Why We Change our Titles to Novels

Do you ever find yourself starting to write a novel and then part way through you realize the novel doesn't exactly fit the title?  We can have all kinds of reasons for changing a novel's title.  Maybe we loved it in the beginning but then changed our minds.  Sometimes it's just perhaps too long or maybe it isn't a title that would reach a wider audience.

Perhaps it isn't catchy enough.  Or we simply decide that we want to have something different.

At least in all the early stages of a novel, we have the right to change it any time we want.  The whole novel has a mind of it's own and it really gets changed so many times before we decide to publish it when it has come to completion.

I've decided to change The Thief Who Wouldn't Learn to one of these other titles:  The ones I like the most are at the top.

Good Girl, Bad Girl
As Fate Would Have it
Destinies Entwined

As I thought about my original title, I felt like it was really about the bad girl who is a thief but it didn't really describe the good girl.  I am really leaning towards Good Girl, Bad Girl.  It seems to sum it up and I'm thinking that it would reach a wider audience.  I mean, The Thief who wouldn't learn doesn't tell them that it's going to be a romance too, and Good Girl, Bad Girl could potentially be about anything.  The title seems to have a little more room to reach women on different levels.

This novel was originally sparked by a real life experience where a friend of my girls stole 21 of my nail polishes.  And the parents and I had a falling out and the little girl can't play over when I'm at my kids house which is best.  However, as they all get older and are teenagers with minds of their own, no parent is going to be able to control what they want to do.  But for now, this is how it is.  And I'm sure the little girl learned her lesson.

But anyway, a novel got sparked and it is all made up and not about them at all, except the incident might briefly get in there at some point, but it's going to be written in a way that is different from how it really happened.

We had an incident recently where yesterday the little girl said the novel is about her and her Dad's girlfriend read it.  Immediately, I told my girls that they are both to tell her that I said it isn't about her and I've called one of their teachers and will later be discussing it briefly with him.  I had unfriended the whole family around the time of the incident as I just didn't think the dad handled it right. Any other parent would have brought their child right over and put it to priority, but this guy made me wait quite a long time and there were other issues that just didn't gel with me.  And this little girl had also had some other incidents that as a mother I didn't think she was a good influence on my girls.

But they happen to still be friends at school and because her parents and I don't see eye to eye, their friendship for the most part has to stay at school.  They don't get many play dates of course because I am there and as their Mother I'm not going to be the one who has to leave the house for this little girl.

Anyway, I think this little girl saw my link to The Thief Who Wouldn't Learn on my daughter's wall and immediately she's thinking it's about her, which is why it needed to be cleared up that it isn't.  And I would hope that this girlfriend of her Dad who read it would not be telling this little girl that it is about her because it is not.  That would be a terrible thing for a grown up woman to be telling a little girl that it's about her.  I'm going to just believe that that hasn't happened, but then I don't know what the family is like nor do I care.

Yes, it sparked a novel, but it's clearly not about them.  Look at Stephen King writing about his accident.  Many authors choose to write about things that occur in real life, but it is our jobs as a novelist to make it different, fun and interesting.

I can tell the family right now, that none of the things that get stolen in the novel have been stolen by this little girl in real life, none of the conversations ever existed in real life, different chain of events, different characters, hair colors and all the details are different, different places of work.  I don't even know what these parents do in real life.

Lucinda, my bad girl works at a run down vintage, retro diner and I haven't decided what her bad boy lover is going to be yet.  Maybe a jewel thief or a gas station attendant or something like that.  And he might steal gas out of people's cars!  Sure, they are probably going to have some kids, but whole different story.

People do tend to read into things wrong, and this is just a little girl who has read the title and immediately thinks it's about her and the stolen nail polish.  Stolen nail polish is never going to even enter the story and the real life incident is going to play a very minor role in it.

There is no reason why this family would ever be able to come after me for slander, as I made sure that it is just my made up story and there would be no way they could come after me for it. 

And it's about two women, not just the bad girl.  It's about the good girl's life too.  And lets just say, her life isn't all a bed of roses either, but she's got better morals.

I really do like the title for it now.  Good Girl, Bad Girl seems right.  Or if I choose to make it kind of like a saga, I could call it, Good Girls, Bad Girls.

