Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Hers isn’t an easy name to learn or write. Call me a simpleton. Yet, if you said her name these days, I’d know exactly whom you were talking about. She’s a regular commenter on LitPark, a regular on
myspace (She’s everywhere like a freakin’ ghost ninja), and a regular in the Noveltown Review with an article in the inaugural issue and a forthcoming article in our upcoming racier edition.
Her article, "The Working Writer: What Kind Of Writer Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?" is meant to help out writers who need the guidance to get successful. I know I need it. Who doesn’t need encouragement? I probably look forward to her next article more than anybody. On a personal level I’ve been through every emotion a novelist must face in the path of a hopeful literary career. I told writer Samantha Dunn recently, “Noveltown is built out of the lint of our pockets.” And so are most writing careers. It’s tough work. People like Lauren help us through the process of acceptance and understanding what it’s all about.
Baratz-Logsted's characters reveal the dark in all of us
It’s what you learn from people that matters. And some writers, well, they just ooze with wisdom. That’s
Lauren Baratz-Logsted. I’m in dire need of picking her brain, cloning her brain cells, and injecting them into my own. I could use some of her writing prowess, her determination to succeed, and I’m guessing here, but some of her skills at being a perfectionist.
Hidden love of Lauren? Or primal fear?
I recently finished Lauren’s book,
Vertigo. It's been getting mostly raves with
a few dissenters on Amazon. Love or hate
Vertigo, it’s masterfully written, a complete blend of historical fiction with erotic suspense. It takes skill to mimic culture and language, knowledge to provide historical detail, and ingenuity to delve such in a path of formulaic writing. Vertigo’s prim and proper language and spellbinding characterization of a corrupt novelist from yesteryear and his curious unsatisfied wife makes for a daring psychological journey into literary formula and storytelling.
A snowy day in the East...
Literary formulas aren’t bad. When done well there are purposeful twists within. They lead your mind down roads where the reader naturally stereotypes the outcome. If done well, as in
Vertigo, then such works have the ability to set up and shock the reader’s own expectations of where a story is headed. Sure, there’s a formula in
Vertigo. And Baratz-Logsted purposely strays. That’s a good formula story. Your mind goes one way, the story goes another. The reader gets fooled and thus should have a better time reading. Yet it’s still locked in a genre—the water rises along a yardstick of thought, drops, pushes back up in a swell of conflict, all within the range of the formula.
I won’t go on and on. Rather I’ll allow Lauren Baratz-Logsted to speak for herself.
Here’s Baratz-Logsted's interview with Noveltown:Noveltown: How do you get away with writing both Victorian era fiction with erotic overtones and young adult novels? Aren’t you going to make granny librarians and young mothers angry at you?
Baratz-Logsted: To answer the first question, I get away with it simply by believing that if a writer is willing to work hard, and I am, she deserves to get the opportunity to stretch her writing muscles all over the place; that, and no one has asked me recently to change my name so they can “brand” me as a certain type of writer. As for the second question, I’ve been mostly lucky with granny librarians – oh, and by the way, as a former sort-of librarian, on behalf of all librarians everywhere may I slap you for that – and young mothers. I’ve also been very lucky with men, who mostly aren’t threatened by my books in the way some women are. I’ve had less success with ultra-conservatives, but you can’t please everyone and I perversely hope I never write the book that does. Honestly, if I don’t ruffle at least a few people, I’m probably not doing my job.
Noveltown: How do you tackle the idea of formula?
Baratz-Logsted: It’s an impossible question for me to answer and you’ll have to forgive me if I say I don’t think of what I do as writing to a formula. It’s publishers that decide how they’re going to market books, not authors. I write the stories I’m moved and excited to tell; the rest – how the book is positioned etc – comes after the writing. Here’s an example: a lot of my books are classified as Chick-Lit. If we classify these books as “contemporary fiction that addresses issues facing modern women, characterized by a humorous or satiric tone,” then I guess I fit the formula. But if you add the stereotype “in which lots of shopping ensues, people drink designer drinks and the heroine is searching for Mr. Right” then we’re going to be in trouble since my characters only go shopping when they need a disguise, they drink cheap wine and Diet Pepsi, and any romances are always subordinate to the main theme. There’s also never a clear-cut HEA (Happily Ever After), which is frustrating to readers who need a formula; indeed, nearly all my books are open-ended.
