Truth be told, as a writer we accomplish the near impossible: we actually finish our novel, tie in our plot and pour out our souls. Once we publish our little masterpieces, we are unabashedly naked, exposed, vulnerable and hanging by our thumbnails for feedback. Well, let me warn you; feedback is subjective, and though it is often heartfelt, it can also be manipulative, false, arrogant, biased and sometimes, though not very often, useful.

Once your novel is out there, be prepared to be praised, ignored, insulted, ridiculed or admired. All meaningless reactions when it comes to sales. I appreciate it beyond words when friends not only take the time to read my books but also take the time to respond with a note or a call. This kind of support is priceless and it comes from the people who care enough about me not to distance themselves from a pat on the back, a comment or a few good words in an email. But unless your caring and valued friends are spreading the good word on dozens of social networking reading sites, the good words will do nothing more than warm your heart.

Let’s talk about selling your book. The most important thing you can create as a writer is a fan base. This fan base will always buy your books because they like the way you write. They may not buy all your books but they’ll spread your good name around social networking sites and your sales will increase, and your fans will increase. In terms of the math here, this fan base is more important than your mother, father, best friend, worst enemy and even the professional critic that gave you all those accolades. Good reviews will not even sell your books, but what will sell your books are the reviews that get passed around the internet by your fans. Your fan base will be found among your target audience. You must recognize who that audience is, seek them out, give them free copies and send them bookmarks. Nurture your relationship with them, be available for book club discussions when they ask for you, and if possible, even offer pre publication copies of your new books.

Anyone who writes knows that some reactions you get to your work will disappoint you in one way or another, and for one reason or another. As a writer, you will discover friends who aren’t, friends who are, people with hidden agendas who will withhold commenting on your books, which simply translates into “I hated it.” Hating your book is their issue, not yours. People who withhold admiring you and praising you for a job well done are not the people you want in your sphere anyway. Arrogant people bore me, withholders bore me even more.

As a writer, you have to be an observer, a storyteller and a beast. Really, you have to be a beast. When all the snarly people who judge you harshly stalk you in the forest of creativity, simply eat them alive and spit them back out. They really don’t taste very good anyway. Expect nothing less from your friends and family than honest praise and expect nothing more from your enemies than silence. Give all your professional critics room to critique you. And hug your fan base, feel flattered when they love you, listen when they don’t, and continue to open up your heart to all the right people.

As a writer, don’t be sensitive outside of your solitude. The Beasts in the forest of creativity will attempt to destroy your confidence in a myriad of ways. For one, they can’t do what you do and if they could, could they do it as well? Listen, they aren’t in your fan base … so take aim … and move on.

Vera Jane Cook

Dancing Backward In Paradise was published in November 2006. The book has received rave reviews from Armchair Interviews and Midwest Book reviews, as well as an Eric Hoffer and Indie Excellence award in the Literary fiction category.  Hearts Upon a Fragile Bough was published in 2009. The book is a family saga that spans the twentieth century, soon to be followed by its sequel, At the End of a Whisper. To learn more about her books you can visit her web site at www.verajanecook.com

To contact the author send an email to jane@verajanecook.com

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Now that my second published novel is due out this month I’ve gone back to a manuscript I started a few years ago. It’s titled “Faith Among Friends.”  I’ve been polishing and rereading chapter after chapter and coming to the satisfying conclusion that I like the book. It isn’t always that way, of course. Sometimes there is the discarded prose on a bottom shelf that must have been conjured up and written during a phase of momentary insanity. Faith Among Friends is different, it was written during a languid phase of reminisces – old lovers, deeply felt friendships, silky, yearning lyrics from the lips of Joni Mitchel and the gritty, witty sound of Bob Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street – all painful reminders that I will never walk that way again.

All my books are a caress of one kind or another – a caress of yesterday, remembered sunsets, too many deaths, empty spaces of people I no longer know – shadows that come from out of the darkness and materialize into form on white, empty paper. Characters who startle me with their insistence and lay themselves open to an interpretation that no longer fits, and perhaps never did.

In any case, Faith Among Friends is about five friends who meet again after ten years, and then again, after twenty. They were originally bonded by their zealous pursuit of the theatre, having met at an acting school in the early seventies, and they are torn apart by betrayal, lies and jealousies. Their attractions for one another are youthfully myopic, unabashedly passionate, and at times, willfully cruel.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that they heal their own wounds, as well as each other’s. But the growth is not easily won and takes years to attain. It certainly could not have been accomplished if they hadn’t cared enough to reunite. The loyalties established in their youth demanded nothing less than that the remaining residue of their ties to one another flares into the fires of transitions, transformations and reestablished relationships. Writers cannot write about people who care too little, which is why literature tells the unspoken truths between us.

