The Good and the Bad

Today I'm going to be very honest.
I'm going to share the worst that can happen to a writer: bad reviews.
We all get them. The best of us get them! So what is a writer to do, what are we supposed to learn, from bad reviews?

Last summer I visited my publisher.
I was traveling all over the US again to meet friends, go to a Neil Diamond concert in Salt Lake City, and also visit Eric G. Thompson, the man who created the art on the book covers of the Stone Trilogy.
My publisher had invited me to her home in a pretty little town outside New York City, and as we sat at her dining table, eating Chinese takeout, I began to apologize for the bad reviews my first book, The Distant Shore, had received.
Now don't get me wrong – there are far more five and four star reviews than bad ones. A LOT more.
But there are occasional bad ones.
My publisher gazed at me through her glasses across the lemon chicken and steamed dumplings. Next to me, on the table, was a tower of books she wanted me to sign, and a really large batch of book plates, too.
So she looked at me, and said, in a kind but slightly exasperated tone, "What are you apologizing for? You can't please everyone!"
Well. Yes. I knew that, too.
We moved on to red velvet cake and work, and didn't talk about bad reviews anymore. I signed those books, and all the bookplates and read a crime short story that I'd just written to my publisher.

Here's the thing though.
I still feel as if I should apologize for a bad review. I wrote that book, it's my work, and my publisher is my boss, right? I mean, she's also my friend, but before she became my friend she was already my boss.
She became my boss the moment I signed that first book deal. I promised to deliver something, and she promised to publish it, market it, and make money for both of us with it.
My book is my product. And I want my product to be perfect.
In my silly little mind I compared it to a quilt, to something that I'd made with my hands. I want my quilts to be perfect, and I want my books to be perfect.

Only there is no such thing.

There is no perfect quilt, no perfect book, no perfect nothing.
Everything is a matter of taste. What seems perfect to one, is stupid drivel to someone else.
While one person might love my pastel quilts, someone else might find them too pale, and boring.
While one readers comments on my books how they love love love them, another might be disappointed, and say so in no uncertain terms.
We all have expectations. We expect something to be just so, and if it isn't, we're disappointed.
For me, it's pistachio ice cream. I love pistachios! But pistachio ice cream? Meh.

So the lesson here is: suck it up.
You didn't please every single reader in the universe with your book. You only pleased about 80%. Those other 20%, they simply love something else, a different style, a different kind of story, maybe even a different setting, and different characters.
I have an author friend, and she never ever goes to read her Amazon reviews. Never. Because she's too scared of the bad reviews. The sad part is, she's also cutting herself off from the good reviews, from the happy words of readers who enjoyed her book, who want to tell her that she's a great author, and gave them a great time, reading her story.

I've learned to live with the bad reviews. It's not easy; we all want to be praised, and not be told how disappointing we are.
Writers, live with it. You picked a career that exposes you to critical eyes. Not making everyone happy is part of it.
Walk tall. Be proud of what you've done! You've written a book, and it's out there for so many readers to discover, and enjoy. Some won't like it. But the others will love you forever.

Buddhapuss Ink: So You Want to Write a Book Review . . .

Buddhapuss Ink: So You Want to Write a Book Review . . .:



Reader's Tip -   You finished that book you were reading and you loved it! Hated it! Were totally confused by it! And you know you wa...

An Early Writer's Christmas

Because I just read a rather brilliant blog post by Jessica Bell, I want to say something that's been on my mind for a while.
This is about writing fiction, and about the writing attitude, so everyone who wants to learn what I'll cook for dinner today should go and do something more fun.

There's something about writing, about being a writer, that is different, special.

We are curious. We want to know, and we want to watch. We're the voyeurs who stare at other people in restaurants, on the subway, in the waiting area of an airport before boarding, in hospital or doctor's waiting rooms. We watch everything. We watch how strangers interact, how they talk, walk, and how they think.
We stare at trees; at flowers, at grass, at birds and cats. We listen to sounds; and we memorize them, and the way they seemed to us. We register smells, and the moment we do, we try to name them, describe their qualities, make them come alive.
We lie awake at night and mumble the conversations of our characters into the darkness, and when we wake up in the morning, the words are gone, but the feeling is still there.
Everything, everything we see, experience, witness, everything is research, fodder for our imagination.
You can recognize a writer by the way they stand and watch (and in my case, look like an idiot).
You can recognize a writer by the way they suddenly break off in a conversation, how they fall silent and go elsewhere with their minds: they've felt the spark. Maybe it was something someone said, or the way that someone tilted their head, or smiled, or pulled at their socks.
It can be anything.

