More Bad Sex, Please

A real page-turner. Can’t wait to see how the author explains that title.

If there’s anything more orgasmic than the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, it’s probably illegal.

Even more than the Darwin Awards, I anticipate the BSIF every year.   The annual contest by Britain’s Literary Review highlights “the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel … and to discourage it”, in much the way that the Razzies reward the most excruciating of Hollywood cinematic effort.

Now, the BSIF isn’t meant to tackle outright porn or erotica, hence the explainable absence on this year’s short-list of the appallingly cringeworthy “Fifty Shades of Grey” series.  It’s intended to humiliate authors of ‘mainstream’ novels, whose scribing skills fail to rise to the occasion at the bedroom door.

Writing good sex is (ahem) harder than it looks, given the abundance of cliches lying about like landmines in Zimbabwe, so I do have a certain amount of sympathy for those nominated every year.  And a previous winner, Rowan Somerville, argues persuasively and with a minimum of sour grapes here (in the Independent) that the BSIF Awards are schoolyard bullying passed off as “a bit of fun”, and have their roots in British parochial prudery.  He suggests that many of the passages plucked out of the prose and held up to public ridicule aren’t half as bad when read in the context of the larger novel.

I suspect he’s right, but when they are taken out of context, some of them are bloody hilarious. It’s even more fun to know that this year (the 20th anniversary edition), there’s a Canadian among the eight shortlisted authors.  Nancy Huston, a Canadian-born writer living in Paris, is the author of Infrared, an English translation of a novel she originally wrote in French as Infrarouge.   (The above Amazon link indicates that the nomination hasn’t hurt her any — the book seems to be flying off the shelves.)

The full shortlist: Tom Wolfe, nominated for Back to Blood, The Yips by Nicola Barker, The Adventuress by Nicholas Coleridge, Infrared by Nancy Huston, Rare Earth by Paul Mason, Noughties by Ben Masters, The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills – a

I can’t imagine how a book with a cover like this could possibly contain bad sex …

particularly worthy nomination, since Mills’s fiction has been shortlisted on three occasions– and The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine. Wolfe, Coleridge and Raine are all repeat offenders.

The winner will be announced at a lavish ceremony in London on December 4 – and it is considered a badge of courage for the authors to attend to receive it, and say something self-deprecating, in person.  In Somerville’s case, it was, “There is nothing more English than bad sex, so on behalf of a nation I thank you.”

And now, without further foreplay, this year’s extracts.

• The Quiddity of Will Self, by Sam Mills Down, down, on to the eschatological bed. Pages chafed me; my blood wept onto them. My cheek nestled against the scratch of paper. My cock was barely a ghost, but I did not suffer panic.

• Noughties, by Ben Masters We got up from the chair and she led me to her elfin grot, getting amongst the pillows and cool sheets. We trawled each other’s bodies for every inch of history.  I dug after what I had always imagined and came up with even more. She stroked my outlines in perfect synchrony until I was febrile in her hands, willingly guided elsewhere.

• Back to Blood, by Tom Wolfe Now his big generative jockey was inside her pelvic saddle, riding, riding, riding, and she was eagerly swallowing it swallowing it swallowing it with the saddle’s own lips and maw — all this without a word.

• Rare Earth by Paul Mason She breathed hot into his neck and he plunged three rough fingers down the front of her jeans, making her squeak. She had never tried wu-wei in this situation before and Khünbish, hairy and slightly paunchy, she noticed now that he had his shirt off, was generating slightly more karmic energy than she had anticipated.  He began thrusting wildly in the general direction of her chrysanthemum, but missing — his paunchy frame shuddering with the effort of remaining rigid and upside down.

• The Yips by Nicola Barker She smells of almonds, like a plump Bakewell pudding; and he is the spoon, the whipped cream, the helpless dollop of warm custard.  She steams.  He applauds, his tongue hanging out (like a bloodhound espying a raw chop in a cartoon).

You mean, I’ve won? Ohhh, Guillermo … hang on while I fake an orgasm.

• Infrared by Nancy Huston He runs his tongue and lips over my breasts, the back of my neck, my toes, my stomach, the countless treasures between my legs, oh the sheer ecstasy of lips and tongues on genitals, either simultaneously or in alternation, never will I tire of that silvery fluidity, my sex swimming in joy like a fish in water… This is when I take my picture, from deep inside the loving. The Canon is part of my body. I myself am the ultrasensitive film — capturing invisible reality, capturing heat.

