Am I old yet?

My guest this week is author Morgan Mandel, who explores the dark side of eternal youth. Take it away, Morgan...

Am I old yet?  I’m not sure.  If so, when did it happen? Was it when I turned twenty-one and plucked out my first gray hair? Or when I got married three years later? People tied the knot much younger in those days.

I remember watching Bonanza on TV, and discovering Adam Cartwright (Pernell Roberts) was thirty-one. That seemed horribly ancient, until it happened to me.

All of a sudden I turned middle-aged, then before I knew it, I found an AARP application in the mail. I was kind of proud of my card, yet sad at the same time, realizing I’d already existed for half a century.  

When my parents passed away, it hit me that I was officially a member of the older generation, as they and others had been before me.

Now, when I stare at myself in the mirror, it’s strange to realize this is the same person who once climbed monkey bars and played hopscotch, went to sock hops, wore mini-skirts and bikinis, learned to disco dance and checked my mood ring to see if it had changed color.

Am I old yet? Inside, I still feel like the same person, but I don’t look the same. Would I like to be young again? Most of the time, I’m content with being who I am right now. Other times, I wonder what life would be like if I could delve into the Fountain of Youth and re-emerge young.

Writing is a blessing. Not only can I enter into the make-believe world of my characters, but I can also share that experience. Forever Young:  Blessing or Curse, is a result of my musings about being young again. It was written not only for Baby Boomers like me, who’d like to imagine reliving their youth, but also for those who don’t need to ask if they’re old yet.

About Forever Young

Fresh beginnings turn tragic when Dorrie Donato’s husband, Larry, is killed in a hit-and-run accident a few months after starting a new job at the Life is for Living Institute. Discouraged and desperate after suffering countless setbacks, Dorrie accepts an offer by Larry’s boss, the famous Angel Man, to  be the first to test an experimental pill designed to spin its user back to a desired age and hold there, yet still retain all previous memories.  The pill seems too good to be true. Maybe it is.

About Morgan Mandel

Before writing books, Morgan Mandel freelanced for the Daily Herald newspaper. She’s a past president of Chicago-North RWA, the former Library Liaison for Midwest MWA, and is a member of Sisters in Crime and EPIC. She enjoys writing thrillers, mysteries and romances, and has fun combining the genres.

Her latest paranormal romantic thriller Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, Book One of the Always Young Series, is available on Kindle, Nook, Itunes, Kobo, and Smashwords, plus other electronic venues.  Morgan’s previous novels, also available electronically, include the romantic suspense, Killer Career, the mystery, Two Wrongs, and the romantic comedy, Girl of My Dreams. Morgan is now working on Book Two of the Always Young Series, called Blessing or Curse: A Forever Young Anthology, where readers will learn what happens to others who take the Forever Young pill.  Another book will follow, bringing back the original heroine, to close out the series.

You can find Morgan Mandel at her blog: http://morganmandel.blogspot.com, website: http://www.morganmandel.com, on Facebook: http://facebook.com/morgan.mandel, on Twitter: http://twitter.com/morganmandel, as well as other social media networks and egroups.

Ten Tips to Make Your Manuscript Shine

We self-publishers fight a lonely battle, finding readers for our wit and wisdom. We write alone, and now we sell alone and search for ways to market our work. How do we entice readers to open their wallets?

Those questions are often premature. Before asking how you're going to cope with all those book orders, you need to make sure you have a quality product. So here are ten tips to make your book, fiction or non-fiction, the best it can be.

#1 Use a spell-checker, but only as a first line of defense. Then you look for misspellings the spell-checker won't catch, such as then/than, to/too/two, tail/tale, or its/it's.

#2 Read your manuscript critically, as though you weren't the author. Some things to check include complete chapters, well-organized paragraphs, complete sentences, and accurate punctuation.

#3 Be consistent. If you capitalize a word once in the text, chances are you always want to capitalize it. Decide whether you want one space or two at the end of a sentence, and stick with it. Never change your font or type size without good reason. If your work consists of more than one file, be sure that every file is formatted identically.

#4 Get honest, competent critiques. Leave your mother and spouse alone; your family has better things to do than fawn over your work. Avoid critiques from anyone who has an emotional stake in making you happy, because that isn't what you need. The Internet Writing Workshop (http://internetwritingworkshop.org) is an excellent source of constructive, informed criticism.

#5 Use your judgment. Even good critiquers may give you conflicting advice. Remember that it's your project, so the final decision is always yours.

