How Green Was My Uterus--Recycled by Kristy Kiernan

DISCLAIMER: This is a blog post that I wrote years ago. I've been a bit under the weather and, frankly, that makes me cranky. But I've been sitting here, dutifully, eagerly even, waiting for inspiration to strike, and the only thing that's striking me right now is the craving for a long, hot, environmentally irresponsible shower. Which made me remember this blog post. And since I'm pretty sure I wrote it while rather cranky (no really...read it...I was quite clearly cranky), I thought it was appropriate. I'll be back to non-cranky originality soon.

HOW GREEN WAS MY UTERUS

I worry.

I do.

I worry about the environment. I am not immune. I'm not made of stone, people. I read the articles, I watch the news, I listen, intently, to celebrities like Jennifer Aniston tell me that my showers should take 3.2 seconds.

(Okay, as an aside on that one, you know why Jennifer Aniston can take 3.2 second showers? Because, unlike the average woman, she's had all the hair on her body lasered or waxed off, she has other people who dye [and therefore rinse] her hair for her, and has other various grooming procedures performed upon her by others in swanky spas rather than having to do it all herself in her freaking shower! She says she even manages to brush her teeth in the shower during that time. First of all, brushing your teeth in the shower is a stunning waste of water unless you're turning the shower completely off while you stand there, naked, dripping wet, and foaming at the mouth. Secondly, if you do everything you really need to do in the shower AND manage to brush your teeth in that short amount of time, well, I can assure you that something is suffering. I don't want to speculate on what that might be, but if I ever meet her I'm bringing along some extra Altoids and Summer's Eve. Wow, this kind of turned into a whole bash Jennifer Aniston thing, didn't it? Just to clarify, I really like Jennifer Aniston, I just don't buy the super short shower bit from any celeb [except perhaps Sting, because apparently he simply doesn't take them at all].)

Anyhoo, back to my environmental angst. So yeah, I worry about the things I'm doing to ruin our environment, and I beat myself up about the fact that the things I do to help are really pretty passive, though they're more than some people do.

First of all, I DO go through an astonishing number of little plastic bottles of Zephyrhills spring water. And don't tell me about how tap water tastes fine. Do you live in southwest Florida? No? Then shut it. If you do and you think this water tastes anything short of decidedly ass-like then you need to have your taste buds tested. (Another tip-off to being severely taste bud challenged: Do you think P.F. Chang's has great Asian food? Uh huh, that's what I thought.) So I go through a lot of the little bottles, which apparently really cheeses off one of my neighbors.

Now my neighbor hasn't actually confronted me on this little environmental horror-show of mine. I heard about it from another neighbor, who has her own environmental pet peeve (I don't know, something to do with fertilizer?). The thing is, I do at least recycle all the bottles. We have a giant, wheeled cart for recyclables that gets picked up every Wednesday, and anything that I recognize as recyclable goes right in, including the demon plastic water bottles. The cart is always full. Of course, I do know that if we ALL stopped buying the little bottles they'd stop making them and therefore the people who DON'T recycle them wouldn't have them to throw away and clog landfills and kill our planet and so forth. I get it.

Then there's the light bulb issue. I know I'm supposed to replace all my current light bulbs with the new Twistee-Treat ones. But, the thing is, my light bulbs aren't burning out! I fully intend to replace them, when they're no longer working. But it appears that I've gotten some sort of freakishly long-lasting light bulbs and ever since I knew I was supposed to replace them, not a single one has gone. I'm ready, I'm waiting, pzzzt damn you, pzzzt already!

And finally there's the laundry. I know I'm not supposed to wash anything in HOT anymore. The prevailing wisdom is that the energy used to heat the water to wash things on the hot cycle is wasted because things are perfectly fine and clean when washed in warm, and even cold. But I have a real issue with this. I AM washing my towels and sheets on Hot. I am. Bite me.

But, clearly, I feel defensive about all of this. I feel terrible, being a bad environmentalist and all. Drinking my water, not throwing out still-working light bulbs, washing stuff on Hot.

But then I realized something.

I had, yes, another epiphany. Wanna hear about it? Here it go:

So there I am the other day, standing in front of my washing machine, stuffing my sheets into its bleachy, steamy goodness and feeling pretty badly about myself as a human being, when it hits me (the epiphany, not the bleachy, steamy goodness):

I, in fact, am THE most environmentally friendly person I know. I am an ANGEL to our environment. I am considering putting myself up for the Ed Begley Jr. Award. I am a GODDESS! I want some recognition, dammit, some acknowledgement that I am doing THE most singularly generous thing for the health of our planet that I possibly can.

I'M NOT MAKING ANY MORE HUMANS.

That's right. I'm almost forty-two. If I were gonna have kids, I'd have done it by now. I'm not having any. I'm not contributing to what the real problem is in our world...US. My righteous neighbors? Parents, all of 'em. Not of one, but of two, and three, and four kids. Go on, have another!

And it's not even a passive decision. I COULD have one if I wanted one (I think). I could have a whole passel. I could produce my own little nation of consumers if I wanted, but I am choosing not to. Oh, there are a lot of various reasons, but actually, yes, one of them is that I think we're over-populated.

So, hear this: I'm using the Hot cycle. And I'm going to drink my Zephyrhills. And I'll replace my bulbs when they die. And I don't want to hear a word about it. I'm not going to feel guilty. You have your kids, love them, enjoy them, make them into responsible humans. But don't even think about saying a word to me about my environmental choices.

Hey, I should get in touch with Jennifer Aniston, shouldn't I? She should feel okay about lengthening those showers; she doesn't have any kids either.

Kristy Kiernan lives in SW Florida. She is normally a ray of sunshine. Her latest book is BETWEEN FRIENDS, and you can hardly tell she's cranky at all when you read it.

AS MEMORABLE HOLIDAYS GO...by Kristy Kiernan

I love reading all of the "What I'm Thankful For" posts that flood the Internet (and grade, middle, and high school classes) every year at this time. And there is no question that I have much to be thankful for in my life.

In fact, I think I try to vocalize that I'm thankful for the things I'm thankful for when they actually happen.

And so I tend to feel a little cranky about my thankfulness around this time of year--knowing that at some point someone is going to ask me what I'm most grateful for, and I'm going to have to come up with something all lyrical and poignant, and really, I never did like being told what to do or how to feel.

So you know what happens when the stubborn and childish and Southern feel cornered, right? We turn all smart-ass and look for the black comedy.

Which leads me, inexorably, inevitably, naturally, and predictably, to my own family.

There were a lot of memorable holiday family get-togethers while I was growing up. We had our share of drunk friends and/or relatives, and/or dogs and cats, and lots of recalcitrant food--turkeys with the giblets still in, ovens never turned on, apples pies eaten off the kitchen floor--but there are some moments during those long, long childhoods that stand out, and that give you a sudden insight into why your family works the way it does…or doesn't.

My grandmother was a clean, clean woman. And not adorably-quirky clean like Monk, but more like douse-you-in-alcohol-and-light-you-on-fire-to-get-rid-of-the-germs clean.