• The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine And he came. Like a wubbering springboard. His ejaculate jumped the length of her arm. Eight diminishing gouts. The first too high for her to lick. Right on the shoulder.

• The Adventuress: The Irresistible Rise of Miss Cath Fox by Nicholas Coleridge In seconds the duke had lowered his trousers and boxers and positioned himself across a leather steamer trunk, emblazoned with the royal arms of Hohenzollern Castle. ‘Give me no quarter,’ he commanded. ‘Lay it on with all your might.’

(There’s a poll below — vote for your favourite!)

Should your need prove insatiable, you can find other snippets from this year’s selections on Twitter using the hashtag #LRBadSex2012.

Related articles

• Bad sex awards 2012 shortlist leaves out JK Rowling and EL James (guardian.co.uk)
• Bad Sex in Fiction nomination for Canadian Nancy Huston (cbc.ca)

Middle Grade Fiction: Is it a Genre?

Young Adult author Jennifer Walker has kindly contributed this, my VERY FIRST GUEST POST, as part of her virtual book tour for Bubba to the Rescue (reviewed here on March 9th).  Does this mean my blog has arrived?

Welcome, Jennifer, and take it away!

MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:  IS IT A GENRE?

By Jennifer Walker

When I was a kid, I think there was basically three main age groups fiction could fall into: children’s, young adult, and adult. Times were simpler then. I read young adult books by the pile, mostly about horses. The stories were pretty simple and wholesome, the characters were morally upright, and the formula was pretty predictable.

Now, life has gotten a little more complicated. Kids have lives that are more complex, they deal with mature issues when they’re younger, and they’re interested in more mature themes. You have vampires falling in love with mortals and getting married and having babies and werewolves falling in love with mortals and getting married and having babies, and wizards falling in love with other wizards and falling in love and making babies and God knows what else. These are definitely aimed at the older teens, but what about the younger teens and tweens?

That’s where I come in. I’m not into writing about vampires and wizards, I like to write about good little girls and horses. My characters do have their flaws, of course, and they deal with some modern issues like dead or absentee parents, parents remarrying, and first loves. However, it’s all on a scale that’s more appropriate and approachable for the younger set. While I have a good deal of readers who are young teens or adult women, there seems to be those few years in between where readers’ tastes want something a little different. I am happy to say, however, that I’ve had some 16- and 17-year-olds who loved it, and that was very gratifying!

So, how best to write for this tween audience? I don’t profess to be an expert, although what I’m doing seems to be resonating pretty well with most of my readers. My main strategy has been to read a lot of books read for this age, but since most of the ones I’ve read (Saddle Club and Thoroughbred) are a bit outdated, I try to update a little by adding in some character flaws (making bad decisions and learning from them) and modern issues (parents remarrying). I try to keep the language simple, although there are certainly a few words in there the kids will have to look up, and focus on what kids aged 10-13 or so might be interested in.

I really enjoy writing for this age group, because I really enjoy wholesome stories with good hearts. Writing them brings me back to my own youth, when life wasn’t so hard and when my biggest problem was whether I’d get to go to the big dance. I like writing characters that are a good influence on my readers, teaching them life lessons — hopefully without them noticing so it just slips into their subconscious and becomes a part of them.

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Jennifer Walker is a freelance writer, editor, and novelist living in northern California. Her two books, Bubba Goes National and Bubba to the Rescue, are both available in print or digital editions from Twin Trinity Books and other online retailers.

Bubba Goes Blogging: A Book Review

Oh, gentle reader, you have arrived on an auspicious day indeed.  Not only is this my very first book review (on this blog, anyway), but my very first giveaway, too!  You have to read to the end for the freebie part, no cheating.  

Featured author Jennifer Walker is the author of Bubba Goes National and Bubba to the Rescue.  Her stories have also appeared in the anthologies Elements of the Soul and The Ultimate Horse Lover. A full-time freelance writer and editor, her work has appeared in numerous magazines and websites including the Yahoo! Contributor Network. She resides in northern California with her husband, cat, dog, and Arabian stallion. 

There’s more about Jennifer and her YA novels here , or visit her Facebook fan page for the Green Meadow series.

This post is part of Jennifer’s very cool two-week Virtual Book Tour.  Jennifer will also be contributing a guest post right here on March 13^th on writing for the Young Adult market, so mark your calendars, peeps!