It's progressing nicely.  Where I am making the whole thing up completely different from real life, I have every right to write this novel and publish it and this family can't have any right to stop me from doing it.

Also, I think even though this family has perhaps read the first chapters and who knows who else who is related to them, they have read the first and second drafts and the novel is not anywhere near finished. 

I'm glad I took all my novels in progress off the blog, as I couldn't take any chances of anyone plagiarizing and also it's best to just finish it in book form.  And that way, nobody gets to read it anymore until it is in it's completion. 

And this family will have no ammunition against me as I haven't slandered one single bit.  And there's going to be murder in there somewhere and I hardly think a murder has been committed in real life.  Come again?

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted October 3, 2012

Fun Things to Get us all in Halloween Mode!!!

Here we are into the last day of September and seeing as it will tomorrow be the WITCHING MONTH, I guess now it's time for us all to prepare for it.

I always love Halloween, love the idea of dressing up, figuring out what to be each year, and how to decorate the porch.  Each year I ask the kids what they want to be.

For three years in a row when Mollyanne was little, she was Alice in Wonderland.  By the second or third year the ends of her costume looked like she was a ragged girl instead.

Jake has been Spiderman three years in a row, and when my ex and I heard he wanted to be it once again, we both said, "No, something else."  So maybe this year he will be Batman or another super hero.  My ex usually brings him trick or treating and I'm with the girls and Sean goes off on his own.  All in the kids neighborhood, but at our own pace.  Jake usually decides he is done quicker than the rest of them.

A few days ago, I discovered my ex has already getting prepared for Halloween as he had a cute prop that you push the button that makes noise and there's an image of a ghost inside that appears.  And later on I noticed another fun prop he had.

He was in the dining room at the laptop and I came into the kitchen to bring some dishes in and the kids food trash wrappers.  As I was at the sink, I heard his voice talking but it was kind of thrown across the dining room and I was wondering what I was hearing.  He has a prop that you can record the voices or sounds into and when someone gets within range it goes off.  It was too funny.

I told him it would be fun to have Julia shriek into it.

So, this morning I watched the kids while he headed out to Goodwill to get some outfits for his life size dummy.  My ex has always gotten into the spirit of decking out the porch for the big night.  Same with me.  I think it is lots of fun. 

We've always dressed up for the kids.  One year my ex was the Phantom of the Opera dude, another year he was a wrestler (now some pictures of that one were funny).  One year (not Halloween) we found my Mom's old wig from the old days and we all had fun wearing it while in Maine visiting.  This was when I was married to him still of course and we had really good and fun times.  Fun times now too, but as friends.  Anyway, I've got this classic picture of him wearing Mom's wig and he is holding a dish filled with a stack of pancakes.  Too funny.  I have all the pictures as I think it's important for the kids to someday have them.  My ex will always be in my life because he is the father of my children and I am very thankful that he was able to give me them.  They are my greatest accomplishment.

Let's see what I remember I was.  One year I was a exhausted housewife with old curlers and bobby pins in my hair and sticky notes on my housecoat saying, Go see doctor, etc...   another year I had a black cape that I have worn a lot for this.  One year, I had awesome cat's eye glasses, which a girl broke into my car and stole my pocketbook and she got my fancy cat glasses along with it.  And she made use of my debit card very quickly.  I luckily got that fixed since that year, I've always made it a point to have my car door locked everywhere I go.

Last year, I was a cracked doll.  Now that one was funny.  I was of course wearing the cape again with some elaborate skirts and fancy costume jewelry.  And I was in the kids bathroom painting my face, with dark lipstick, blush and a tinge of white.  Then I was drawing black cracks all over it.  Well, Sean my oldest was coming back from the pantry with his snacks to go down into the cellar with his friends.  He takes one look at me and probably died from embarassment and I thought it was hilarious!

Well, today I think I am getting into the season and am going to prepare.  I have ordered a few black roses, a gothic doll that can hang from the porch, and my black gothic angel wings that will be part of my costume.

I'm going to be a Fallen Gothic Angel this year.  Should be fun.  Plus I am thinking I can get some cool pictures of my girls with the wings too.  And the roses and the gothic doll prop could be great for my photography too and someday some illustrations.  The gothic doll is a fabric body with the plastic head and hands, black hair and her face is sort of beautiful with red blood stained eyes and dark red lips.

