Lisa Lenard-Cook's Blog, page 2

Writer’s Digest Book’s publication of The Mind of Your Story: Discover What Drives Your Fiction was gorgeous: cloth cover, four-color interior—even illustrations. Writer’s Digest made it a book club selection, and they took me to BEA in LA. But then F + W began to restructure. Yup, 2008: the year not just the financial world, but the publishing world, got turned on its ear.

Within two years, a book that had sold 10,000 copies right out of the gate had been remaindered. I bought a slew of copies for cents on the dollar—and ran out. Now I prowl Amazon and Abebooks for cheap copies to sell when I teach at conferences. But they’re running out, too. I got my rights back, but then, you know that already. Now what?

A few months ago, one of my clients suggested I contact a major educational publisher about the book. That her husband works for this publisher and had talked it up to the Executive Editor meant I had an in, and I took it. A few weeks ago, though, the editor let me know that they, too, are restructuring. So, while he “loved” the book, he couldn’t make me any promises right now. Did I want to wait, or did I want to move on?

I told him that, as much as I’d love to publish the book with his house, I was almost out of copies, and had to keep looking. Which means I’m now exploring Plans B, C, D, and E.

I’ve talked to a POD publisher who, for an up-front fee, will convert the book for all e-versions (Kindle, Nook, etc.) as well as a POD paper one. I’d earn a percentage of net for each book, probably less than $1 a copy, which isn’t bad. The problem is the way the product would look: After examining other books she’s produced, I know I wouldn’t be happy.

It happens that I’m one of the editors of a small press (Bosque Press), and now that we’ve produced three annual issues of bosque (the magazine), could easily use this imprint to re-issue The Mind of Your Story. But there are so many time-consuming aspects to this route, I sigh every time I think about it.

A fourth possibility has presented itself in the form of a friend who recently started a book packaging business. We’re discussing possible trades—she helps me re-issue The Mind of Your Story; I help her market her novel. I like this idea. But first I want to explore the fifth option, to query other publishers I know.

When this friend and I met a few weeks ago, I told her that, when it comes to publishing, authors need to stop thinking in terms of reinventing the wheel. Instead, we need to reimagine what we already have. That’s what I want to do with The Mind of Your Story. And that’s where all of you come in. What would you do, in my place? Wait for the big publisher who loves the book? Go with the POD publisher? Publish under my own imprint? Work with the packager? Or talk to a few more traditional publishers before I decide? Please post your responses—these are questions not only I, but all of us, face.

New posts in Repaving the Road to Publishing appear the second or third week of each month. Hope you’ll check back.

Welcome to The Lonely Writer’s Companion. The format’s simple: You send in your questions, and each month I’ll select one to answer. Email your questions c/o [email protected]. (Be sure to put “Question for The Lonely Writer’s Companion” in the subject line.) You can also contact me through my website, www.lisalenardcook.com.

Question: I just joined a critique group. I got so much feedback on my mystery-in-progress, I don’t know where to begin. I was so overwhelmed, I don’t even know if I want to go back to the group. What makes for a good critique? – Mary W.

The Lonely Writer responds: Entire books have been written to answer this question (one good one is Becky Levine’s The Writing and Critique Group Survival Guide), but the Lonely Writer will nonetheless attempt to condense the issues into a one-page answer. The first issue is what you, Mary, want from a critique group. Are you seeking praise? Validation? Camaraderie? Or are you looking for feedback that will help you push your work to the next level, from writers who become as engaged in your work’s evolution as you are?

The best critique groups will focus on the latter, and beginning critique groups can benefit from having a more seasoned writer guide them. In The Mind of Your Story, I list seven commandments for critique groups… (read more)

Our writing lives or dies by its details. Too many and your reader yawns, skips a few pages, or puts your book down. Too few and she can’t conjure a picture in her head. As with so many other aspects of writing, Sue Grafton’s a master of the telling detail, providing just enough for readers to imagine the rest.

