Tucson's Festival of Books

 

It's almost March and time for Tucson's FOURTH Festival of Books at the University of Arizona--a celebration of writing, reading, bookstores and publishing. GECKO GALS INK will have our very own booth at the Festival this year: Booth #134, on the west end of the Festival, nearest Old Main. 

We are marked with the pink dot above.^   As you can see, we are situated right along the north sidewalk, next to the U of A Bookstore and near a Souvenir booth. 

Guest Authors signing at our booth so far include mystery author Carol O'Mahoney, Ret. Detective Michael Orozco, and Fantasy Novelist Meagan Poetschlag. We will have a full schedule after March 1st. 

Of course, Gecko Gal Authors Carol Costa, Mary Ann Hutchison, Ashleen O'Gaea, and yours truly will be there, and all of our books will be available for purchase. In addition, we will have special Registration Forms for our upcoming Seminar, "Writing: From Start to Finesse" to be held on Saturday, April 14th at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel & Suites, 5151 E. Grant Rd. Those who register at the Festival will receive a 10% discount. 

Please stop by and say hello, peruse our books and those of our guests, and Celebrate Reading! 

FROM STAGE TO SCREEN by Carol Costa

The New York production of my first full-length play prompted a local newspaper columnist to contact me and write an article on me. The article caught the attention of two women who wanted to start a playwrights’ support group here in Tucson.  We met and organized a group we called Playwrights in Production. 

On Sunday afternoons we would meet and read each others plays and then discuss them. During this time, I wrote a number of other plays both full-length and one acts.

I also took over the small community theater at my church and began directing one or two productions a year in addition to writing comedy skits for the musical/variety shows

sponsored by the church choir.

One of my full-length plays won an award and was produced at a historic theater in Michigan. It was then produced in New York city with a musical score written by the famous composer, Bernie Wayne. Some of my one acts were also being produced in

regional theaters around the country. I was a having a great time, but I wasn’t making

much money.

Then, I attended a mystery writers conference in California and heard one of the members speak about how much money could be made from screenplays. So, still liking to jump on passing bandwagons, I wrote some screenplays. At that time, in order for any production company to consider your scripts. you had to have a WGA agent (an agent who is sanctioned by the Writers Guild of America, the union for screenwriters).  I tried to get a WGA agent to represent me, but they weren’t interested in a writer from Arizona.

So, I contacted the Writers Guild of America, found out what you had to do to be sanctioned by them and formed my own WGA agency, Star Literary Service. Because I have a very distinctive voice, I didn’t want to call around and pitch my own scripts. Instead, I coerced my sister, Marilyn, who was between jobs at the time to be my agent. We had no idea what we were doing and tried some pretty outrageous stunts. Some day I’ll write a book about Star Literary Service and the fun we had running it.

We had other clients, besides me, and made some good contacts in the movie industry. We took meetings and learned as we went along with the help of some very nice producers who thought we were amusing. While we never got a movie made, we did get some scripts optioned and stayed afloat for several years.

When I had an opportunity to have my award-winning play produced in West Hollywood, I took it. Our plan was to invite all our producer friends to the show and get to know them better. It was a good plan and might have worked if the Northridge earthquake hadn’t struck and put the area in chaos. The show went on despite the fact that people were too busy digging out of the rubble to come to the theater. Shortly after I returned to Arizona, we closed the agency.

With the agency closed, I decided to write novels again. This time I wrote what I liked to read, mysteries.  Soon, I attracted a New York book agent. She took me on because of a mystery novel I sent her with a female protagonist called, Dana Sloan.  I had created the character a few years earlier for an anthology series called, The Women Sleuth Anthologies.

Never content to sit back and wait for others to make deals for me, I continued to market my plays and other unsold books, like those two romance novels. And that’s when I started the period in my career I like to call, “I’ve got one of those!”.

I saw a market listing for Avalon books. This publisher was looking for romance novels with heroines who had careers. Both of the heroine’s in my novels had careers so I sent Avalon a proposal for the first novel. Avalon came back and asked to see the entire manuscript. Great except for one small problem. When I wrote that novel everyone wanted sex scenes in the stories and I had several in both my romances.

Avalon Books did not publish anything with premarital sex in it.

Back to the computer with the first book I had renamed, Labor of Love, to take out

the sex and replace it with something sweet and innocent. I was working on this

at our condo in San Diego when my youngest son who lives in that area stopped by.

Of course he wanted to know what I was doing. I told him and he was stunned.

For days afterwards, he kept saying he couldn’t believe his mother wrote explicit sex scenes. I told him that he should remember that he and his siblings didn’t fall off a turnip truck.