I'm looking at some of those floating eyes too thinking they could be cool in a fish bowl with some food coloring.  There's also some cool labels out there for witches spells etc... that you can attach to a jar or something and then put things inside.  I'm thinking I could make my own labels.  I saved a small glass jar that had saffron spice in it and I'm going to create some Drink Me labels to attach to it.

Last year, I made some chocolate perfume which I'm going to bring over as a potion to set on the table and let the women know what it is so that they can try some if they want.  Fun.

I've got a black journal that I am going to design two pages that will be open with some spells and drips of blood on it.

There's all kinds of really fun things.  My ex also likes to have scary music playing in the background.  One year we had Phantom of the Opera music playing in the background.  That was awesome.  Other years it has been Halloween Michael Meyers music and other creepy sound effects.

I love watching that first Halloween movie.  What a classic!  70's slasher movies are awesome.  I do love horror ones just as much as I love watching the old classics.  I really love all kinds of different movies.

He also has this cloaked skeleton that he hangs on the porch each year and in it's hand it holds a red rose.  It's really cool.  I should see if I can dig out one of my digital pictures of that to have on another post as we swing into season.

What do you want to be for Halloween?

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted September 30, 2012

 

Who wants to be Bella Swan this year?

 

 

 

 

This one was in the Haunted Forest last year.  I took my girls to it and this was one of the characters dressed up for part of the play event.

Live in the Moment and Get Things Done

I know we all have this preconceived thought that we have this agenda that we have to live by, but in fact it's probably best that we don't really firmly plant ourselves in this existence.

Don't get me wrong, I think we have to have some sort of schedule, but I guess we should just go with the flow and do things as we feel it needs to be done.  There's always that brain in our head that just automatically tells us to do it.

And if we ended up not doing something, was it really important in the first place?  Like say, my handmade rag dolls.  Not to say I will ever finish one to completion.  I still have them and haven't thrown it out, but I guess they aren't my priority right now.  I still have the pattern and all the muslin fabric to make them at a later date if I want and I can always draw out a new doll face on them and finish at my leisure.  Even if I only finish one, that will be fine.

I'm holding onto the materials regardless, but it's not on my plate at the moment.

I took this last weekend to just quietly take a short break from writing.  I think I took a little time to knit up my headbands and take some notes online and do some research.

Earlier this week, I was able to get some of my notes typed up and I got my outline for The Glorious Money Tree trilogy typed up too.  Next I will need to get some ink for the printer so I can print my research notes and the outline for novel.

I think I posted a little here and at Triond, but didn't really post more often until today.  I think I was at a loss for ideas.  It happens.

Yesterday, I took a good deal of time to figure out my hard drive.  I had all my photo files backed up to a hard drive last year while my laptop was being fixed.  I had missing photos.  I finally plugged it into the laptop yesterday and found it all there.  All my missing photographs were there.

The only ones that were completely gone was the ones I took for someone's barmitzpha that I photographed and I had used my daughter's laptop for it last year.  Her laptop broke too and the photos on hers got lost.

But the important ones like all the ones I took of the brick house where my grammy grew up was the important one.

I've got a few stories about that:  Correct me if I already posted them in a previous post.

My grammy went to college with Marge Standish (the one who went on to publish the famous recipe books).  She and Marge both applied for a home economics job.  My grammy was the one they hired and Marge Standish went on to do her books.

The other story was that my Grammy and her sisters grew up in Durham Maine.  Some of their family were teachers.  There was a story once about one of them expressing their concern for a story one of the children had written.  One of the teachers said, "Oh, that's just little Stevie King." 

He grew up in Durham and lived nearby where my Grammy grew up.  This was told to me at my Aunt Harriet's camp after they got talking about me and the eerie dolls and they would sometimes compare me to Steven King for the fun of it.  Another aunt would say, "Oh, the dolls." when I would bring up drawing or photographing the dolls.

Today, I have posted about five articles or perhaps one more and this is the second one here today.  One there I might post here is a bunch of sayings and quotes I had written down in a book over the years and I decided to share them all in a post.  They are all classics by famous people.  Don't we all love to read them for great words to live by.

It's so important to be inspired.

Well, I will end this and consider myself done for today for posting.  I should try to write the next few chapters of The Glorious Money Tree and get it moving along some more. 

