How to Know When to Give Up

 

Can't believe it's already time! But the Coastal Magic Convention is only a few weeks away and January 15 is the last day to register. I love this convention and there's going to be tons of great authors, bloggers and readers there - so if you can wrangle it, you should totally join us. Great panels, terrific interactions and it's right on the beach. SO fun!

So, this week's topic is: It's dead, Jim - how to know when a project isn't working vs when its fixable.

I want to tell you a couple of stories.

Back in the mists of time, when I was a baby aspiring writer who focused mainly on creative nonfiction, I helped organize this annual writers' retreat. We brought in some great speakers and one year I drove to Denver International Airport to pick up a guy who was the Editor in Chief of a prominent creative nonfiction literary journal. On the two-hour drive up to Wyoming, we talked a lot about writing, publishing, the industry in general and my fledgling career in particular.

(BTW, this is a great way for newbie writers to begin building industry contacts. Volunteering to pick up or escort visiting agents, editors and established writers gives you time to have longer, more intensive conversations.)

At any rate, one thing this guy said to me was that he felt strongly that some aspiring writers should just give up. It was his opinion that not everyone possessed the native talent to be a writer. He said he struggled as an editor not to simply tell some writers submitting to the magazine that they should give up already and go do something else.

Of course, I obsessed over this, wondering if *I* was one of those people. He'd rejected many of my essays, after all.

The second story happened many years later, after my first book of creative nonfiction was published by a university press. I'd switched to fiction and had written the book that became ROGUE'S PAWN. I shopped that one for a *long* time. Years. I had two friends who were in the same place, shopping their first novels in the genre. One of them hit it - won a contest, got an agent and a three-book deal. The other two of us kept slogging along. One day, the other unpublished gal asked me how long I was giving myself. At first I didn't know what she meant. "I'm giving myself a year," she clarified, "then I'm giving up."

I told her I had no deadline, that I'd keep trying until I succeeded. That response totally mystified her. I think she regarded me as quite foolish.

You know what? She gave up on being a writer. ROGUE'S PAWN ended up being the first of the Covenant of Thorns trilogy and I have in the neighborhood of twenty published fiction works out there.

I realize this is all somewhat sideways of the question - which is when to give up on a project. A lot of authors I know have "under-the-bed" books that they say will never see the light of day.They call them learning books and are happy to let them go.

This is just not who I am. "Stubborn" is one of my defining characteristics, and yes, more than one person has cited it as a character flaw. Including my PhD adviser. He also told me he didn't think I could make it as a writer, when I said I wanted to be a writer instead of a research scientist.

So, all of this is byway of saying that this division doesn't exist in my world. Nora Roberts rather famously says she can fix anything but a blank page. I agree.

Never give up. Never surrender.

Do Book Trailers Work?

Amusingly enough, this week's topic might again fall to Veronica, as the most experienced with the topic - Book Trailers: Yes or No?

I have exactly two book trailers - both that other people made for me. One my friend made as a gift, above, for ROGUE'S PAWN, the first in my Covenant of Thorns trilogy. And the other I paid a reader/fan to do, below, for THE MARK OF THE TALA, first in my Twelve Kingdoms series. I like them fine. They're fun. Do they work?

Meh. I dunno.

The idea is that they should work like a movie trailer, to generate excitement for the book. The problem is that movie trailers are, obviously, assembled from actual clips from the movie itself. For a book, the images must be created. Depending on budget, the images can be video or still. (Mine are the more cheapie option, of a series of still images, which I don't think is as effective. Even if you cough up for video, we all know that the movie is just NEVER as good as the book. That's with multi-million-dollar budgeting and doing the whole book.

All that said... can a short trailer capture the essence of a book? Probably not.

Can it get far enough to entice a reader? Maybe.

But, so far, my experience says it's not worth the money.



Oh! And my new contemporary erotic romance comes out tomorrow! 