BOOK REVIEW:  BUBBA TO THE RESCUE

As Young Adult fiction for horse-crazy girls goes, Jennifer Walker’s Bubba to the Rescue, the second in her Green Meadow series, has a lot going for it:  beautiful Arabians, an adrenaline-pumping forest fire, an intriguing mystery … and two perfect guys who love horses and horse-crazy girls so much that they never complain about all the time spent in the barn!

The latter two – one, teen protagonist Leslie Clark’s father Dan, the other her devoted (and maybe just a wee bit two-dimensional) boyfriend Alex – may be the most fictional elements of Bubba to the Rescue.  Where the story really comes alive is in Walker’s depictions of Green Meadow Stable and its equine residents, which is absolutely as her tween and teen readers would want it.

From her heart-wrenching description of Leslie’s Arabian gelding, Lucky (aka Bubba) suffering a potentially career-ending injury in the forest fire, to the ethereal appearance of the mystery horse, Spark, who materializes out of the flames to gallop home safely with Leslie, Alex, and their horses, Walker provides vivid portrayals of her equine characters, the routine of barn life and horse shows, and authentic details of stable management that reveal her extensive background in that world.  When a friend’s horse suffers a bout of colic, Leslie’s anguish is palpable, as is her pride when her mystery horse excels at his first show.

Leslie also wrestles with some typical teen challenges:  adjusting to a blended family when her father (widowed in the first in the series, Bubba Goes National) remarries, testing the murky waters of dating and formal dances, peer rivalry from a mean-spirited classmate, and feeling helpless when a friend comes under the influence of a controlling boyfriend. In the saddle, however, she is skilled and her horses perform perfectly; if I were to quibble, I would say I would have liked to have seen her struggle with her blossoming horsemanship skills just a smidge!

There also seems to be little focus on Lucky once his veterinarian declares that his recovery will be slow (as realistic a part of the horse industry as that circumstance might be).  The horse who was the heart of the first Green Meadow book gets turned out in a field and seldom mentioned afterwards; I kept waiting for his re-entry to the story, though I suspect Walker is planning Lucky’s triumphant return in the in-progress book three!

In an age where dark forces seem to be almost obligatory in teen novels, Bubba to the Rescue is refreshingly free of supernatural influences, R-rated themes, and bad behaviour.  Leslie and her cohorts are normal, modern teens, the adults in their lives provide gentle moral guidance, and there are subtle life lessons taught without hitting the reader over the head.

Although this is the second book in the Green Meadow series and builds on characters introduced in Bubba Goes National, it does well as a stand-alone volume. The pacing is brisk and never bogs down, making Bubba to the Rescue not only a page-turner, but quite an incentive to pick up its sequel just as soon as it becomes available.

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Published by Twin Trinity Media, Bubba to the Rescue (and Bubba Goes National) can be purchased here.

Digital versions for Kindle, Nook, and more can be found at Smashwords and Amazon.  And an audio version is now available here.

$1 from the every sale of Bubba Goes National and Bubba to the Rescue, between now and July 1, 2012, will go towards a fund to send a deserving young lady, Zoe Deaton, to the Arabian Youth Nationals in Albuquerque, in the last year she is eligible.  Purchase a copy today and not only will you get to read a great story, but you’ll help this young rider fulfill her dream!

BREAKING NEWS!  Comment on this post for your chance to WIN a FREE download of Jennifer Walker’s short story from the Green Meadows series, Leslie and the Lion.  Just make sure you comment, with your e-mail address, by midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on  March 16, 2012!  One commenter will be chosen at random.

Recipe for an Instant Bestseller

Apparently, it is this:  take one downtrodden horse, preferably from humble and/or cruel beginnings.  Tell how he came to be a superstar a) racehorse b) showjumper c) cavalry mount d) ooh, has anyone done a reining horse?

Evoke lots of emoting, dig up a few hysterical (er, sorry, historical — family joke) photos, rake in the cash, pack for the book tour, and wait for the movie rights to be optioned.

This recipe has been working since the days of Anna Sewell, but in recent eons true stories (or, at least, those “based on a true story”, such as Hidalgo, which in actual fact was NOT based on a true story … Google is your friend) have been all the rage.

