Elizabeth Dougherty's Blog

I almost deleted this site. My domain was about to expire, so that was an easy enough excuse. Also, I’ve been pitching my second novel, DARLING ACADEMY, and getting nowhere, and so I was feeling discouraged about writing and anxious about my web presence.

I used this site to work out my decision to self-publish my first novel, THE BLIND PIG, so sometimes I worry that it might cast me as an anti-establishment renegade. There are moments when I felt that way, certainly. But my decision to self-publish was motivated more by my desire to share my work than by anything else. I remember at the time feeling that I couldn’t imagine just putting my book in a box under the bed and forgetting about it.

I’m glad I self-published, not only because people have read and enjoyed my book, but also because I learned quite a lot about publishing and writing in the process. The main thing I learned is that editing a book is a slow and painful process and I probably should have done more of it before I hit the “Publish” button.

It is a good lesson to have learned. I am now revising DARLING ACADEMY, again, after having pitched it to about ten agents. I thought it was done. But then, after workshopping early pages of the sequel, I realized that I had left a significant plot point on the table. By trying to continue the narrative and failing, hitting wall after wall, I realized it wasn’t walls that were the problem, but the foundation the new book was standing on. The changes I’m making to book 1 are subtle, but they are significant improvements.

In a few weeks, I hope to start pitching again. I have a new query letter in the works, a fresh outline for book two, and just a little more work to do on DARLING ACADEMY before I begin. I do hope to land an agent this time. I’d love to experience the process of publishing a novel with the help of professionals in the literary world. Time will tell.

Here is a fun exercise for you after a long absence…

First, you have to go out and get a pile of jelly belly candies. Those are the squishy sugar-coated disks that come in fruity flavors. Forget the lemon and cherry and grab either a blue or a red (blueberry or raspberry).

Ready?

Ok, now open the package but — whatever you do — don’t smell the candy!

Plug your nose, take a bite, chew and swallow. Keep that nose plugged!

Now, take another bite, chew, and release your nose.

Pow! What should hit you is a powerful sweet taste. The reason is that a good amount of the sweet we taste comes  not from sugar on the tongue but from the volatiles, the compounds that take to the air and give the candy its smell. These go in through the nose and throat when you chew and Bam! How sweet it is.

I learned this at the AAAS Annual Meeting, which this year is in Boston. The talk was about “Building a Better Tomato,” which is right up The Blind Pig alley.

There is an enormous amount of research going into building a better tomato. Linda Bartoshuk, from the University of Florida, Gainsville, figured out that there are certain volatiles in tomatoes that make them taste sweeter, even if the varietal has low levels of sugar, or less sweet even if the tomato has more sugar.

This information is being used to tease out the flavor components that will make a good supermarket tomato. In the past, flavor was ignored and we ended up with those bland pale tomatoes that ship well and grow in abundance an last an eternity on the shelf, but taste like crunchy water.

The new promise is that someday soon, we’ll be able to get Heirloom taste without having to go to the farm stand and pay $5 per pound and without having our very expensive tomato rot in the bag on the way home from the market. And all of this with a lot of science and a little good breeding. (I missed the beginning of the talk because I hit traffic on the Pike on my way to the Riverside T station, but I’m pretty sure this talk did not mention GMOs.)

So I for one am kind of looking forward to these tomatoes. Nothing is better than going to the farm stand and buying a pile of ugly tomatoes and eating them whole because they are so amazingly good, but here in New England, that lasts for about one month, maybe two. I’d love to not have to eat canned tomatoes the other 10 months of the year just to have something that tastes like a tomato.

Next on the schedule for today? Optogenetics. That’s where they genetically engineer brain cells to make them controllable with light. It’s being used right now to turn neurons on and off in mice to understand how habits form and what causes neuropsychiatric disease. It’s brilliant but diabolical, as so many brilliant things are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finished the first draft of my next novel! I wrote the last words about 2 weeks ago. It weighs in at 80,000 words or about 200 pages (yes, I am still counting). Yay!

Now that I’ve had a little celebratory break (which included an incredible trip to Blue Osa in Costa Rica), it is time for the next step: revision.

Yuck.

I tried to start yesterday, but failed. I was gripped by fear. I had no energy. There were other things to do, like look at my Costa Rica pictures again and refill my coffee cup.

But today, success! I started by picking up my favorite book on writing, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, by Stephen Koch. He inspires me every time.

One hitch is that I keep trying to remember how I revised my last book. Koch takes that question off the table simply:

Every writer must be taught how to write every book she writes, and the teacher is always the book itself.

Phew. I can’t go wrong! I just need to let the book show me the way.

Another hitch is that I don’t want to read my first draft. I know it has some good stuff. But I also know it has some dreadful stuff. And for the past two weeks I’ve been agonizing about all of the things I should have done and ideas I haven’t yet included that I want to weave in.

