As promised… the interview my friend Michele Montgomery ran on her Facebook page last week. 

§

Michele: Diane… a traditional publisher has an experienced marketing team to design the novel. How does an author decide which images from the story to entice us with on the cover – knowing everyone judges a book by it?

Me: I consulted with my marketing team (which consists of: me) and said, What draws me in to investigate a book? Usually the genre (I like mystery), then the author (if I know the name), then the cover. Since this is my first book, no one’s going to know my name. I wanted a cover people would notice.

First things first: find a good cover artist.

I looked at the portfolio of a lot of artists and asked myself, “Would I pick up that book?” The artist I eventually worked with, Scarlett Rugers, had lots of books whose covers really jumped out at me. And she’s been fabulous to work with. She asked what I had in mind for the cover: styles, photos, etc. Then she read the book to pick out thematic elements.

She generated several very different possible covers, and the one that jumped out for me (and everyone I showed it to) was the one I eventually went with: an identity bracelet covered in blood. So now the reader has a mystery right away: whose bracelet is this?

Identity is a major theme in the book, so that worked out very well.

Patricia Burroughs*: I think that’s a really smart approach. Covers still matter to me, even on ebooks. Perhaps you can’t judge a book by its cover, but often with ebooks the care and thought given to a cover imply something about the care given to the writing and editing of the book.

Me: Particularly covers in thumbnail! You have to look at the covers in tiny as well.

Robert Gregory Browne**: Oh, and weighing in on the cover thing. A cover is your first impression. Don’t skimp on cover art. Don’t think you’ll just be able to whip something up in Paintshop Pro. Unless you’re a graphic designer, get a professional to handle it.

Marc Fine: I think that people do generally judge a book by its cover. I know that I do, when I’m browsing in library or bookstore.

Me: Seconding Robert Gregory Browne’s comments about covers, by the way: the cover is your first impression. Make sure it represents your book and looks professional.

§

Marc Reed: What is your process for naming your characters? Why Drusilla Thorne? Are they based on actual people people or randomselected from the phone book?

Me: Neither, actually — Drusilla is actually the latest of several fake names our heroine has had. The genesis of the name — and why she’s needed so many fake ones — are an integral part of how she got to be who she is now. (And how she ended up with such an over the top name says a lot about who she was when she picked it, the author said hintingly.  :) )

Michele Montgomery: Marc Reed… do you really think there’s a Drusilla Thorne in a phone book outside the U.K.? 

Marc Reed: How would I know if Diane wasn’t in the UK at some point in time? And Thorne looks very much like Thome – which it kinda resembles on my screen because I’m overdue for an eye exam.

§

Robert Gregory Browne: Where do you get your ideas? If I pay you, can I have some of them? How many pages do you write per minute? How many books per week? Okay, I’m done being an asshole now. I wish you great luck with the book Diane! Tell us when and where we can buy.

Me: When I get an idea, I think, “Is this something Robert Gregory Browne would write?” If the answer is no, then I feel pretty confident I can do okay with it. If the answer’s yes, I just move on to the next idea.

You can buy the book at Amazon (so far…I decided to give Select a try for the first 90 days, to figure out what in the heck I was doing). The first day, though, I got asked if it was on the iBookstore and Nook! So it sounds like those platforms are really coming together, and I definitely want to make use of them.

Patricia Pooks Burroughs: You’re got it wrong, Rob. We’re supposed to let her pay us for OUR great ideas, write the books, and then put our names on them because the ideas are the hard part, and we always did intend to write a book someday when we have time…

Robert Gregory Browne: For $50 you can do anything you want. 

Me: Well, I know THAT — this IS still America, isn’t it?

Michele Montgomery: Diane… don’t listen to Rob. I heard he’s negotiable on the 50. Just saying…

Me: No problem, Michele. I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing any of us heard about Robert.

§

Pamela DuMond***: Congrats on your book, Diane.

Me: Thanks! I’m having a lot of fun with this process.

§

Tamar Bihari: Diane, one of the most compelling elements for me was the character of Dru. Darkly sarcastic, running from her past, doing whatever she needs to to survive — and more crucially, to make sure her screwed up, brilliant little sister survives. And she’s funny, too. How did you develop her or was she just there in your head one morning when you woke up?

Me: Drusilla has been around for a long time. My master’s thesis at USC starred her, in fact. I’m always intrigued by characters, particularly females, that don’t play by other’s rules — that keeps me interested, and I hope it does other readers as well!

And one problem I’ve always had with amateur sleuth mysteries is that the amateur sleuths are always really nice, good, law-abiding people. I can understand someone like that stumbling across a dead body once. Twice makes me look at them askance, and three times has me asking the cops why they’re not checking that person out for criminal connections.

So a big part of Dru’s character is WHY she would keep getting herself into these situations, even though she (like many of us) could quite easily stay on the straight and narrow and live a comfortable life.

