Gwen Florio | Blog

The Broke-Ass Book Tour

July 9, 2016 Leave a Comment

In Wyoming, Lena points the way

I’ve heard authors complain about book tours. The travel is exhausting, the publicists can be … strange, the succession of hotel room disorientating.

I’m proud to say that I’ve managed to bite my lip each and every time someone expresses these sentiments. I would kill, in the inventive fashion I hope I employ in some of my books, for such a book tour.

To be specific, the kind of book tour that somebody pays for. Somebody who’s not me.

Because, like most writers, the only way my book goes on the road is if I arrange the appearances and foot the bill myself. Until this year, I’ve referred to these trips as Couch-Surfing Book Tours—the kind where you seek out places where you have lovely friends (you know who you are, and thank you again, a million times over) who will put you up.

But this year was different. My previous books were released in the winter, but Disgraced came out in the spring, which meant that after my first few readings and book signings, the weather—even in Montana—turned balmy.

I like to camp. Camping is cheap. Ergo, the camping tour, or as I more accurately termed it, The Broke-Ass Book Tour.

Four-star tent

It was surprisingly fun. The key, given that I needed to look (and smell) presentable, was finding campgrounds with showers. So, none of the backcountry camping that I’d prefer.

Mmmm, ramen, the writer’s friend

Still, I enjoyed spending my before-appearance time working at a picnic table under shady cottonwoods and fragrant pines, and crawling into my tent afterward and reading myself to sleep by the light of my headlamp. A toy dinosaur turned up at one of my campsites. I named her Lena (think Ferrante) and – taking a cue from writer friends Luke Dani Blue and Migueltzinta Solis and their dino buddy, Velma – she became my traveling companion. Oatmeal for breakfast and ramen for dinner. Because, again, cheap. Oh, and a cooler full of microbrews. Because, reward.

That said, the minute a publisher offers to send me someplace on their dime, I’ll jump at the chance. And I swear I will never complain about a single thing.

Steven, Marlon and me – and the #$*& first draft

June 20, 2016 Leave a Comment

I just finished the worst first draft I’ve ever written. The worst first draft in the history of writing. The worst in the universe! Somewhere out there, Martians scribbling away with ET light-up fingers are writing better stuff than this dreck I’ve produced.

Except, if I remember correctly, I felt this way about the first draft for the previous book. And the one before that. Oh, hello, Despair. Don’t I know you from somewhere?

This kind of wallowing gets ugly fast. But help is out there, in the form of all the writers who’ve gone before me and who, thankfully, offer advice on how to get through it.

One of my favorite gurus is Steven Pressfield, of THE WAR OF ART, and its theory of Resistance. He puts it this way: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

I’d substitute “books” for the word “lives.” Resistance is what stands between the first draft I’ve written and the book I’m capable of turning it into, if only I’d stop all of this pissing and moaning.

Resistance “arises from within,” he writes. “It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its intention is to shove the creator away, distract him, sap his energy, incapacitate him. If Resistance wins, the work doesn’t get written.” Emphasis mine.

And I’ve got to write the work, and write it well. Not only because I have a deadline, but because I have a lovely editor who, inexplicably, believes in me, and I don’t want her ever to find out how I really write.

So. This steaming pile of first draft. The one where I figured out the whole point of the book when I was, oh, about three-quarters of the way through. (In my defense, I thought I knew where it was going when I started writing. Much like the half-wild pony of my childhood, it tossed me to the ground and galloped away in another direction.)

Pressfield to the rescue again. He writes a twice-weekly blog and some recent entries have focused on first drafts. He likens them to blitzkrieg, the “lightning war” employed so effectively by Germany at the start of World War II. “Start fast. Roll hard. Stop for nothing. Bypass strongpoints of the enemy. Get to the final objective — THE END — as quickly as we can, even if it means we’re ragged and exhausted and running on fumes.”

