With gas prices at all time highs, people are re-thinking vacation plans. For a lot of us, this means driving shorter distances to locations closer to home. While Minnesota won’t be that destination for everyone, for those of you living in the Midwest and Upper Midwest, Minnesota offers a state with five distinct regions and experiences.

For tourism information, visit the Field Trips Minnesota Travel Companion which offers itineraries and unique ideas for educational, recreational, cultural, and social experiences.

Southeastern Minnesota includes Red Wing, home of the Red Wing Pottery featured in the novel. Offering a landscape of spectacular river bluffs and rolling hills, the Southeastern region includes two other unique communities prominent in the book - Northfield and Rochester.

The Native Prairies region of Southwestern Minnesota gives visitors a sense of the expansive prairie. There are also numerous opportunities to learn more about early settlers such as author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Then check out the new in the form of the Heritage Museum and Wind Power Learning Center.

Northeastern Minnesota includes magnificent Lake Superior, where my family spends a few, relaxing weeks each summer. Lake Superior is not only the largest of the Great Lakes; it also has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world. The shores of Lake Superior grace the cover of the novel.

Northwestern Minnesota is the largest region, bordering the Dakotas and Canada. This is a great area for outdoor enthusiasts offering dense forests, many of our 10,000+ lakes, and bountiful native wildlife.   

The last area is of course, the Twin Cities. Two cities - Minneapolis and St. Paul reside next to one another, but with very different personalities. Everything from lakes and parks to professional sports, theater, art galleries, shopping, great dining, and beautiful architecture abound here. *NOTE: The GOP Convention converges on the Twin Cities from August 30-September 5, 2008.

This summer Minnesota welcomes you!

When I completed Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace, the original route to publication was going to be following the yellow brick road to traditional agency representation, finding the right publisher to buy the manuscript, and working to market the book. When that didn’t pan out, I chose to self-publish.

If you decide to pursue the self-publishing route, keeping track of costs is crucial, as the process can quickly get expensive. The first thing I recommend is setting a budget and then keeping that money separate from the rest of your finances. For example, I have a checking account dedicated solely to writing and publishing expenses.

I initially established a budget of $6,000 for the entire self-publishing process. This included research on various companies and covered several categories. These included: on-demand publishing programs, marketing/public relations, web design, editorial services, proofreading, and mailing. For the most part, I chose businesses that were referrals from satisfied customers who were also members of my writing groups. Next, I developed a table of the organizations I was working with, the services they were providing, and the proposed cost. Later I would add the actual costs; services rendered, and date of payment. I broke down my expenses like this:

On-Demand Publishing:

                        Publishing Package (I selected a premium package which offered free books) 

Marketing/PR Programs Purchased:

                        Virtual Author Tour^TM

                        Reviews Package

Web Site Design:

                        Custom Design

                        Number of Pages

                        Programming

                        Hosting Costs

Editorial Services:

                        Editing/Proofreading

Mailing Costs:

                        Shipping books

In establishing your budget, give yourself enough leeway so your budget can increase if necessary without sending you into a panic or mortgaging your house to market your book. This is important because even with the best of planning, expenses can be overlooked. In my case, I neglected to account for one aspect: printing of review copies and shipping these to the marketing company. This added $437.67 in costs.

There is also the issue of maintenance costs, especially if you have a web site. In that instance there will most likely be annual hosting fees, and unless you are updating the site yourself, you’ll want to have enough money set aside to pay for updates to keep the site fresh and relevant. I went over my original budget by nearly $3,000 but I chose to do so because I added programs and services that met objectives I couldn’t accomplish on my own. With my expenses accounted for, I also know how much money it will take to break even.

Including several hundred dollars for future maintenance costs, I budgeted close to $10,000 to self-publish and market my book. Ten thousand dollars may sound like a lot and quite frankly, it is. Not every author choosing to self-publish is going to want to spend that much or be in a position to go over budget. What is important for any author choosing to self publish is that no matter what your budget, you’ve kept detailed records of expenses and know exactly how your hard-earned money was spent.