My mother, on the other hand, had an ink drawing of a wild woman with flowing hair and hippie dress hanging in the kitchen with the less-than-subtle title of "F@#K HOUSEWORK" (only the @ was a "U" and the # was a "C" [just in case you weren't clear]) in giant Gothic script under her breasts. There might have even been candles and small animal sacrifices under it, but I admit that my memory might be playing tricks on me with that one.

There were likely epic battles of will between the two women in the years before I came along, but things had mellowed to a nice, classic, comfortable passive-aggressive Southern mother/daughter kind of thing, subtle enough that it wasn't until I was about thirteen before I saw it ripen, split open, and rot over the course of a Thanksgiving dinner.

We'd, somehow, made it to sitting down at the table and passing bowls and plates, and my brother's face had morphed into that fascinating-yet-horrifying mask of desperate hunger that only fifteen-year-old boys are capable of, and the inevitable discussion of how moist the turkey was had begun.

I seem to recall that it started innocently enough, though I might not have been mature enough to read the little signs of strain beneath the compliments, but it soon deteriorated when my grandmother began expounding on how filthy turkeys were, how you had to clean them--no--scrub them, inside and out, several times before you cooked them…and then it happened: "Of course you wouldn't bother with that," she said to my mother.

Oh--the silence, so brief, so, you know…silent.

And then: "Oh no, we tie a rope to the turkey legs and drag it around the backyard a few times before we cook it," my mother said.

She was laughing.

The rest of us laughed.

Well, most of the rest of us laughed.

If there were Family Dysfunction lightbulbs, a 100 watt one would have gone off above my head for the very first time.

Just like that everything changed. My grandmother stood suddenly enough that her chair tipped over backward. Half of us scrambled to our feet, while the other half seemed to resign themselves. I was a scrambler, my brother was a resigner.

"Get out!" she screamed, raising her arm ninety degrees and thrusting her finger toward the door. "Get out!"

The laughter continued in its own strange, uncertain way, but my mother simply tilted her head toward her own mother with a secret smile and said, "Really?"

"Get out!"

"You got it." My mother stood and gestured me toward her. "Let's go," she said.

I immediately hustled around the table, but my brother wasn't going anywhere without some food, so he moved a little slower, grabbing a turkey leg and a couple of crescent rolls before my mother managed to get him to the front door. We left in a strange, jostle of a family huddle, my mother leading the way, me following behind with wide eyes, and my brother trailing, casting an occasional wistful glance over his shoulder at the pies sitting on the counter.

It wasn't until we were in the car that my mother began to laugh. It's entirely possible that it was hysterical laughter, the kind that masks or turns into tears, but at my age I only heard the laughter. And suddenly, magically, it was funny.

I remember that Thanksgiving with a grin. A smart-ass grin, but a grin nonetheless. It was dramatic, and pointless, and, I suppose, even sad, but it was also well-felt. By God, I remember that Thanksgiving.

That is what makes a holiday memorable. That is what makes a family. And that, in the end, is what makes a writer.

Kristy Kiernan is the author of Catching Genius, Matters of Faith, and Between Friends. She lives in southwest Florida, and she is completely devoid of family this Thanksgiving. Which, well might be really relaxing!

Official Permission Slip for Your Trip to Joyful Insanity...by Kristy Kiernan

"Don't even bother looking at the Amazon rankings. It's a waste of time. They mean nothing."

"Just work on your next book."

"Stay off all those social reading sites. You can't please everyone, and you'll just get depressed."

"You can't tell anything from B&N's online numbers."

"Don't make yourself crazy. Just wait until your royalty statement comes in; it's the only thing that matters."

"Oh, yeah, nothing ever comes from the things you see on your website statistics. Don't waste your time."

"Oh my God, are you still looking at Amazon?"

"Don't even think about calling the Ingram stock line. It doesn't mean anything."

"You just can't worry about all of it."

"Don't read reviews…trust me."

"Get out of the house. Take a walk. Stop obsessing."

"GET OFF AMAZON!"

Oh, all such good advice, so well meaning. Sometimes it comes from a fellow debut author, but most often it comes from someone with a few books under their belt, someone who knows, someone who's been through it.

And here's what I--someone who has a few books under her belt, someone who's been through it--have to say to them: "Shut up! Seriously, just shut up."

Look, the fact is, they have already done this. They've already gone through the obsessions, the rapid fire clicking on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Google (even though you've set up Google Alerts for your name in quotes, your title in quotes, your title in quotes plus your name without quotes), Twitter search, Facebook Book Shelf.

Or, even worse, the people who are so assuredly giving this advice have ten books under their belt, and they never even had to contend with the sheer amount of information--accurate or not--out there on their first book, because their first book came out in 1989, or '92, or even '98.

But of course they know they wouldn't have wasted their time, of course they wouldn't have.

And I got all this advice. And, oh, I listened, eagerly, asking for more.
Tell me more, tell me what to do with all this anxiety, all this energy, all this jittery fear that has nowhere to go. Please, tell me what to do.

But of course nobody could babysit me, Barbara Kingsolver didn't volunteer to be my minder on this psychedelic debut trip, keeping me from hitting refresh, watching my numbers on Catching Genius go down and down, and so there's nobody there to stop me from doing any of the things everyone is telling me, sternly, to, by all means, NOT do.

And the more advice I'm getting to not do them, the more I'm doing them, and, the very worst part of it all is that I am so ashamed of myself. I'm so guilty, and I'm lying about how often I check for new reviews on reading sites, about the fact that my Amazon pages stay open constantly on my computer screen, that I'm calling the Ingram stock line a minimum of three times a day, Googling the business ISPs that show up on StatCounter, squealing when the New York Times or another known quantity pops up, keeping my new manuscript open on my computer, over top of the multiple pages all bearing the Catching Genius cover.

I feel as though I've been discovered doing something so untoward, so absurdly nasty, as if the entire publishing industry has caught me masturbating with one of my own novels. I am miserable with shame and embarrassment, sick to my stomach at the fact that I can't seem to let this all go as breezily as everyone else swears they have, and I wonder at their fortitude, wonder if I am not cut out for this business.

By the time Matters of Faith comes out, a little over a year later, I've calmed down, though I'm still keeping tabs, and I give myself the advice this time. I gear myself up for its release with stern internal lectures (keep your hands off it, that's dirty!), as well as reading over all the same old advice everyone is giving debut authors to NOT look at any of it, to not take it seriously, to not waste their time.

And when it came out, I went through it all again. Maybe without the same intensity, and perhaps I was far enough along in my career to know that I really wanted to get cracking on the next book, but…still…the siren song of the mouse called, the lure of Amazon, the speediest speed dial of Ingram.

And, again, the shame and embarrassment, and the wonder at my peers who never, gosh no, never looked at any of it, or seemed to worry about a thing, so blasé about it all, making me, by comparison, a privately quivering neurotic mess.

But about a month after Matters of Faith's release I…got tired of it. I was exhausted with the shame, and I could no longer quite figure out why everyone thought that all this concentrated energy was so wrong, why it was shameful, and why everyone seemed to take such satisfaction in telling me how little it all mattered.

