When an author sends me his or her galley, I know how hard it is.  It’s a difficult request to make, there’s some anxious waiting involved. I know because I’ve been in that place. So when a galley arrives at my house and finds its way into my pile, I feel a responsibility to that book and to the author who sent it.  If I can manage to read it and say a few kind words, I’m going to do that. So many great writers have been generous with me, how can I not do the same for others?

That said, my time is not always my own.  In the mommy writer balance, I am generally up by 5 AM to stay ahead of my pages, my deadlines, my personal goals, so that I can be fully present for my daughter when she’s not in school.  In the evenings, I often collapse into an exhausted heap.  So sometimes that stack of galleys grows beyond managing.  And I have to say the word I hate to say more than anything (chronic pleaser that I am): No.  Sometimes there simply are not enough hours in the day.

Here, a few words about the ones that got away from me in 2011:

Recently, I had dinner with editor extraordinaire Kate Miciak and her very talented author William Landay. It was a large group, and I didn’t get to chat with either of them as much as I would have liked.  Imagine my surprise when I got home and found a copy of Bill’s galley deep down in my pile, its blurb deadline long passed!  Imagine my even deeper dismay when I picked it up and realized it was AMAZING!  Luckily, I was able to fire off some words of praise – and apology.  Not that he needed it; everyone who read his book LOVED it.  His novel, DEFENDING JACOB, releases at the end of the month.  Do yourself a favor and read it, because it was truly one of the best books I read last year. More about this book: http://www.williamlanday.com

One of my favorite people, the delightful Sharon Potts sent me her manuscript THE DEVIL’S MADONNA a while back.  Okay … MONTHS ago (okay, six months ago.)  Because my recent past has been more harried and hectic than usual, I only recently — far past her deadline — started to read.  Of course, it’s terrific … a tightly written, suspenseful, thrill-ride with a completely shocking conclusion.  Doll that she is, Sharon mothered me through my apologies.  “Now, Lisa, I don’t want you to feel bad about this,” she wrote.  That Sharon.  She’s smart, funny, sweet and writes a heck of a thriller.  For more about Sharon: http://www.sharonpotts.com

I met Hank Phillippi Ryan at Bouchercon this past fall – and she’s fabulous.  I love her funny, wise voice as she tweets for @junglereds (a collection of seriously talented authors including Julia Spencer Fleming, Rhys Bowen, and Debra Crombie.) And when I met her in the real world, I immediately felt as if I’d known her forever.  I just recently came up for air and started the galley for Hank’s upcoming THE OTHER WOMAN. Just like Hank, heroine Jane Ryland is cool, plucky, and an ace investigative reporter.  (Hank won 27 Emmy Awards for her reporting for Boston’s NBC affiliate.)  And the book — with its brisk, tightly woven plot, and the smart, complicated woman at its center – is crackerjack.  Lisa Scottoline raved: “If you haven’t read Hank Phillippi Ryan yet, you should.”  I totally agree.  For more on Hank: www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

One of the things I love most about my profession is the way authors bolster and support each other.  Certainly, it’s a competitive business.  But I have found only encouragement and kindness from my fellow writers, and try to offer the same. My New Year’s resolution is to read faster and not let the pile get away from me. And if you send me your galley, and I can’t read it right away, don’t despair.  You might wind up in a blog like this.

Just to be clear:  I get it.  Christmas is a religious event, a celebration of the birth of Christ.  It’s a sacred day, one to be observed with gravity for those who hold certain beliefs.  I am not talking about that Christmas.  I am talking about Christmas as it has become in the secular world – giant, glimmering trees, department store Santas, the constant pressure to spend, the manic refrain of jazzy carols on loudspeakers, the glut of meaningless gifts, the buzz of rushing from one place to another to be sure that you’ve purchased absolutely everything you couldn’t possibly need.  That Christmas.

As crazy as it gets, I love the holiday season.  I love our tree, our years of collected ornaments, the lights in our palm trees and the moving polar bears on our lawn.  My daughter’s birthday is on Christmas Day (Please, don’t feel bad for her.  You have no idea.).  I love her excitement, the fact that she still believes in the magic of Santa, the joy on her face.  We all enjoy cooking and entertaining together.  We love to celebrate with our wonderful friends and family.  It is truly a joyous time for us.  But somehow, all that seems like a finish line, something that you get to after a mad and frenzied race.  I collapse into Christmas Day with exhaustion and relief.

