SUSPENSE! A DAY IN THE WRITER'S LIFE

Check out this blog by Rhona Westbrook about a sudden attack of angst, Walmart, revelation, and the comments on suspense. This woman has some good stuff going on!

AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D

Here's another link that I'm excited about--this one to a website that has named me its AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D The site is called Embracing the Child and the main feature of this honor is an interview.

Here's an excerpt:

ETC: The voice of Cassie, the main character, rings so true, especially her thoughts and emotions as she makes entries into her journal. How were you able to achieve that authenticity, writing in the voice of a teenage girl?

Mandabach: One of my old friends who just finished the book emailed me saying, "Are you sure you're NOT a 14-year-old girl?"

I'm pretty sure I'm not, but that's the exciting thing about writing fiction--going deep into your imagination, bringing everything you know and feel, and living that alternate reality via language as you attempt to communicate it.

So how did I achieve authenticity in the voice of a teenage girl? (check out the whole interview at the link above to find out . . . :)

Peace, everybody, and talk to me here or at www.mandabach.com!

<3
M

New Ink; Next Gig; Spokane Notes; Coronado, North Central, and Barker High Schools

FIRST OF ALL, here are links to a couple of new things out there:

• My longest and most in depth interview so far: Authorlink Interview


• Another, different, interview: ETC Interview


• More good ink: South Florida Sun-Sentinal Teenlink Review

NEXT GIG:

• My fall micro-tour is over, but I'm doing one more event in town before the close of the year:
  
  
  
  • Barnes and Noble @ the Citadel, on Academy Blvd.
    
    
    
    • December 15, Saturday @ 1:30-3:30ish.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• I hope to see some of the new friends I met today in Chapman's creative writing class at Coronado High School. What a great class. You guys really know how to make an author feel good: laugh a lot and at the right places and say, "Read more!" It was also fantastic to see old friends Mr. "Stay Black" Ken, Tiffany, Kara, and Emily. Love you all.

WASHINGTON NOTES:

Spokane was amazing--what a cool city. But it helps to hang out with the best people:

• My incredible friend Sam Ligon, author of the great novel Safe in Heaven Dead and editor of Willow Springs

• Sam's wife, Kim, and kids Jane and Paul, who are all brilliant.


• His friends, Kelly Chadwick, who introduced me to some fantastic wine, and


• poet Renee Rohl, who introduced me to her students at Barker Center.


• Other friends, novelist Jess Walter and his wife


• Ann, who used to live in my fair city and write for our hometown newspaper The Gazette. (Both she and Jess worked for the Spokane Spokesman-Review until former Gazette editor Stevie Smith came on board and began running ruining it.)

I had a great day visiting with creative writing students at Barker with Renee's class and also with Jim Creason's groups at North Central High School. Special thanks to Dylan, Pauline, Cassie, and (your dad-burned name slips my mind, but you're the best) who I met in class and who actually came out to the reading that night at Auntie's Books.

This event was a little different for me, with the reading showcased up front and with microphone, even, which made the power of the poet's voice truly tremendous.

Then it was a weekend of hanging out with my daughter who is the same age as Sam's girl, Jane. Or the girls spent time together, mostly, and Sam and I stayed up until three or four every night listening to music and talking. And talking. And talking. It's funny to think that I'm still friends with the guy I pulled a desk out from under in Mr. Johnson's actor's workshop class when we were in high school. But that he's still the most brilliant person I've ever met is no surprise.

Not Your Mother's Book Club and Spokane Bound . . .

I never got a chance to do a write up on my last trip, but the hostess with the mostest has done a better job here Literaticat on the Mandabach, Hopkins, Asher, & Lyga gig
with the San Francisco portion.

Here's silly me reading:

Tomorrow I'm off for the last stop on my fall 2007 micro-tour, Spokane, WA.

That where my best old friend Sam Ligon lives, and where I'll appear at Auntie's books on Friday night. I'll also be visiting two creative writing classes at two different schools, North Central and Barker Center. This is is my favorite part, I think, becuase it's so energizing to talk with the kids about writing. I'll miss my own students, of course, but the new groups are refreshing.

It's cold and snowy over in Spokane today, but looking at this pic from the area makes me wish I was going to be there in fishing weather. (Though I have fished in the snow!)



Peace, and wish me happy trails!

Q & A from Barrington High School Creative Writers, Part 3

It's been almost 2 months now since my visit to the old home town of Barrington and my beloved Barrington High School.

Or, disbeloved, unbeloved, nonbeloved . . . You get the picture.

I loved my English classes and my biology classes and my friends.

