Backroom Blues

A thousand years ago, I worked at K-Mart in Missoula, Montana. One of our managers (he always said good morning in German) clucked at me when I was slow to unpack certain merchandise and get it onto the showroom shelves. "Kristin, you can't sell what's in the backroom," he said. One of those little nuggets of wisdom that has followed me through my life...and I can't even remember the guy's name.

So now my book is out. No longer anticipated but really out there for sale. Besides my publisher, who does what she can, I am responsible to get the book out of the backroom. So folks ask me why I'm not reading in a bookstore? Where are the bookstore debuts?

Well, guess what, folks, there are no bookstores.

Yeah, there are B&N and other large Seattle bookstores. But why invite a first-time novelist of lesbian romances when they can get Sarah Waters, Alice Walker, or anyone else who'll draw a crowd? I've tried contacting a few of those bookstores and don't even get the old F.O. from them. The last gay friendly bookstore closed last year. Oh, not that those big bookstores are gay unfriendly...quite the opposite...but Sarah Waters, Alice Walker and the other big names need to visit bookstores too. So they get to have the readings and signings.

The rest of us have to use the networks we've built over the years, web-based or otherwise. And, frankly, I'm so grateful we at least have this medium for book promotion. I'm hoping to use it to the max but am not sure what else I can do besides this and Facebook.

Therefore, if anyone has any suggestions for more web-based promotional activities, feel free to let me know. I want to keep my book out of the backroom and get it on a front shelf.

Another topic I want to briefly mention: Star-Crossed Productions, an online lesbian book dealer, has, sadly, gone out of business. I want to thank all those people at SCP who sent me books over the years. They were professional, prompt and hassle-free. I mourn their closing and the loss of those delicious packages full of books arriving at my door. Adieu, Star-Crossed Productions

Coincidence?

Mom taught me how to read when I was four, and I never stopped. She had me reading classic literature before most girls get addicted to Nancy Drew. My mother always wanted me to be a writer.
She never really saw that part of me realized...or did she?
Yesterday, 12 days earlier than expected, both my sisters received my book from wherever they ordered it. Yesterday was also the 4th anniversary of my mom's death.
Thanks, Mom

Please excommunicate me.

Things may be stagnant at this site, but not so anywhere else in life right now.

I've received my 10 comp. copies of Wind and Bones....in which I wrote every fucking word.
A book, with my name on the cover....and I did it. The kick-ass cover by Sheri starts many a conversation in this house.

Gill McKnight, my writer friends and excellent beta-reader wrote the sweetest review of Wind and Bones on her blog.http://www.gillmcknight.com/

And if you want a blast reading some paranormal books, you have to try Gill's two werewolf novels: Golden Seal and Ambereye. Sexy, funny and chilling. What more could you want? I can't read Gill's books when Jude is asleep next to me because my guffaws wake her up. Actually, I can't read Gills books late at night because I can't go to sleep until I find out what happens.

So, what's next for this writer? Well, I'm working on a new novel, scheduled to be out a year from now. It's entitled 78 Keys and draws on my deep dark past as a Tarot card reader. It's set in the Pacific Northwest. The cover, after lots of feedback from family and friends, has been chosen. Damn, I'd better write the darn thing.

If you're a happy Catholic, skip the next part of this blog. This is all about me, not you.

My upmost project has nothing to do with writing. I learned that the Catholic Church still counts me on its rolls. Apparently, as long as you haven't been excommunicated, they keep you on their rolls until you die. No wonder they brag about their numbers. They're counting folks who haven't been to church in decades.....including me. That frosted my ass.

I have not wanted to be a Catholic since second grade, exactly 50 years ago. I assumed that if I wasn't giving them money or registered in one of their parishes, I wasn't considered Catholic. Not so....unless they boot me out, I'm one of them....even if they really don't want me....and we all know they don't. I'm hoping that something I've wanted for 50 years will finally come to pass. I want all of myself, all of my power back from them, an institution I find intrinsically bogus and, at times, evil. Sorry to all you believers...remember this is about me, not you.

I became motivated to get officially excommunicated. There are several steps in the process but it starts with writing a letter to the parish where I've been baptised and confirmed. Luckily for me, they are one and the same. I had to write a letter requesting excommunication and send it to my Shelby, Montana parish. gulp. I have not done this lightly or as a frolic. The little girl who was forced-fed damaging dogma still resides within me. However, I know what's right for me and where I want to put all my spiritual energy....and it's not with the Catholic Church.

I have decided to post my request on this blog and give you updates. After being notarized, the following letter was sent to St. William Parish, Shelby, Montana, USA on April 22, 2010 by registered letter.