Every year, I promise myself that it’s going to be different.  But as my life expands, so does my holiday checklist.  So, in order to center myself, I start each day with an hour-long meditation on gratitude.  No, not really!  I wish I were that Zen.  In fact, the minute I open my eyes I leap from bed and begin to run around like a crazy person.  My husband said to me the other day: “You know, honey, when things get really busy, and I feel like there’s too much to do, I find it’s best to just slow down.”  That did not seem like good advice to me.  I don’t think he’ll be offering it up again in the future.

But, secretly, I realized he was right – sort of (don’t tell him).  All this nuttiness. All this rushing around — we do it because we love our friends and families.  The impulse we all feel is the purest one, to give to the people we care about, to express our gratitude.  When we give a gift, we’re hoping that it carries an important message:  I love you and appreciate you.  And I thought really carefully about what might bring you a little joy this year.

My husband’s advice about slowing down might not be so insane after all (although, honey, someone still needs to do all this stuff).  Because when we take a moment, take a breath, and really think about what we’re doing at this time of year, it’s actually quite nice.  We’re taking time away from everything else we do to focus on other people and what we can give to them.  So even if the process, the stress, the endless checklists seem to have divorced us from the true meaning – well, the secular meaning — of Christmas, the spirit is alive and well within us.  Maybe when we’ve stopped caring about giving that we should worry that we’ve lost everything wonderful about the holidays.

So, here’s my holiday wish for you and yours.  I wish that every gift you give and receive perfectly expresses a sentiment of love.  I wish you guilt-free treats, and boisterous times with family and friends.  I wish that when you feel that mounting panic, you pause a second and realize how lucky you are to have too much to do and too many people to love.  And I wish that on Christmas night, after the gifts are opened, the meal is eaten, the dishes are cleaned, and the kids are asleep, that you take a seat and a good long … breath (you thought I was going to say drink, didn’t you?) and count your many blessings. That’s what I’ll be doing.

And just so you know, my readers, my friends, you are one of my greatest blessings.  Thank you for friendship, and your support.  And thank you, as always, for reading.

Happy Holidays,

Lisa Unger

Naturally, I’m thrilled that FRAGILE has been selected for what promises to be a series of fantastic crime fiction films.  TNT is a home for quality television (including the brilliant Tess Gerritsen’s “Rizzoli and Isles”).  And the lineup of actors for the first few movies is stellar, including Bill Pullman, Marcia Gay Harden, Al Molina, and Anne Heche.  I can’t wait to keep you posted as things shape up for FRAGILE.  But in the meantime, I’m over the moon that it has been optioned as part of this exciting television event.

I know you’ll want to tune in on November 29^th for Scott Turow’s Innocent.  I personally can’t wait!  I’ll be posting my thoughts on each of the movies as they air over the next few weeks. And feel free to chime in with your thoughts, too, on my Facebook page.

But let’s start with this: Who would you like to see in the movie version of FRAGILE?

After the plane was in the air, I opened my pen case to retrieve one of my favorite Marvy Le Pens, planning to take advantage of a very quiet two hours on the plane. But I found all my luscious black inky pens gone, replaced with about twenty well-used crayons.

If you ask my daughter what I do, she’ll tell you that I’m a mommy writer.  She’ll also tell you that she wants to be a mommy writer when she grows up (though she also wants to be a bee keeper, a snow shoe instructor, and plans to run a homeless shelter).  And I love the idea of that, the mommy writer.  She knows I’m her mom first, and everything else second.  And I’m doing it all happily enough that she wants to do it, too.

But the mommy writer balance is not an easy one.  If you want to do either well, each enterprise requires creativity, a heart full of love, boundless energy, and a serious dedication of time.  Before my daughter was born, nothing else ever rivaled my desire to write.  When she arrived on the scene, she quickly became the center of my universe, everything else revolving around her.  Finding a way to be the best mommy I can, and to be the best writer I can is a day-to-day balancing act.

Of course, every working mother knows the difficulty of straddling two worlds that exclude each other.  We make choices on a daily basis, and some of those choices are painful.  I have it easier than most.  My work is demanding, but my time is flexible.  And, once upon a time, I wrote while working another full time job.  So I’m no prima donna; I can write anywhere, any time, under any conditions. It’s a skill that comes in handy for the mommy writer.

