Book Review: The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman

The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Where I got the book: LibraryThing Early Reviewers program

Inspektor-Detektiv Willi Kraus's new case involves a corpse whose leg bones are the wrong way round. And a sleepwalking princess. Stringing together the clues drags him into contact with history; in Berlin in 1933, Hitler's National Socialists are gaining more power, more rapidly than anyone could have imagined. And they seem to be implicated in the mysterious disappearances.

Kraus starts out thinking that he's looking for an ordinary serial killer, but soon realizes there's a lot more involved. His contacts within the traditional power structure, and his knowledge of the Berlin underground, are of great use to him; but he has one huge disadvantage. He's a Jew, and his friends and family are saying just one thing to him: get out of Berlin now.

It's such a pleasure to be able to give a five-star review to a debut author. I loved the way Grossman combines the elements of a murder mystery with the history of 1930s Berlin, blending fact and fiction together with great skill. His characters are well-drawn and memorable, and the novel is loaded with descriptive elements that pulled me right into its setting. The writing jarred at a few points, but these were minor quibbles compared to the novel's overall high quality.

Recommended for thriller fans who like their reading to have a certain literary quality and a fascinating setting.

View all my reviews

Indie and Trad CAN live together: interview with Samantha Hunter and GIVEAWAY!

Update: giveaway is closed.

You may have heard that I don't generally choose novels with a lot of sex in them. So what am I doing, I hear you asking, displaying a book cover with "Forbidden Fantasies" on it? Today, dear Reader, I'm interviewing Samantha Hunter, author of both steamy romance novels like Straight to the Heart over there (to be released in January 2012), and of cozy mysteries such as Once Burned (released this month).

Since 2004, Sam's been successfully published through Harlequin, igniting the, er, imaginations of readers all over America and beyond. And since 2010 she's been enjoying a burgeoning career as a self-published author of cozies. She uses the same name for both genres and lists all her books together, in chronological order, on her website as if it doesn't matter. Gasp!

It's my understanding that many traditionally published authors are starting to have Forbidden Fantasies about keeping the wolf from the door expanding their range by incorporating a little self-pub into their daily routine. So let's lift the curtain and take a peek into the mind of an author who's proved she can sizzle at whatever she puts her mind to. And at the end of the interview, you can win your choice of book in a GIVEAWAY!

JS: Sam, you've seen the pros and cons of both traditional/category publishing and indie publishing. What would your advice be to a new writer hesitating between the two options? 
SH: Yes, I do write for category, which is traditional publishing, and I would like to publish in trad single-title romance at some point. Personally, I am a huge fan of traditional publishing, and I know that's not something we're hearing much these days, but I have learned so much and gained so much from trad publishing that has helped support my indie writing. Working on hard deadlines with my editors, going through production processes, and many other things that I've experienced with trad publishing--including many, many rejections--all gave me hard-earned skills that have allowed me to write indie books more confidently. And even with Past Tense, my indie book that was rejected by trad pubs, I had good feedback from editors who liked it, but didn't buy, and from my agent, so I was able to indie pub it with some confidence that it was a good book. This all helps, as well as building name recognition--tens of thousands more readers read my romances through sheer distribution.

The cons for each: With trad publishing, obviously, you may be knocking at the door for a while, you may be rejected several times, you might have to do heavy revisions, and you may not earn a ton of money (depending. I sold my first book, and rejections came later). You could have editorial clashes (I am lucky enough never to have had this happen--I have wonderful editors at Harlequin), but you do have to get used to seeing your work as more "collaborative" in nature. This is not a bad thing. It can push you. But it can also present some tough challenges. You may have to learn to revise or sculpt your writing to suit more than your own liking--but you can also learn to be very creative within a given framework, and that's valuable.

