thank goodness. Because I can’t go through [another failed sub] again,” my agent replied kindly, “Well, Jenny, there are no guarantees.” And there weren’t. That novel, too, failed ultimately to sell.
• The agent who rejected me after asking for one page, one chapter, three chapters, then more, all drawn out over the course of months approaching a year–before rejecting the whole manuscript. She was right to. But that didn’t make it any easier when I saw that whole period slipping like sand back into the sea I was facing.
• The stack, twenty high or higher, of beautiful, snail mail queries, on 100% cotton bond, with clear address labels, and stamps that featured great writers–can you say OCD??–and Every Single One came back no.
• The novel–a whole novel–I couldn’t interest a single agent in even though the great Jackie Mitchard herself called to say it was terrific. “Won’t sell,” she said. “But it’s terrific.” She too was right, though it took me a year + and over eighty queries to accept it.

There are other lower than low points, I am sure. I’m sure they will come to me, and I promise I will never forget.

But since the only thing that really gets us through–the only thing that worked for me anyway–was communing with other people who know–for now, what are yours?