HE WROTE: January

We started this blog thinking we'd make an entry or two a week. We have over 18,000 words of entries in just one month. As Jenny said this morning in email: we need to blog Agnes.
What happened this month? We did the media training. We did the conference in Cocoa Beach. We got a book deal for Agnes.
Pretty good month.
I was thinking about the genesis of a novel. Because I started writing Chasing the Ghost yesterday. At least trying a scene with my character in it. Chasing is my next Bob Mayer book.
I 'started' Chasing about six months ago, wargaming out the character. Doing his back story and his history.
Then had a rough idea of what the plot would revolve around. And then have spent the next six months letting it germinate in my brain.
Even this morning I wasn't quite sure though about the plot and the POV characters.
Then I talked it out and the pieces that had been rolling around in my head for months started falling into place. Plot points. Supporting characters. Scenes. Still not there yet, but it's progressing. I'm at the point where I'm getting it out of my head, where everything looks wonderful, onto paper, where it aint so wonderful. This is the creative process that's hard to describe to people who aren't writers and also very hard on a writer because we're not actually writing. We're thinking. So even though we are working, we feel guilty because we're not putting words on paper during all this thinking.
A dolphin just surfaced about twenty feet off shore.
I take that as a good sign.

SHE WROTE: Covers! We Got Covers!

Jen just sent us the mock-ups for the book jacket and for the actual book cover.

Here's the book jacket, very chick lit:



And here's the actual cover of the book, the boards that the book is bound in, very Bob:



So it's kind of Bob under cover in a romantic comedy.

I LOVE THIS. SMP is the best.

HE WROTE: The Clam and The Squid.

Sigh.
In Atlanta airport. Just read the previous blog entry.
Do not attempt this collaborating stuff at home. Do not do without adult supervision (even though we have none). Do not take collaboration unless imbibing large amounts of alcohol beforehand. Serious side-effects could occur, including headaches, muscle cramps. temporary blindness, and long term insanity.
I am currently sending Jenny one word e-mails. Drives her bonkers. Hehe.
I guess I'm supposed to say something of either writing significance or 'insight' into the exciting life of authors. Well, I emailed Jenny that she can get in the Crown Club in airports using her Delta Medallion Card. I think. Not that I'm going to try it. I tend to get kicked out of places. I also tend not to get served. Really. I used to take Rex, big old German Shephert mixed with something, happy, happy dog, down to the outdoor bar in Harbourtown sometimes. And the waitresses would run over and coo at Rex, get him multiple bowls of water, yet somehow never take my order. Rex would be slurping away, happy as a clam, pun intended, and I'd be sitting there waiting and waiting.
Where was I?
Writing. Umm. Something insightful. Thinking here. You know, if you're going to write a memoir it helps to at least get the major facts right. Ok, guess everyone's figured that one out.
Agents. There were several agents at this conference in Tucson. Nice people. And that's the thing: they're people. Not some mythical demon force guarding the gates of publishing. They have their own feelings about things. The lesson I have learned is you want an agent who thinks big and in terms of a career rather than the "sell the next book" agent.
The clam and the squid are apropo of nothing. I just thought this needed a title to balance out Jenny's last post.

SHE WROTE: The Ox and The Dachshund

So we’re right back in the same fix we were with Lucy: We are such opposites that it’s like yoking an ox and dachshund together and telling them to get that wagon of good stuff to Dubuque by morning. (Yeah, I love that commercial, too. The download is at http://www.hotdogblog.com/modules/wfdownloads/viewcat.php?list=S. The page says it's moved, but the link for "I Ordered 200 Oxen" is at the bottom.)

Fortunately the ox has a lot of patience.

Bob outlines, starts at the beginning, keeps writing until he gets to the end. So when we start a book, he writes his stuff, sends it to me, and then harasses me with “Book done yet?”e-mails until I send him my stuff. Sometimes he forgets and sends me that e-mail when he has the book, but mostly it’s to make me get the stuff down on paper. And drive me crazy.

Meeanwhile, I think about the story, make a collage, write snippets of dialogue, listen to music, stare into space, try to block out emotional arcs on the white board, write a scene, decide it’s not right, take it out, write another scene, and try to ignore the “book done yet” e-mails.

There’s a reason he wrote two books while we were writing Don’t Look Down and I only wrote Don’t Look Down.

So we’re on Agnes and I’m finally getting her in my mind, I can hear her voice, don’t quite have Shane yet, but that’ll come, and I’m still staring at the white board thinking, “I don’t get it.” Just as Bob has to know what happens next (thus the outline), I have to know who they are and why they’re doing things, and who’s pushing who, and how their real lives are going in the background. It’s the reason DLD came out so rich, I think, because both approaches are in there, but it’s hell for both of us which is why we tend to be very, very kind to each other about the book. We never yell about the book. Well, Bob gets exasperated some times but he tries to hide it. It’s hard for him when I say, “I just don’t have it yet” because his natural response is “Well, GET IT, we got a book to write.”

So he’s going to want the book back tomorrow and I still don’t have it yet. I have the first scene (again, but this time with cole slaw) and I know Agnes’s emotional arc, but I can’t figure out her external plot. Bob of course knows Shane’s external plot, but ask him about the emotional arc and he’ll say, “Ark? What ark? It’s raining?” Which I know from experience.

So today I have to move beyond cole slaw and get this sucker down because he’s in the air right now, heading home, and I’m gonna get a “book done yet?” e-mail as soon as he lands.

No, Bob, the book isn’t done yet. But it's raining, so go build Shane an arc.

HE WROTE: I used to be a Contender

I'm sitting here in the bar writing a blog entry. Geez.
Then I go to my room shortly to watch the Veronica Mars DVDs Jenny gave me. And order a room service pizza. So I can get up at 5 to catch the shuttle to the airport.
I used to be a contender.
I have no brilliant insights. I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings during my one on ones or during my session on 'ideas' where I sliced and diced people's book in three minutes in front of a group.
I was also told by a Cherry, who shall remain un-named, but you know who you are, yes you, that my brown shoes didn't match my black slacks and black shirt and black jacket yesterday. She said it drove her slightly nuts to watch me presenting like that. Fashion mogul I'm not.
My belt did not match my shoes.
Mea culpa.
At West Point we had 'minute callers' (plebes) who stood in the hallway staring at the clock and would start shouting at the top of their lungs starting at ten minutes before formation. They would announce the uniform of the day (which always matched) (well, Army match) and the meal if it was a meal formation. Things were easier then, in days of yore, when men were men, doing manly things, in a manly way, with other men. I'm not sure that came out right. Actually we had women there too. Second class to have women.
I do have to say I have more respect for a woman who graduated the Academy than a man because the key to surviving Plebe year was to be a 'ghost', to not be noticed. But when you're less than 10% of the population, you tend to stand out.
I have no clue what I'm writing. Teaching and doing one on ones tends to fry what little brain I have left and totally destroys my fashion sense, obviously.
I'm preparing you all for the blogs during the book tour because I guarantee we're going to be very, very brain dead, and some very bizarre stuff will come out.
I shoulda been a contender.
Stella. STELLA! STTEELLLLAA!!!
Leave the gun. Take the canolis.

SHE WROTE: Just for the record . . .

That "her" thing doesn't bother me anymore. NOT AT ALL.

Four things:
1. Don't Look Down
2. Romantic Adventure
3. He Wrote She Wrote
4. Crusie/Mayer

Nora told me I should join the Crown Club. I figured they'd spot me at the door and not let me in.

I liked the giant cream pie bit, but the former English teacher in me made me edit. Actually, I don't care if he can spell. He drives the whole trip, carries my bag, never bitches when I'm late, and finds me a Diet Coke with an ice water chaser wherever we go. And then there are the clams.

Screw spelling.

HE WROTE: In The Desert

In the lobby of a hotel that's in the desert. Just finished doing one-on-ones with various authors. Looking out at a half-dozen agents and editors doing their one-on-ones.
Enough said.
It always strikes me as well, not good, when someone says: "Well I rewrote my entire book from third person to first person because some agent last year said . . . ."
Because usually the change is for the worse. That's not to say don't listen to feedback but advice given during a fifteen meeting one-on-one should not lead to a radical revision of the novel unless the advice resonates with what you feel as an author.
Speaking of resonating the bar just opened. I'm moving from here to there, hoping the wireless internert connection holds.
Made it to bar unscathed. And on-line. There's like a fifty foot circle in the lobby where you can get wireless. Of course I just found the connection in the room where I can get high speed after spending last night on a phone line connection. I'm a little slow sometimes.
Jenny has the master of Agnes while I toil here in the desert. I told her I want it back on Monday. We shall see.
We got our book tour schedule, sort of. At least what city. Jenny's already arghing and sighing but bearing up. Going to be like in Special Forces where I would wake up in some forest and try to remember what country I was in. Here it will be a hotel room and wonder what city.
We sent some marketing ideas to our publisher this morning. One was a 'viral e-mail'-- no, not that kind of virus. An email containing a discount coupon on the book with a two week window to redeem and asking each person on our mailing lists to forward it to ten people. Unfortunately, that simply can't work out logistically. So we are trying to figure out what we can do in that email to get the same effect.
Ok, there's a guy on TV lifting the rear of an old VW van as part of some strength contest. Men. Very simple creatures.
I'm very tired. Presenting and doing one-on-ones is exhausting. I know Jenny feels the same way. When we're on the road doing the Bob & Jenny show we're going to be pretty wiped out when we're not on, which leads to politely saying 'no thank you' to offers of going out for dinner or whatever. Hopefully no one gets offended. It's not that we don't like you, well, maybe you, over there, we don't like, but the rest of you, no. We like you. We really do. And just to prove the media training worked: DON"T LOOK DOWN; Romantic Adventure; She Wrote He Wrote.
Ok.