Under Contract

Read an Excerpt

The kinkier the sex, the higher the price tag…
Ryan Black has admired Celestina Sala from afar for years, her lush body and sensual nature calling to the dominant in him. For just as many years, Celestina was off-limits—married, proud and self-sufficient. But all that has changed, and now Celestina is in debt and in need…and available. Ryan proposes a contract: he’ll pay off her debt if she gives herself to him in bed, yielding control in exchange for the pain and pleasure he’ll bring them both.
There are words for women who take money for sex, and none of them are nice ones. Celestina never thought she’d have to sink this low, but giving up control sounds more enticing than ever before. And suddenly it’s not about having to give in to Ryan. It’s about wanting to.
But when Ryan’s dark past comes to light, they may both be in over their heads. The terms of his contract say her body is his…but her heart may be another story.
One thing is for sure—now that Ryan has Celestina, he can never let her go.

Available July 13, 2015

• Kindle
• Barnes & Noble
• iBooks
• Kobo

 

Dr. Frankenstein's Novel - Why I Have No Buried Books

Last week, just as the sun set and a rainstorm passed through, a perfect rainbow formed to the east of our house. I stood barefoot on our front porch and took this with the panorama function on my phone. It makes it clear how the rainbow is the rim of a big lens, focusing light. So unearthly, too. Perfect for our blog of assorted spec fic types.

This week's topic in the Bordello is The Book You Buried: The Terrifying Tale of Your Horribly Written Novel.

You have to give KAK props for her Halloween slant.

So, you all know the old saw this references. How all writers have a book or ten or twenty "under the bed" lurking like the formless monsters of our youths, muttering darkly to themselves and destined never to see the light of day.

Except me.

I don't really have a book that's buried and I've been thinking about why that is. I think some of it has to do with this story.

Way back, Oh Best Beloved, when I was first struck with the awesome, glitteringly huge, transporting and terrifying dream of becoming a writer, I entered a writing contest. As you do. Now, I have never been one to put in my bio that I've "been writing stories since I first picked up a crayon." I wrote stories as a kid, yes. I tend to think all kids do. I also drew pictures and made embroidered silk saddle blankets for my model horses. Which says a lot about childhood hobbies and future occupations right there, I think. I won a poetry contest when I was 12 and contributed angsty anonymous poems to the high school literary magazine. My AP English teacher taught me I didn't know how to write my senior year and I became much better at it but, though I got a 5 on the exam - a high score that let me test out of Freshman Comp in colleg e and put me in a special lit course - it never really occurred to me to be a writer. I was going to be doctor, then a scientist.

Only later, in my mid-twenties and while I was buried in getting my PhD in Neurophysiology, did I have the epiphany that being a writer would be my perfect life. I cut bait on the PhD, took my Masters, got a job as an editor/writer with a petroleum research group and starting playing with what the hell I wanted to write. One morning in my office, NPR told me over the airwaves about a contest sponsored by the Wyoming Arts Council. There were two and I don't recall which this was. They had a Fellowship for Literature that rotated each year between Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry, and the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award for an outstanding woman writer in any genre.

You must understand that, not only did I not have a book written at this point, I barely had a concept. However - and this is an enormous caveat - I had fragments and a vague idea along with this shiny newly formed ambition. Though I should have been reasonably mature at that point, especially carrying the battle scars of grad school with a bipolar Hungarian for an adviser, my enthusiasm and hopeful faith in myself so exceeded the strictures of reality that I submitted a page and a half to this contest.

I know.

Do I need mention they asked for 25 pages? Yeah.

You're all wincing for me, I hope. I'm so embarrassed for myself that it took me YEARS to tell anyone this story.

What was I thinking? That's the worst part. I had this idea, this utter hubris, that my page and a half was SO FUCKING BRILLIANT that any judge would see in one glance that my talent was one to be nurtured. And yes, I still have that page and a half from so long ago. Needless to say, brilliant it ain't.

But I learned. I learned to write more and longer. To stick with and refine an idea. I went on in later years to win both the Fellowship and the Doubleday award, along with a Fellowship to the Ucross Foundation and other, really wonderful nods that told me, yes, mine was a talent they believed should be nurtured. Once I'd applied enough discipline to actually exercise it.