I just felt like knitting for a little bit too.  I'm waiting for my application to at least one of the craft shows.  They are both in November.  I want to at least do one of them and am opting for my girls school craft show.  The fee is cheaper than the other one, plus when I go there, I am bound to see a whole bunch of the moms I know.  Both would be fun.

And tomorrow night is Volleyball game night at my local church.  I haven't been since I was dating one way street and I'm missing everyone.  It will be fun.  There's either a bunch of card games or the volleyball where we all miss the ball of course.  I think one time I had to crawl under the bleachers to find it.

And of course there's always a meal with lots of desserts.  Everyone usually brings a dish.  I'm bringing just my body and the small charge for the meal this time and once I get their flyer I will see what they want us to bring for next time.

I usually have seen one of the girls as she always has a yardsale and I shop at her sale and we chit chat.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted September 27, 2012

Should We be posting Novels in Progress on the blog?

I'm at a standstill with this.  I got a phone call with Author house.  Of course the woman was trying to pitch to me about coming back to them, but I have stressed that it didn't work out financially and I don't have the money to fork over again.

She is also writing a book too and we just got talking about the other projects of mine and hers.  I was talking about how I've been posting the novels on the blog.  She did have a good point which I am thinking that I might not continue to post the novels on the blog.

I'm thinking the majority of this is because of The Glorious Money Tree which happens to be my best novel yet, and I'm seriously contemplating not sharing the rest of it here now. 

I'm really sorry as I know many of you have been reading and following along.  Now, I know that most people are very respectful and would never copy something, but I am deciding not to continue and will just let you know when I do in fact get it published.

My main reason for this is in case there is the one person out there that could possibly decide to take my idea and run with it to Hollywood and capitalize on my idea.  I'm truly sorry that it has to be this way, but I just cannot risk it.  Not that it would actually happen, but I'm not willing to take that chance. 

Plus, someone pointed out that it loses the novelty with the publishers if it's been posted in bits and pieces.  I think it was fine for me to do this in the beginning as I am an unknown published author and it sometimes helps to get feedback for something you are really proud of.

I really think I have a good thing here.  I will not knock on wood, but I think it does have a lot of potential to hit the nail on the head so to speak.

I think I would feel free to occasionally write poems on here, but I think from now on, it can't be the novels.  I think many would agree with me on this.

Unfortunately, the world is filled with people that do plagiarise and steal people's ideas.  It's too bad for this.

I will continue to write daily on other things as I love blogging and sharing, but I think I have to keep my novels a surprise from now on and I hope you won't mind that this is my decision.  I have to protect myself.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted September 25, 2012

Have Your Kids be part of your novel writing

Have you ever thought about having your kids give you ideas for your novel writing?  I think it can be really fun to include them in what you are writing about.  Of course this depends on what you are writing about too.

I mean, you definitely don't want to include them in your writing process if it is in fact a novel for adults, a romance or a murder mystery or any other novel genre that is definitely geared for adults and not for kids.

But if it is a book that could be designed for kids, then by all means have them be a part of it.  Like if you are writing a children's book that comes with illustrations and is an easy reader or a picture book, let them be really involved in the process.

I think it is great to include your children in your thought process as they can learn from you and we can learn from them.

I'm finding that with my Glorious Money Tree trilogy, it is the perfect book to share with my children and see what they come up with for ideas.  Of course a lot of the written words would go above their heads and is definitely geared to adults and young adults but the theme of the novel can also be for younger kids.  Not the really little ones, but perhaps the ones that are at the Harry Potter age group and up.

My girls have been listening to me tell them what is happening with the good and bad fairies and the goblins and other magical creatures.  Mollyanne wants me to have a little boy for Sally's friend, Heather to like and she wants his name to be Christian.  She wanted the boy that Sally likes to be Christian but I told her, no he's already Ronny and Ronny fits.

Mollyanne has been playing Free Realms and has been showing me scenes from that and has been asking if I would write about some of it in my book.  And in one part of the novel, Sally gets read one of those Rainbow Magic books so I asked one of the girls which one her mother should read her and they told me a few of the ones that they like.