Avalon eventually published both of my “cleaned-up” romance novels and that opened the door to other book sales.

The Mysterious Disappearance of Lucy and Ethel

If you're thinking that the title is a clue as to why Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz have left the television scene, except on Nick at Night, then you're wrong.

Lucy and Ethel were two goldfish who swam in our little pond for about seven years. They arrived in a plastic baggie, along with 5 other small bowl-size fish about an inch and a half long (the kind that sit in a kid's room until they go to fish heaven). After a year or so, it was determined by our fish pond guy (aka husband Doug) that the pond could not sustain 7 fish, so five were taken to Ponds 'N More on Ruthrauff and exchanged for water iris and other pond plants. Everyone and thing was seemingly happy until this past November when Doug announced "No more fish. It's too much. I'm taking Lucy and Ethel to the pond store." I wailed and gnashed my teeth but to no avail. He did promise that that the waterfall and pond plants would remain. The irises in the spring are soooo beautiful and the horsetail is exotic and both of them need little care. So he transferred the "girls" – now 7 inches long – to a holding pond (in actuality a large, round, black 30-gallon tub) constantly filled with water from a small waterfall, where they apparently swam happily awaiting their transfer to the pond store until that fateful late November day.

The day began like any other: Doug working in the backyard, me on the computer, until he came huffing and puffing into my office: "The fish are gone!" Me, incredulous: "What?" He, exasperated: "THE FISH ARE GONE!" Naturally, I had to run outside and look for them, as if I'd find tiny tail marks in the mud (it'd been raining for a couple of days) that would indicate they'd put their dorsal fins on their hips, stood upright and marched out of the yard, indignant at having lost their wonderful home. Nope, no tail marks, and no apparent claw marks on the edge of the tub that would indicate our neighborhood bobcat had gone fishing either. We considered birds of prey but dismissed them as they'd need swooping-room which the tub wouldn't provide. So, for 4 days, the mystery deepened, with no apparent solution in sight.

Then, at about 8:30 one morning, the thief appeared! Standing four and a half feet tall at the edge of the tub, straight as a stick, he smugly awaited his next feeding. I spotted him through the sliding glass doors as I walked from the kitchen into the dining room. The tub was close to the edge of the patio located just outside of the doors. At first I was astonished. I'd never thought they were in the neighborhood; they hang at the edge of lakes and there is no lake close to us. Then, I got mad, infuriated. I knew what he'd done to Lucy and Ethel (don't think it about it, it's too sad).

But the gall of his returning to the scene of his crime was too much. Although I tried to keep my voice low, my calling Doug's name to have him come and bear witness to the murderer's return was too loud, and off he took, his huge wingspread lifting him up and over the backyard wall. In all honesty, he was graceful in flight; this I must admit. Two days later he appeared again, this time on the top of our house roof, crowing or cawing his victory (I don't know if he caws, crows or sqawks) . He thinks he's won. He thinks our backyard is now his. Uh-uh. No, my little friend; no fish for you – we're the fish Nazi's. His photo is attached for you to see. I'm sure you figured out his blue-grey identity.

Editing Stuff by Ashleen O'Gaea

It isn't uncommon for editors to be frustrated writers.  Nowadays there's no excuse for anyone being a frustrated writer, given that places like CreateSpace will make your book look real even if it's crap.  Maybe it hasn't occurred to him that he'd be a better editor if he sat down and wrote something of his own -- he may not even realize he's trying to change other authors' styles to his own.  Editing -- both catching the typos and cut-and-paste errors and grammatical goofs, and the "would this be more clear if it went this way?" stuff -- is really more difficult than the "very difficult" everybody says it is.  You have to be sensitive to English's flexibility, to the author's style/voice, to context, to era, to genre -- and not impose your own stylistic preferences on someone else's writing.

All writers start out reading, and many of us come to write when we hear ourselves say, "I could do better than this!" for the millionth or so time.  It's fine to feel that way, even about famously good writers -- but the thing to do about it is not rewrite their work, but write your own.  Appreciate other people's perspective and as an editor, do your best to make it come across strongly; if yours is different, write your own story.  Make your characters talk the way you think they should, but don't mess with other writers' dialog unless they have misspelled something like here/hear or the obvious like.

(A writing group member's critique of one of my stories was that one of my characters wasn't speaking grammatically.  Well, that's because she don't talk like you do, hon!  Another of her complaints was that I used phrases that she -- and she alone of the six-member group -- didn't understand.  She was wide-eyed when I suggested that she might need to broaden her perspective rather than I might need to narrow mine.)

