First 200 Tweets From Twitter Novel "Small Places" - By N.L. Belardes

Now you can read the first 200 tweets from the twitter book "Small Places" (twitter.com/smallplaces) in order. It's actually the first seven chapters.

One.

Pre-Twitter: Stand by for first transmission. This is the fiction novel, "Small Places." The story will begin shortly... 05:31 PM April 25, 2008 from web

Twitter 1: I’ve grown to like small places. I like bugs, bug homes, walking stick bugs, blades of grass, ladybug Ferris wheels made out of dandelions.

Twitter 2: I like puddles, segments of reflections in dew and the parable of the bagworms I once made up. I’ll tell you later.

Twitter 3: On the other side of my apartment window is a dirty grey compartment of Central California sky.

Twitter 4: It's right there; just on the other side of a wall, through a piece of glass, through an unopened doorway, even beneath cracks in the floor.

Twitter 5: Endless grey corporate sky. Above valley cities, cubicles of dirty air. I can see the grey, can practically taste a chunk of cottony smog.

Twitter 6: I tie my shoes. No great mystery about this cul de sac. Southern valley catcher's mitt of mountains harbors the worst air in the nation.

Twitter 7: Just read the headlines in other cities. You won't necessarily read it here in this all-American city, though everyone around here knows it.

Twitter 8: What else can I do but shut the door behind me and start walking? I don't have a goddam car. And yes, it's because I'm not well paid.

Twitter 9: The grey skyline doesn't tower too far above wide, empty streets. From several blocks away I can see Buildicon Enterprises.

Twitter 10: Buildicon uses a four-story bank as its home base for product development, marketing, tech support and shipping.

Twitter 11: I see a line of ants on the sidewalk. They seem to be walking to Buidicon. I imagine them taking my place, in cubicles, hardly working.

Twitter 12: Boxy, the structure looms above the dirty horizon. Lines of ants spill into gutters and cracks. A leaf is carried with them like a stretcher.

Twitter 13: I imagine myself falling down exhausted, shrinking, lying on the leaf and carried into the darkness of small places.

Twitter 14: I'm not thinking about Mulani, not right now anyway. I pass a school auditorium, looks like a Lego. It's haunted complex is ripe with ghosts.

Twitter 15: When I get near Buildicon I stare up. The windows are dirty, dusty. I walk through the parking garage to the foyer. Bankers, lawyers pass.

Twitter 16: Then I see faithful Buildicon workers--all people like me who infest this building. I silently curse the elevator. The doors open. I step in.

Twitter 17: I beg for this to not be the time I get stuck as it chugs toward the third floor. "Please, not me today. I didn't eat a hearty breakfast..."

Twitter 18: Elevator sickness... Are there rooms ants hate, that grubs detest? A type of wood chamber for a termite--a moment when a cocoon is a prison?

Twitter 19: "I don't care if I get stuck in the elevator. As long as you do my work." That's what Mulani, a true time-managed Buildicon employee, says.

Twitter 20: Such kernels of truth are nothing a Rolex after five years of faithful employment can fix. The doors swing open. I walk toward marketing.

Two.

Twitter 21: Perfectly compartmentalized sits endless cubicles with computers in each, all cozily networked, each with a chair fit for lumbar support.

Twitter 22: On each desk rests pictures of Buildicon's idyllic families, all non-management: husbands hugging wives, children with perfect white teeth..

Twitter 23: Cork boards are filled with exotic faraway images of Modesto, Fresno, Van Nuys and California City--the desert town that never grows.

Twitter 24: Desk cities: Kleenex boxes, staplers, tape holders; endless stacks of paper dotted in red ink. Burger King toys that can light up and spin..

Twitter 25: At my desk now thinking about Frederick Taylor. He's the bastard from yesteryear who was so efficient with his hard-on for time management.

Twitter 26: How much time did he waste picking up shovels? The average Joe will always find a way to dig a hole and dog work at the same time.

Twitter 27: It's what all of us clockwatchers do--we are humans and not automatons. I sigh. It's another day at the office...

Twitter 28: So I just wrote an email to Mulani. I realize she hasn't been efficient in relationship with her asshole husband. Note: look up fungible.

Twitter 29: He's a semi-pro soccer player who just spent more than a year overseas screwing God knows how many South American prostitutes and bimbos.

Twitter 30: You'd think missing the birth of his kid would've pissed off Mulani. Or his lack of phone calls…

Twitter 31: Or his once-in-a-blue moon insincere jests of marital love (just after brothel moments). A clear indication of an inefficient marriage.

Twitter 32: There's so much more. But my point? You're right. There's no efficiency anywhere. So I spilled my guts in an erroneous work-related email:

Twitter 33: ...I guess there's always some idiot Jodie Foster around who develops feelings for the monster, knowing full well the man ate brains...

Twitter 34: Pondering: If sex were efficient it would take two seconds. We would all be monkeys, humping, then eating leaves and worms and lazing about.

Twitter 35: So Mulani took it from me for hours in our three, count them, three non-work related escapades. Efficient? No. Time consuming. Yes.

Twitter 36: Taking a break that's supposed to only last an hour and coming back sweaty, smelling like your sexy workmate, that's an efficiency problem.

Twitter 37: I compromised my integrity. I hoped she'd say, "I'm leaving him. I love you," then hold my hand and see the great waterfalls of the world...

Twitter 38: That's the web of adultery: inefficient babbling of one gorilla to another while pumping on an ass, eating leaves. I'd make a great monkey.

Twitter 39: When people are at work, do they think about work, or are they thinking about sex, blowjobs, touching, caressing, lunchtime shenanigans?

Twitter 40: Lollipops are the oral dose of sexcapade medicine that's legal in the workplace. I'll take a red one.

Twitter 41: Why does the company secretary keep a copious supply of lollipops on her desk? Company prez says, "I need a form." She licks her lips. They’re doing it.

Twitter 42: And so the candy, the lollipops, they keep workers working along with their abstract naughty thoughts... Enough. I have to go to a meeting.

Three.

Twitter 43: Of the eight people in the meeting room who appear to be in a state of cryogenics, three of us seem worse off than the rest.

Twitter 44: Vishnu rolls his eyes as if slowly awakening from a month of freezing-tube paralysis. There’s no hope for him.

Twitter 45: His karmic voyage to a land of the sleep gives him a strangely peaceful look as if he's an all-wise half-listening webmaster from New Delhi.

Twitter 46: I glance at my watch. He's at least thirty minutes from point of consciousness.

Twitter 47: Mulani is half-Chinese, a valley girl all the way with her pigtails and bubblegum chewing. She's lost to the marketing manager's monologue.

Twitter 48: In her wide-eyed state she concocts a plan to make it with Michael Jordan. She's knows kissing me put her at only 2.5 degrees of separation.

Twitter 49: How do you break into 'no' degrees of separation? I wonder with her. At least we're brainstorming. "He's old," I said at lunch yesterday.

Twitter 50: She set me straight, said Joan, our project coordinator, is in lust with Sean Connery. "And he's at least three times Michael Jordan's age."

Twitter 51: Is my heart rate in the low 30s? As our marketing manager “Blahs” I think about the Giant Root Borer, the largest beetle north of Mexico.

Twitter 52: Our marketing manager's name is Milt Butterlink. He's the proud bug-like corporate embodiment of a big dumb B-movie monster bug.

Twitter 53: Never before has such a re-animated corporate dialogue risen from such a cramped meeting room insectoid. He is what Buildicon emulates.

Twitter 54: Milt Butterlink: As I fall asleep, this is the man who has prepared pages of notes simply to unravel the mystery of the color orange.