So here's what I'm trying to say.
Don't rely on writing manuals. Don't rely on agents' or publishers' "how to" posts.
Admittedly, they are helpful. But consider them as crutches, as something to lean on while you go your own writing way.
Your writing should be bold, unique, it should express something no one else can express.
You are that new voice, the one voice that shines through even in a chorus of a million.

Get rid of those journals and manuals. Dare to take those steps onto that rickety rope bridge that means being a writer, and dare to fall.
But if you do, and you mean it with the writing, crawl up that mountain and try again.
There are no rules in writing. There is no right or wrong. There's only one way: your own.

So this is what I wish for you:

- Be fearless.

- Don't try to write like someone else. Comparing writers to each other is like comparing apples to cherries. There is no "alike".

- This is not a competition! We aren't sitting in the same office, waiting for a promotion, and get angry or sour if someone else gets it before us. Find your own path, and be generous with your praise if someone else gets that book deal before you. It wasn't meant for you. Yours is still waiting for you to finish that book!

- Love what you do.

- Never apologize for wanting to be a writer. If you've come this far, you should know that it's meant to be. This is a part of you. Don't deny it.

So there. This is my early Christmas wish list for all of you who want to be writers.

Oh –and if you want to know which article I was reading right now, here's the link:

Advice I Wish I’d Been Given When I Started … 

This post is featured on C.S. Lakin's blog Live Write Thrive

PS: dinner tonight is Red Thai Curry with chicken. ;)

Some Writing Advice. Some Detours.

The other day, my publisher and I had one of our fun (and sometimes slightly whacky) conversations. It was about blogging, and what to blog about, and my reluctance to write blog posts.

This is part of it

Publisher: Oh good grief. You're an award-winning author. And people also want to know about your life. Really!

Uhu. 

Anyway. Who wants to know about my life? Hands up, please!

See? What I said. No one. And that's a good thing, because there really isn't much to talk about.

That will change next year though, the moment after I've bought my tickets and get ready to travel to Canada and the US again.

I really wanted to visit friends in the south and west of the US next year and see Atlanta, Oklahoma (yes, all that red dirt!) and California. Los Angeles, I've never been to Los Angeles, and I've always dreamt of going there. Also, Sacramento! I wanted to drive up Highway No. 1 along the California coast and see the redwood forest! And I wanted to buy a Hollywood Starbucks mug. Sniff.

Alas. 

My silly wayward brain decided otherwise. And this is where my life and my writing overlap, and in real-time. too.

I'd just finished the newest of the Stone Series books, and somehow my mind was straying. It was moving away from Jon and Naomi Stone, and into a world that was totally different.

For a while, I ignored that call.

Let me take a brief detour here.

One of my most heartfelt writing advices is, "trust your gut". I learned that when I was writing The Distant Shore. My gut told me to have someone shoot Naomi and wound her nearly fatally, and all because she was Jon Stone's wife. It took me a long time to figure out why my gut insisted on this. I tried to move away from that scene and its consequences, but it just sat there like a Mack truck and refused to move away.

Naomi had to be shot. 

She had to be shot to show how deep and strong her love for Jon really was. Whatever happened to her had to be extreme, painful, devastating, and overcoming it had to be painful beyond measure.

Some readers have said that Naomi whines a lot in the sequel, Under the Same Sun.

Hello? SHOT? Traumatized? I want to see one person who wouldn't whine in that situation. I knew I would!

Okay, digressing again. But the point here is, I listened to my instincts. As wild and crazy as the idea sounded, it made total sense once it was written. Naomi had to be shot. And she had to overcome that trauma in the second book. End of story.

Okay. Where were we? Right. Writing advice.

I'm going to dispense writing advice. Here we go.

1. Trust your instincts.

2. Trust your instincts.

3. Trust your instincts.

4. Please drop that "aspire" out of your profile. Please. If you'r writing, you're a writer. Period.

5. Don't write what you think the market wants. Write what your heart wants. Be bold! That's the only way to be sure that it will be any good.