Shame and excitement are pretty damn close cousins, and I realized that in buying into the idea that all of the natural enthusiasm for as much information as I could find about the books that I had slaved over for years was somehow wrong, and weak, and shameful, had robbed me of a good amount of the fun, healthy excitement of it all. I spent more time beating myself up for checking my Amazon rankings than I spent enjoying the fact that I had Amazon rankings to check to begin with!

Here's the thing: You're going to do it anyway. Yes, you are. And all those people telling you that they don't do it? They're liars. Okay, maybe not all of them. Maybe Joyce Carol Oates doesn't start her day by hitting the "Open All In Tabs" link to tile all her various Amazon, B&N, and GoodReads pages open (that would crash the hardiest computer anyway), but yes, I still do.

Granted, I don't spend much time on them. A quick check, and then I don't even look at them again until the next day, and of course the Ingram stock line doesn't even exist anymore, so there's that little obsession solved. But I still do it. And I'm not going to apologize for that, or hide it, or be embarrassed because some other author enjoys the feeling of superiority of having a much tighter rein on their neuroses than I apparently do.

How sad.

How dry.

How joyless.

I've earned the right to obsess about my books. That concentrated, jittery energy is excitement, and I'm not going to dampen that in order to impress anyone. And nobody gets to take it away from me, either.

So when I get questions from debut authors about Amazon rankings and all the various other venues in which they can fritter their time away, I tell them that there are other, more important factors, and that no, they don't really matter much, but that of course they're going to check, and to go enjoy it. Let that feeling in your belly be excitement, joy, happiness, not shame and embarrassment.

Shame and embarrassment aren't words I'm willing to associate with my life's work anymore.

So, go, obsess, and enjoy it, you earned that, you deserve it, and when someone rolls their eyes at your joy and enthusiasm for all the hundreds of inconsequential little pieces of this business, tell them that Kristy Kiernan says, "Cram it, joysucker."

Unless it's Barbara Kingsolver.

Then, you know, give her my e-mail address…I could use a blurb.



Between Friends, Kristy Kiernan's new novel, will be published on April 6th.

"Kiernan (Catching Genius) again demonstrates her ability to portray true-to-life relationships between women...With realistic dialogue and pinpointed emotions, Kiernan paints a persuasive portrait of the bonds between mothers, daughters, and friends in this inspiring, heartbreaking tale." --Publishers Weekly

The Next Level is Closer Than You Think by Kristy Kiernan

The first step to taking anything in life to the next level is understanding that there even is another level. There are so many buildings in the Big City of Writersburg, and we're always keeping our eye on those, aren't we?

We think we're on our roof, training our telescope on the swanky Sales Temple, the Advance Tower, the shiny mirrored windows of the Review Complex (which includes the heavily guarded New York Times Temple, the Publisher's Weekly Starlight Lounge, the Library Journal Hall, the hodgepodge Amazon Vineyard, and the recently boarded-up Kirkus Morgue), and the massive Industry Insider Internet Time-Suck, not to mention the welcoming Friends and Mentors Cottages and the dank, odiferous Paranoia Slum where our imaginary enemies skulk around plotting our downfall.

The noise from our crowded city practically deafens us, and at first it's exciting, stimulating, and we run hard to the next level in order to see the next levels on all those other buildings. We gaze hard on them, trying to figure out how to reach their next level, or even how to skip a few levels, Super-Writer style, leaping all those tall buildings in a single bound, and we begin to ignore our own building, the one we live in, the one we've stopped seeing, the one we take for granted.

It's the Craft Building, and it is the tallest, strongest skyscraper in our city, but there is no elevator, express, penthouse, delivery, or otherwise. Our building is filled with steep stairs, and the stairway doors are guarded, videogame-style, with all manner of nasty animals, like fanged Day Jobs, and clawed Child Care, and the dreaded poisonous Spousal Time Jealousy. If we make our way through the first few levels, fight our way to the Chunk of Time Rewards, then we start to learn our craft.

But something happens toward the middle of the building. Maybe we get tired of climbing those stairs, because they get steeper and longer, or we get tired of fighting our way through the Door Guard Nasties because it seems like they get stronger and more devious every time. Or we've achieved some level of success that makes us believe that the levels overhead hold nothing new.

But chances are, we've just become so dazzled by all the other parts of the city that we can now see, that all of our focus turns outward, and we stop achieving new levels in our own Craft Building, stop even realizing that we've stalled, rooted, stagnated.

We've become deaf to the little voice that strains to get through all the noise. The voice that tries to remind you that at one time you fought for time to write your novel, and that now you fight for time to write a pithy comment on a Facebook thread. The voice that reminisces about the time you used to spend reading literature that moved you to tears, and that now you read industry blogs that paralyze you with pessimism over the Future of Publishing. The voice that quietly asks if the sentence is really good enough, if the plot really holds together, if maybe you're…cheating.

If maybe you're…skating by.

If…MAYBE…you're…LAZY.

And then it's time to quiet the city. It's time to stop obsessing over all the other buildings. It's time to take the weapons of knowledge you've already won, gird yourself, and attack the stairway. Fight through the Guard Nasties, whatever they are this time (the Spectre of Sales Past, the Willies of Expectations, the FoP [Future of Publishing] Ogre), and emerge into the white space of the next level.

The next level is silence. The next level is control. The next level is blank white walls and high ceilings and it echoes as you walk through it. The next level is solitary. You are the only one there. And your sales do not matter, and your advance does not matter, and your reviews do not matter, and what your friends and enemies are doing does not matter.

You will never learn anything if you never enter that silent blank white space, that empty echoing chamber.

The next level is up to you. It's there, waiting for you. You know what you need to learn there, and if you don't, then you're not listening hard enough, and you're concentrating not just on the wrong level, but on the wrong building entirely.

Kristy Kiernan's third novel, BETWEEN FRIENDS, will be published April 2010, and has recently been chosen as a Featured Alternate for the Literary Guild, Doubleday, and Rhapsody Book Clubs.

If Rejection Didn't Hurt, It Would Be Called Candy -- by Kristy Kiernan

The topics this cycle on A Good Blog Is Hard To Find are "rejection" or "bad reviews" (which are one and the same as far as I'm concerned). Or, as writers prefer to think of it: re-DEAR-GOD-HOW-CAN-YOU-POSSIBLY-HURT-ME-LIKE-THIS-jection, with the attendant wailing and gnashing of teeth. And I assure you, I could teach a class on rejection. I even have an inspiring story, one that will likely make you shake your carpal-tunneled-claw at the sky and vow, "If Kristy Kiernan can do it, then so can I!"

But the thing is, little that I say is going to actually change how you feel. You're still going to feel like crap when you get a rejection from a magazine, or an agent, or an editor. And you're going to feel depressed and hurt when you get a rotten, barely literate review on WeRead, or an "I can't believe that ANY woman would ever enjoy this" one-star on Amazon, or a "Meh" on Goodreads, or an "I couldn't even bring myself to finish it" on LibraryThing.