Twitter 55: "Team, we'll get a new color though I know you're attached to your tangerine polos. Orange is an out-of-fashion corporate color faux paus."

Twitter 56: Milt Butterlink was beginning to look more wooden, like a stick bug. Like five stick bugs all wrapped into one, with large pine cone hands.

Twitter 57: He's got big grey eyes and large lips; his cheeks puff out above a weedy sidewalk of chest hair that springs up through his v-neck.

Twitter 58: His hands don't look like flesh at all but dry and wood-like (pine cones), as if unfinished, stuck onto his body: lost boy bug monster.

Twitter 59: God only knows what he does with those hands in the Greenhorn Mountains, where he commutes from everyday and lives with his wife and two small children.

Twitter 60: He's probably digging a tunnel to nowhere with those bare wooden hands like shovels. Very time efficient. Very Frederick Taylor.

Twitter 61: Today Milt passes out another document. In case you didn't know, he's the one who puts us in our cryogenic state every Tuesday.

Twitter 62: There are always two boxes of donuts that we inject straight into our bloodstream so we can crash at just the right moment of diatribe.

Twitter 63: I imagine myself in the middle of the conference room table--the donut my life preserver. A current of normalcy pulls me out of the room.

Twitter 64: I wash ashore where marketing is of the cowboy and jeans 'no bullshit' variety. Mulani senses my imagination and showers me with smiles.

Twitter 65: Back to semi-reality, Milt pushes papers in front of us. Always scheduled at 11 a.m., our weekly meetings never start until lunchtime. Why?

Twitter 66: Reason No. 1: Milt sends an email to the entire marketing department at 11:19 a.m. stating, "I want you all to be freakin' superstars."

Twitter 67: Reason No. 2: Meeting has been delayed because he needs to discuss, er, micro-manage magazine ad designs with me, Joan and Mike Neversmith.

Twitter 68: Why is it important to tell you? Because this happens every day, five days a week, blah blah weeks per year. Every single grey cubicle day.

Twitter 69: Milt Butterlink is always second-guessing himself, his intentions, his copywriting, his morning coffee flavor, but not always in that order.

Twitter 70: I imagine a small place in a bug colony. Milt, with no feelers would try to lead us to the productivity room. We'd end up eaten by birds.

Twitter 71: Milt only uses ideas he steals for his own. He passes those straight on to the company president. That would be the enterprise level.

Twitter 72: Milt's Document: "Caterpillar Marketing Plan: Budget and Style for Buildicon's Gadgetary Future." Milt has an excitable look on his face.

Twitter 73: It's an energy no one in the room draws from. His eyes twinkle with nonsense as he leans in to let us know he is working on a major project.

Twitter 74: "This is the most important document to come out of Buildicon. Any leak, our competitors could destroy what is noble and true about us."

Twitter 75: I look at the document. It's gobbledy-gook can't be interpreted. I suddenly imagine caterpillars crawling out of Milt's ears.

Twitter 76: I sketch an image I know he thinks are notes. If I can stay awake long enough to finish I might put it in a frame and hang it above my desk.

Twitter 77: "Is this a marketing plan that crawls all over you?" whispers Joan. It could be a real insecticon Buildicon modicon. I keep drawing.

Twitter 78: "Ha! You guys are all geniuses and yet you're not getting the picture. I don't mean caterpillar in the insect sense of the word," says Milt.

Twitter 79: He thinks we're all idiots because we didn't attend NYU or have lunch at the World Trade Center before it blew up.

Twitter 80: “They’re not cultured,” he says to the prez behind our backs. “They’re small timey, loosey goosey and flashy pants non-extraordinaire.”

Twitter 81: He just wants us to be freakin’ superstars like him. This man who supposedly once made chocolate macaroons with the likes of Bo Derek…

Twitter 82: This man who claims to have single-handedly invented all Adobe products, and who once walked on the moon in a G-string Soviet flag--he was looking for some Cosmonookie.

Twitter 83: Milt: "What I want to tell you is we are like tractors. We're not bugs. Everyone here plays a vital role in unearthing our marketing core."

Twitter 84: All I can gather is I'm some kind of marketing backhoe operator and I need a hard hat to withstand Milt's dense communication methods.

Twitter 85: I'm starting to lose consciousness again. Vishnu looks fish-like. His eyes roll and bulge. The gills I imagine on his neck twitch and gasp.

Twitter 86: Milt: "Let's get to advertising." Micromanaging his creative team means we don't create a piss in the toilet. He doesn't realize this...

Twitter 87: So he begins to criticize his own advertising tag lines, “I want you all to know that too many catch phrases can make you sound like a real trinkydink kind of a company.”

Twitter 88: I write furiously in my notepad. I've been putting together a book of senseless micromanager quotes and Milt has just laid a doozy on me.

Twitter 89: It's right up there in the cloudy angelic fields of marketing nomenclature: "A trinkydink kind of a company." I'm almost jealous.

Four.

Twitter 90: Guy: hair stands on end, metal glasses on a long pale nose, faded Hawaiian shirt and book, "Massage Mataphysics" tucked under scrawny arm.

Twitter 91: He follows me. I get a hot dog and he's reading that book. I'm in a cafe looking for a muffin with more than two blueberries. He's there.

Twitter 92: The next day I see him just as the Winona Ryder look-a-like girl behind the coffee counter says: "My boyfriend has a catheter."

Twitter 93: She continues: “It’s a skateboard injury. The skateboard stood straight up on him in the half-pipe and he injured his dick. Want the usual?”

Twitter 94: I grimace and notice Kramer reading the same book and finally realize he works less than I do. He must be an extraordinarily agile downtown business escape artist. How can I get away with more?

Twitter 95: I want to become efficient as such an expert corporate Houdini. Alakazam! Alavamooshka!

Twitter 96: I can't get away from time: 8-hour day, 1-hour lunch, two 10-minute breaks, boss comes in at eight, I come in at seven. I'm a bug. Stomp me.

Twitter 97: Second day in a row: "...catch phrases make for a real trinkydink kind...," Milt's glazed eyes stare wide-eyed at a sleepy marketing group.

Twitter 98: His dark brown hair is a mess. He's wearing yesterday's Benetton sweater with multi-oranges, greens, blues, purples. A dull Japanese beetle.

Twitter 99: His lips are swollen, while his cheeks puff out, boyish, chipmunky. They're reddened because he slept outside his mountain cabin.

Twitter 100: Milt attempts to write copy. The ad design shows a metallic gizmo with Ethernet cables like tentacles: "Your Autolink Connection Solution."

Twitter 101: He's re-written the ad copy five times. Each revision is as though he hasn't written the previous copy. Does he think we wrote it?? Nuts.

Twitter 102: Maybe he imagines we're mutinous trinkydink catchphrase sailors. I can see the grimace on Mike's face as Milt sits behind him and banters.

Twitter 103: "OK Mike, let's look at this really super cool design. I mean, you're really a genius. This is what we need! It's what I was thinking!"

Twitter 104: Two seconds later: "Let me show you what I would do. I mean, this is a little too goo gah. You should have caught this bad vibe idea."

Twitter 105: "Well yeah, we could use a little less of the trinky and the dinky," Mike grimaces, realizing he doesn't understand his own words.

Twitter 106: Milt nods in agreement as if Mike finally understands the manager's enlightened marketing lingo. "Exactly. So make the changes," Milt says.

Twitter 107: I'm bored with the nonsense of micromanagement and wander to the bathroom to wash my face. I wonder: Is this everyone's mad corporate dream?

Twitter 108: Just as I demand to the mirror that I wake up, the bathroom door opens. It's Glen from Tech Support. "Fancy meeting you here," he says.