Thus, one point of this whole story is that, when newbie writers ask for advice and I say that you have to get disciplined, write every day, write a lot and finish the damn book, I know whereof I speak. I know how damn hard that simple advice is to take and implement. It's also the only way it happens. No one wins awards with a page and a half, brilliant or not.

I feel like I should note at this point, the debt I owe to the Wyoming Arts Council. Those contests did exactly what they were designed to do in encouraging aspiring writers. Not by awarding me accolades in recognition of my incipient, as-yet-unrecognized, as-yet-nonexistent ability, but by denying me and making me understand I had to work for it.

The other point, the one that applies to the topic at hand, is that I have no under-the-bed books because I took those early fragments and constantly cannibalized, reworked, recast and revised until I had a book that deserved to see the light of day. That page and a half? Much transformed and revised - perhaps unrecognizably so - is one of the core elements of my Covenant of Thorns trilogy.

Perhaps this makes me more of a Dr. Frankenstein, stitching together and reanimating what seems to be dead or dying. I have no buried novels because I tore them apart before they were done. I do have a lot of fragments in cold storage, waiting for that bolt of lightning and a bit of attention to be brought back to life.

Tracking Sales Without Losing Your Mind

by @JeffeKennedy

This week's topic - Tracking Sales: Do You Do It and How? - is apropos as I have a book release tomorrow. Yes, Rogue's Paradise, the third book in the Covenant of Thorns series, comes out Monday, September 8!

A book release day can be so fraught. It's the final goodbye to the book in many ways - like sending your kid off to college or waving farewell on their wedding day. You're full of hopes and dreams for them and also teeming with nervous dread that something awful will happen. With a book, of course, a huge part of this is WILL IT SELL?

It's the inescapable metric, particularly for those of us who are not independently wealthy and are trying to make a self-supporting career of writing. At the same time, tracking sales feels - to me - like focusing on the wrong thing.

I've been having this ongoing conversation lately with my friend, Anne Calhoun. About making career decisions and what our goals as writers really are. Both of us agree that, if it were all about making money for us, we'd be stockbrokers. There are easier ways to make a lot of money. Last week on Word Whores, too, I talked about valuing personal happiness and how I work towards that. Part of that for me is not focusing too hard on sales.

So the answer to the first part of the question is, I don't track very closely. I don't try for real time much at all. Sometimes I see my Amazon ranking if someone points me there, and that's because it's good news. Really, I only want to see the happy-making stuff. Like when a bunch of tweets alerted me to Rogue's Pawn, book one in the Covenant of Thorns series, making #2 in Fantasy Romance on Amazon. After Dean Koontz, well-known Fantasy Romance author. *cough*

I sometimes look at the Amazon rankings for book one in my Twelve Kingdoms series, The Mark of the Tala, because I continue to be bemused - and pleasantly surprised - by how high the rankings are. There are a lot of people out there who perform the dubious alchemy of translating Almighty Amazon's sales rankings to copies sold and dollars generated, but I am not one.

That said, I *am* the Spreadsheet Queen. I do track my sales there, both by book and overall totals. I have charts that show which venues sell the most of each book and that track my sales by month (where I have that much detail - some of my royalties are reported quarterly or longer) for copies sold and my revenue. It's gotten more complicated now that the statements are funneled through my agency as well, but I input all the data. The most interesting metric is one I set up that calculates the total amount of money a book has earned for me divided by the number of days elapsed since its release. This gives me essentially a "dollars per day" metric. This ranges from, as of this posting, $100/day for a book I received an advance for (which complicates things), to $4/day real time sales for my longest-published book, to $0.09/day for my poorest performer. I like that way of parsing things, because it gives me a more objective sense of which books earn the best.

But I still love each and every one. I cry at all their weddings and graduations.

Wacky Sidekicks - the Barnacles of Fantasy

The topic of the week here at the Bordello concerns groups, much like our own. We'll be talking about The Protagonist's Posse: Who Are They, Why Are They There, How Many Is Too Many?