April 11, 2010
Dear Father Drury,

Before I make my request for excommunication from the Catholic Church, be assured that I am of sound mind and body. I am a consenting adult, fifty seven years old. I will have this letter notarized as proof of its authenticity and sincerity.

I was born in Shelby, Montana on March 10, 1953. My parents were Sam and Jeanette Marra, now deceased. I was baptized in St. William Church at the customary time subsequent to my birth with my god-parents attending, William and Francis Neely, now deceased.

I attended St. William School from fall 1959 to spring of 1967. I received first communion at St. William in approximately 1960 and was confirmed at St. William in approximately 1966.
When I was in grade school at St. William, I witnessed and was victim of several sessions of verbal, emotional and physical abuse. I will be happy to supply names and approximate dates of such events upon your request. I was also slapped several times for asking questions about God or church doctrine. By second grade, I had decided that the church was no place for me; however, I continued to attend school because I had no choice, of course. My parents believed in church doctrine, and they felt I was lucky to be at a Catholic school.

My lack of belief at an early age also accompanied the knowledge that I was different. Back then I didn’t have the language for it except for “evil”, “sinful”, “of the devil”, “perverted”, and other degrading terms. So from the age of five, I knew I was a lesbian but had nothing but church terms to define me. And, as you know, those terms are still the same. Fortunately, I no longer subscribe to such brutality and love myself completely.

I am appalled that the church can call me such hateful names, but act as an apologist for the thousands of priests who preyed upon children. One such priest, and maybe more, even served at St. William.

There was a period of time, even though the church hates gay people, when I considered going back to mass. I thought having a place to pray with a group would be helpful. Then the church elected Cardinal Ratzinger as pope, a man whose vicious career I had been following since 1980, and all plans for returning to the church were dead to me. This will never change now.

Let me be specific, Father Drury.

1. I don’t believe that God is a father or mother.
2. I renounce that Jesus is his only son. We are all children of God.
3. I renounce the doctrine of the holy spirit.
4. I renounce the doctrine of the virgin birth.
5. I renounce the doctrine that Jesus descended into hell and rose three days later.
6. In fact, I renounce the complete doctrine of Jesus, especially since 90% of it was made up three hundred years after his death and added to as it suited popes to consolidate power.
7. I renounce any doctrine fomented by the so-called “apostle” Paul who never laid eyes on Jesus.
8. I renounce the communion of saints.
9. I renounce the church’s doctrine of forgiveness as it is selective and cruel.
10. I renounce the doctrine of original sin, heaven, hell and purgatory.
11. I renounce all the sacraments of the church as they are exclusionary.
12. I especially renounce the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Let me just give a blanket renunciation of the church and its entire body of doctrine from birth control to marriage. My belief is the church has caused more harm and suffering to the world, over the last two millennia, than any other political or religious movement in history. If you want me to supply dates and examples, I will be happy to do so. Suffice to say, an objective study of history would prove me correct.

I see nothing in the church’s future that portends a change in its wanton effort to oppress and mislead millions of people throughout the world, but now especially, the under-educated and needy in places like Africa and South America. It is shameful.

And so, Father Drury, I request, no, I plead that you start proceedings to excommunicate me from the church. I do not ever intend to return. I do not want the final sacrament at the time of my death. I do not believe in the church’s teachings, and I am ashamed to have my name attached to it, even tangentially.

Please notify me as soon as possible that you have started my process of excommunication from the Catholic Church and official removal from its rolls. I do not want to be counted.
Thank you for an immediate response,

Kristin Eleanor Marra

And there you have it, folks, my damnation into hell. However, considering the dogma I was taught, I'll be meeting most of you there. I'll bring a nice bottle of Bordeaux....oh, hell, we'll need several cases of Bordeaux.....and port....and gin.......................

Writing Sex

Okay, so the big anxiety about my book is that it has sex in it. Graphic sex. Between girls.
It was challenging to write because it had to be how my characters would do "it." I really had to get in their heads and have sex as them. Okay, I admit, it was fun and a little arousing, even for this old bird.

But the thing that bothers me is that family members and mere acquaintances will read this ditty, including the sexual passages. I voiced my concern to Jude the other day because her parents will read the book. She said we just have to hold our heads up and move on. She's not nearly as worried as I am.

In writing a sex scene, I had to straddle the line between porn and yawn. I'm sure some elements of society will see it as porn but few would yawn. I also realized sex has to be written the same way an action scene is constructed....no serial compound-complex sentences. Snapshots and close-ups, not panoramas.

And then there is the placing of sex scenes. If the protagonist has sex too soon with the main love interest, the tension is broken and the reader gets bored. If sex happens too late, some readers will throw in the towel. If they do have to wait, then it had better be good and not a wimpy and dry they-closed-the-bedroom-door-and-loved-each-other-until-dawn.

