I, as of June, am the proud owner of a few of what publishing considers to be Very Important Words behind my (pen) name: “New York Times bestselling author.” Both my June and July books hit the NYT bestseller list at #28, and let me tell you, I was shocked and thrilled and grateful and delirious beyond all reason! (For the scoop on how it feels to hit the list, read my blog HERE).
For whatever reason, the fact is that hitting that particular list is a really big deal to publishers (when you hit #20 or higher, the “short” or print list, even more so, I hear). Editors from other houses and agents I didn’t even know congratulated me at the RWA national conference in D.C (yes, that was me shrieking with joy 5 minutes before the literacy signing began, when I found out that my July book had also placed at #28, right between Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and one of Lustbader’s Bourne books; talk about surreal.) So it’s very exciting the first time and still exciting the second time, but also a big pile of relief in a “whew! It wasn’t a fluke!” sort of way. But what does it really mean, when the flower bouquets have wilted, and the champagne has been toasted, and the congratulations emails and calls have all been returned?
It means stress.
A big, honking pile of stress. Because guess what? Now the pressure is on. So I sat down at my computer and looked at the book I was in the middle of writing and decided it wasn’t nearly good enough. After all, readers expected something different, didn’t they, from a NYT author?? (Never mind that the sane part of my mind told me that my books are what GOT me on that list.) And maybe I should start obsessively re-reading all my reader mail and Googling my name and my book titles and searching out online reviews, and analyze all of the above to see what I could do bigger, better, and more lemon-scented so EVERYBODY would love EVERY SINGLE WORD of my fabulous prose!
Luckily for my sanity, that’s right about when I got the email from the Prime Numbers Lady.
If you ask any of my friends, they will tell you that I tend to attract very interesting and unique reader mail. I love this. My readers are never, ever boring. They are amazing, astonishing people with very strong opinions. Very, very strong opinions. Often I have to respond that, while I appreciate their insights into what I should ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT FAIL do next or not do next in the Warriors of Poseidon series, I have to write the books as they come to me. It’s not an evasion or excuse, it’s the truth.
I know all of you writers out there are nodding. How else would we do it? The stories are in us; part of our hearts and minds and the shrouded corners of our psyches. We have to, as they say, call ‘em like we see ‘em.
But back to the Prime Numbers Lady. She wrote to me that she quite enjoyed my books, but that I use too many prime numbers. Very truly yours.
I, as you might imagine, sat at my desk blinking at my computer screen. I’m as much of a fan of Pythagoras as the next gal, but I hadn’t realized I was shamelessly and wantonly using prime numbers throughout my books. Let’s see: There are seven isles of Atlantis, and the Seven is the name of the high prince’s elite guard of very hunky warriors, but had I been slutty with my threes? Promiscuous with my fives? Loose and licentious with my elevens?????
I had NOT! (Yes, I looked.) Triumphant, I started to refute this challenge to my mathematical recklessness when a great and wonderful thing happened: the crazy train left my particular depot.
I stopped to think before I emailed. What was really going on? Was I a failure as an author over these sevens, etc.? No! This reader didn’t like prime numbers. That’s all. It wasn’t a reflection on my writing, or a directive from the Great Gods of Writing that I should pepper my pages with a profusion of twos, fours, and nines.
What was it then? One word: It was freedom.
When I realized how entirely arbitrary this particular dislike was, I realized something else, too: I needed to relax. Take a chill pill. I can’t write to please individual reader expectations because there is NO POSSIBLE WAY I can ever, ever anticipate what they might be. Never in a million years would I have seen this one coming.
Now let me confess, lest ye think (always wanted to use ‘lest ye think’ in a sentence) I’m belittling or mocking this reader in any way, that I actually respect the hell out of her, because I am just as arbitrary in my reading likes and dislikes. I recently tossed a book into the trash only midway through reading it because—wait for it—the author used too many ellipses. I . . . cannot bear . . . ellipses . . . all over . . . my . . . books.
