My Very First Book Signing: The Prequel

This Saturday, 1-3 pm at Ukazoo Books in Towson, MD, I have a book signing for both The

Politician’s Pawn and Not So Human.

I’ve never done one of these before, so it’ll certainly be a learning experience.

I already shared my experience with someone else’s book signing… the one where he approached me with a pretentious “Hello. I’m an author.” Clearly, I won’t be taking that tack.

The problem is I’m not sure what tack is appropriate.

I know that, when I’m shopping, I hate to be bothered. Store clerks – and I’ve been one myself, so this isn’t a matter of being snobbish – can say “hello” and welcome me in, but anything more and I feel like they’re wasting my time with their sales pitches.

I can read the humongous signs in the windows proclaiming the buy-17-get-0.03%-off-a-purchase-less-than-$2 (BSGZOAPLTT) sale going on, thank them very much. I don’t need anyone pointing it out again. My contacts work just fine.

And when it comes to book buying in particular, I would much rather have room to look at the front cover, read the jacket description and flip the work open to make up my own mind.

People who gush about how absolutely wonderful their books are sound disingenuous. Of course they’re going to say their book rocks! They wrote it and they’re trying to make a sale.

So, again… not sure how I’m going to approach this.

I already know I’ll be situated in Ukazoo’s biggest room. So I’m thinking of simply asking people who walk in what their favorite genre is and letting them take the lead from there. If they want to chit-chat, awesome! If not, then I’ll leave them unaccosted.

Maybe I’ll even read one of my own books while they browse.

If anybody has a better suggestion, I’m all ears. Leave a note in the comments section!

My Trip Back to Abigail’s Time

I heard the Declaration of Independence read in the streets yesterday.

It was proclaimed in a loud voice that:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The town’s crier went on to read that “all men are created equal;” that governments are meant to serve the people and to get their power from the people they serve, not vice versa; and that whenever a government grossly forgets its place, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” and to create a new one.

The Declaration was greeted with a lot of “Huzzahs!” though there was some definite skepticism and even disgust expressed among the crowd of listeners.

Some people didn’t think the effort necessary. Others believed the king was in the right; to say otherwise, they snipped, was absurd and offensive. And while I didn’t take any polls, chances are that a majority of those assembled were sunshine patriots who would slink away or shut up as soon as it became too difficult.

Yes, they recognized they were being treated unjustly, but they didn’t want to suffer any further than they absolutely had to, and so they would submit to whoever they needed to. They just required a reminder or two that they actually belonged with the first group of people in the crowd: the ones who thought freedom was too much of a bother.

I sat on a modern bench in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, taking all of that in. It begs the question of what my historical fiction heroine Abigail Carpenter first felt on hearing those words up in Princeton, New Jersey.

That’s not detailed in Maiden America. I actually never considered whether she cheered the news with every ounce of her being, or whether she felt an immediate fear at the thought of breaking free from everything familiar and of what she would have to sacrifice to do so.

Perhaps I’ll touch on that in Designing America, which I hope to officially start writing next month. Yes, that story takes place years after the war began and The United States was declared its own country, but Abigail must have thought about it all the same.

Perhaps she even doubted the cause of liberty a time or two.

I mean, as history shows, The Declaration of Independence was well worth the effort. True freedom always is. It’s just that, sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

You Know You Want to Tell That Story…

If my blog readers haven’t figured out yet, I LOVE to write. I think it’s one of the most worthwhile hobbies out there, and most days I would happily shut myself into a room, ignore the world at large and just work on one of my stories.

Sometimes I have to force myself to hang out with friends (and I definitely have to force myself to go to work) instead of sit at my laptop, constructing new plot points for characters to navigate.

When it comes down to it, I suppose I’m a functioning addict. In my defense though, out of all the addictions to have, this is a pretty safe one. Consider:

·         Sure, I had to pay for my laptop and then there’s my electricity bill to keep it running, but other than that, I don’t have to spend anything to let my imagination fly. Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and gambling require a lot more financial backing than that.

·         It entails me sitting safely on my couch, where I can’t be struck by cars or attacked by psychos, both of which would otherwise be strong possibilities since I live in Baltimore.

·         It could eventually pay off quite nicely.

Does that sounds like a logical rationale for becoming a writing addict? Are you curious about the lifestyle? Maybe even tempted to try it?

