My Works in Progress

I've officially shelved The Bone Eater for now; some of the personality traits I've decided Jackie should have are a little too close for comfort.

What is it that agents and editors say? That you should get your illness/whatever out of your system and then write? Yeah, that's what I need to do with this story right now.

I've gone back to the other story I'd been working on a couple of years ago. It's mostly finished, but I stuffed it too full of crap. The first chapter has been revised, and now I'm working on the second chapter, and hope to have that revised in a day or two.

I know that as I move along, I'm going to have to incorporate certain things I've thought would work better than my original thoughts. And the middle is going to be a bit of a mess. But I have some ideas for the middle, too, including deleting mucho words.

The ending is pretty much set (and it's kind of weepy, but it makes sense), but of course I'll have another look at it; never know what I can add or subtract to make it better.

Oh, and I'm going to post the first 400 or so words of this work in progress, which I've called (after going through three or four titles), Running Down a Dream.

~Nancy Beck

A Fun Blog

Here's a fun blog that's writer related (sort of): Beer Haiku Daily.

Yup, a haiku daily, related to beer (yes, Virginia, there are beers out there worth talking and writing about). And you're encouraged to write a haiku (lines of 5-7-5 syllables) and submit it. Who knows? You might get a blog post of your very own over there. :-)

Enjoy!

Do Your Research, Dammit!

Yet another "publisher" bit the bullet, scamming people left and right. This one was called Martell Publishing.

When I first looked at the picture of where Martell's office was, I was reminded of several Jersey Shore motels.

Turns out it originally was a motel, converted into offices.

Repeat after me: You NEVER, EVER pay a publisher to print your story. Not upfront, and not by asking you for the names of family and friends (that's the end around).

Period.

These poor people would've done better by going to the local copy shop to have it done. Or they could've gone online and used either Lulu.com or CafePress. Any of these would've cost less (or would've been free) than what Martell asked for (and, unfortunately, received).

Now you're going to say: But you just said you never pay a publisher to publish your work in hard copy or paperback, that they should be paying you (royalties). And the last time you looked, the local copy shop would indeed cost money.

The copy shop is being honest; they'll print your stuff, but they won't claim they're publishing
you. All that the shop, Lulu.com, and CafePress claim is that they'll PRINT your work. That's a big difference. If you have any typos, they'll been in the final print. In other words, whatever is on the pieces of paper you're handing to a printer, they'll print. No editing, no marketing of your story, nothing.

At least they're being honest.

Shame on the guy who took advantage of people. I hope he gets thrown in jail for at least a year. Scumbag.

~Nancy Beck

So We Come to the 6 Year Anniversary of 9-11...

Where were you on 9/11/2001?

I was at home, recuperating from surgery; I was due to go to the doctor on 9/12, to have the catheter removed.

It was a very strange day to begin with. Turning on Turner Classic Movies, I usually settle in to watch whatever is on (with few exceptions).

But not that day.

The movie on that morning, Stanley and Livingstone, starring Spencer Tracy, is one that I normally would watch. But, strangely, I was very restless. It's possible that I was antsy because I'd been on short-term disability for several weeks; there's no way to know for sure.

Anyway, I turned the channel, flipping through various stations. I finally came upon one that showed a very tall, burning building. An announcer or reporter for this New York station said that a plane had just flown into one of the World Trade Center towers...

It was so unusual a thing, that I called my husband at work, telling him about it.

Later that morning, I watched in stupefied horror as the second plane hit the other tower.

Yeah, lucky me. Dark smoke billowed around the first tower, and I saw something coming in from one of the sides of the picture. I suddenly realized it was a plane. I said something like, "No, no, what are you doing?"

As we know now, the despicable guy at the controls knew exactly what he was doing.

The world hasn't been the same since.

~Nancy Beck

Weekend Stuff

A quick one - went to see bro-in-law Stu and his wife on Saturday. Haven't been to Ye Olde Watering Hole in a few weeks, but may go in this Saturday.

Yesterday, Sunday, was just Be-A-Slug Day.

And even though their offense looked okay, the Giants lost. Damn. I never thought I'd see a porous defense on the Giants, but the secondary...sucks (not that the rest of the defense looked that great, but the secondary is especially sucky). Another thing I thought I'd never see (or voice) was to talk nicely about the Giants offense. Poor Eli did something to his shoulder, but, I mean, the offense racked up 35 points, for goodness sake.

At least I have the Yankees. :-)

~Nancy Beck

What Writers Shouldn't Write About

First saw this on Kristin Nelson's blog, but here's the direct link (Associated Press).