For indie publishing the cons are, in my opinion, that especially if you are brand new, you don't get the benefit of learning about the industry and the production of a novel with experienced editors who can really help you learn to write well, know what's marketable, etc. Also, like I mentioned, name value--I have some benefit (like others who are publishing from a trad base) of having had my name out there and developed a pretty large readership over eight years before I put indie books out. Readers respect traditional publishing, and I think writers should, as well. There's a lot of history there. And if you are brand new, getting that name recognition from an indie base will be very, very hard. Not completely impossible--there are obviously some indie authors who have become huge, but they are really the minority. And let's put it this way: even with my established trad base, my indie sales are still a nth of my trad/print sales. This is something to think about.

JS: Your traditionally published books are steamy romances, but your indie books are cozy mysteries. What's it like writing two very different genres at the same time? 
SH: Technically, I don't write them at the same time, since I tend to work on one thing at a time--each book has my full attention until I move on to the next one (yes, that means to write 3-5 books a year, I am writing pretty quickly--another benefit of having good editors.). But for me, this gives me variety and stretch--writing the same thing over and over can deaden your creativity, so being able to try new things allows me to stretch as a writer. I'm always pushing myself, trying something new, the next hardest thing, because that's how we get better, go farther.

There is also overall benefit--writing mystery allows me to be a better plotter in my romances, and writing romance allows me to have more insight into characters and relationships in my mysteries. People have commented often about loving my main characters in my mysteries; they are invested in the relationships, and I think I can do that characterization and relationship work because I have refined it in writing romance. Likewise, reviewers often mention the plot points of my romances, which sometimes have suspense/mystery elements, because I work with those in my indies. It all comes together.

JS: Do any of your fans from the Blaze side tell you that they enjoy your cozies as well? Or do you have two separate readerships? 
SH: Both--I definitely have crossover readers who read both books, but I do think that crossover goes more from romance to mystery rather than from mystery to romance. I think my romance readers like my mysteries because at the end of the day, all of my books are about relationships--the sexiness, while fun, is not the focus--falling in love, negotiating family, friends, life, and various conflicts are the commonality on all of the books. However, for whatever reason, romance readers tend to be more willing to cross over. I guess we'd have to ask them why that is, LOL. But it's just an observation on my part.

JS: Why do you think the indie/traditional publishing debate is becoming so adversarial? Do you think the readers are missing out because of what's happening right now in the industry? 
SH: I do think readers of trad books are missing out to some extent because there are a lot of really cool and original ideas that readers would love to buy--and are buying--and trad pubs are not taking chances on them, whether it's due to the economy, marketing, or whatever. I hope that will change--it's clear from the success of a lot of indie work that there is a lot of good reading material there that trads have either passed on or never saw in the first place.

While there is a lot that could be in the scrap heap in indie as well, I love the "wild west" feeling of indie, I LOVE that people write because they LOVE to write, and polished or not, many good stories come from that enthusiasm and desire. Readers want good stories--that's the bottom line, and there are a lot of them out there in both markets, trad and indie. You have to trust the reader will find what they want--but it has to be out there for them to find.

I think readers are more open and smarter than trad publishers often give them credit for--for instance, I suspect trad pub would not have wanted me publishing mystery and romance under one name as they think readers get "confused"--no, readers do not get confused. They know what they want, and they know how to tell one kind of book from the other.

Why is it adversarial? Because people like to argue, and there's money, ego and power involved. Personally, I think, let the powerhouses and publishers, corporations, etc fight it out. I'm a writer. I write. My concern is readers and getting my stories out there to them--whether that's through trad, indie, or some other venue we haven't heard from yet. Whatever one of them can help me do that, that's who I'll work with, trad and indie. And I think the best route is doing both, because you learn things and gain from each things that you can't get just doing one (unless you are writing just because you love it, not to build a career in it--to build a writing career, I think you need to cast a broad net).

******

So what do you think, readers? Are you just looking for a good story, or are you picky about where your fiction comes from? I think Sam does a marvelous job at seeing the positives on both sides of the industry, but if you want to defend either side, GO FOR IT.

And don't forget to tell me in the comments which of Samantha's books you'd like to win. ("Either" is a valid response, and unless you specifically say you DON'T want to be entered for the giveaway and forget to declare a preference, you will be entered as an "either.") We've got 2 copies of each book to give away: Straight to the Heart in either paperback (US, UK and Canada addresses only) or Kindle/Nook, and Once Burned on Kindle/Smashwords.

