Of course they're wonderful in the way that used-clothing stores, tag sales, and recycling in general are wonderful: We're saving the planet, saving resources instead of throwing out the old and chopping down trees or digging up minerals to make new stuff, and saving money. Plus, we're discovering hidden gems rather than following the newest ads.

BUT -- Please remember the authors like me: When you buy a used book instead of a new one, you are taking away our income. So....please try to buy a new book (from an indie local bookstore, written by an unknown author) now and then. Thank you.

Thank you for telling me about that letter. It still leaves me with the basic question: Why publish the letters at all? I understand that if you're as famous as TS Eliot, you assume that every little thing you ever wrote will be fascinating to biographers and literary scholars, and I suppose he's right, but it just strikes me that at some point this becomes more egotistical and less useful to historians. Oh, I'm just being cranky!

Thanks for pointing out these other types of letters. If the letters are a literary outlet, I wonder how often the authors specify that their publication must be delayed for decades? When letters are used as a device within a book -- such as for an epistolary novel -- that's a very different matter, of course.

I'm trying to figure out the psychology of someone who wants personal letters made public... eventually. Is the person protecting the privacy of the other recipients and senders of the letters? In that case, why ever make them public? More likely, is it ultra-egoism and a need to control? (C'mon, do you really think the famous people are preserving the letters for History?)

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is in a class by itself -- is it unique among all detective mysteries? It was certainly a game-changer.

Or the way you put the book down and drag out the last pages, to keep it from ending? With some books, like Jennifer Coburn's new historical novel "Cradles of the Reich," I continue the story in my mind, spinning sequels and alternate endings.

I have never paid attention to either Goodreads or Amazon "recommendations." When I do catch a glance, they seem to be best-sellers or genre books that are completely irrelevant to me -- and probably 99% identical to what pops up on everyone's feed. (Or else they're books that I've already searched on my own initiative.) The real question for me is: How do I get nt own books "recommended"? LOL

Thanks for all your questions. Enjoy your writing!

Fran

I'm glad you love your story and have felt inspired in writing parts of it. But you can't wait to be inspired for the rest of it.

I have my more-favorite and less-loved scenes and chapters, of course, and I understand that not every chapter will gallop for you. But are you sure that the slower ones actually need "trashy filler"? Okay, you need to take a break between brilliant Chapter 8 and brilliant Chapter 10 to give your hero a moment to pull all the clues together (and your reader a moment to catch her breath), or to move from CA to Chi. But maybe you can take care of that necessary plot movement in just a couple of sharp pages. How much of the "filler" content is truly necessary?

So that's some advice to get started. I hope it helps.

On the first draft, I tell myself: "Just get something on paper (or screen), no matter how terrible. You can always revise it later." I think a lot of writers follow this same tactic. That first draft is so hard!! Remind yourself that revising will be easier.

I hope this helps. Thanks for joining my AMA.

Yup -- and I may be the wrong person to ask. My novels go through 12 to 18 revisions. (Truly.) In part, that's because I physically FEEL a badly worded phrase; I will search and rewrite and twist a sentence around to avoid having two sentences within a page use the same adverb, for instance. So how do I know when to stop? When I can't stand reading the ms. any more. When a teacher, agent or editor says it's good. When I've reached the deadline when the galleys are due...

Yes, that's what I figured. And really, it's like the small-p politics of any ethical business -- how can they make the most money turning out products they won't be completely ashamed of.

Glad if I can help another writer

I'm glad if my idea helps. (Be warned that you may need more colors than you expected.)

Hi all -- I'm done for now, but I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for all your comments. Fran

Some fiction-writers say they begin with an image: A girl in a yellow dress sitting on a boulder. Or a brief incident they encounter: An argument in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Then they ask themselves questions about who, what, why: Why is that girl sitting there? What is the relationship between the two people arguing?