I've read scads of lesbian romances to learn the best flow of the plot....and I think I have the sex timing down. But, damn, I've had to read some really bad stuff along the way. I've come to believe that soft-soaping the sex is just plain chicken shit. I know there are readers who skip the sex scenes, and that's their option. But there are also readers who read just for those scenes. Those are the readers I wrote for....they'll get their wet pages from me. Why not?

How do they do it?

My big question of the moment, only of the moment, is how do bloggers keep up with their blogs? Don't they have jobs, housekeeping, car maintenance, pet care, child care, bills to pay, grocery shopping, and hundreds of other life duties to perform?

I just checked the last time I updated this blog and shame, oh shame, it's been way too long. Luckily readers are few, so anticipation is almost nil. Hopefully, though, after Wind and Bones comes out, I'll pick up readers and blog focus. I'll get with the program.

On Solstice, I sent the last revision of Wind and Bones to my editor, the intrepid Cindy Cresap. She doesn't seem all that concerned about the Jan. 1 deadline....like she thinks we can get 'er done. So I suppose we will.

It was ass-busting to revise, but damn, I leaned lots about fiction writing. I would never have believed that I, the composition teacher, would be guilty of verb tense issues. Who me? I've railed to my students for years about their sloppy verb tenses. And, holy shit, there they were in black and white, my own personal verb tense errors. blush

And then there was a whole plot piece that had to get deleted. A great back story wiped out, sent to the teeming fiction trash bin of history. And the book is better for it...tighter. I eliminated a character too...at my own discretion...wiped him off the whiteboard of characters with nary a blink. God, I was playing God...loved it.

And then I needed to up the sexual tension at the beginning and mitigate my protagonist's obsessive thoughts about a honey bunny from the past. Plus, I completely erased a six page info dump about Montana farming history....fascinating only to me, I guess.

And the book is better. That's what editors are for.

So now I have to think of all the folks I'm supposed to thank for this endeavor and write an acknowledgement paragraph. How can I remember everyone that helped? I'll feel rotten if I leave someone out who deserves a kudo. I guess it's inevitable.

And poor Jude and Rachel. My long-suffering but infinitely supportive family who frequently do without me. How do I make it up to them? AND all the times in the future because there are more books coming. Two more for now, anyway. How do I thank my family...even the dog?

Ah well, I suppose all writers have the same conundrums. Stephen King said that once you become a writer, you've pretty much left "polite society." That's true in more ways than one, let me tell you. But that's for another blog post, I think.

And that brings me full circle to the demands of blog maintenance. With W&B almost in the printing phase, I think blogging will improve at this site. Of course, talk's cheap.

How?

I've been thinking about Victorian novelists lately. The Russians too. Those lengthy, juicy stories full of diverse characters. Dickens, Eliot, Tolstoy and scores of others. They produced their massive books without computers or even typewriters. How, oh how, in the world did they do it?

This tricky tricky business of writing fiction is treacherous. Details escape the writer as she barrels through her story. Was that character 36 or 37 years old? Does my timeline match with her age? Oh shit, this timeline makes her 39 years old. Is that too old? Should I go back and change the timing? Is her mom's name Harriet or Henrietta? Where did I write that? What page? And what was that attorney's car? Was it a Jag or Alph Romero?

And then there's the issue of character creation. How to make the character realistic. In the current tarot novel I'm working on, my secondary characters were far more interesting that my lead. That's dismaying. I've re-written her 4 times...and now I have her nailed....but my computer was all-important. I'm learning to write the bios of my characters before I start. A basic technique, I know, but in my arrogance, I felt I could forego. And I store the bios on my computer.

Which takes me back to my original question. With all those setting details, plot consistencies, character traits to organize, how did Dickens, Eliot, Tolstoy, et.al. do it? I've always loved the old novels, the ones most people won't read today, but my deep respect for those writers has only grown as I venture down this pothole riddled road of fiction writing.

Maybe I should just stick to tenure reports and master course outlines.

Autumn malaise

I think all teachers have it in one form or another....the fall freakout.
And I think we all get through it....one way or another. For me, it involves a reminder of what a great job I have and all the fabulous students and colleagues that come with the territory.

But this fall is different. Now I'm a writer. Oh shit. What did I get myself into? I can barely read my own work. Soon it will be out in black and white print with a vaguely lurid glossy cover (a cover I happen to like a lot). And OTHER PEOPLE will read my writing. STRANGERS, not my loving, encouraging friends. Well, I'm just not going to think about that today.

So what comes first? The writing or the job? I don't worry about the family; they are so much a part of me that they get the best of me. But which....the writing or the job?