Lauren hanging out with her brother...
Noveltown: So what’s the story about your novel, Vertigo? Where did the idea come from? I mean, was the market hurting for historical fiction?
Baratz-Logsted: No, not hurting; in fact, I’d say it’s become a popular genre, particularly if there’s an erotic edge. The idea first came to me when I was vacationing in Florida in fall of 2000. I wanted to write a story about a woman trapped by living a life that she realizes has been more thrust upon her rather than coming from her own conscious choosing. That’s a common theme in my books: people making decisions by popular consensus who need to learn to be more active in choosing their own destinies. But Emma’s particular story – and I don’t want to give too much away here, but you’ll understand since you’ve read it – wouldn’t work if I cast it as a contemporary tale. Readers would naturally say, “Why doesn’t she just leave if she doesn’t like it?” Her story being set in Victorian times, such a choice is simply unavailable to Emma and so she must do, um, other things.
Noveltown: Who is Chance Wood? Could you fall in love with him?
Baratz-Logsted: In love? I don’t know. I do think Chance is a dangerously charming devil. And there was at least one fan that wrote a letter asking if I could arrange for her to have sex with him. Who is Chance Wood? For Emma, he’s the cause of her awakening, the catalyst for the realization that so much of her world is not of her own making…and it’s time to make a few changes.
Noveltown: One day you made a decision in your life about becoming a writer. Who was the biggest influence on that decision?
Baratz-Logsted: When I was 12 years old, in eighth grade, I had a teacher who liked one of my stories so much he made the class listen to it three days running. That was the first time it occurred to me that I might have stories to tell that people would want to hear. Twenty years later, I made the decision for myself to take my writing seriously. I walked out on a day job that came with full medical benefits, a decent salary, and four weeks’ paid vacation a year. I realized that life is too short not to pursue your dreams full force.
Noveltown: Who in your opinion has the ability to become not just a writer, but a novelist? What does it take? Wheaties? Ego? Tough knuckles?
Baratz-Logsted: All of that. You need belief in yourself and perseverance, the willingness to put one writing foot in front of the other even when all outward signs – say, in the form of rejection or if your mailman tells you that you stink – are telling you to just give up and eat a Twinkie. Oh, and if you have talent too, that’s a plus. I think most people when they first start writing don’t realize that most writers need to serve a long apprenticeship before breaking in. I wrote seven novels before my sixth sold. Since then, I’ve had seven books published with more to come. None of that would have happened if I’d given up after book five. There’s a message here, people: Don’t pull a John Kennedy Toole and kill yourself. Keep writing new books, keep dreaming big dreams.
Noveltown: You’re someone who markets herself on the Internet a lot. I have to ask... I hear about the disgruntled commercial writers out there. What’s your take? Are big publishing houses leaving their writers to market their own work? And if so, is self-marketing a bad thing?
Baratz-Logsted: I’m not disgruntled but I’ve certainly met my share of writers who are. It’s a tough business, not on the order of laying tar in Texas in August, but tough nonetheless. I don’t know if I’d say publishers leave their writers on their own to market their books, but it’s just the obvious business model that they’ll throw more efforts behind a book they’ve paid $250,000 for than a book with one less zero. The Internet has been a wonderful thing for writers like me and while I support conventional reviews, I’ve found the blogosphere on a whole to be more democratic. Very few print publications have paid attention to my work, although I’ve had terrific views from the ones I’ve scored. But by and large, I might as well not exist in those places; this despite the fact that I’ve broken a few molds that should make me notable to them: RDI changed their own successful trade-only business model to publish my debut The Thin Pink Line, which received a starred Kirkus, in hardcover, and I write in so many different areas, that alone should draw attention. But no. On the other hand, bloggers seem to have embraced the fact that I’m trying to do unexpected things with my books and that I have a lot to say about writing and the industry that might be of interest to their readers. In terms of self-marketing being a bad thing, I think that’s only the case if 1) it takes you away too much from the writing, which should be your main focus if you want to be a writer; or 2) there are aspects of it you don’t enjoy and yet you’re doing it anyway. I hear too often from writers who find their blogging or myspace efforts etc to be a burden. If that’s how you feel, don’t do it. Believe me, your lack of genuine energy for it will show. Instead, find areas of marketing you do enjoy. Or, you know, be Cormac McCarthy, indulge your hermit side, and then get picked by Oprah.
