HelenKay Dimon

I have a new home. A new internet home, that is. As promised, www.helenkaydimon.com is now live. Pretty, isn’t it?

If you’re getting the old version of the blog through typepad, re-direct your link, bookmark or whatever to:
http://www.helenkaydimon.com/blog/

We’re in the process of moving the blog from Typepad to Wordpress – the “we’re” in that sentence is not actually me of course – so the links are a work in process. Hold tight and all will be up and working soon. Until then, all of the other stuff around here should work.

A huge thanks to Mica and Walt and the good folks at Dream Forge. They did an amazing job and put up with the 100s of questions I had – okay, 1,000s – without complaining.

I need to check out for a few days.  See, Mica from Dream Forge Media is finishing up my website – yeah!!.  In order to launch www.helenkaydimon.com (you can click on the link but nothing interesting will happen until Tuesday) as planned, Mica’s hubby Walt needs to switch my blog from its current home to another home… 

Okay, I say all this like I know what the hell I’m talking about.  Yeah, I don’t.  Walt and Mica tell me to do something, then I try to do it.  So, here’s the scoop:  check back on Tuesday at my new home www.helenkaydimon.com.  I’m thinking anyone linking to me will need to change the link but, again, what the hell do I know.  We’ll see what happens on Tuesday.

My August 2006 release is called Viva Las Bad Boys! You probably know that if you ever glance over at my sidebar.  For those not reading my sidebar…please read the sidebar ’cause that’s my only promotion at the moment.

Anyway, it’s a single author anthology that takes place – have you guessed? – in Las Vegas.  The first two novellas are with my lovely editor.  The third is sitting in my, well, in my laptop.  It’s done, has been, except for the final edits (which can mean tweaking or a complete re-write of the last half of the book), words from my cp (which tend to go like this: the last 2 chapters don’t make any sense, so re-write them – yeah, I know, but she’s usually/almost always right), followed by a final look by me. 

See, before I can take that final last check, I have to step away and not look at the book for a few days.  That way, I can go back with semi-fresh eyes.  I do this, in part, because I hate everything I’ve written by the time I hit the last page.  It wears off  eventually, but the immediate end comes with a "this sucks" feeling.  The days away give me some perspective.  With this one I have some concern I will return and think "still sucks" but I’m hoping not.

A new book is coming out, Chip Kidd: Book One Work: 1986-2006.  Who is Chip Kidd?  Okay, I have to admit I didn’t know until Details magazine told me.  He’s "the most acclaimed book-jacket designer of the past two decades."  So, now you know.  The book includes covers, drafts and anecdotes.  And, here’s my favorite, is half hardcover and half paperback.  I swear that’s what the article says. 

Here’s one of Kidd’s upcoming covers.  Details thinks it will be controversial.  Yeah, at first it didn’t look that controversial to me either, but the book is about rich people in Manhattan post-9/11.  Look at it again.  Uh-huh.  Controversy .

Some authors spend a lot of time and calories insisting they don’t write chick lit.  Some other folks spend a lot of time and calories putting down anything that remotely might fit into the chick lit category.  All that annoys me.  So, when I saw the cover of November’s Writer’s Digest, I picked it up. Melissa Bank is on the cover and the headline reads: Is "chick lit" an insult?  Melissa Bank talks about escaping the genre she helped create. 

Yeah, that got my attention.  See, many female writers complain that the being lumped in with chick lit is demeaning to their work.  I think Bank is saying something different  – that the need to find a category is the demeaning part.  She says:

I think that the book’s [Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing] success must be partly due to being categorized in some way, and I’m so grateful for that success.  On the other hand, I think the term "chick lit" sounds more chick and less lit.  It sounds derogatory to me – that it’s not serious or substantial or wouldn’t be of interesting to anybody who isn’t a "chick."  I feel like it’s a funny ghettoization, the way African-American or gay literature is classified that way.  It puts them in a  category that says, oh, you’ll want to read this if you’re one of "them" – that’s it’s not really for everybody.  It’s a code for limited audience or limited appeal.

That’s a frustration I can understand.  Reviewers and, frankly, some fellow female authors, like to categorize books so that they can then put down that category as being unworthy.  I’d say that, not the "chick lit" title, is the problem. 

I admit I’m not a fan of the term pre-published.  Frankly, I don’t think it really means anything.  You’re either published or not.  But, as Melissa Banks points out in November’s Writer’s Digest, being a writer is a different thing:

Young writers are always dying to be published because that’s the way the world tells you you’re a writer, and you feel desperate for that kind of affirmation.  But publishing doesn’t prove anything.  What makes you a writer is that you sit down and write.

I was rejected everywhere for the first 10 years.  If I’d listened to those rejections, I wouldn’t still be writing.  It’s good protection once you do get a book published because your own opinion is the one that matters.  Whether you get great reviews or terrible reviews – what sustains you is that sense of being a writer.

I’d disagree in that I do think being published means something – it means someone is willing to pay you to be a writer, and that has value other than the obvious.  So, maybe the distinction  – to the extent we need to set this stuff out – should be between writer and published writer. 