Editor’s Note: I’m officially cutting myself off now. I could continue the addiction analogy, but then that would make me a dealer. And you can get into a lot of trouble as a dealer. I mean, the cops and the rival drug lords alone! I just don’t have time for that drama. So let’s reroute…

The truth is everyone has a story to tell, including you. And it’s up to you to tell it.

That’s not a guilt trip to make you write. There are so many other ways to tell a story than through the pages of a book: dancing it out on a hardwood floor or brushing it onto a canvas or playing it as a song or constructing it into a building.

But for those of you who think you’d like to express a more literal narrative, there’s Innovative Editing, my all-inclusive editorial service for authors-in-the-making. I’ve helped writers:

·         Organize their thoughts into workable book ideas

·         Fight through writer’s block and distractions

·         Sort through problematic parts

·         Rearrange segments to make for better transitions or more logical conclusions

I’m good at it too, in large part because I’ve had to work through those issues myself. I know how exciting and terrifying and frustrating and inspiring the literary process can be.

I also know I’ve found it 100% worthwhile, and I’d love to help you discover the same.

Shoot me an email at JDiLouie@InnovativeEditing.com, or check out my website at www.InnovativeEditing.com.

Either way, I look forward to hearing your story!

Writer’s Block Is Like Being in a Bad Relationship

I saw a meme the other day that read: “Writer’s Block… When your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.”

From one perspective, that’s highly entertaining. But it’s also depressing considering how true it is.

It’s akin to being thirteen years old (which is, incidentally, creative writers’ average maturity level) and you have this like, OMG, so cool friend.

You two are tight. You’re BFFs. And you have been for like a whole totes awesome month.

You take this as a sign you’ll be BFFs for like infinity. Times infinity. To the infinityeth power.

Obvi.

I mean, you do, like, everything together. You go on the coolest adventures and talk about boys and how nobody understands you and how someday, you’re going to do something totes awesome.

(Don’t judge the repetition. Thirteen-year-olds don’t utilize very extensive vocabulary.)

Anywho, one day, without like any warning, your supposed BFF ditches you. She won’t return your texts or reply to your Snapchat pix. She’s not even tweeting today!

It’s like she hates you. Or like she was kidnapped. Or maybe even dead! Maybe you’ll never see her again!! This is cray cray!!! You’re freaking out!!!!

Until, a day or a week or maybe even a month later, she texts you again: U wanna gt 2gether?

You’re furious at her. She’s a total monster. How could she do this to you!

But you guys are like BFFs, and you’re just so happy she’s not dead. So instead of telling her to step like you know you should, you text back: totes mcgotes! J

That’s what it’s like going through writer’s block.

Worse yet, there’s no warning when she’ll desert you next. She’s totally fickle. And you’re totally pathetic, because no matter how many times she runs away, leaving you empty-handed and empty-headed… you’ll always go crawling back just as soon as she calls.

She’s just too much fun not to play with. When she actually sticks around.

The French Thought WHAT About Philadelphia Women?

I’m almost done conducting my research for Maiden America II: Designing America, and it’s been just as fascinating as my previous expedition into early U.S. history. Here’s a few of the more interesting tidbits, which may or may not make it into the story:

·         Some of the French wondered whether Philadelphia women were lesbians, since they had an “odd” tendency to visit female friends for days at a time.

·         According to one New England patriot who served almost the entire length of the war and therefore saw just about every state, the prettiest girls in the U.S. were those found in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

·         After the French openly declared war on Great Britain (it had been secretly giving the States funding before), it went about taking everything it could from its rival. In fact, the only thing that saved the island nation from direct attack was bad weather.

·         With that said, most the British and Americans over in the U.S. agreed that the weather was on the locals’ side.

·         Most American soldiers were never really compensated for their efforts. At the end of the war, they were discharged with practically worthless paper notes for three months’ pay and permission to keep their guns. That was it.

·         Legend has it that bayonets were first used in seventeenth-century Spain (today’s Bayonne, France) after a desperate soldier out of ammunition jammed his knife into his musket’s muzzle for the hand-to-hand fighting he knew was coming. A hundred or so years later, the British were using the weapon to full advantage, sending many an American troop running for safety to avoid being impaled.

·         The British navy wasn’t quite so daring as its army, with Admiral Thomas Graves avoiding fights at all cost. His laziness played a huge part in the American’s victory at Yorktown.

·         Another huge part in why that siege played out how it did was because of poor communication and bickering among the military leaders.