Take this description of a small-town café in G is for Gumshoe: “The lights in the café were just blinking on, vibrant green neon spelling out the word CAFÉ in one convoluted loop, like a squeeze of tooth gel. I could see a waitress in a pale pink uniform scratch her backside at the height of a yawn. The highway was empty and I crossed at a casual pace.”

Notice how we’re in motion with the point-of-view character here, walking across the highway toward the café. The time of day is clearly just before dawn (the reader already knows this, but the chosen details here add to the effect). Now count how many details there are: (1) the lights; (2) the waitress’s uniform, (3) scratch, and (4) yawn; and (5) the empty highway. Five simple details, from which each of us has, with Kinsey Millhone, crossed a pre-dawn highway toward a very specific café.

Here’s a very different example, from K is for Killer (Beauty is a dog; Kinsey’s entering a radio station at night, where Hector, a DJ, is working): “At the station, I let myself in. Hector had left the door ajar, and the foyer lights on. I went down into the twilight of the stairwell with my paper packet of bones. Beauty was waiting for me when I reached the bottom. She was the size of a small bear, her dark eyes bright with intelligence. Her coat was red gold, the undercoat puffy and soft. When she saw me, her fur seemed to undulate and she emitted a low, humming growl. I watched her lift her head at the scent of me. Without warning she pursed her lips and howled, a soaring note of ululation that seemed to go on for minutes. I didn’t move, but I could feel my own fur bristle in response to her keening. I was rooted to the bottom step, my hand on the rail.”

Unlike Grafton’s Kinsey, I’m not afraid of dogs, but this scene makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, just as it does Kinsey’s. Not only is the reader frozen on that stairway with Kinsey, word-wise, Grafton spends a lot of time on specific details here—because one detail in particular turns out to be important.

Mystery writers plant plenty of red herrings, spending the same amount of time on details that won’t pan out as those that will. But whenever those details elicit a reader’s shiver, as those above do, pay attention, not only for the sake of your read but because, if you’re a writer, you’ll want to strive to do the same thing.

By the way, if you’re wondering how I pick citations for this blog, it’s entirely unscientific. I grab a few books from the long row in the guestroom bookcase, then, one at a time, flip through pages until a passage leaps out at me. It’s always the right one, but that’s because Grafton has so many to choose from.

The third week of next month, the Sue Grafton Project will look at E, which in my book (or rather, my blog) is for Enemies. I hope you’ll join me.

What is it with writers and marketing? Why are we so reluctant to learn how to help sell the books we spent years perfecting? And why (conversely?) are we put off by those who do?

My answers to these questions may be basic Psych 101, but you may not have considered marketing from this point of view before. First of all, as those who’ve read my books, columns, and earlier blog posts already know, most writers are introverts. That means we love sitting here, alone, making stuff up. It means that when we do go out in the world, we’ve either learned to switch on our extrovert, pretend we’re a more extroverted friend (that’s what I did, until it came naturally), or blush and stammer our way through until we can safely run back to our hidey-holes.

Sure, we imagine Oprah choosing our books. We can see ourselves talking to Ellen or Terry. We may even know what we’re wearing (we do have vivid imaginations, after all). But those things happen because our book is so damned good, not because we—heaven forbid!—put ourselves out there. Self-promotion is so…so…pushy. We wouldn’t dream of being pushy. It’s up there with being bossy and aggressive and all those other things our mothers said we oughtn’t be—especially if we’re female.

Which brings us to the second question—why are we put off by those who do self-promote? The answer to this question is more interesting. Sure, our mothers are whispering in our ears. But, as I’ve become more comfortable on Facebook, I’ve noticed two very different kinds of self-promotion.

There are those who post regularly, whether memorable quotes from famous writers, links to writing advice, blog posts, photos of their dogs, their hikes, their weather, their kitchens, their cocktails (is it time yet?), and their successes and failures. Some of them we get to know better virtually than we ever did in person—and we grow to like them more, too. We laugh at their foibles and cry at their losses (often wishing there was a “don’t like” button)—because they’re our friends.

