Bookmarks and postcards are here!!!

Earthly Charms did a great job on my postcards and bookmarks. Now I have lots of them to hand out. Want an official The Silver Spoon bookmark or postcard or both? Send me an email! sklemstein@msn.com

If you know other people who might be interested in the book (or just a really nice bookmark), just tell me how many you need and I'd be happy to send them to you. Or, hey, if you can talk the neighborhood bookstore into handing them out in their plastic shopping bags, all the better! : )

The bookmark is great for those who aren't familiar with the book, as it gives the back cover blurb as well as the ISBNs, which you'll need if you order it through a bookstore.

Let's see what else...
-Meg Cabot has a very funny blog today about giving her cat medicine and she brings up something that I thought only I did. She's working on a novel and not telling anyone about it!

-I'm working on coming up with locations for a book launch event, which will probably be taking place the last weekend in August, I think, most likely Saturday, August 28.

So, I'm looking for "place" suggestions in the Chicago area. I was thinking Schaumburg, as that's pretty centrally located, fairly well-known and close to the interstate and 53/290. Does anybody have any suggestions for restaurants? It needs to be someplace that will sort of let us take it over or have a room to rent for a couple of hours. I'm thinking 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Probably appetizers and some kind of drinks. Right now, I'm contemplating Maggiano's, if it's not too expensive. Or, I might move the party to Bloomingdale to Amore Ristorante. It's a small Italian restaurant that does private parties occasionally. I'm also open to any locations (town-wise) you might suggest -- I'm not tied to Bloomingdale or Schaumburg. Send me an email or leave a comment, if you have any ideas. Budget is an issue, so it'll have to be some place relatively reasonable.

That's it for now. Sorry about my gloomy musings the other day. It was a Monday and everyone's entitled to one of those every once in awhile, right?

Talk to you tomorrow!

Another Monday...

Last week at this time, I was on vacation. I think I liked that much better than being at work : )

My thanks to everyone who sent emails to me after reading the first chapter of The Silver Spoon. Anytime I put something out there, whether it's on this site or sending something for publication, I'm always nervous about whether people will like it or not. So those emails you sent really made me feel better!

My postcards and bookmarks should be here sometime this week, just in time for my conference next week. I'm so excited! I saw the bookplate and key chain layout today and they look great too. So, very soon, we'll have some stuff for giveaways/contests. Plus, my publisher is planning to create some Silver Spoon specific merchandise -- tshirts, mugs, that sort of thing.

A question...
Do you think things are meant to be? That if something is destined to happen, it will? Sometimes I get so tired of worrying about screwing things up. I can only do my best, right? Yet, sometimes it really feels like your best isn't good enough, 20/20 hindsight and all that. Course, I do believe that God is watching out for us and keeping a hand in things, so maybe that's my answer.

Just some deep, self-involved pondering for a Monday afternoon...: ) I promise to keep it to a minimum from now on!
Talk to you tomorrow!

Greetings from WI

Actually, we're just back from a week in Wisconsin. Boulder Junction to be exact. It was very relaxing, but a little on the cool side. Jeans weather the entire time we were up there. It was nice to spend time with my whole family and the place where we stay, White Birch Village, is beautiful.

Course, I was still working while on vacation : ) One of the reasons I was busy before leaving -- I bought a new computer, a laptop! An act of desperation and impulse buy before vacation so I could keep working. I was a little nervous about the laptop part of it, having used a desktop for so long. But now I love it!!! I love being able to write anywhere at anytime.

What else?
Let's see. I garnered the opportunity for few more book reviews. I will give you the links as soon as they are posted. I also talked to an independent bookseller in Minnequa, WI about carrying my book. That would be especially cool as part of The Silver Spoon takes place up there. In fact, it was a little surreal to be up there (I haven't been in almost ten years), seeing some of the places where Caelan, Zara, Asha, Thane and Namere were. Kind of like expecting to see them walk around the corner -- yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but you guys are used to that from me by now, right?

I just finished Janet Evanovich's Ten Big Ones, which I found to be even better than the last book in her series. Course, I'm a Ranger fan (Joe's a nice guy, but who could pass Ranger over?) and this book is filled with details about him and his life -- still not enough for my taste but what are you going to do? : ) She has to save some for the next book right? I'm sad that it's finished now -- I devoured it in a couple of hours. Now, I have a whole year to wait for another one.

I'm working preparing materials for my online class. I know I still owe you guys a newsletter and I promise, I'm trying to get there.

That's about it for now. Talk to you on Monday!

First Chapter Online/A little bit of this and a little of that...

