Audiobook released!

I’m thrilled to announce that Boy on Hold is now available on Audible!

Might be a good time to share a bit about VOICE.

By definition, voice in literature is the distinctive style in which the author writes — conveying a tone and feel. Kind of like the “personality” of a book.

BOH is written in multiple POVs — a troubled teen struggling with mental illness, a single mom trying to figure it out, and most prominently, a sweet and precocious young boy.

The story was inspired by my middle son who — at the age of 6 — was obsessed with nocturnal animals and pleaded to go out at night to catch one for a pet. I channeled my son’s voice to write those scenes, though he was 12 by the time the book published. He’s been a guest reader on multiple launch events, reading the powerful opening scene.

Roy Bullard, the California-based voice actor who narrates Boy on Hold, is both talented and kind — but was first a fan! After his chapter-one audition, he downloaded & read the book on his own. He then reached out to me directly, praising the story and asking if he could be considered for the job. How cool is that!?

It’s imperative that the narrator “gets” the author’s voice — or in my case, voices. Throughout the process, Roy and I traded lots of emails. He asked in-depth questions about the characters — even minor ones. He sent me audio samples to approve, etc. The process was a first for me, and I’m thrilled with the outcome. He nailed it — on point with all the different voices — male and female, young and old. Not an easy feat!

But part of me wishes the world could hear my boy reading Hen’s voice. Well, maybe there is a way…

 

Author’s Choice

Recently, I was invited into a classroom to speak about Author’s Choice. They’d been studying the different elements in a novel that require clear decisions by the author, such as setting, character names, structure, voice, etc. Though I’ve taught these things in my own classroom, analyzing classic novels and other texts in the curriculum, this was the first time I thought about my choices as an author. And it gave me pause. It made me think about all the choices I make as I write, consciously or subconsciously, to build a story that people will want to read. See, that last part is key. Your ultimate goal as a novelist, really, is for people to want to read your stuff. That said, the choices an author makes are informed by that goal.

Reading from Concerto on the topic of climate change

Here were some talking points for my classroom visit:

Don’t kill Sophie. (naming characters)

Authors get asked a lot how they choose the names of their characters. I’ve been known to respond, “Whatever’s easy to type!” Truth told, I go with my gut. Some names come easily and some have fits and starts before being finalized. But here’s the Sophie story: A friend of mine wrote a book in which a secondary character (named Sophie) was killed off toward the end. It had to be done for the story, which is usually fine. However, since she wrote the book, she was haunted by her choice. She met several people with the same name—lovely people. New friends, new colleagues, children, pets, and the list goes on… It’s worth noting, though, that she was haunted not because she killed off a character, but because she named her Sophie.

Bitch voice. (voice/POV)

The third book in the Forte series is told by a minor character’s POV, and tells her story. As the first two books, this is also written in first person (which feels more YA to me than third person). But I was so concerned that the voice be different, I opted for an edgy tone I thought might be cool. Turns out, a hundred pages in, the edgy voice I was hoping for sounded downright bitchy. I thought, “No one is going to want to read anything this bitch has to say!” So, I threw out the 100 pages (and the next 100) until something clicked. What clicked? The backstory. I wrote a backstory for the character that no one will ever see but made me feel sympathy for her, which in turn will make readers feel sympathy for her. Here’s hoping!

I have a Nevus spilus. (genre)

As I embarked on writing a book that included magic, it needed to be relevant to me. Many authors don’t have this problem and can build make-believe worlds with nothing but their imaginations. I don’t have that kind of confidence. I feel like people wouldn’t buy it. For that reason, a lot of my magic stems from Greek mythology, which I taught for years and feel well-versed in. Also, my main character’s magic is triggered by her birthmark on her hand, a constellation of freckles in a condensed circular pattern. When I was little, people sometimes thought the Nevus spilus on my hand was dirt. Now that I’m older, some people think it’s a severe case of “age spots.” Ho-hum. I’d rather think it’s magical.

Dead whales. (author’s message/theme)

Have you seen the viral video of that washed up dead whale *full* of plastic? It had ingested so many plastic bags that were floating in the ocean, its stomach was literally full of them. And how ’bout them polar bears? With their habitat melting away, the problem seems insurmountable.

Climate change. Global warming. Beyond these buzz words in the political arena, when I think about the kind of environmental problems we are passing on to the next generation, my mama-tiger claws come out. But then, despair hits. What can I, a writer, possibly do?

Write a book that’s an allegory for battling climate change. The result? Concerto, book 2 of the Forte series.

English teachers want to torture us. (structure/word choice/literary devices)

This pretty much sums it all up, doesn’t it? When I taught high school English, one of my students interrupted our lesson on literary devices to say, “I don’t think authors mean to write that way, with all the metaphors and similes and stuff. I think it’s just the English teachers who find stuff in books so they can make us learn it.” Hmmm. I have to say, I didn’t like what she said. It rumpled my feathers, for sure. But now that I’m a published author, I know for a fact that word choice and  use of literary devices are absolutely intentional. Why? We need to find a creative way to say something without being cliché or simply listing what’s happening. Making the readers feel what the characters feel. Putting the reader inside the story. That’s what will make people want to read your book. And be touched by it. And recommend it to all their friends.

And that, at the end of the day, is what we writers really want. Isn’t it?

         

Where are they now?