HE WROTE: Blog

Jenny wrote that she had posted three times while I was AWOL. I knew I'd written a blog entry on the plane and it was somewhere on my computer. I just found it. So, psshhww. This is out of time sequence, sort of like a prologue:

I’m in the air somewhere over the Eastern United States on my way to Tucson. I just started the first page of notes on my next book. I’d had a bunch of stuff on it, but it disappeared, probably on the laptop that got swiped in Vancouver when I did that conference. Which is probably just as well because sometimes you just got to start over.
So I know who my protagonist is. Got him down after many days of working on him. But now I’m working on POV characters and the antagonist. And, oh yeah, the plot. I used to always lead with plot. Now I’m leading with character. We get older, we get wiser. The big thing I finally figured out after about two weeks of anguish was the tone I wanted. That’s something that’s rarely talked about in writing. But tone goes hand in hand with point of view. Most of my early books had a rather grim, dark, the world is doomed tone. I’m going lighter in my new books with some humor levied in. Still, it’s going to be hard to connect humor with action. So that’s going to take some work.
Last weekend in Cocoa Beach I did an hour-long session where people gave me their one sentence log line for their book. Their idea in 25 words or less. I put it up on the screen and then dissected it. Sometimes it was vivisection with lots of screaming involved. Tomorrow morning I do the same thing as I take an hour worth of pitches in a group session. I tend to be very honest which might hurt some people’s feelings. But there’s no crying in writing, damn it, as I tell Jenny all the time. Well, actually there is.
Sometimes I feel like Tom Hanks in BIG. When he says: “I don’t get it.”
I think authors sometimes forget our job is to communicate. And what communication does is evoke a response—emotional and intellectual—in those we communicate to. And we don’t want the “I don’t get it” response.
So I was in the Savannah airport waiting for my flight. And I went up to Starbucks because I had a gift coupon my friend Sally had gotten me just before Xmas. I ordered a latte—I don’t know what a latte is, but it sounds cooler to order one than just plain coffee, and I always get mine shaken not stirred—and an apple Danish. And I’m sitting there and who do I see: Sally. On the same flight to Atlanta on her way to Pittsburgh to do some work with CBS reference the Super Bowl which her husband is going to play in. I told her I read the local paper this morning and there was a front-page interview with him about the game. She said she hadn’t seen it yet. I told her that her husband was quoted as saying he had spent a lot of time taking care of the logistical details of tickets, and hotels, and transportation for all the people going there. Apparently, given Sally’s reaction, that wasn’t quite true. So much for truth in the press.
Where was I?
Oh, after we got in Atlanta—Sally in first class, me in one of the jump seats for flight attendants—we walked to our next gates, which were next to each other. Sally took me into the Crown Club or whatever that place is. Which I’d never been in, although Delta did move me up to Medallion last week because I flew a lot last year. So we went in and she flashed her ticket and said “He’s with me” and we went upstairs. I thought “So the rich are different than her and I” as we sat there. Her being whoever as I just wrote that to tick off Jenny.
Where was I?”

SHE WROTE: Where We Are, Where We're Gonna Be

I keep thinking Bob will post because it's his turn, but he's out of town, and also he'd be nuts to post while people are still telling him what a hero he is for coming through with the poker-playing clams, so here's an update:

Bob's at a writer's conference in Tucson, doing one-on-ones the last time he e-mailed.

I'm at home, trying to get Trudy out the door (last rewrite) and writing a scene where Agnes and Joey (Shane's uncle, Joey the Gent Torcelli) are discussing cole slaw. Made the mistake of telling Bob that and got an "arghhh" e-mail back (that was the whole e-mail).

As for where we're gonna be, we just got the tentative tour schedule:

Tour Cities & Dates:

Pre-publication Events:
Jan. 27-29--Wrangling with Writing, Tucson, AZ (Bob)
Feb. 1--Smithsonian, Washington DC (Jenny)
Feb. 4--Hamilton Library, Hamilton OH (Jenny)
Feb. 11--Barnes & Noble Union Center Booksigning, Cincinnati OH (Jenny)
Feb. 17-20-San Francisco Writers Conference
Feb. 24-26-South Carolina Book Festival
March 2-5-Hilton Head Writer's Retreat, Hilton Head SC (Bob)
March 17-19-Spring into Romance Conference, San Diego CA

Official Tour:
April 3rd-NYC/NJ
April 4th-NYC/NJ
April 6th-Boston
April 7-8-New England RWA
April 10-Lexington
April 11-Louisville
April 12-Dayton
April 13-Cincinnati
April 17-Savannah
April 18-Charleston, SC
April 19-Atlanta
April 20-Phoenix
April 21-23-RWA in Scottsdale
April 24-Pittsburgh
April 28-30-Chicago RWA
May 1st-Chicago area booksigning
May 2nd-Milwaukee
May 3rd-Madison
May 4th-Kansas City
May 5th -St. Louis
May 12-14-Baltimore RWA

Additional Events:
June 2-4-WISRWA Conference, Madison, Wisconsin
June 9-11-Virginia RWA Conference
June 29-July 2-Thrillerfest, Scottsdale AZ (Bob)
July 14-16-Harriette Austin Writers Conf., Athens, GA (Bob)
July 25-29- RWA National Conf., Atlanta GA
Sept 29-30- Midwest Fiction Writers, Minneapolis, MN
October 6-7 -New Jersey Romance Writers' Conf., Somerset, NJ
Oct 13-14-Central Ohio Central Fiction, Columbus, OH
Oct 20-22-Surrey International Writers Conf., Surrey, BC Canada
Nov 3-5-Chesapeake RWA
Nov 11-Ohio Valley RWA

So if we're not coming to a town near you, it's not for lack of traveling. (All dates that aren't writers conferences are tentative. Check the Crusie-Mayer website event page for details as we get closer to the actual dates.)

And now, back to cole slaw.

SHE WROTE: Bob Mayer Is A God Among Men

Look what I just got in the mail:



That Bob Mayer. What a guy.

SHE WROTE: Just For The Record . . .

He knows that "her and I" is wrong. He knows that the Korean restaurant story makes me twitch. He knows that "Book done yet?" makes me scream in the direction of Hilton Head.

And people wonder if we're a couple. Listen, if I was sharing a bed with him, I'd have killed him in his sleep by now.

SHE AND I, BOB! SHE AND I, DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also the fact that the problem existed before the start of the book is irrelevant. The book starts when the conflict starts when the protagonist and antagonist engage. PROLOGUES ARE BAD. There is no excuse for a prologue, EVER. Yeah, I know I wrote one once but it was just the wrong label; it should have been Chapter One. It's not a prologue. And that's not an epilogue at the end of Bet Me, either. Look at the last line. That's the end of the book, baby. Last chapter, not an epilogue. Jeez.

Yeah, I'm tense today. But that "her and I" didn't help and defending prologues . . .

I should probably go lie down for awhile. Especially since I know Bob is sitting at his computer, reading this and going, "HeHe."

I kind of like the time-travel-alien-conspiracy-vampire-romantic-thriller-comedy idea, though. But no damn prologue, Robert. In the darkness, there are prologues and that's where they're staying.

PS: Annoying Grammar Girl is right.
Also, "fourth wall" is for theater and performance, not writing; what you're telling me, Ink, is that I switched from third limited to omniscient POV at the end of Bet Me. Yep. That's how all fairy tales end, in omniscient. Well, they start in omniscient, too, but they definitely END in omniscient.

HE WROTE: Beginnings

The opening of a novel is tricky. The most important words you write are the first ones-- well, not really. The most important words are the first ones in the published book which most likely are NOT the first ones you wrote.

In many novels, the 'problem' that is the core of the plot, is introduced very quickly. Usually in the first pages. And it has to be interesting and hook the reader. As does the character. The reader has to care about the character very quickly.
Or else the reader stops.

Prologues: The reason I used prologues was because in most of my books, the problem existed before the start of the book. For example, the premise of my Atlantis series is "What if the force that destroyed Atlantis comes back to threaten our present world?" So the prologues in the various books show that force destroying an ancient city. Of course I also used dual timelines in some of those books so let's not get into that In fact, I had time travel AND parallel universes in that series and you want to talk about getting a headache trying to keep track of that. I eventually see Jenny and I, her and I, writing a time travel-alien conspiracy-vampire-romantic-thriller-comedy-with a prologue. And a sniper who deals death in the dark. Say that five times fast.

In a thriller, often the writer leads with a prologue that shows the antagonist. I agree with Jenny's point in that we are then hooking the reader with the wrong person. The only reason the opening chapter is called a prologue is because it's out of time sequence with the rest of the book.

To confuse the situation more, not only is there a difference between trouble and conflict, sometimes there is a difference between the problem and the initiating event. For example, in LOST GIRLS which will come out next year, besides having, gasp, a prologue, the problem is that there is a team of pissed off covert operatives in the United States wreaking vengeance on the families of those who betrayed them and left them for dead. The initiating event is the kidnapping of the daughter of one of those men. But then, one thing I learned is that my protagonist doesn't become aware of either the problem or the initiating event right away. Because if he does, then there isn't enough time to develop his character in his normal environment. For example, using a, gasp Terry Brooks forgive me, movie: In Stargate they open with a prologue. Digging up the Stargate in like 1914 or whatever. We shift to present day. When we go to Kurt Russell, the protagonist, he's not aware of anything. He's home, sitting in his son's room, with a gun in his hand. We learn later that his son found his gun and accidently shot himself. Which sets up Russell's willingnes (motivation) later on to stay with that bomb on the other side of the Stargate. BTW my book, THE ROCK, had a gate very much like the Stargate and came out first. Don't get me start on LOST-ATLANTIS.

Agnes is due 1 July. No sweat, I say as Jenny exchanged 30 emails this morning where she asked deep questions like: Now why is Shane climbing in through the window and not knocking on the front door?

I'm also in the throes of trying to figure out my next 'Mayer' book. I just can't get started. And I've always started my books at the beginning, which sounds redundant, but isn't. As per Jenny's suggestion, I might start this one by writing the resolution, which I can see and feel strongly about. Maybe that will shake me out of my funk.

Something also to remember, is that the opening scene often mirrors and foreshadows the climactic scene. So sometimes you can't write the opening until you get to the end, then go back and rewrite.

I'm not as concerned about 'what' happens in my opening scene as to tone. Or voice. Whatever you want to call it. I really believe, when you cut to the bone, the key to DLD and Agnes is voice.
But I could be wrong.
I was wrong once in 1978. Or was it 79?