Okay, so the big news is that my first chapter is now online for everyone to read. Just click on "My Books", then "Zara Mitchell Series." At the bottom of that page, you'll see a link to Chapter one. I put the link in here, but it might look kind of strange as I believe it will open up in the journal space. But you should still be able to read it. I'll be posting a chapter every month, up to the release date of September 1, 2004.

What else?
-Two fantastic authors have agreed to read my ARC. I'm both excited and nervous to hear what they have to say. I'll keep you posted.

-I've seen the proofs for my postcards and bookmarks -- they look great! My thanks to Su at Earthly Charms for working so hard to meet my July 5 date.

-My friend Ed has a very funny post today about rejected baby names.

-My thanks to everyone who has been so supportive in letting people know about my book and forwarding the link to others -- you guys are wonderful!

That's it for now. As always, feel free to send comments, questions, etc to sklemstein@msn.com. Talk to you tomorrow!

A quick update...

My order is in to Earthly Charms -- yea! So, soon I should have bookmarks, postcards, keychains and bookplates for The Silver Spoon.

Also, while my creative writing class did get cancelled (which totally sucks), I'm working on putting together a class that could be done online, either through email or I might set up another class-specific blog. If anyone is interested or if you know anyone who is interested in creative writing, let me know!

That's it for now. Remember, the first chapter of The Silver Spoon will be posted next Tuesday! Have a great weekend : )

Talk to you on Monday.

Sleep Tight -- A Rennie Harlow Mystery

What follows is one of my entries into the Poem or a Page contest. It's the first page only. Please feel free to send a link to anyone you want to have read it, but please don't take the words from me -- they're all I have *melodramatic sigh* : )

I’d saved the attic for last, like a kid with frosting on a cake. After all, attics are always where people find the good stuff. Old love letters in copperplate handwriting, a complete Civil War uniform, or stacks and stacks of forgotten cash. But by the time I’d worked my way through the bottom two floors of my new home, the old Parkmueller house, my enthusiasm had significantly waned. Treasure hunting, after several months of rooting through rooms of garbage, strongly resembles cleaning up, which is not my best thing. So, by that Thursday afternoon in August, I probably wasn’t as observant as I should have been. But that was before I knew that attics held dark secrets just as well as hidden treasure.

“Explain to me again why we’re doing this on the hottest day of the year.” George Barnes, his face red and sweaty, bent over to catch his breath.

I wiped my dripping face with the hem of my t-shirt. “It’s just a few more feet.”

“Still didn’t answer his question.” Sheryl Dupres stood next to me, panting.

“I found this guy on eBay who was willing to pay for it, okay?” The “it” in question was a huge wooden trunk, about the size of a small coffin. According to the research I’d done online, the trunk appeared to have been made during the early twentieth century in Europe somewhere, then brought over here by its immigrating owner. But the hardware and finish were original, which was apparently a big deal. The trunk was one of the few saleable items I’d uncovered since beginning my excavation here. “I’m trying to get rid of as much of this junk as possible. And if people are willing to pay for it...”

“All right, all right.” Barnes straightened up and shook his head. “You’re lucky you got a gimp arm, kid, or you’d be on your own.”

I grinned at him. “Thanks a lot.” Up until last week, I’d had a cast on my left arm, a little souvenir from my most recent run-in with a slightly crazed killer.

Copyright 2004 Stacey Klemstein

Bitter Pill -- A Rennie Harlow Mystery

What follows is one of my entries into the Poem or a Page contest. It's the first page only. Please feel free to send a link to anyone you want to have read it, but please don't take the words from me -- they're all I have *melodramatic sigh* : )

Don’t misunderstand, it’s not like I enjoyed having this happen to me. I guess it’s just some kind of bizarre twist of fate, or maybe a sixth sense that only kicks in when murder is afoot. It’s not like I wanted to find the high school swim coach floating face down in the deep end, any more than I wanted to find the assistant librarian hanging from the rafters in the library attic with a stack of true crime books kicked over beneath her.

It’s just that whenever bodies started floating, swinging or, in this case, dropping, I happened to be there. Bad luck, maybe. But still, worse luck for them than for me. And this time, it was some very poor fortune for Doc Hallacy, the pharmacist.

Doc’s shop, a squat, brick building with a striking orange and blue RX sign above the front door, sat on the corner of Main and First. On a Friday morning, at five minutes to eight, the main thoroughfare of Morrisville was deserted. Most of the stores didn’t open until nine. So unless you needed Doc Hallacy, who opened promptly at eight as he had for more than 40 years, you had no business on Main at that time of day.