Twitter 109: "You know, it's funny how you can only take so much of work before you have to get up from your desk and attempt to piss it away," he adds.

Five.

Twitter 110: Mike stares into an outdated MAC G3. He downloads a Prince tune because we think a boyish secretary looks like she starred in "Purple Rain."

Twitter 111: Our desks share the opposite walls of a low-wall cubicle. We can see each other working. This is the part of the ant colony where the mandibles are made out of NERF.

Twitter 112: Mike's got a contract the rest of us don't have making him immune from the daily grind. Truth? He never has to attend marketing meetings.

Twitter 113: Jealousy: Mike's strange anti-meeting immunity idol that he wears around his neck. It's a secret "Survivor" clause he can't talk about.

Twitter 114: That doesn't stop me from harassing him each day. And it doesn't keep him from showing off his imaginary idol and thumbing his nose at me.

Twitter 115: He pretends to take it off and wave it at me. I think hateful thoughts. He grins. Would he eat rat poop on "Survivor"? Of course he would.

Six.

Twitter 116: I've been here six months. I do nothing. It comes down to setting the mood. Ask yourself: "What can I do my first three weeks on the job?"

Twitter 117: I brought four axioms for a better work environment and for better all-around 'inefficiency' when I first arrived at Buildicon.

Twitter 118: Write these down, but not necessarily in this order. No sticky notes please.

Twitter 119: 1) How to increase sexual tension in the workplace. 2) How to woo the corporate crowd with a tasty salsa. 3) How to have fun at work and not feel guilty about it. 4) The ‘three week’ rule.

Twitter 120: Number four: Fake incredible work ethic. Act busy even if paying bills online. Company prez should see you stay five minutes extra each day.

Twitter 121: Number three: Laugh. It makes people think twice about your state of mind. Believe me, work laughter is impossible to achieve for most.

Twitter 122: I'll get back to number two. Number one occurs with relative ease and is contrary to every corporate code ever written in the post "me" age.

Twitter 123: The idea is nothing is serious. So statements become flirty, bombastic, sexy, overly offensive, sexually humorous, odd-gestured signals.

Twitter 124: Mulani pretends to be a victim, though really she is just as strange as Mike and I when it comes to increasing sexual tension at work.

Twitter 125: Example: Mulani walks up to Mike's desk: "Can I see the report?" Mike: "Not sure I wanna share unless you're blindfolded." Mulani: "OK."

Twitter 126: And then she rolls her eyes right after licking her lipsticky red lips and walks back to her office. It's an hourly routine. So we cope.

Twitter 127: Example: Mike: "Got the plotter to work. Says it needed less suckage." I reply: "Who would have thought anything would need less suckage?"

Twitter 128: Mulani and Joan both roll their eyes and tell us we're sick. Truth? They would be bored if it weren't for our sexual tension statements.

Twitter 129: Same phrase by Doug in shipping? Forget it. Mulani prefers jokes from non-creepy guys. Besides, these are matter-of-fact axioms to live by.

Twitter 130: Back to number two. Early on at Buildicon, Mike said: "You've only worked a week and you're already stinking up the office with that salsa!"

Twitter 131: It's such moments where I'm most calm. I stood next to a big bowl of my salsa. I calmly handed Mike a tortilla chip. He raised an eyebrow.

Twitter 132: Mulani then stepped from her office. Two eyebrows went up as Mike dipped. He took a bite. He chewed. He double-dipped and that was that.

Twitter 133: Mulani smiled as she tasted the salsa. Soon afterward I couldn't keep middle management fingers from greedily grabbing food from my desk.

Twitter 134: Everyone stopped by but the corporate prez. He's kind of like one of those weird beasts in Star Wars than can't be swayed by the Force.

Twitter 135: This Force was a salsa I swore, "I will never share such a guarded secret with others." Ten days later I posted the recipe on willieboy.com.

Twitter 136: By the way, in regards to the fourth workplace axiom, after three weeks of exceptional behavior, slack to your heart's content.

Twitter 137: I buy an ant farm and name all the ants inside after me. I call them my collective consciousness. They're all named Willie. I talk to them.

Twitter 138: I take the ant farm to a coffeehouse. I get a mocha, smile at the ants, read the paper and feel like God spinning planets on his fingertips.

Twitter 139: What else can I do but bring the ant farm to work? Workers come, stare into the little cubicles of sand. They wander off. I feel giantish.

Twitter 140: Soon I come to work and the ant farm is filled with water. The ants float hopelessly, lifeless. Milt walks by, winks. I stop bringing salsa.

Twitter 141: Milt is in his Benetton sweater attire, probably bought at the Cusack Movie Collection auction from High Fidelity. He oozes seedy Hollywood.

Twitter 142: He declares himself a big fan of Japanese samurai movies. He currently reads, "Samurai Stories and Other Decapitation Romances." I hate him.

Seven.

Twitter 142: Most jobs are about nothing. The corporate world is no savior from that. I mean, what are we but a slowly drowning ant farm, anyway?

Twitter 143: I have a college degree, a marketing background that you can't laugh too hard at. But I make a mere 34K per year. I don't even have a car.

Twitter 144: I don't make as much as my cab-driving father did back in the 1970s. He didn't have a degree. So where's the money? At Buildicon?

Twitter 145: Not in this job where ant-killer Milt Butterlink gets 110,000 clamshells per year. Now I think I need to explain my take on advertising...

Twitter 146: Advertising. It's what fills sports stadiums, magazines, computer games, TV shows about nothing. It's a numbing new take on dish soap.

Twitter 147: Can you feel orgasmic about advertising? Sure you can. It gets ladies and gents to wash in adorable new ways and makes you coo and googoo.

Twitter 148: It's about interactive thinking. We need subliminal Buildicon messages that spin heads like soap bubble carousels in mindless playability.

Twitter 149: Ad creation takes enlightenment about the corporate world. A true mystery, yes.

Twitter 150: I work in a corporate world where everyone thinks I'm weird. No mystery there. Though I don't think my dead ants thought I was weird.

Twitter 151: Milt wants me to think up an ad concept for Buildicon's wireless recordable transmitter devices. it's for industrial data, like evil robots.

Twitter 152: I'll think up copy for an ad, sure. This industry is so C3PO. We help protocols speak to each other. He was a protocol droid. We translate.

Twitter 153: We can buildicon that gizmo. We can help protocols speak to one another. Only like C3PO I can't help but feel impending doom when I think.

Twitter 154: The day I saw boxes filled with pink sponge packaging I stared in wonder at the little rectangles. Here was my temporary answer to fun.

Twitter 155: Most corporate folk consider 'fun' a ludicrous non-serious detrimental work behavior. Creative marketing people are freaks who live for fun.

Twitter 156: Fun: more than just ballgame beer. Sorry to offend you simpletons. Fun is a complex process often meaning hyperfocusing on the mundane.

Twitter 157: There is something inherently appealing in a block of pink sponge. In and of itself it has no real value other than as a packaging product.

Twitter 158: You stuff them into empty spaces in boxes. They fill voids. Yet I see living shapes. I decide the sponge rectangles will make nice puppets.

Twitter 159: I suddenly want to create diorama of pink packaging corporate puppets, not merely for my entertainment, but for all bored Buildicon workers.

Twitter 160: What do you think if you see pink packaging sponges with faces: felt-pen grins of asinine pondering and surreal cartoonland pontifications?

Twitter 161: Mike and I design a character in this pink sponge puppet named Blockhead Joe. Much of his story is simple. He marries Airhead Pam.

Twitter 163: Blockhead Joe and Airhead Pam have a grand wedding. They appear on a sitcom. He cheats on her. She cheats on him. They have baby larvae.

