Anti-hero Burning

My first reader has returned the manuscript fortunately without a red pen.
She is analytical about some of the details, and wants me to make the main
character turn for good about halfway through the story. I am not going to
make him into a nice guy. This is not the point. She says it is not mainstream
enough without the turn.

I can think of a few anti-heros who readers like but they do not find redemption,
but yes, there are not many. He will find change.

I miss my old first reader, need to find a new one who I trust the same. With eyes
that hear and a way of making me build a skyscraper, not burn down the house.
 I miss the most -
          and  the brainstorming. (gap intended).

So on to the next revision, marching.

P.S. to writers friends - a brilliant idea from J. A. Konrath - put the copyright legal mumbo at the end of the book, as ereaders will be more tempted by your work.
I just changed a couple books to add a clause that I do not allow lending ( a silly girlish idea that if I write it they will feel arrows of guilt) now with Konrath's idea, I perhaps am going a different route- to put the copyright disclosure at the end and some note in the front that if you want my work for free, all you have to do is ...ask ?

Pallets of wood to burn all my paper books ? ...#amwriting
Today is Sunday, this is my ROW80 check in- I finished ahead of schedule,
my deadline was July 5th. I go round three on the book- read aloud.

Vanity released on Kindle Today.

Vanity released on Kindle today

Lust on Kindle

Lust on Kindle released today

Ghosts

Ghost Images Copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011

Infirmary Cots Ellis Island somehow the image is lost, was posted here 2011.

Doors opening and closing in the night.

A dream strangles me in down.

June fog and gloom so deep,

I can not see across the canyon.

A horn moans warning the night fishermen.

Get up and keep the noise company with my fingers typing.

Thriller Lake

Photograph Central Park Scary Wisteria Framing the Lake 2011

copyright Caroline Gerardo

Eleven days until my deadline, the novel is shaping up.
How many violent scenes, beats and situations can I leave in the story?
Will my reader get tired on the thriller roller coaster?

I looked online statistics and my novella Greed has past 10000 sales. 10011 exactly as of yesterday.
I have not been checking and was shocked to find it in the top 100. This brings with it some negative things that I mentioned to a couple other writers. I found my books on torrent sites, and lending sites when I never agreed to lending. I also found a couple negative reviews by persons posting under alias names.These things are completed for the purpose of only money. This should not surprise me, this is a business.

My answer is complex:
I want to warn anyone who signs up for a torrent site or a free book lending site. There is nothing in life for free, the owners of these websites are making money off my work but ALSO your personal information. When you enter your email, your address, your credit card all this is farmed and worth a great deal of money. Information on what you buy is sold to third parties. The persons touching your privacy may be organized crime.

Most authors never make a living from their hard work. It takes a year for me to write a book at the minimum. If anyone needs to read my work for free, please contact me and I will find a way.

Meanwhile back to work writing.

Thriller Two Buy This Book

I am anticipating my trip to New York July 6 - 9 to participate in Thriller Fest.
International Thriller Writers published it's second book of short stories by other members.
A few highlights alphabetically:
Kathleen Antrim -Through a Veil Darkly (excellent!)
Gary Braver Ghost Writer ( I love this story. I was a ghostwriter for others before publishing under my maiden name in 2009. )
Blake Crouch Remaking this is the author of killers, Serial Uncut and Run. If you haven't read his work you are missing out.
Jeffrey Deaver- The Weapon a very scary story about torture. I loved his book, Carte Blanche.

Worth the money. Buy the book

Novel Draft #2 Seeing Light

photos: copyright Caroline Gerardo

I am heading out of the writing tunnel. This book is a battle. Sanity, death, quest for family, quest for true love all smothered in drug stealing, bum fights and crime not cheerful thoughts to grip me. A reader will pick it up and finish the novel in what five or six hours?

The endurance of a year loving this guy, Seth, a character is not daunting. I have sent him off to be read. It is not a graduation ceremony in June. I will complete two more edits.

I am mentally toying with changing the first chapter to first person. The narrator able to distinguish some of what happened, but she will have a flawed lack of reliability as she was not there every step of the story. Even when we are in real life a participant can we recall or comprehend what happened in the souls of men?

This photograph, recalls Van Gogh painting Branches of an Almond, is from a cemetery in Savannah. The light is hot through the tree. The flowering magnolia, not almond but the crazy color is there. Now your perception of the image, the emotion when your eyes go back, will read the words and the picture with new clarity.