§

(On my regular Facebook page, my friend Elaine Danforth asked: ”may I ask what led you to the decision to self-publish when five companies were interested in the book?”)

Me: Well, publishing is a tough gig. The book went to at least 5 different editorial meetings — I honestly don’t even remember how many at this point (although I have the emails). For whatever reason, it wasn’t “right” for them.

I got a little depressed by this.

A friend (who has been my biggest fan) told me to self-publish it after this happened and I was definitely in the “self-publishing is death!” group — one of the few times I haven’t been ahead of the tech curve. Last year I read the book again, thought “I still like this book”, and decided to put it up after a good, thorough edit.

§

Dave Thome: Do you have the next book(s) plotted, or are you going to make stuff up as you go?

Me: I wish I were a pantser****. I’VE TRIED, I REALLY REALLY HAVE. But I have about four novels that, when I got to the middle of them, I said, “I have ZERO idea who did it, or why.” So now I have to work the backstory and figure out the crime before I get started. Maybe doing it on the fly is a skill that I can as yet master.

I don’t think knowing ahead of time dilutes the excitement of writing it, by the way: there’s a big difference between writing in an outline “Susie did it!” and creating realistic characters and motivations that lead to the reader saying, “Of course! If I were her, I’d have done that too.”

Now, I may get to the end and discover that in fact Susie didn’t do it, Tommy did! But at least I have a plausible scenario and lots of clues that point toward Susie being the scamp. Saving me a lot of time and rewriting.

§

Michele Montgomery: Diane, are the rest of the novels about magic too?

Me: No, magic is in the first one because of the murder victim, magician Colin Abbott. I think Drusilla’s going to bring back her psychic act, though.

§

Michele Montgomery: Diane… you mentioned you worked on this at USC but, um, that was a long time ago. How many drafts did you do before you got published? Did you hire an editor too?

Me: What I worked on at USC was a script featuring Drusilla and Stevie, but otherwise completely different. (I wonder how it would read if I were to pull it out again…)

Of the book, I’d say I did four complete drafts, including this last one after Ramona DeFelice Long edited it. The original Nanowrimo version of the novel has a few things in common with this book, but it changed a LOT since then.

Pamela DuMond: Ramona DeFelice Long Edits my books too. Love her.

——————

* - author of La Desperada and winner of a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.

** - in addition to being a smart-ass, Rob is the author of lots of books and also a winner of a Nicholl Fellowship. His latest book is Trial Junkies, which is the start of a new series and indie-published.

*** - author of the Annie Graceland mysteries

**** - “Pantser” is a technical term meaning “one who writes by the seat of their pants.” Many authors swear that they start writing and everything falls into place as they discover the story. I’ve had this happen…but I’ve had the opposite happen too many times for me to feel comfortable about it. There’s nothing like getting to thirty thousand words and have zero idea where you’re going. I don’t happen to believe that outlining ruins the process of discovering your story: first, you know the general direction everything’s supposed to be headed, then your characters come to life and run riot. If things get too crazy, you can still whip out the map and say, “Albuquerque is that way.” 

My friend Michele Montgomery is going to interview me on her Facebook page tomorrow. In case you have any burning questions for me about You Know Who I Am or about me or any stuff you think I might be able to help you with (why I recently watched the first seven seasons of the TV show Supernatural, really great caramel brownie recipes, or whatever grabs your fancy. 

The most important account on Twitter is obviously AvoidComments, in case that’s your question.

So, I published a novel.

I can give you the same blurb I published at Amazon but instead here’s the short version: Drusilla Thorne has to figure out who murdered her husband before the police figure out who she is. 

Drusilla’s a favorite character of mine — I wrote my thesis script at USC about her. My main problem with amateur sleuths is always they’re always such wholesome people. How on Earth do these nice, trustworthy people keep getting involved with murder? I decided to make things easier on myself* by making her not such a wholesome person. You Know Who I Am is what one** might term an ironic title. 

At the moment the book is only at Amazon. I decided to do Kindle Select — meaning the book is exclusively available on Amazon for the next 90 days — in order to let me figure this whole e-publishing thing out for myself. I mean, I have tons of theoretical knowledge. Trust me, there’s nothing I’ve ever done in my life that I haven’t analyzed to death before doing it.

But you know the difference between theory and practice, right? In theory, there is no difference.

In the past 24 hours, I discovered that I screwed up the Copyright page and had to reupload. Scrivener*** has made publishing the book in various formats completely trivial and I still screwed up the Copyright page. 

And…now I’d better get around to finishing**** Book 2, so I can get this damn series going.

——————————

* Ha, I tell you. Ha.

** That one being me, natch.

*** If you’re a writer, stop screwing around and buy this software immediately. Sheesh. 

**** By which I mean, writing. 

From Wendy McNaughton: 

I would have titled it “Today.”