SHE WROTE: Beginnings

As Bob said, we'll be talking more and more about the craft of writing because we're writing now. Being a published author means keeping two careers going. One is keeping The Jenny Show or The Bob Show or The Bob and Jenny Show going, which is what we did last week in Hilton Head with the media consultant and then on the road in Cocoa Beach, which is why that was what we were writing about here last week. And the other career is writing which is an entirely different animal, actually the exact opposite of the Show because writing means going inside yourself to find the story while The Show is about going outside yourself to reach other people. And when you're writing in collaboration, you have to be very careful, it's really two porcupines writing, because you don't want to wound each other but you're each trying to write the truth as you see it. You're not just writing, you're writing backwards in high heels. Both of you. Beginnings are a good example of that.

Bob likes prologues. He likes set-ups and infodump and an omniscient voice telling the reader what's going on.

I hate prologues, I think they're the work of the devil. I like starting where the trouble starts, intro your protagonist and then get her in trouble, start the conflict, right off the bat without any infodump or auhorial intrusion. Put the story on the page and let the reader figure things out as she goes, participating in the action.

The trouble with prologues is that they are by definition the stuff that comes before the trouble starts. That's why they're prologues instead of Chapter Ones. But I don't want my reader identifying with the heroine as a child or with the bad guy, I want the first person she encounters to be the character who's going to take her on the ride. When Bob and I write together, there are two first scenes, each introducing a protagonist. No prologue. (Epilogues have the same problem as prologues: they're the stuff that happens after the story is finished. If it's done, it's done, get out while the reader is satisfied. [You can run, but you can't hide, Purinton.]).

So how do you start?

You start with your protagonist in trouble and try to get her into conflict on the first page. Trouble is not the same as conflict. Trouble is she can't pay the electric bill and her dog is sick. Conflict is a struggle; somebody stole her electric bill payment and poisoned her dog and now she's trying to stop him.

We got off on the wrong foot with Don't Look Down for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that we were both in very dark places when we decided to collaborate and the book reflected that. The early Lucy was bitter and angry. The early Wilder was grim. And as for the third POV character, Bob wouldn't even give him a name, just called him "the sniper." His pov scene began with the words "In the darkness, there is death." Yeah, we had a tone problem.

Beyond that, we had a style problem. We wrote the first two scenes as demos so we could see each other characters, and we really didn't think it through. So Lucy began the book straddling the rail of the Talmadge Bridge, which I just saw for the first time last week, and I have to tell you, Lucy would have to be a complete MORON to straddle a rail on a bridge that high. Actually, it turned out she was a moron no matter how high the bridge was because it was just a dumb thing to do. Plus she got on the bridge rail and then bantered. Bitterly. Train wreck, all around. Then the next scene cut to Wilder who pretty much watched everybody and thought things, mostly detailed stuff about guns. Then the next scene was the sniper, and God saying, "In the darkness there is death." So we had a third person llimited bitter dialogue scenes, a third limited thinkin' scene, and an omniscient sniper scene that not only explained how a silencer worked, it killed a cat.

Really, looking back on this, it's a miracle we made it. But Bob and I are nothing if not determined so we rewrote the opening, And rewrote the opening. And rewrote the opening. At least a thousand times. One of those times moved Lucy off the rail and off the bridge entirely, into her camper, driving up the road with her best friend, Gloom, arguing. There was conflict because they were arguing, but it really didn't fool anybody: it wasn't real conflict, it was infodump disguised as conflict. There were other fixes and rewrites and approaches, and I finally just handed it to Bob and said, "I have no idea what to do with this scene. Do something."

So of course, he put in a helicopter. And that did it. Lucy's on the bridge (but NOT on the rail) and this helicopter comes toward her while she's trying to keep peace on the bridge and it lands and J.T. Wilder gets off and the trouble starts. (You can read Chapter One on the website. I don't think it's the latest version, we kept rewriting, but eventually it will be.) And it only took us a year.

But we did learn our lesson. Agnes and the Hitman starts with Agnes in the kitchen when a guy shows up to kill her. Or to kill her dog. We're still working on that. (Bob, I really think he's there to kill her.) And the next scene is Shane in conflict with a guy he's going to kill, during which he gets a phone call that sends him off to meet Agnes. Two scenes of conflict that propel the protagonists together while introducing the antagonist by proxy. Well, it does in Agnes's scene. We'll figure a way to get the antagonist into Shane's scene by proxy, too. As soon as we stop arguing about who the antagonist is. Not arguing. Discussing.

The point is, we've got good openings, and we can rewrite them later when we figure out what the ending is going to be, because the first scene(s) is really the set-up for the last scene. The stuff in between is just how you get from one to the other. So we set up the first scene, finish the book, and then go back and make the first scene foreshadow and echo the last scene.

Which we're supposed to be doing the last week of June. Should be interesting to see if we make it.

I'd talk more about this, but I have to actually write the book now. Plus Bob will want to weigh in about how "In the darkness, there is death" is really a good scene opening and how I callously deleted it about a million times before he gave up and stopped putting it back in a million times, how I'm stifling his creativity, and how he still doesn't know how "the sniper" became Tyler who eats Cheetos in the swamp and watches porn on his laptop. Although I'm telling you now, the laptop porn was not MY idea.

Oh, and don't be surprised if Bob switches from Writing Posts to Show Posts this weekend; he's going to Tucson all by himself. God knows what he'll do there. Probably something involving darkness and death. And beer.

And I'll just sit here in the dark. Alone. Typing.

HE WROTE: The Craft of Writing

Jenny and I were discussing it and we're going to do more posts about the actual craft and art of writing. While there has been some discussion of this in earlier posts such as the initiating event, we're going to try to tackle other subjects with both of us commenting on how we see the matter. We think it will be interesing because we approach some things very differently, yet we've collaborated on a book and are writing another.
For example, mention the word Prologue to Jenny. She is adamant that there is no such beast allowed. I'd say most of my previous books have prologues. But some of that stems from writing in different genres. Same with our discussions over third-limited and third-omniscient point of view.
We're doing a lot of conferences this year. Five times we're doing day long dual workshops at local RWA chapters. That should be interesting.
I fly to Tucson on Thursday to present at the Wrangling with Writing conference. I've been there before and they're a good group of people.
So as I watch the sun set over the low-country (in Jimmy's Buffet's song Prince of Tides based on the book he has a line about watching the sun set over Dafuskie Island-- well that's what I'm looking at) I will ponder the intricacies of writing. And why Moot now has lipstick.

SHE WROTE: Spa Moot

First, I have no spare time. I never relax. Unlike Bob, shown here relaxing with Roxanne (Rocki) St. Claire and Moot in Cocoa Beach, pre-makeover. That is, Moot is pre-makeover, not Bob or Roxanne, who are perfect just as they are.



Second, one of you would have pointed out, after the book came out, that Moot was a girl in the book but the mascot was male, although there wasn't anything intrinsically male about the figurine except that it wasn't girly female. Which I didn't notice because most of the time, I don't do that girly stuff either. I came out of the bedroom in Hilton Head and Bob and the media trainer were waiting for me so I sat down and worked. Eventually she said, "We should talk about make-up." I said, "Oh, I wear make-up. But only when I have to go somewhere." That isn't the grocery. I suppose I should have put it on for her--for Bob I don't bother--but I just got up, for cripe's sake. It was like 8:30 in the morning.

Where was I?

Right, making Moot girly. Here she is:



I'm expecting all the hair to fall out as we drag her all over the place with us on the road, but my hair will probably fall out, too, so that's fair.

And Bob's right. We need lives.

Must go write a book now. Making up an interesting life for a fictional character. Sigh.

PS:
Just got this from Bob:

"Moot looks pathetic now.
Sigh."

"Girly" does not mean "pathetic," Bob.
Sheesh.

HE WROTE: Poor Moot

Writers lead such exciting and interesting lives.
Here's Jenny and mine last email exchange:

<<<<<<
JENNY: One thing I've just realized: The Moot I bought in Florida is a guy, so I'm going to have to change him into a girl.
Yes, it matters.

BOB: You're going to castrate Moot? Geez.
>>>>>>

So my question is: how exactly is Jenny going to change Moot into a girl?????
So here's the answer I just got. WE REALLY NEED LIVES:

<<<<<
JENNY: Moot is a girl. You're the one who wrote her as a girl.
So there was nothing to castrate, although I did color in one of the eyes so there's only one eye open now. I'm going to add eyelashes later. And I already put on some lipstick. I think I just have to glue flowers to the hat and maybe paint on some fingernails and that'll do it. Add pink flowers to the shirt. The usual.
>>>>>>


The usual???? So my next question is: How many gators has Jenny made into girls? What does she do in her spare time?

HE WROTE: Counter-intuitive

Ok, Thursday we did like 21 three minutes interviews with our media consultant. Including 'antagonistic' ones.
I was supposed to be intimidated when she mentioned Tom Clancy. Yawn.
But she got Jenny's goat. Hehe. I won't say on what, but we need a signal where I let her know she's been goaded. I suggested the Seinfeld, tap on the top of the head signal.
Maybe the dingo ate your fiancee? Or something.
We watched each one afterward on video to learn. After the first one she looked at me and said: "Bob, you look like someone is holding a gun to your head to make you want to do this interview."
I think she meant I wasn't looking too enthused.
It was the hardest thing we've done-- like the photo shoot except we had to think and talk. Horror.
Oh well. Back to this later.
Jenny's speech was fine. We were wiped after Thursday. She wasn't bouncing off the ceiling but she did great. Might have been me outlining You Again in my notepad two minutes before she went up to talk. I was saying: Well there was the NIGHT thirty-five years ago when everyone was boinking everyone and then--
She held her head and said "Brain Full" then went and gave the keynote. I liked it. She did the five things a writer shouldn't do, then turned it around and said the five things you should do.