“Children’s lives are fiendishly hard. Adults, having survived childhood, turn their minds to the future, and if they have a choice, generally retain only the rosiest of childhood memories.” ― Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked

You know those irresistible sites that show you how child celebrities look now as grown ups? That’s kind of what I’ve done with Catcher’s Keeper, yet focusing on voice rather than appearance. It was the subject of my recent talk at the Chronicle Book Fair yesterday.

The Catcher in the Rye perfectly captures a voice of the quintessential troubled American teen, whose problems seem so insurmountable there is no option but to run away. This famous, coming-of-age story captures a tenuous time in a young person’s life in a realistic voice that is—ironically—honest as well as unreliable, as most teens tend to be. Having taught high school (and remembering what it was like to be a teen), I know first-hand the phenomenon of the adult/child that is the teen. They may look like adults, but they are children. They still need clear boundaries. They need clear explanations on right versus wrong. Unable to foresee consequences for their inevitable misguided actions, they need leadership. They need unconditional love. They need forgiveness. They are confused and fragile while trying to figure out exactly who the heck they are and what role they could possibly play in the world and society, facing huge life choices (college, career, etc). At the same time discerning peer pressure, as well as juggling homework and hormones and activities and work and, now, social media…

Can you think of a better embodiment of “the teen” other than Holden Caulfield?

What would this teen be like as a grown up? How would you hear his voice?

In order to answer these questions, you have to first answer: What happened to him from the time we met him as a privileged, anti-war, anti-phony 16 y/o in the 1950s to the time of Lennon’s death in 1980?

My answer?

He was a hippie, of course. A draft-dodger. And as a 40 y/o in 1979, he’s emerging from his drug-induced, carefree lifestyle funded by the family trust. He’s trying to get his life together, but he still struggles with the loss of his baby brother, Allie (a huge theme in The Catcher in the Rye), and (in recent years) the loss of his mother. Here’s my version of him, coming home to his big brother’s pad where he’s crashing a while. (Character list is as follows, Jerry: big brother, Janine: Jerry’s ex, Fiona: little sister, Allie: deceased little brother)

 EXCERPT

Lucky me. Jerry’s gone when I get in. I shuck off my kicks and watch a little news. But then I get sucked into this true story of a football player who battled cancer and won, and then came back out to play before all his hair grew in again. And he was better than ever. Coach said he played with more heart. They made this big deal about his hair growing in different. Curly. They say that it sometimes happens with cancer survivors. The story just about kills me. I mean, I have to wipe tears off my goddam cheeks. The heavy background music doesn’t help. Geez, they really know how to tug at your heartstrings. I get that this is a totally awesome outcome for this guy, but all I can do is think of Allie, whether his hair would’ve grown in different. If it had a chance to.

I click off the boob tube and decide to take a shower. Sometimes I think better under a rush of hot water. I can’t get Allie’s hair out of my mind, though, which makes me think of Fiona’s hair when she was a kid. I’m still dripping from the shower when I search the closet in Jerry’s spare room for an old photo album so I can see it—the color. Just the brightest, most far-out red. Neither one of them loved it. Fiona knows how to work hers now, though. Besides it’s changed, like it’s matured along with her. Now it’s this dark auburn shade other chicks go bananas for.

I find a thick forest-green album of Jerry and Janine’s vacation to Aruba or somewhere beachy. One photo catches my eye. Jerry’s beaming at the camera, just beaming, and Janine has her hand near his face, her fingers curled around his ear. And she’s looking at him with this half smile, like she’s thinking of something else. I can’t stop looking at this pic, see, because it seems to explain why they called it quits. I’m sure to you they would look like a sweet, happy couple. But I can see it in her eyes; she’s not totally there with Jerry. She’s already halfway gone.

I slam the book away and dress in haste. Suddenly it’s way too quiet in the apartment. I turn on Sgt. Pepper. Loud. Good ol’ “Penny Lane.” I sing along at the top of my lungs. Boo-yah! I sit down at the machine, the tunes full tilt, and start typing with my pointers. I’m totally fast now. Just cruising. I crank out two chapters lickety-split. I decide to stretch my legs and print out what I have so far.

The sound of the printing is driving me crazy, so I venture out to see if Jerry’s got any Coke. Something tells me I drank his last. And I’m right.

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Some readers have criticized Alden’s voice claiming it is too immature for a forty year old man. However, at 41, I know from personal experience that some forty-somethings still act like children. (Heck, some fifty-somethings still act like children.) With affection, my inspiration for Alden’s childlike character was inspired by one of my childhood friends who is now a grown man with a free spirit, a liberal use of jargon, and an enormous propensity for fun. Perhaps Alden’s use of slang seems unrealistic to some, yet if you consider who he was (Salinger’s Holden) and what he would have lived through (death of sibling, failure at school…and then Vietnam, hippie 60s), perhaps his mannerisms are not that unrealistic. Taking poetic license as an author, it was also a clear way to distinguish his voice from his brother’s, which was a concern of mine.

For Catcher’s Keeper, getting voice right was crucial. If my readers did not believe in my characters, they would never believe what happens when they do finally meet Mark David Chapman—who appears as an overzealous fan who shows up on the book tour.

What do you think—will my characters succeed? If Holden Caulfield were a real person, would he be able to save Lennon? You’ll just have to read the book to find out!