Even people who don’t ‘get’ horses seem to flock to movies like ‘Seabiscuit’, ‘Phar Lap’, and ‘Secretariat’.  Now, for the record, Secretariat had anything but humble origins, despite the movie’s attempts to play up Penny Chenery’s supposedly desperate state of affairs.  Still, he was pretty damn impressive and it’s a good tale.  I remember getting quite a thrill out of seeing Secretariat win his final start at Toronto’s Woodbine racetrack, when I was 10.  I certainly don’t begrudge anyone retelling his life, however many goofy liberties might have been taken.  From my selfish perspective, anything that encourages interest in racing might indirectly score me another gig or two.

And Seabiscuit … loved the book, loved the movie.  Bear in mind that I usually loathe horse movies, because the researchers can’t seem to get the most basic details correct.  I mean, it’s not like this stuff is all that obscure, people … horses may not be daily transportation in most parts of the world anymore, but riding and driving are still practised by literally millions and millions of yobs worldwide, so you wouldn’t think it would be all that impossible for the writers to find someone with whom to consult, who knows what the parts of a saddle are called, or can tell a bay from a chestnut or a stallion from a mare.  (Sheesh.  Lassie may well have been played by boy collies, but most horses don’t have quite that much hair camouflaging their naughty bits.)  I mean, it’s just cringeworthy.

Did anyone see that movie supposedly about the sport of endurance racing from a couple of years ago?  I could only stomach about three minutes of it on The Movie Network, so can’t remember what it was called, but it featured endurance riders in tweed caps and elbow patches clumsily tally-ho’ing through the woods (because of course they had cast people who couldn’t ride their way out of a wet paper bag) on Quarter Horses with picture-perfect Western pleasure headsets.  (Is peanut-rolling the ideal way to navigate Cougar Rock, I wonder?)

And then there was ‘Sylvester’, which suggested that getting around a Preliminary cross-country course could catapult one onto the United States Equestrian Team (though there was some lovely footage of Kim Walnes and The Grey Goose to make up for that ridiculous conceit) … and maybe worst of all, ‘International Velvet’, that celluloid gem of 1978 which springboarded off the theory that The Pie, of the original National Velvet fame, had produced offspring, when anyone who has ever read the original children’s book (everyone has, right?) knows that The Pie was clearly described as a gelding.  (And, ahem, a spotted one, hence the name, The PIEbald — Hollywood got that one wrong, too, while they were busy casting Liz Taylor and Mickey Rooney.)

Sorry.  I digress.  Loved Seabiscuit.  The movie was (for the most part) well done, to my shock, and Laura Hillenbrand researched her book meticulously, which gave it a depth and colour any number of other horse books have lacked.  Still, once upon a time Laura and I were contemporaries, of a sort … both freelance writers who churned out copy for Equus magazine, though I sincerely doubt I was ever on her radar.   It was simultaneously heartening and disheartening (if you know what I mean, Laura?) to see her career launched into the stratosphere with that book.  You know?  90% ‘Bravo’, but with 10% ‘Wow, I hate you just a little for that’ in the mix.

So now I am reading “The Eighty Dollar Champion”, which is the story of Snowman, a draft cross gelding who was rescued from a knacker’s van and went on to be a top US showjumper in the late 1950s — or as the cover says, “SNOWMAN, the Horse That Inspired a Nation”.  (Well!)

I’m a little too young to have witnessed Snowman’s story, but I knew the basics of the yarn, and it’s one of those things that I am now kicking myself for not having seized on as the basis for an Instant Bestseller.  Elizabeth Letts beat me to it, dammit.  90% ‘Bravo’, Elizabeth.  (I hope I have made up for the other 10% with the link to your website!)

I am only 31 pages in on The Eighty Dollar Champion (hey, I just got it for Xmas, and it’s been a little busy, okay?) so this will not be a book review.  Plenty of other people doing that, I’m sure … heck, to plummet down another tangent, I seem to be the only horsey blogger who hasn’t done a movie review of ‘War Horse’, either, for the simple reason that I haven’t seen it yet.  Though maybe this week I’ll accomplish that, wadded tissues in hand.

If I were to quibble, and yes, I will, I do have to remark that I’ve already come across a couple of eensy weensy things that rankle about the text I’ve perused so far — considering that The Eighty Dollar Champion comes from the Very Considerable Publishing House of Ballantine Books.  Before I was 20 pages in, I spotted the first typo — “story” describing a multi-level building.  Yeek.  (Oh, please, if you don’t know what it’s supposed to be, see earlier in this post.  Here’s a link for chrissakes if you’re really that helpless.)