I have a significant other who certainly satisfies my need for deep friendship but we often bitch about how many people have come and gone through the revolving door of convenience, rather than commitment. We had a house in the country and we loved going because we were just a drive away from like-minded people that loved to entertain, hang out, brag about their roses, sit around on patios and drink white wine. Great Fun! But I have to use the word “friends” lightly. The only thing we could really count on was laughter, which is worth its weight in gold, but is it rust or is it real? Friends, after all, come in two sizes: Forever and Whatever.

When I think of my interpretation of friendship when I was twenty, then I would have said its like air, necessary for survival. If you asked me how I interpret friendship today I would say “fleeting and not to be expected.” I imagine I have grown up to a world that forfeits it to chance, or luck, or to internet networking sites.

In my novel, Faith Among Friends, my central character, Vivian Forrester refers to friendship as “that fragile thread.” I suppose she’s right. It is a fragile thread, one too often broken by indifference. We get older, we split apart and the people we knew once upon a time have become dispensable. I think I wrote this book because I am lonely for the emotionalism, the lack of middle aged defenses and the unabashed declaration of bonds and promises, even if they do get broken.

Vivian also feels as I do. She longs for the days when her inner life held more appeal than who she knew. With some amount of disappointment I have come to realize that knowing people who are perceived to be in high places buys you friendship, or the illusion of it. What is interpreted as success shrouds you with the allure of diamonds and attracts the pretensions of those who have learned to sniff out your usefulness.

I live in New York City where many people are under the false assumption that they are too busy for bonding, too absorbed and too stingy with their time to commit to more than you might expect from them, or want from them. They collect friends on My Space and Facebook and write on walls to what is essentially an absence, not present, not in the moment, not real. These absences will not give a second thought to our snippets of conversation, or tidbits of information. I don’t really care what my acquaintances write on their little walls, or even what they’re thinking on their little walls. I mean it doesn’t really matter who has a day off or where you dined the night before. It’s as if sharing a secret, developing a feeling, maintaining a relationship is far too much effort. Perhaps it’s the world we live in now. Vivian would have hated it, as I do – a thousand friends on Facebook, and still, no place to go.

My mother told me I’d be lucky if I could count my real friends on one hand. I can barely count them on three fingers! Maybe that’s why I wrote the book, my characters found a way to hold fast to relationships, without even knowing that friendship often lives more deeply in the contours of memory than in action and thrives more resolutely when nourished. For me, the bonds of friendship have broken too easily over the years. If friendship is hard then I say its worth something. Throwing it back is a conceit, holding absurd grudges is selfish. Easy come, easy go is too much of what we’ve come to expect of people. But I guess if I wasn’t writing a book about five friends who open up their hearts to one another, I’d have nothing to miss or to lament, or to grieve for.

Not sure of the pub date on this one but will keep you all posted.

Vera Jane Cook
Dancing Backward In Paradise was published in November 2006. The book has received rave reviews from Armchair Interviews and Midwest Book reviews, as well as an Eric Hoffer and Indie Excellence award in the Literary fiction category. Vera’s next book, Hearts Upon a Fragile Bough, will be published this month. Vera Jane Cook has completed five novels and is presently working on a non-fiction book about getting creative in corporate America. Vera also plans to give seminars on the subject. To learn more about her books you can visit her web site at www.verajanecook.com
To contact the author send an email to jane@verajanecook.com

Naivety has always been my downfall. I believed in Santa Claus, poltergeists and the good tooth fairy. I accepted at face value that all people are created equal, even the ones who kick over your sand castles and promise to love you forever. I trusted the stock broker that took my money, the job that offered security and the political party that promised not to raise my taxes. For me, Rhett Butler returned to his feisty and beloved Scarlet, Heathcliff spent eternity in Catherine’s arms, and in heaven, Vincent Van Gogh found a palette of paints and an angel who soothed his troubled soul. In my perfectly naïve world, men don’t cheat, friends don’t leave and the good do not die young.

Phooey on me, right? I deserve the truth. How can anyone be dumb enough to believe its easy. Well, I did … because some things are. Look, I can always find a deal at Felines, adopt a puppy with sad eyes and zip. I can take a walk through Central Park and get all dreamy poetic over falling leaves. I can tune in to Chris Botti on my ipod and rise above it all, float away on notes. Easy living at dusk.

