Perspective Positions

By
Thomasnovels

I know you know that old scene. As soon as I describe it, you’ll see it in your mind’s eye and will know exactly what I’m talking about. Picture a guy on the phone, talking to a sex line operator who’s getting him all hot and bothered with nothing more than softly spoken words (or barking out orders, depending on his preference). (Why do we say bothered? No orgasm has ever bothered me. “Excuse me, Miss, I hate to bother you.” “Oh no bother, go right ahead.”) You just know that when the scene shifts, she’ll be a fat, middle-age woman in curlers and a nightgown instead of the nubile vixen he’s picturing in his head. Sometimes that’s how I feel. I’m a fat, middle-aged woman (sans curlers and nightgown) operating the keyboard to produce the same effect in readers with written words.

Words create pictures in our heads. I’ll prove it. Think of some of the profiles you’ve read on those dating websites. (Be honest. I know you’ve looked.)

Male - “Hi. I enjoy long walks on the beach, road trips and cooking romantic dinners for us to share in front of the fire.”

Female – “Hello. I love cuddling on the couch, candle lit nights, hitting the flea markets and am family oriented.”

Feeling pretty good about these two people? Picturing those romantic evenings? Here’s another perspective of the same profiles.

Male – Long walks on the beach means he wants to go fishing. Road trip translates into his elderly parents live out of town and he has to go cut their grass and take them grocery shopping on weekends. Cooking and dinner in front of the fire is trickier. Could denote a pass through McDonald’s drive-thru before going tent camping or he sets the smoke detector off every time he walks in the kitchen and calls the fire chief by his first name.

Female – Cuddling on the couch means she works two jobs and passes out as soon as she sits down. Candle lit nights indicates she’s trying to save on the electric bill. Shopping at flea markets could mean fun or signal money problems. Family oriented translates into her adult children still live at home with her or she has a herd of little ones and she’s looking for a replace daddy.

(Cynical, aren’t I?) The point of all of this is when we read or hear words, our mind attaches our own pictures from our own experiences (or fantasies) to their meaning. So when I read a book and you read the same book, it’s not really the same book at all even though the words don’t change on the page. We are picturing the scenes from our own perspectives.

When I read something from the late 19th or the early 20th centuries, there’s so much descriptive detail in there, I find myself wanting to skip ahead just to get back to the story. (No comments, please. I love those books just like the rest of the devoted readership.) Paragraph upon paragraph of details right down to the last leaf hanging on the tree. (And of course, there was no sex back then.) Maybe pre-television readers didn’t have as many pictures as we have floating around in their neuron networks. I know a few commercials I wish I could flush out of my head.

When I write a sex scene what I’m picturing and writing is not what you’re reading and seeing. “Her dress slipped to the floor exposing her braless, bare breasts” or “She yanked his belt open and lowered his zipper so fast, he suffered a moment of fear before she freed his penis and took him in hand”. See? I didn’t have to tell you where they are at, what time of day it is, what color their clothes are, what the circumstances are or what size their body parts are. Your mind did that for me (and you). And just like with the sex line operator, you didn’t picture me (jeans and tee) sitting here (dark dusty apartment, laptop glowing screen) thinking the pictures, forming the words, pushing the keys and controlling your libido through the Internet.

Autograph Advice

By
Thomasnovels

Come on. Admit it. You cannot wait for someone to ask you for your autograph. Your heart twitters (no, not tweets) at the thought. And trust me you’re right. It’s even better than your first-time at sex. When first-time sex happens, you’re all scared and tense and sometimes it’s even unexpected. (What, this person really wants to see me naked?) But you have fantasized over and over about signing your first autograph and I’m betting you’ve even added flashes from the paparazzi in the background. (Reality check – writer not film star.)

My funniest autograph request came when a mother trailing two pre-teen girls approached me at a book signing. I wondered if mom was buying a racy romance for herself or if she was going to buy a book for one of the girls, I would have to confess my novels need a warning label (ah … you know there’s sex in there, right?). She said they didn’t want to buy a book but the giggling girls had never met anyone famous and wanted my autograph. I have to admit it took me three heartbeats to realize they were talking about me. I signed the back of a promotional bookmark for them.