I do recognize that this is unreasonable. It’s almost akin to my pathological hatred of mayonnaise, which has amused and entertained my friends for years. But it’s OKAY. I don’t expect any author in the world to quit using ellipses because of me (and yes, I’ve even used a few, just not all over the PAGE, and who could want slimy white gooey stuff on their CHEESEBURGERS, anyway, let alone on their FRENCH FRIES, and, ahem. Nevermind.)
Back to freedom. I’ll keep writing my books the way they come to me and enjoy every second of my wonderful, messy, glorious process, and whenever I worry that somebody, somewhere, won’t like a plot twist or a character development or a crazy subplot that fits beautifully (in my opinion) into the book, I’ll think fondly of the Prime Numbers Lady and appreciate the freedom she gave me.
Now, before I collapse on the couch with all 5 episodes of Torchwood ready to go in my post-deadline haze, please ‘fess up: what absolutely unreasonable and arbitrary foible do YOU have? What do you HATE or LOVE to see in books that, if you admitted out loud, everybody would say, “Wow, you’re as crazy as Alyssa Day with her mayonnaise and her ellipses!” Come on. You know you want to tell me (and no reasonable likes or dislikes allowed, please!). It’ll be just the three of us . . . or five . . . or eleven . . .
No related posts.
A big and well deserved congrats! Your books deserve those spots!
I’m on the other side of the ellipses debate. I LOVE them. I like reading them, I like using them. Maybe… because my first romances read were from the ellipses Queen herself, Barbara Cartland? I don’t know.
Thank you SO much!! Or I should say, thank you so much . . .
Congrats on the list-making. (Wait. That sounds like you’re going shopping – but you know what I mean.)
My personal arbitrary dislike – convenient use of twins. I’m the mother of a pair, and for some reason, having the long-lost twin appear as any sort of plot device bugs the heck out of me. Unreasonably, I’m sure. My girls aren’t even identical, so they’d never be cast in a book anyway.
Ohhh… I dislike twins stories too. The premise that two people born identical stay looking identical after 20 odd years of living? Unlikely.
If one is the quiet twin and the other the outgoing twin, it would show in their faces and mannerisms, even the way they walk.
And twincest? Yikes. That’s creepy.
Nouns that have nothing to do with any sound made by anything living that have -”ed” forced onto their endings and used as a substitute for “said.” As in: “Hi,” she twinkled (what sound does a twinkle make?) I can just about deal with whined, sighed, moaned, etc., but twinkled or anything similar? No.
Thanks! Barbara!! Maybe that was what started my hatred. I remember mocking my poor mom for reading those . . . breathless . . . books.
And my twin squick is when the hero falls in love with the dead woman’s sister. (Or the other way around, heroine and dead guy’s brother). It feels yucky to me, for no reasonable reason. With how many billion people on the planet, you had to go for her??? LOL. Maybe I really should be locked up in that rubber room.
Oh! the -ed words!! My personal pet peeve is “gifted.” She “gifted him with a smile” and that sort of thing. Really?? What’s wrong with “she smiled”?? (Somebody is getting ready to blast me for doubling question marks and exclamation points, I can feel it
)
I also hate “penned” – he penned the story. No. He wrote it. Imagine “he penciled the story.” Ack.
Oh. Boy. I really am a little unbalanced, I’m figuring out here. This may be a frightening day.
I was going to say I didn’t have any big pet peeves, but this brought one of mine to mind. I don’t like nouns arbitrarily turned into verbs by adding and “ed”, either. Especially when there’s a perfectly good verb to use instead.
Don’t even get me going on fisted. (Even though I admit, there isn’t a perfectly good alternative that’s as succinct.)
So many romance writers use this as a verb that I looked it up when I first started reading the genre. According to my dictionary, fist was used as a verb, but fell out of common usage in Victorian time and meant PUNCH, not “form a fist”. (And never mind the ick sexual slang for this word.)
