Bailout

Most of us have experienced serious financial and emotional repercussions from the current worldwide financial meltdown. I am developing a talk for church and synagogue women's and men's clubs titled "Emotional bailout: Coping with recession." The presentation will draw parallels between economic concepts and psychological constructs, e.g., consumer confidence and trust; wall street panic and anxiety disorders; bear markets and depression, financial capital and ego strength; liquidity and amotional lability. The major thrust of the talk will be using psychological treatment strstegies and positive psychology to avoid anxiety, depression, panic, impulsity, and hysteria, both in the marketplace and intrapsychicly. It is expected that this topic will be relevant for quite some time.

On book covers

As previously indicated here, I have a novel due out hopefully by year end.
Like others, I found the creative process exciting and the editing akin to torture. I knew this would be the case from the onset. I did not anticipate the need to be actively involved in the cover design.

The publisher, Eloquent books, assigned my cover to an artist located in Boca Raton.
While Kurt did not read the book, I supplied him with a brief synopsis.I also suggested that, since the story centered around a therapist and a client, both with hidden emotional baggage, it might be approrpaite to draw profiles of each protagonist facing each other as in treatment. I further suggested that each head include a brain and within the brain a small figure or homunculous, representing unconscipous motivations.
The drawing that Kurt did was striking. Two x-ray heads revealed teeth, upper vertebrtae and brains with homunculi. These were imposed upon a black background. The drawing was excellent and would likely sell books. However the entire effect was sinister, menacing and Stephen Kingish. While the book has some violence, it is not a horror story. I e-mailed Kurt and explained politely that the drawing was great but conveyed the wrong impression. The therapist was, in fact, a kind and caring man. I asked if he could soften the picture to better depict a therapist. Kurt tried again and used a photograph of a very distingushed grey haired, grandfatherly man. Since my own picture will appear on the back cover,
and I cannot, by any stretch of theimagination, compete with Dr. Kindness, again I demurred. One photograph was enough. I waited several weeks and again made a third suggestion. Kurt took it well but must have been growing tired of me and my suggestions. Since the first part of the book depicts the early childhood, education and training of the therapist,I suugested three line drawings of a boy, a young man, and an elderly man, depicting the same person evolving as a therapist. I further suggested a dark, starry sky as background, with a comet and tail in the upper corner. The comet makes sense because of some later developments in the story, which I choose not to reveal here.
I await the third and, God willing, final version of my cover.

On choosing a cover

My novel Shrink is undergoing a final editing. I spent the better part of two weeks re-writing what I thought was a near perfect copy until I solicited and paid for professional editing. Lacey was extraordinary. I expected the editing of typos, granmatical and punctuation errors. These were in no short supply and made right. What i did not expect were the numerpus suggestions for improving the writing. Clarifications, changes in sequence, greater elaboration, and numerous deletions
were suggested.

On writing and editing

A publisher once explained that 30% of a writer's effort on a book manuscript should be devoted to writing,10% to editing, and 60% to marketing. My experience with Shrink,a psychological novel, hopefully to be out by year end, has been different. After doing self-editing on two previous books that appeared with several misspellings, I decided to pay for professional editing on Shrink, my first, novel. The publisher steered me to Lacey. She wasn't cheap but the experience was unique. Still enmeshed in making the hundreds of changes she suggested, I would place the 10%estimate at double that amount of time.
Lacey was extraordinary. Her critique was accompanied by detailed explanations of reasons why I should make each change. She never sugar coated or pulled her punches.
At times I found myself wanting to shout back at her but in the end she was usually accurate. I feel as if I am enrolled in a graduate level writing seminar. The most telling lessons I learned about writing and about my own style, which I seldom questioned, was that I commit two errors, repeatedly--"information dumping" and "point of view."
I tend to be professorial in describing the historical or psychological background for diagnoses, therapies, ethical considerations, and the like. My model is Dan Brown (The Davinci Code, Angels and Demons, a far better writer than I will ever be. Enmeshed in his stories are detailed mathematical, historical, philisophical, and theological background "Information dumps." It is these that endear Brown's novels to me. Lacey would not be so enamoured of him as I. "They slow down the story" she screams at me (in text). "I forget what I have been reading." Her advice is to embed the information in the story,if it is important. If it doesn't add to the story, delete it. Both of these options are difficult. The first for technical the second for emotional reasons. I get attached to what I put in print.

"Point of view" refers to whose perception of events is being presented. I tend to switch without warning or segue. In one scene my villain is involved in an automobile accident and is knocked unconscious. I describe the arrival of ambulance, paramedics, the jaws of life, and trip to the hospital. "How is all of this known? Where were you?" Lacey asks sarcastically, "In a balloon overhead?"

I have no idea how Shrink will be received or whether I will be able to devote all the marketing time needed. Whatever the outcome, Lacey has made this novel immeasurably better than I had done on my own.