Why I like Amazon

I'm an unashamed Amazon fan. A couple of minutes' research tells me that I made my first purchase in October of 2000 (did you know you can see every purchase you ever made? That's one of the things they do for you.)

I also love small, indie bookstores, like the wonderful Lake Forest Book Store which always seems to be full of people. I ADORE antique bookstores like Jarndyce's opposite the British Museum, where you have to ring a bell to get in but then they let you fondle the most marvelous books.

So I read Don't Support Your Local Bookseller with a slightly wry chuckle. I thought writer Farhad Manjoo made some pretty good arguments, but he hasn't convinced me to be anything other than what I am: a hybrid book consumer. I also acquire books from other online stores, through library sales, from the clearance cart at B&N, on my Kindle, and through the giveaways that abound in the publishing world. I am a Bookavore.

And that's why I like Amazon. I can get almost any book I want from its virtual shelves, including many that are out of print or otherwise impossible to find. Often the older books are discoveries I made at my local library; if I love it, I'll buy myself a copy.

Usually when I review a book, I'll say where I got it. That's for my benefit, so that I can keep track of my purchasing habits (I'm an analyzer) but I hope it's of interest to someone, somewhere. In fact, my new year's resolution is to enter the place of purchase in my LibraryThing reviews (Goodreads doesn't have that feature: this is why I store my reviews in two places!)

OK I'm going to do something really geeky now. (Is it possible for me to get through a post without a rabbit trail?) See these books? That's part of my physical TBR pile. 39 books. Out of which:

23% were giveaways
15% were purchased from Amazon
13% were purchased at indie stores
13% were purchased at library sales
10% were gifted to me
10% were bought at retail price at big box bookstores
8% were bought from the clearance rack at big box boostores
8% were sent to me for review

Of course having done this I now want to do a PROPER inventory but hey, let's get to the bottom of this post, right? Anyway, there you go: Amazon's at 15%. Not exactly dominating my life.

My point (here it is!): I don't see any reason to make Amazon the villain of the publishing world. As Manjoo points out, "Amazon doesn’t host readings and it doesn’t give you a poofy couch to sit on while you peruse the latest best-sellers. But what it does do—allow people to buy books anytime they want—is hardly killing literary culture. In fact, it’s probably the only thing saving it."

In the eleven years I've been purchasing from Amazon, the other thing I've noticed is that they tend to do things right. I have purchase HUNDREDS of items directly from their store or by the third-party sellers they support (has nobody else pointed out that they have fostered countless home-based businesses through their seller programs?) and never, NEVER have I had a problem. Items have arrived on time in pristine condition, returns are smoothly effected...when they lowered the price of the Kindle one month after I bought it, I sent them an email asking if it was possible to recoup the difference. The $70 was in my account the next morning, and I got a charming email to boot.

No, if there's a problem with main street book selling, the blame lies elsewhere. I'm old enough to remember just how unfriendly small bookstores used to be (especially if you were a kid). And then came the great big humungous stores with coffee shops and couches, and the small, unfriendly stores closed. And the big stores were OK except that they didn't just sell books but tempted you with assorted tat and food smells, and drew people away from the books toward videos and CDs. And you could never find the book you wanted anyway, if it wasn't a best-seller, and had to walk past shelves of huge shiny Danielle Steel hardbacks to get to the interesting stuff. And people took the books off the shelves and dog-eared them or spilt coffee on them before you got a chance to buy them. And then the big shiny books began turning up in WalMart and Target, because by now we had the idea that books were a cheap commodity like magazines.

If Amazon's destroying anything, it's that. If it can make us see beyond the shiny consortium-written bestsellers and go for what readers really enjoy, then more power to its algorithms. If it continues to allow just anyone to e-publish on really very fair terms, I say yippee! Who knows what great but quirky authors (for which read unpublishable in traditional terms) may emerge from its fold? There are quite a few things that remain to be worked out: how to stop publishers or individual authors from gaming the reviewing system is one. How to avoid stupidities like being seen as the enemy of main street stores is another.