And you will read everything you can about rejection and bad reviews, and you will take those pep talks to heart, and you will repeat them fiercely to yourself at four in the morning, and you will hear them coming from your own mouth when someone offers you sympathy, or empathy, or is even passive-aggressively trying to make you feel bad. And you will assure yourself that you BELIEVE them. And maybe you do.

But it won't change how you FEEL.

And I've gotten to the point that I actually don't think you should change how you feel about things. I have come to believe that you should embrace all the insanity rather than fighting it. (Stay with me here.)

See, it's all about time management.

As an example, let's condense the time you spend on one rejection/bad review over the course of two months:

The Rejection/Bad Review Comes In

Minutes spent barely breathing before finally reading it = 3

Minutes spent repeating everyone's words of wisdom as you read it = 7

Minutes spent rereading and seething = 237

Minutes spent re-repeating everyone's words of wisdom as you reread it (seething) = 311

Minutes spent kvetching about it to friends and family = 172

Minutes spent finding and reading more words of wisdom about rejections and bad reviews = 117

Minutes spent calling other writer friends to subtly induce them to make you feel better = 108

Now, here's the really important part--

Minutes spent feeling badly about yourself for feeling badly about things that everyone's words of wisdom tell you that you shouldn't feel badly about = 124,917

Do the math. It's just not efficient to try to NOT feel hurt.

Look, you are going to feel badly. You can be brave as you want and you can spout back all the words of wisdom that you want, and tell me how you're fine with it, and you don't even READ reviews, but…I know you read the reviews. And I know you're not fine with them.

I also know that you're brave. And I know that a lot of those words of wisdom DO make you feel better, and that your logical self knows that these words are true.

But what's illogical to me is that we often spend more time beating ourselves up for feeling badly that someone said awful things about something we so earnestly worked on to make as good as we possibly could. It hurts. And it doesn't matter that it's a professional review (Kirkus is evil and snarky, the Times is elitist), or an amateur review (what do I care what some hick in **** thinks? They gave Mama's Big Blue Wig five stars…loser), or a big agent (I didn't want to get lost in a giant agency), or a small agent (I'd never even heard of her before), or a major house (they only publish pabulum for the masses), or a specialty house (they couldn't get me into the big box stores anyway).

It still hurts.

Rejection HURTS.

If it didn't hurt, it would be called candy.

So? Feel the hurt. Go ahead. Here's the big secret: You're going to anyway.

Bring on the hurt. Live it, feel it, and feel okay about it hurting. Stop wasting so much time making yourself feel badly about being hurt and denying that you do. Don't obsess, don't be a narcissist, but acknowledge that yes, you read it, and IT HURTS.

IT IS SUPPOSED TO HURT.

You don't have to admit it to me, but at least admit it to yourself.

This is an inescapable part of this business. INESCAPABLE.

And the time you spend in the hurt isn't the travesty. The travesty is the time you spend beating yourself up for being human. You're a writer because you feel the need to address being human in some way, so cut yourself a little slack and free up some writing time by being honest with yourself.

Go forth.

Write.

Hurt.

Then write again.

Kristy Kiernan lives in south Florida with her husband, who always thinks she's brilliant, and even when he doesn't, he never puts it in writing. She did not wallpaper her guest bath with her rejections. Instead, when she was published, she threw them away, without fanfare. The hurt went with them.

She is the author of Catching Genius (2007) and Matters of Faith (2008). Some people did not like them.

She has great hope for Between Friends, coming in April of 2010, but she's pretty sure that someone isn't going to like that one either.

Beating Your Muse Into Submission by Kristy Kiernan

This was originally posted on my personal blog (now on hiatus) many moons ago, but when our fair moderator suggested we blog our advice for aspiring writers, well, I thought it was worth a re-post.

* * *

I often get e-mail from writers I don't know asking for advice. If the e-mail seems sincere I try to answer it sincerely. I do sometimes get angry missives on how unfair and/or archaic the publishing industry is, and I admit that I don't always answer those. They seem to be more of a way to let off steam, and, well, their mission was complete when they hit send, so...

Anyway, once in a while I get asked my opinion on writing matters from someone I actually know. A friend even.

I sometimes hesitate to be fully honest in my answer, because if I know the person well it almost seems to take unfair advantage of that knowledge, no matter how I couch it, and if the person is feeling uncertain to begin with (and why else would they be asking for advice?) it can come off as a personal attack. The friend gets defensive, I feel anxious and guilty...it's not really a win/win, is it?

But not being honest isn't helpful, either.

I rarely blog about the mechanics of writing. And that's mostly because I don't know that readers really want to know about the nuts and bolts and agonies and frustrations. My husband hates to see how special effects are achieved in movies. He hates blooper reels and insider information because it ruins the overall experience for him, whereas I love that stuff and it only serves to enhance my enjoyment. Everyone is different. Heck, I've been known to read the endings of books after only a chapter. Doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the book at all, but it drives my husband absolutely bonkers when he sees me do it.

But a close friend asked for my advice recently, and I gave him/her some. It was likely more than he/she expected to get. And since I took the time to write it all out for him/her, I thought I'd share here, in case anyone else is having this problem and thinks they might care what I think about it.

His/her main obstacle is that he/she refuses to finish a project. Lots of novels started and not completed. It frustrates me because the person is perfectly capable. So, if that's you, read on for the text of the e-mail I sent to him/her.

But, if you're a reader who hates the insider stuff, just skip this. And if your perception of me is of a benevolent, kindly soul who only ever has nice things to say and never struggles with my own writing, you skip this, too. And if you're my wonderful mother-in-law (who I respect with all my being), or my publicist, stop reading right now. Because I swear.

Dear Wonderfully Talented Friend:

I think my one real concern with your writing (if I may) is your inability to finish a whole project. And as you seem to want some real help on that one I will forget that you're my close friend and will tell you what I would tell any writer who wrote to me with the same concern.

Keep in mind that I actually feel very qualified to give this particular advice. I've been busting my ass every single day for over ten years to do this, and I learn every day, and some knowledge I do have under my belt, even if I don't always put it into practice myself. But it still feels rather arrogant to be giving my friend such strongly worded advice. It makes me nervous that you're going to read it personally and think I'm making a sly and passive-aggressive attack on YOU. But you're talking about the very thing every waking moment of my life revolves around and has for over a decade.

I have strong opinions about this stuff, and it's NOT personal. So. Fair warning and here we go:

There are two really broad reasons why you're not finishing what you start.

The first is pure technique, craft, experience. Which breaks down to:

1) You think a finished product results from inspiration. You believe in a muse. Here's the truth: your muse is a fickle, lazy wretch who wants you to fail. She does NOT own you. YOU own HER. YOU summon HER. You shackle her nasty little fairy wrists and drag her out by sitting down every day and completing your goal. Period. Even if she sits there sullenly and gives you nothing. You make her sit there beside you and watch while you struggle and complete your goal. Even if it's crap, you complete the goal. Because that's what rewriting is for. Every day. Over and over. Over and over. Over and over.