I found this on the absolutely necessary I Love Charts site.

The best thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is: not only can you not trust what anyone else thinks, you sure as hell can’t trust what you think. 

Except for that bit of wisdom. That, you can trust. 

Yesterday, I went running. I think I’ve gone running three times this week. My running schedule has been sporadic since summer (read: if I run more than once a week, it’s an awesome running week), but I know I have to keep it up, because I learned something very, very important about running. It keeps my mood even. Running has worked better than any psychoactive drug for keeping me cheerful and upbeat. 

I went running with Rob at Rancho, and we had a pretty good run and I felt great about it, both physically and in terms of endorphins earned.

Today, I used Freedom and turned off my computer for four hours. I got so much done in terms of applying butt to chair and getting stuff done that I realized I really have to make an Applescript that simply runs Freedom at 9am every weekday and turns off the Internet for four hours. I love it when I have a really productive writing day. 

So, to recap: I ran yesterday, and I had a great writing day today. Anyone want to guess how I’m feeling right now?

That’s right: like crap. I have the voices in my head telling me…well, telling me all those things that your voices probably tell you. It can be summed up as “Everything you have ever done is wrong, and you’re a bad dancer to boot.” The kind of voice cacophony where it becomes hard to breathe. 

The first thing I have to do is remember: You can’t trust your own thoughts. They’re just thoughts. Just because you’re having them doesn’t make them any more or less true than any other thoughts. There are days when I think I’m a damn snappy dancer, I’ll tell you that. (Those days are rare, because in point of fact I’m not a good dancer, and I’m okay with that, frankly. No part of my ego is dependent on my ability to feel the rhythms.) 

The second thing I have to do is what I call a systems interrupt for my brain. I think various branches of psychology or pop psychology call this process by different things. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the mystery schools called it some variant on a spell or incantation. Which seems fair, because this technique works wonders. 

Okay, so you’re having one of these bad days, where all you can do is focus on every single thing you’ve ever done wrong (or failed to do at all). What you say inside your head is:

Thanks for saying that, brain. Now shut the fuck up.

Say it out loud if you have. Say it a lot. Say it until the voice in your head shuts the fuck up. Say it every time the voice pipes up. 

This process works. The first time I heard about it, I thought, Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I swear to you, since I started doing this a few years ago, since I began immediately talking back every time the voice said anything, bad days have gotten a whole hell of a lot rarer. (Which is why a day like today is really such a bummer — I’ve forgotten how to deal with them.) 

You have to take control of your own thoughts. They’re not particularly true just because you’re having them, and they can be discarded. 

And make sure you’re getting a decent amount of aerobic exercise. At least walk a few times a week. There really is something to the whole endorphin theory of emotional management.

For decades — since I was 10 years old — I either bitten or picked at my nails. I’ve rarely had nails that had any white area to them at all. And when I say rarely I mean probably all told less than a year’s worth of having decent nails. For most of college and some time after I used to bite the cuticles until they bled. (Thank God I managed to kick that habit.) Periodically I would leave my nails and cuticles alone, even to the point of having “nice” nails, but the second anything happened, like a crack or a chip or boredom or a scary movie… Boom! Nail death. 

In January, while we were on a trip, I looked at my nails and discovered they were fairly long. Well, fairly long for me. I thought, Oh hey, they’re looking really good! And you know what happened next, right? Of course you do. Within a day, I had bitten or picked every single one off. And I kept destroying my nails periodically, just like always.

A couple of months ago the frustration built to the point where I’d try anything. I sent out a plaintive plea for friends, neighbors, whoever: had anyone in this area seen a hypnotherapist they could recommend? 

Several friends replied to my query with things like, “Get a manicure!” Trust me, I’ve had hundreds of manicures. I also own 100+ bottles of nail polish, which has led me to keep my nails polished and looking good…and then something happens and I destroy them. 

I’ve also tried that yucky-nail-liquid stuff, but a)you get used the taste (yeah, you do) and b)I pick at my nails even more than I bite them. 

~ § ~

I’ve been interested in hypnosis for a long time: I probably have 5 or 6 books on the subject. There are lots of common misunderstandings about hypnosis. The obvious one is that you can be made to do anything the hypnotist wants (um, no) and that you’re asleep (no) and that it’s all nonsense and nothing really happens.

Something happens. Something definitely happens.

I can’t tell you what, though. I am what hypnotherapists call a somnambulist – apparently I go deep almost every time when I am hypnotized. This is common for writers, who are used to being lost in their imaginations. If I listen to a “relaxation” tape, I hear the beginning of the tape, and then I hear the voice calling numbers bringing me out of the trance. I remember absolutely nothing in between. 