We were driving along I-95 when Meg called and told us about the Agnes deal. Well, called Jenny because she couldn't email me and tell me to answer me phone like she usually does because I never answer my phone. So we got the info on the deal, Jenny hung up, told me the deal. Then she said "I'm really really happy." Silence. Then I said, "Hey, look at that," pointing at something stupid, which for the life of me I can't remember. Because my brain is full. And Jenny said "So, good moment over?"
We also had to like pick a delivery date, and given Agnes should come out in April of next year, we picked 1 July. No sweat. Hehe.
Then we saw the sign for the 13 foot long alligator. Passed it.
Then another sign saying the same and Jenny wanted to stop. But we were moving and on a mission.
Then a third. So we stopped. We needed gas. Wondering how there could be THREE 13 foot alligators on I-95 in such a short stretch of road. You'd think there'd be a 12-footer or a 14 footer in there.
Well, you know what the story was.
Then she bought Moot and the palm tree. So here's the contest: Where will Jenny forget Moot? She left him on the table at the booksigning tonight. SO. Moot's days might be numbered.
Back to interviews and counter-intuitive. What we learned was we have a choice: either not do interviews or do them and do them right. But don't do them and act like you don't want to sell your book. What the hell else are you doing there? It's very hard for both of us and most writers to 'hawk' our book, but why shouldn't we? We love the book, think it's a great read. Are proud of it. But damn if we can say that.
Well, Doreen slowly broke us down to see the light. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. I can say DON'T LOOK DOWN, ROMANTIC ADVENTURE, SHE WROTE HE WROTE and something else which I can't remember right now, sorry Doreen, at least three times each in three minutes.
I think.
Brain full.
Up at 6 am. Pick up Jenny. Drive to Orlando. Drop her at airport. Don't worry, I'll slow down to about five miles an hour. Because I have to get back to watch the Steelers game, not that I care, but my friend Sally, whose husband plays on the Steelers, will care.
Great. There's a dog next door yapping in the motel. I love dogs, but it ain't my dog.
Then drive home.
So.
Where was I?
Brain full.

SHE WROTE: Apologies to Space Coast Writers

I just did something I've only done once before in my life: I blew a speech. Completely.

I didn't sleep last night, but then I gave an hour talk on revising, and I kept thinking, "I sound like I'm shrieking, am I shrieking?" and then we went into lunch and I could feel any brains I had seeping out my ears. I was sitting with lovely people and Bob, and I kept losing focus. Everybody sounded like they were underwater.

But that was okay because I always get a surge when I get up to speak, and I had all my notes, and it was a good speech, it said important things. But when I got up there, my notes didn't make sense. The words didn't make sense. I kept getting lost, and I knew there was important stuff in there, but it was like gibberish. Nightmare time.

People were very nice, but it was a truly terrible keynote. I think I went off the rails completely at the end.

So my apologies to the Space Coast Writers, who now think I'm a drug addict because the keynote was so bizarre.

And now I'm taking a nap so I don't start speaking in tongues at the booksigning. Bob can blog the rest of this conference. I've lost it completely.

Oh, and anybody who had window envy in Hilton Head, here's my window in Cocoa Beach:



I think Moot improves the view, but then I'm biased.

The clams would have improved it, too.

SHE WROTE: On The Road With Bob and Moot

So you want to know how the drive to the Space Coast Writers Conference went? I think it’s best illustrated by an exchange we had close to the end. (As God is my witness, I made up none of the dialogue in this blog). Three hundred and fifty miles from Hilton Head, we were in Cocoa, and we saw a man walking along the intracoastal, muttering.

Bob: There’s a story there and we don’t want to know it.
(Short Silence)
Jenny: I might want to know it.
(Bob leans forward, fumbles with something on the dashboard.)
Bob: How do you turn this thing off?”
Jenny: What thing?
Bob: The passenger side airbag.

Okay, but up until then, we’d been doing pretty good. Right after we left Savannah, Meg called to say we had a deal with SMP for Agnes (a great deal) and Jen called to say how excited she was about Agnes (and we’re excited, too, although you can’t tell it by Bob’s face) and then we saw a big orange sign that said “Thirteen Foot Alligator, Souvenirs.”

Jenny: We have to see that! It’s Moot!
(We have a one-eyed alligator in DLD called Moot, about which more later).
Bob: What?
(Exit goes by.)
Jenny: Never mind.

About thirty miles down the road, there was the same sign: “Thirteen Foot Alligator, Souvenirs.”

Bob: It’s probably the same gator. They just truck it back and forth.
Jenny: Turn here. Turn here!
Bob: It’s really only an eight foot gator. It’s trapped in the pen going, “I’m only eight foot!”
Jenny: Turn here! TURN HERE!
Bob: Except it’s a male gator so it’s okay with being called thirteen foot.
(Exit goes by.)
Jenny: Never mind.

Another thirty miles down tbe road, there was a sign: “Thirteen Foot Alligator, Souvenirs, Dog Track.”

Bob: There’s our exit.

So we pulled up and it was a gas station with the souvenir shop from hell, which is just my cup of tea. I LOVE souvenir shops. We got out and Bob started to fill the rental car with the gas.

Jenny: Where’s the gator?
Bob: Probably around in back. If I don’t see you again, it’s been great.
Jenny: I’ll check inside.

Inside was a dream. Big shell mobiles, a shelf of comic gators one of which was sitting under a palm tree with sunglasses and a coconut drink (of which more later), a shelf of mermaids (which is necessary because Meg collects mermaids and we owe her for negotiating the great contract), and a shelf of shell sculptures of clams playing poker.



Then I saw it. The thirteen foot gator.

Stuffed.



I wanted to take its picture with Bob but he refused. I did, however find Alligator Bob’s Smoked Alligator Jerky. No, I’m not kidding:



So I bought the jerky for my dad and a mermaid for Meg and the alligator under the palm tree that looked like Moot (about which more later) and I really hesitated over the clams playing poker but Bob was looking at his watch so we paid and left.

About ten miles, down the road, I couldn’t stand it.

Jenny: Turn around and go back. I have to have those clams playing poker.
(Silence for a couple of miles.)
Jenny: It’s not going to happen, is it?
Bob: Nope.

Then Bob got sick from talking so much yesterday (he’ll write about that, I think he’s trying to forget the drive) and we stopped at a CVS in Cocoa where a great guy named Dwight helped me find the throat lozenges. And I took them out to Bob, who was suffering.

Jenny: I got honey lemon Cepacol, black cherry Sucrets, and some of those cherry strips you put on your tongue.
Bob: What?
Jenny: They’re thin sheets of medication and you put them on your tongue and they melt so you don’t choke on the lozenge.
Bob: What?
Jenny: You put them on your tongue.
Bob: What?
Jenny: They’re suppositories. Bend over.

But the big creative discovery of the day was the Moot-under-the-palm-tree I bought. I put him on the dashboard of the rental car and got the Great Idea:

Jenny: You know what we can do with this? We can take him with us everywhere and he can be like those gnomes that travel all over, we’ll take his picture wherever we are on the road, won’t that be great?
Bob: (Thinks: A million romance writers in the world and I had to pick her.) Great.

So here’s Moot on the road to Cocoa Beach:



And now I have to go read the latest draft of Agnes because Bob has finally realized that I haven’t read anything he did last week. And he’s taking me to the airport on Sunday and I need that airbag.

But I shoulda bought the poker-playing clams.

SHE WROTE: Bob Shops

It was quite a day. We spent the morning trying to explain the partnership to the image consultant, and then tonight I find the Cherries have found the perfect description in the news item about Golan and Aochan complete with a photo that we should use on our books:




This afternoon, Bob drove me around and showed me what the land around Agnes's house looked like, and now I know why she bought it because it's beautiful. Also, Hilton Head is cold and I hadn't brought a kicking-around jacket so Bob took me into a store that had sweatshirts and even helped me find one. Yes, folks, Bob shopped. You tell him what you want--a sweatshirt that zips up the front--and he finds it. "This one?" "No, that's depressing." "How can a sweatshirt be depressing?" "It's gray." The only other one I could find was a pink one that said "Hilton Head," but I have some standards. And then over on the other side of the store they had some that were green or orange (somebody insane picked those colors) but they said "Life is Good," and face it, I've got a damn good life, so I bought a green one. And Bob never even tapped his foot. This is a good guy.

Oh, and here's the window in my bedroom when I woke up this morning:



And let's hear a big round of applause for Bob who found the place. Essentially, he's doing everything right.

Of course, we haven't been in a car together for longer than forty-five minutes yet, so stay tuned.

You know, we can't keep up this insane blogging pace. I'm just telling you, don't get to expecting daily posts because sooner or later, we're going to drop in our tracks.

I'd write more but there's a pool table up here and I'm going to go play. All by myself because everybody else went to bed, but solo pool is very Zen.

Jenny, who is currently At One with a bag of trail mix and a diet root beer. The glamour of it all.

HE WROTE: Brain full.

My brain is full. Spent the day wargaming marketing DLD. Some very good ideas. I don't remember any of them, but our consultant is upstairs typing them up, hopefully using simple words.
BTW: CrusieMayer.com is now up and running. Thank you Mollie.
Then we drove around and scouted locations for Agnes. Showed Jennifer a real live gator sunning himself/herself. Went to Harbourtown and stared at yachts and had the brilliant idea to have one of the characters live on a yacht. That way we can have action scenes take place in and on the water so I can call on my time as team leader of a MAROPS (maritime operations) A Team. Basically a regular A Team that specialized in using water to infiltrate and exfiltrate. It's a lot softer parachuting into water, the only problem is that when you do it at night, with combat gear, and your parachute comes down on you and starts to sink; etc. etc.
Where was I?
Don't remember. Brain full.

SHE WROTE: Middle of the Night Rambling

It's 2:30 and I can't sleep so I'm eating, which is not good because I'm in Hilton Head and the pajamas I packed shrunk in the wash and I'm straining the seams now. I'm sitting at a marble bar in a mansion on the ocean because Bob knows a guy who knows a guy who . . . Bob got us a mansion. My bedroom overlooks the ocean on one side. On the other side is a bathroom the size of the first house I owned. I'm up here all alone--the consultant is one floor down and Bob is somewhere on the ground floor, probably patroling the perimeter--with the ocean roaring behind me as I type at a green marble bar and eat all the food Bob stocked the fridge with for tomorrow. If he opens the fridge and says, "What happened to the food?" I'm going to say, "What food? There wasn't any food." His short term memory is shot, he'll believe me.