This is going too sound simplistic, but test out your pens. You don’t want the ink seeping through onto the next page and take several incase one of them gives up the ghost on you. I also set out a stack of business cards and bookmarks printed with my booklist and website information on the table. When they buy a book, they get a bookmark or if they hem and haw, you have something to handout to remind them to check out the website.

The worst book signing I ever had was in a nationally known bookstore who scheduled me up front and the local save-a-kitten organization in the back. I spent the day directing frazzled moms with tots to the kittens and the bathrooms. I couldn’t even talk the moms into buying a book because apparently the mystery was gone from their lives and they equated romantic sex with the results … the tots. My daughter offered to go next door to the pet store and get some mice to release (proud mommy I was that she thought of that creative solution) but I declined. While it would have made a great scene in a story, I did want to be invited back to the store next year.

Let me introduce my daughter. She’s great to have along at book signings. You might want to consider having someone with you. If you have to visit the kittens … ah, bathroom, you don’t have to gather up all your stuff when there’s someone with you to watch it. Plus, you’ll have someone to talk you down during the is-anyone-ever-going-to-ask-me-to-sign-a-book-why-did-I-ever-think-I-could-be-a-wrtier dry spells. When I get busy (thank goodness) my daughter takes pictures of me for the website and promotional articles. She also keeps me supplied with iced coffee. I’m not sure if she wants me hydrated, hyped up or running to the restroom.

And thinking of promotional articles, the strangest autograph I ever signed was in the Salvation Army where I was shopping for wall decorations for my new apartment (ah … writers pay, remember). This woman approached me and asked, “Excuse me, aren’t you that person who was written up in the paper?” Now, I live in a medium size city with only one newspaper and when someone says you’ve been written about in the paper, it usually involves an arrest record. And this hadn’t even been the daily paper but the weekly artsy supplement. Amazed and proud at being recognized, I replied, “Why yes, I am.” “You write books or something, right?” Or something. “Ah … right.” I looked around at the stacks of used paperbacks written by authors who are more famous and richer than I’ll ever be and wondered if they had ever had found themselves in these situations. “Here. Sign this. My mom reads and maybe she’s heard of you.” I signed the back of her shopping list.

This is where I find myself with a different problem. I write under five pen names. When signing autographs, I not only have to remember where I am but who I am. When I’m at an established book signing to promote a new book coming out, it’s easy to remember one name. But my fingers have to be constantly reminded not to automatically write my real name. I can also look like an idiot when it comes to introductions. “Hi, I’m the author here to do the book signing and my name is … ah … ah.” I keep a copy of the book near so I can refer to it to find out who I am that day and hope no one yells at me from across the store. I never run into this problem with my eBooks. eBooks are really hard to autograph.

The best autograph request I ever received came from my daughter when my first book was published. And she deserved the first signed copy. She is the one who had to live with me through weird writing hours, burnt food I forgot I was cooking, rejection emails (they’re not just slips anymore), emergency ink shortages, whining about career choices and the imaginary people who lived with us. She has been my support person through it all and the minute she moved out, I sold my first book. (I’m sure there’s no correlation.) I’m just hoping one of these days she might actually read it.

Except for family, friends and lovers, I sign every autograph with ‘best wishes’. Life starts with our wishes. “I wish I had love in my life.” “I wish I had a cheeseburger.” “I wish I had more money in the bank.” “I wish I could write a New York Times Bestsellers List novel.” Just like stories begin with ‘what if’, live begins with ‘I wish’.

Best Wishes,

Grace Thomas
Teresa Thomas
Mozella Thomas
Paige Endover
Tinker Thomas

Erotic Enhancements

By
Thomasnovels

I blame my proclivity of writing erotic stories on my childhood reading habits. I was a voracious reader. I read anything I could get my hands on. If I wasn’t allowed a book at the table, I’d read the cereal box. (Although, I recently found a report card where the teacher informed my parents I needed to read more at home while my mom was always complaining about me having my nose stuck in a book.) I read school assignments (no sex). I devoured ghost stories (lovers’ triangles, lost loves but no sex). Under my covers at night, I consumed the smutty pulp novels my older cousins smuggled in to me (lots of very kinky sex). I laughed through the true love story magazines my mother (yes, the same one) bought me. She thought they would teach me that bad things (sex) happened to girls who go off with (poor) guys. I read gothic romances where good things (sex) happened to girls who went off with (rich) guys. Then I discovered mysteries where sex was never mentioned but it could be used for a motive for criminal acts, reuniting lovers, revenge or any scenario you can imagine.