According to Koch, these ideas are precious and hard-won. I wouldn’t have them had I not written the first draft to being with.

“I love the flowers of afterthought,” says Bernard Malamud, author of The Natural. Flowers. What a lovely way to think about these thoughts.

Finally, Koch gives some very specific instruction on how to take the first step: Sit down and read the draft. All at once. Listen to your “twin friends, the senses of rightness and wrongness,” he says, and trust them. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Take note to cut or edit later. Don’t waste time or energy feeling embarrassed by the terrible parts. Look at your draft, he says, like a doctor reading an X-ray.

As I type, my pages are printing, 4 pages per sheet, one-sided by accident. But hey, the blank side will be useful for taking lots of notes about how great or terrible that page is!

All I have left is to decide what chair to sit in… Okay. Decided. Here I go.

There are some kinds of food that are real and some that are not. It isn't too hard to tell the difference, but apparently serving real food to large numbers of people is quite a challenge. In fact, it's a challenge with a NAME.

A Boston-based initiative called the Real Food Challenge is encouraging institutions worldwide to sign on to pledge that 20% of the food they serve will be real.

Twenty percent.

Here's the hitch: "Real Food is food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth," according to the Real Food Challenge website. That means factory farmed foods might not qualify. In fact, they have a calculator for institutions to use to figure out what counts as real and what doesn't.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think this is awesome. The fact that we have gotten so far from knowing what real food is that we have to calculate it means that we probably need programs like this one. On the other hand, to me, the whole idea of creating a calculator drives us even farther from our intuition — that basic instinct that tells us what's yum and what's yuck — that took us eons to evolve.

According to the Burlington Free Press, the University of Vermont is the 5th university to sign on.

In other weird stuff that was fiction when I wrote The Blind Pig but is now creepily creeping into reality is Project Glass, eyewear made by Google. Here's a short description from the NY Times:

The prototype version Google showed off on Wednesday looked like a very polished and well-designed pair of wrap-around glasses with a clear display that sits above the eye. The glasses can stream information to the lenses and allow the wearer to send and receive messages through voice commands.

Here is a description of the fictional eyewear from The Blind Pig:

Her eyepiece projected a clock onto her retina and, seeing it was earlier than she'd thought, she decided to wait an hour. The metal arm jutting out from her ear looked like the stem of an old pair of glasses and held a convenient a test-tube sized computer just over her eyebrow.

In the future, I will patent all of my fictional ideas.

Actually, what this tells me is how quickly things change. Apparently, researchers are already working on Project Contact Lens.

What's next?

So many. I mean, there's counting the miles I've run. And how fast. And then there's counting the number of words written, hours worked, dollars earned and spent. And of course, we can't forget the nagging question: How many glasses of wine did I drink? (or cookies did I eat? or pounds did I gain?)

And now, with my new goal of measuring my progress as an Indie author, it's just gotten worse. How many books sold? / blog hits tallied? / stars awarded?

The saddest part of all of this? I've been trying to be LESS goal-oriented.

So I'm going to let go of something. It might seem small, but to me it's big. I'm going to stop worrying about how fast I'm running. In fact, I'm going to run my upcoming half marathon this Sunday without a watch. (Gasp!)

It's terrifying, I know. But don't worry. I'll survive.

Meanwhile, I'm making progress on getting ideas for how to fill in the self-judgement void I'm pretending to create. For example, I found a great QueryTracker post about how to ask people to review your book (and have more of them say yes!). The short answer? Research.

Know your market and new releases in it, then figure out whose hands your book should be in to give it the greatest positive exposure, says blogger and novelist Mary Lindsey.

I think the idea of working to cultivate reviews is a great investment. First, reviewers are readers and I always love to hear what readers have to say. Second, it's important to know your space, and what better way than to read books with great reviews? Especially if it gets your book into the hands of people who might like it.

The key, I think, is to not look at all of this as work. I read (count 'em) 4 young adult books in the last 2 weeks in an effort to get a better handle on the voice for my next book. The books, which I will soon be reviewing on GoodReads, were fantastic and fun to read.

So, reading books similar to The Blind Pig should also be fun to read.

And what better way to spend these frighteningly hot spring days than reading? Hmm. Let me count the pages…

The key to good preparation? Failure. That's according to Jason Ashlock of Movable Type Management. No, he's not a web software guy. He's a literary agent. A modern literary agent. And the first I've seen with a real vision for the future of publishing.

I like his vision for 3 reasons:

It validates my decision 2 years ago to self (scratch that) Indie publish;
It does not render books, literature or any other kind of writing obsolete; and
It suggests that the age of the novelist — you know, the one alone with the typewriter in a spare, dusty room — is not completely dead.