I flew in tonight on a plane that was smaller than that bathroom and Bob picked me up at the airport which was very nice of him because I could have taken the shuttle. We had our usual oblique conversations on the way back, Bob talking about Korean restaurants and me wondering about highway signs. I saw one that said, "Let 'em Live" and said, "What the hell?" and Bob said, "That's for construction crews." And I said, "In Ohio, they say, "My daddy works here" or "My mommy works here," which always tees me off because it's like "But if any of these constructions workers haven't reproduced, go ahead and hit 'em.' It's like those old Baby On Board signs. 'Don't hit me because I have a baby in the car, hit some childless person.'" And Bob said, "That's what those signs meant? I thought it was in case of accident, so rescuers would look in the car and find the baby."

That was a real He Said/She Said moment. Women look at those signs and think, "Protect the baby,"and men look at them and think, "Okay, there's a kid in there, let's get it out." I can see the penguins from Madagascar doing that. The head penguin always reminds me of Bob.

Where was I?

Right, in Hilton Head at 2:50 in the morning, trying to catch up on my e-mail since I've had One of Those Days and haven't been on top of things. So I wander over to the blog and see that Bob has posted three times. And to think that I once thought I'd be carrying this blog because he NEVER blogs. But here, he blogs. Which is a good thing, I'm happy about it, but i'm stunned. If he picks up the phone and starts calling me, I'm going to know he's an alien replicant. Oh, and it's going to be days yet on the contract. Possibly weeks. Standard procedure.

Maybe I'll play pool. There's a great pool table in the next room. And a mother of a flat screen TV on the wall. I brought the Veronica Mars first season DVDs for Bob; maybe we can watch the first episode on that. Everyone should see Veronica Mars.

I'm running out of things to eat. I've tried the potato chips, the ham and cheese, the trail mix, the IBC root beer, the cheese sticks . . .

So on the drive in, Bob keeps pointing out all the places in the book: "There's the drawbridge Stephanie drives over, there's the road where the climax of the book happens," except it's eleven o'clock at night and it's pitch dark outside. For all I know, alligators are out there doing a clog dance, but I'm nodding and going, "Oh, cool." as he says, "And that's where X dies." In the daylight it's going to be great. At night, not so much. So I obsessed on road signs instead.

I'm getting a little sick. And it's 3AM. So I'm going to brush my teeth in the marble bathroom and crawl into that football sized bed and listen to the ocean outside the window that's most of the wall in the bedroom.

That Bob. He got us a mansion. What a guy.

HE WROTE: Publishing

Since this is supposed to be a relatively realistic record of this year, I thought I'd make this entry while things are going on.
Jennifer just emailed me to say "Don't go anywhere and answer your phone. Meg is going to call." Seems our agent is at this very moment talking to our editor to see whether they want Agnes. Well, we know SMP wants the book, it's a question of how badly they want it. And whether they want just Agnes or another book. Or whatever. There's always a lot of angles to any deal and that's why you need a really good agent. I'm glad to have Meg on my side. A book deal is not a simple thing because there are so many variables.
As I noted earlier, it always turns out in a way you least expect. I've been through this 'waiting on a phone call' which will determine my entire future for the next several years and actually beyond about a dozen time or so over the last 15 years writing for a living. I'm not sure it gets easier, I think I get number. Also you learn to accept the hard part which you do control is writing the book, not worrying about the deal.
BTW: She had to email to tell me to answer my phone because I never answer my phone. In the year and a half of this partnership I think we've talked on the phone maybe a half-dozen times. We're writers, not talkers.
And that email was a half hour ago. So they must be doing a lot of talking in New York.

HE WROTE: Testing.

I'm testing to see whether this works. Looking good so far.
We have a couple of good reasons why someone wants Agnes dead, besides the fact she's called Cranky Agnes.
I think this week is when we're going to start taking photos and posting them. Of course, the only camera I have is via my Zire 72 PDA so the quality probably won't be the greatest. Which could be a good thing. We don't want anyone getting in trouble.

HE WROTE: Trouble, what trouble?

I don't see no stinking trouble.
I have a GPS so we should be able to find the conference hotel on Friday. If not, Jennifer can ask directions.
I have no problem navigating out in nature, it's those damn streets that mess me up. But I get there, wherever there is, eventually.
One time we parachuted into Germany on a 'blind drop' which means no drop zone markings, just trusting to the navigation skills of the pilots and of course we weren't on the drop zone when we landed in the middle of the night. The only way we found out where we were, was the time-honored Special Forces Technique of hiking over to a road junction and checking the signs. I guarantee you if there had been someone about we would NOT have asked directions.
Which reminds of the time we were working with the Danish Fromandskorpset (frogmen) and we did a high speed cast off a patrol boat (which is a technical term for jumping off the boat while it's moving fast), and swam ashore. Took off our dry suits. We were wearing sterile (un-marked) jungle fatigues underneath, running shoes, black watch caps and carrying Swedish submachineguns. So we're running through the streets of this little Danish town trying to make a rendezvous and this cop car turns the corner. He sees 12 guys dressed like that and armed and wisely decided to just keep driving.
Which reminds that I've got a diver out here on the floating dock right now trying to fix it.
Where was I? I don't remember.
I wrote a blog entry yesterday which was a rant about something that's happened recently in the world of publishing but I couldn't post it which I took as an intervention that I shouldn't post it. I try very much to follow the rule of never saying anything bad about other writers, except Jennifer of course.
We'll get Agnes jump started this week. We actually have a plan. Unfortunately, I've had many plans as a writer and none of them have ever turned out like I had planned. The one thing I've learned is that things always turn out the way you least expect.

SHE WROTE: The Trouble Starts

No, that heading doesn't mean we're in the same car together. I'm still in Ohio.

The whole initiating event thing really comes down to "When did THIS trouble start?" Yes, Mother poisoned Aunt Betsy's tea forty years ago and that's why Uncle Ron is trying to stab her with the pickle fork, but what you need for story is, why does Uncle Ron pick up the fork NOW? He's had twenty years to off Mom. What happened to make him say, "Slowly I turn"? Whatever it was, that's the initiating event.

But neither the poisoning or the initiating event is the start of the book, as Robert said. The start of the book is where the trouble starts for the protagonist. In this case, Agnes. Who is attacked in her kitchen by a guy who's trying to kill her. Maybe. Up until he shows up with a gun, Agnes's life is pretty stable. She's not skipping and picking daisies, but she's not in trouble. Then somebody tries to kill her and trouble ensues. Bingo, we got ourselves a book.

Well, we always had that part. We knew from the beginning that Agnes and the Hitman was going to start with somebody trying to kill her. For a very short while, it was Shane until we decided that made it too complicated, not to mention a bad way to start a relationship. So what we've been doing for months now is returning over and over again to the Big Problem: Why the hell would anybody want to kill a food columnist? We asked Cousin Russ, and he said, "We don't do that kind of thing." Evidently foodies are mild-mannered. Or too full to aim. Anyway, answering that got very complicated, although thank God the Russian mob wasn't involved. We learned that lesson on DLD.

While Bob has been agonizing over that, I helped, and then I went to NYC, but I also worked on the collage. This does nothing for Bob but moves me along smartly which he is grateful for because it means I'll write. So here's the still-unfinished collage as it is now:



You'll notice some stuff is missing and new things have been added. All part of the process.

Yes, Bob, I'm typing things, too. Go kayak for awhile. You're too tense.

HE WROTE: Initiating Event

We had a great initiating event. At least inside the confines of my mind. Then we try to write it and it doesn't look so great.
Many things sound and look great inside the confines of my head. Then there's reality.
The initiating event isn't the opening scene of the book: it's the event that causes the opening of the book. Which is also different from the backstory of the problem. In Agnes the problem actually happened over thirty years ago. We needed an initiating event to make the problem that has been sleeping that long become a problem in the here and now for our current characters.
I feel better. Because I shipped the master of the manuscript back to Miss Jennifer. Of course, she's coming down here on Tuesday night for our publicity meeting and media training. Then we drive down to Melbourne, Florida on Friday for a conference. By the end of the week we should have a good feel for at least Acts One and Two of Agnes. Which hopefully will be written by the we do our next conference together in San Francisco in Mid-February. Then we can outline Act Three. Hopefully. Maybe. Sigh.

SHE WROTE: Back to Work

Bob's been working all by himself all week and he deserves all kinds of pats on the back because he's done it all by himself while I worked on something else in NYC. Really, he is a god among men.

But this initiating event thing? We never really had that nailed down. I'd say, "You know, that's not quite it," and Bob would say, "Well, we'll go with it for now." And then "for now" was over and we had to fix it. But the one we've got now is a good simple, clear kick-off for the book. I like it. Bob likes it.

Nothing but good times ahead. Once I get home.

HE WROTE: While Jenny parties in NYC

I'm working away. Have rewritten the 20,000 words of Agnes five times this week. Because Jenny changed the initiating event in between parties. She did this on DLD also. I think it was shortly after we finished the first draft of DLD that Jenny wanted to change antagonists. There was some gnashing of teeth that day.
A unique and difficult aspect of this partnership is that we're writing a very unique type of book. We call it Romantic Adventure. It's different for both of us. Jenny actually has to have a plot now. For me, it's different than the thrillers I write, because the characters are the focus and everything revolves around them. In a thriller, while characters are important, the plot is relatively straight-forward: stop the antagonist from doing whatever nefarious thing he or she has planned. Not only do we have to stop the antagonist, we have to develop a relationship between two main characters. Which means we have two main character arcs. We also have to make sure each turning point in the story does two things: turns the plot in a new direction, but also makes the main characters realize a deeper level of motivation.
This was not a good writing week for me, but necessary in the creative process of refining the book. It isn't there yet, but close. It will continue to change as we move forward.
PS to Jenny: Let's have a simpler plot in the next book.

HE WROTE: Jump Starting Agnes

I've been stalled out on Agnes for several days now but it's starting to come together. One of the problems was a lack of conflict. We had a lot of people standing around chatting and not much happening. But now I'm seeing the action. I followed the advice I so freely give other writers and went back to the beginning and re-read what we had to see how it could be used in other ways.
Of course I wrote the above paragraph before exchanging emails with Jennifer this morning. Back to square one. It's at the point where it's time to just write and let it all sort out. We'll pull it together. It's time to just grind forward and see what happens.

