Adventures in Book Sales at the Art and Wine Fair

This weekend I shared a booth with two other local writers at the Twain Harte Summer Art and Wine Fair.

When I was asked to do it, it felt like a no-brainer. Having a table at an art fair sounded so glamorous to me, such a fun way to sell books. I couldn’t wait to do it.

But, yesterday morning, fifteen minutes into the experience, I turned to my husband and said in a low voice, “I made a mistake. I want to go home.” He replied, “The fair is not even open yet.” Which was true. It opened at 10:00 a.m. We had arrived early to set up and make sure that we could find parking. But the first people I saw walked by with their heads averted as if they were allergic to books. It was already hot. I loved the women writers who were also in this booth, but I am an introvert. I can have intense conversations with people and really enjoy it until I hit a wall. And the wall can come up really fast. All of a sudden, I will want to be off by myself, with the ceiling fan on, and a cat by my side, and say not a word to anyone for at least forty-five minutes. But for this fair, I had a commitment to be in that booth until 5:00 p.m. on both weekend days. It felt like it would be endless.

And there were moments during the weekend when time crawled. It was hot, the type of heat that if you listened to the news, they told you to stay in your house. Sometimes, when no one visited our booth, I wished I could take a minute to sit back and lose myself in my phone for ten minutes, but my phone was dying. I couldn’t use it for entertainment purposes. I had to save it for when a customer had a credit card transaction, and I needed to use the Square application.

So I had to hang out. I conversed with my writer friends. We grew close quickly. When you have hours of moments where you can talk, barriers fall away fast. And we had this central thing in common. We were all there because we had a calling to write. It’s not something that a sane person would do. It’s challenging, out of control, exhilarating. It makes you vulnerable in the world. There’s a part of your soul printed out as a book, and someone may pick up what you wrote, leaf through the pages, and walk away. Or someone can stop in front of your work and say, “I have to have this.” This weekend, I had variations of both of those experiences.

I learned things. There are people who say, “I don’t read,” which to me feels like, “I don’t drink water.” It’s difficult to imagine my life without books. It would be a sad state of affairs for me. Other people said, “I have a stack of books waiting at home.” A lot of people told me they didn’t have time to read. Then I would talk to them about audiobooks, how I listened to stories on walks, on drives, when I tried to get to sleep. I would say that, I was proud to have my first talking cat fantsay, The Loudest Meow, in that form. In the near future, all of my books will also be available as audiobooks. I left the festival this weekend more convinced than ever that audiobooks will be a big part of our future.

By the end of today, I felt like I wanted to do more festivals. My husband compared it to golfing, where you spend the day hitting the ball into water traps, missing putts, and generally falling short, but you can have one good swing, and it made all the difference. All the other mistakes and disappointments faded out of memory. From this experience, I will always remember meeting the young writers I met. It felt so good to see their excitement and hear their commitment to their work and to encourage them to keep going. For that alone, i would want to be at the table at these events with my books.

The Wonder of Audiobooks

I have been a fan of audiobooks for a long time. I even have audiobook stories. One time, about twenty years ago, my husband and I went off on a road trip. We had a destination and a planned pit stop—a favorite restaurant several hours away. We turned on our audiobook and drove off. Well, we never made it to the restaurant. We became so absorbed in the story that we passed it right by and only realized our mistake hundreds of miles later. On our return trip home, we resolved that we would not miss stopping at that restaurant, and we didn’t, athough we did listen to an audiobook on our drive there. After a delicious meal, we clambered back to the car and drove away, our audiobook blaring, forgetting the one thing we had told ourselves that we had to do before returning to our route: stop at the nearby gas station. That was the time we almost ran out of gas as the result of a story.

So far this sounds like a cautionary tale against audiobooks. I would say those are stories of first love. We still listen to audiobooks in the car all the time, but we seem to remember to do things and avoid mishaps. And we don’t go on road trips that often anymore. We have three cats at home, and I miss them even when I’m at the local grocery store.

Lately I’ve increased my audiobook listening. Part of it came out of sleep problems. Often it seems that anxiety and sleeplessness hang out together. I’ve found that if I put on my headphones and listen to an audiobook, I can fall asleep without worry. Yes, I do lose my place in books. I’ve started to use the timer on my audiobook application to turn off the book after half an hour so I don’t wander off too far. The following day, I usually have to go back in the text. But who cares? I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

It’s also an incentive for me to exercise. I love to walk. Walking and listening to a story? A hot fudge sundae experience. And I have discovered that I am a more adventurous reader with audiobooks. I will listen to genres—the classics, suspense thrillers, biographies, that I would never pick up and read. Of course, there is a caveat, and that is the narrator. The narrator can make or break a book. If I don’t like the narrator’s voice, I will not listen to the book.

My dream is to have all my books in audiobook form, and I have one done, The Loudest Meow: A Talking Cat Fantasy. It is my favorite version of that book. You can listen to a sample here. I feel so lucky to work with Kae Denino, the narrator, who had to come up with a bunch of different cat voices and tell a story that can be operatic in tone.

Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you have favorites? I’ll throw some of mine out here: I’ve been impressed with all the Sophie Kinsella books I’ve heard, with Wedding Night my favorite so far. We are currently listening to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the narrator, Rob Inglis, occasionally breaks into song. Yes! We listened to all twenty-one books of the Travis McGee series narrated by Robert Petfkoff, and we wished there had been more. We really enjoyed Tracy Sallows’s work on Lisa Brackmann’s series set in China. I recently listened to The Girl Before, and although it wasn’t necessarily my type of book, I loved the multiple narrators and the structure of the story. If you’re an audiobook listener, let me know what you have liked in the comments below.

The Power of Pinterest

So I was in a definite funk. We had to move. My manuscript, The Sharpest Claw: A Talking Cat Fantasy, was off in New York, probably munching on a bagel while waiting to be proofread. I was here with day job demands, boxes all around me, and a hole in my heart where my writing usually is.

That’s when I remembered. The answer was a single word, starting with “P,” three syllables. You might think it would be potatoes, and I certainly love them, particularly baked, loaded up with sour cream and chives, and I do eat the skin, but, no, in this instance, it was Pinterest.

I have an account on Pinterest, but I hadn’t been there for about a year. I have seven boards, five devoted to my books (three essentially done and two in the ether); one for dinosaurs simply titled “I Love Dinosaurs,” because I do; one for my favorite middle grade books, and one of images I loved as a child because when I was a child, I vowed that I would write books, and I try to still listen and honor what that kid is saying to me now.

Anyway, the last time I had been on the site, I had brainstormed images for The Sharpest Claw. Now, looking at that board, I could see the challenges I had writing this book. Some of the pictures actually belonged to the next book, The Deepest Growl, which I plan to start working on in August. And I hadn’t met some of the characters who eventually showed for The Sharpest Claw. Where was Cranky Squirrel? The ravens? The celebrity cat reporter? The pitbull who loved to tease? Etc.? They all needed representation.

So I returned to Pinterest. It was something that I would do for only fifteen minutes or so each day, but it made me feel connected. I started thinking like a writer again. I felt happy. I thought that I would like this now to be part of my regular routine while writing books—brainstorming before writing linearly, returning to it in the final stage, while my beloved book is undergoing final corrections. It’s a way to pay tribute, to see if anything is missing, to celebrate, and to start moving ahead, dreaming up the next board, the next book.

On Writing Regularly

It’s one of those bits of advice tossed out to writers: Write every day. Stephen King said that you needed to write on Christmas and birthdays, too. Don’t skip a day!

Well, I’ve been skipping days. There’s two reasons behind it. We’ve moved. (I feel like I should have a T-shirt with that saying on it. It would be black. Maybe there would be a skull and crossbones under those words. The shirt would be torn. There might be some paint on it, and it would smell faintly of sweat.)

Since we moved, everything has changed. I have a new office. I have a new writing bed. My glass duck Ludwig now stares at me while I type. He is thrilled. And, honestly, Ludwig, so am I. But this is the first time I’ve actually sat up here. It’s the first time the room has been somewhat put together. And I have piles of day job work that I need to complete because, along with its pleasant surprises, moving has prompted unexpected costs.

And then there’s my seasonal philosophy, as in every day is not a day of linear writing. For me it often boils down to this: August is brainstorming and writing. September through December is writing the draft, often many times. In January, I let go of the draft to my beta readers. Then I process their feedback and revise. The draft then goes to the developmental editor. If she says it’s okay, that’s a huge hurdle jumped, accompanied with more revision, then the proofreader, then me reading it over again, and then on to production. And this schedule has pretty much followed that course escept it feels I have had lots of waiting time this year, and even though I say to myself that I could start on new books. I could research others, I don’t. I seemed tied to this book until this process is over.

Today was the first time that I felt afraid about it. Had I abandoned my muse? Will I be able to write again once it’s August again? Do I even feel like a writer any more? It tells me that I need to dream up new tricks to keep me feeling connected. It reminds me of the importance of going deep, even if it’s only for five or fifteen minutes to spend time with myself and with my story. When there are deadlines and boxes all over, it’s often the last thing I want to do, but I need to remember and honor that need to touch base.

Hopefully, Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting.

We moved.

They say that moving is one of the top stressors that one can experience. They include it among death and divorce, which doesn’t seem quite right to me, but moving does shake up your world. We moved in a week ago. After two days, the toilets were on the fritz, and I locked myself out of the house, and had to climb through a garage window. Things still aren’t settled. And I have more work than I have had for a long time. Now I’m not complaining. How can I when I look out my window and see beautiful trees? (Oswald and Leroy and Brenda and Solomon) I wanted to really work hard right now because my sequel to The Loudest Meow, The Sharpest Claw, is coming out this fall (probably September) and I wanted to have the money to finance an audiobook, narrated by the incomparable Kae Denino, to accompany the launch. So it' looks like it’s going to happen, which is cause for general celebration. (If you would like to hear a sample of Kae’s narration on The Loudest Meow, please click here.)

So the house is beautiful. I’m sleeping well. I’m working my butt off. I am doing what I need to be doing, and I’m longing for that hour of down time where I write and imagine. I have a new writing bed in my new office. It’s sitting there, waiting for me. I think I will be embarking on The Deepest Growl starting in August.

It makes me nervous not to write. It makes me jumpy. I miss it so much my skin itches. But I need to take care of obligations and dreams. I hope all is well with you. Best.