JUMPSTARTING A BOOK

I chose this picture because I look angelic. Can you see the one wing on the left? I wrote a book called CALIFORNIA ANGEL, and on the cover was a single wing. It was a sweet book, but most people know me for my thrillers.

Also, if you look closely at this picture, you can see some of my books lined up on the bookshelf above me. The one on the far left is the UK version of CALIFORNIA ANGEL, where they used a woman who resembled me. Neat, huh?

I'm not writing this to sell books, by the way, although I wouldn't mind if people who enjoy my voice here might want to read some of my thrillers.

When you hear someone talk about a "literary voice" it sounds so complex, but the voice your hear in your head is the voice you speak and write with. Basically, its you. If people find your voice and personality appealing, they'll enjoy reading your books. The trouble is you can't do an awful lot to change your literary voice, although I know there are writers who will disagree. You can try to write in a different style, but your overall voice will be the same. My writing teacher at UCLA, Leonardo Bercovici, hardly said anything during the classes. About the only comment he made about my work was "she has a voice". Little did I know how much that meant.

The book that launched my career was titled MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. I wrote it after attending UCLA adult ed writing class for two semesters and sold it for close to a million dollars. Bang! Overnight, my entire life changed. I can't tell you how exiciting it was. I couldn't believe it was really happening. All my life I wanted to become a writer. And there it was . . . Wow.

The next six years were wonderful, awful, tragic, and painful. I worked sixteen hours a day, almost seven days a week. I was caught up in this enormous thing that I wasn't prepared for -- international success. I followed MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES with INTEREST OF JUSTICE, TRIAL BY FIRE, ABUSE OF POWER, FIRST OFFENSE, and they all made the New York Times list. When my first book was published, I learned some bitter lessons.

First, if you're successful, a lot of people hate you. Some of these people review books and boy can they hurt you. I never knew people could be so mean. I'm sophisticated now, to a certain degree, but I wasn't when my first book took off. Its hard to explain how everyone in the world wants to publish your book, and academy award winning directors like Jonathon Demme, who directed "Silence of the Lambs" want to make it into a movie, when all these other people are determined to trash it. I thought it was because I didn't graduate from college, and my writing skills were inadaquate. That wasn't it, of course. People are just jealous and spiteful. Today, its hard to get your book reviewed at all. Besides, no publicity is bad publicity they tell me. If so, what's this thing about Tom Cruise being dumped by Paramount?

What I mean by jumpstarting a book is you write a shocking scene in the first chapter. I've already done that, even though I'll go over it hundreds of times until I get it right. Writing is basically rewriting. I've vowed to get up in the morning and write. When the book is new, you have to force yourself to wrestle with it until you get it going. Once you get it really going, all you want to do is write.

Stay tuned.

Nancy