Whether you’re an author publishing through traditional means or delving into self-publishing, you are going to want the feedback of a good editor or perhaps more than one. The difficulty for authors, especially those choosing self-publishing is when do you take an editor’s advice and make changes and when do you determine you’ve gotten enough feedback? This can be a tough call, and it often comes down to the author finding a happy medium.

The first thing writers need to consider is how many editors are too many? In writing and researching Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace, over the duration of the project seven editors reviewed the manuscript. Some of them were extremely helpful, taking an objective approach and offering suggestions that made for a better book. Others seemed to check objectivity at the door, letting their personal likes and dislikes influence how they felt the story should develop. By the time the book was completed, I felt as though I had let too many cooks into the kitchen, all fussing over the same pot, either adding spices or removing them.

What I learned from the editors I consulted were two simple things. One, you cannot make everyone happy. It’s just not possible, so you write the best work you can, one that as many reader’s as possible can relate to. Number two, as an author you ultimately have to decide if the suggestions editors make are enhancing your work, or turning it into the work of someone else. Again, it goes back to the idea of authors finding a happy medium that improves the work, but is still your own.

The first editor I contacted was probably the most beneficial. Prudy loved the book, but thought it should begin with the wedding because she believed this was where the story truly started. She also suggested plotting the story on a calendar over the specific number of years the novel took place. In this way, real life events could be woven throughout the narrative, giving the reader not only a sense of place and time, but information that might arouse their interest in other areas related to the story.

Another editor’s feedback was more helpful regarding ways to improve my writing, rather than this particular story. She pointed out little tics in my style - for example using the same word too often, advice which I didn’t just apply to the novel, but every other piece I’ve written. Her observation helped me expand my vocabulary and fine-tune my work. Two suggestions I took issue with was the fact that in the novel Kay and Tim don’t have any children, and that as a minister’s wife, this editor felt Kay should be shown in church more. I thought both points had nothing to do with the story and verged on stereotyping. I made this decision from my own experience of knowing childless couples where a spouse works in ministry.

One positive aspect of consulting multiple editors is that enough voices may convince an author to make a significant change. Out of seven editors, six wanted to see the ending beefed up providing the reader with an enhanced sense of satisfaction and closure. The one holdout was a good friend and her argument was that by expanding the ending, the author was taking the reader by the hand, when she felt their imagination could do the rest. Of all the decisions I made regarding Shades of Darkness, this was by far the toughest. Eventually I relented and significantly revised the ending.

Authors may also find themselves confronted with one editor who changes something, only to encounter another who changed it back. This was particularly true when dealing with the grammatical aspects of the book. The second editor was an old-school English major, so her placement of commas was more extensive. The fifth editor removed what she believed were too many commas and thus we had a full-scale “Comma War”. When the last editor reviewed the manuscript, edited commas were being replaced. What I strongly recommend is authors select a specific grammatical style (such as the Chicago Manual of Style or Modern Language Association) and stick to it. 

Ultimately, regardless of what an editor suggests, as the author you need to remember this is a subjective process. The final editor made a suggestion that would have entailed rewriting the entire manuscript in a way that I felt was not beneficial to the story. But because I thought the suggestion had some merit, I compromised and trimmed the scene to a point where I felt comfortable, thereby finding a happy medium.  

Authors kill a lot of trees. It’s an occupational hazard of course, starting with all that paper we use to print our manuscripts on, followed by published books. In this era of genuine concern over global warming and protecting our environment, both publishers and authors can be much more environmentally friendly.This week, Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts, an 86-page summary announced the news heard round-the-book-world: The publishing industry, which uses up more than 1.5 million metric tons of paper each year, is steadily, if not entirely, finding ways to make production greener.

Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program which has worked extensively with publishers on environmental issues and implementing greener practices noted, “We’re seeing a groundswell of momentum and real measurable progress.” While the results within the publishing industry are uneven with just over half of publishers setting specific goals for increased use of recycled paper, around 60% have a formal environmental policy in place or are completing one. While plenty of work remains, changes in the industry are definitely positive.