I was jumping around blogland yesterday.  Shannon McKelden’s blog led me to The (Mis) Adventures of a Single City Chick blog and then onto Jane Porter’s blog.  Yeah, no procrastination issues here.

In her October 18th entry, Jane talks about the need to take some time off.  The topic is really about balance and priorities and having a life.  It’s a good reminder or warning, depending on where you are in your writing career.  Here’s part of it, but go check out the entire entry:

I worried for years about writing fewer books. I worried about losing readers. I worried about alienating editors. I worried about getting lost, or left behind in the industry. And then I realized that was all ego. I was basing my idea of success on external factors, like what other people thought of me. I was driving myself to prove I was capable, and prolific, and essential and then one day I woke up and realized I’m not that essential in this industry. I’ve talent, and I work hard, but the only person I need to please is me. And the real Jane Porter is happiest with her kids and friends and decorating for holidays and making her own pasta sauce and wrapping gifts with flourishes and building puzzles at night on the living room carpet. That’s Jane. That’s the Jane that matters.

I’m new to the writing game.  But, I’m smart enough to know I’m one of those folks who could easily lose sight of everything else in the rush to stay published.  Whether she’s right or wrong, I don’t know.  This just seemed seemed like a healthy reminder.  Figured I wasn’t alone in needing to hear it now and then.

My deep, dark secret: I have never read a thing by Diana Gabaldon.  Never.  I’ve been told her books are amazing.  I’ve heard Gabaldon speak.  She told me her books are amazing.  I’m sure she wouldn’t lie to me.  The good news for Gabaldon is that I appear to be the only person on the planet never to have read Gabaldon.  According to an article in the Detroit Free Press:

Gabaldon is the J.K. Rowling of romance publishing. Her latest novel, "A Breath of Snow and Ashes," was burning up the presale charts before its late September release. There were spoilers on Web sites. There were dress-up release parties, as fans celebrated the next 1,000 pages in the saga of Claire Beauchamp, a World War II nurse who gets unstuck in the 18th Century.

Okay, I have to say that seems a bit, shall we say, over the top (think: waiting in line for three weeks for opening night of Lord of the Rings – that kind of over the top).  There are quite a few writers I adore and have adored forever.  Some write romance.  Some don’t.  None inspire me to wear costumes.  Really, none.  For example, I’ve read everything Jayne Ann Krentz has ever written.  I ran through the backlist in a rabid she-needs-medicine way that only a serious fan can do.  But, dress-up parties?  Ummm, no.  For JAK I’d probably have to wear whatever a slim vegetarian librarian from Seattle would wear.  No idea what that would be.

So, what’s different about Gabaldon’s fans?  I wonder if it’s the fantasy/time travel portions of her writing.  Maybe that fan base is more apt to have this type of loyalty.  I honestly have no idea.  Just think it’s interesting…and, yeah, a little scary but in a good-for-Gabaldon kind of way.

I’ve been stalking the Downtown Press Website.  Something about this line interests me.  I’m a fan of trade paperbacks.  I like the woman-on-a-journey concept.  I’m thinking the packaging is a big part of what’s luring me in.  What’s happened a few times is this:  I go into a bookstore, see some covers I really like, then turn the books over and find the Downtown Press logo.  Kind of wish I knew what it was grabbing my attention so I could then figure out how to make sure my books do the same.

Here are some examples:

Vamped- So this vampire walks into a bar…Yes, it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but it’s just another night in the never-ending life of Marty Kowalski. With his trademark slogan — "There’s a sucker born every minute" — this blood-drinking bachelor has managed to talk half the mortal world into joining the graveyard shift. Now vampires outnumber humans, and Marty is so bored he could die — again.

Confessions of a Nervous Shiksa- When movie studio publicity V.P. Alexis Manning’s fiancé — Jewish bartender/actor David a.k.a. Deke — goes home with her for a holly jolly Christmas in Vermont with her family, there’s a chill in the air and it ain’t just the weather.

Some other covers:

Lev Grossman has been busy over at Time.  He’s been picking the Top 100 Books since 1923, the year in which Time began publishing.  Now, I have to admit , Lev and I don’t always see eye-to-eye.  I further admit there are a few choices on this list that, well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting Lev to pick ‘em.  Not that they aren’t great books.  It’s just that when thinking of the best 100 books in the last 80 plus years, these didn’t strike me as obvious. Come on, 82 years covers a lot of books.  I’m a bit surprised these were on Lev’s radar:

1. Possession by A.S. Byatt.  Read it.  Liked it.  Happy to see Lev did as well, but not sure I would have said Top 100. 
2. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.  Brings back memories.  Bet Faulkner and Fitzgerald – were they alive – would be thrilled to be on the same list with Blume.
3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  On my TBR pile.  Better dig that out…

There are some I’ve never heard of – only a few, I swear.  Rather than risk the wrath of those who think I only read Dr. Seuss, I will refrain from pointing out the unknowns.  Instead, I’ll check them out via B&N.  Me and everyone else who read the article.