Life is good even when it isn’t. The words of a cock-eyed optimist. I come home to good food, fine wine and snuggly pillows. Who could ask for more? I also come home to a snuggly partner who keeps me abreast of life’s gossip. No complaints. And in my future there will always be another bend in the road to follow, another book to read, another like-minded soul to know.

So why complicate it all by writing a book of my own? Passion is the only thing I can come up with. Punishment for believing in poltergeists and tooth fairies, I guess. The long genetic line of Irish writers who keep kicking my ass with lyricism, and blarney.

Writing the book was easy ─ a reaction to Corporate America, a life line in a sea of underwater aliens. But now what? Why complicate life by having to walk the maze of book marketing? It’s not bad enough that agents never come out of the woodwork to acknowledge my smiling face and my wordy little novel. Why should they? They’re too busy pigeon holing good writers into niches that don’t fit them to take your calls, answer your queries or throw you a crumb of their morning toast. And another thing! Publishers run with your book for years before publishing it. I’ve been waiting forever to hear the good word from two of them. At this point I’ll have a heart attack either way, yeah or nay, get her off the floor and dust her off, it was only time. Time is cheap, like talk ─ until it isn’t there anymore, then it’s priceless.

I mean life was really good before I wrote a book and then realized I wasn’t writing for the closet. Now I have to deal with PR firms that take your money and produce about one eighth of what you’d hoped for. Internet gurus that come out of the dark and promise millions of hits to your website. Everyone says: if only you wrote nonfiction, if only you were more well known, if only the tooth fairy wasn’t such a sham and could grant all your wishes, well then, their promises would all come true. I was even told by one PR firm that O Magazine wanted to mention my book but I had to let this PR firm republish my book for so many dollars, just to get it in the right year for a line or two in O. Little miss goody two shoes almost let them get away with it. Then I came to my senses: don’t trust the misbegotten.

One thing is clear, you are your own PR firm. Be prepared to control your choices, not the other way around. Speak to their present clients, demand results before you shell out the next installment of what they say you owe them. Did they earn it? There’s nothing wrong with spending money to promote yourself, the only wrong is in believing they are miracle workers. They are not. Whatever your budget is, control the people you hire to work for you or they really will take your money and run. The business end of writing is very difficult, but your success is in believing that your future is in your own hands.

Look, if you can’t afford Grisham’s managing firm, pass out bookmarks promoting your book, understand how to utilize the internet (this may take a few years) and promote yourself through reviews, readings, signings and library calls. Do tradeshows, book shows and conferences. Get the most bang for your buck. If you can afford it, hire a skywriter for goodness sakes. Bug Oprah, bug Hollywood, bug your Aunt Millie Tillie to tell all her friends.

I will be promoting my second book this January. What, am I nuts? Well, like I said, passion and the Irish ghosts still quoting Oscar Wilde and Dylan in my ear. The writing is easy, the reality of the maze you walk afterwards, now there’s the rub ─ your little book under your arm, hope in your little literary heart ─ dreams of sitting on Oprah’s couch talking Tina Turner and what it’s like to be an older woman on the threshold of a blockbuster success ─ this is the fuel in your over zealous imagination that drives your fantasy.

Come down to earth, Ms. Writer. Anyway, my next book, due out in January: Hearts Upon a Fragile Bough is based on tales my mother told me, and she was the blarney Queen, so you get the picture. The book has a sequel due out this spring, three generations of women and about as autobiographical in fiction that I will ever get … I think.

I hope you will all read it and pass on a good word. The best promotion of all are the people who think you have something to say and like the way you say it.

By the way, I still believe in poltergeists, tooth fairies are responsible for a good deal of my laughter, and all my sandcastles are still standing.

Best to you all.

VJC

Getting older is the oddest experience. It brings with it a yearning for the past. I don’t want to go back and relive my life, heaven forbid, but I do want to reach out and touch it, reclaim it for a moment. I was not only the size of a peanut with an arrogance that knew no boundaries and a political slant that was so far left I walked with a tilt, I was completely disconnected from my future as an older person. I was Peter Pan and I would never show a wrinkle or gain a pound and the world would stay the same as well ─ youthful, mystical and poetic, even magical in the pain of transformation.