Twitter 164: We put up a 'Free Larvae' sign. They're made out of packaging popcorn. We draw faces on them so each one is unique.

Twitter 165: Glen quits his job in Tech Support and takes his larvae to Mississippi. I soon get an email: "We're here!" I never hear from him again.

Twitter 166: Airhead Pam gets murdered. Some of the larvae turn into spawnlings that are Styrofoam, half sponge. Blockhead Joe gets framed.

Twitter 167: Blockhead Joe gets kidnapped. The ransom is twenty bucks. Body parts begin to arrive. How do I get away with this you might ask?

Twitter 168: I have no idea how I get away with this sponge show other than the four workplace axioms I defined earlier. I'll do some real work tomorrow.

Twitter 169: 2 am: I dream about my dead ant farm. I am inside it, lost. There are no ants to show me the way, only plastic walls and hulks of dead ants.

Twitter 170: I split open a dead dried ant and make a sort of shaman costume that I wear while I explore. I commune with their dead consciousness.

Twitter 171: I find a room with ant eggs stuck to the walls and ceiling. One is cracked open. Black lifeless eyes stare out at me. I am them.

Twitter 172: In my shaman ant dream I grow thirsty. I use two broken antenna as divining rods. I dig and water springs out. I wake up having wet the bed.

Twitter 173: Milt's eyeballs are nearly touching the new ant farm I brought to work. "Where are the ants?" he asks. "I just mail-ordered them," I say.

Twitter 174: He seems more impatient than me about the ants arrival: "When will they come?" Me: "Any second now." Milt stares for minutes on end.

Twitter 175: I finally get the ants and dump them into the ant farm. They spread throughout like they'd just been on vacation and start digging tunnels.

Twitter 176: I watch the ants watch me. I think they can see me. They gather at the plastic walls. No wait. It's the dead fly I put in there. Nevermind.

Twitter 177: After lunch I see the ant farm is a complete wreck. All the sand walls have collapsed. There's no movement. A Post-It reads: "Earthquake."

Twitter 178: Milt walks by. He doesn't look at me but snickers to himself. I follow him to the bathroom where I can hear him laughing insanely.

Twitter 179: Today is like yesterday only worse. I walk up to Buildicon where a bum pisses on a tire in the parking garage. Thank God I don't have a car.

Twitter 180: I say: "Don't you have a goddam outhouse? Or a newspaper? Or a friend to piss on? Cause you're pissing me off!" He laughs in my direction.

Twitter 181: I snap out of it as Buildicon's self-imposed beauty queen, Kira de Frito passes by. She builds spreadsheets that Mulani has to fix.

Twitter 182: She talks to Brazilian product buyers, perhaps about lingerie. She's the Wicked Witch of the West Indies, kind of dark, with a hook nose.

Twitter 183: Kira de Frito slinks by in a jaguar of an outfit, very catlike, with tight black pants and cleavage you could put a pineapple platter on.

Twitter 184: By the copier Mulani tells me about Kira de Frito's crisis: "I will not suffer this one alone. She has to dance for her husband." Me: "No!"

Twitter 185: Me: "He can't?" Mulani: "Nope." Me: "So she dances a jig each night before they salsa?" Mulani: "Every night." Me: "Horrible!"

Twitter 186: I mean, don't get me wrong. Shake it don't break it. "But that's not all of it," Mulani says. I run the copier again to buy more time.

Twitter 187: Mulani: "She's only clothed from the waist up, a corset." Me: "Right now?" I look. "No, you idiot. When they you know," Mulani says.

Twitter 188: As I sit down at my desk I suddenly realize that if Buildicon is the social heart of Americana I'd rather be in Brazil with Kira de Frito.

Twitter 189: I want to be carrying around platters of pineapples, wear an oversized cabana shirt, and see Kira scream "Carnival!" in her coconut bikini.

Twitter 190: I'd rather it be Mulani than Kira de Frito. Let's eat, let's dance, let's get away from the color grey in a seaside town filled with color.

Twitter 191: Except there will be copacabana boys by the hundreds. I can't bear the thought of losing Mulani to a pineapple plate distributor.

Twitter 192: "Ay!" I yell. "Is there no justice?" Mike looks at me. I don't think he cares that I yelled. He's busy designing a robotic ad for Buildicon.

Twitter 193: Me: "Do we have to sing a musical?" Mike: "Yes. Can we make one up?" Me: "Of course. I don't know any actual words or tunes. Do you?"

Twitter 194: Mike realizes he doesn't know any musicals either, but we sing. He leads. Next door is the president's office. He doesn't say a word.

Twitter 195: He knows we're crazy. He's also happy because I know Margo in Orders just intercepted a fax that he paid $300,000 for a turbo prop.

Twitter 196: And that's OK, except now he's wearing goggles to work. He's happy we're bringing life to the land of grey. But now I call him captain.

Twitter 197: Up walks Kira de Frito. Dear me, did I forget to mention that she has a birthmark on her forehead? She's got that look in her eye again.

Twitter 198: "You do not like me," Kira says. I say in reference to her birthmark: "You're so retro Gorbachev." She doesn't get it.

Twitter 199: We battle with questions: "What did I ever do?" "You didn't like the song?" "Why are you so angry?" "Are you not a fan of musicals, Kira?"

Twitter 199: Kira de Frito once starred in a Brazilian novella. I never acknowledge her stardom. So she's overly sensitive. She bolts into Milt's office.

Twitter 200: "What's up with the colorful new ads?" I say to Mike. "It's like robots in dance gear." Mike: "It's our new look and feel." Me: "Rainbows?"

Twitter 201: Mike imitates Milt Butterlink: "Make Buildicon recognizable with color." He adds, "Milt can't choose one color so he goes with them all."

Twitter 202: Milt's door opens and out pops Kira de Frito. She bolts for her cubicle. "What's up her pineapple?" Mike says.

Read more "Small Places" at www.twitter.com/smallplaces

Yosemite Writers Conference: Demystifying Chick lit and Women’s fiction - By Melinda Carroll

I remember the reactions I received last year during the 2006 Yosemite Writers Conference when I said "women's fiction" was the genre my writing fell into. Some people assumed I wrote chick lit and responded as if it wasn't a real genre.

Why such a reaction? What’s wrong with women’s fiction? Nothing. I was simply a minority in a sea of mystery and thriller writers.

So I was excited to learn that at this year’s conference Farrin Jacobs, co-author of See Jane Write: A Girl’s Guide to Writing Chick lit, which I bought at last year’s conference, and a former chick lit editor was conducting a workshop called “Chick lit is dead and other myths about women’s fiction.”





Is chick lit dead? According to Jacobs chick lit is not dead, however, because of its popularity and market saturation it’s harder to get chick lit published now than a few years ago.

In a heavily saturated market, how do you get your chick lit novel or women’s fiction novel published? Quite simply, you have to make your novel stand out. Jacobs stated, “you have to have perfectly imperfect main characters that are identifiable to every woman; you have to get your chick lit voice down and write the novel you want to write, and you have to know your audience.”

The thing that chick lit or women’s fiction does very well is deal with tough issues in a humorous, human way. A perfect example is Jennifer Weiner’s debut novel, Good in Bed, where she wrote:

“Loving a Larger Woman,” said the headline, “By Bruce Guberman.” Bruce Guberman had been my boyfriend for just over three years, until we’d decided to take a break three months ago. And the Larger Woman, I could only assume, was me.”

Weiner, who is now a household name in the world of chick lit, cleverly propels her character and the reader on a journey of self-esteem issues and self-discovery that is poignant, endearing and quite funny.

And let’s not forget Helen Fielding, the queen of chick lit who created the character of Bridget Jones and gave her to the world through her novels Bridget Jones' Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. For Bridget Jones lurks in every woman everywhere no matter how hard we try to hide her.

