Join THE VENUS FIX Summer Buzz Promotion + raise $ for a worthy cause!

How it works:

From now until August 15, author M.J. Rose will donate $5 to the winning charity for every blog that links to MJ Rose AND The new book! in a post.

Please send permalink to venusfix@gmail.com to be counted; every blogger who participates will also be entered in a weekly drawing for a signed, personalized copy of THE VENUS FIX!

M.J. will also pledge an additional $1 for every “Friend Request” that myspace.com/thevenusfix receives until 11:59pm on August 15. Please help us to reach our goal of a $2500 donation by M.J. Rose to the winning organization!

And once you’ve done this, be sure to check out JA Konrath’s blog, where he ups the ante (and suggests a partylicious evening)

I actually read this a few weeks ago, but have been raving about it to everyone I see. So I figured I’d rave about it to everyone I write for (that’d be you guys).

Ben Sherwood

I’ve read both of his novels now and let me tell you, there had better be more. In fact, I was so overwhelmed that I actually e-mailed his agent to tell her how fabulous The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud was.
For any of you who might pick her name out of the thanks page, she’s no longer repping authors, which is a shame for any of us who write a little bit off the beaten path.

So there you go. A totally shameless (and perhaps shameFUL) plug for something I read lately.

So while my hard drive on my webserver is being replaced and I’m hoping there’s no important mail waiting for me (like notes that you guys have been commenting), I thought I’d plug another book. As in: one that’s not written by me.

It’s called Julie and Romeo, and it’s written by Jeanne Ray, who seems to have no website that a quick Google search pulled up. This is an older book, Ray’s debut (her most recent novel, in fact, is a sequel). And it’s about two families who are feuding. Like the title suggests, it’s a take on the Romeo and Juliet story of old.

How this helped me was with Behold Me, which I had stopped struggling with … for about fifteen pages or so. Given that I’m now up to page 40, that’s pretty good. One of the things I keep getting stuck on is that I’m worried about things getting too repetitious. Family feuds can only be about so many things and have so many dimensions.

I’d thought.

Julie and Romeo did get repetitive in places, sure. But it gave me neat ideas as to how to look at the situation from different angles. To bring in more characters and let them each have different experiences with what has happened to Kerri — and, indirectly, Mitchell, who’s spending an awful lot of time scratching his head and wondering how exactly all these chords fit into a song.

Spring break ended here today; it was back to school and back to finding friends to occupy the kids’ time so I can write. As much as I love the spring weather, I hate it because I don’t think the laptop’s wireless card works outside and I am torn. Do I give in to my writing need, or my need to make sure no weirdos decide to infiltrate my quiet, West of Mars neighborhood?

At least I can set up a chair and read while we’re out there. Or else show the kids how cool their mom can be when you put a hockey stick in her hands.

Before I run, let me give a public thanks to my friends who’re linking my blog and/or the main website to their spots on the web. If you’ve found me because of them, let me know. And be sure to tell me if you’re a BookCrosser or not; never know what might escape my house and head toward yours as a thanks.

When I first created the characters who now populate Trevor’s Song, I first created Mitchell and Kerri Voss. Their story, at the time called Shape of Family, was the story of Kerri’s revealing a deep, dark secret to Mitchell: that when she’d married him, her a mother had written her off as dead.

I’ve struggled with this story for six years now; I have the characters down cold, as you’ll be able to see as you continue to read this blog. But the story… whenever I try to get Kerri into a confrontation with her mother, it doesn’t work. It always feels forced; as unnatural as Trevor is natural.

So I’m playing with what to do about this. After all, I can’t tell Amanda’s story without this one being told (I think). And I’m now envisioning that Amanda’s story will be the third in the Riverview series.

But still… I am stuck at the second book. At Kerri and Mitchell and Kerri’s mother.

I was thinking at dinner that maybe Kerri and her mother shouldn’t have that confrontation scene. That maybe they just look right through each other, like strangers. Or that Kerri tries but is rebuffed.

Still, it doesn’t seem like enough to support a book.

My brain churns on…