Soon after, there was another one — draft horse breeds described as Belgian, Percheron, or shire (lower case).  Visions of hobbitom immediately danced in my head, but a capital S surely is required to describe the towering breed of horse with the lovely but high-maintenance feathering on its legs?

And there have been some other little bits of phrasing that don’t quite sit right.  Page 25:  “… and the United States brought home the team silver medal in dressage, the demanding equestrian sport sometimes called “horse dancing”, which was normally ruled by the Europeans.”

Horse dancing?  In what universe?   At best, it might sometimes be compared thusly (see the semi-viral video of  Blue Hors Matine remixed with L’il Kim — bringing dressage to the masses!).  But I don’t believe I’ve ever actually heard the phrase “horse dancing” in general usage.  Small mercies.

Yes, I am being an extraordinarily nitpicky wench, but I am always a copyeditor, and always a horseperson.  None of this, my readers will be swift to note, I blame on Elizabeth, who I do not know but am sure is an extremely accomplished writer to have landed a publishing agreement with Ballantine.  I can just imagine her wincing and reluctantly acquiescing as her non-horsey editors took their vicious red pens to her copy, trying to keep her eyes on the larger prize — a prize which after all, includes bringing the aged Harry de Leyer, long known as the Galloping Grandfather, back into the limelight for a bit, and that’s just fun, isn’t it.

Yes, you have to have a bloody thick skin when you’re a writer.  Gawd knows I’ve had more than my share of editors have their weird and inexplicable ways with my copy as well, and I’ve learned that the important thing is them spelling my name correctly when the invoice goes to Accounting.  So I do not fault Elizabeth for the errors I’ve encountered in this first 31 pages  … I just wonder how many others made it into print in the remaining 298, and have to ponder whether the standards haven’t slipped just a smidge in the non-fiction division at Ballantine.  In which case, you’re up to 95%, girlfriend, purely in empathy.  And I’m still going to really enjoy the rest of the book.

I think my skin is tough enough to survive the Bestseller Experience.  I just have to come up with a heretofore-unexploited Downtrodden Horse with a Heart of Gold.  Preferably, one whom we can insert into an interesting epoch with quaint historical costumes, to add depth to the tale… but not one so ancient that there are no historical records available to dig through (sorry, Bucephalus).  One that Hollywood can have its merry way with as long as they spell my name correctly on the cheque.

One that, post my editorial critique, will no doubt NOT be published by Ballantine.

Suggestions, as always, welcome.  I’ll get straight on it.

The Great Canadian Novel … or Not …

People are always much more impressed when you can say you’re an author, rather than just a writer.

Writers (so public perception would have it) are self-deluded basement trolls who scribble incomprehensible stuff about self-actualization through crystals, or talking cats, that never sees the light of day unless it’s self-published and handed out as Festive Season gifts to unsuspecting relatives.

But authors have written books.  Real books with the names of real publishing houses, and ISBN numbers opposite the title pages.

Admittedly, as self-publishing gains legitimacy (in the eyes of the general public if not in bookstores and libraries), this line is blurring.  You can now be the author of a real book with a real ISBN without ever having hired an agent or an editor; all you have to do is hire the printer (and get your friend from high school to do the illustrations in return for promising to never reveal that thing she did back in ’87 …).  Unfortunately, since even Stephen King and Stephen Hawking need good editors, that means there is a lot of unreadable, grammatically excruciating rubbish issuing forth from these self-publishing  companies.  But there are also some exceptionally good self-published books … and if the authors are good at self-promotion, they sometimes even get read by someone other than Great Aunt Bernice.

Still, the perception lingers that having your book published by a real publishing house is superior to getting it self-published — if only because it got read and accepted by someone, after which it was edited and fact-checked, and the company invested some small amount in making that happen.  In essence, they gambled that your content would sell well enough to at least pay them back on their investment.

The day I was first contacted by a book editor with a proposal to write a book, was one of the most thrilling of my career.  It was also one of those ‘little did I know’ moments, of course …. I was sooooo flattered just to be asked to turn my columns on equine nutrition into a real book with a real cover, that I signed my name to a contract that, really, should never have been signed.  It was what you call a ‘work for hire’ contract, and it meant that, after the token royalty payment I received for entering into the agreement, I’d never see another cent from the sales.

Just my luck.  It sold well and went into a second edition.  It’s being used by several Canadian and American colleges as a text for their undergrad equine nutrition courses.  Sigh.  What have we learned, class?