And I did that! Even though, once the point of the book slapped me upside the head around Page 250, I shoved away the temptation to immediately start rewriting with that in mind. Instead, I limped along to what the ending had clearly become, and typed those two delicious words. So there, Resistance.

Next up, the rewrites, the endless rewrites. Because this sucker needs a bunch of them. Despair sidles back up to me at the prospect. “You honestly don’t think you can fix this, do you? Because from where I sit, it looks hopeless. Hey, wanna grab a beer?”

Why, yes, I do. And cry into it, while I’m at it.

Time for another guru, this time Marlon James, whose A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS won the Man Booker Prize last year, and who reminds us that the writing couldn’t care less about the writer.

He wrote a great post recently about people just like me, wrapped in self-pity, as well as with people with Real Problems. Manufactured or real, both conditions get in the way of the work.

“Get over your damn selves, he says: “My novel couldn’t give a shit if I hate the world and want to die.”

The novel just needs to get written. Thanks, Steven. Thanks, Marlon. It’s been great hanging out with you. Now I’ve got to go back to work.

(This post originally appeared in The Thrill Begins, International Thriller Writers‘ resource for aspiring and debut novelists)

The ten stages of a residency

May 27, 2016 Leave a Comment

Today I’m boo-hooing my way through my final day at the Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence program on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. No more stimulating conversations with my fellow residents. No more falling asleep to the ocean’s muted roar. Above all, no more uninterrupted time and space for the writing, and only the writing. It’s the fourth residency I’ve done (also the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming; Brush Creek Arts, in Wyoming, too; and 360 Xochi Quetzal in Mexico) and each has been equally fabulous and equally tough to leave. I have, however, noticed a pattern. If I’m fortunate enough to get another residency somewhere, at least now I’ll know what I’m in for.

The Beginning

I’m in! I’m in! I’m in! The note that I’ve been accepted for a residency triggers a day where every sentence has an exclamation point. I’m generally obnoxious to be around.

Elation squared: Arrival. This beautiful space is my studio? With a desk and a coffeemaker and a sofa/futon for napping? Lunches that arrive on my doorstep, and dinners that are prepared for me? This must be a dream. Please don’t wake me.

Intention: I will leave this residency with a first draft. I will leave this residency with a first draft. I will leave this residency with a first draft. (Because I have a whole month before me, and 30,000 words already written. Piece of cake.)

Settling In:

Week 1 – Terror: What is this mess before me? This has no chance in hell of ever becoming a first draft, let alone a polished novel. I should just trash it and slink away to the Land of Trampled Dreams.

Week 2 – Glimmers of hope. Hey, this (word, sentence, paragraph, chapter) does not entirely suck. Maybe it can be salvaged. I won’t finish a first draft, but at least I’ll make some headway.

Week 3 – Wait. It’s time for lunch already? Because I’ve been writing since 8 a.m. and haven’t looked up. Yay, lunch. Now back to writing. Wow, the words are piling up.

Week 4 – Midnight. Still writing. Must sleep. But time is short. Typetypetype.

Wrapping up:

Disbelief – Just like that, no more words. The End. First draft – albeit the draftiest of first drafts, more holes than Swiss cheese and full of equally lousy metaphors – completed. As in “completed.” The real work awaits. But the worst is over.

Denial – It’s time to go? WTF? Consider chaining myself to desk. Tears.

Rally – Log into Alliance of Artists Communities to begin applications for next year.

Note: I’m fully aware of my good fortune in a) getting these residencies and b) being at a stage in my life where I can take advantage of them, something that was nearly impossible when I had young children or the day job. But if you can swing the time, please apply, even if it’s early in your writing career. I went to my first residency, at Ucross, with a single published short story under my belt. Receiving the residency was welcome affirmation that I was on the right path, and a good kick in the butt to work harder still. Go for it. And when you get one, be sure to lavish your benefactors with praise. Because these residencies are gifts from the gods.