#6 Refer to a style manual such as the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the most widely accepted guide for standard writing.

#7 Make a style sheet. A novel or other large manuscript can involve lots of small stylistic decisions by the author. Keep a pad of paper with a running list things you don't want to have to keep looking up. For example, a cartoon I liked showed a bank robber writing a note and asking the teller, "Is holdup one word or two?" Think of words you often misspell or don't know how to capitalize, and write them correctly on the list.

#8 Follow your publisher's guidelines religiously even if they don't insist.

#9 Repeat tip #2.

#10 Review the publisher's proof carefully. When you receive the publisher's proof isn't the time to look for typos; you should have done that already. At this stage, the publisher may even charge you if you fix many of your own mistakes at this stage. Instead, look for their errors. Are illustrations in their proper places? Are pages and chapters numbered properly? Look at every page's overall appearance. Is each one properly aligned? Is any text missing?

If you follow these simple (but not always easy) tips, I can't guarantee best-sellerdom for your book, but I can promise you this: Your book will be far superior to the vast majority of self-published books. You will have a quality product.

This article first appeared in Ezine Articles in 2007.

Review of Forever Young

Dorrie is a beautiful middle-aged woman who watches her husband Larry die in a tragic accident. Larry had worked for the Life is for Living Institute, which then offers Dorrie a job that includes being spokeswoman for their brand-new Forever Young pill. She can choose to revert to any age and stay there virtually forever without the worry of death by disease, so with some trepidation she becomes a gorgeous 24-year-old again. That's a blessing, right? Wouldn't we all love to revert to the prime of our lives?

But as the subtitle "Blessing or Curse" suggests, it gets complicated. Wouldn't you know that Larry died knowing a secret, and that not everyone wishes Dorrie well? What follows is a fast-paced romantic escapism with generally good dialog and interesting characters. Nitpickers will note that the Forever Young pill has been released to the public without FDA testing or approval. Dorrie is a well-crafted, likable heroine whom romance fans will surely root for.

Forever Young is a fun read even for a guy like me who's never read a romance before. It is available on Kindle and Smashwords.

Review of Welcome Home, Sir

Welcome Home, Sir takes the reader into three realms that may well be unfamiliar territory: the biochemistry lab, Israel's Golan Heights, and the world of hypochondria. The main character, Doctor Ethan Meyer, has served in Israel's military, and key experiences show up in frequent brief flashbacks. Now he runs an American university lab and deals with the inevitable politics that turn vicious and may destroy a career almost before it begins. Privately, he worries that every twitch, every variation in his pulse is the first sign of a terminal disease. He knows he's a hypochondriac and sees a doctor to help him struggle against it.

All of this makes for a good premise. The idea is that Meyer's hypochondria stems from his military experience, but that doesn't come through clearly enough in the novel. The chapters are too short and need development. As far as it goes, the novel is well-written and enjoyable, but it literally falls short. I recommend the novel for its insights into new territory, but it really needs to be at least twice as long.

Review of The Stasi File

The Stasi File impresses on several levels: author Peter Bernhardt knows Germany, he knows opera, and he knows how to write a solid thriller.

The time is the early 1990s, and Communism is crumbling. The Berlin Wall has fallen. East Germany is a failed state with an uncertain future. Will it even remain independent, or will West Germany absorb it? Some fear a resurgent, powerful Germany, while others see reunification as crucial to the future health and stability of Europe.

The Stasi, the newly defunct East German secret police, hate and fear the prospect of reunification. Attorney Rolf Keller is sent from America to Berlin to obtain a secret Stasi file that may be critical to the West. Meanwhile, the opera singer Sylvia Mazzoni has a past that embroils her in a dangerous game of espionage, whether she likes it or not. She sings a key role in Bizet's Carmen. What is in store for her? A bright career, arrest, or death? Keller and Mazzoni have to work together, but can they trust each other? And what is the real threat?

The Stasi File reads smoothly as Bernhardt builds the tension from multiple viewpoints and brings the story to an exciting and satisfying conclusion. This is the work of a pro that deserves a wide audience.

Review of The Power of Validation

How can parents raise a child who has the confidence to avoid peer pressure, deal with bullies, avoid self-harm, and get a proper grip on emotions? That is the goal of The Power of Validation, a practical, commonsense book on child-rearing that many readers may wish their own parents had known about.

What is validation? It's "the recognition and acceptance that your child has feelings and thoughts that are true and real to him regardless of logic or whether it makes sense to anyone else," the authors write. No, it doesn't mean giving in to their demands or necessarily agreeing with their feelings. It might well mean "Yes, I understand that this is what you want to do, but we're doing something else right now."