It made me think of this  picture, from a family birthday celebration in Galveston. As the protagonist of my own life, I'm often by myself, or go about as a couple, with David. Far less frequently am I part of a group. This is part of the Introvert Way, I suspect. My stories reflect this, focusing tightly on the protagonist and her lover. (I'm pretty sure all of my protagonists so far have been female.)

This is particularly true of my romances. I very much like to focus on the couple and their developing relationship. In fact, Publisher's Weekly gave my most recent romance, GOING UNDER, a terrific review that hit all the right notes for me, but added at the end "The secondary characters, however, are little more than archetypes..." A comment that left me bemused as I'd never intended the secondary characters to be much more than foils. The story is about my heroine and her relationship with the hero.

In fantasy, however, my heroines seem to accumulate connections like an ocean-going vessel accretes barnacles over time. I don't plan it that way - (faithful readers know I don't plan much of anything) - the characters just turn up and insist on having their part in the tapestry. That word, tapestry, might be a key difference. My romances tend to be more portraits, whereas the fantasies are bigger pictures, with more complex parameters.

In Covenant of Thorns, which finishes with ROGUE'S PARADISE on September 8, my heroine has a substantial posse of wacky sidekicks by the end. This is vivid in my brain, because they all end up assembling for the final conflict. Due to the snarky worlds reflecting upon worlds nature of that series, she even refers to them as her wacky sidekicks, which amuses me no end.

In the Twelve Kingdoms series, I knew more from the first book who the ensemble cast would be. The premise is there from the beginning: the high king, three daughters, their lovers and a companion who is faithful to all three. However, by the time I finished the third book, THE TALON OF THE HAWK, when I turned the overall series arc over, I found a hell of a lot of barnacles on that hull, too.

So, to answer the question of who they are and why are they there - I think the answer is that they're who the protagonists need to complete their journeys. Much like the Buddhist concept that the people we brush up against all have an effect on our lives, the heroine's posse are those who hand her the keys to the puzzle of her life. In a romance, the unlocking falls to a lover and possibly a trusted friend. In fantasy, the puzzles are larger, more complex and require many more hands to work the wheels of the machine.

As for how many is too many? When there are more hands than wheels, more keys than locks. When the weight of the barnacles becomes a drag and threatens to sink the ship.

But then, I'm an intuitive writer, not an analytical one.

All this said, I'm ending on a bit of a Promo Ho plea. If you're a fan of the Twelve Kingdoms books, there appears to be a good chance I could do three more after this. But a great deal depends on presales of book 2, THE TEARS OF THE ROSE. (I know - I hate this. Blerf.) So, I'm drumming up a bit of social media support here. Kind of an interesting idea, called a Thunderclap. If you feel like playing, please do! Or if  you're so inclined, and you want to pre-order (bless you!) you can at these links:

for paper:
Amazon, B&N, BAM, IndieBound, Bookish.com, Target, Walmart

for ebook:
amazonkindle, Apple, Google, Kobo, Nook

Thank you all and may your barnacles be only the best!

How a Pantser Plans a Series

This week at the Bordello we'll be comparing notes on Making a Series: Plotting and planning a series of books.

It's an interesting topic, especially for the girl who doesn't preplot or plan much at all. Over time, though, I've come to understand that I do have more of a plan than I think I do.

You pretty much have to, to write a trilogy or other series. I've finished writing two trilogies now - A Covenant of Thorns (CoT) and The Twelve Kingdoms (12K) - both with very strong overall arcs that required all three books to tell. In both cases, I did NOT know what the overall story would be when I started the first book. In both cases, I did have a sense that the story I had in mind would take much longer than a single book.

I'm not saying you should try this at home, but this is how I did it, for each.

Core Scene

For each series, I started with the first book - Rogue's Pawn (RP) and The Mark of the Tala (MotT), respectively - and wrote each towards a core scene. In Rogue's Pawn it was the initial dream of The Black Dog and I wrote towards the scene of SPOILER *Gwynn kissing Liam between the tents* END SPOILER. In The Mark of the Tala, I knew the scene of SPOILER *Andi hiding in the castle from the evil lurking outside, her sister swearing to protect her while people died and she knew she had to give herself to the monster to end it* END SPOILER.