Chick lit as we know it today stems from or is modernized Jane Austin. Jane Austin is the real first lady of chick lit or women’s fiction. She helped create a genre for women when it wasn’t fashionable to be a woman author.

What I love about chick lit or women’s fiction is that it deals with the tough issues, the emotional issues, and while the writing can be very literary, it’s also smart and humorous, like women.

Jacobs covered the basics of writing chick lit and women’s fiction in her workshop discussing the importance of character development, character arc, pacing, plot, tense, point of view, the art of having a storytelling device, and the ending. “Chick lit wants either a happy ending or the promise of a happy ending,” Jacobs stated, “however, if your work is more literary your ending may be more ambiguous.”



The chick lit label does come with somewhat of a stigma. I think it has to do with all the pink book covers and references to shoes. Which is great for marketing, but for some reason the term chick lit sends a message that its not serious fiction. Whereas the term women’s fiction seems to have more depth. In a recent interview with Lara Tupper, author of A Thousand and One Nights, I asked her thoughts about chick lit and the chick lit label.

Here’s what Tupper had to say:

“I think the chick-lit label is problematic because it implies that a book is meant to be read by a certain demographic. And I find the term itself a little confusing-- not at all subversive (as in “we are chicks, hear us roar”). It’s become synonymous with ‘light’ subject matter and I’m not sure why that is. Because it’s written by women about women? A book such as Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity (a book I adore) is also a novel about pop songs and relationships. It’s narrated from a male point of view and yet it’s certainly not a book meant only for men. So I think the label chick lit points to a misconception or a double standard based on gender: Women write books for women while men write books for all.

That said, I think there’s nothing wrong with ‘light’—and I think it’s entirely possible for novels to be both ‘entertaining’ and substantive. In A Thousand and One Nights, I try to use pop lyrics in service of humor and to place the reader quite firmly in the mid to late 1990’s. But I also try to say something about disillusionment.”

I agree with Tupper that the label chick lit can have some negative connotations. It’s almost like saying men read real books and women read the pink fluffy books called chick lit. However, some chick lit can be just as compelling as the 'real' books. I’ve laughed and cried my way through chick lit just as I have more literary works.

As a reader and writer of chick lit and women’s fiction, I was pleased to have the genre represented at the conference and presented so well by Farrin Jacobs. I learned a lot more about chick lit and women’s fiction, why I love it and why I want to write it.

More on the 2007 Yosemite Writers Conference:

Is Book Publishing Dead? Yosemite Writers Conference Provides Food For Hungry Writers
Yosemite Writers Conference: A Conversation about Blogging
Rambo Creator Reinvents Captain America
Yosemite Writers Conference: Demystifying Chick lit and Women’s fiction
Yosemite Writers Conference: Poetry talk
Mystery talk after David Morrell's big speech
2007 Yosemite Writers Conference: Brenda Knight Sidesteps the TVA man
Yosemite Writers and the Chukchansi bathroom break
Headed to Yosemite Writers Conference to talk writing for social change

*****************
Read Noveltown’s experiences at last year’s Yosemite Writer’s Conference:

By N.L. Belardes
A Writer in Yosemite: Part One
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Two
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Three
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Four
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Five
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Six
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Seven
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Eight

By Matildakay
A great literary weekend
What's your type?
How to Approach a Literary Agent...
The Mary Wong Lee Memorial Scholarship
Malcolm Margolin is Posh
Hanging out with the Pirates of Yosemite and setting the record straight
Kill Your Darlings

Schedule for the Yosemite Writers Conference – By Melinda Carroll

In a recent interview with Bonnie Hearn Hill about the Yosemite Writers Conference, she stated:

“We have four workshops an hour geared for everyone at every stage of her/his career; however, we encourage writers to follow their passion. If a beginning writer wants to attend a workshop on how to sell books to film, that’s fine. I should add that we have a talented sound professional from Hawaii recording all of the workshops, so if you miss one you think you might like, you can purchase a CD.”

Wow! That’s a lot of workshops! And there are a lot of great topics being covered! There are a couple of timeslots where I wish I could clone myself and sit in two workshops at the same time. I just might have to purchase a CD of the workshops so I don’t miss anything.

Take a look at the schedule of workshops for next week’s Yosemite Writers Conference:

Friday August 24:

9:15 – 10:15 AM –
Sharpen Your Hooks – Fiction
Writing For Social Change
Writing and Publishing Your Memoir
Writing Anthologies For the Soul

10:45 – 11:45 AM –
Ghosting Where the Money is: A Guide to Co-authoring
How to Stand Out in the Nonfiction Market
Selling to Chronicle Books
Editing Poetry: Entering the process whole and coming out humming

1:45 – 2:45 PM –
All About Platform: If You Build It, They Will Come
Spiritual Writing in the Age of The Secret
Selling to Tor Books
Chick Lit is Dead, and Other Myths About Women's Fiction

3:00 – 4:00 PM –
How to Pitch an Editor
Rates, rights and rules of engagement: What you need to know about magazine freelancing
Selling to Weiser Books
Take Your Book to the Movies

Saturday August 25:

9:15 – 10:15 AM –
He, She and the Dreaded Omniscient: Point of View at Close Range
Confessions of a Contest Judge
Picture Book Manuscript Critique
Beyond the Basics - What Every Author Needs to Know Before, During and After Publication

10:45 – 11: 45 AM –
Sharpen your Hooks – Nonfiction
Blogging Your Way to Fame

1:45 – 2:45 PM –
How to Pitch an Agent
Murder, They Wrote: A Guide to Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers
Writing for Guideposts

3:00 – 4:00 PM –
Tapping the Hot YA Market
Invisible Genius: Ghostwriting for The Penn Group
Twisting the Mystery Plot

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www.noveltown.net
www.yosemitewriters.com

The Yosemite Writers Conference is August 24-26, Noveltown is going. Are you? – By Melinda Carroll

The Yosemite Writers Conference is just around the corner. Quite literally. In fact its next week, August 24-26. My excitement is growing by leaps and bounds. I can’t wait to be among so many great writers that I admire. I can’t wait to attend the workshops and panels and soak up all the knowledge I can about writing and the publishing world. I can’t wait to connect to writers from all over the country. I can’t wait to be inspired!

Noveltown is going. Are you?

Want to meet literary agents, publishers, editors, and authors?

Want to learn about the many facets of writing in today’s literary world?

Whether you’re a published author or just realized that you want to be a writer, the Yosemite Writer’s Conference is for you.

Noveltown’s own N.L. Belardes will be speaking at this year’s Yosemite Writer’s Conference, among many others. (Read my previous interview with N.L. about his speaking at the YWC).

I’ve literally been vibrating with anticipation for the Yosemite Writers Conference. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a preview. You know, like a movie trailer. A teaser. The coming attractions as it were. I went straight to the source. I tracked down Bonnie Hearn Hill, accomplished novelist, instructor and one of many who work very hard each year to put on the Yosemite Writers Conference and I asked her a few questions about what we could expect at this years conference.

She was kind enough to oblige me, instruct me, and encourage me. Read the interview.

Bonnie Hearn Hill
Volunteer faculty
Novelist and instructor

Noveltown: Who are the ‘big’ agents and editors attending the Yosemite Writers Conference this year?

BHH: Please, honey. Never use orphan quotes, and especially not single orphan quotes. I’m excited about all of our agents. Irene Webb is a top film agent. June Clark specializes in nonfiction and works for a leading New York agency. Katharine Sands is also with a major NY firm, and Jeffery McGraw and Arlene Cardoza are building their lists and actively seeking new writers. This is a great opportunity to learn from the people who are in the best position to know what sells.