This book shows that validation promotes a healthy, well-deserved self esteem that is based on children fulfilling their potential. Parents learn how to deal not only with children's worry, anger, fear, and jealousy, but with happiness, joy, and having fun. "The idea is to allow independence, interests, and imperfection while recognizing and accepting your child's weaknesses and strengths," the authors write.

The book has occasional exercises that help readers try out the principles themselves, and they are all easy to understand.

If only I could, I would travel back in time with two copies of The Power of Validation. One would go to my parents when they had their first child, and the other would be for when I became a parent.

Review of Totally Buzzed

Totally Buzzed is a lively murder mystery that's full of humor and potential.

A body turns up in the crawl space underneath a Wisconsin farmhouse, and the vic turns out to be a local woman named Carole Graff. Who killed the poor woman, and why? Luckily, retired investigator Buzz Miller takes on the case. She's smart but a little crazy, just like the friends and family who get mixed up in the case.

The story has all the elements of an intriguing mystery and contains plenty of interesting detail about forensics. There is no problem with the plot.

The question that comes to mind, though, is this: Is Totally Buzzed a murder mystery that happens to be funny, or is it a comedy that happens to include a murder? At times it's hard to tell as the story pauses for a joke or for some totally unhinged silliness that may or may not advance the plot. Buzz, who is fifty-something, has a sister Margaret, whom she regularly calls "Maggot." That's the talk of a twelve-year-old, and much of the dialog is laced with mild profanity. That is fine for establishing a character trait or for showing how a person talks in certain situations, but it's greatly overdone here. And for the family dog to pass gas once might be cute--and is probably enough. Humor can be tough, because not everyone laughs at the same things. As a general rule, though, not many people laugh at the same clever line or funny event twice.

Also there are lots of cliches and some repetition, for example "Dead bodies piss me off," followed later by "As I said, dead bodies piss me off."

This looks like a good first draft. Fix some typos and get rid of most cliches. Give the reader an occasional rest from the nonstop daffiness, and try to incorporate more of the humor into the story itself, to keep things moving. Cut the repetition. There's no need to call the same person a "rat-bastard" three times.

The crime detail is good, and the story as a whole can be fun after it gets a little TLC.

Review of I'm Not Muhammad

I'm Not Muhammad attempts to show what it is like to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America. Based on what I have gleaned from reading non-fiction books on the Middle East, author Jason Trask's details seem to be quite accurate.

Yusuf Alsawari is a devout Muslim and a native-born American living in New York City with his wife, Ruth. The crisis begins when at her mother's deathbed Ruth declares herself a born-again Christian, renouncing Islam. Yusuf is mortified and decides to leave her. The World Trade Center attacks provide a seemingly good cover for him to simply disappear, pretending to have perished in the rubble. He re-emerges as Muhammad Muhammad, determined to lead a new life.

But then he is kidnapped--hooded, whisked away, and imprisoned without explanation. As an Arab he is automatically suspect, though no one tells him what crime he is thought to have committed as Muhammad Muhammad. Meanwhile, no one misses him because Yusuf is presumed to be dead. Despite his protestations that "I'm not Muhammad," he is placed in a jumpsuit for days on end, not even allowed to use a toilet. The consequences are described in cringe-worthy detail several times, whereas once would have served well enough.

Yusuf's imprisonment without trial forms the core of the story. Will he remain a prisoner forever? Will he ever see Ruth again? What will happen to his faith in Allah?

Jason Trask's novel is well-written and well-researched, and offers a useful glimpse into Islam and some of the darker corners of American security. There are, though, a couple of problems with the story. A good fictional struggle should have both a protagonist and an antagonist where there is some hope for a fair fight. Here the antagonist is an impersonal, crushing system represented by no one in particular, and Yusuf never has a chance. His only hope is that Allah will rescue him. The other problem is that the resolution comes too soon. For the last ten percent of the novel, the tension is gone.

Books, books, books

There is a stack of books on my desk, bookcases behind me, a Kindle and an iPad with more TBR. Where to start? How about the books I'm being paid to read for Kirkus? And then the books I've promised friends or acquaintances I'd read, such as Karyn Hall's The Power of Validation or Jason Trask's I'm Not Muhammad? Most of the books that arrive in the mail from publishers go back out to reviewers for the Internet Review of Books, unless I can't find a willing reader--Taliban: The Unknown Enemy, anyone? That one's been sitting in my office for months, serving no other purpose than to hold down the stack of papers I haven't looked at in just as long.