And I still love Baker's Lake, which used to have an island with couple of big trees on it, where herons nested. Both black crowned night herons:

And great blues:

But the herons loved it to death, and the conservationists love the herons, so they built these scaffolds for the rookery.


But let's get to some more questions from the BHS class of '08:

Have you distinguished yourself the way you wanted?

I joked about this question in class, mentioning my distinguished grey temples and beard, because I try not to think about winning renown. But the truth is, no—I haven't.

I would like to have written more and have garnered more recognition and money with my work than I have. (essentally none at this point.) I've written a novel that's as good as I could write it. It's been published, and I am grateful for that. But—I don't think I'm supposed to admit this—I'm jealous of writers who have bigger publishers and bigger budgets for promotion. But I'm also proud of my publisher's independence and that I have complete artistic autonomy. More than anything, I try my best to focus on the work for the work's own sake, and I believe that by loving the work, the process and the product, that I'll distinguish myself in my own esteem. If I retain any integrity at all, that's what matters most.

What do you think of the self-publishing option?

Sorry, but I don’t think much of it. I know somebody who self-published a good tween novel that my daughter loved, but I think she should have held out and pushed harder for a regular publisher. Unless you have something unconventional that you really believe in, and have the drive to do all the marketing work yourself, I think self publishing is best for those who have written something that they only want to share with family, friends, and close professional associates. But that's just me.

How do you find an agent in Chicago? What do you think of the Writer's Market books. How many query letters did you send out?

I think they are great, though I found my agent by using Jeff Herman's Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers.

But first, I tried to concentrate on the writing: on preparing to write a draft, and on getting the draft done. I want to clarify what I said before about giving myself permission to write a really crummy first draft: what I mean is that I try to avoid perfectionism and the paralysis of being self-critical. From the beginning, as I write about character and place, relationships and events, I strive for quality. I want real characters, characters that I love—I want a good story and good writing. But in that first draft, I don't try to get it perfect. I try to free myself to let the story come out, which means writing naturally and quickly. Then I'll go over it again and again and again, making my work as good as I can with my own skill and the help of people I trust to be honest and not destructive. These people also must also be readers (and writers) whose judgement I trust and who know how to talk about reading and writing.

Then, with OR NOT, I combed all the books trying to find agents who represented what I did, talked with everybody I knew who had published or knew people who had, googled the hell out of agents that I thought might be appropriate, and sent out 60-80 queries, in batches of 12-24. 6 wanted to see a chapter. 2 wanted the whold book. One became my agent and sold the book. Oh, and he's not in Chicago. He's in NYC.

How do you manage writing and other things such as jobs and school?

Luckily, I'm a teacher, so I had a summer to write my draft. And even then I had to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. During school, it's even worse. I have to give things up, some trivial, some that I miss. I don't watch TV. I watch fewer movies than I'd like to. I don't get out fishing, or skiiing, or hiking, or even walking very much. Sometimes I hardly have time to read, which is dangerous for a writer. My house is a wreck. My yard is an embarrasment. I don't get enough sleep.

Was it worth it?

Totally.

Do your parents approve?

My mom is sooooo proud. She is 85, raised six kids, and has always been a reader and a writer. She's kind of in awe because she feels that she never had the discipline to write a book, and we're a lot alike, so maybe she never thought I had it in me! My dad would approve, too, though he was on the conservative side, politically, and he wouldn't approve of Cassie and her parents' unabashedly progressive politics.

Have you ever been to a book signing?

Yes, but my first book signing is October 11. (I was in Barrington on Oct. 4. Now, as I revise this a get ready to post it, its Nov. 24th and I've had 7 book signings! They are so much fun.)

Be Thankful; Buy Nothing!

Do you love to shop? Hate to shop? Indifferent?
..


(this is an old video, btw, this year it is the 23rd)
Wouldn't it be nice to give it a rest? A one day shopping fast?Should there be exceptions? Buy only one special book and only from an independent bookstore? Buy only beer, locally brewed, from the tap? When I think of Katie, the proprietor of Village Books, or Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books, I think I would exempt them. But they're not in my neighborhood, so I ain't buyin' nothin' tomorrow.

ELLEN HOPKINS, BARRY LYGA, JAY ASHER, and . . .MANDABACH?

WOW. How did I manage to get myself on a bill with these talented and successful authors! Very exciting :D




And Frisco rocks, despite the Oracle convention. Not that I have anything against being surrounded by tech geeks who never take off their id badges per se, but remember when Oracle was somebody at Delphi? A seer, a priestess? No? Well, I don't technically remember either, but it's not exactly GREEK to me either.

And the oil spill! I feel so sorry for the poor birds :(