SHE WROTE: The Korean Restaurant Story

I did try to choke him in Reno. Here's why:

He has this Korean restaurant thing he talks about which is really interesting the first time you hear it. And I have no problem listening to it when he tells it to other people now. But he told it to me and it was interesting. And then the next time we were together, he told it to me again. And the next time he told it to me again. And it wasn't that he was repeating it, it was that he kept forgetting that he'd told it to me. In other words, talking to me isn't interesting enough to remember. So this goes on a couple more times and then we're in Reno, under a lot of pressure, and we're standing outside a Chinese restaurant waiting to have lunch with an editor where I will do all the talking, and there's this long silence and I'm thinking, "He's going to tell me that damn restaurant story again, he's going to tell me that AGAIN," and it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the minutes stretched out and then, he said, "When I lived in Korea," and I grabbed him by the throat and said, "If you ever tell me that fucking story again, I will kill you." And he said, "Oh-kay." And I let go of his throat and apologized.

You'd have done it, too.

Of course, now he tells me the Korean restaurant story ON PURPOSE to make me insane, but at least he remembers the conversation in front of the Chinese restaurant.

HE WROTE: Email reference Agnes

Here is part of our email exchange reference Agnes:

{Bob: Ok, looking back on emails that's what we had. That works for both action and romance plot: action because Shane will go after Beau; romance because Agnes will go after Shane.

Jenny: And they're going to be boinking like bunnies all the way through this, so we have to kick that off so that they can move from boinking to making love (I know, you don't do YEC).

Bob: Then you had TP 2 being Agnes fighting back and looking at Shane as more than a revenge boink. But you noted that's weak as it doesn't escalate the main plot. And why does she look at him differently?

Jenny: Because of something that escalates the main plot. Over to you, Action Boy.}

I want it to be noted that Jenny brought up the boinking.
And note how she always sends it back to me to fix.

HE WROTE: New York

I grew up in New York. Da Bronx. I never saw Saturday Night Fever until a few years ago. Thought it was a disco movie. But it actually captured the essence of growing up in NYC outside of Manhattan. I actually remember when there was ONE Barnes and Noble, this independent book store in Manhattan with tables full of books. Used to take the subway down there on Sundays. So I like B&N. They rack a hell of a lot of books which is good for writers.
Anyway. Agnes actually hasn't sold yet. We sent the proposal and opening chapter to our agent and she sent it on to our editor and we've been waiting to hear back since mid-December. One thing about publishing: it's slow. We should hear today, then again, maybe not. If you're a Type A personality, publishing will break you of that.
I have never formally gambled in my life. I've made a few bets, but only when I controlled the outcome. I bet my company commander when I was in the First Cav Division that I could do the EIB 12 mile forced march with gear in under 3 hours. I did it in 2:59:12. He paid me with a case of Harp beer which he thought was amusing because it came in four packs, not six packs. Go figure the Irish. Speaking of which, we have an Irishman in Agnes: Doyle. The handyman.
Anyway. Gambling. Publishing is a gamble. All the time. I have no clue what will happen. Every year I have no clue where I will be living a year from now.
Wait. Actually I have gambled. When I lived in Korea I would play the nickle poker machine on the nearby army post in ChunChon. And then I would go to a restaurant. Jenny LOVES my Korean restaurant story. She choked me in Reno at National last year when I told it to her. For the tenth time. I'll tell it to her again next time I see her.
My memory isn't what it used to be.
Ok, back to Shane thinking about Agnes before someone tries to kill him.

SHE WROTE: I Told Him To Come To New York

Bob is not stalled out. He's been working 24/7 on the book, and his mind is giving him a time-out. If Bob has a flaw--and of course he doesn't--it's that he works too damn hard. Sometimes you just have to just kick back and let the Girls in the Basement play poker for awhile. Of course, Bob has Boys in his Basement, but he'll say that about the time he starts to collage.

What I'm finding brainstorming this other collaboration in New York right now, and what Bob and I found when we got together last April to finish up DLD, is that when you're doing this kind of plotting, trying to figure out the twists and angles, it really helps to be together in the same room, not do it in e-mail. You need to play off each other, do the what-if thing, diagram things out on white board (this apartment is woefully short of a white board so we're using graph paper, not the same thing). It goes so much faster. And the good news is, Bob and I are going to be doing that next week. So whatever we can't get now, we'll get kicked into gear then.

But he really should have come to New York. When we work here, we get out and walk around a lot which is always good for getting the brain moving. And when we start to really annoy each other, which is right about at the second day mark, we just retire to our separate corners until we're over it.

Having said that, I love all the support he's getting in the comments. Poor baby, he deserves it.

HE WROTE: stalled

It's pretty common. At least for me. Like every month or so. I'm leery of writers who claim to have a rigid schedule of X number of pages or words per day, every day. There are some who do that, of course. But I think the creative process can't be quantified so easily, at least for me. When I grind to a halt on a story, I have plenty of other work to do-- writing non-fiction, updating teaching material, outlining and research, etc. But I trust that my subconsious is working on the problem. And I force myself to sit at the computer and try to do something.
I'm rewriting Shane's scene. Also rewrote the entire manuscript with the changed level of escalation. Still some rough spots.
Something that occurred to me this past year that one of the fun things about being a writer-- and also one of the most difficult-- is that every day you are inventing something completely new.
So back to work while Jennifer goes to Studio 54 in New York, partying.

HE WROTE: Agnes

Stalled out.
Arrghh

HE WROTE: Escalating conflict

A problem I had is that it was difficult to escalate conflict in the story when Agnes was threatened with death in the very opening scene. So I'm changing that. One way to escalate is to lower conflict initially. Makes a lot more sense.

SHE WROTE: In New York and WORKING HERE

Yes, I'm in New York, but I'm WORKING, damn it.

And I think the new direction the book is moving in is great.

This is another way Bob and I are opposites: He likes to plan the book out and then write it; I like to write it and see what happens. The combination of the two is good but it causes us both great pain. I hate following an outline and moan and gnash my teeth and turn out really mediocre work because I can't follow my whims, but I do turn out work and discover new things. And then the outline changes and Bob moans and gnashes his teeth because the plot has changed, and then he says, "Hey, we could do this," and makes another outline. I find his faith in outlines touching, particularly in the terms of our partnership, but as long as he's willing to keep making them as the plot changes and the characters develop, I'll try to follow them until something new and interesting turns up. Agnes really is a much better book already because of the combination of the two. Even if Bob is screaming in whatever Carolina he lives in.

And by the way, Robert, that damn AOL is bouncing all of my e-mails to you so this may be the only way we're communicating at this point. I don't know why AOL hates me, I never did anything to it.

HE WROTE: The Book

Well the great plot we had for Agnes has completely fallen apart. At least today. And, of course, Jennifer decides she has to fly today to New York City to party and hob nob. So I have the master copy of the manuscript and am trying to write an action scene where the antagonist in the scene is off-stage, which is a bit difficult to do and have effective conflict.
And then I'm looking ahead to the first turning point, which should come at around 35,000 words, and we're at roughly 20,000 and I'm going "huh?". And what the heck is the second turning point? And the third?
The good part is all my questions will be waiting for her in email when she finally checks it later tonight. Hehe. Of course she emailed me at 4 in the morning the other day saying the same thing: she couldn't figure out what her character was doing and why.
It will all work out. But this is the start and stop process of writing. Some days it flies, other days, it's like a statue. Today statue. What that means is re-reading what's been written with an open mind, looking for 'seeds' and also going back over the outline and our notes, looking for different directions.
Looking back at the original outline the book has already changed tremendously. And it will continue to develop.

HE WROTE: The blog

FYI: One of the reasons we're doing this blog is to have a record of 2006 and to give readers insight into the 'behind the scenes' world of publishing and being an author. So you will be getting information on not only our writing of AGNES AND THE HIT MAN but also the publicity and publishing of DON'T LOOK DOWN. On top of that, we'll try to put insights we have about writing here and there. I'm under contract to write part of a book for Writer's Digest where I have to list 101 Mistakes beginning writers make, why each one is a mistake, and the solution to each mistake. Right now I have 104 mistakes listed and am slowly writing each one up. So I'll try to touch on that a little bit too as the year goes on. I plan on having a draft of that done by the end of the Spring.
But there's going to be a lot in this blog for readers and experienced writers also as we experience 'starting' out as, essentialy, new authors in terms of the partnership. So it's going to be a pretty crazy and broad ride as the year goes on.

SHE WROTE: First Interview, Addendum

It was a great interview--Bob was sparkling and witty, I was insightful and deep--with Kristin Godsey, the editor of Writer's Digest who was sitting with me in Maui seventeen months ago when Bob sat down and said, "I think we should collaborate on a novel." So it seemed fitting that Kristin do the first joint interview. Also, she's terrific. And I'm pretty sure the interview will be in the May issue.

HE WROTE: First interview

Ok. It's a nice house.
We did our first interview of the year with Writer's Digest this morning on a conference call. Considering we both hate talking on the phone I think it went all right. We even mentioned the title of the book at least once. I think the article will come out in June or July. And next week we have our media training where I'm sure we will be told to mention the title more than once. And then we have our first conference in Melbourne Florida. I think we're giving the keynote to start it off. And then a bunch of other stuff.
Jenny emailed me back the 'master' of Agnes-- at around 18,622 words give or take one or two. Not that we count. We've already noted that we need some more action. After the initial two scenes there's a lot of yacking so today I need to add in something exciting. I'm thinking car crash. So I have to figure out what Shane is driving. Plus we might have to cut one of the four POV characters. The POV not the character. We'll see.

SHE WROTE: About That House

On that house thing, here's what happened:

Agnes bought a really ugly house from Baby.
Baby moved into an expensive new one.
Camille bought a really expensive one on an island.
Then Bob changed his mind and said Baby moved to the island, not Camille. So now Baby's living in a REALLY great house.
Then Bob sent this picture:



Does that look like a really ugly house? No.
But nothing much happens at Baby's house so why would he send me a picture of it?
Confused in Cincinnati.
So I wrote and said, "Is this Baby's house or Agnes's?"
And now he makes mock.
And one of his characters still looks at the house in the book and says, "That's ugly." So I had to change that. Details, God is in the details.
Sheesh.