·         American women were quite the feisty little things back then. Joseph Plumb Martin recorded how he and his fellow soldiers would try to commandeer horses from the locals, but were often thwarted by young ladies who would steal the horses back, taunt the men for not properly intimidating them into submission, and then invite them over for dinner just as nice as you please.

·         The soldiers did more starving then fighting.

·         James Armistead Lafayette was an American slave who spied on the British, even though they would have liberated him in a heartbeat for deserting his master.

·         During almost the entirety of the war, New York City was filled with Tories entertaining the enemy.

That’s just a smidgen of what I’ve learned. I still have one and a half research books to get through, plus my trip to Colonial Williamsburg at the end of the month. After that, it’s time to put all of this intriguing information into America and Abigail Carpenter’s continuing saga.

Can’t wait! 'Cause let me tell you... This is gonna be good.

Off The Beaten Path

I’ve mentioned a few times now that I’m working on the fourth installment of my Faerietales series. I actually finished editing the first draft a week ago and plan on going over it again shortly.

Believe me, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

But while I was still in the process of writing this masterpiece in the making, I read two other fantasy books, one by Jim Butcher and one by Seanan McGuire, both of whom are experts in their craft. Butcher pretty much owns the genre at this point, and while McGuire is more up-and-coming comparatively speaking, she’s still phenomenal.

Now, they’re both purists in their writing. By that, I mean they stick with all the “ancient texts.” I swear they went to school to study mythology before they ever dreamt about writing their respective series, The Dresden Files and October Daye. So in their worlds, faeries include a wide range of critters of varying shapes and sizes, from the beautiful to the terrifying, with an equally diverse assortment of magical powers.

In fact, Butcher and McGuire both covered the same exact myth recently: The Wild Hunt.

That’d be one of the terrifying ones. But so cool! (I’m not going to describe it myself, but here’s the Wikipedia article if you’re curious.)

The thing is, reading their accounts proved to be a blatant reminder of how far off the beaten path I’ve taken my own stories. In my fantasy world, faeries are all humanoid, all have wings and aren’t magical. If they want to maintain their anonymity around clueless humans, they do so through scientific means, not spells or pixie dust.

In main character Sabrina’s case, I like it that way. I meant it that way. Yet still, sometimes I have to wonder…

So far, most of the people I know of who’ve read the Faerietales books aren’t die-hard fantasy fans, and so I didn’t have to worry about offending any of them with the license that I took.

But I’m really curious to see what the typical Jim Butcher or Seanan McGuire fan would think after picking up a Jeannette DiLouie novel. Will they love my fantastical twists or hate them?

Who knows… Maybe I’ll find out after my book signing on October 3.

Every Writer Needs One of These Exasperating People in Their Life

This year, I read two young adult, post-apocalyptic novels that had me appreciating my editor.

The first one, I won’t name since I have nothing good to say about it. Well, maybe one good thing to say: It had a creative premise. But other than that, I was severely less than impressed.

The main character was uninspiring, the other characters were un-compelling and the writing style was lackluster at best. I found myself mentally and emotionally disengaged almost from Page 1, and the ending made no sense whatsoever. Despite its supposed cliff-hanger finish, I won’t be wasting my money on either of the sequels.

Then there was Powerless, which I loved! I couldn’t put it down, and I don’t care how much money I have to spend to buy the next one. When it comes out. Next year.

[Stage Direction: Insert despondent sobbing.]

In the end, I, as a reader, was so taken with the premise and the characters and the beginning and the middle and the ending… and… and… and… Okay, you get the point. I was captivated by this book. I’d recommend it to anyone. In fact, I already have a few times over.

However, as a writer, I did notice how there were some issues that should have been caught before the publishing date. Emotions swung too far and too often, random plot points were brought up that were never resolved, and I believe there were a few typos too.

Which is why I have to hand it to my amazing, beautiful, talented, pain-in-the-neck editor of an older sister, Christina, who catches stuff like that for me, including…

·         An embarrassing amount of adverbs. Sometimes 20 or more per page. I scoffed at her when she pointed out how many “ly” words I was using… and then I realized she was right and did something about it, which turned my stories into much smoother reads.

·         A “whiny” main character whose emotions jumped around too much. I snipped at Christina when she called me out on it… but I ended up applying her advice anyway, ensuring my audience would want to cheer my protagonist on instead of shut her up.

·         A bad tendency to get too far inside my characters’ heads, where I fixate on their mental processes instead of their larger journey. I threw a little temper tantrum about that one too, but guess what? She was right on that one as well.

It’s sooooo annoying how often her advice proves accurate and necessary.