I parked my silver Lexus in one of the diagonal spots in front of the pharmacy. The Lexus was one of the toys my ex-husband had purchased before deciding he was too young to settle down, four years into our marriage. But I’d fought for and won the car in my settlement, and I took great pride in abusing it in his stead.

As I climbed out and slammed the door shut, Starbucks Morning Blend slopped over the edge of my travel mug and splattered on the side window, burning my fingers in the process. But the pain was worth it. I grinned, imagining Jeff’s expression of horror, as I watched the coffee trickle down the car door, creating clean streaks. I hadn’t washed the car in more than a year, not since I’d moved home to Morrisville from Chicago.

With a deep sigh of satisfaction, I stepped over the curb and headed to Doc Hallacy’s.

Copyright 2004 Stacey Klemstein

Backstory Blahs

I hate writing backstory. Actually, that's not true. I hate trying to figure out if it needs to be in the story or not. I love writing it. And I do it almost unconsciously, even though I know a little goes a long way. And yet inevitably, it always worms its way into my supposed to be action-packed first pages. Backstory, as probably most of you know, are the details about a character or place that help you understand the past and understand the context of what's happening now.

Here's an example...
I parked my silver Lexus in one of the diagonal spots in front of the pharmacy. The Lexus was one of the toys my ex-husband had purchased before deciding he was too young to settle down, four years into our marriage. But I'd fought for and won the car in my settlement, and I took great pride in abusing it in his stead.

This little bit of history (which is from Bitter Pill, the first book of the Rennie Harlow series) tells you that Rennie, the main character, is divorced and rather bitter about the situation and her ex-husband. You can also tell that they are or were wealthy enough to afford a Lexus. It also gives you a little glimpse of the ex-husband's character from her perspective.

But what I'm finding is that as I write books in a series, the amount of backstory keeps climbing. So much so that as I work on my current project, I get frustrated because it feels like every other paragraph is backstory. Somebody says, xyz. And in order for readers to understand and/or remember events in a previous book, you have to explain why what they said was important. But it dramatically slows down the pace of the story and it doesn't take much backstory to turn into too much. We've all read books like that where the main characters meet in a train station or something and we not only learn about the characters from birth to this point but also about the development of the train station, which may or may not even be relevant, before we get to any action. Boring!

So, I've been trying to write without putting any backstory in because I don't need it and I can always go back later and add it in, only where it's needed. That worked for about the first chapter, now it's creeping back in again!!! It feels like I need it there. So, I'm trying to decide now, do I mess with trying to remove all that stuff now or do I just keep moving forward, knowing that I'll have to cut a bunch of it out later? Plus, I'm trying to remember what I've read about backstory. You do need some in there to understand what's happening and to generate some kind of emotional connection between the readers and the main characters. Otherwise, there's no depth whatsoever. That's another thing I'm worried about...take out too much and this thing will be about as deep the snow in Florida.

All right, so I think I've got to keep moving forward and go back and remove whatever I don't need at the end. Because right now, I don't know if I can tell what I do or don't need yet. Plus, I don't want to get hung up on trying to perfect the first few chapters.

This is the point where I always try to remember Anne Lamott's advice -- allow yourself to make mistakes. Write a sh#tty first draft. Then clean it up. Sometimes if you don't make those mistakes, you miss something in the process.

______________
In other news...
-I'm getting ready to submit my order to Earthly Charms. I'm ordering postcards, bookmarks, keychains and bookplates. Woohoo! I'm so excited. : )

-And I submitted my two contest entries to the Poem or Page Contest. I may try to post them here in my journal, so you can have a look and see what you think. I'm actually kind of proud that I submitted them two days in advance of the deadline. Last year, I was running to the post office from work to get the envelope postmarked in time!

Talk to you later!

Tell your friends, family, co-workers, strangers on the street...A free sample of The Silver Spoon available here!

On June 15 (provided my technology works right), I'll be posting the first chapter of The Silver Spoon here on this site. I'll post a new chapter every month on the 15th, until The Silver Spoon is released on September 1. So, this is a great opportunity to check out the first three chapters of the book...for free! And please, spread the word around to anyone you know who might be interested in taking a look. New books and new authors rely heavily on word of mouth -- so if you like what you read, tell a couple of other people about it : )

Talk to you tomorrow. Chapter 1 to be posted in one week!

House update/author blurbs/writing contest

Things are better with the new house, for those who are wondering! We have survived the first few days, which included a variety of plumbers trooping in and out of the house. And I really like my new room. You guys were right -- I just needed to relax and trust my instinct. Especially because the guy's house next door is a monster and blocks out any kind of a view from the other room I was considering.