I couldn’t stop being a writer when I became a mother. But now, I am a mother before everything else.  And what that means is that when I’m on the road, my girl is usually with me.

When I sit down to write (if she’s not in school) she might be coloring beside me.  If she’s sick or if she has something special going on at school, or it’s my day to be lunch mom, I write after she goes to bed or before she gets up. And if I find myself on a plane with nothing but crayons, I guess I can write in Jazzberry pink as well as in any other color.  ‘Cuz, mommy writers, that’s how we roll.

I’d love to hear about the creative ways you balance work and parenting.  Comment here or on my Facebook page!

What I’m reading:  A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

What I’m reading to Ocean:  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

What I’m listening to:  Nothing new or especially interesting.  Any suggestions?

No, it’s not a real place in New York. But, then again, neither is The Hollows.  The Hollows is a fictional town, a construct of my imagination.  It’s some hybrid of the place I grew up in and a kind of ideal location that I find myself fantasizing about occasionally.  And, beyond that, it is a place that has taken on a life of its own.  It has its own spirit and personality, much in the same way as my characters.

Because I have created it, I have to fill it with streets and businesses, and give it a geography that readers can visualize.  I have to give it a history, as well as a community vibe.  By this I mean: What’s it like to live in The Hollows? What do its residents have in common? What holds them together as a group? What tears them apart? How do they respond to tragedy?

So when it comes to naming places, like Pop’s Pizza or The Hollows Brew, or Grillmarks for instance, where is that coming from?  The best way I can explain it is this: The writer’s brain is like a stew, for lack of a more delicate analogy.  And everything I experience, see, hear, feel and imagine is an ingredient.  When I sit down at my keyboard, I am serving from that pot.

There was a Grillmarks near my home, and I have been there more than once. I think it has closed down.  It was a perfectly fine place to have a meal and gather with friends.  But it made no special impression on me other than that.  When I wrote it into The Hollows, it wasn’t that place exactly.  Nor, at the time, did I even remember that there was such a place.  In fact, I never thought about it at all, until Erin, my blogger pal brought it up this past weekend on Twitter.   It was a just a restaurant that Jones and Maggie had visited, and that was its name. Fictional people, in a fictional town, eating in a fictional restaurant.  But it’s all as real to me as anything in the actual world – maybe more so sometimes.  The Grillmarks in my book is more real to me than the actual Grillmarks.

It is not the first time this has happened.  In BEAUTIFUL LIES, Ridley had a dentist with certain qualities and traits.  He also had a name.  Coincidentally, it was also the name of a dentist I had visited locally.  And the character description wasn’t, apparently, very flattering.  I happened to meet his ex-wife at a book event, and she — with a good deal of glee — asked me if I had been describing the real dentist. It was absolutely not my intention.  I had changed dentists, and completely blanked out the other doctor’s existence.  He was a character in a book and nothing more; he belonged to me.  But there is no way whatsoever to explain that – not in polite conversation, or in 140 characters. Obviously.

All novels, at least for me, are a delicate balancing act between the real and the fictional.  I often write about real places, but because they are filtered through my imagination the telling of those places is not always completely factual. (Although I do strive for accuracy, especially in New York City, which is my heart’s hometown). I may want it to rain when it doesn’t rain often, or the sun to set at a particular time, or for a usually busy street to be deserted.  The real Angel Fire, NM is much further from Santa Fe than it is in ANGEL FIRE my first novel.  I liked the name of the town; I wanted it in my book.  So I moved it closer.

My fiction is informed and inspired by truth.  And my books are mosaics of the real and imagined.  Everything is autobiographical and nothing is.  In DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND teenager Willow Graves is a bit of storyteller.  Okay, she lies.  She reflects on this tendency: “The best lies contained a little bit of truth.  Some details but not too many.  More than that, though, you had to believe the lie yourself.  You had to be the lie.”  It’s really not so different in fiction.

(Thanks Erin for asking the question that made me think about this and put it down on the page!  If you’d like to read her blog, click here.)

On August 9th (the on-sale date for DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND), the first of four books I wrote as Lisa Miscione will become available in trade paperback and electronic editions.  A new book will be released every three months over the next year.