HE WROTE: How we write 2

The partnership: when we first agreed to write together I wasn't sure it would work. Looking back, one thing that indicated it would work was the way we both presented at conferences. We approached speaking differently: Jenny did a keynote at Surrey where I saw the 'notes' she had prepared and heard the talk and the two did not connect at all. I was like 'huh?'. My notes tend to reflect my talk but like her, I can't remember what I said. However, we both tend to speak the same way. We both have this dry sense of humor that seems to work.
I was sitting with Terry Brooks in Maui when Jenny presented one morning and she was quite proud of the fact that she NEVER outlined. After I gave Terry CPR, we both said "what the hell is she talking about?'. Terry is the guru of outlining and I tend to do a bit myself. I once gave my agent a 10,000 word, chapter by chapter outline. On a book I never wrote.
I think Jenny has to feel her way into the characters and I have to feel my way into the plot. I have to know the back-story and the antaqonist is key to my plotting since I've written mostly thrillers.
I think we help each other with our weaknesses. Jenny is, well, hmm, what word should I use? how about two words: detail-oriented. I'm more like: looks good when it left here. Which is what artillery-men say when they fire a round out of a howitzer.
Last night Jenny e-mailed me about a picture I sent her (and I don't know how to post pictures in this thing) of a house that we're using as Cranky Agnes's. If you've ever seen the movie, Great Santini, it's the house they lived in. Up the coast in Beaufort. And she email me going: is this Agnes's house or Baby's. And I'm like, duh. She tends to forget big things like: who is the antagonist again? I forget little things like is Xavier's car white or red?
I was watching Mystic River last night again-- great book and great movie-- and I noted something new. I call it tightness in story-telling where every little gesture is so important, and also foreshadowing- where an early scene mirrors a later scene. When Tim Robbins character is kidnapped in the opening as a child there's a shot of him being driven down the street and he's looking back, out of the rear window of the car. And near the end, when he's picked up by the bad guys there's the same shot of him looking back out the rear window.
That was a writing aside.
Characters. Yes, Shane is George Clooney in Peacemaker. I thought that was a good movie except when he cuts the steel cable with his knife. Agnes is very hot: especially the glasses. Dark hair. Sultry. And she whacks a hit-man over the head with a frying pan on the first page. What a gal.
Shane is not a goombah hit man. He works in the covert world for the government. He's sort of like my characters in Bodyguard of Lies working for the Cellar. But he's very uncomfortable around women. And he's up to his neck in them in this book. Jenny let me know she's got a group: The Mothers-- who are bugging Agnes about the wedding. I just wrote Jenny that Shane, when the Mothers show up the morning after he meets Agnes, is the hell out of there. No man in his right mind hangs around that many women talking about a wedding. Nope.
Hey. Just occurred to me. There's going to be a bachelor party. And a bacherolette party. That will be fun writing when you have hit men involved.
Anyway. The Giant game is on. And I'm waiting on Jenny to send me Agnes latest scene.
Book done yet?

SHE WROTE: How We Write 2

Well, this has been a helluva week. But the good news for me (and Bob) is that Agnes is finally moving in my head, and it's because I started the collage. That part makes Bob twitch, but basically, anything that gets me to put words on the screen is good by him.

The things that make the partnership so electric are the same things that make the partnership so fraught with conflict: We are complete opposites, right down to Bob being left-handed and me being right-handed. And Bob being left-brained and me being right-brained. Bob plans the plot out and then writes it. I dream the characters and then write them. The two processes are not what you'd call a close fit. Once Bob's plan is in place--and he gives me a lot of input into it so it's not like he's controlling--he sits down and writes his scenes. Except he can only write until he gets to my scene. Then he has to wait for me. And I can't write until I've got the dream down, until the characters are running around in my head, and they just weren't there.

So today I turned off the computer and worked on the collage. I gathered up the big box of stuff I'd been collecting for Agnes and started to put it together, at least the basics. Some stuff I glued on for keeps and a lot of it is just straight-pinned on for the moment . . . Well, here; look at it:



So the glasses are both Agnes's eyes and Agnes's symbol; they're the logo at the top of her food column, Cranky Agnes. And the letters of the title are supposed to look a little like dark curly hair. And the two pot racks are her earrings. And the hearts are pinned in there because of Shane, she's going to be looking at him with her heart in her eyes although he's not on the collage yet (Bob says he's like George Clooney in The Peacemaker, so I have to go find images of that). The "Let's Eat" is an old diner sign, and one of the secondary characters owns a diner, plus Agnes cooks and feeds people all the way through the book. The fancy wood at the bottom is Agnes's porch rail and the wicker chairs pinned into the magic marker grass are for the wedding reception she's working toward for the whole week of the book.

But here's what surprised me: There are two big photos and a 3D figure of Maria on there, with another 3D one to go up on top. Who's Maria? She's the bride in the wedding that Agnes has to put on in a week. I thought she was just The Bride, but it turns out she's key to Agnes's motivations and fears and all kinds of good, deep, rich character stuff. So now, having spent most of the day cutting things out and moving things around and coloring things with markers, I think I've got what I need to write.

And somewhere in South Carolina, Bob is banging his head on his desk. Yeah, we have a few kinks in the process to work out. But we will. Nothing but good times ahead.

SHE WROTE: More Stuff

Okay, really, we're only going to blog once a week but we got such great news today, I had to share.

First of all, we have this great cover for our book:



But it's pretty chick-litty, so underneath it, on the real cover of the book, SMP is going to put camoflauge and it looks like this:


Did you see the little alligators in there? SMP rocks, that's all I can say. Best publisher ever.

And then we got our first review from Booklist:

Crusie, Jennifer and Mayer, Robert. Don't Look Down. Apr. 2006. 380p. St. Martin's, $24.95 (0-312-34812-6).Romance.

It sounded simple. Go to Savannah. Finish directing an action-adventure film. Earn some quick money. Get a chance to see sister Daisy and niece Pepper. Instead, as soon as Lucy Armstrong arrives on the set of Don't Look Down, she discovers that nothing about her current job is simple. Lucy is stuck with a lackluster cast. What she has seen of the script is, even by Hollywood standards, unbelievably incoherent. The stunt coordinator is none other than her annoying ex-husband, Connor Nash, and her sister seems somehow to have become a zombie. Then Bryce McKay, the movie's leading man, turns up with Captain J. T. Wilder, whom Bryce has personally hired to be his stunt double and military consultant. The last thing Lucy needs is a taciturn, testosterone-rich, too-sexy-for-his-own-good male like J. T. on her set, but once the going gets tough, someone like J. T. turns out to be exactly the kind of person Lucy decides she wants in her life. This is the first collaboration between best-selling and award-winning romance writer Crusie and adventure-thriller writer Mayer, and it is a rare and original delight. Mayer's delectably dry sense of humor perfectly complements Crusie's signature brand of sharp wit, and together the two have cooked up a sexy, sassy, and smart combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible. --John Charles

I'm doing the Snoopy Dance. Bob is staring morosely into the water, contemplating his rotting dock, but inside he's doing the Snoopy Dance, too, I'm sure of it.

SHE WROTE: How We Write

So how do we communicate?

Badly. I didn’t even know he blogged yesterday. And I thought it was going to be tough to get him to do it once a week, bless his camouflaged little heart. Go, Bob, that’s what I say.

Where was I? Right, how we communicate. That would be e-mail. If we’re pedal to the metal on a book, it’s sixty to seventy a day. If it’s just business, getting organized to start a book, not writing, it’s closer to forty. Of course, half of Bob’s are “Huh?” “OK,” or “Book done yet?” It’s the last one that’s going to make me drive six hundred miles one day and beat him senseless with the keyboard.

But rather than tell you how we did it, I’ll show you. All e-mails quoted in this blog post are exactly the way they were sent, except for the places I’ve used X’s and Y’s to keep from spoiling the plot of DLD.


1. First we negotiated the rules of the partnership, which were essentially that we each had the last word on our characters’ voices and actions, and that we’d rewrite each other’s scenes, but the person who wrote it originally had the last word. We were both good with the rewrites, although Bob did say:

To: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Hey
Date: December 14, 2004
From: Bob Mayer
Actually, I would prefer if you would consider what I've written like the word of God-- inviolable and absolute. To be worshipped. Ok, now off to gym.


2. Then we discussed in depth the themes and motifs we’d be working with:

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Sex and Money
To: Bob Mayer
So DLD happens because X wants sex and Finnegan wants money, and hires Y who wants sex and money and can't walk away from either, which draws in Wilder who wants sex and money (laid and paid) but who walks away from Z and the CIA for Lucy, and LaFavre who wants sex and money but who turns away from Z because of the kidnap plot (yeah, I rewrote that part). So keeping Letsky from getting the jade, and Finnegan from getting the money and X from getting anything means Love triumphs over Sex.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Sex and Money
Ok

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: Sex and Money
I love these long, rich, thematic discussions we have.
I think they bring us closer together, don't you?

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Sex and Money
Yep


3. Okay, sometimes he wrote whole sentences, for example, when we discussed our different approaches to writing, like our use of exposition. I like to fold it into dialogue, avoiding the awful “as you know” stuff. Bob likes to bomb the reader with it as infodump. When I tried to cut it from his stuff, he wrote:

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Exposition
Chill on the exposition a little. We do have more plot here than you're used to. We can cut it later.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: Exposition
You know, if Crawford is telling Wilder stuff he needs to know, I'm fine with it. It's the stuff where the story stops and the author steps in to explain the Gatling Gun that I'm going to get snitty about.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Exposition
Fuck. I just did the Gatling gun scene.
I am learning from the master. Instead of dumping it, I'm putting it in witty and snappy dialogue between Crawford and Wilder. Then I'm going to do witty and snappy dialogue between Sniper and the tour guide who will tell him the history of the bridge. Quite fascinating.