But my guess is that in the end, the survivors will be Amazon and the really stellar indies.

What's your prediction?

UPDATE: Over the holiday week, we watched a lot of videos on the blu-ray player Felsted recently bought from Amazon. And came to the conclusion that it was defective. So at 6 pm on a holiday, he asked me to retrieve the order and ask Amazon if we could return it even though the 30-day period was over and we'd thrown away the box. At 7 pm we got an email which basically said "Sure! I'm sending you a new one. Here's the free shipping label to send yours back." THAT's what I'm talking about.

Twitter Strategy for Authors: Engagment or Enlargement?

This post was inspired by Seth Godin's post on social media 'noise.' It's worth your while reading the whole post at this point, but don't do what I do, which is get distracted and three hours later you're shopping on Amazon. I don't know how that works, but it does.

So Seth says it's wrong to do these things (on social media in general, but it's obvious Twitter is the main focus here):

• Follow a ton of people to get people to follow back
• Focus on the # of followers, not the interests of followers or your relationship with them.
• Pump links through the social platform (take your pick, or do them all!)
• Offer nothing of value, and no context. This is a megaphone, not a telephone.
• Think you're winning, because you're playing video games (highest follower count wins!)

OK, I thought, makes perfect sense. So the first thing I did was tweet the link (highly ironic in view of the third item) and then I hopped on Twitter to follow Seth. And discovered that his only 'official' account is followed by 132,192 people AND FOLLOWS 0 PEOPLE. AND ITS SOLE PURPOSE IS TO PUMP LINKS TO HIS BLOG.

THE IRONY.

And now, instead of getting on with stuff, I have to vent about something I come across all the time on Twitter. I am working very hard on increasing my Twitter numbers, and I'm proud that I've passed 2,000 followers (added 1K in 58 days! Yay! Can you tell I like stats?) But my aim isn't to sit back and brag about how many people follow me.

You see, I've discovered that for every hundred or so people I connect with on Twitter, about 10 will connect with me in some way, and one or two will become online friends and enrich my life. So, my thinking goes, if I connect up with lots of people on Twitter, I'll have lots of friends. And I'd really like one or two of them to be multi-published authors, because that would be a great way to network with the minds behind the books.

But.

Experience shows that the people least likely to follow me back on Twitter are the multi-published. They're followed by many but follow a few. WHY? The people following them are their readers. They are trying to connect. Following them back commits you to very little apart from the possibility of receiving weird private messages from them (at which point you just have to click the 'block' button).

Why in the name of Steve Jobs would an author NOT want to know who his/her readers are? Not want to see their daily lives? The readers are what matter in an author's life. Not the agent. Not the publisher.

A shining example of How To Do It is Laurie R. King, mystery writer and creator of the inimitable Mary Russell. She (or her assistant, because, y'know, sometimes she's writing books) proactively connect on Twitter with people who express an interest in her novels. One of my happiest days on Twitter was when 'Mary Russell' followed ME.

Another good example is Kate Kerrigan, an excellent Irish writer. I reviewed her novel Ellis Island favorably; she left a very nice comment, with a link to her Facebook fan page; I subscribed to the page; after some further interaction on Facebook, she also friended me personally. Will I buy her next book? That's 100% affirmatory.

Both of these authors have turned a casual reader (yours truly) into a fan by connecting. They are going out looking for their readers, and making an effort to shake hands digitally. They're not ignoring the people who buy their books.

So, Seth, you're absolutely right. It's not a numbers game. But you're not following your own advice, and you're wrong in one respect. Connecting with more and more readers/potential readers/potential allies in the struggle that is modern life is important, because you're allowing the power of the internet to bring new friendships to you.

Scared to write a novel? Here's why you shouldn't be

It never fails to amaze me that the most popular post I have written on this 'ere blog is the one about how I'm too lazy, scared and untalented to write a novel, and I did it anyway.