6. Finish one project before starting the next.

7. Finish one project before starting the next.

8. Finish that project already! The ideas for the new one aren't going anywhere, right? After all, they're in your head. And the last I've heard, we control what's in our head. Well, more or less.

9. Start worrying about agents and publishers after your novel is finished (which means, written, edited, edited, and edited.). How can you possibly know which agent or publisher to approach before your book is even written? 

10. Have fun! If you don't have fun writing, don't do it. Because it would be an immense waste of your time.

So there. Writing advice, from an award-winning author.

And also, LOOK PUBLISHER I WROTE ANOTHER BLOG POST!

PS: My twitter handle is Mariam_Kobras now, if you want to follow.

The Little Beast and the Rock Star

                                 (art:Eric G. Thompson)



Today I want to do something that I normally never do: I want to talk about one of my books and explain. I firmly believe that an author should never do that. We write the stories, and the explaining, interpreting, discussing, belongs to the readers.
Today, though, because I've been asked a couple of times about it, I'm going to explain something.

Jon, in The Distant Shore, calls Naomi "little beast" from time to time, and he uses it as a nickname, as an endearment. Some readers have complained that it can't possibly be an endearment, their relationship is way to intense and way too complicated for such a silly phrase.
Well, that's exactly it.
The term "little beast" is born at a crucial point in their relationship. They've just found each other again after many years apart, and after a very tense day during which they carefully wade through their past and the pain it brought to both of them, this is the first time ease and a trace of humor blossom, and it's clear that Jon and Naomi really can and want to build a future.
Here's the scene I'm talking about:

In a lighter tone, Jon asked, “So what did Joshua say when you told him? What do you think he will say when we meet?”
“Oh, he’s seen you. We were at your concert in London. We had really good seats. Third row, right in the center. You looked down often enough.”
It took a long while to digest this. He had not seen her, but he felt as if he should have sensed her closeness, even amid the many thousands of others.
“And what did Joshua say?”
There was laughter in her eyes. “He said you were a chick’s man and no self-respecting teenager should be forced to listen to you. He thought your shirt was disgusting. I didn’t think it was that hot, either. And the tickets were incredibly expensive. You should be ashamed of yourself. Sean was good, though. I love his bone-dry rendition of The River. It’s really sexy. And he looks sexy playing it.”
“You little beast. You were truly there and never tried to see me? You were just sitting there, watching me bawl out my heart, and never did anything? And then you talk to me about how sexy Sean is? I’ll fire him immediately!” 

Jon uses "little beast" to respond to Naomi's teasing about his friend and musical director, Sean, to show that the mood has indeed lightened, and he feels secure enough to tease her back. 
"Little beast" is not the sweetest of endearments. It sounds rough, slightly off-putting, it's not a nickname that invites tenderness.
Naomi is not an easy woman to live with. She's sensitive, moody, reserved, and she has a tendency to be negative in her view of the world. She's easily spooked by difficulties, and she hates being public. And yet she's willing to marry a rock star, a man so famous he can't walk down the street without being recognized. Her love for Jon outweighs everything. Once she has overcome her doubts she's ready to jump from a cliff for her love. And Jon recognizes that. He feels secure enough in their love to give her a name that's fun.
And that's what it is: fun. It's a code word for them, a reminder of the moment when they realize that even though they were apart for seventeen years, even though their parting was painful beyond measure, they will be together, and this time, forever.

So there. "Little beast" explained.
I know – as every author does – that my writing or my choice of words doesn't please everyone. And that's as it should be. Books and stories are a matter of taste, like anything else in the world.
It's fascinating to read comments on my books on Amazon, and it's even more fascinating to see that what one reader loves and embraces will be completely rejected by another. 
It's also fascinating to see when a reader identifies with my characters and says, "YES! That's how my husband and I talk to each other, too!" and someone else says, "Normal people don't talk that way!"
it shows me that I got it right, and it also shows me how different readers are as human beings.
Everything is as it should be.
And I'm a very happy author!