So just off and on, we would talk about different parts of the story, so they know what it is about.  Both of my girls are kind of writing their own little stories.  Julia has been busy making her own little cartoon, which is cute and one morning she was lying down on the neighbor's driveway with her feet crossed while we were waiting for the bus to come and she was busy working on her cartoon.  Classic.  It would have been a cute picture, if I had it with me and could manage to catch her off guard.

Julia has been writing a Littlest Pet Shop story in one of her notebooks. 

They liked it this weekend, as I went shopping with some friends (pretty much window shopping for me) and I ended up buying a few of those fifty cent notebooks one for me and one for each of the girls.  They always love a new notebook to write or draw in.  And I got sucked into a cool gemstone bracelet, soda lite.  It's not my birthstone, but it was pretty but it says to promote wisdom.

Now, I don't take big stock in all this stuff, but hey if it could send any extra wisdom my way, I'll take it.  Ha ha.

I've been doing a lot of research though this weekend on different things for either The Glorious Money Tree or any future writings.  The meanings of flowers, phases of the moon and meanings, meanings behind our eye colors (didn't even know there was such a thing), meanings of gemstones, fairy tales, gods and goddesses, witchcraft, spells, etc.....shapes of faces, hair colors, character traits and anything that could help with writing novels.

I don't really believe in all the meanings behind things and it really would not apply to every single person.  I know some people rely on all that very heavily, but I usually just think that it happens to be sheer chance that it fits what a person is going through.  Same with horoscopes, in the fact that it could fit and yet at the same time it could not or just be coincidence.  I don't know.

The reason for taking notes on this though could be maybe not so much for The Glorious Money Tree trilogy but perhaps for a future novel, I could have characters who could want to believe in this stuff or want to do witches spells and get heavy into tarot cards.  Who knows.

I've also started a reference guide of my own note taking that I am typing up to have on hand for any kind of writing.  I plan to print up the pages as I get them done so I can have the guide right handy at any time.

And the other one I thought of having on hand is a writing prompt guidebook from my note taking.  Any phrase of words that catches my fancy, it's written down and later I can just have it handy too.

I went through all the Chapters of The Glorious Money Tree and finished writing up my outline so I can have it handy.  It seemed like it took a good three hours to do this as I went back in and added stuff and began fixing things that needed fixing.

Like the biggest boo boo was ha ha Sally's mother, Lara's husband, I've been calling him Patrick for a while in recent chapters.  As I went back and fixed more things, I noticed that I had originally called him Brent.  Whoa.... can't have that.  I did have a good laugh with my ex about it and he said he could have an alias.  But better not to.

And then, I wanted to write a little more early on about Sally liking Ronny Caster, the stinky sock boy.  So there could also be some little love stories going on through out the trilogy and of course as they get older it could get more involved.  Maybe a love triangle of some sort could be interesting to delve into too.

Just things to think about.  Well, this will probably be it for today.  Jake's bus is almost ready to arrive and I'm thinking I should just spend time getting all my reference notes and the novel outline typed up so I can print it up tomorrow.

And I decided to have a quiet day yesterday just spending time to knit up the cabled headbands too.  One is done and I just have to sew it together and the other is halfway done.  The second one I made up my own lace edging on the sides of the cable and it's looking pretty.  I'm going to have to take some pictures and write my pattern up later, for a possible future knitting book, but that one would be probably more like two or three years down the road maybe.  The other ones come first.

And then I have the Ebay selling that is going well and I just happen to have my priorities where I want them and I'm happy. 

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted September 23, 2012

This was a pair of ballet shoes I bought at a yard sale earlier this spring.  I think I may search for more at next years sales.  I could envision some photos with a bunch of them hanging on a clothesline.

Her Scented Bed and Bloodshed Battlefield by Jennifer Jo Fay (free verse poem)

This poem is one of my old writings I found a few nights ago.  They are roughly back from 2007-2008