(As a complete aside, that particular novel is "on the shelf." Editing it threw me into a Spiral of Doubt, and by the time I'd recovered my faith in the novel (which happened about three months ago) a whole new set of interesting possibilities had suggested themselves. The novel, whose working title is now Deep Within, may take years to perfect, but that's OK. It's very dear to my heart.)

Anyhow, that post still gets an impressive number of page views, which leads me to conclude that there are a lot of wannabe novelists out there who are scared that they lack what it takes to be a writer. So, with Christmas approaching, I decided to offer the gift of Encouragement.

Here is my view on why you might be scared to write that novel, and why you shouldn't be.

You're afraid it'll be no good and nobody will ever want to read it. Yep, I'm going to tell you right now that there's a strong possibility your first novel won't be the greatest thing EVER. Especially if you've never written a whole lot. Dear Reader and future Writer, say this to yourself: This is my practice novel, and I'm doing it for fun. It can stink if it wants to, and I don't care. Remember, the Brontës wrote great steaming piles of doodoo before they got to the stage where they could write genius masterpieces and become famous. (That's one of my favorite posts, by the way, and shows me that occasionally I can write coherently.)

You're afraid that your family and friends will laugh at you. Again, yes, this might happen. It happened to me, big time. IT SHUT ME UP FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS, for crying out loud. I am nearly in tears with the intensity of trying to communicate to you that their laughter should never, ever stop you from pursuing your writing. They are jealous because you have aspirations and they don't. They are the fools, not you. Here is what you say to them: Jane says: 'Go boil your head.'

You're afraid that you'll start and not finish. This year's National Novel Writing Month had 256,618 participants, out of which 36,774 writers managed to hit the 50,000 word count that made them a 'winner.' (Caveat: 50,000 words is not a novel. You need to be thinking in terms of anything between 70,000 and 120,000 words, depending on your genre.) So that's only a 14% success rate, meaning that the other 86% ran out of time, energy or ideas. Depressing? Well, most novels aren't written in a month. Some take years. Look at it this way: if you write just 250 words a day, every day, in about 18 months you'll have a 120,000 word first draft. So your mindset should be that of the tortoise rather than the hare: say to yourself, I'll finish when I finish. It's not a race.

You're afraid that getting published is really, really hard. Well, yes and no. It's complicated, like most relationships, except that this relationship is between you and your readers, with the publishing industry as a sort of annoying little sister who won't leave the room when you want to smooch. And if you're still thinking about that novel rather than writing it, you're a good two years from even having to worry about getting published. And there are a bazillion resources out there in cyberspace to help you understand your options. But for now, say to yourself: Getting published isn't important. Getting my words on paper is what matters, and it's only a stinky practice novel anyway. By the time you've finished your first draft*, you'll have a much deeper understanding of what fiction writing is, and will probably have made friends with more experienced writers who'll help you get to grips with the mysterious world of publishing.

You're afraid that you'll waste hundreds of hours of your time on something that'll get you nowhere. First, let me ask you this question. How much time do you waste watching TV? Surfing for pix of Taylor Lautner? (No, you don't, do you? Seriously?) Playing Angry Birds? Lying on your bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about writing a novel? Say to yourself, reading and writing are never a waste of time. As Sir Francis Bacon so pithily said, "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." (Or you can adopt the Jane Mantra, which goes thus: Reading makes you smarter; TV makes you dumber. Ask my kids how many times they've heard that one.) Writing really does do something for your inner self, something that's quite hard to describe but trust me, you'll love it.

And even if your very first novel stinks, just think: it will be there on paper to bear witness to the person you are now. One day you'll look back on it with great affection. But you never know...you may end up writing something good.

*When you've written your novel, it's a first draft. You must edit, get advice, edit, give it to readers, edit, proofread, polish, rinse and repeat before it's even close to ready for publication. DO NOT take my encouragement as license to upload your first draft onto Amazon and expect to hit it big. Unless you really are a bona fide genius, in which case WHY ARE YOU READING MY BLOG? Go write.