Authors too, can produce more environmentally responsible books. Cindy Katz, co-author of Green Guide Girls: Guide to Publishing is also the founder of Plant a Tree USA. According to Katz, the two organizations go hand-in-hand and the book “assists new and seasoned authors with easy approaches to environmentally friendly options to book publishing”. Both Miller and Katz are featured in this month’s bookhitch newsletter, a search engine for authors and books.Yes, authors do kill a lot of trees. But instead of feeling guilty and/or helpless, such resources can help authors be environmentally responsible in our work.
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In the novel, it’s clear that the Pierson family is active in DFL politics, hosting fundraisers, handing out candidate literature, and answering phones. Because Minnesota has such stellar turnout, it seemed important to include this subplot. With a hotly contested race for the Democratic Presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, how would the Pierson family vote? Would gender be the deciding factor (as is happening in real life) with the Pierson women casting votes for Hillary, and the men tending to side with Obama? Or, would they weigh qualifications and experience, as are other voters across the country?

Regardless of what the Pierson family would decide, the 2008 election is one that will make history. If you haven’t gotten involved in the electoral process there is plenty of time to do so, and a list of voter organizations can be found on the Resources page of this site. It truly is essential to exercise a right that too many of us take for granted, we should be inspired to get involved, and reminded that every vote does indeed count.

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First there was J.T. LeRoy’s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, then James Frey’s A Million Pieces, authors who reportedly wrote “true” memoirs that were, in fact, total fiction. Last week there were two more to add to the lengthening list. Margaret B. Jones, a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, confessed Love and Consequences, her memoir of growing up in South Central LA as a foster child raised among gangs is complete fiction. A few days earlier, Misha Defonseca confessed that her Holocaust memoir, Misha: A Memoire of The Holocaust Years, detailing her horrific childhood during the period is a figment of her imagination.

What’s disturbing about this for me as an author of a book that is “inspired by a true story” is this - I can back up that claim with newspaper accounts, court transcripts, and legal filings. If I couldn’t, I would never refer to Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace as “inspired by a true story”. While there are definite differences between a memoir and a novel based on real events, at the center of each genre is the same component - truth.

What I find fascinating about so many memoirs being revealed to be fiction is the idea that agents and publishers seemingly snap up these stories without question. Sure, they’re looking to sell books and the mantra seems to be, “The more bizarre, the better!” With my own book I ended up doing the opposite - cutting out the truly bizarre and seamy incidents simply because I thought readers would find their believability a stretch. And maybe I won’t sell as many books. However, I felt that as an author I had an obligation to tell a good story and be able to support the claim of “inspired by a true story”. Maybe I’m crazy, but judging by the response on writing group message boards I’m not alone in this thinking.

For me personally as a writer, when authors pass off material as true that is in fact fiction, those bogus stories not only tarnish those of us writing bona fide memoirs and stories based on real events, but they cheat readers as well.
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March celebrates Women’s History Month and the many achievements of women throughout history. This year’s theme - Women’s Art, Women’s Vision - seems especially appropriate as I launch my novel, Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace.
This is true for a couple of reasons. First, there is the idea of writing as an art form, one I’m committed to as a female author looking to tell stories that have at their core multifaceted women protagonists, and in the case of this work, antagonists as well.

Second, the novel is told from the perspective of Kay, oldest of the Pierson children. This is a woman who is on equal footing with her two brothers, and one who is tough, strong-willed, smart, and successful, but also understands the depth of her flaws. She most likely inherits those traits from her mother, Beverly, who like her daughter has found success in business, while being forthright in her opinions and beliefs. Both women put a premium on their family and aren’t hesitant to protect those they love.

For all the anguish she causes, Pamela too, is a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it, regardless of the cost. Pamela is a consummate manipulator who finds the weakness in others only to exploit it, and she is a woman who understands the power of sex and how to wield it to her advantage.

Women in art and in history are not one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs but complicated beings with desires and conflicts. Whether they represent the good, the bad, or somewhere in between, celebrate women in all of their vast diversity.