Step Away from the Manuscript

April 24, 2016 Leave a Comment

Things got a little crazy on the writing front recently, what with the Tour of Disgrace(d), along with rewrites due on a short story, another short story to be written in the next couple of months, ditto for an anthology chapter and oh, yeah, I’m way behind on the first draft of Book 5.

My head felt like it was exploding. All. The. Time.

The logical thing to do was Make a List, Prioritize, One Thing at a Time, Manageable Bites, blah blah blah. Except I’ve always sucked at logic. So when a friend invited me to a branding (the Montana kind, not the marketing kind), I jumped at the chance, even though it meant taking a day away from the looming deadlines.

Here’s what I learned. If you want to remove your head decisively from your … problems, go to a branding. For about eight hours, I forgot about anything and everything to do with writing.

My part, such as it was, was minimal. My friend and I stood at the open gate to the corral and shooed back any escape-minded calves edging toward it. Oh, and after someone announced a 60-year-old branding virgin in their midst, I helped hold down a couple of the smaller calves while they were being branded. I figured that earned me a piece of huckleberry pie at the feast that followed.

I gained a new respect for the ropers’ skill and that of their hard-working horses, and even more admiration for the ranchers whose work is a thousand times harder than sitting at a laptop in a warm, dry house, making stuff up.

Best of all, when I went back to the laptop the next day, the work didn’t feel so overwhelming anymore. I had a fresh perspective and some new ideas for Book 5 that I couldn’t wait to get down. Turns out a break was just what I needed.

And now, back to work.

Happy Birthday, baby book!

March 8, 2016 Leave a Comment

Today’s the official release date for Disgraced, my third novel in the Lola Wicks series, even though it started hitting shelves a couple of weeks ago.

In this one, workaholic, vacation-averse Lola finds herself on vacation anyway, thanks to a money-saving furlough ordered by her newspaper. Let’s just say she finds a story, anyway, and promptly abandons the vacation (the point at which any resemblance between me and my protagonist ends).

In addition to the mystery at the heart of the story, in Disgraced I tried to take on the way big institutions—in this case, the military—sometimes betray the people they’re supposed to serve.

Reviewers have been kind enough to take note. Kirkus said Disgraced “explores prejudice and the incredible stress on soldiers in a seemingly unending war with no clear goals” and BOLO Books said “this one tackles important topics we as a society should be discussing.”

Lest that sound like a grind, The Big Thrill, the magazine of the International Thriller Writers, called it “engaging, riveting and authentic.”

And now I’ve tooted my own horn long enough. Good reviews are lovely, but readers’ opinions are the ones that truly matter. It’s time for Disgraced to make its own way out in the world while I work on the sequel, which I’m tempted to call Redeemed, although I’m pretty sure my editor has other, and better, ideas.

Finally, a word about the title, which clearly changes things up with the state-by-state model hinted at in my previous two books in the series, Montana and Dakota. A new publisher, Midnight Ink, is putting out Disgraced and the next two, and wisely felt that abandoning that model would give Lola more flexibility in her next adventures. I quite agree. Happy reading.

Bad writer. No Scotch for you.

February 1, 2016 Leave a Comment

I publicly (my first mistake) announced a lofty ambition last month, declaring January as JaNoWriMo, my own version of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

Every November, haggard writers attack their keyboards with the goal of writing 50,000 words, a respectable first draft—by the end of the month. I had a Dec. 1 deadline on one book and a Dec. 15 deadline on revisions to another, so November was no time for me to be fooling around with something new. But January, after a nice holiday break, seemed perfect. Because I’d already written 20,000 words toward Book 5, I thought 70,000 seemed like a reasonable goal.

It took almost no time at all for that to fall apart. When working on a first draft, I aim for 1,000 words a day. That’s worked fine for four published (or to-be-published) novels, and a couple that, please God, will never see the light of day. JaNoWriMo would push my daily goal close to 2,000 words.