Her Scented Bed and Her Bloodshed Battlefield

What pray tell did her scented bed look like?
It was that of a bloodshed battlefied with a fire
burning and waiting for the stained aftermath
from a war zone to totally painful.
The bed held dreams of being rescued by someone
who held the words of peace and compassion
upon his gentle hands.
Her bed coveted a burning candle that stayed lit.
And what of scented beds?  Were they laden with roses
or covered with moss? 
How did one begin to unearth a mass so dense.
She was the raw rose nailed down upon her scented bed
from which she couldn't escape from.
Hers was a burning bed, ready to erupt and burn
from fierceness of flames.
Bittersweet desires and memories folded upon
this bed covered in a quilt with calico hearts.
Upon this bed, she carved dreams and memories.
From the glorious heavens she was emerced with
her sunflower pencil in hand from her icon
Vincent Van Gogh.
Drawing her dreams, she had set aside
her Picasso Blue pen, but always
felt that both went hand in hand.
One was alive in the palms of her hand while
the other was sifting away into the depths of night.
Dreams cascaded upon her scented bed and
she thought of things to come.
Where would her life unfold to?  She was simply yet to know.
She was neither here nor there, yet the heaviness
of covers kept her trapped, captive
to a invisible metal that held her firm.
What color was her bed?
Love was like a thorn which
seemed to tack itself with a nail.
Between her jammed tight heart
there was a cloak of darkness and pain
which was ready to engulf her essence of soul.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted 2007-2008

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The Importance of Character Descriptions: Novel writing

How many of you novelists often find the struggle to write about your characters?  This is an extremely important piece of the novel as much of the writing depends on really good character descriptions.  How do we go about defining our characters is really up to us and not someone else.

What ends up being a dilemma is that people often begin to criticize the novel and the characters in it.  I have not been immune to this.  Even in the editor's description of my first published novel this is one of the things that she seemed to pick apart.

Last year, when I had received the review, I really felt like I wanted to toss it out the door, but decided on keeping it.  I'm kind of glad that I did.  This was a paid book review for Black Roses first in my mystery series that got self published.

I didn't want to have it published and Author house kept it private to me.  Yet, as I read through it last week there were some good tips that I have carried on into my current writings.  She had complained of short and choppy sentences.  Which to an extent maybe she was right.

But, then as I think of this, I think all authors are allowed to have some short and choppy sentences.  Not every single sentence in a novel can be long and involved and sometimes short and sweet can be quite nice.  But perhaps I used the shorter and choppy sentences a little more often than I should have.  Who knows, but even so every writer does have their own style of writing and even though we all have this global guideline of how we are supposed to write down the English language, we also have our own set of rules that pertain only to us.

But, I took it to heart and I learned from that piece.

Also, she pointed out that I had no chapter breaks, which from now on, I will be doing.  And then the other point was that some of the character descriptions were out of place or didn't fit.  I will come to this important issue in a minute.

She did say that I mastered certain things so it wasn't all bad and she said I had mastered a look into the cruel world of a stripper and that thankfully we will never want to experience it.  Thank god.  Which I can also agree with that completely.  I wouldn't want to know.

Okay, so character descriptions can be hard to do.  I don't know.  I think this should really be up to the author.  Of course you do want to make it all believable.

Here is an example or two from years ago when I was writing and sharing my Lustful Evangelean romance novel with my woman's writing class.  I read different parts of it and some of the girls loved my character descriptions and thought that it was really cool that Evangelean had a white trashcan.

And then my writing instructor pointed out something about the college girl who borrows a cup of sugar from Evangelean and there's a secret there.  I probably should be posting some of this novel soon on here.  I dug up my half edited copy.  I think I had the girl drinking coffee or some other liquid and my instructor said she would rather see her drinking Oval tine. 

This would be a good point.  Well, she's a college girl and yes, she probably can only afford Oval tine and shouldn't be drinking the most expensive gourmet coffee.

I guess what I'm saying is that when we are doing some descriptions we have to work hard at making them fit.  But also I think a good deal of it should also be up to us.

Like if I want Sally to wear a polka dot dress, that is what she is going to wear.  And she should be wearing her favorite colors.

Perhaps my boy characters would like to wear stripes or another one is into the character t shirts of his favorite shows.

Maybe another girl only wants to wear leggings and no frills skirts.

Figure out what you want them all to be and go from there.  Of course you want them all to be different.

Like say Mary, Sally's mother's friend might end up being a real estate agent.  Well, she probably should be dressing the part.  And she's classy, so she should dress nice like a casual older woman.

Maybe Sally's best friend's mother likes to dress a little more sexy.  Who knows.

Also we have to think about who their character is.  What is their way of thinking?  It certainly shouldn't all be the same. 

I don't know, this would probably be a tough one for me, but I kind of just like to describe them the way I want and that is how it is.  If someone just doesn't like it, then that's okay.  It's their opinion.