Mothering a Bad Hero

When Mom Was My Age
Link for Interview By my Daughter about when I was nineteen. Please go read it, I love Jane Friedman's project about motherhood, how we see those we love and collaborative writing.

Savannah copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011

This is just a short post about writing. I am plugging along editing. If you emailed
or called I will get back to you, soon.
I have two weeks left of writing for my deadline. I handed over a
copy to my second favorite reader. I will keep working through the last five
chapters. I thought about asking my old reader to have a look, but he has
been so distantly cold and out of my life it could only have a bad outcome.
I have chopped out beats and scenes that didn't move. I am on the last
legs of my novel marathon, this part I just breathe.

The story has a great
deal of mental mahem.
My hero is a psycho.
Can a thriller have a bad hero?

I guess I'm his Mommy, being the author I still love him.
That is creepy.
Laughing-- back to work.

ROW80 Writing Goals

Jane Brucker, 2011 reading at her Art Opening photograph by Caroline Gerardo copyright 2011

I have not checked in on ROW80. I have kept to my writing every day schedule .I threw out word count for now as I am reducing the novel from 151108 words to around 80000. I will have second revision done done done by July 4. I am going to Thriller Fest in New York on the following day. I am focusing on finding an agent who has passion and obsession for literary thrillers. My work is not a “pigeonhole able” single genre. I am writing thrillers, but they are literary and more general fiction than just financial thrillers.


I have settled on a title now that the narrative is set in stone.
The Lucky Boy.
What do you think? I had toyed with Lucky, but Alice Sebold has a novel/memoir (that I love by the way) of the same start word title. My novel is not the same.

Side note: One of my son’s first phrases was, “I’m a yucky boy.” By this he spoke with a slight lisp intending to express his joy and good fortune, upon which his sister and I would crack into shards of laughter. Now that he is fourteen, he uses it with a sarcasm that points out that being raised by two women has it’s downfalls.

Little Sycamore Canyon Trail Ridge June 2, 2011 photograph copyright Caroline Gerardo

I ask you to vote on one title: A Lucky Boy or The Lucky Boy.


Goals this week: Get Chapters 8-10 into clean speaking order by Saturday, exercise, love my children, and pray. No gardening, no dating (sorry Harvard guy), no time for frills. Focus on the finish line.

I will have the keen eye of the red tailed hawk that we nursed back to health. My eye is on the ribbon at the end of the race.

Portrait # 2 Caroline Gerardo

Reject portrait the runner up. Not the Booker Prize. #writing #amwriting #willhaveseconddraftrevisiondonejune15  Hey if anyone is going to Thriller Fest in NEW York email me. It is going to be fun.

Caroline Gerardo Being a Writer

books
Caroline Gerardo
photograph by Blair Barbeau copyright  2011

I need a black and white photograph for the Thriller Fest catalogue. I just signed up. I fussed over this weekend. Daughter says I need to look tougher. I was thinking the turtle neck beatnik look. She says NO smiling Mom. I think I have settled on this image.
All these silly decisions can make a person wake up thinking.
Learning curve for an author: it is not just about writing a great book.
1. Edit like a demon - use words as clean as arrows or ones with secret sauce. Writing is not just a process it is an art. (background ballet dancers, symphony and  Musée d'Orsay )
2.know formatting for epub, pdf, word, HTML, paperback sizing. I love Garamond and some formats don't - why? Know why. Understand everything about publishing.
3. Learn to produce and worst of all edit a video trailer ( I wake up hearing the word string) Perhaps my next thriller is about an author killing a video editing program/softwear.
4. Social networking: finding your posse. They call it platform I think of it as posse. Manage the time reading all the fabulous things the posse is doing .I find myself lured by the siren song of now twenty one books on my nightstand that I am dying to read. I think there is some procrastination self-sabatoge in the pile of books. Share with anyone all the great opportunities in the world today. We live in such an amazing moment in time.
5. Memorize new poetry to keep word choices with a sound and a fury ( thank you William F.)
6. Keep taking photographs for blogging and visual cues for the writing. I am playing with the idea of using the thousands of pictures I have in a online reading version.
7. Promptly answer emails and incoming requests This task surprises me. I am hearing from strangers who now are friends.
8. Ask for opportunities for reviews, ask people to listen to me read, ask for people to buy my books
as I write this please link on the Smashwords site and order a FREE BOOK or go buy one at AMAZON .
9. Exercise, keep up the day job, feed and water the children -garden and pets.
10. Pray, be thankful, and tell everyone how dear they are to me. Show my joy and love to them. Write some more.
If you are attending Thriller Fest email or tweet me I plan to have fun.