Turns out, that was easily enough achieved. I just wrote really, really fast, zooming toward the moment when the Scrivener Dominatrix let me know I’d hit my goal. But the faster I wrote, the farther away from me the story seemed to get. I made all sorts of notes—”Go back and delete this.” “Go back and change that to conform with what I’m writing now”—but at some point, I felt as though I was making more notes to myself about needed revisions than actually writing. I’m a big fan of plowing through a first draft without fussing over details, but these were more than details. They were key plot points, character development, etc.

So I stopped. Deleted my word target from the Scrivener Dominatrix. Went back and shored things up so that when I proceeded, it was with a firm foundation. Now I have a new goal—to have a first draft in hand by May, when I’ll spend a month at the Willapa Bay Artist in Residence program on the Washington coast.

The up side of blowing JaNoWriMo? I learned that my own process works pretty well. That’s reassuring.

But there’s a deep, deep down side: I’d promised myself a bottle of Lagavulin if I met my goal. No Scotch for this girl. Maybe in May!

Ushering in JaNoWriMo

January 2, 2016 Leave a Comment

I’ve always been intrigued by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month project that sees coffeeshops in Missoula and around the country filled with haggard writers, pounding away at their keyboards, trying to achieve the 50,000 words that will comprise the framework of a first draft.

Problem is, NaNoWriMo falls in November, and I had a novel deadline in December, way too quick a turnaround from first draft to polished work. But with another novel due next December, I decided to do my own NaNoWriMo, only in January. Hence, JaNo … you get the idea.

Then some friends got in on the act. (Not naming names, but you know who you are, you Badasses you.) Next thing you know, we were all setting goals like crazy. And rewards. Because work is way more fun with a big honkin’ treat at the end.

If I make it to my goal (70,000 words by Feb. 1; I’ve already written 20,000), I’m buying myself a bottle of Lagavulin, and probably crawling right into it.

Always before, I’ve set a first-draft goal of a thousand words a day, which in retrospect feels like a lovely, leisurely pace. My new goal works out to about 1,700 words a day, which results in serious panic when I hit 1,000 words and I don’t know where the story needs to go next [Plot? Schmot!] and the goddamn clock is ticking, ticking, ticking. Here’s the thing. Each time, I’ve come up with a move that feels like desperation, but that by the end of the day looks pretty good in retrospect.

Eek!

I got a pair of cross-country skis for Christmas, and this sort of writing is uncomfortably similar to my first outings on those slippery, sliding things. My reaction to each downhill, when I feel totally out of control as the skis carry me faster and faster, has been “Eek, eek, eek, oh, gosh, that was fun.”

That’s what these flights of forced creativity are like. Will all of them survive the revisions? Probably not. But oh, gosh, it’s fun to see these unexpected twists and turns.

Happy New Year, all, and happy–or, at least, productive–writing!

Finals week(s), writer style

November 9, 2015 1 Comment

I take a lot of pride in treating my writing like the job it is.

In a 2014 interview with fellow Montana novelist Craig Lancaster, I announced that “I have a rule about not writing in my jammies. I have to be showered and dressed, more or less presentably, before I start work.”

Um, Craig? I lied.

Not completely. That rule holds true for most of the writing. Until the very end, when all the rules go out the window. My lovely little schedule—writing in the mornings; beta-reading, blogging, marketing stuff—in the afternoons, flies away behind it. I’ve got proofs on Book 3 (Disgraced) due Dec. 1, and the manuscript for Book 4 due Dec. 15, so it’s fingers to the keyboard all day and into the night, and damn the unnecessary niceties of grooming, etc. It’s like finals week in college. Only longer.

See that photo? Note: Panicked expression. Uncombed hair. PJs hidden by shawl. It was taken at 4 p.m. Yes, even as the dinner hour (to hell with dinner. What about cocktail hour?) approached, I had yet to shower or get dressed. But I had clobbered another few chapters into presentable submission, littering the floor with dead darlings.