In my case, I typically begin with a what-if -- a very short thread of a plot. What if someone was engaged to be married, and she'd never told her fiance about something bad in her past, and then she learned that he was going to find out... In fact, a key aspect of that thread eventually got altered as I outlined my newest novel, but the basic setup remained. From there, I plot out a very detailed outline. Most of the details just come to me as I write. And the finished product? I'd say only about 20% is true to the original outline!

My other major piece of advice is: Take a writing class. I've learned so much from other people, both the teachers and the other writing students.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your writing.

I love the freedom of fiction! In journalism you can't put snappy, snazzy words into people's mouths; in fiction, you can-- and must. (Of course, often the characters in my novels will say something I never planned.) In journalism, most of my articles were limited to a tight 2000 to 3000 words at best; in fiction -- wow, 80,000? 100,000? I've been trained well enough as a journalist that I do ridiculous amounts of research to get the facts and details right, but still, if my character really needs to be working on a laptop at her mother's house in January 2003 to search for her long-lost friend in Israel, she can. (Strictly speaking, her mother -- a Luddite-ish social worker -- would've been unlikely to own a laptop then.)

Of course, journalism has one big advantage: You don't have to invent characters or plot. You take the facts and just try to organize them and retell them in an interesting way.

I hope this helps. Thanks for being part of my AMA.

A detailed outline, plus the Search function! My outlines are so detailed that they're color-coded. (Okay, this is slightly embarrassing.) For instance, in the outline for my newest novel "I Meant to Tell You," any subplot involving the protagonist Miranda's strained history with her future father-in-law is highlighted in red in the chapters that reference it. The subplot about Miranda's effort to expand her job is in blue in those chapters.... and on and on. So when the characters go off on their own and rip up my original outline (as they always do), it's easy to find the places that need changing.

I hope this helps. Thanks for being part of this AMA.

It was definitely hard at first. I had to learn to loosen up, to do all the things we were specifically told not to do in journalism, such as reveal opinions and personality. (And I still haven't shaken all those old habits. For instance, I still write too tight, as though I had to fit an entire novel into 2000 words!) I wonder if you could try an in-between route, like long-form magazine or nonfiction book writing? I was lucky that I did a lot of that sort of journalism, where there's room for multisensory descriptions and describing people's clothing, accents, and backgrounds.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your writing.

Sorry, no.

There are writers with a set schedule (they write from 8 am to noon, or whatever), but I'm not one of them. Life sets its own schedule! Maybe today my friend will need my help, or a cousin will show up unexpectedly from out of town; I have one class on Wed, another on Thurs, and I volunteer at the museum on Fri... On the other hand, I've tried setting word-count goals, and I find that's a great motivation. I can't stop today until I've written 3000 words-- even if I delete 2500 of them tomorrow.

I hope this helps. Thanks for joining the AMA.

I've had two novels published (so far! working on Number 3), and both were inspired by family stories, in different ways. However, a political issue that I covered as a journalist plays an important role in a subplot in the newest, "I Meant to Tell You." (The novel's protagonist works for a think-tank in Washington DC that specializes in healthcare, and her big project involves the cost of prescription drugs.) I did that deliberately; why not take advantage of my knowledge and some of my actual interviews?

I hope this helps. Thanks for joining my AMA conversation.

Of course she has to encourage herself, but maybe you could help -- for instance, offering to do more household chores? (Of course I have no idea how you two already divide the workload.) You could ask why she keeps stopping.

Hmm, I replied but it doesn't seem to have registered. I'll try again:

I ended up happily getting both my novels (so far) published by a small university press that doesn't require an agent. There are, fortunately, a slew of small traditional presses like that.

Outline outline outline! I know that a lot of novelists don't use them, but my novels would wander hopelessly out of control if I didn't start with a detailed outline-- for the first draft. Along the way, wonderfully, the characters and plot take on lives of their own and discover trails (and new characters) I hadn't envisioned. So I just add them to my outline. So I guess I'm saying I need a combination of structure and flexibility. (Maybe like making a marriage or relationship work???)

I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.