Backspace 2013

How to prepare to meet that lumbering giant that is New York City? Even saying it, NYC, oh me oh my, what can be done when such awe comes running?

It has been just under two years since we have ventured out east. In those two years a good deal has changed. Most prominent on Jaye's mind is that she's seen doctors. Doctors upon doctors of all shapes and sizes, more doctors than any person in their right mind should see in such a period of time. (In case you're wondering, her sanity wasn't the problem).

As such, traveling of any kind has become rather intimidating. And this, our first venture out since words like, Hyperactive Nerve Syndrome, and VADER, and Physical Therapy, became part of our daily lexicon, is NYC, a world entirely apart from our own.

Thus, our travel preparations, trepidations, and anxieties, have brought forth a list of five packing essentials that would otherwise apply to a sixty or seventy-year-old geriatric. (In case you've forgotten, Jaye is twenty-six).

1. Drugs. Oh so many drugs. A cardiologist recently commented that we had the rap sheet of a 90-year-old. This includes most importantly, Advil, and the narcotic version of Tylenol. (No, we don't share).
  2. Saucony Sneakers. Having worn regular, support-less shoes for her entire life, a geneticist suggested wearing 'real' shoes to compensate for various deficiencies in Jaye's lower extremities. She will be rockin' Broadway in business casual and business formal...and sneakers.

3. A hand towel. ATTENTION: this may be a fancy trick even normal people can make use of. We'll let you know how it works once we're back. Jaye's physical therapist recommends a folded towel rotated at intervals of twenty odd minutes during airplane rides, beneath the thigh, butt, other thigh, other side of butt, to help keep the hips moving while sitting.

4. Documents for the 2013 Backspace Writer's Conference. We're been hearing about this conference for years and finally we are able to attend, and just in time, since its going to be the last ever. If you're curious, this is the site. Aside from meeting agents, and networking with other writers, we will attend our very first session run my Donald Maass. (He's just a bit famous.)


5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Light reading to distract from the stress of uncertainty, and/or being stranded on some form of public transportation, and/or meals in public alone, and/or escape from boredom. We read this book when it came out and was all the rage to talk about. The paperback recently presented itself at our local Half Price Books. As soon as the Writer saw it, she knew that would be the book coming on this trip.

For final advice, see below:

Yes, yes, its true if you've heard the rumor, the time has at last come. The selves are taking the leap into publishing. There's a great deal that everyone is saying about Amazon and the self-pub revolution. Jaye the doubter remains unconvinced but the Writer has hope in the power of the people. Yes, a populist, humanist, lover of blind equality. I am already ready to cut to the quick. Soon, very soon, our fantasy novella, 

We the Separate Together will be available for your Ereader. 

Since the unclean laws were passed by her father, Mistress Regent Anselma has never doubted the need to protect her people from the Versers—descendants from the bears of the southern mountains. But when a chance encounter with the brash Aeyers III Iain reveals that the Versers are not so different from herself, Anselma’s life becomes marked with conflict.

          When tensions with the Versers escalate, Anselma is kidnapped and held for ransom in a Verser underground village. Confronted by the oppression her father’s laws have wrought, she must find a way to bring peace before her father’s army discovers the location of the underground villages and brings his army to destroy them.

 

If you are interested in writing a review or doing an interview, please send us an email! (please note that this is an adult book not appropriate for YA readers.)

On Making a ComeBack and so Much More

We bet you thought we weren't coming back didn't ya? Well didn't ya? The Writer always had faith but Jaye, you know Jaye the cynic. And on it goes. The short and the long of it, well no, just the short of it is that we've had this hiatus of upwards of six months in order to have time to spend with the plethora of doctors who passed the time scratching their heads and looking at us with those calm impersonal eyes while suggesting the most outlandish of possible problems. Ie Multiple Sclerosis. The next time a good old boy in a white jacket suggests MS and then has you wait six months with those words hanging over your head before you see the next white jacket, shoot us an email and we can commiserate.

So we're back and ready to rock and roll. As the fates would have it, the lovely Addison James (http://addisonjwriter.com/ ) has tagged us in a self-interview which sounds like the perfect way to get back into the cyber conversation and reach our dangling threads of thoughts into your lovely eyeballs. As we're desperately out of touch, Jaye has voted not to tag anyone in this post. But if you are a writer and want to answer these questions, please do tag us back so we can visit!

What is your working title of your book?
The title is Face Control. It came via the title of a Handsome Furs album which they named from a Russian phrase having to do with only the most beautiful and successful people getting into clubs. The vetting of clubbers is called face control.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
 The Writer is reluctant to admit this, but the initial idea came from a Sims 3 computer game in which a career fashion designer got married and kept having boys when she wanted girls. She even ditched a husband thinking he could only make boys. After giving up hope and saying ‘five boys is enough’ she adopted a girl only to become pregnant and give birth to twin girls.

What genre does your book fall under?
Face Control is a contemporary family saga

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
 There are several main characters but for the career mother I often consider Meryl Streep. For her twin daughters I like Audrey Tautou and Juliette Binoche.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The youngest daughter of a powerful east coast family must come to terms with her own identity while facing the deception that made her family wealthy.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
We are not currently considering this project for any kind of publication. There is still a lot to do and we’re enjoying it far too much.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
 Four months after the Writer dragged herself away from the Sims 3. She had five pages of notes from her computer game drama to work into a plot.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The first book that comes to mind is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Family saga published nowadays tend to be immigrant stories. The mother character in our story comes from Italian parents that struggled to adapt, but their daughter is determined that no one in her adult life know that she was every born into that background.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The points of inspiration are endless with this novel which has been a truly astronomical undertaking as far as complexity and influences. Jaye has read countless books looking for style and technique ideas, ways to cheat problem children such as spacing and time passage. I, the lazy one, have watched films, and shows, noticing the nervous twitches of certain actors or kinds of actors. This project has been rather a rich experience of all types of cultural and literary textures. We can only hope that when the work is finally done that those colours shine through for the reader.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
 This book, of all the projects we have worked on, really has something for everyone. There is a storyline in Hollywood with two characters involved in making movies. One son lives in Nebraska and lives a good old Midwestern life entirely alien to the rest of his family living on both coasts. There is a romance and the guise of a romance that becomes something even better with understanding. If Jaye may borrow an expression often used by her brother. It is an ‘epic’ story.

When Dreams Come True

With great pleasure the Selves bring you the newest Children's novel from Rebecca Emin author of New Beginnings and a multitude of short stories. Giveaways for the book launch can be found on her facebook page.

When Dreams Come True is the story of Charlie who is happiest biking with Max and Toby or watching films with Allie. But when Charlie turns thirteen, everything begins to change. As her friends develop new interests, Charlie's dreams become more and more frequent and vivid in the midst of a family crisis where old secrets are revealed changing her life forever. (Skip to bottom of post for purchase information).

In honor of Rebecca's new book the Selves were asked to share dreams we had experienced that particularly effected us. As usual and perhaps for the better the Writer is taking the reins on this one.

The middle of a grey afternoon spreads block by block a gloom where people and buildings and mystery rise out of London fog. A girl with a crooked foot sneaks into the dress rehearsal of an opera, curious only for the absence of the ticket taker, inspired by the thought of a warm fire the glow of which she can see through partial windows.