And it is tedious. It does not always fill you with joy at the wonderfulness of CREATION. You are not a god. You are a worker, a toiler, and it is hard work. And it can be deadly boring. And if you have ADD then you are doubly cursed.

But here's the cool thing: Eventually that rotten slutty little muse gets interested. Because you made her sit there every day and forced her to endure crappy writing and cliche prose and predictable plot twists and boring characters...and she gets irritated that SHE might be blamed for this piece of crap, and she starts to whisper in your ear, and THAT is when the joy comes.

YOU OWN HER, and then you make her dance for you and you laugh cruelly at her, exhausted, dancing so beautifully, ENSLAVED. Frankly, it's an awful, thoroughly dysfunctional relationship. But she's yours. And she's also your responsibility, and if you don't accept the responsibility for making her DO HER JOB then shame on you, and you've only yourself to blame because you couldn't hack training her properly, and you will never finish a thing because you believed she would do it for you.

AND/OR

2) You don't know what happens 1/3, 1/2, 3/4 of the way through, or at the end. Why would you do that? Why would you even start? You're clearly doomed to fail without any sort of plan. It's premature ejaculation. It's only satisfying to YOU. You get your rocks off, but then you're spent, you've nowhere to go, and your partner (reader) is left going, uhhhhhh, really? That's it?

As an alternate, less disgusting example tailored specifically for you: You're so good at interior decorating. Consider your dream room. Is it a living room? Kitchen? Bath? Whatever. Close your eyes and consider your room. Put it together piece by piece and enjoy the final product. Now pretend you moved ahead on the project after only considering the paint color. That's it. You had that one idea for a paint color, you jumped in the car and went and bought 7 gallons of beautiful purple paint, and you're all excited, and you get home and immediately set to work painting those walls bright purple.

You leave everything else unfinished because you haven't given any thought to the whole. Purple is a beautiful color, but a week later, when you've finally decided that maybe you need to move to the next stage, you notice that there's not a lot of granite that goes with it, even though you've gone and looked at 12 different granite places. Hmm, maybe you should have looked at the available granite as part of a larger plan before you bought and applied that purple paint?

And you're stuck on the granite, because without the granite you won't be able to pick the cabinets, or the appliances, or the sink, or the tile, or the molding, or the lighting, and suddenly the whole project is overwhelming, and holy shit maybe the purple wasn't such a good idea, and now you're exhausted and overwhelmed, and you need a break so you move on the the bathroom.

Because you think lime green paint is invigorating, and you pick up the paint and paint that, and it is fun and exciting, and, and, and...you haven't given a single thought to what else you're going to do there and there are no materials that you have access to that go with lime green BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T PLAN THE WHOLE THING. Or at least the major elements. You have to have the bones, you have to have the basics. Everything else is window dressing and can be added later, but plot? Yeah, plot? That's a whole other thing. You need a beginning, yes, but you also need one third, halfway, three quarters, and the end.

Beginnings are easy. Everyone has an idea. Anyone can paint the kitchen purple and the bathroom lime green.

Now, combine #2 with #1? THAT'S how you complete a project. Plus a lot of Diet Coke. So:

1) Come up with your plot points all the way through. Resist the excitement, OR, allow yourself a wee tiny bit, like a sample you paint on the wall to see how the light affects it at all hours of the day before you spring for 7 gallons of the stuff. I'm attaching what I've started of my next novel in which I've done exactly that. This is ALL I will write until I have the entire plot thought out. This is my purple paint. I LOVE it. I'm excited about it. I want to marry it. And I am refusing myself the pleasure until I have each point of the whole to write TOWARD.

2) Make a goal. Mine happens to be word count. 2,000 words a day, though I suggest less to start. I began with 750. I know you think you can do more than that. Don't. Get your plot first. Then only write 750 words at least 5 days a week. Exercise. That's the only thing that comes first.

You don't do laundry. You don't shower (this one is negotiable.) You don't make lunch plans. You don't chat with your friends on the phone. You don't read a new book. You don't garden. You don't mop the floor. You DON'T PEE.

I know that you are shaking your head saying, but if I don't do those things first then they will never get done, and laundry, well, laundry is less a chore than an insistent force of nature, and I HAVE to mop the floor because the dogs are so dirty, and I HAVE to pick the cucumbers because otherwise they'll rot and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Guess you'd better get those 750 words written then, huh? Because when you get them done? You can go do all those things. With such a sparkling clean conscience. And while you're doing those things, you get to think about what you're going to write tomorrow. And about how you're going to make your muse dance, dance, dance... YOU SIT YOUR BUTT AT THAT COMPUTER AND YOU DON'T LEAVE IT UNTIL THE WORDS ARE ON THE PAGE.

3) Repeat

4) Repeat

5) Repeat

6) Repeat

Have you really done those things? Really? No...REALLY?

Then things are worse than I thought, because the second possibility is just pure psychology, and that's a lot harder to overcome.

It's all wrapped up in people, family, friends, telling you in all different ways throughout your life-- in funny quips, charming observations, angry accusations, passive-aggressive asides, pointed barbs-- that you (choose one) never finish anything, that you always have such wacky plans, that AREN'T YOU CUTE, that you have such fun hobbies. Whatever it is.

You have a role that you're fulfilling. And that in itself can be comforting. Whew! That's just me! Hahaha! Yeah, just like me to never finish anything. *giggle*

Don't take yourself very seriously, do you? Why would anyone else? And why are you asking them to? Are you asking them for approval to finish? No? Well. Then finish. Stop talking about it. You do it, or you don't. And you take responsibility for both of those outcomes. You don't explain it to anyone. It's yours. Not theirs. Do you have a plot? Are you making your goal your priority and meeting it every day? No? Whose fault it that? It's not a movie, it's not dramatic and romantic. It's not even very interesting. You do it, or you don't. And YOU get to accept that.

And there are my thoughts on finishing a novel.

* * *
On a fun end note I recently received my cover for my new book, BETWEEN FRIENDS, due out April 6, 2010. I think it's absolutely beautiful. What do you think?

Kristy Kiernan is the author of Catching Genius, Matters of Faith, and the upcoming Between Friends. She lives in Florida. Facebook her here, Twitter her up here.

Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan Wins Florida Book Award

I'm delighted to announce that Matters of Faith has won the bronze medal in the Florida Book Awards.

The Florida Book Awards, coordinated by the Florida State University Program in American & Florida Studies -- and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, the State Library and Archives of Florida, the Florida Historical Society, the Florida Humanities Council, the Florida Literary Arts Coalition, the Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” the Governor’s Family Literacy Initiative, the Florida Association for Media in Education, the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, Friends of the Florida State University Libraries, and the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America -- is an annual awards program that recognizes, honors, and celebrates the best Florida literature published in the previous year.

I'd also like to congratulate the other winners in the category:





Gold Medal Winner:

John Dufresne for Requiem, Mass.