The Blogging Malaise

Write a blog post, the publisher says.
You're an author, you must blog, the publisher says, people want to know what you think, and what you're up to.
As always, up to no good, I grumble, and the publisher gives me a "good grief".
I can hear her breathe in, ready to launch a lengthy speech on the merits of blogging, and I'm perfectly sure that I can hear her fingers flying across the computer keyboard, finding links about blogging to fling at me.
I'll chat all day long on twitter, I tell her, I'll chat all day on Facebook, and I'll pin stuff to my Pinterest boards until my fingers bleed. Promise! BIG promise.
But the blog, she says, when did you write your last blog post? Huh? When?
I grumble a reply, and she goes, "AHA! That was last month! Hop to it, missy!"
It doesn't hep that she sends me one of those uber-cute kitty stickers on Facebook chat, either.
She's like that: very funny, very sweet, always kind and understanding, but hidden under all the cupcakes and chocolate is a small, iron fist that makes me do the things she wants me to do, and pronto.
It doesn't even help that she calls me a "speed demon" where my writing is concerned.
That's what you get for being fast, reliable, disciplined and open to suggestions (yes, I know that's a euphemism for "do what the publisher wants you to do, and write the books the publisher wants to see – and seriously, who wouldn't do that, if you have a publisher you really like, and who makes writing for them a blast?)

So here I am, writing a blog post. And here is the sad, hard truth: I'll never be a great blogger.
Why? There's nothing to blog about!
I get up, make coffee, go to my desk (with the coffee) and write. Around noontime, I start cooking lunch for the family, we have lunch, I go back to my desk, and write. In the evening, I watch TV or knit, or (rarely, because my head is full of words already) read a book. Then I go to bed. And so on.
And that's what I do on twenty-eight days of the month.
On the other days, the hubby and I go out for lunch, or shopping downtown, or both.

And that's it, folks! That's how I write two books a year ( and each of them with about 110K words), and some additional stuff like the short stories for #amwriting (sadly, no more), or the Super Secret Project I finished last night.
And this blog post.

LOOK BUDDHAPUSS INK I BLOGGED! LOOK!

*goes away grumbling, and hoping that one blog post a week will be enough*

Cover Reveal for Message from a Blue Jay

Today is a great day.
Today my long-time twitter friend and recent publishing sister at last gets to reveal the cover of her first book, Message from a Blue Jay.

Faye Rapoport DesPres is a very special person. I've rarely met anyone as sensitive, as caring, as she is. The way she lured a feral, little white cat into her house and safety, the way she told us about it on Facebook, made her love and compassion shine as bright as a candle in a dark and stormy night.

Faye is – of course – an outstanding writer: She has the ability to seek out the wounds we others try to hide and gloss over, and examine them in the cruel light of day. Her writing is gentle, and yet relentless.  It has clarity, and yet never gets too obvious.

Please meet my dear friend, Faye Rapoport Des Pres.

A Message From the Author

Imagine arriving at a train station in the middle of nowhere. On your lap lies a suitcase, and in that suitcase you carry your past. Metal brakes screech, the train slows and stops, and you struggle as you carry the suitcase toward the door and down the stairs to the platform. The whistle sounds and the train pulls away as steam rises from the tracks. You survey the landscape beyond the station and think: Where am I? What now? What happens next?

This is how I arrived at what I call my “middle decade,” the decade between forty and fifty. The suitcase I carried was heavy with memories—not just recollections of my youth and adulthood in America, but also inherited memories from an immigrant family splintered by the events of World War II. Born against a backdrop of displacement, loss, and ultimately hope, I was raised in upstate New York. Over the years I moved from New York to Boston, to England,  Israel, Colorado, and eventually back to Boston. I gathered life experiences as if they were pieces of a puzzle and hoped, without realizing it, that those pieces would eventually form some kind of whole. In retrospect I can see that my desire was to find what many of us seek: love, a sense of peace, and a home.

The essays in my book emerged from the pieces of that puzzle that inspired—or haunted—me most. They were crafted in an effort to fashion a big picture from the fragments of a restless life. I examined events in both the present and the past, the history of my family, the start of a second marriage the same year my mother-in-law’s life was drawing to a close, body image, aging, and the passage of time, and the connection I have always felt to animals. I explored these things while at a stage of my life where I had seen a lot of things but still had—as I have now—a great deal more left to see.

You will meet colorful characters (some human, some not), visit places from Canada to Bermuda and the Middle East, and witness the conflict between the desire to examine one’s life and the ultimate need to let go of it all in order to live in the moment. Perhaps you will find, as I did, that the natural world and the creatures who inhabit it—from a humpback whale to an astonishing blue jay—can provide insight in unexpected ways.

As I prepare for the journey toward the next stage of my life, it is time to pack up my suitcase. But because I examined its contents so thoroughly during this phase I feel ready to leave some of the weightier things behind and to move forward with a lighter load.