Book review: The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Where I got the book: review galley from NetGalley.

Philippa Gregory takes a step back farther in time with The Lady of the Rivers; after exploring the lives of the various Tudor women in a succession of novels, she now dives into the rich and complicated history of the Wars of the Roses. This was a period in the 1400s in which two branches of the Plantagenet royal family struggled for power over England (and various bits of France).

The protagonist in The Lady of the Rivers is Jacquetta of Luxembourg, who is not generally a well-known historical figure. The story covers Jacquetta's life from adolescence to middle age, and Gregory fans will realize that it ends with the beginning of Gregory's 2009 novel The White Queen.

I've been critical of Gregory's kings-and-queens novels in the past, mostly because I would like to see more pure fiction from her, but I enjoyed The Lady of the Rivers. As usual, though, I did not find the protagonist particularly interesting; I felt that she was an observer of history rather than being a participant in it. Of course, in those days a noblewoman's role was to run the house and lands while the men fought (Jacquetta does plenty of that) and produce children (Jacquetta had sixteen). So maybe the impression of passivity that I received was due to the necessity of sticking fairly close to historical fact. The bits of white magic that all of Gregory's heroines inevitably indulge in do not come across as exciting enough to compensate me for the lack of action.

And yet there were some definite improvements over recent novels in the series. For one thing, Jacquetta gets to travel around quite a bit, and even though she's not in the battles I did get a better sense of being near to the action than I usually do. And the supporting cast was good; I particularly liked Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's queen, and I found the account of Henry VI's mental illness compelling. There were several other memorable characters; in fact, I now understand the Wars of the Roses a whole lot better. So if you read historical fiction for the history, you'll be satisfied.

I'm not going to say much about Gregory's writing idiosyncracies here, since what I was reading was a galley (which had not even been edited for capitalization and paragraph layout; that surprised me). I desperately want to send her the gift of a big bag of semicolons, though. Gregory is the undisputed queen of the comma splice.

One last comment; I have been reading Gregory for years, and am fascinated to note that the novels are getting less sensual as time goes on. This one was PG-rated.

Overall impression: a good Gregory, and recommended for lovers of English history.

View all my reviews

Hate to be a prophet of doom, but...

Yes, Blond Knitter, I also called you a Prophet of Doom (POD for short) when you were predicting snow in, what was it, October? Check out that 50 degree December weather.

But that's beside the point. I am not here to dispute the possibility of snow in Chicago, which last February was host to the weather event known as Snowtorious B.I.G. (two days off! Woot!) No. I am here to explain why I am inching daily closer to a decision to self-publish the House of Closed Doors series before I've even made an effort to break into the traditional publishing industry.

So I'm going to talk about the future of publishing. An industry in which I have never worked and about which I consequently have only the knowledge of an attentive observer. So please feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt.

But first, a story. Back somewhere around 2007, I happened to be working for a large retail chain. I got recruited into this just after I finished my master's degree, back in those heady boom days when stores were hiring like crazy, and I enjoyed the job. I got to chat to a lot of people and sell them pretty stuff, and I could walk out of the door at the end of my shift without a responsibility in the world. My co-workers were some of the nicest people I've ever met.

The downside, of course, was Human Nature as displayed by (a minority of) the customers. Talk about material for a book. In the end I realized I wasn't really made for retail, and had another job offer on the table (oh, the good times!)

But in the months before I left, I listened often to the BBC World Service News in my car on the way to work. And they kept saying that the USA was heading for a recession, and it was going to be a doozy. I relayed this idea to my co-workers and friends, and the response was always, "No way! Things are going great! We'll just go on getting richer and richer! The BBC is being a Prophet of Doom!"

Well, you know what happened next. By the time I was ready to leave, a black cloud was hanging over the entire retail sector. And the moral of this story is, sometimes the prophets of doom have got it going on.

And there are lots of them circling around the publishing industry right now. Although I don't really believe in the imminent collapse of Publishing As We Know It. My guess is that one or two large companies may go the way of Borders, but the rest of them will find ways to adapt and survive. The many talented people who work in the book biz will forge their own paths through the Wild West of the e-book boom; they may have to draw on different skills than the ones they use now, but some of them may even find greater prosperity and happiness in the process.