Okay, I’m outed. I have a serious pet peeve. But I wouldn’t put down an authors work because she uses fist as a verb. Just bugs me.
Actually, it’s your issue with Hollandaise sauce that mystifies me. Eggs Benedict rock.
I’ve gotten picky about exclamation points. I think one of the rare creative writing classes I ever took made a point of exclamation points being used too freely– that your dialogue should be strong enough to convey the meaning and don’t use an exclamation point unless you really mean it. (Which cracked my absurdist ass up, as you can well imagine.) But for whatever reason, it stuck with me, so when I see exclamation points used scattershot throughout a book, it makes me feel as if the book is shouting at me.
Oh, and the really irrational dislike? Not every single short female is dainty and tiny with delicate birdlike hands. Hate, hate, hate that assumption with the heat of a thousand suns. Some of us *ahem* can be short and rather, erm, sturdy.
IJS…
Hollandaise sauce. On eggs. Oh, you just squicked me out so badly.
Yeah… I know.
You hit it dead on. We can’t please everybody.
Prime numbers, huh? Hmmmm… maybe that’s the secret. I need to select prime numbers to the NYTs
Don’t go there! I’m just 19 warning 11 you!
What gives me fits are an author’s “favorite words” that she uses over and over and over in the space of a few pages or in similar circumstances. For example: She just went to the store to just see if they had any melons. And there, she just ran into him.
One that cracks me up (and you can take that term any way you like) is “tangled,” especially in every kiss or love scene: She tangled her fingers in his hair. He tangled his tongue with hers. I want to ask, what else got “tangled?” Ouch.
Where’s the editor in this? Doesn’t anyone see these repetitions but me?
And I hate “gifted” too.
Cheers,
Ann
Oh, Ann, I’m terrible with “just” – I have to do a search at the end of every book so I can take out all of the “justs” that proliferate like nasty weeds in my writing.
For me it’s “really.” I’m really obnoxious about over-using this really unnecessary word.
Uhm…fwiw Alyssa, my hearing has returned since having BOTH eardrums blasted in DC. (And oh my, but I almost used an elipses after DC) Congrats again on hitting the Times! TWICE!! I still think that is just the coolest thing, and what a thrill to WITNESS Alyssa getting the news.
Have your kids crawled out from under the table yet?
The one thing that turns a book into a wallbanger for me is a stupid, wussy heroine. When she does things or says things that make my wonder how she even survived long enough to reach an age where she’s actually capable of noticing men, I can’t go on.
But, as far as twins and elipses–guilty of both.
We all have our own baggage and so do our readers, but that’s what makes this job so much fun.
That and hitting the Times!! Congrats again, m’dear!
~Kate
I’m with you on weak heroines. I like the women to be strong enough to stand up to the heroes, especially those sometimes overbearing alpha males!
Oops…that was make “ME” wonder…
Oooh…I like…(sigh)…ellipses. They’re sooo…pretty! It’s a moth to flame thing, you know. I also have an inhuman attachment to the word, ’shimmer.’ But, this is why God created the Search & Destroy function for Microsoft Word.
As far as what I hate in books goes–I’m not sure. I know that I have some strong dislikes, but I’m not sure that I have anything in particular that makes a book a wallbanger except poor writing. But I’m probably wrong about that and just don’t remember offhand.
OTOH, I love to read books that are set in New Orleans. I think this comes from my desire to visit the city and the fact that I haven’t been able to get there.
For fun, I have a near pathological fear of worms. I don’t know why, but it amuses my friends and annoys my MIL. Anything that annoys my MIL is a good thing, right?
I’m also drawn to books set in places I’d love to go. My next book is going to be set in London and I’m planning a research trip – can’t wait!
Neither twins nor ellipses bother me, and I actually like a phrase that uses “gifted.”