My love of writing took hold somewhere around high school when a teacher assigned one of those writing exercises that goes, “This is the first sentence and this is the last sentence. Now write the story in between the two”. I loved it and discovered my thoughts could flow through my fingers onto the keys (typewriter keys … it was a long time ago) and out onto the page. I never stopped writing but life and the need to earn a living (or whatever excuse I could come up with) always seemed to be in the way. I piddled at it for years. (Writers say this is a good way to learn the craft, while others say this is the stage where you’re writing all the crap out of your system before the good stuff starts to flow. The person going through it thinks their brain should stop pissing around and produce a New York Times Bestsellers List novel.) I didn’t think I was accomplishing anything until I tried to move and picked up the filing cabinets I had filled with words. I was producing pages (and killing small forests) if nothing else.

I tried those gothic romances I had loved but my female character kept mouthing off to the lead guy then would wander off and do her own thing. I could write a great plot and who-done-it mystery but the characters just sat around sipping tea, talking to each other and didn’t do much of anything else. I attempted romances but the women refused to be submissive and wouldn’t heave their breasts at anyone. My ghost stories sounded like those from the nineteenth century where you just want to tell them to knock it off with the flowery language and get on with the story. The science fiction I wrote … well, you don’t even want to know about those.

I finally got serious about my writing for three reasons: I had out-read everybody else and there was nothing new to read, at my advanced middle-age I figured I had better get started or give up and the voices in my head wouldn’t leave me alone until I told their stories. I thought back through all the thousands of books I’ve read to see what I could remember and what I remembered were the characters’ relationships, interactions and dialogues. Oh, I know the blue carbuncle is in the Christmas goose but I would rather read about Amelia trying to pull one over on … trying to solve a mystery with her husband Emerson.

Then I asked myself if I had unlimited funds (I did not) what type of book would I buy. (I had five thousand … books not dollars … when I moved.) What kind of book would I pay full price for just to have and hold and read. (I love the feel of books. Shit. I’m an eBook writer. Forget I said that.) And when I couldn’t find a book to read that satisfied that story craving, what were the stories I told myself in my head until I could get my next fix. And the answers were … I would give anything (okay, a lot) to have those smutty, trashy, kinky novels back I hid from my mother (and could never find again) and of course the stories I told myself right before sleep were … well … sexual fantasies.

As a reader, I hated it when characters went and hid behind a closed door (or the nearest bush). I wanted to know what was happening. As a writer I decided to add a little erotica (defined as sex) to my mysteries (the genre that’s my first love). Suddenly, characters got up off their butts and started interacting. Really interacting. Adding sex created emotions, feelings, relationships, conflicts and resolutions. My sex scenes were very descriptive and peppered throughout the story. The basic who-done-it stayed the same but I found a little spice added to the mix helped to fully develop my characters into real (and much happier) people.

How two people (or three or more) relate to each other during sex helps the reader (and the writer and the characters) understand the full realm of their relationship. Sex is a natural part (desire, craving) of life and we all (hopefully) do it. I had been leaving the sex out of the story and that was like leaving the potatoes out of the roast beef and carrots. It was not a complete meal and didn’t please the appetite. Everyone skips the carrots but the potatoes are an essential part of the story.

The words flowed, the stories got written and the books got published. Sex saves the day. Rejoicing. Swinging from the chandelier. Celebrating. Only … well … ah … I should warn writers of premature (add sexually related words to text) spending of the royalty check. I’ve had publishers tell me “Sorry, way too much sex”, “Sorry, sex is way too weird”, “Sorry, not enough sex” and my all time favorite … “Sorry, had to read too far to get to the sex”. You can’t please everybody so please yourself (sexual allusion).

A Profusion of Plots

By
Thomasnovels

People are always telling me they could not write a book because they could never come up with all those plots and how do I ever manage to think up all those stories. I usually mumble something, pretend I see someone I know on the other side of the room, move off and don’t try to explain it because I don’t look good in white (as in a straight jacket). My problem is too many plots and ideas. I won’t live long enough to write out all the story lines I have in my head. I have filing cabinets full of notes even I cannot decipher anymore.