What worries me is what's going to happen to the new and newer writers who are entering the market hoping to get published the traditional way. The business is going to change; change takes time; mid-list writers who enter into contracts in 2012 may conceivably find publication of their book suspended or even canceled as  people move around and companies change hands. You could sign with Company A in March and find that your words belong to Company F by December. Again, I point out that I'm no expert. But I've been around long enough to see boom and bust a couple of times, and I know how things work.

And self-publishing is no longer considered the sport of losers. Every day the internet brings evidence--with book sales and earnings figures attached--that self-published authors are making anything from a very modest income, but still an income, to quite a decent income from e-publishing their books. Authors are moving between self-publishing and traditional publishing in both directions, and sometimes doing both.

And all this comes with greater connection between the author and the reader. And in the end, that's what it's all about. Whether you make a little money or a lot is a bit of a crapshoot, but the real thrill for me is being read. That's why I blog. I'm afraid that if I try to go the traditional route in this time of upheaval, it might be years before anything happens with my fiction. It would happen, I'm sure of it, but look--I'm used to a pretty fast-moving business world, and it's hard to adapt to the slow pace of publishing.

And if, by the remotest chance, any publishing industry professionals read this, no offense meant. I think that agents, editors and publishers have an enormous amount of added value to offer to writers who decide to keep control of their own work. I would have no idea how to negotiate foreign rights, for example, or get my book on the shelves at Wal-Mart (alas, the bookstore of the future). And I predict that in five years' time (or maybe a lot less) there'll be a whole new set of relationships out there between new writers and the industry.

By which time, I hope I'll have a few readers for my novels.

5 strategies for catching up

If you've been paying attention you'll have noticed that I've been moaning whining whingeing bellyaching writing a lot about BEING BUSY. Well, yeah, c'mon, I wrote a novel last month you know. Then there was a long, long freelance project and the whole general business of being Senior Household Executive and Dictator-for-Life.

And then, suddenly, like the tide going out, it was all gone and I could see the sand again. And lots of seaweed. Wait. I'm straying into metaphor again, aren't I? This. Must. Stop.

In plain English, I am no longer overloaded/crushed with work. I am back to what's laughably called "normal" around here, which still means that I don't have free time as such, just the ability to decide what I do rather than have my day dictated to me by the word URGENT.

And now it's time to play catch-up, whoopee! I don't know about you, but I dread the moment when I start looking through all the things that I should have done over the last few weeks and find at least one very important thing I've missed. Happens every time I get really busy. But I'm getting my life back under control, and since I've been writing on the subject of productivity a lot lately, I thought I'd tell you how I do that.

1. I make a list. Or several lists. Lists help me to cut down the fog a little and think about what I'm doing. I've had a whiteboard sitting behind my door for weeks waiting to be put up so that I can write lists on it. Hmm, wait. OK, just added 'put up whiteboard' to the list.
2. I declare a computer-free day, or at least a large chunk of computer-free time. This is because I have a tendency to neglect tasks on the outside of the wonderful world of WWW, so ignoring my Macbook is a great way to be more productive.
3. I group tasks. I'm trying to answer my emails in chunks, unless they're urgent, for one thing. And tedious stuff like paying bills and reconciling bank accounts is best done all at once, like swallowing Pepto-Bismol.
4. I make an executive decision: do I pick off the low-hanging fruit first, or swallow that frog? I'm usually more of a low-hanging-fruit-picking type of gal, but this is an important decision and needs careful consideration. Chocolate can helpfully be introduced at this stage.
5. I get stubborn. Oh yes. As, for example, when I decided to chunk my way through all items that involved sending mail and nothing, not even Wasabi's latest crisis involving TWO trips back and forth to college, stood in my way. Goldurn it, that paperwork was going DOWN. 

What's YOUR best method for catching up with yourself? Do you ever get the chance, or do you feel like you're drowning?