That feels good. So does the fact that, after another few weeks, this craziness will be behind me. I can get reacquainted with soap and shampoo, my hairbrush, clothing beyond flannel and sweats.

The end is near, the end is near plays in the back of my brain like a threat and a promise, a little mantra that (nearly) obliterates the fact that beyond the achievements of sending off these two projects lies the abyss of the blank page, aka Book 5.

But that’s a long way off. For now, it’s back to the keyboard.

The Thrill Begins – check it out

October 23, 2015 Leave a Comment

Cheating today by referencing my own work from another site. I’m fortunate enough to be included among the Murderers’ Row slate of bloggers for the Thrill Begins, International Thriller Writers’ site for debut authors.

I joined ITW when my first book was published, and have found it a wealth of resources, especially for newbies. Check out this issue: In addition to my piece on scouting locations or J.J. Hensley’s excellent advice to Go Forth and Be Terrible, it features interviews with authors on how they got published (How It Happened); insights into the publishing industry (Publishing Panel); Q&A’s with debut authors (Debut Spotlight), and more.

For instance, in this week’s How It Happened, Chris Holm tells what happened after it happened. His publisher drops him. And he drops his agent:

It had taken me almost two years to land an agent. Another four to find a publisher. Although I believed this manuscript had the potential to be my breakout novel, I was forced to wonder: What if I was wrong? Had I just blown up my writing career?

It’s a cautionary tale, thankfully one with a happy ending.

If you haven’t been published, there’s plenty of helpful information to get you there. And if you have, you’ll get insights into the bewildering world of publishing. It’s worth a gander.

The allure of The Book Not Yet Written

October 1, 2015 Leave a Comment

(Photo credit: huntingenglish.com)

I’m at the tick-tick-tick point in Book No. 4. The manuscript is due in December, and Book No. 5 is due a year later.

So, with a deadline looming and a manuscript on the screen in front of me, what book occupies my thoughts? You already know the answer to this one—Book 5. Because, at this lovely, not-yet-written-or-even-started stage of the game, Book 5 is freaking perfect.

Whereas Book 4, as I whack darlings and tweak leaden paragraphs, is nothing but a freaking mess.

Book 5 is a fling, all glittery and full of possibilities. Every few days, I add notes to a file that will (notice the purposefulness of that word will) eventually become a synopsis. Every idea that drops into the file is brilliant, and with each one, Book 5 becomes ever more seductive. Come hither, it whispers. Write me, baby. Write the ever loving hell out of me. Oh, God.

Meanwhile, Book 4 and I are locked in an interminable marriage. Back at home, Book 4 is schlumping around in ratty sweats, hair uncombed and teeth unbrushed. There is no mystery. Each word is painfully familiar, and has long ago lost its charm. Every few chapters, I sneak guiltily off to my Book 5 file for another hit of shimmery perfection, even though I know it will dissolve the minute I apply fingers to keyboard and type the words “Chapter One.”

Ann Patchett has a great essay, The Getaway Car, in which she likens The Book Not Yet Written to a butterfly.

This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty, unpredictable in its patterns, piercing in its colour, so wild and loyal in its nature that my love for this book, and my faith in it as I track its lazy flight, is the single perfect joy in my life. It is the greatest novel in the history of literature, and I have thought it up, and all I have to do is put it down on paper and then everyone can see this beauty that I see.

That’s Before Writing. Here’s what happens when writing starts:

Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. Everything that was beautiful about this living thing – all the colour, the light and movement – is gone. What I’m left with is the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled and poorly reassembled. Dead. That’s my book.

Right now, poor Book 4 is one dead butterfly. Maybe, please God by December, it will yet soar.

Blog

The Broke-Ass Book Tour

Steven, Marlon and me – and the #$*& first draft

The ten stages of a residency

Step Away from the Manuscript

Happy Birthday, baby book!

Bad writer. No Scotch for you.

Ushering in JaNoWriMo

Finals week(s), writer style

The Thrill Begins – check it out

The allure of The Book Not Yet Written

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