So I am going to try to answer the question of how I come up with an idea that develops into a book by using the plot of my current novel (and not give away the who-done-it because even I don’t know … yet) as an example. Please remember, this is what it looks like inside my head. It’s sort of like those math word problems I can never figure out. If a plane leaves Boston and the sun is shining and a train leaves Richmond when it's raining, I take the bus cause it’s cheaper and carry an umbrella because it will protect me from both. Good luck in following the trail and I’ll see you on the other side … hopefully.

Two hints. I live in Virginia and I write romantic mysteries.

One night, I dreamed about a skeleton being discovered behind a wall. (I watch way too many true crime shows on television.) There was a large open space behind it, water was running in from somewhere and there was a lot of mud. When I woke up, I wondered, if someone had all that space, why bury the skeleton right up next to the wall, where was the water coming from, who were they before they became bones and how did they get there. That’s the mystery part.

Around this time, a relative had trouble with a broken water pipe and did not have water for two days except where it filled up their dirt floor basement. Perfect. A broken pipe leaking water, creating mud, damaging a wall and exposing the skeleton was a great idea. And as a survivor of the 2009-10 winter season in Virginia, I could reason our freezing temperatures, heavy snows and melt offs would have damaged any underground, secret enclosure.

My heroine would wake up to no water and have to deal with all the dilemmas that created. And being the independent, capable, single woman that she is, she would have to call in a hunky male plumber to work on her pipes … her problem. That’s the romantic part.

Back from my days of helping my father do repairs around the farm instead of being inside with a good book where I really wanted to be, I remembered to backtrack a leak, you can color the water with food coloring to indicate flow direction and source. (See, Dad, I was listening and not daydreaming.) Now my heroine is running around allover the house with a bucket of red water, dumping it down drains and commodes (bet she never gets those stains out) while the hunky plumber watches the water coming into the basement.

Several years ago, a friend of mine found a mummified arm on his property. (That one is real and not made up.) Turns out his home belonged to a doctor during the civil war. (I am writing this in April which is Confederate History Month and our governor is still wiping the shoe polish off his teeth where he stuck his foot in his mouth.) Owning pre-civil war homes in the Shenandoah Valley means you have status and can hang a big ole plaque out on the front gate for everyone to see. But what if her house was built during the war? No plaque, no status, lots of repair problems and the bones in the basement could be modern or just some really old guy whose been hanging around.

And has he been hanging around? Does she have ghosts? (When I’m not watching true crime, I’m watching true paranormal shows.) Civil war plus ghosts equals (see, math) a local battlefield near where I live that’s reported to be haunted. One form this haunting takes is a knocking on the front doors of all the houses on the battlefield. Okay, she just might have an infestation of ghosts (or ghost singular) as well as plumbing problems. Right after I decided to include a haunting knock on her front door, I read (when I’m not watching television, I’m reading) something I’d never heard of before. Three knocks on the door (when no one’s there) is an omen of death. So now she has someone rapping on her door three times.

Anytime you find a skeleton on your property, it’s probably a good idea to call the police. I have a job in the justice system and have just finished working a missing person’s case with a totally dreamy detective. Guess who’s going to show up in answer to her 911 call of finding the remains? I promise to change the names to protect the good looking.

So my heroine has a broken pipe, no water, a flooded basement, a secret underground enclosure, a ghost rapping (not a music genre), a hunky plumber and a dreamy detective. And people say they can't find anything to write about. I just want to see her explain why the skeleton has been dyed red with food coloring.

You still there?

Outlandish Outlining

By
Thomasnovels

When I start to write a new book, I build a detailed outline with lots of flow charts on characters, settings, research and dialogue. It really is a beautiful thing to gaze upon and takes up the entire bulletin board above my desk. Nice neat columns and color-coded notes. But as I’m working on the outline, a scene from further into the book will flash across a synaptic and I want to get it written down before it dissolves into the ether. So out come the Post-it Notes (remembering some words are copyrighted). If I’m out of Post-it Notes (did I forgot to do the shopping … again?) then colored index cards will work. I just pushpin (spelt pushpin, push-pin or push pin and not copyrighted) them right onto the outline, obscuring most of the page. Index cards are also handy for the bedside table when those I’m-almost-asleep-ideas hit and the person beside of you wants to know what the hell are you doing over there. Index cards flip better than Post-it Notes.