I don’t like a lot of exclamation points. If the book is shouting at me, I toss it into the donation box for the next trip to the library.
What really squicks me out and will turn a decent book into a wallbanger for me in seconds is the descriptive “melting chocolate eyes.” Just typing that out made my skin crawl. Seriously, that brings up a horrific image, yet I’ve seen it used many times by various authors. Ick. Please stop. Combining food and body parts is never a good thing.
I can’t stand it when authors don’t put quotation marks around dialogue. I can never figure out what the characters is thinking versus saying.
Oh, and I’ll take ALL your mayonnaise. Yum yum yum.
Eileen, you know I love you, but that is just wrong. The mayo thing. Wrong.
I’m with Tricia: poor writing is the only clincher for me. While many of the things people have mentioned might make me wince (and I’m sure I could come up with others), if the book is well written, with believable characters and a compellng plot, I’m not going to put it down because of some foible.
On the flip side, too many foibles can often equal bad writing!
Dayle, you are far saner than I. Far saner and very wise!
As a history professor I really can’t stand egregious (come on, how many times do you get to use egregious in a sentence?) historical errors. I admit to being the pickiest historical reader – after all, who else but me would have trouble with a Viking warrior who’s captured an Irish lass and looks into her coco brown eyes – and I ask myself, where has this guy in the 9th century seen coco? The other one that bugs me is the misuse of military ranks. Major is NOT a Naval rank.
From the Navy vet who thanks all you tax payers for the GI bill that paid for my MA and a second BA in History.
Terry my Navy husband agrees with you, and thank you for your service.
Terry: Me, me, me! Former history prof, here. What gets to me also is the speed with which some characters are able to travel by horse or ship. Or even railroad!
Picky, picky!! LOL. This is why I don’t write historical romance; I would obsess over each historical fact for so long I’d never get the book written!
Ok, these are totally personal pet peeves, and I know that most people will think I’m being crazy, LOL!
I get pushed out of books when the author has random thoughts italicized. Esp since most romances are in deep third POV so that most of what surrounds the italicized “thought” is also what the character is thinking. I find my internal editor harrumphing about just why that particular thought is set off in glaring neon.
I also really dislike thought tags (”he thought” “he wondered” etc). Ugh. If the scene’s POV is so unclear that you have to tell me whose thought it is, I’m going to have to put the book aside . . .
And I’ll jump on the “author’s pet words” issue too (even though I know we all have them, and I know their use is unconscious; that’s why we have editors!). One Biggie in my subgenre is addicted to the phrase “of course”. Addicted to the point where I can’t even see it used in other people’s books without cringing. In one recent book she used it four times on a single page! I haven’t been brave enough to even pick up her last two books for fear of being “of coursed” into a full melt down.
Oops. I think I have an “of course” problem, too. *off to check WIP* It’s funny how we turn to the same words and phrases so often without being consciously aware of it. I have a tendency to find a new author and inhale his/her backlist, which makes frequently used expressions really stand out. I am going to re-read my own series specifically looking for this once the current deadline is over. This day is a learning experience for me, which is terrific!
I have a whole list of words that I go through after all the other revisions are done. It’s another way of proofing.
It’s also extreeeeeeemely tedious.
One other note: I seem to pick up a new “favorite word” with each book. Now if I could only drop one of the old at the same time.
Cheers, and have a good weekend.
Ann
I have a whole list of words that I go through after all the other revisions are done. It’s another way of proofing.
Me too. I keep a running list of anything I notice and anything that gets pointed out to me, LOL!
this is a great idea to keep a list! Learning, learning, learning.
I’m a perfect reader of historicals (the few that I read) because I know NOTHING about what happened or was invented/discovered when, and blindly assume the author’s done her homework.
My latest crutch word/phrase: “Moment,” or “for a moment,” or “for a long moment.”