It's easiest to explain his vision by contrast with the status quo.

Ashlock sees traditional agents as the go-between between authors and publishers on a linear path that leads, from author to agent to publisher to distributor and, eventually, to readers.

But in the digital age — which, he stresses, is here now, not coming tomorrow — that path is no longer linear. Rather it radiates outward from the author, at the center, though many shorter paths to readers. The modern agent's role is to live in a slim concentric circle that surrounds the author and help her figure out how, when, where, and why to radiate.

As an author standing alone at the center of my little circle, all aglow but completely unfocused, this vision articulates precisely what I have needed for the past two years.

I've beaten myself up quite a bit for not knowing when, where or how to radiate. I've tried little things. I've tried big things. I've gotten discouraged. I've lost focus. I've become paralyzed.

Should I invest in becoming vocal on GoodReads? Should I send out press releases to journalists who write about food and technology? Should I make my eBook free?

And if I try one of these approaches, how do I know if it worked? What do I measure?

I'll admit it. At some point, I just let my personal life and my professional life take over instead.

But, says Ashlock, to make progress, you must experiment. And when you experiment, you will fail. And when you fail, you will learn. Any scientist will tell you, any entrepreneur will tell you, any athlete will tell you:  Failure is part of the bargain.

The good thing is that, during the past 2 years, things have changed. There are more tools for Indie authors and more ways to measure success. Plus people like Ashlock are lending credence to the entire digital model. As a result, more and more agents are willing to look at someone like me, who took a risk 2 years ago, as someone with potential rather than as a pariah.

So it's time to experiment. I guess my short term goal is to fail and learn. But my long-term goal is success! Success, that is, that I can quantify in terms of readers and reactions — Yelp-style (to paraphrase an attendee at Ashlock's talk) — so when my next book is ready, so am I.

My friend sent me this link to LikeMeat yesterday. So, folks, it's really happening. People are making meat in the lab and giving it a cute name and, soon, you will probably buy some. I know I will.

I mean, I'll have to, won't I? I will have to try it.

This email came a week after receiving 3 other Neermeat news stories: a friend sent me this FoxNews clip, and my mom sent me a similar article in Financial Times and another friend mailed me a cute card with a clipping from The Economist.

When I do book talks, I take along with me a copy of a New Yorker from September that also talks about lab grown burgers.

I used to bring this along with me because I found that, at book clubs and libraries, I attracted a mixed crowd. There were those who read The Blind Pig and said, "this is already happening. I know all of this already…because it's real." And then there were those who said, "um, this is kind of weird. Where did you come up with this stuff?"

Not everyone is up on modern science. I don't even claim to be, and I follow it for a living. That's why I wrote The Blind Pig. Because it's fun to take what's real and speculate about it. And it's even more fun when you know that what's real is something that's happening that only a few people know about.

Boston happens to be one of those places where there are lots of thinkers and tinkers who are making the technologies of our near-future. This is also happening in other places, but still, these people are like an intellectual 1%. They'll come up with a disproportionate percentage of the products we rely on in the future. And we in the 99% will buy them because eventually, we won't have a choice.

So, anyway, I bring the New Yorker article (and a few others) to show people that the ideas in The Blind Pig are real.

I keep seeing these trends that make me think of Neermeat or The NArc. From now on, when I do, I'll to post them here so we can all watch as the science of The Blind Pig comes out. I hope it will be more fun than scary!

Hello. It’s been awhile. Not quite a year. Not quite a good year. In fact, the past 12 months have been pretty awful. But I’m still here, and for that (and many other things) I am grateful.

Plus over the last 3 weeks, I’ve gotten back into writing my next novel. Yay!

This particular novel is one that I’ve attempted to write two previous times. The first time, I wrote about 120 pages. I had been excited about it at first, and I liked my main character, but for some reason, she just wouldn’t DO anything. She — meaning me — was stuck. And there was no saving her.

So I tried again, this time from the first person, and this time with that character demoted to a supporting role and about 10 years younger. That draft resonated more in terms of story, but the characters still felt weak.

Now I am 91 pages into my third first draft. I’ve kept the first person point of view and developed the characters more fully. And I’ve even (gasp!) written an outline. (Thank you Erika Mailman, teacher of my MediaBistro Novel Writing class!)

I’m not one for outlining. I like to free-write. I like to let my characters be free to do whatever it is they do and to let their lives unfold in my made-up world. But I also know that I actually want this book to get written and if I keep waiting around for my characters to get busy doing interesting things, I might still be here, working on my umpteenth draft 5 years from now.

The outline has been great because, on days when I am pressed for time, I can just sit down and crank out a scene. When I do that every day, guess what? The book is in my head all the time. Everything is connected. So the outline is constantly morphing in my head.