Yeow! "Polish Author Convicted of Murder," is the headline, in case you're too lazy to click on the link (which I've done from time to time ;-)). So, what did the writer in this case do? Yup, wrote about the murder in his book.

D'oh!

Grisly but dopey.

And, no Polish jokes, please, although... (BTW, I'm 100% Polish, as Beck is my married name. Hubby is a mutt, being 1/2 German, with other parts Irish, Scottish, English, and French.)

Just thought you should know, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. (Yeah, I'm in one of my nutty/weird moods today, heh.)

~Nancy Beck

The da Vinci Code - A Review

Anchor, 496 pages

Yeah, I finally got around to reading this, finishing it this morning. I generally stay away from hyped books because I figure the hype is over the top. If I do decide to read a bestseller, I usually wait months or years to see what all the fuss was about.

Say what you will about 2-dimensional characters or stilted writing or whatever - it hooked me in right from the start. It's a thriller about the Holy Grail, and the lengths some people will go to either keep its secrets quiet or shout it from the rooftops.

Some Observations

In my view, the purpose of the characters is second to the puzzle: what the heck was the dead guy trying to tell Langdon? And, alternately, to the French cryptographer, Sophie Neveu? I had some interest in Neveu's background and felt sad for her at times, but if you're looking for a character study, you're reading the wrong book.

The beginning hooked me because it starts out with action: The almost-dead guy trying to deal with the guy with the gun. Okay, maybe it's farfetched to expect the Louvre guy to write out his scree on the Louvre floor and position his body in a certain way. Supposedly, his death was slow going.

Implausible? Could be, dahling. But Mr. Brown makes it sound like it could happen. It's the believability factor. Writing fantasy, that's a major concern. Am I going to pull this off so that people actually believe demons/goddesses/whatever walk the Earth? Or whatever else is fantastic in my story? Again, say what you will about word choice or stilted this or that, Mr. Brown made it believable in my mind.

The pace of this story made me almost breathless at times. Langdon and Neveu (and others) move around an awful lot - in only a few hours' time! This doesn't take place in a week or three days; this takes place late at night, into the early morning hours, finishing up (the major part of the story, anyway) later that day. One day, at most. This, I felt, kept the story well focused; there were lags, but there weren't many.

The epilogue made total sense, especially keeping in mind what a certain woman told Langdon in the very last chapter. It actually ends on a fairly quiet note, which I hadn't expected (most of the stuff I didn't figure out; I was blindsided by who the Teacher turned out to be). But it made total sense.

I was thinking: Yeah, that's what I want in my stories. The ending might be violent or quiet, but it should make sense to the story at hand. Throw in a twist or two along the way, and it makes for a good read.

So, What Did I Get Out of It?

Good question, grasshopper.

If nothing else, I read an example of what makes a bestseller: An interesting beginning, suspense, a fast pace, and an intriguing puzzle to keep people guessing. This won't necessarily work for every story (and who can pick out the next bestseller, anyway?), but the ingredients sure added up in this one.

Besides a couple of days of turning the pages and wondering what would happen next (some I guessed, some came from out of nowhere), this was a sorta learning experience for me. Would I have written it this way? Probably not. But I might just further analyze certain parts of it to see what hooked me in to begin with and what kept me turning the pages.

We should all be so fortunate to have a page turner, eh?

~Nancy Beck

A Weird Place to Run a Publishing Company

It's been the butt of jokes (Ralph Kramden: "And you're going to Bellevue, because you're nuts!") and was exposed as an horrific place to house psychiatric patients; I remember the TV news (in the 1970s) filled with shots of patients slumped over in the hallways, and those hallways being dimly lit.

Not good times for New York's Bellevue Hospital.

But times change.

I'm not sure how much of a venue this particular publisher is going to be, as, so far, it's only going to be putting out four books a year. I will give them credit for not jumping into every genre out there or for trying to put 50 or 60 books out there. It sounds as if they're living within their capacity to print books.

I haven't heard of any of these books, but then I don't read literary novels. Sounds interesting, though.

So, this might be something to consider if you have a novel that fits their criteria. Here's the MSNBC article, and here's their actual website for you to decide.

~Nancy Beck

Fun Stuff

Hope everyone in the U.S. had a nice and safe Labor Day weekend. (The weather over the weekend was pretty good - for a change!)

Anyway, I was over at Evil Editor's blog, and read through a fun post on his Writing Exercise. Basically, he asked the Minions to come up with publishing-type stuff that isn't in the dictionary.

My favorites were "Snubplot - a bad book review" and "Stubplot - a barely detectable storyline", although they're all fun (some I found absolutely hilarious).

Scroll down to the Saturday, September 1 entry called (duh) Writing Exercise Results.

~Nancy Beck