I’m now a veteran of six published non-fiction books, and quite a bit wiser.  I still don’t have an agent, having brokered the deals for all six on my own (a circumstance some of my colleagues have reacted to with palpable disbelief.  ‘Tis true, I swear.)  The second adult book, I made no money whatsoever on, despite having negotiated what, on the surface, looked like a much smarter contract.  (Factoid:  JK Rowling may get book advances of seven or eight figures, but the reality is most authors barely get four-figure offers for putting together 60,000 – 100,000 words.  Publishing ain’t like it’s portrayed in the movies, honey.  Sorry to bubble-burst.)

I can’t complain about my four kid’s books, for Scholastic Canada, though.  I lucked into an offer from a kind Scholastic editor, with whom I had a very tenuous acquaintance, after I had pitched a more complex idea and she turned it down.  Would I be interested instead, she asked, in doing a simple book on breeds of horses for kids?  And did I know any good equine photographers?

I was and I did, and Shawn Hamilton and I ended up doing a series of four of these books before we ran out of breeds we could access to photograph, without using up all of Shawn’s air-miles for the next decade.  The price-point on the little paperbacks was right, the target market was horse-mad little girls (no shortage of those), and Scholastic is one of those rare companies which actually still markets its books like crazy, in multiple countries, instead of expecting the authors to do all the legwork.

Shawn and I made a tidy little sum from those books … and even now, little royalty cheques still arrive a couple of times a year.  They’re usually under $100, by this point,  sales having tapered down to a trickle, but again, I’m not complaining.

Alas, even that log-flume ride had to come to an end.  Last I spoke to my editor at Scholastic, the market for kids’ non-fiction had pretty much dried up.  She tells me kids just go to this Interwebz thing now to look up facts, instead of buying books.

Curse you, Interwebz!  May the fetid breath of a thousand camels fog up your windshield!

So I’m at a bit of a cross-roads.  I would really like to get another book project going.  The whole process of writing something 80 times as long as a magazine article is daunting, yes, but it’s less so once you’ve done it a few times.  And as I’ve pointed out, it adds so much cachet to one’s credibility.  Still, I am not sure in which direction I should go.

I have friends who keep telling me the real money is in fiction.  The afore-mentioned Ms. Rowling would certainly serve as proof and example, though we’ve all heard the stories about Harry Potter having been rejected umpteen million times by supposedly wise publishing houses before it finally saw the light of day and became an unstoppable marketing machine.

My squeeze recommends churning out murder mysteries. Trouble is, it’s really not my genre — I don’t even read them.  And my father (don’t choke) once suggested to me that the real money was in porn …. excuse me, women’s erotica.  (So much more genteel and tasteful.)

It probably is, but I dunno if I could channel my inner vixen to that degree without giving myself a fatal case of the giggles.  And I live in horror of unwittingly winning the “Bad Sex in Fiction” award …

All writers are supposed to have a Great Canadian (or American, or Insert Your Country of Origin Here) Novel lurking somewhere in the deepest recesses of their hippocampus.  I just really have never been able to locate mine.

I’ve churned out some bad short stories, yes, and some even worse (and, ahem, anonymous) fan-fiction (and no, I’m not telling you which fandom(s)!), and a lot of angsty poetry in my lifetime.  Some of the poetry actually bordered on okay, but if you want to pick the one branch of writing that earns you even less than writing for magazines and newspapers … well, three guesses.

If there’s a novel in my sub-psyche, it probably has not yet surfaced because I don’t have an ending for it.  And I can’t imagine all that many things more demoralizing than churning out 300 pages of plot and character and exposition and then not being able, for the life of you, to wrap it up.

(My sympathies to my writer friends who may be wrestling with just this dilemma as they near the end of NaNoWriMo month. You are braver than I, and I salute you.)

Even if you visualize your Great Work of Fiction as a series of seven (or eight, or however many bloody Harry Potter books there are), you’ve still got to sell a publisher on that first one, so it better be firm and tight and bouncy … (Oh, dear, there’s that subliminal porn sneaking in.  Eeekk!)

It’s possible that after almost 30 years of being a journalist, that I’m just hard-wired for the non-fiction angle.  And I do have two sort of half-formed concepts for non-fiction books kicking around my skull.  I think I just need a kick in the tush to flesh them out enough to start peddling them to publishers.

Feel free to deliver same if you’ve read this far and are so inclined.