I proudly remember myself as a child of the sixties; young woman of the seventies, that time in our history when innocence was violated and the passionate pursuit of compassion for the underdog was something worth dying for. Emotion was raw. Lyrics in music ripped you apart. It wasn’t just the scratchy pain in Joplin’s voice or the wisdom of Dylan; it was a time in which Suzanne could take you down to a place by the river, you could get in someone’s blood like holy wine, feel nostalgic without knowing why just because someone left the cake out in the rain. The sixties and early seventies was a scream from the gut; that’s for sure. Looking back, it feels sometimes like a birth we are now responsible for. I guess we can take pride in our accomplishments…..civil rights, women’s liberation, a rebellion that changed laws and mindsets. I notice though, now that I am older, how the results of our passions do not resemble us, not really. Our children and, dare I say it, our children’s children, on average, don’t care quite as radically. They can’t touch the places we’ve been. Their anger is something else, an apolitical, egocentric scream for attention, a nasty confrontation against the pain of poverty, a rather sexy, unabashed striptease.  

I guess we were the unsexy generation. Though we took off all our clothes and bared our asses to the world, we really ached for love, not sex. We pinned our loss of innocence on righteous picket lines. We questioned our sexuality without flaunting our curiosities. We smoked marijuana because we sought a mellow place, not necessarily an aphrodisiac to intensify the ease in which we fornicated, nor did we realize the degree to which the drug culture would darken our futures. We made movies like The Fox and wrote plays like Boys In The Band. We tortured ourselves for the dark and unsettling cravings of our libido, which isn’t at all sexy. We even punished ourselves for being human and sought solace in EST and therapy. It was as if our generation invented psychotherapy. We hated the Vietnam War and never stopped protesting and blaming all the wrong people. We obsessed on politics until we lost, until our heroes died and left us with the consequences, the backlash of where liberal pursuits will get you…..yuppies just too cute for their underwear, a restrictive and rigid religion intent on swaying the vote, a spirituality that dissects us and drives us apart. We no longer question our existence. We don’t make movies like ET anymore or write books about aliens who’ve come to warn us, to whisper our destiny. Our country is about to pollute itself into a world of lost species. We now have a society tainted by horrific acts of terrorism and brain dead on reality shows. Perhaps all the aliens had to say was live long enough and you’ll see for yourselves, you’ll see the road ahead, the one paved with lack of foresight, hatred and an indifference to life. So be it for Nostradamus and space aliens…..what the hell did they know?All I can say is there is something to be said for getting older. You can watch the world become a place that is too young to realize its mistakes, too arrogant to care. You can hope for wisdom, someday, while the blood flows and music bombards the senses with despair, unless you turn on mellow jazz and remember better times. You can look at women who don’t even know they ever had to be liberated; people of color who toss around the N word like a proud banner only they can utter, presidents who just never watched enough war movies to abhor the violence.

Sexy people rule now. In my time, the rules were being written by a generation committed to righting all the wrongs, and “sexy” was in the introspective quiet of our hearts, the fire and rain of loss, the Chelsea mornings of our youth we thought we’d wake to forever. How odd to be growing older, riding the wave of history, wondering if this generation will feel nostalgic over the tattoos its adopted, the role models it emulates, the presidents it elects, the policies it changes. I wonder and wouldn’t doubt it but the truth is, no matter how efficient and user friendly we make the world, we’re still standing in the same place spiritually. We may even be in a spiritual decline, or is that obvious? That said, what goes around comes around, perhaps a loss so great we are forced to deepen and reconnect as people. Is that our destiny? We can never go back, the past is written and the children of the sixties have sung their song, their voices a powerful legacy. Hopefully, we will mend our mistakes. But if we don’t, perhaps a new kind of understanding will arise, an era of creative thought and compassionate rule, a world intent on rebuilding a more profound humanity, one in which sexy isn’t trying so hard, and love is a natural expression of our generosity of spirit. Maybe one day, our respect for our planet and the differences between people will be a natural given at birth, the pride of being human unfettered by the threat of monsters, a true gift of life, as it should be. Hey, that’s all we ever really wanted.

Vera Jane Cook
Dancing Backward In Paradise was published in November 2006. The book has received rave reviews from Armchair Interviews and Midwest Book reviews, as well as an Eric Hoffer and Indie Excellence award in the Literary fiction category. Vera’s next book, Hearts Upon a Fragile Bough, will be published in 2008. Vera Jane Cook has completed five novels and is presently working on a non-fiction book about getting creative in corporate America. Vera also plans to give seminars on the subject. To learn more about her books you can visit her web site at www.verajanecook.com
To contact the author send an email to jane@verajanecook.com