That’s why I have to say, if you find any errors in my stories, it’s because I tried tinkering with them AFTER Christina handed them back to me.

I take full blame. Except for being exasperating. That’s all on her.

P.S. Love you, Christina! You’re the best.

Heroes vs. Antiheroes: Are Traditional Good Guys Old Hat?

Back in June, I read an aspiring novelist’s blog post about heroes vs. antiheroes.

Stereotypical heroes would be Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America), the all-American good boy who stands up for justice time and time again, even when it hurts like crazy.

Stereotypical anti-heroes? How about we go with Roxie Hart from Chicago, the narcissist who cheats on her doting husband, murders her lover, and then successfully scams the legal system to go on to fame and fortune.

Personally, I’d watch Captain America over Chicago any day. Overall, I prefer my protagonists to fight on the good side.

Not so much with the AN (aspiring novelist) in question. His premise was that antiheroes are more realistic, intriguing and even desirable in a protagonist… that society is bored of the “Dudley Do-Rights,” hence the massive popularity of shows like House of Cards and Breaking Bad, and video games like Grand Theft Auto.

Now, I watched the entire first season of House of Cards and some of the second season. I thought it was well-written, well-acted and downright fascinating, an opinion shared by millions. And yes, protagonist Frank Underwood is anything but a hero.

However, that’s one show out of hundreds, most of which still have you rooting for the good guys. Consider the wildly popular Law & Order franchise or almost any other crime show out there (and there are A LOT!), or fantasy/sci-fi-based series like Grimm and Agents of Shield.

Audiences root for the good guys in those, not the bad guys. That’s the norm.

Yes, the good guys are flawed. They wouldn’t make good stories otherwise. (Sometimes I marvel – Marvel! Ha! Totally didn’t intend that pun, but I’m keeping it in now – at how Steve Rogers, who comes about as close to moral perfection as a hero can get, can make for such compelling plotlines. Yet he does, so clearly it’s possible.)

But in the end, they’re still good guys. They still stand up against evil, not propagate it. They defend the defenseless, not their own selfish advances. They make the world a better place, which is what audiences everywhere should be rooting for.

Otherwise, we’re cheering mediocrity at best and evil at worst.

So no offense to the aforementioned AN, but he’s wrong. The traditional concept of a hero isn’t dead.

And it’s going to be a sad day when it is.

An Arrogant Writers’ Moment I Really Hope to Never Duplicate

I realize I haven’t been particularly nice to my fellow writers these last few weeks.

I blame them completely for this bit of unpleasantness. If they would stop being so obnoxious, I would stop complaining about them. Yet they keep giving me reason to gripe.

Maybe that’s because, collectively speaking, we writers take ourselves way too seriously.

I’ll be the first person to say that authoring a book is awesome. It’s creating life, after all!

But like mad scientists, we too often get arrogant about that wondrous ability. Which makes for downright embarrassing results when people realize we’re not nearly as amazing as we think we are.

I recently ran into an example of this at a local Barnes & Noble, where I was greeted by a well-dressed man with a salesman’s smile and a premeditated opening line of, “Hi. I’m an author.”

His words and tone indicated his opinion that I should automatically be impressed by this fact.

Not trying to be a jerk here, but anyone can write anything and get published these days, either through self-publishing (Ta-da! Jeannette DiLouie) or connections. So he might as well have said “Hi. I’m a Bob Evans’ employee” or “Hi. I work at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire.”

I’ve gotten paychecks from both places. There’s little to no talent necessary.

Now, I have no direct idea whether this particular author’s novel was worthwhile or not. I didn’t buy it and don’t plan to. All I know is what I heard from him and then read online on Amazon, where I found four reviews.

Considering the glowing terminology in three of them, I have to assume they were from friends and family. But the fourth can be summed up as “meh.” Though the reviewer gave the story three stars, he called the plot and characters unoriginal, basically defining the latter as “stereotypical” and the former as “predictable.”

Hardly a reason to get a big head, right? Yet even if he was the next Charles Dickens or Mary Shelley or Harriet Beecher Stowe (historical authors I greatly respect. And I don’t respect many), he still wouldn’t have any reason to walk around with his nose in the air.

There’s no excuse to be so full of yourself. Ever.

On the plus side, I now know how I’m going to greet people at my very first book signing, coming up at Ukazoo Books in Towson on Saturday, October 3 (1:00-3:00 pm)…

Pretty much anyway but “Hi. I’m an author.”