But this isn't a complaint, not really. After wife and family, books are my first love. If there is too much on my TBR list, so be it. May I die many years from now with a book in my lap. The trouble is, that Taliban book deserves a review while there are still any Taliban left, and the pages may be yellow before I get to it.

Now, come on. Who wouldn't want to read a book about the Taliban?

Mystery & Me: When Pigs Fly

I couldn't resist reposting this review by Allene Reynolds. Basically positive, but ...

Mystery & Me: When Pigs Fly: When Pigs Fly , by Bob Sanchez, is the most unorthodox book I've ever read. I'm not referring to the religious connotations of unorthodox, ...

NaNo Lite wrapup

For years I avoided NaNoWriMo because pouring out words quickly has never been my style. And all those other items on my to-do list clamored for too much of my time. Not this year, though. Fifty thousand words just was unrealistic, unless my goal was producing gibberish. So I set out to write 1,000 words per day and kept an old-fashioned log on my desk to track progress. Oh, and my project was to continue a novel in progress, so I began at about 39,000.

How did I do? Well, there was that 12-day Thanksgiving break followed by some 600-word days, so November wrapped up with about 13,000 words added, bringing me up to 52 k. Now let's see. A thousand words a day every day in December, and the first draft of my 70k mystery is done. Voilà! (Or viola, for the musically inclined)

Huh? Who's kidding whom here? The distractions haven't disappeared, and my internal editor is knocking on my skull and demanding to be let back into my brain. My first draft may not be finished by New Year's Eve, but the important thing is the steady progress.

Presidential aptitude test

I'm thinking there should be a PAT (Presidential Aptitude Test) for anyone who wants to be president. Not a legal thing, of course, and it would have nothing to do with one's views on issues. It would just be a minimum bar for the wannabes to clear. It would be open book, multiple choice, and cover factual knowledge of broad topics: world religions, demographics, culture, military, technology, economics, U.S. history, and the Constitution. There would be no trivial questions about capital cities or leaders' names, just a test of what might reasonably be considered as core knowledge for a potential leader. I would make it, say, 100 questions with a passing grade of 70. No grades, just pass/fail. And no loaded questions, just strictly factual. And to be entirely fair, no trick questions.

Sample questions:

Which of the following is true about the Middle East?
a. All Muslim women must wear burkas.
b. Iran is an Arab country.
c. Turkey has secular leadership.
d. Saudi Arabia's Muslims are primarily Shia.
e. All of the above.

Which of the following is NOT guaranteed by the First Amendment?
a. Freedom of assembly
b. The right to vote
c. The right to petition for redress of grievances
d. Freedom of religion
e. Freedom of speech

What other questions should we ask of our potential leaders? (By the way, the answers are c and b.)

A NaNo Lite update

This is a practice I should have started a long time ago, setting aside a specific time to write. Now I roll out of bed, watch Morning Joe over two cups of joe, eat breakfast, shower and change, and then sit down to write a thousand words--that's all, just one thousand. So far, so good from last Tuesday through today. My little log records a modest 6,426 words, steady as she goes. And it's not that hard. The words flow without agony, because my Inner Editor has taken the month of November off. My writing time lasts approximately from 10 a.m. until noon, when it's on to other things. This NaNo Lite is at my own pace, but perhaps it's one that can extend beyond November. Too much to hope for? I hope not. We'll see.

One of those other things yesterday was writing a guest post for Make Mine Mystery, a fine blog run by Morgan Mandel.

Back to Confession

Now how hard was that, going back to writing Confession? I'd set myself a modest daily goal of 500 words and broke 1,000 today. It felt good, almost like free writing. I tried to give my internal editor a rest, not worrying for a change about exactly how anything fit. Most likely, though, it fits pretty well with the overall plan of the story. A little girl has been kidnapped and will be in serious danger, though I promise she will be fine. A general rule of thumb, for me anyway, is that the writer can put children in danger but not hurt them. In fact, her captor will be much the worse for wear.

NaNo Lite?

Call it cheating. Call it NaNo Lite. First I came up with an idea for a new NaNo novel. Then another idea. Wrote ~500 words to test it out and wondered where the heck I could go with it. Actually, both ideas are probably okay, but they don't catch my fancy right now. My mystery in progress, Confession, deserves finishing. So this morning I spent working on plot points and looking for a satisfactory ending (none yet).