If you sell enough work to a traditional publishing house, you'll eventually come across this sort of editor.  It will piss you off.  You will say some incredibly creatively rude things when you open the e-mail and start reading; whoever else is in your house at the time, even if your door is shut, will almost certainly cringe, and maybe even hide behind the couch.  Go ahead -- vent.  It's good for you.  Then go do something else for a while, and come back later to make sure there are no legitimate suggestions, like ending that one sentence with an actual period instead of the typo-comma.  Consider the editor's comments -- read the suggested changes out loud to yourself, just in case they turn out to be good ideas, or bad ones that put you on to a better way of saying something.  Above all, be polite when you reject the proposed edits because they are "inappropriate to the context, plot, and mood."

Write on.
Ashleen O'Gaea

JUMPING ON SOME BANDWAGONS by Carol Costa

I sold my first  story in April, 1980 to a family magazine in Canada. I was elated that I had become a “professional writer”.  My second sale a few months later was to the same magazine and this was a nonfiction piece about a church group that helped

immigrants adjust to life in the USA. 

My business background was in accounting, taxes, and real estate and as I saw studied market listings, I realized that newspapers and magazines were always looking for financial and business articles.  I came across an ad for the Phoenix Business Journal and contacted them about a story on foreclosures. The editor called me and asked for the article. This was a weekly paper that also covered news in Tucson where I was based.

After publishing my first article, the editor asked me to be the Tucson correspondent for the Phoenix paper. This meant I had to write at least one article a week.  Some weeks I was assigned to do interviews for the paper. Some weeks I had to come up with my own ideas. Other than the fact that I was earning a weekly income as a writer, the best part of this job was that I discovered that I could turn out quality copy in a timely manner.

The focus and discipline I had to use in my day job  carried over into my writing career.

Earning money was great, but I really wanted to write fiction. I attended a one day conference  with a panel conducted by romance authors. I learned it was

the best selling fiction genre. I had read confession magazines as a teenager and  had recently sold a story to one of them about twins having different fathers. 

So, I joined the local chapter of the Romance Writers of America and was promptly elected treasurer. { With an accounting background, I have been treasurer of every

organization I ever joined.}  I didn’t really read romances, but I decided to write one.

Every night after dinner, I sat at my typewriter and forced myself to write ten pages

of the novel called Sweet Sacrifice. I had gotten the idea for it from a labor dispute that  occurred at a large company where I was working. I finished the book and started sending it around to publishers. I got basically the same response from each one:

“the storyline overshadows the romance”. Then, I got another idea and wrote a second romance novel. It didn’t sell either.

About this time, my church was working on their musical/variety show. One of the people involved in that came to me and asked me to write a comedy skit based on

an idea he had about vampires. I wrote the skit, my first piece for the stage. The night it was performed, I was standing back stage, holding my breath. I knew where

the audience was supposed to laugh and was afraid they wouldn’t, but they did. They continued to laugh in all the right places and I was hooked on live theater. All these years later, I still believe that live theater is the only place where a writer can get an

instant response to his or her work.

Now, I started to write plays and found that much easier than writing novels.

With a play you don’t need to write a lot of description and narrative. You just set the scene and the dialogue you write for your characters does the rest.

I joined the Dramatists Guild and began marketing my first full-length play, Death Insurance, to theaters and contests and collected many rejections. Then, the play placed in a contest and because it did, a New York agency that handled theater projects asked to read it. 

By this time I had collected many rejections for my short stories, novels and plays, but

the one I got from this New York play agent was crushing. The letter said that the head of the agency and two of her assistants had read my play and they all agreed it was not

good enough to be produced. To date, that remains as the worst rejection I have ever received  because three people agreed that my work was not good.

I remember sitting at my desk and reading that letter over and over again. Then, I decided that I had two choices. I could either give up on the play or I could look for another market for it.  I opened the Dramatists Guild Directory and started looking through it. I found an off-off Broadway theater that said they liked mysteries.

I sent Death Insurance out to them the very next day.

A few weeks later, my youngest daughter and I went to the movies. When we got home, my husband ran outside to meet us. “A woman called from New York,” he said. “She wants to produce your play. She said to call her back tonight no matter how late it is.”

Two months later, I went to New York to see my play performed at the Royal Court

Theater. Seeing my play come to life with professional actors was an amazing experience. The ending of the play was supposed to be a big surprise for the audience. Again, I held my breath waiting for the audience to react. There was an audible gasp and I knew that moment was worth all the rejections I had ever gotten and all the rejections I would ever get.

The big lesson I learned and one that all writers must hang onto is that you have to believe in yourself and your work. Rejections are subjective. Don’t ever give up on

yourself or your writings. Success is based on the following rule, “You never fail, until you stop trying.”

And tomorrow I’ll tell you how I finally sold those romance novels with plots that overshadowed the love stories.