And that's seriously all I knew about either story or series when I started laying words down.

Discovering Other Key Characters

Alert readers familiar with the series will note that in neither case did I have a clear idea of the heroes. In fact, Rogue took me entirely by surprise when he walked into the room and threw everything upside-down. (Which is entirely like him, I see now in retrospect.) In 12K, I knew there would be the one sister, but not so much that there would be three and that the overall story would be as much about them and their relationship as anything else.

In both cases, discovering these other characters - who took shape and came to life as I wrote - was what determined the overall series arc.

For CoT, the relationship between Rogue and Gwynn drove the series arc. Though there are other considerations for her - gaining mastery as a sorceress, finding her own agency, and fighting Titania's plans - it's really Gwynn's bargain with Rogue to bear his firstborn child, and their tangled emotions around this, that forms the spine of the series.

For 12K, once Andi's sisters, Amelia and Ursula, took shape, it became clear that the trilogy would be formed of each sister's story, in that order. The way MotT ended pretty much dictates that the main story thread falls to Amelia next, in The Tears of the Rose, and that the final conflict belongs to Ursula in The Talon of the Hawk.

The First Act Dictates the Conclusion

I write using the three-act structure, as such: Act 1 Climax: 25%, Midpoint: 50%, Act 2 Climax: 75%, Act 3 Climax: 90%. What this means is that all the stakes in the story are set up by the end of Act 1. The remaining 3/4 of the story are all resolving the problems set up in the first act.

In a series, this overall structure still applies. If you apply the metric to the entire series, it should become clear that there is an Act 1 Climax that occurs somewhere in book 1 that sets up the stakes for the series as a whole. In CoT, the bargain between Rogue and Gwynn and her subsequent suffering drives the conclusion finally reached in book 3, Rogue's Paradise. In 12K, the political events set off by what happens to Andi - and how they change her sister's lives - are what lead directly to the final conflict in The Talon of the Hawk.

Filling in the Detail

Thus, as far as plotting and planning, I do have a general sense of what the major beats and climactic events will be. More or less. I probably have a better sense of the impact on the characters than the details of the events themselves. Those things I discover as I go along.

It's definitely true for me, however, that setting up that first 25%, both within a book and for the series overall, is what gives me a solid trajectory to see the story through.

Plus a bit of black magic.

Experiments and a Sneak Peek from ROGUE'S PARADISE

My colleague/friend/boss, Laurie, visited us in Santa Fe this weekend. She and I went on a whirlwind road trip to Oklahoma City to pitch a scope of work for a proposed project and then she spent a couple of days with us. It's always fun to have people visit, because we go out and hit the sights in a different way than we otherwise do.

(Read: crucial errands and otherwise pretty much never leaving the house.)

We took her to the San Marcos Cafe (and Feed Store), which is this very funky, out of the way restaurant. Not the usual Santa Fe scene. Not just because there are peacocks in the desert.

The word of the week is experiment. Which should make it an entertaining week, as I anticipate much experimenting.

However, the word makes ME think of one person: Gwynn, the heroine of my Covenant of Thorns trilogy. She's a scientist by inclination, training and profession - even if she has become a sorceress after being trapped in Faerie. She frames her observations in terms of hypotheses and experiments, a mental discipline that helps her wrestle with the whimsical and horrific vagaries of the magically alien world she's found herself in.

Coincidentally (is anything TRULY coincidental??), yesterday I received copy edits for book 3 of the trilogy, Rogue's Paradise. People who've been following the series know (or hope!) that this book will see the culmination of Gwynn's complex, frequently difficult, and always passionate relationship with the fae noble, Rogue. After many adventures together, they've finally gotten to a point where they understand each other better.

Which means, he often teases her now about her scientific thinking - which he can usually hear quite clearly from her thoughts. I had a lot of fun with this.