On the book front, I'm working now on requesting author blurbs. It's both scary and fun. I admire all of these people that I'm writing to, so it's fun to hear from them, but also terrifying to face the possibility that they may say no. I'm also preparing my order for Earthly Charms, a vendor that creates promotional items. Right now, I'm planning to order bookmarks, postcards and key chains, all of them with the very cool cover that Gina designed for me.


Also, this week, my entries for the Poem or Page contest are due. As you guys probably already know, I'm attending the University of Madison-Wisconsin's Writers Institute in July. Every year they offer a contest where you can send in the first page of a novel, short story, essay, poem, screen play. I love this contest because unlike so many others, it's not geared just for short stories. And the first page idea is terrific because really readers (and editors and agents) form a lot of judgements about your work from the first page, like whether they want to continue or not. Two years ago, the first page of The Silver Spoon won third place. It was my very first time submitting anything to anywhere. I was thrilled! More importantly, it gave me the little boost of confidence I needed to keep going with The Silver Spoon. I think this year, I'm going to submit the first page of Bitter Pill and Sleep Tight, the first two books in the Rennie Harlow series. I don't feel I have anything else close enough to finished to do more. For anyone out there thinking of submitting to a contest, I highly encourage it. It's like getting your feet wet before you send out to a publisher or agent. And yep, you're not going to win sometimes. I've definitely lost more times than I've won, but I usually learn something in the process!

Kind of sucky news...only two people have signed up for my creative writing class at the Bloomingdale Park District. I need two more by the start of class or they'll cancel it : ( But if they do, I'm considering trying to run a class online, through email and such. If anyone is interested in that, let me know!

Stay tuned later today -- something really cool is headed your way (well, it will be on this site and if you come to this site...you get the idea) on June 15.

Talk to you later!

Slow, deep breaths...

Okay, so things are calming down a little. Thanks to Stacy G. and Deb for your reassuring comments the other day. I'm liking the new room at home and I'm working on getting used to it. What's odd is that I'm finding how much not working threw off my routine. Not that I miss working. Oh no. About five minutes in this place and you begin to wonder if you've taken a wrong turn and ended up at an asylum for the criminally insane where the dress code just happens to be dockers and golf shirts instead of straitjackets and hospital gowns that open in the back (in case you're wondering, I am writing this at work, after hours, so it's not my house that's the asylum, but work.) But it provides a strangely comforting rhythym to life. I know that I'd get used to a new rhythym, one without my day job, pretty easily (oh, yeah, baby, someday!)

This is also a weird stage for me because I'm starting off on a new project, and I'm doing promotion stuff for the first one. Kind of like standing with one foot in the water and one foot on shore. (Not my most original simile, I'll grant you, but I'm tired. It's the end of the day). I do have the official ARC, which means be on the lookout for contests and giveaways coming soon. You too could win your very own copy of The Silver Spoon, autographed and everything, before it's available to the general public. Stay tuned for details...

It's also kind of weird because I'm looking at the ARC The Silver Spoon and part of me is freaking out, thinking, what if I can't write something that is liked this well next time? And the other part of me is thinking, okay, I like this book, I'm proud of it, but I think I can do some things better. I've learned some stuff since then. And really, I know what it comes down to is just telling the story, telling the truth. Getting the words on the page and it is what it is. That's all I can do, that's all anyone can do. In the meantime, I just need to keep working.

All right. It's time for me to battle the traffic home. What's strange is that I'm no longer traveling the roads that I've traveled for about seven years. I used to live in the area where I now work (I moved a few months before I changed jobs, dumb huh?) and even before that I used to drive up here to see my husband before we were married. Now, I don't even see those roads anymore. Hmmm... Can you tell I am terrified of and fascinated with change? That's my new theory. Probably one that every psychiatrist from here to L.A. touts. What scares us also fascinates us. I realized a few weeks ago that that's actually kind of a major theme in The Silver Spoon. Zara, the main character, is afraid of the aliens just as much as she is intrigued by them.

What both scares and fascinates you? For me, it's dead birds. Gross, right? But they totally freak me out. Like I can't breathe, can't be anywhere near one. And yet, some part of me always wants to look. To marvel at the grossness of it and the chills spreading across my skin. Actually, I'm pretty much afraid of all birds. It's a genuine phobia, passed down from my mom. Nothing has ever happened to me to make me afraid of them, but I can't stand them nonetheless. Can't even walk down that aisle in the pet store...

I've rambled long enough...talk to you tomorrow!