I am thrilled that these early books will have a place on bookshelves again, and that all my novels have a happy and loving home at Crown/ Broadway.  In some ways, these titles are very different from the Lisa Unger books (after all I was a different person back then … but weren’t we all?).  But I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much I enjoyed writing them.  I wanted to share with you the preface that will appear in the new, old books:

Preface

I was nineteen years old when I first met Lydia Strong.  I was living in the East Village, dating a New York City police officer and attending Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate school of the New School for Social Research.  I was sitting in a car, under the elevated section of the “1” line in the Bronx, waiting – for what I can’t remember.   But in my mind that day, I kept seeing this woman running past a church.  She was in New Mexico.  And all I knew about her was that she was a damaged person, someone in great pain.  Running, for her, was salve, religion, and drug.  That was Lydia.

I pulled a napkin and a pen from the glove compartment and started writing the book that would become ANGEL FIRE.   It took me ten years to write that novel, mostly because the years between age nineteen and twenty-nine were, for me, years of hard work and tumultuous change.  But also because during that time, I let my dreams of becoming a writer languish a bit. Lydia was faithful; she waited.

In spite of a first-rate education, a career in publishing, and a strong desire to write fiction, I didn’t know much of anything when I was writing my first novel. I don’t think you can really know anything about writing a novel until you’ve actually written one.  (And then you go to school again when you sit down to write your second, and your third, and so on.)  All I knew during that time was that I was truly fascinated by this woman occupying a place in my imagination, and I was deeply intrigued by her very dark appetites.  I was enthralled by her past, by the mysteries in her present, and why she wouldn’t let herself love the man who loved her.  There were lots of questions about Lydia Strong, and I was never happier over those ten years then when I was trying to answer them.

I was fortunate that the first novel I ever wrote was accepted by my (wonderful, brilliant) agent Elaine Markson, and that she fairly quickly brokered a deal for Angel Fire and my second, then unwritten, novel The Darkness Gathers.  I spent the next few years with Lydia Strong and the very colorful cast of characters that populate her life.  And I enjoyed every dark, harrowing, and complicated moment with them as I went on to write Twice, and then Smoke.

I followed Lydia from New Mexico, to New York City, to Albania, to Miami and back.  We trekked through the abandoned subway tunnels under Manhattan, to a compound in the backwoods of Florida, to a mysterious church in the Bronx, to a fictional town called Haunted.  It was a total thrill ride, and I wrote like my fingers were on fire.

I am delighted that these early novels, which I published under my maiden name, Lisa Miscione, have found a new life on the shelves and a new home with the stellar team at Broadway Books.  And, of course, I am thrilled that they’ve found their way into your hands.  I know a lot of authors wish their early books would just disappear, because they’ve come so far as writers since they first began their careers.  And I understand that, because we would all go back and rewrite everything if we could.

But I have a special place in my heart for these flawed, sometimes funny, complicated characters and their wild, action-packed stories.  I still think about them, and feel tremendous tenderness for even the most twisted and deranged among them. The writing of each book was pure pleasure.  I hope that you enjoy your time with them as much as I have.  And, thanks, as always, for reading.

Read an excerpt of the upcoming DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND!

Pre-order ANGEL FIRE ( Lisa Unger writing as Lisa Miscione ) at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders or Indiebound!

My job kept getting bigger and bigger, and I spent less time on my writing.  But I had the idea that I would try to write for a local newspaper.  So I queried them – again, and again, and again.  I sent letters, pitched articles, and followed up with phone calls.

Finally, I think they got tired of the girl who kept calling, looking for work.  “I’ll write about anything,” I said.  And I meant it.  Maybe it was my tenacity, my charm, or just my obvious desperation, but I got my first assignment.  I was asked to attend and to write about the first Seder dinner for a group of Russian Jewish immigrants finally free to practice their religion upon arriving the United States. I was so nervous and excited that I threw up in the bathroom before leaving my apartment.

I didn’t hear anything from my editor after I turned my article in, and I didn’t dare call.  What if he hated it?  What if it got cut because I did such an awful job?  Then he phoned to tell me the piece was going to run the following Monday.  On my way to the office (my real job) that day, I raced to the newsstand.  And there it was — The Riverdale Press, and on page three, the article I had written.  I carried that paper down the sidewalk, staring at my name, my first byline in an actual paper.  I floated through that day.

I think they paid me $25.00.  I would have done it for free.  I wanted to write that badly.  And that moment — standing on street looking at my name in print — was the shift between dreaming and doing.  It was a small step, to be sure.  It was one article in a tiny neighborhood paper.  But it changed the way I saw myself, and how I saw the possibilities of my life.  It was the first moment that I felt like a real writer.