So, here are a few sneak peeks, that I hope are not spoilery. But - FAIR WARNING - if you don't want any spoileryness (yes, that's a word) at all, stop now!

*  *  *

Going back to the original section, I sketched the facial pattern as it had been the last time I remembered looking. When had that been? Back at Walter’s castle maybe. I should have kept a better record of it. But there hadn’t been that much to it—a curl on my temple, a suggestion of branches, a hint of a curved claw at the high point of my cheekbone.

“There she is.” Rogue’s hands caressed my bare shoulders, soothing my little start of surprise. “My scientist in her natural habitat.”

I turned my head to look up at him. “You listen to my thoughts more than is healthy.”

“But I find you fascinating, my studious Gwynn.” He leaned down and kissed me, a sweet kiss that rapidly deepened.

*  *  *

I traced another line, that forked over his abdomen—like walking a meditation maze—and thought back to the moment when the inspiration had hit me to tell Rogue to shift into the Dog, which was more like setting it free from his flesh than anything, to shake Titania’s grip on his mind. “Because the Dog can cross the Veil and Titania cannot. Therefore, the Dog possesses an ability that transcends her. Also the Dog isn’t bound by vows and agreements—thus it logically follows that the Dog is beyond her reach.”

“Only to your mind.” He sounded admiring, which I secretly loved.

“Do you think my cat will be the same way?”

“It logically follows,” he replied, making me laugh. “We can experiment some more.”

My face flushed hot at the intimate reminder of how he’d played with me. Learning me.

*  *  * this one is somewhat explicit (though smexiest part is redacted) *  *  *

“No thinking,” he instructed. “I have an experiment to perform.”

...

“Now what would my Gwynn say?” he mused. “My hypothesis is that you can do this again. Over and over. I theorize that even you will stop thinking. What say you?”

I glared at him, hovering on the edge of another climax, yet suspended there, exactly where he wanted me. “I say you can’t have two hypotheses.”

He laughed, low and sinister. “Can’t I? I think I can have whatever I want.”

*  *  *

See? Now you, too, will never think of the word "experiment" the same way, ever again. You're welcome.

Pimping: Egyptian Dancers & Faerie Rogues

It's a big release week in the bordello. Our weekend whores have new e-books  available. Yes, dear darling readers, that's TWO, TWO, TWO new releases for you.

First Up, Saturday Whore Veronica Scott's third book in her historical paranormal Gods of Egypt Series: Dancer of the Nile

Egypt, 1500 BCE
Nima’s beauty and skill as a dancer leads an infatuated enemy to kidnap her after destroying an Egyptian border town. However, she’s not the only hostage in the enemy camp: Kamin, an Egyptian soldier on a secret mission for Pharaoh, has been taken as well. Working together to escape, the two of them embark on a desperate quest across the desert to carry word of the enemy’s invasion plans to Pharaoh’s people.
As they flee for their lives, these two strangers thrown together by misfortune have to trust in each other to survive.  Nima suspects Kamin is more than the simple soldier he seems, but she finds it hard to resist the effect he has on her heart.  Kamin has a duty to his Pharaoh to see his mission completed, but this clever and courageous dancer is claiming more of his loyalty and love by the moment. Kamin starts to worry, if it comes to a choice between saving Egypt or saving Nima’s life…what will he do?
Aided by the Egyptian god Horus and the Snake Goddess Renenutet, beset by the enemy’s black magic, can Nima and Kamin evade the enemy and reach the safety of the Nile in time to foil the planned attack?
Can there ever be a happy future together for the humble dancer and the brave Egyptian soldier who is so much more than he seems?

AVAILABLE on Amazon   Barnes & Noble   All Romance eBooks  

Then it's on to Jeffe Kennedy's second book in her fantasy romance series Covenant of Thorns: Rogue's Possession

A human trapped in the world of Faerie, in possession of magic I could not control, I made a bargain for my life: to let the dangerously sensual fae noble known as Rogue sire my firstborn. And one does not break an oath with a fae. But no matter how greatly I desire him, I will not succumb. Not until I know what will happen to the child.