Noveltown: Which conference panel or workshop are you most excited about this year?

BHH: I’m really excited about the young adult panel. That’s a great market, and we have Farrin Jacobs from HarperCollins, Susan Chang from Tor, along with Melissa Manlove from Chronicle Books. Melissa is also presenting a two-hour picture book critique workshop, and she’s actually doing free line edits. For those who are ready to test their work, the Sharpen Your Hooks workshops are an almost painless way to get feedback. For the first time this year, we’re offering one for fiction and one for nonfiction. Also for the first time, we’re offering two workshops on the high-paying ghostwriting field with representatives of a New York ghostwriting firm, and a magazine-writing panel for those who want to write articles. So I sound as if I’m excited about everything, right? For me, though, the most intriguing might be the Sunday morning one with our Saturday keynote David Morrell, the author who created Rambo. David is actively involved in the conference this year, and he asked if he could do a bonus workshop on Sunday on marketing for writers. I can’t wait.

Noveltown: As a keynote speaker, what does David Morrell bring to the conference?

BHH: We have two keynote speakers, Steve Yarbrough and David. Both are excellent.

Noveltown: Are you participating or speaking on any panels or workshops?

BHH: I’m moderating a few panels. You can check them out under schedules on the Website. Two of the highest rated panels last year were the point of view panel (which I think you attended) and the Sharpen Your Hooks panels. We’ll be repeating both of those. I’ll also moderate a panel on ghostwriting and serve on the mystery/thriller panel moderated by Sheree Petree. Sheree is a mystery novelist who is on our volunteer faculty, along with Hazel Dixon-Cooper, the Cosmopolitan magazine Bedside Astrologer and a best-selling author in her own right.

Noveltown: Is the Yosemite Writers Conference just for experienced or published writers or will beginners and aspiring writers benefit from the conference too?

BHH: We have four workshops an hour geared for everyone at every stage of her/his career; however, we encourage writers to follow their passion. If a beginning writer wants to attend a workshop on how to sell books to film, that’s fine. I should add that we have a talented sound professional from Hawaii recording all of the workshops, so if you miss one you think you might like, you can purchase a CD.

Noveltown: What do you hope writers will gain from their conference experience?

BHH: Depends on where they are with their writing and what they want. Writers should attend conferences at two places in their careers—when they first start, so that they can get a sampling of opinions from many professionals, and then again, when they have a manuscript to sell. They will also build contacts along the way. Your novel may not be ready to sell for three years, but you will still have that contact you made at the conference. As my friend literary agent Andrea Brown says, “Don’t send it to me Monday. Send it to me right.”

Noveltown: What’s new at this year’s Yosemite Writers Conference compared to past conferences?

BHH: A silent auction where those who attend can bid on anything from a line-edit by me to breakfast with an editor or agent. If I were a first-time attendee, I’d go for the agent breakfast. Just think. You’ll have this person’s undivided time. You might also (hint, hint, Ms. MK) want to bid on the invitation to the Friday night presenter reception. Thanks for the excellent questions.

Noveltown: Thanks Bonnie for taking time out of your busy schedule to give us a sneak peak at next week’s Yosemite Writers Conference.

***************
2007 Partial List of Presenters

Keynote Speakers: Steve Yarbrough and David Morrell
Literary Agents: Katharine Sands, June Clark, Irene Webb, and Jeffrey McGraw
Magazine Editors From: Sacramento Magazine and Visalia Lifestyle
Editors: Meg Bertini of Dream Time Publishing, Kate Gale of Red Hen Press, Susan Chang of Tar Books, Farrin Jacobs of HarperCollins, Brenda Knight of Weiser Books, Steve Mettee of Quill Driver Books and Word Dancer Press, Melissa Manloe of Chronicle Books
Authors: N.L. Belardes, Hallie Ephron, BJ Taylor and Ginny Rorby
Yosemite Faculty: Rik Bollman, Hazel Dixon-cooper, Bonnie Hearn Hill, and Sheree Petree

****************
Conference details:

$390 after June 1

Registration fee includes: all workshop sessions Friday and Saturday, continental breakfast, two keynote luncheons and evening reception Friday and Saturday.

The registration fee must be paid in full by check or credit card in order to secure a space for the conference.

Registration fee does not include lodging.

The beautiful Tenaya Lodge is the official conference hotel. When booking your room, be sure to ask for the Yosemite Writers Conference rate of $189 per night. Call (559) 683-6555, 800-635-5807 or log on to tenayalodge.com to reserve your room.

Consultation: Confer with any of the agents or editors at the conference for only $30 per session.

Visit Yosemite Writers online for more details.

*****************
Read Noveltown’s experiences at last year’s Yosemite Writer’s Conference:

By N.L. Belardes
A Writer in Yosemite: Part One
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Two
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Three
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Four
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Five
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Six
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Seven
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Eight

By Matildakay
A great literary weekend
What's your type?
How to Approach a Literary Agent...
The Mary Wong Lee Memorial Scholarship
Malcolm Margolin is Posh
Hanging out with the Pirates of Yosemite and setting the record straight
Kill Your Darlings

BookTour.com makes Book Tours pain free – By Melinda Carroll

One of the hardest things in the literary world other than getting published is connecting authors and readers. Setting up book tours, promoting appearances and actually getting readers to show up to your book signing and hopefully buy a copy of your book is a dreaded but necessary evil for most authors.

Finally, there is an online service to help authors connect to readers. BookTour.com.

From BookTour.com’s About Us page:

“BookTour.com was founded in late 2006 by three authors who believe that technology can transform how authors find receptive groups of readers.

We're a free online service that connects authors and potential audiences of all sorts, from book groups to civic organizations, from bookstores to corporate events. Authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance. Relevant information for both authors and venues can be added in minutes through a simple fill-in-the-blanks interface. Connecting authors with potential audiences then becomes as easy as searching (by geography, book titles, subject, dates of availability) and sending an email.

For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences. For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.

BookTour is based in San Francisco, the city that buys more books (and wine) per capita than any in America.”

I found BookTour.com on the Booksquare blog recently. Have I told you lately how much I love Booksquare? I LOVE Booksquare! The writers at Booksquare are just fabulous at finding literary gems in the publishing world like BookTour.com. And once found I just have to pass these gems along to you all.

Booksquare had this to say about BookTour.com:

“Thanks to easy-to-use, modern technology, you can get out the word about your appearances. But wait, there’s more! By combining authors, books, and places, you get personalized content. Like, oh, a weekly newsletter telling you about author appearances in your neighborhood and, once you’ve registered, the home page gives you a listing of upcoming appearances (dates would be helpful here).

By taking a multi-pronged approach to getting author appearance information into the database, this increases the breadth and depth of information for readers. Since they’re the ones who matter, this is very good indeed.”

(Read the full blog)

BookTour.com is still in Beta phase and will only get better from here.

So authors, what are you waiting for? Get on over to BookTour.com and register and list your upcoming appearances. BookTour.com is not just for authors. So all you readers out there get on over to BookTour.com and sign up and start receiving news of when your favorite authors will be in your town promoting their books.

I know Noveltown will be registering on BookTour.com and using it as a tool to help connect authors to readers and vise versa.

Are you doing your Summer Reading? – By Melinda Carroll

Remember when you were a kid and your teachers would send a recommended summer reading list home with you at the end of the school year hoping you would do more than just play video games, like improve your mind. How many of you were good boys and girls and actually read a few books on the recommended summer reading list? How much did your summer reading influence your life as a child? As an adult? Is reading a passion in your life?