I think we really walk a fine line when we are writing our novels and we should think really hard about how it should be, but then as we write and complete our writing process it is us and us alone that should decide how the whole thing should result in.  After all, it is our vision and not someone else's.

Hey, if someone doesn't want my college girl to be drinking Green Mountain Coffee Roasters or the most expensive brand, maybe they should write their own book where she drinks Oval tine.  Hey, maybe her gourmet coffee was a gift from a relative or something.

And we also have to keep reading our novels to make sure everything fits.

Like in Lustful Evangelean, I had Evangelean go off to her job and her lousy husband, Tom go to her place of work and do something he shouldn't have done and meanwhile neither one left their four girls with a babysitter. 

So, that one is a case where, yes, this really needs to be fixed as everyone will lose respect for Evangelean and toss the book in the trash. 

Your heroine and your hero have to be respected and liked in order for your audience to find it believable and want to finish the book or else it is clearly going to tank.

I still love Black Roses, because it was my first mystery novel I wrote.  The editor didn't think I should have mixed erotica with mystery and I think she had issues with the fact that yes, it was pretty much hardcore and the readers get quite the surprise.  Well, here I'm thinking, what did she expect?  It's about a stripper and a prostitute and yes, their life is pretty much hardcore. 

She did like that my stripper had a life outside of stripping and that I had mastered the facts of her wanting to escape that life and with her dealing with a stalker. 

What do they usually say?  Keep writing as perhaps the next novel will be even better.  My local editor had said this to me after reading Lustful Evangelean.  She really loved the story within the story so when I do go back and edit big time, I should focus on that. 

That was also the very first novel too, and it was very flowery at first.  My kids preschool teacher had said that she loved my writing.  Maybe that's just me trying to perceive the beauty in everything.  I mean, it was flowery to extreme.  I will have to share it with you sometime.  I probably shouldn't toss the original.  Actually, I did toss so much of the early one.  I had some first drafts that were handwritten and just tons of writings that never made it into the novel.

And a part of it had something to do with something from real life that I was going through.  My beginnings of a separation, but in the story I invented this different reality of course but those two things were a part of it.

But I was sparked to write the novel from a crush I had at the time on a preschool teacher of my youngest daughters.  I never did anything of course, but the preschool teachers (some of my good friends for life) decided to hire a male teacher that year, and he one day looked so sad.  I think he might have gone through a break up or something and then there was this little bit of flirting with him throughout the year.  I was shy so of course he never acted but he did do a good job of flirting.  And my friend Susie told me to can it and then she laughed and said, "If it helps, we all think he is gay."  Ha ha.  I think at one point in a woman's life whether you are married or not, you can think someone is hot.  There's no harm in it if it is just a minor flirting or a private crush.  We all know it needs to get canned quick.

So, I guess for a long time writing the novel was a fascination with it and pure fantasies.  I guess I was entitled to fantasies.  Isn't every woman?  That's kind of what the novel is about.  This girl who is approaching a time in her life where there is crisis, who is she, where is she going and what is she going to do with her life?  And is she happy in her marriage or is she not?  And in the story, Tom is quite what should I say?  Sleazeball?  That could kind of sum him up.  Of course so much different than my ex.

When you are writing, we take from reality, but it has to really be invented and imagined or else you have non fiction rather than fiction.

And then my editor, started talking about Hilary and Bill Clinton and how does she decide to take him back.  I might have to rethink this about the novel and decide some things.  She had a really good point.  Many women would want to see a heroine make amends with someone.  Or does she go completely the opposite and fall hard for Gauthier?  I guess I will be the one to decide the ending.

So, I guess how I want to end this post is to really think hard about all the aspects of the novel and think about how you want it to flow as a whole.

How it is perceived is completely up to you as it comes from your head and yours alone.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted September 20, 2012

This was a photograph I took way back in 1992 when on a trip to York, Maine with my ex.  It was before I was married to him and his family and some relatives had rented a house there for the week and we were visiting for the weekend.  I think also my Mom and Dad came down for a day visit to meet his parents and have a dinner.

I was so nervous that when I was in my bedroom there, I spilled a container of water in the bedroom I was sleeping in.  While there, my ex and I slept in separate rooms.