Of course, there have been other magnificently thrilling moments in my career – when I was signed on by agent, my first book contract, the first time (and every time) I held a newly minted bound book with my name on the jacket, the day I hit the New York Times bestseller list. And each of those moments occupies a special place in my heart.  But none so much as that first byline. Because the sight of my name typeset on the page made me believe, for the first time, that I wouldn’t be a secret writer forever.

I read a great deal of non-fiction that winds up significantly informing my fiction writing.  I’m an information junkie, and gathering knowledge, as well as experience, is a key, if indirect, part of my process. Susan Casey’s new book got me thinking about some of my non-fiction favorites, and I wanted to share them with you.

I am afraid I’m giving you a window into how truly dark my mind is, but here you go:

My all time favorite:
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The hands down most fascinating and horrifying (and, oddly, one of funniest):
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Most enlightening:
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why by Lawrence Gonzalez

The most imagination tweaking:
The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth

Most educational and moving:
The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit by Donald Kalshed

The Inner World of Trauma was the cornerstone to my research for BLACK OUT. The Mole People was part of my inspiration for one of my early novels TWICE (published under my maiden name Lisa Miscione and about to be re-released by Broadway Books).  And I’d go so far as to say that In Cold Blood was one of my earliest and most important influences as a writer.  There are a lot of truly brilliant writers out there, tackling fascinating subject matter. I’m always so thrilled when I stumble upon something that moves, engrosses and educates me.  I hope some of these do the same for you.

What are some of your non-fiction favorites?

But for plenty of children, books are an unaffordable luxury.  Perhaps even a trip to the library might be out of reach.  That’s why when my friend and fellow author Alafair Burke invited me, and some of my favorite authors, to support an organization called First Book, I jumped at the chance.  First Book, a nonprofit organization, connects book publishers and community organizations to provide access to new books for children in need.  A very important cause, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Alafair’s friend created a sharp design for tee shirts, mugs, mouse pads and more, encouraging men to read books by female authors. Visit Read Women to see the super cool items for sale featuring Alafair Burke, of course, Lisa Gardner, Tess Gerritsen, Laura Lippman, Karin Slaughter, and me.

The whole enterprise seemed perfect to me.  Because two things I really don’t like to hear people say are 1) I don’t read, and 2) I don’t usually read books by women.  Both of these comments leave me feeling perplexed, and a little grumpy.

Anything you buy will profit First Book, so you’ll be helping put books in the hands of kids in need, and encouraging men to read books by women.  How can you go wrong?

What I’m reading:  The Wave by Susan Casey
What I’m listening to: Semi-Precious Weapons/ You Love You
What I’m reading to Ocean:  Ramona and her Father/ Beverly Cleary

As a mother, books are an important part of my life with my daughter Ocean.  We read every night, and we have literally since the day she was born.  This year, her sixth year, our reading time has taken on a magical quality.  She has made the shift from picture books to chapter books.  And suddenly we are laughing together over stories; she is asking questions far beyond what I would have expected of her, making inferences, thinking about plots long after the book is closed.  We recently finished Alice in Wonderland (A bit dark, I thought for a five year old.  She seemed to enjoy it, though there has been quite a bit of anxiety about The Queen of Hearts.  She’s not real. Right, Mommy?).  But, by far, her favorite books have been the Ramona series and the Ralph the Mouse series, by the incomparable Beverly Cleary.

Maybe not coincidentally these books were also my favorites as a kid.  I remember these stories with such clarity.  As I read them to Ocean, they feel like memories — such as when Ramona’s teacher tells her to “sit here for the present” and Ramona stays put for the whole day waiting for the mystery gift her teacher promised her, or Ralph’s nighttime ride through the hotel searching for an aspirin for the sick boy who gave him his beloved motorcycle.   Often, I can’t remember the plot of a book I read last month, but these books have stayed with me my whole life.

So Beverly Cleary turns 95 tomorrow.  Her books about children and family are simple, profound, funny, and rich with the emotions of her characters. They moved me as a young reader, and they are just as relevant and accessible to my daughter.

I loved this article in the New York Times today about this accomplished and beloved author.

I still don’t know what makes a book great, but I have a feeling Beverly Cleary does.