Silver Medal Winner:

Tony D'Souza for The Konkans










Bronze Medal Winner:

Debra Dean for Confessions of a Falling Woman

Crazy Squirrel Corn Lady by Kristy Kiernan

So I was going to write about what a lousy December we had. Or, more accurately, I was going to write a beautiful ode to Niko, also known as The Troll, also known as Our Dog. Because she’s gone. And we are devastated. But I started the post and, frankly, it was just entirely too depressing. So, I’ll say this about Niko, and then we’ll move on to Crazy Squirrel Corn Lady:

She was the sweetest, most loving, and funniest dog I’ve ever known, and I will miss her for the rest of my life.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Crazy Squirrel Corn Lady.

Crazy people adore me. They seek me out in public places and attach themselves to my elbow. And once you have a crazy person attached, they peel off about as easily as duct tape. (Aside: Saying “duck tape” is not cute unless you are six with a lisp and missing front teeth.)

There are times that I welcome the crazy people. They are often much more interesting than your everyday sane person, and sometimes they even tell you their most astonishing and/or deeply personal and disturbing secrets within the first 30 seconds of the Crazy Person Encounter.

Other days I have little patience for the crazy people. Sometimes they make me nervous, but sometimes I simply don’t feel like having a conversation with a perfect stranger and want them to take the hint. Crazy People are renowned for being unable to take a hint.

And then there are those rare times when not only do I converse with the Crazy People, but I even encourage them in their particular brand of insanity. I am not proud of myself, no, but look, I don’t approach them, they approach me, and who says I’M not crazy? I mean, they should be careful who they go up to and spill their crazy all over, right?

So today was an Encourage the Crazy Person day for me.

We were in Lowe’s buying bird seed and various home improvement items when it happened. We feed maddeningly ungrateful birds (blue jays, cardinals, painted buntings, doves, and rotten grackles) and squirrels in our backyard, and since it’s getting cold (it does too get cold in South Florida. We’re in the THIRTIES tonight!) I wanted to make sure they were all well fed.

Now, the mama squirrel really steals a lot of seed, but she’s preggers and so I do want her to eat well, so I’m not taking any sort of squirrel repelling measures. But I thought maybe I’d give her her own feed, so I’m inspecting a big bag of corn cobs, CORN COBS FOR SQUIRRELS mind you, when it happens.

To give you a good idea about the sort of thing I’m talking about, go here.

I can see, out of the corner of my eye, a woman go darting past behind me, but I apparently sent out my Crazy Person tractor beam, because she stops with a great startling motion, as if she ran into an invisible brick wall, and comes right for me. She gets nice and close and duct tapes herself firmly to my elbow and gazes over my shoulder and says: “You could eat that.”

Sigh.

As you can see from the following transcript, I started out okay, but quickly went downhill.

Me: It’s for squirrels.

CSCL: But it’s still corn.

Me: It’s for SQUIRRELS.

CSCL: Maybe you could make corn meal from it.

Me: IT’S. FOR. SQUIRRELS.

CSCL: But you could, look, see? You could like, cut it off, and make corn meal.

Me: Lady, look at this stuff! (Here I helpfully shake the bag of desiccated old discolored broken corn cobs, which have clearly been treated rather cavalierly, and are clearly NOT for human consumption, and not just in a well-aren’t-you-a-spoiled-little-white-American-girl-who’s-obviously-well-fed kind of way, either.) And see? (Here I helpfully point out the label which clearly reads SQUIRREL.)

CSCL: If it’s safe for squirrels to eat it’s safe for humans.

And here’s where I turn the corner from vaguely irritated to Encouraging the Crazy Person.

Me: So, how would you actually go about doing this?

CSCL: You could cut them off the cob, and then you’d grind it up, make cornmeal.

Me: I think you should do that.

CSCL: It would work, right?

Me: Absolutely. Yes. You could make cornbread. That would be excellent.

Here she furrows her Crazy Person brow.

CSCL: They have mixes for that now.

And then she turns around and sprints away…

JUST AS IF SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO A CRAZY PERSON.

Kristy Kiernan is the author of Matters of Faith and Catching Genius. She lives in Florida, which, considering the winter the rest of you people are having, proves that she's quite sane.

2008 Vacation Reading by Kristy Kiernan

This month marks my third year of regular blogging (I'm still waiting for the "Congratulations!" cards and flowers to arrive from my adoring fans). And each year I've done a post with my vacation reading list, and this year shall be no different. I am, as usual, bringing along more books than I can possibly read, but you have to leave room for fluctuating tastes, right? Maybe one day I'll be in the mood for Hemingway, perhaps the next…Amy Tan?

You never know, and I like to be prepared.

There are repeats on this list, some that I brought on vacation last year and didn't get around to, or never felt in the mood for, but there is one book that has made the list three years running: Anna Karenina. I'll get through it one day, I swear, and in the meantime, I'll just keep toting it with me every year.

So, the official Kristy Kiernan's Vacation Books for 2008 is as follows, in no particular order, because I'm just not built like that:

The Given Day – Dennis Lehane

The Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver

The Red Leather Diary – Lily Koppel

The Inferno – Dante

Game Control – Lionel Shriver

The Travels of Marco Polo – Marco Polo

Beowulf – Homer, (tr) Burton Raffel

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments – George Johnson

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

The Russian Concubine – Kate Furnivall

Labyrinth – Kate Mosse

Skeletons at the Feast – Chris Bohjalian

Cervantes – Don Quixote

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce

The Boy Next Door – Amy Knupp

Dracula – Bram Stoker

The Guernsey Literary…that one – Mary Ann Shaffer/Annie Barrows

Fieldwork – Mischa Berlinski

Among Other Things I've Taken Up Smoking – Aoibheann Sweeney

Beloved – Toni Morrison

When You Are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle – David Wroblewski

One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Tom Perrotta – The Abstinence Teacher

King's Oak – Anne Rivers Siddons

All The Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy

Peony In Love – Lisa See

Snow – Orhan Pamuk

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortinson/David Oliver Relin

Chinatown, A Portrait of a Closed Society – Gwen Kinkead

And, finally… Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

So, do I have any of your favorites on my list? Why is it your favorite? Any I shouldn't read back-to-back? And which ones did I remind you that you need to take on your own vacation?

I am, officially, off to the beach!

Kristy Kiernan is the author of Matters of Faith (Aug. 2008) and Catching Genius (2007). She lives with her husband and their dog in southwest Florida, and despite that, they still vacation at the beach.

Ever Seen An Author Apologize To Their Book? by Kristy Kiernan

An open letter to my second novel, Matters of Faith, in which I attempt to right the grievous wrong I've committed in neglecting to trumpet its publication far and wide online.



Dearest Matters of Faith,

I am so thrilled that you're out in the world! No, really, I am. I know that it seems as though I've neglected this momentous occasion in the online world that I know you so deeply love, but, look, I've been biiiiiizzzy, what with the whirlwind of launch parties, fielding offers from Spielberg and Affleck, and juggling my Oprah and Richard and Judy interviews!

Well, maybe I've been more busy with trying to get my next book finished (NOT accomplished, please hold your jealousy in check), taming my e-mail in-box (also NOT accomplished), and attempting to get some of those above things happening. But a late announcement is still an announcement, right? Do you deserve to get punished for my startling lack of organizational skills? Surely not!