Now I’m ready to move onto the computer (that doesn’t like Post-it Notes and don’t even think about pushpins) where I type all these notes in sort of a free flowing document. Thoughts, plots, ideas, scattering of dialogues all divided with a line of bold, red question marks because by now I’m questioning if all this stuff will ever become a story let alone a book. Pages and pages fill up with gibberish until I’m lost and can’t remember where any of the good stuff is. I hit print (do the ink prayer), grab the sheaf of papers and cut and paste. Literally. I cut it all up at the question marks and start to organize it into a timeline. By now the characters have gone off in a corner for a cigarette break and I’m almost sure they’re talking about me.

My beautiful, original outline has disappeared under an avalanche of paper. Important scenes on Post-it Notes have melted and fluttered down like snowflakes. (Could that murder scene be what I wrote the shopping list on the back of? I hope it’s not floating around at the grocery store. Of course, they would have to have handwriting samples to prove it was mine and I don’t think I wrote a check.) The entire apartment looks like an office supply store blew up in it. The person from the other side of the bed complains there is so many Post-it Notes on the bathroom mirror he cannot see to shave and sleeping with me did not include sleeping with Chapter Three under his hip all night. I dive for the bed, pretend to be changing the sheets while searching for the real sheets.

None of this has anything to do with writing the book but it seems to be a process I need to go through to get to the actual writing part. When I actually start cleaning up the mess, I wonder if the inside of my head looks like the inside of the apartment after a long writing spell. I have unearthed cryptic notes months later where even I can’t read my own handwriting and can only hope I didn’t leave a character sitting somewhere, waiting on me to come back.

And my daughter once found the shopping list for villain’s murder kit on the front of the refrigerator and wanted to know if she should stop by the store on her way home.

Murder vs. Sex

By
Thomasnovels

Recently, a young man approached me inquiring about the type of books I write. I gave my standard answer of mysteries. “That’s perfect,” he said, explaining he wanted to surprise his mystery-buff mom with original, autographed books. “Murder mysteries?” he asked. I assured him one if not more people would be knocked off. “Even better. She loves a good murder.” I gave him a business card, provided him with a list of my published works and offered him a discount. As he started to leave, he turned back and shyly asked, “They’re not racy are they?” Apparently, he had caught sight of one of my covers but hadn’t read the blurb.

Racy? The word brought a picture of my mother to mind. She’s a great reader and has even read some of my books. Racy? I remember being at a family gathering right before my first novel came out. I think she was proud of the fact I was going to be published but she leaned over and whispered in the ear of a lady of her age range, “But it’s a little racy.” She wasn’t worried that I was thinking up ways and means to kill characters. She was worried because I was letting them have sex.

Racy? The young man took my business card but I knew I had lost the sale when he said, “My mom won’t read something that has anything remotely racy in it.” Okay, I get it and won’t be the first writer to say it. It’s all right to kill them in ever expanding gory techniques but just don’t let them fall down together on the bed, floor, table, ground (you get the picture) in the throes of passion. Naked body on the autopsy table, good. Naked body glistening in afterglow, bad.

Racy? As a reader, I find it aggravating when characters shut the bedroom door and the chapter ends. Next scene, they’re back, fully clothed and sharing the symbolic cigarette. Wait. What happened? How characters (and we real people) relate to one another during sex influences how they relate to one another in the rest of the story. Was it satisfying? Were there problems? Was it standard or inventive? Was there noise and conversation or was it so silent you could hear the zipper drop? Yet, numerous popular novels switch from third to first person just so the killers can describe their feelings and actions in great detail.

Racy? And it’s not just an age thing. Women of my own age (don’t ask) wouldn’t buy the second one. They said they didn’t realize I knew so many positions … knew so many ways … knew so many … they did not allow that sort of thing in their houses. Makes me wonder where they got their kids from. But these same women enjoyed the murders and never figured out who done it right up until the end. Cheers to the woman who told me she read excerpts to her husband … in their bedroom … naked. I don’t think they ever found out who the guilty person was.

Racy? “If only you’d leave out the sex, they’d be such great reads.” And really short books. I tried once to write a novel without sex. The characters got really grumpy and frustrated right along with the author. And no one has ever asked me to leave out the murder.

Anyone want to race?