I’ve seen seen hypnotherapists before. I saw one in LA when I was trying to lose weight after Simon was born — I can’t remember his name for the life of me, but he was an older gentleman in Sherman Oaks (he had great-grandchildren) who could put me out just by talking to me. Seriously. There are people out there who can do that. It was fun seeing him, but I don’t think he helped with my weight problem any. I probably saw him twice, and then I got caught up in the move and didn’t follow through.

I met another one here in Los Gatos, and while I found the sessions very relaxing, I don’t think I changed my life as a result. But I don’t think I had a specific enough goal in mind. 

This time I had a very, very, very specific problem. One that I would know right away if the therapy were working or not. And desperate people will do desperate things. 

~ § ~

I looked on Yelp and found lots of NLP people near me. I know, I’m probably unfairly biased, but NLP was a huge thing in this area in the late 80s and the way it sank its tentacles into everyone I knew made me crazy. Probably because every single person I knew who took an NLP class and raved about how it changed their life either was a complete asshole or was the same fuck-up they’d been before taking the NLP class. So no to the NLP practitioners.

I checked for hypnotherapists and found a couple in Saratoga. I think I called a couple and left messages. The first one who called me was Julie Herman, in Saratoga. “Hypnosis can definitely help you with that problem,” she said. Four session minimum. 

Okay, I said. 

The first session we just talked. We talked about when the problem started (when I was 10 years old and had just moved to San Francisco and started in a new school…hey, it’s not like I don’t know where these tics come from). 

In the week between the first and second sessions, Sophia and I went for manicures. Sophia tends to have very long nails — I have to trim them to keep her from scratching herself or other people accidentally. (This has never been a problem for me.)

At the second session, I was still in the “nice” phase of the manicure. At this session, Julie put me into a light hypnotic trance. We went back to when I was 10 and had just moved to San Francisco and she asked me about a few things. It was a very traumatic year for a lot of reasons, and as I talked about it I started crying. Or rather, my eyes started producing tears, but my face didn’t scrunch up, I didn’t sob, I didn’t do anything. I continued to talk, and water started appearing. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced.

(Next time you cry, even if it’s just from cutting onions, notice how many muscles on your face have to move to let that happen. Now imagine the muscles of your face are absolutely not helping out in any way whatsoever.)

When I came in for the third session, I showed Julie my nails. The polish had begun to flake and peel, and I’d scratched at one nail a bit. Julie said, “Diane, everyone picks at peeling nail polish! The second that happens, get nail polish remover and get the polish off!” 

I said, “I didn’t take it off specifically to show you that this is all I’ve done to them. Generally the second I start picking at my nails, it’s mere seconds until I’ve peeled off all the nail polish and destroyed my nails to boot. I know this looks terrible, but this is actually progress for me.”

The third session was also a light trance, because I needed to respond to some questions she asked me.

The fourth session we did a heavier trance, so I lay down. I remember almost nothing about that session, other than the fact that the induction involved my watching the numbers on an old-fashioned elevator with one of those arms that would move from number to number.

Since the first time I had seen Julie, I hadn’t bitten or picked at my nails once. I did keep playing with them though — running my thumb over the edges, obsessively checking underneath for cleanliness, etc. I asked Julie about this and she said that was normal: I was in the process of adjusting to my new behavior and was in the “consciously competent” phase. After a while, I would graduate to “unconsciously competent” — I would be able to maintain my nails without thinking about them all the time.

I hoped she was right. Because it was time to go on vacation.

~ § ~

I packed nail polishes and emery boards. I packed cotton swabs. By the way, it turns out the TSA didn’t steal my nail polish remover; I had left it underneath the sink and forgotten to pack it. <cue scary music> But it turns out Canada has nail polish remover (Who knew, am I right? Turns out they have electricity too!), so that was cool. Things actually seemed like they were going to be fine. 

Then my nail cracked. A big crack.

And I thought, “That’s it. I’m going to lose all of my progress now.” 

But I decided to give saving the nail my best shot. First I picked off as much of the cracked nail as I had to (the crack was such that it was in danger of snagging on things), and then I rubbed on the edge to make it blunter and less rough. Hours later (because I’d forgotten my emery boards, natch) I filed the nail down.

Without destroying any of the other nails. 

I considered that this process was actually going to work. 

~ § ~

It’s been two months since I first visited Julie. And as I noted on my Twitter feed earlier tonight, my nails are so long I’m having trouble taking my contacts out. Scrrrraaaaaape on the eyeball. Yeah. I can still use an iPhone (I hear that long nails can be a problem with them). I did have an unfortunate incident the other day of using my nails to dig into skin, but it was my own skin. And wow, does that hurt. Jesus, these things are deadly.

I’ve started making lists for other issues I might be able to use hypnotherapy for, the kinds of things that get tangible real-world results (so I can see whether or not it’s working). 

The first one might have to be a hypnosis session convincing me it’s okay to keep my nails just a wee bit shorter.