Noveltown: What’s your take on LitPark, The Nervous Breakdown and Noveltown? Are they three separate entities? Are they part of a whole? Are they a manifestation of too many rebels in the literary world…? Talk…
Baratz-Logsted: Can there be too many rebels in the literary world? Pshaw!
LitPark is an amazing place where there’s a new theme every week and writers can come together in a safe environment to explore the ideas behind those themes.
The Nervous Breakdown gives a lot of diverse writers a chance to stretch their creative nonfiction wings. As for
Noveltown, well, that’s you, dear. Each place has it’s distinct personality and serves to scratch a different itch for those of us who love all these places.
Noveltown: What’s the Backspace Writers Conference?
Baratz-Logsted: It’s an annual conference with panels on writing literary fiction and various genres, editor panels and agent panels. It takes place over two days every year in New York City and I was on a panel there last year. Perhaps because of its location, it attracts more agents and editors that you normally see at these things. I can’t recommend it or the
site that started it all highly enough to writers at every stage of their careers. This year’s conference takes place May 31-June 1, so if you haven’t booked already, go for it!
Noveltown: Talk us through a typical day in your life, and please, list here all the literary entities you’re affiliated with… and end with what’s next in your career. That should take up about ten pages, right? Oh, and thanks for talking to us today!
Baratz-Logsted: Typical day: Wake up early, clear up as much overnight email as possible and exercise for an hour before getting my daughter up for school; back to work at seven a.m. and work straight through until it’s time to pick her up at four. If I’m in the midst of a novel, sometimes I’ll write more at night too. In between the writing, I’ll do interviews like this one or email with my agent or network on behalf of other writers, pitching their work to agents/editors. I’ll also take breaks between sections and flit around at Backspace, LitPark, Noveltown, The Nervous Breakdown etc. If there’s time I’ll check out
GalleyCat or Ed Champion’s
Return of the Reluctant for literary news. I will make sure at three o’clock that I’m doing paperwork, so I can have General Hospital on in the background. In and around it all, I read-read-read, still a victim to the schedule I set myself in 2005 of 365 books a year.
Greg Logsted, writer of
Sock Puppets in Love
Another bold writer in the family?
What’s next:
Secrets of My Suburban Life, my second YA novel, is due out in January from Simon & Schuster and is about a teen whose novelist mother is crushed to death by a stack of Harry Potter books – when her father moves her to CT, she becomes embroiled in a sort-of mystery involving an online predator; my first tween book, also from S&S, is due out in March – it’s called
Me, In Between and is about a precociously well-breasted 12-year-old who is conflicted by that fact; my next Chick-Lit book for RDI,
Baby Needs a New Pair of Choos, is about the perils of having an addictive personality and is due out sometime in 2008. My husband Greg Logsted, if I may add, has his debut coming out in June 2008:
Sock Puppets in Love, a tween book for S&S about a boy whose father died the previous school year and who is now faced with a gorgeous English teacher who has the eye for him. Finally, Houghton Mifflin just acquired the first four books in a series for young readers, which is being written by me with Greg and our seven-year-old daughter Jackie. The series is called
The Sisters Eight and is about octuplets, the Huit sisters, whose parents disappear on New Year’s Eve when Dad goes out to the woodshed and Mom goes into the kitchen for eggnog. Phew! OK, I think I just exhausted myself. Thanks for having me, Nick. You’re a doll.
Order now:
Vertigo.
Labels: Amazon, authors, blog, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, literary, myspace, Vertigo