My goal for November is to write about 500 words per day, every day. The 15K won't be enough to finish a draft, but they should give me a good head of steam. Yes, yes, it's probably too modest, but I have never been one to write long bursts in a single sitting. The best thing NaNo can do for me is to get me back into the habit of daily fiction writing.

Desert stargazing

Last week I wrote this blog entry on my iPad and didn't get around to posting it. Here it is now:

Monument commemorating Geronimo's surrender
to the US Army in nearby Skeleton Canyon in 1886

This evening we are sitting outside our RV and waiting for the stars to show themselves. The sky is still pink over one of the several mountain ranges, I think the Chiricahuas. A partial cloud cover is blowing to the east, promising a starry night. Behind us about thirty yards, a gaggle of geese cluck quietly by a small pond that seems to be made for them. We are at Rusty's RV Ranch in Rodeo, New Mexico for our second of three nights--maybe four if we decide we can't bear to leave. The owner of the park says her place is starting to attract astronomers because of the complete lack of light pollution. Last night we saw the Milky Way directly above us, and we cranes our necks in awe. Tonight we are out again with our lawn chairs. It is 7:21 p.m. At the extreme western edge of the Mountain Time Zone, and the sky still shows the faintest tinge of pink over the mountains. A few stars are beginning to emerge, although I can't identify them. Picking out Mercury and Mars are usually the best I can do.  Last night the moon didn't appear--while we watched, anyway--and tonight looks like it will be the same, a good night for stargazing.

Going my own way

I'm not sure what the NaNoWriMo rules are, though it should be simple to check. A lady in my fiction group is participating and told me I must--must--start a new novel, because that is what someone at NNWM says. Nice person that she is, the gal can be a little bossy. My first reaction was that I am retired and no one tells me what to do anymore. But then I went home and diddled around with a few ideas, even to the point of writing about 500 words of a new story that might or might not pan out. Did I break some bloody rule by starting before November 1? The fact is that I already have an NIP that runs about 39,000 words so far. I consulted the oracle pictured below, who was no help. So I'm just going to continue working on the novel I've already started, and if NaNo or my bossy friend wants to strip off my epaulets, so be it.

This li'l guy lives in the Chiricahua Desert Museum in Rodeo,
New Mexico. He turns out to be not much of an oracle.

So. I just signed up for NaNoWriMo, despite my having always shied away from it in the past. Frankly, it's darned intimidating. Years ago, I wrote about 35,000 words on my current novel and have barely touched it since. On the one hand, I've never written lots of words in short bursts. On the other, my novel will never be done at this rate. Recently I sat down to work on it and wrote only one line, for goodness' sake. The current word count is 36,800, or about half the length of my first three novels.

It's not clear if NaNoWriMo is right for me, but November will be a good month to glue my butt to the chair and crank out the rest of the first draft. Was it the great Lawrence Block who wrote that the best guideline for getting writing done was "ass in chair"? It was either him or someone else--how's that for narrowing it down? It will be okay to write a crappy first draft, by the way. At least for me, second drafts are much easier because there is something to work with. It's getting past the terror of the blank page, because words I can see are easier to fix that words I can't see. And waiting one more year won't work, because 2012 will be busy in other ways. I'll always be able to fit revisions.

Have you participated in NaNoWriMo? How well has it worked for you?

Party time at the El Paso Writers' League!

There are big doin's at the El Paso Writers' League tomorrow. Every year we have a writing contest for members, and for the last three years we've published an anthology of the winning entries. So tomorrow the 8th we're having a big whoop-de-doo Launch Party with the winners reading their entries from the book. Yesterday I ordered a sheet cake from Sam's--they call it a photo cake--with the likeness of the cover on it. It makes me a little nervous, though, since the bakery lady said they'd never actually done one before. I'll swing by Sam's and pick it up on my way to the meeting in El Paso.

Here is the cover of this year's Border Tapestry, designed by member Maritza Jáuregui:

In addition to bringing the cake (please God, don't let me drop it), I'm bringing the 100 copies of Border Tapestry for distribution to members at the meeting. I've been editor and co-editor for the first three issues and am turning over the whole project to Sulta Bonner next year. Such fun!

The great e-book giveaway!

Left to right: serious, funny, noir

Here's a great offer for e-book readers: Leave a comment with your email address on this post, and I will send you a free ebook for your Kindle, Nook, or iBook! You may choose from When Pigs Fly, Getting Lucky, or Little Mountain.

My hope is that you will enjoy the freebie enough to post an honest Amazon review, but you are under no obligation.