4. When we did have a disagreement, we discussed it like adults.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Agnes
Okay. Agnes is done with the game. She's getting ready to quit after her last article comes out. About the lousy Four Stars. And bad guy paid her editor off to re-write her article to say Four Stars is the greatest thing.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: Agnes
Yeah, but then what is she going to do? She must have a back-up plan. She's going to write a book, maybe. She's got a book contract . . . nah, they wouldn't give her one if she were going to quit. She's not going to quit. She stuck. She's got drywall to pay for.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Agnes
I like the symmetry-- she's quitting because she's so powerful and doesn't like it, but she's going to get whacked because she's so powerful.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: Agnes
I don't think she's quitting. But she may be hitting the wall. Getting ready to scream. And then in walks this Zen-calm hitman.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: Agnes
We invent a national Sunday magazine that runs in all major cities. We'll call it BOBSTER. Everyone who is anyone reads it. And her column is a big hit because it's snarky and about restaurants. And this one is going to be the biggest of all because it's her LAST because she’s quitting and no one knows what she's going to do next.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: Agnes
No, Bob.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: NO
Did you just say no to me?
Hmm.
I quit.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: NO
You'll be back. They always come back.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: NO
It's her last article for BOBSTER. Everyone knows she's on to something bigger and better, which means she'll be even more famous, which bugs her, but really torques bad guy out as everyone will be talking about her article slamming Four Stars then, because it's a really great snarky negative review, which of course, you, are going to have to write.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: NO
Writing the review is not a problem. She says, knowing she doesn't have to do it for months yet. Last article. Fuck. How about a truce and we come back to this? I love THE BOBSTER. Can't help it. I crack up every time I read it.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: NO
Hell, I don't care. I'm easy.

From: Jenny Crusie
Subject: Re: NO
EXCUSE ME???? Look at the subject line on this e-mail. You all-capsed me.

From: Bob Mayer
Subject: Re: NO
All yours now. YEC time. I did the plot. Now write the book.
Return of the King is on. I want to see how it ends. Do the good guys win or does Sauron rule Middle Earth? Bobster wants to know.


Like I said, I’m not sure six hundred miles is far enough.

(YEC stands for "Yucky Emotional Crap" which comes from one of the first things Bob said to me after we agreed to write DLD: "I don't do that Yucky Emotional Crap." So I do the YEC.)

Once we have a plan, we write the scenes and put them into act files (act one, act two, etc.) and swap them back and forth, keeping track of who has the master and relabeling them with dates so we know what’s what. And we keep doing that until the book is done. Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, given our vastly different writing processes, but this blog entry is long enough. Oh, and all of that stuff about Agnes? It’s not a plot spoiler. All of that disappeared months ago as we worked out the plot. It’s a real shame, too. I loved that magazine called The Bobster.

Over to you, Bobster.

HE WROTE: The State of the Partnership

Since it's the beginning of the year, and only THREE MONTHS until DLD is published, I thought it would be appropriate to say a few words on where things are. I use the word partnership because we decided that was better than collaboration which seems to have some sort of negative connotation in publishing, although we have yet to meet someone who will say that to us directly.

How we started this partnership will be explained on one of the pages of the web site once it's running, which will be in a couple of weeks, so I won't get into that.

Where it stands now: DON'T LOOK DOWN is coming out on 4 April and our publisher, St. Martins, is very much behind the book. We made a talk to the sales force on 3 December over dessert late at night in Scottsdale, Arizona. Talking to tired people over dessert is a dicey thing. But I think we did ok. Jenny and I have the same problem with public speaking: we never remember what we said. We also sat with the Associate Director of Publicity for SMP and sketched out a book tour around the many conferences we were already doing. Jenny whipped out a map she'd torn out of the airline magazine from the plane she flew in on-- really. She'd made little dots on it for all the conferences we were doing. And then we started war-gaming which places we could then hit for the book tour. Exotic locales like Kazakhastan were bandied about. We still don't know exactly where and when we'll be going-- as soon as we know it will be on the web site-- but John did look up at us and said: "This is the most extensive book tour we've ever done." Then we had to slice our wrists-- not deeply mind you-- and sign in blood that we would do whatever SMP asked to promote the book.

Actually, the truth is, we were thrilled to be asked to speak at the sales meeting. And we WILL do damn near anything-- no, not that-- to promote the book.

Oh yes, Jenny did tell me I had to burn the shirt I was wearing for that talk. Sigh. It was the only thing I was wearing that Mollie-- Jenny's daughter who set up our photo shoot in NYC the previous month-- hadn't bought for me. Point of note: I have not burned it, but moved it to my workout outfit ensemble. I'm wearing it right now after running in the preserve, aka swamp, and kayaking.

Anyway. So DLD is in production. Oh, yeah. The cover. That was interesting. You see, my experience with covers has been that I saw them when I got my author's copies of the book, which were always the last ones shipped. I saw the cover for my second book-- true story-- for the first time when I was at Fort Bragg. I'd been called back to active duty for some mess and I was in-processing with some other reserve SF guys and the man in front of me in line looked at my name-tag and said "Hey, did you write a book?"
I said, "Yes."
He reached into his backpack and pulled out my second book which I had not yet seen. And he'd gotten it out of the New Jersey public library. Really.
But I digress. The cover for DLD.
We got this color copy of the cover art from our wonderful editor, Jennifer Enderlin. I thought it was great. Jenny not. She was right in retrospect.
Short version. A month and twenty or so covers later we eventually had the great cover we have now. I let Jenny fight those battles because I want everyone to think I'm this sweet, easy-going guy, which I am. I tend to say "Sounds good to me" to pretty much everything. But one of the strengths of the partnership is we each bring different talents and skill to the table. Jenny has a much better sense of the business of publishing than I do even though I've been making a living at it for 15 years. Some of that I ascribe to her membership and work in RWA-- which BTW I joined last week. I bring my NYC subway glare when needed. And I email her every morning asking "Book done yet?"
That's how a good partnership works.

HE WROTE: 2006: The Year of the Gator

According to ancient Chinese texts, 2006 is the Year of the Gator. Well, not actually. But for us it is. I'm Bob Mayer and I guess I can't be silent any more.

So we started writing DON'T LOOK DOWN in September 2004 and had a draft done by January 2005. I was quite happy. Unfortunately, then we ended up rewriting and rewriting and rewriting--you get the picture. The book was finally done around August. And it will be published on 4 April 2006. One thing about publishing: it aint fast.

After we finished the first draft of DLD, we started talking about a second book. We started with a food critic-- Cranky Agnes-- and a hit-man-- Shane. Just Shane. Do you know how hard it is to figure out a plot involving those two characters? We met in New York to have a meeting with our agent and editor. Jenny and I were walking along Fifth Avenue-- we walked everywhere as she doesn't do the subway. I used to take the subway to high school. But I digress. We were walking along Fifth Ave trying to come up with a plot and I had someone putting secret codes into the recipes Cranky Agnes-- and with a name like that, think of what poor Shane is going to have to endure-- put in her new cookbook and someone was going to kill her because of that. Not. Eight months and a dozen plots later we've got something that's a lot of fun. The opening chapter is written and we're ready to start smoking out way through our brilliant outline-- yes, we have an outline.

Meanwhile, at last count, we will be doing 24 conferences this year between us along with a book tour. We're doing 'media training' later this month as it seems we need it since we did a half hour interview for Orange County PBS last year and while we were funny and charming neither of us mentioned the title of our upcoming book. Not once. Thus we need training.

Speaking of book tour, my only book tour experience was driving like fifty thousand miles a year to various military posts such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, setting up two card tables, throwing a camouflage poncho liner over them, hanging a huge banner that said BOOK SIGNING on it along with a Special Forces patch, and then sitting there for fourteen hours a day writing on my laptop and occassionally selling a book. I've sat for 14 hours and sold ZERO books. So this should be better. When I was on the infamous Maui Writers Cruise to the Panama Canal-- that doesn't make sense even saying it-- I remember sitting in a nice stateroom (I shared a closet on Dolphin Deck with an agent-- we got the crew announcements in our room, not the passengers announcements)-- where was I? Oh yeah, I was in a stateroom with several best-selling authors who shall remain anonymous and they were just bitching about book tours. And I swore then that I would never complain if I went on a book tour. So-- four month from now when I'm bitching you can remind me of this.

And I'm not in North Carolina. Geez. Jenny doesn't even know where I live. I'm in South Carolina. On a barrier island. I can look up at the Intercoastal Waterway and wave to the dolphins. And yes, I was watching the Giants game last night and I was in bed before midnight because the life of a writer is SO exciting.

Yesterday I ran in the Forest Preserve, which is a nice way of saying swamp in South Carolina, and I said hey to the gators because this is going to be the year of the Gator Tour. Oh, for those who are wondering, that's because we have this sweet, one-eyed alligator in DLD. And he hardly eats anyone.

So. Happy 2006 and watch out for them there gators.

SHE WROTE: Welcome to the Bob and Jenny Show

Happy New Year and welcome to our dueling blog.

I'm Jenny Crusie and I wrote a book about a man, a woman, and a gator last year with the fabulously talented but up until now mostly silent Bob Mayer, who is the other half of this blog. Well, I wrote about a woman and a gator and Bob wrote about a man and a gator and then we sort of merged them. The idea was that all the scenes in the guy's point of view would ACTUALLY BE WRITTEN BY A GUY. And then all the scenes in the heroine's POV would be written by me. Strangely enough, it worked. Right, Bob? Bob?

Well, he'll get here eventually. I think he's watching the game. There's a game on today, right? I don't know because he's in North Carolina and I'm in Ohio. Trust me, it's better that way.

So now we're starting the Year from Hell which is pretty much six months on the road promoting DLD and then RWA National, all while we work on Agnes and the Hitman, our new masterpiece. So we thought we'd keep a record of where we were going and what we were doing on the book. Like weekly. Not daily. We're not that interesting.

You may have noticed the place looks a little plain. That's because it hasn't really been designed yet; in a couple of weeks it'll match the Crusie-Mayer website which is going up then. We're still arguing about where to put the gator; pity our poor web-designer, Mollie the Saint.

But for right now, welcome to He Wrote, She Wrote. And have a great 2006. We're planning on it.