We’ll see how it goes. The train is pulling in and the whistle is sounding. The future is waiting. Care to join me?

— Faye

From an astonishing blue jay to an encounter with a lone humpback whale, travel with debut author Faye Rapoport DesPres, as she examines a modern life marked by her passion for the natural world, unexpected love, shocking loss, and her search for a place she can finally call home in this beautifully-crafted memoir-in-essays.

Three weeks before DesPres' fortieth birthday, nothing about her life fit the usual mold. She is single, living in a rented house in Boulder, Colorado, and fitting dance classes and nature hikes between workdays at a software start-up that soon won’t exist. While contemplating a sky still hazy from summer wildfires, she decides to take stock of her nomadic life and find the real reasons she never “settled down.” The choices she makes from that moment on lead her to re-trace her steps—in the States and abroad—as she attempts to understand her life. But instead of going back, she finds herself moving forward to new love, shocking loss, and finally, in a way that she never expects, to a place that she can almost call home. 

Readers who love the memoirs and personal essays of such rising contemporary writers as Cheryl Strayed, Joy Castro, and Kim Dana Kupperman, will appreciate Faye’s observational eye, her passion for the natural world and the creatures that inhabit it, and her search for the surprising truths behind the events of our daily lives.

Buddhapuss Ink LLC Announces Cover Reveal—Message From a Blue Jay

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 9, 2013

Buddhapuss Ink LLC, a NJ based book publisher, revealed the cover today for debut author, Faye Rapoport DesPres', Spring 2014 title: Message From a Blue Jay: Love, Loss, and One Writer's Search for Home. The book, a memoir, is beautifully constructed from essays DesPres wrote about her "middle decade," from forty to fifty.

“Readers who love authors like Cheryl Strayed, Joy Castro, and Kim Dana Kupperman, will find a new favorite author in Faye." said MaryChris Bradley, Publisher of Buddhapuss Ink LLC. “We are thrilled to be publishing this literary memoir whose words beat strongest when the author is surrounded by nature."

Message From a Blue Jay: Three weeks before her fortieth birthday, nothing about her life fit the usual mold. She is single, living in a rented house in Boulder, Colorado, and fitting dance classes and nature hikes between workdays at a software start-up that soon won’t exist. While contemplating a sky still hazy from summer wildfires, she decides to take stock of her nomadic life and find the real reasons she never “settled down.” The choices she makes from that moment on lead her to re-trace her steps—in the States and abroad—as she attempts to understand her life. But instead of going back, she finds herself moving forward to new love, shocking loss, and finally, in a way that she never expects, to a place that she can almost call home. 

Faye Rapoport DesPres was born in New York City, and grew up in rural upstate New York. Her maternal grandparents emigrated to the US from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s and settled in the South Bronx. Her father, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in New York as a teenager after World War II. 

She has spent much of her writing career as a journalist and business/non-profit writer. She earned her MFA from Pine Manor College, where she focused on creative nonfiction. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Animal Life, Trail and Timberline, and other publications. Her personal essays, fiction, and poetry, have been published in Ascent, Superstition Review, and Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, among other journals, magazines, and anthologies. Currently, DesPres is an adjunct first-year writing instructor at Lasell College. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and their rescued cats.

BUDDHAPUSS INK LLC is based in Edison, NJ. Founded in 2009, it is led by Publisher, MaryChris Bradley, a 29 year veteran in the book industry. “Our company mission is to ‘Put readers first’ and we are committed to finding and growing new authors at a time when the major houses seem to have turned their backs on writers who don't already have a well-established track record or movie credits to their name.” 

Bradley can be contacted at 732-887-2519 or Publisher@BuddhapussInk.com. 

Website: www.BuddhapussInk.com 

 Company blog: http://buddhapussink.blogspot.com 

@Buddhapuss on twitter     Buddhapuss Ink LLC on Facebook

Links for Blue Jay Cover Reveal

Official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MessageFromaBlueJay

Publisher's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Buddhapuss

Author's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/faye.rapoport.despres

Publisher's blog: http://buddhapussink.blogspot.com/2013/10/cover-reveal-message-from-blue-jay.html

Publisher's website announcement: http://www.BuddhapussInk.com

Author's website:  http://fayerapoportdespres.com/

HASHTAG #BlueJayCover