Recently, in Evanovich’s latest, everyone ‘blew out a sigh.’ To the point that I’m afraid to allow my characters any sort of sighs in my WIP.
oh no. I think I do “moment” too. argh. I’m doomed.
I’m getting better. I think there were 200 in my last WIP draft. Only 32 in this one (but it’s not finished.) I culled, and am down to 14, many in dialogue where they seemed natural enough.
I have a long list: really, very, back, up, well, just — and that’s before I look for the new ones that arrive with each manuscript.
Shall we talk mannerisms? Ugh.
Oh, Alyssa, you are such a delight. I needed this great smile, laugh, and reality check!
As a newbie author who is 17 days and 8 hours away from the Big Release Day, trading anxiety for freedom sounds quite lovely.
While I do hope everyone loves the beginning of my Strangely Beautiful series, they may not like my prophetic numbers either, my myths or my reasons for a most peculiar Jack the Ripper. And that’s just fine. Thanks for reminding me in such a wonderful way.
And congrats again on those prime 3 awesome initials NYT- you’ve earned it and then some.
Go Leanna!! Yay on new series debuts!
Thanks for the blog, Alyssa and congrats again on hitting the NYT Bestseller list twice!
I also share your dislike of mayo. In fact, I think I actually mistrust it, as well.
My irriational pet peeve is the word “moist”. I hate it. I don’t like to say it, I don’t like to hear it and a I really hate to read it. It makes no sense but there it is.
Thanks Penny! I dislike that word, too. Just sounds icky. Mayo is worthy of mistrust, IMO.
!!!! Annoys me to no end. I stopped reading a Jude Deveraux book, because it had six in the first three pages. I should state she is one of my favorite authors, but I just couldn’t do it. Why is everyone so freaking excited? Here’s a whiskey and mellow the hell out.
Words that are repeated over and over again in a novel.
Strange names, but with this I just get weird myself. I replace them in my mind. Elizabeth Hoyt had someone named Melissande or something like that. I renamed the character Melissa. The brain is an amazing thing, because I seriously just started to see Melissa. (I’m sure it’s because my brain just saw the Mel and finished the rest. Like adn, beofre, teh is probably read the right way.)
Enough with my own neurosis. CONGRATS!
I have that problem with fantasy novel names with all the apostrophes. My mind just stutters after a few Na’Rug’Burns or Cl’fart’butters.
I’m also not a big fan of made-up languages, unless it’s just a word here and there that’s clear from context. I don’t want to learn an entire new language to read a book. Some stories are worth wading through the made-up language to me, though, but often I get bored and put it aside.
Congratulations on the NYT listing, Alyssa.
And given that I’m addressing a primarily US audience here, I’m sure I’m about to be shot down in flames, but my number one pet peeve is the word “gotten”. Hate, hate, hate it. It’s not a word where I come from. The word is “got.” It should never extended.
But I even have editors and line editors trying to add the extension on to my manuscripts, and I doggedly strike it back off. Even so, occassionally the damn thing wiggles through in my own books, and I want to puke when I find them in the final copies.
You asked for it. That’s mine.
Tracy
The rumor is that we “got” “gotten” from you Brits and you forgot about it.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_gotten_correct_grammar
It’s definitely true that the British v. American English opens up a whole can of worms, but don’t tell Tricia Fields. She hates worms!
Actually, I’m Australian. But close enough. It gets confusing at times. I grew up in the Australian school system, speak British English (was trained in Shakespearan English), and live in Canada, where I write and sell Canadian style non-fiction, but write for US fiction markets. I have to constantly convert manuscripts from four different “languages”, and I’m always tripping over the different variations.
But I refuse to use “gotten.” Just can’t, even though my characters might naturally use it. I’ll rework the dialogue rather than insert it. It’s my paticular foible.
@Blue — you’re the sort of advisor it would be handy to have around when I’ve got a Navy SEAL for a hero. Reference books only go so far!