Though unable--or unwilling--to reveal the fate of human-fae offspring himself, Rogue accompanies me on my quest for answers. Along the way he agrees to teach me to harness my power, in exchange for a single kiss each day and sleeping by my side each night. Just as I am about to yield to temptation, I find myself in a deadly game of cat and mouse with an insane goddess. Now my search for the truth will lead me to the darkest of all Faerie secrets.

AVAILABLE on Amazon   Barnes & Noble   Carina Press  

Go forth. Acquire. See if you can make a rogue dance...

Drawing that Squiggly Line Between Inspiration and Plagiarism

Release day for ROGUE'S POSSESSION is tomorrow!!

So, you know, you could totally pre-order it. I mean, I wouldn't be a true Word Whore if I didn't offer you some buy links right here and now, right???

Carina
B&N
Amazon

~does seductive click-the-buy-link dance~

Thank you!

And now, onward to the meat of this Sunday post, the real reason you stopped by, yes?

This week's topic is Inspiration vs Imitation: How Far is Too Far?

Which is quite apropos, given the many scandals that seem to be plaguing the writing community recently. The most recent one is Dave Eggers' new novel, The Circle, was lifted from memoir written by Kate Losse, former ghostwriter for Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. You can read the Salon article here. The upshot, however, is that Eggers released this statement about it:

I’ve just heard about the claims of Kate Losse that my novel, The Circle, was somehow based on a work of nonfiction she wrote. I want to make it clear that I have never read and have never heard of her book before today. I did not, in fact, read any books about any internet companies, or about the experiences of anyone working at any of these companies, either before or while writing The Circle. I avoided all such books, and did not even visit any tech campuses, expressly because I didn’t want The Circle to seem to be based on any extant companies or upon the experiences of any employees of any extant companies. Because The Circle has not been released, it’s my understanding that Kate Losse has not read my novel yet, so I trust that when she does read it she’ll understand that I have not read, and certainly never lifted anything from, her book.

What I find interesting is his insistence that he did not read any books on similar topics or go near the tech companies. I kind of want to ask if he stayed off Facebook and Twitter, too, but that would be snarky.

And, let me be clear, reliable folks have gone and read both books and they all seem to agree that Eggers lifted nothing from Losse.

I'm just kind of amused by the lengths he says he went to in avoiding his story on reality, which is kind of bizarre, given that he started as a memoirist (with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). On second thought, maybe that's part of why he wanted to draw such a clear line within himself.

The thing is, every memoirist knows that this line is never clear. I can say this with confidence, having been a published memoirist and having participated in countless discussions and panels exploring this very thing. Calling a work fiction doesn't change the fact that the writer is still drawing from the real world.

Do I think Eggers plagiarized? Absolutely not. Do I think he couldn't help but draw on extant companies?

Yes yes yes.

More, I think it's disingenuous for any writer to think that he or she doesn't do this.

Of course, there's a huge difference between taking someone's book, replacing the character names and publishing it as your own. Or lifting entire passages from someone else's novel and sticking it in your own. Or taking a book like Twilight and writing a fan fiction version of it where Edward is a sexual dominant and Bella his submissive - then later changing some of the names and setting details.

But, of those three examples, the last is not plagiarism. It's Fifty Shades of Grey, an international bestseller. Do some people think that it took inspiration too far? Sure. A lot of them do. Is it plagiarism? Nope.

Would I, personally, do that? No.

That's my vague and wiggly line. I accept that all the thousands of books and stories I've read in my life now feed into what I write. I don't think I could make a statement like Eggers did, because I can't be sure that it's true. I read eclectically, widely and near constantly. Who knows where the stuff in my head comes from?

(Not incidentally, the gal who owns the gym I go to said to me yesterday, "Your head must be a crazy place to live." I took it as a compliment.)

But I would never deliberately adopt someone else's world or characters. I know a lot of writers get started with fan fiction and love being able to do that. For me, it's an internal line I don't want to ever cross.

It's just a shade too far for my taste.