I don’t know about you, but I’m always reading. I have a stack of books at home that are in my “to be read” pile, but I continue to buy more books. I can’t help myself. My logic is I’ll eventually read them all.

Noveltown is not only passionate about writers, we’re passionate about readers too! Without readers the Indie literary presses and the publishing world would come to a screeching halt and eventually cease to exist. Books would become coasters, or those things you press flowers in, or worse! I don’t even want to imagine a world without books, its too horrible a thought. For in books our imaginations run free within world’s writers create for us. J. K. Rowling is the most successful author ever because of readers!

It’s mid summer and Noveltown just wanted to check in on you to make sure you’re doing your summer reading…

For all of you Paperback Writer readers who are book sluts, word whores, always carry a book with you in your purse or backpack, read while laying out by the pool, on the beach or by a lake, and plan what books you’re taking with you on vacation we’ve got some fabulous recommended summer reading for you.

Salon.com put together a great four part recommended summer reading list:

Mysteries and Science Fiction: “Thrills and chills: These mysteries and science fiction novels will transport you to a higher plane.”

Three Bags Full - By Leonie Swann, Anthea Bell, trans.
Mr. Dixon Disappears - By Ian Sansom
Up in Honey's Room - By Elmore Leonard
Body of Lies - By David Ignatius
Brasyl - By Ian McDonald
The Margarets - By Sheri S. Tepper

(Read the full mystery and science fiction article for synopsis’ of these books and links to buy)

Memoirs: “Great escapes: From a journey down the Nile to the chronicle of a professional basketball player, these memoir recommendations will whisk you away.”

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World - By Anthony Doerr
Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff - By Rosemary Mahoney
Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond - By Paul Shirley
Dog Days: Dispatches From Bedlam Farm - By Jon Katz
The Cure for Anything Is Salt Water: How I Threw My Life Overboard and Found Happiness at Sea - By Mary South

(Read the full memoir article for synopsis’ of these books and links to buy)

Chic lit: “Chic lit: From a saga of 17th century maidens to a 21st century mom flirting with disaster, our novel recommendations will make you feel cheap and sexy in the best possible way.”

Little Stalker - By Jennifer Belle
Peony in Love - By Lisa See
Slummy Mummy - By Fiona Neill
The New Yorkers: A Novel - By Cathleen Schine
Sheer Abandon - By Penny Vincenzi

(Read the full chic lit article for synopsis’ of these books and links to buy)

Thrillers: “Killer thrillers: From the pursuit of a lost Shakespeare manuscript to a chilling tale of missing sisters, these recommendations will add sizzle to your beach book list.”

The Book of Air and Shadows - By Michael Gruber
What the Dead Know - By Laura Lippman
Nerve Damage - By Peter Abrahams
The Broken Shore - By Peter Temple
The Grave Tattoo - By Val McDermid

(Read the full thrillers article for synopsis’ of these books and links to buy)

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Noveltown put together our own recommended summer reading list by some of our favorite authors:

Contemporary Fiction: From a road trip to the war in Iraq these novels will take you on adventures to new places.

Moonpies & Moviestars – By Amy Wallen - A wild road trip adventure.
Attention. Deficit. Disorder. – By Brad Listi - For those who don’t pay attention to how life affects them.
Last One In – By Nicholas Kulish - A satire about the war in Iraq.
Mulligan’s Pennies – By Robbie Byrne - A story about Irish tragedy and triumph.

Memoirs: Drugs, culture and dysfunctionality, these memoirs explore the deeper side of human nature.

Drugs are Nice – By Lisa Crystal Carver - A modern post-punk tale.
The Oracles – By Pati Poblete - A story about appreciating culture.
Dark at the Roots – By Sarah Thyre - A story about a dysfunctional family.

Mystery & Suspense: Murder, suspense, this mystery will keep you on the edge of your seat.

If it Bleeds – By Bonnie Hearn Hill - A California Central Valley Newspaper mystery.

Women’s Fiction & Erotica: From globe-trotting adventurers to a victorian wife these women's fiction and erotica novels will bring out all your inhibitions.

Bicoastal Babe – By Cynthia Langston - A double life? Love and adventure on two coasts.
A Thousand and One Nights – By Lara Tupper - A lounge singing duo's adventures and misadventures in love.
Vertigo – By Lauren Baratz-Logsted - Spellbinding historical fiction with erotic suspense.
Three Days in New York City and Another Bite of the Apple – By Robin Slick - Humorously satirical and wickedly delicious erotic fiction.

Just for fun: Astrology, decorating and farming for when you want to discover something new.

Born on a Rotten Day and Love on a Rotten Day – Hazel Dixon-Cooper - Learn how you ruin your life and the lives of others.
Punk Shui: Home Designs for Anarchists – By Josh Amatore Hughes - Home decorating punker style.
Blithe Tomato – By Mike Madison - A journey through California’s small farms and farmers’ markets.

(Read Noveltown's reviews of these books)

And don’t forget to include Noveltown in your summer reading:

Lords: Part One – by N.L. Belardes - A Central California urban myth? Or the true tales of the Lords of Bakersfield. (Buy your copy of Lords: Part One)

The Noveltown Review - A Literary magazine. (Read the review by Greg Goodsell) (Get your copy online)

Now get to reading… book reports are optional.

The ins and outs of the most popular literary genre, the Memoir – By Melinda Carroll

Recently, I finished reading Alice Sebold’s memoir: Lucky, a courageous tale of her brutal rape as a college freshman and the transformation in her life that followed. Typically I read more novels than I do memoirs. I don’t know that I would ever have picked up a memoir about a violent rape if Alice Sebold hadn’t been the author. It’s not that I can’t handle reading about rape or violence, but perhaps it’s the trueness of the subject and the personal connection to the author that changes the reality of the words. In a memoir the author shares a little piece of their soul with you in the telling of their story.

However, I find Sebold’s writing so compelling, so open and enchanting, I couldn’t help myself. She took a horrific story of rape and turned it into a story about her life I could not stop reading. The affect of a brutal rape on a person’s life was never more revealing to me than when Sebold stated: “After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes.”

After having just devoured Sebold’s memoir, I was ecstatic to find a great discussion on memoirs this week over on the Pub Rants blog from literary agent Kristin who participated in a panel at the Backspace Conference entitled: How to Publish a Memoir if You Aren’t Famous. She wrote several blogs discussing memoirs, which turned out to be the most popular genre at the Backspace Conference. She also brought up some great points that I just had to share with all of you writers contemplating writing a memoir.

Kristin writes:

“Lots of people want to write a memoir and it’s also the hardest project to get published by a non-celebrity. And here’s my little rant, very few people actually have stories that are big enough to capture national attention and hence, editor attention.”

What does that mean for those of you writing memoirs? It means that whether you have experienced divorce, or was a child of divorced parents, had abandonment issues, have mental health issues, suffered heartbreak, lived a wild life of sex, drugs and rock and roll, was in the military and went to war, graduated top of your class in college, had cancer, failed in business, lost a child or spouse, was violently attacked, or any other thing that you’ve experienced in your life, millions of other people have experienced them too.

So what sets your story apart from the millions of other similar stories? What makes your story worthy of garnering attention, of being published?

“People need to have a persuasive reason to read your story. Were you famous or associated with someone famous? If not, you have to find a way to tell your story that is so involving and compelling and unique that it grabs the reader from the very first sentence and never lets them go until the end.”

(Read the full blog)

Sebold’s memoir is a perfect example. She masterfully tells a gruesome tale in such an enchanting way that she grabs hold of you from the first sentence. You can’t get away until the very end.

And in case you didn’t know, writing a memoir is not therapy as Kristin explains:

“One of the biggest mistakes I see in query letters for the memoir is writers who spotlight how cathartic and therapeutic the writing of the work was and how they now need to share it with the world.