So, congratulations, Matters of Faith! Some lovely things have been said about you, including:

"Kristy Kiernan's Matters of Faith was so good and true and real that I forgot I was reading a book. I felt as though I was standing helplessly beside good people whose ordinary family life is slowly, inexorably tumbling into the darkness of the unknown."--Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author

"In this tense, well-paced novel about belief, Kiernan explores what happens when faith and love test the limits of family fealty... [Kiernan] movingly portrays a 20-year-old marriage gone flat and torn apart by crisis, a troubled son, a daughter hovering between life and death, and the hard-to-discern boundaries between true faith and unhealthy fanaticism. She handles her difficult material respectfully. Most interesting is her portrayal of the well-meaning traps parents fall into when encouraging open-ended exploration of faith without context, or choosing to remain silent. The thoughtful themes, interesting characters and page-turning drama of this novel will likely make it a book club favorite."—Publishers Weekly

Just another day at the Florida beach this is not…It is, however, a great read, structured into the first-person story of Chloe, as she navigates through this family disaster, and the third-person story of Marshall, as he instigates and then attempts to right it.[ ]Kiernan doesn’t flinch at the end; there is no fairy tale happily-ever-after…Yet we are left with hope as the members of the Tobias family come out of a tragic situation with the compassion and desire to work their way back to each other. Which, in the end, is what families, and faith, are about.-- Bookreporter

Kiernan's stunning second novel explores how one family reacts to a devastating tragedy… Unforgettable and moving, Kiernan's novel is an achingly real portrait of a family in crisis, one readers will react to passionately. --Booklist

Matters of Faith begins as a recognizable family story and transforms into a view of human nature under pressure. How open will minds be when lives are interrupted? Will we believe the same things when loss tests our faith? How do we choose between the two things most precious to us? Kiernan's portrait of the Tobias family is a study in emotional turmoil that will stay with any reader when their beliefs are, inevitably, called into question. -BookPage


That's not all Matters of Faith! Let's peek behind Curtain Number 3, shall we? That's right, you've also been chosen as an IndieBound Notable Title for the month of September! Now, considering how much we both admire independent bookstores you must feel pretty good about that! Come on, come on, ooooh, I see a little crack there in your irritation!

You've also proven to be a possible doer of good deeds, helping to inform those whose lives untouched by the difficulty of food allergies of the daily struggle families who are dealing with it have to face. You've even been blogged about at Booking Mama, A Year of Books, and Redlady's Reading Room. You've been blogged about elsewhere, but these are particularly special because these women who usually blog about books also happen to be mothers to children who have severe food allergies. So, I hope you appreciate that, Matters of Faith!

The fun's not over yet, either, my second child, you'll also be traveling around with me, just so I can talk about you, extolling your virtues, showcasing your beautiful cover, and just generally making sure that my life revolves around you and only you for, heck, I don't know, the next year or so?! Want to know where you're going? Go check out my website (don't go there often, do you? No, but you don't hear me complaining that you don't support me! I'm just saying…) and look in the appearances section. If you don't go to my website, I'm sure you don't bother with my blog, either, so to make you feel even more loved, check it out and see all the nice things I do for you!

And, in addition to being available in indie bookstores across these United States, you are also available at all the usual online suspects, like Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. And people have even gone on those sites and said nice things about you! I'm not positive we even know all of them!

So, Matters of Faith, know that during your writing, editing, and publication, that you were loved by me. You've taught me much and brought me great joy, and I am grateful to you. I apologize profusely for my seemingly light treatment of your big day, and I promise to do better in the future.

Kristy Kiernan is often behind in most things in her life, causing her to have become a real pro in apologizing. She lives, works, and plays in southwest Florida. She also can't figure out how to resize this photo, and she apologizes profusely for that, too.

One Star?! Say It Ain't So! by Kristy Kiernan

I've spent way too much time online this week, what with all the hilarity over Amazon One-Star Reviews. I was first alerted to this by the fabulous J.D. Rhoades (Dusty to his friends, but I'm pretty sure nobody who's ever met Dusty wasn't able to call him friend in about 1.2 seconds [which also happens to be the time it takes to open a beer; total coincidence, I'm sure]) in his post titled My God! It's Full of Suck! 

Now, a lot has been written about the whole Debra McGillivray thing, and if you want to take days out of your life that you will never get back, well, go ahead and follow all those links in his post. But what the fine John Scalzi finally reduces it all down to is a challenge to acknowledge your one-star Amazon reviews, and then get past them.

So. I've received two one-star reviews for Catching Genius. I know! Crazy right? I mean, I was pretty sure that Catching Genius was going to save contemporary American fiction, and the fact that these readers were unable to see my brilliance was devastating. The first:

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

 Weak Main Character/Unrealistic, July 24, 2007

By #GIJANE "Loves Labs & cooking." (Nottingham, PA) - See all my reviews

I don't understand how any woman could enjoy this book. The main character allows her husband to repeatedly cheat on her and she does nothing until he basically flaunts it! I also find it hard to believe that a few weeks of vacation would change a lifetime of problems and resentments among family members.

  

OUCH! Really? Not ANY woman? Wow, I mean, that's bad. That is really, really bad! GIJANE really hates me! She loves labs and cooking, but clearly hates me. Or, my book anyway, which really IS me, right? Maybe not. Anyway, one of the big things that McGillivray was lambasted for was for supposedly tracking down the reviewer who slammed her, noting that she knew her name, her kid's names, her granny's name, and so forth.

So, uh, full disclosure. I've always felt that if I could just understand my detractors then I could live with their dislike of me/my book. And so, in the spirit of trying to understand who GIJANE is, I do admit that I checked out her Wishlist. I didn't look at the Wishlist in order to harass her, or to try to get my friends to harass her, or to publicly threaten (no matter how thinly) her, her kids, or her granny. I didn't even vote her review unhelpful.

I just had to know a little more about this person who hated my book so much that she couldn't understand how ANY woman could enjoy it. And, frankly, what I learned made me feel much, much better. I learned that she gave The Departed a two-star review. Had I rated that movie I'd have given it a twenty-two star review. She also wishes she had a metal detector, and Timecop, and she likes Shania Twain and thrillers, but doesn't like anything sad (though she gave that classic of uplifting stories, The Lovely Bones, FIVE stars!). 

Anyone who actually knows me is cracking up right now. GIJANE and I are not soul mates. My God, of course she doesn't like my book! We couldn't possibly be less alike! Hey, I'm good with ole GIJANE, though I admit I still take exception to her assertion that things got all worked out in a few weeks. And those few weeks weren't no vacation, but I digress…I'm not mad, I don't hate her, don't even dislike her, and I have, mostly, forgotten about that review.  I'm not sending the flying monkeys, we just have very, very different tastes.

One-Star Review, Take Two:

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

 drawn out and tiresome, January 14, 2008

By #J. Mogol - See all my reviews

I couldn't wait for this book to end. It was too long and had too many plots. It was too loosely woven for me to enjoy. I was surprised to see so many positive reports, but I didn't have too much positive to say.