In fact, its time for a complete outline revamp to really hit the high points and define the climax since the next 100 pages I write need to get me there. The entire process of outlining and writing daily has helped me see the big missing links in my story idea — those things that I hadn’t worked out and that I thought I could maybe get away with avoiding but that really are so foundational that the story is nothing without it. You know what I mean.

Oh! And I came up with a new rule to help me make sure I write. Every. Day. I write before I run. And I still do run or hit the gym 6 days a week, religiously. So now I write every day — even on my rest days — because now that I’ve started, I don’t want to stop.

Hello. It's been awhile. Not quite a year. Not quite a good year. In fact, the past 12 months have been pretty awful. But I'm still here, and for that (and many other things) I am grateful.

Plus over the last 3 weeks, I've gotten back into writing my next novel. Yay!

This particular novel is one that I've attempted to write two previous times. The first time, I wrote about 120 pages. I had been excited about it at first, and I liked my main character, but for some reason, she just wouldn't DO anything. She — meaning me — was stuck. And there was no saving her.

So I tried again, this time from the first person, and this time with that character demoted to a supporting role and about 10 years younger. That draft resonated more in terms of story, but the characters still felt weak.

Now I am 91 pages into my third first draft. I've kept the first person point of view and developed the characters more fully. And I've even (gasp!) written an outline. (Thank you Erika Mailman, teacher of my MediaBistro Novel Writing class!)

I'm not one for outlining. I like to free-write. I like to let my characters be free to do whatever it is they do and to let their lives unfold in my made-up world. But I also know that I actually want this book to get written and if I keep waiting around for my characters to get busy doing interesting things, I might still be here, working on my umpteenth draft 5 years from now.

The outline has been great because, on days when I am pressed for time, I can just sit down and crank out a scene. When I do that every day, guess what? The book is in my head all the time. Everything is connected. So the outline is constantly morphing in my head.

In fact, its time for a complete outline revamp to really hit the high points and define the climax since the next 100 pages I write need to get me there. The entire process of outlining and writing daily has helped me see the big missing links in my story idea — those things that I hadn't worked out and that I thought I could maybe get away with avoiding but that really are so foundational that the story is nothing without it. You know what I mean.

Oh! And I came up with a new rule to help me make sure I write. Every. Day. I write before I run. And I still do run or hit the gym 6 days a week, religiously. So now I write every day — even on my rest days — because now that I've started, I don't want to stop.

But when you find good advice, it's unmistakably good.

I found mine at the Harvard Writer's Workshop, a continuing education course for MDs. I attended as a reporter, covering the course for Harvard Medicine. The opportunity fell into my lap on Thursday during a chat with the editor, my friend and colleague Paula Byron.

I almost said no. I had a long run planned for Saturday and I was semi-holding Sunday open for a not very good reason and I'd had a long week already.

But then I remembered that whole bit about showing up. You have to show up, meet people, be a part of it. So I said yes, as long as I could attend the fiction workshop too, which turned out to be wonderful, like icing on cake.

The advice I got came from Rusty Shelton, a highly regarded publicist in Austin, TX. He gave a talk about hiring a publicist, which I've been considering, and among his parting words, which included "Write a great book," he said, "Get good advice."

I've been wanting good publicity advice for ages but haven't known where to get it. So I approached him after the session and asked for some. "How do I get the most bang for the buck to promote my book?" I asked. "Should I hire a publicist to help me get reviews?"

Before answering, he asked, "What's your goal?"

Luckily, I knew the answer. "I want to be a novelist." There. I said it out loud to a stranger. In the publishing business. Kindly, he didn't laugh. Instead he gave me some really great suggestions for how to build my online presence.

Now, I was recently a panelist on Books and Blogging for New England Science Writers and I'd left that event feeling inadequate compared to some of the other panelists. I also left thinking that what I needed to do was start tweeting and blogging about science.

This is what I get for hanging out with a bunch of journalists, few of whom would ever consider uttering the words "I want to be a novelist."

Instead, Shelton suggested blogging and tweeting about fiction. Review books. Talk to authors about writing. And consider giving away the eBook version of The Blind Pig just to get it into more people's hands. In hindsight, it's kind of obvious. These are the kinds of things that novelists do.

Interestingly, earlier in the day, Jeff Brown, author of The Winner's Brain, had encouraged us to act "As If." By acting as if I'm a novelist, I am sending messages to my brain that I already am what I aim to be. If I keep activating those self-image brain cells, I'll start naturally seeing myself as who I want to be.

I cannot overemphasize his caveat to avoid going overboard on this one. Acting insufferably "As If" will only make people say "As If" about you behind your back.

So I'm off to get my "I'm a novelist and a winner" brain cells in gear (and also to get my laundry done).

Incidentally, Brown will be in the medical tent at the Boston Marathon finish line. I very much hope not to see him there.