This is a big mistake. Why? Because writing a memoir is not therapy or shouldn’t be, so this is not a positive thing to spotlight. The truly terrific memoirists (ANGELA’S ASHES and THE GLASS CASTLE come to mind) understand that the writing of the work is an art form and only a certain amount of distance to the subject material can create that necessary objectivity so that the story can be crafted. Key word here is ‘crafted.’

What these memoirists actually understood is that readers aren’t interested in any one person’s therapeutic story; these readers are interested in an inside look to a world they’ve never seen or have never imagined. A world that is unbelievable but true. A world that is unique but resonates with us. A story that captures a universal feeling and the reader senses the connection.That’s what makes the memoir powerful. And if a writer doesn’t understand the difference of what I’m trying to explain here, he/she will probably never have a memoir published.”

(Read the full blog)

In Lucky Sebold understood the difference and crafted a story about her rape that resonates unbelievably with truth and shares a world I hadn’t yet imagined. As a writer you should learn the difference and craft something unique before querying your memoir.

Writing a memoir is also not the same as writing “my memoirs” Kristin explains:

“It makes me cringe when writers announce that they are writing their memoirs. Why? Because that means they are writing their life story (including “I was born in 1940 (or choose a year) in Biloxi, Mississippi--or choose wherever”) which is an autobiography not a memoir.

For publication purposes, if you aren’t famous, there is no market for your “memoirs” and a large publishing house will not buy it.

An autobiography is a chronicle of a person’s life history.

A memoir is a story (with a story arc not unlike what occurs in a novel) told through a prism of one particular life experience and it usually focuses on a finite period of time and not the person’s life as a whole. A memoir has crafted scenes that build on one another to reach a pivotal moment. An autobiography has remembrances of important events throughout the author’s life and how it unfolded from that person’s unique, inside perspective. They can be separate from each other and don’t need to build to a climatic moment.”

(Read the full blog)

Sebold’s memoir has a specific story arc starting at the rape and focuses on a certain period of time in her life creating a story so unique I wanted the rest of the unwritten story. So unless you’re Bob Dylan, Jimmy Carter or someone equally famous, I would stick to writing a memoir if you want to be published instead of your ‘memoirs.’

Are you unsure if your work is a memoir or a novel?

According to Kristin:

“I wrote it as a memoir but it could be published as a novel instead.” Is a surefire “kiss-of-death-otherwise-known-as-an-automatic-NO-from-an-agent for any aspiring memoirist.”

Yikes. You’d better learn the difference between a memoir and a novel and not make that automatic NO mistake when querying.

“Although a memoir often shares certain similarities to a novel (as in there are scenes, dialogue, development of characters, and sometimes world-building) a memoir is not the same as a novel. They are two, distinctly different creative processes in how they are crafted and written.So an already written memoir can’t be “published” as a novel or even vice-versa. It’s like saying my nonfiction self-help book can double as a novel. These are two wholly different entities. Apples and Oranges (James Frey, non-withstanding, but even A Million Little Pieces would have to be redone completely to make it stand as a novel because the crafting of a novel is not the same as the crafting of a memoir). Repeat after me: they are not interchangeable.

A memoir is a memoir—not a novel. A novel is a novel and can’t easily be “revised” into a memoir.”

(Read the full blog)

Sebold could have written the story of her rape as a fictional novel. Her novel The Lovely Bones is outstanding! But Lucky is about a violent rape that is extremely personal and changes her forever. Through her searing candor she illuminates what it means to survive: “You save yourself or you remain unsaved.” It’s an unbelievable true account. It’s a memoir that connects the reader to the author in a very personal, powerful way. That connection is what will make the difference for you as a writer.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted takes Noveltown into her world of Vertigo and beyond - By N.L. Belardes

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.

In book sales, when is a book a flop? – By Melinda Carroll

In commercial publishing how many book sales does it take to be a success or a flop? Gawker.com recently answered this question in a discussion about Bridie Clark’s debut novel, Because She Can, which has only sold 5,300 copies since its publication two months ago. “That’s very low considering all the promotion they put behind it,” according to Nielsen Bookscan.

Gawker.com demystifies the commercial bookselling process for us:

“The way bookselling actually works is a) shrouded in mystery and b) more boring than a lawnmower parts catalog. The most basic thing that a lot of people who don't work in publishing and bookselling don't know is that early in the game, the most accurate predictor of a book's success/failure isn't so much the number that Nielsen is reporting as having sold as the number of books a publisher has actually printed.

This first printing number is based on the response of buyers at big chains to a minute-long pitch delivered by a publisher's sales reps. This is a big part of the reason why copycat publishing is so rampant: it's easier for a sales rep (who, no matter how valiant or dedicated, might not have time to actually read every book on her employer's list) to pitch "a cross between The Devil Wears Prada and The Da Vinci Code" than to try to sum up something new and unheard of. The buyers' responses determine how many books are printed: That is, how many books are actually available to be sold.”

(Read the full article)

So depending on the number of copies actually printed… Bridie Clark’s novel may or may not be a flop.

In the Indie publishing world where print runs are considerably smaller than those of commercial publishing, due mainly to funding, the same bookselling formula can be used to determine whether a book has been successful or not.

While the commercial publishers are buying up storefronts for books, Indie publishers like Noveltown work very closely with their authors and independent bookstores to promote their work through creative grass roots and guerilla marketing to get the books into the reader’s hands.

No matter the size of the print run, book sales are the goal for both Indie and commercial publishers. Noveltown is committed to our authors in every way possible and some we haven’t even thought of yet. We want to work with you... submit your work to Noveltown.

Futureproof Author N. Frank Daniels talks about his novel, his DIY journey and more – By Melinda Carroll

In a revealing blog, N. Frank Daniels reflects on his novel Futureproof, which garnered some recognition in 2006 from Entertainment Weekly, New York Press and as being one of the top five finalists for the coveted Needle award on the PODdy Mouth blog (a blog that reviews self published books).

Noveltown reviewed Futureproof last year declaring it: “… a book I consider the most important of 2006. What does his book mean to the average American? Perhaps what Jessica Cutler’s trashy novel Washingtonienne says about the state of America’s post-Millennial sex-warped political machine, N. Frank Daniels society numbing book Futureproof says for an entire generation with slacker origins: there’s a slow numb, what should we do?”

(Read Noveltown’s review of Futureproof and interview with N. Frank Daniels)

Even though Futureproof didn’t win the coveted Needle award Daniels states: “Hope of the American Idol flavor still reigns in my bloodstream. As in, many of the AI runners-up have found record deals despite not having won the title, most notably Jennifer Hudson, who just won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the movie Dream Girls. Not bad for having lost what was surely in her mind her one shot at a career in entertainment. So here's to perpetually crossed fingers.”

Daniels also talks about his DIY journey as a self-published author.

“I had more than five opportunities to sign with top-tier agents in 2006 but in the end chose not to because I was too stubborn and "married" to the book as it is. My rationale was that it wouldn't have been able to gather as much support from readers as it already had if it wasn't good enough to be published as is--with possibly a few minor changes. But when I was asked to change entire story lines and themes, on down to the point of the book in the first place, I respectfully declined. Now I'm not so sure that was the best choice. As a first novel, and as a first time novelist, I should have realized that when one is trying to break into such an exclusive club, one almost always has to compromise.”

The DIY journey involves a labyrinth of decisions that every author has to make. Without a guidebook or the advice of literary agents, DIY authors make these decisions the best they can. They don’t always make the right decisions, but they follow their hearts and their dreams and what they feel best represents their work.

The same can be said of D