Tracy
My primary pet peeve is poor grammar. I can tolerate the occasional comma splice or sentence fragment, but when I begin to feel like I’m grading a freshman comp paper instead of reading for pleasure, I’m done.
My other pet peeve is definitely non-accurate military references. For instance: they don’t shut off electricity in base housing for non-payment (basic utilities are included in the monthly housing allowance, which is withheld from the checks of military members in base housing), and Majors don’t drop by a brand new airman’s house on the weekend to “check on one of his men” because he hasn’t been paying his bills. My husband (a First Sergeant in the USAF) does that. He might CALL the commander (typically at least a Lt. Col.) to fill him in on the details, but only if blood, alcohol, or sex were involved.
And Alyssa, there are only two condiments in my world: mayo and peanut butter. I firmly believe that everything tastes better with one or the other.
Oh, Blue, you had me till that bit about PB and mayo. :shudder:
Thank you to you and your husband for your service!
Exclamation points!!! I tried to read a Georgette Heyer regency once and I saw !!! after every sentence!!!
Then again, I’m guilty of same, esp online. Everything is LOL! and OMG!
I am ROLLING over the Prime Numbers Lady.
Let’s see … (heh). My irrational dislikes include: anyone lifting her chin in defiance, heroines who are described as “spunky,” and the word “nubbin.” The dubious verb “to fist,” as in “fisted her hands” always sounds a little pervy to me and bugs. Oh, and if the only Latino in a given book is the maid, pool boy, gardener, or a gangbanger, I will drop it in my driveway and run it over repeatedly.
Oh, and if the only Latino in a given book is the maid, pool boy, gardener, or a gangbanger, I will drop it in my driveway and run it over repeatedly.
So, so true.
Supreme Court Justice, baby!!!! Yeah!
Oops,
I forgot to add my pet peeve. If the book is set in England, I want it to have British spellings.
Oh, and if there’s the same descriptive word two times in one paragraph… Makes me twitch.
I discovered one in my own print copy and gasped in horror.
LOL, Alyssa!! Congrats again on the NYT list. That news is ALWAYS fabulous, no matter how often it happens (and I expect *many* times in your case, or at least 31 or 47 times
).
Also, I HATE celery. In every form. In anything.
Thanks! Don’t mind celery in Bloody Marys, but not really a fan otherwise.
Congratulations, Alyssa!
Loved this blog – great points to make.
My foible? Flame-haired. OMG. What is even remotely feminine or attractive about someone with their head on fire??? It just…. doesn’t work for me (the description, not red hair. Red hair is fine *g*) I will also admit to wildlife and landscape related foibles, particularly in Brit-set books – species of tree you don’t get where the writer has them growing, flowers that don’t flower at that season… but then, my degree’s in wildlife and landscape conservation, and I live in England. I can’t quite help myself…
Although I do like mayonnaise with fries.
Sorry.
Hi Alyssa. Great blog – it made me lol. As a reader I have a pet peeve – and that is prose with too many full stops. I know they are used to create suspense. But they really annoy me sometimes. See the last 2 sentances I just typed? Could have easily have used a comma right? Picky.Picky. I know. OMG I’m doing it now! Take care. Caroline x
This is a good post. It is nice to know we all have weird things we do, for example, I not only eat fries with mayo, I add ketchup too! LOL! It is a heart stopping habit I rarely indulge in, but occassionally I can’t resist it!
My writing hang up is military uniforms for contemporary fiction. If it is paranormal, sci-fi, another time and place okay, but if you are talking about a Marine and start giving them Army or other attire, I am out! LOL!
I guess that is the Marine deep down inside me waving the flag and pulling me out of the story. For that reason I read few military fiction books by only a select few authors.
I know a lot has to be made up, I write fiction, I get it. However, a little research can go a long way for authenticity.
No earrings in a dude’s ear if he is a Marine unless you have someone chewing his butt for it in another scene! LOL
Who knew uniforms made me crazy?