Oh, J.Mogol, it hurts, it hurts. Couldn't WAIT for it to end? Yowza! Why didn't you stop reading? I'd have been okay with that! Honestly, in a totally non-snarky, no hard feelings way. Too long, too many plots, hmmm, again, I'd kind of like to disagree with those. I was pretty sure it was ONE plot, but okay, let's see where J. is coming from. 

Wishlist!

Aha! She wishes she could own CDs by Taylor Hicks and Clay Aiken, as well as the DVD Aladdin (Disney Special Platinum Edition). See? Now I don't feel so bad! We're simply not compatible in any way, shape, or form.

I'd be willing to bet that GIJANE and J.Mogul are lovely people. I bet they love their families (and/or labs) and are loved in return. Do I wish they'd liked my book? Of course I do. Do I wish they'd been slightly more kind in their comments? Of course I do. 

But I got into this knowing full well that not everyone was going to like what I do. I hope more do than don't. Writers I revere have one-star reviews. Writers I can't stand have five-star reviews. We all have different tastes, and thank goodness. What a boring world it would be if we all liked the same thing.

I'm over it. After all, Matters of Faith will be out in August, and I have new things to obsess over, new one-star reviews to dread, and hopefully a lot of five-star reviews to make me feel better about it.

Up for the challenge? Blog about your One-Star Reviews and then leave the link in the comments. Or don't. Because I completely respect  your right to do, and like, you know, whatever you want. But if you leave mean comments, well, just hope I don't find YOUR Wishlist!

Kristy Kiernan writes from south Florida. She also can't get the image uploader to work correctly, so the cool One-Star Review image isn't here. Neither is her picture, nor either of her book covers. But I assure you, she does exist, as do her books. After all, they're ON AMAZON!

The Storyteller is dead, long live the Story by Kristy Kiernan

Over the past year or so, many fine storytellers have passed away, including, but obviously not limited to: Janet Kagan, Julian Rathbone, Stephen Marlowe, Robin Moore, Edward D. Hoch, Norman Mailer, Carol Bly, Dan Fogelberg, Kurt Vonnegut, Sidney Sheldon, Dawn Thompson, Phyllis Whitney, Bob Smith.

You might not have heard of that last one.

Bob Smith.

Robert E. Smith, Jr. (He didn't like that Jr. part.)

Son of Robert, who traveled small towns in the South to decorate their Main Streets for holiday parades and events. Marine who fought on Guadalcanal during WWII. Husband to Betty, then husband to Ruth. Father of two. Grandfather of two, plus two. Thirty year dedicated employee. Friend to many, frustration to some.

To me, he was Granddaddy. My first storyteller, my second father. At times the great love of my life, at others a burden felt deeply, guiltily. My conscience. My supporter. My critic.

Always, my storyteller.

He walked in a room and people turned, beckoning fingers in the air: "Bob, hey Bob, tell the one about the fish/ Mexico/ that girl in the truck/ Nashville!" And he always did. And I watched, and listened, and learned.

My storyteller taught me about pacing, and tone, and humor, and conflict, and about the power of insult and love at the same time. He laughed readily and well, at a confusing wealth of things; wit demanded from family, but Benny Hill tuned into on TV.

Some stories came more easily than others with age, but the skill remained. The memory faltered, but the voice kept cadence.

He lied to me frequently: his middle name was Elijah, the sky wasn't blue but clear and I was seeing it through my blue eyes, the scar on his forehead was from a Japanese bayonet.

The lies were pretty, valuable as currency in my developing writer world, he the wealthiest inhabitant.

The stories, the lies and the truths, fell away in his final weeks, the voice lost in his final days. In his last 24 hours he reached out and spoke to Ruth, his wife, dead three years now. His final story to me? Lie? Truth? Does it matter? Did any of them?

March 5, 2008, my storyteller left me. I am numb. I am lost. I say that I am okay. It was his time, I knew that, I am comfortable with that. 87 is a long time to live. I lie and lie and lie.

My new book waits for me to write it. How is that possible? Does my story still exist? Does he? Is one possible without the other?

I wish you peace, Robert E. Smith, Bob, Smitty, Major, Daddy, Granddaddy, all the pretty lies, all the truths, all my gratitude, all my grief.

A story waits. I'll be here when it comes, I'll be here when you bring it.

The Storyteller, 12/13/1925 – 03/05/2008.

Begin With The End? by Kristy Kiernan

Endings have been on my mind a lot lately. We're approaching the end of the year, December 29th will mark the end of my regular Saturday blogging with The Debutante Ball, I've reached the end of my patience with this year's seemingly never-ending travel, and the end of No Country For Old Men completely unsettled me and got me to thinking about my own endings…fiction-wise that is.

I've received mixed reactions about the ending of Catching Genius. Some people thought it was just right, happy without being sappy, some people thought it was wrapped up too neatly, too quickly, too something or other. The thing is, I never considered what a reader might think of the ending. I wrote what was, to me, the inevitable ending. It simply WAS the way it ended.

With Matters of Faith (August 5, 2008), I again did not consider what a reader might think of the ending. I wrote it the way it happened, the only way I saw the characters reacting. I've yet to hear from a reader about it since it's not out yet, but I know I will. And I know I won't make everyone happy.

So when I saw No Country For Old Men, and was perplexed and slightly put off by the ending, I had to consider the writer's intent. The book was written by Cormac McCarthy and the screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen. I've not read the book, though after I complete my little deep thought processing of the movie I plan to. So I only have the Coen brothers' screenplay to consider.

And I have to wonder, was this the only way they saw it ending? Was it inevitable, the way I think my endings are inevitable? Or did they shoot multiple endings, the way I've heard other movies have been shot? And what's more important? The reader/watcher reaction to the ending, or the writer's vision?

And considering how wide a reaction I got for the Catching Genius ending, is it something I should even worry about? Do I change my own writing process to fit the majority opinion? Would it make my books sell better? I do want to sell more books. I want to be successful in this business, I want to have a long run, I want to please my readers.

Did the ending of No Country For Old Men ruin the movie for me? Absolutely not. In fact, I walked out of the theater believing that the writers must have had a good reason for ending it the way they did. And that if I considered it long enough I would figure it out, and though I might not agree with it, I had to trust them. It won't make me stop going to see a Coen brothers film, in fact, it intrigued me. Now I'm looking around at other Coen brothers' movies to see if these sort of ambiguous endings are a trademark.

And now I'm writing a new book. And I'm thinking about the end before I've worked out the beginning. Is that a good thing? I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, what were some of the best endings you've ever read or watched and why? And what were the worst?

In other news, I got the cover for Matters Of Faith this week! What do you think? I LOVE it, absolutely love it.

Kristy Kiernan writes from southwest Florida, where she often gazes soulfully out at the water, clearly deep in thought about important things, like endings, and worrying about whether she's spending more time watching movies than reading books. Visit her online at www.kristykiernan.com Or don't. Because Kristy's not pushy. Unless there's a cliff nearby.