Then there are those we hardly ever see. Until, that is, they self-publish their latest book. Or win a prize in Kalamazoo (sorry, Kalamazoo—just wanted to pick a cool-sounding name). Or are published by a traditional press. Or win a prize in New York. Whether these milestones are large or small, the fact that they’re the only thing this person posts makes us cringe. Because they’re not sharing their lives—they just want us to improve theirs.

Now, the thing is, self-promotion is part of the contemporary writing life. Who’s going to know if our new book is good is we don’t let them know it exists? One way or another, we’ve got to become comfortable with sharing our news—not just the milestones, but the little stuff, too. If you’re like me, you’re not by nature a sharer—it’s so much easier (and safer) to record your hurt, anger, and disappointments in a notebook no one else will ever see. But your friends—your real friends—will love your scars as much as your beauty marks (but please—no selfies of either).

So post away, my introverted friends. I love seeing your kids, dogs, cats, birds, sunrises, sunsets, irises, roses, cottonwoods, creeks, canyons. I will always remember your birthday and your anniversary, often know your favorite band and your favorite color, laugh at the video of you trying to parallel park. And, I will buy your book, as soon as you let me know it’s out.

Just ask my friends.

New posts in Repaving the Road to Publishing appear the second week of each month. Hope you’ll check back.

I’ve found that every seed for my writing has been planted because of something I don’t know. This began when I was young, and, rather than answer my endless questions, my parents chose to say things like, “You don’t want to know,” or, “It’s none of your business.”

Is there any better way to feed the imagination, especially the vivid imagination of a writer (or future writer)? Think about a circumstance where you saw or heard something out of context, or about which you’d never be able to learn more. Did you begin to imagine why this person had said this, or done that? Of course you did.

I’d argue that not just fiction, but memoir, too, begins is what we don’t know. Why did ___ do that to me? Why didn’t I fight back? Was no one else around? If so, what did they think? Or didn’t they care, and if so, why didn’t they?

I’m reminded, as I often am, of my favorite definition of fiction, from Robie McCauley and George Lanning’s Technique in Fiction:

Fiction originates in direct personal impression

linked by imagination

with the writer’s resources of experience.

Writing begins with that direct personal impression—something that resonates for you, personally, that in turn fires up your imagination. When you add your resources of experience—how you’ve felt when you’ve been happy, sad, angry, or lonely, for example—you can’t help but create a work—again, whether fiction or memoir—that will resonate with readers.

So don’t write what you know. Instead, write what you don’t know, and your imagination will take you—and your readers—places you’ve never been.

  If you’re a Sue Grafton fan, I don’t need to show you how she’s developed her recurring characters, including Kinsey Millhone, Kinsey’s landlord Henry Pitts and her various love interests, or the aunt who raised her. Instead, I’d like to look at a few of the one-offs, whether they’re killers, victims, sideshows, or sidekicks.

In A is for Alibi, Kinsey becomes involved with a lawyer who’s investigating the same case as she. Grafton introduces him this way: “Charlie Scorsoni … had thick, sandy hair…a solid jaw, cleft chin…blue eyes … … He was tilted back in his swivel chair with his feet propped up against the edge of the desk, and his smile was slow to form and smoldered with suppressed sexuality.” Notice the last bit—the first time Kinsey sees Charlie, she’s already being “smoldered.”

For me, one of the most unforgettable characters in the series is Guy Malek in M is for Malice. Kinsey offers this ominous last impression of him:

“He leaned over and brushed my cheek with his lips. I cold feel the soft scratch of his whiskers against my face and I caught a whiff of his aftershave.

“He said, ‘Bye-bye and thanks.’ Before I could respond, he was out of the car, shoulders hunched up against the wind as he moved to the gate. He turned and waved and then he was swallowed up by the dark.”

Here, notice the mix of everyday details (his whiskers and aftershave) contrasted with dark foreshadowing (those “hunched-up” shoulders, that wind, “swallowed up by the dark”).  These reveal not only character but also serve plot, because every detail in a strong narrative employs every aspect of craft.

In  R is for Ricochet, Kinsey is asked by Reba Lafferty’s wealthy, very ill, father to help Reba adjust to life outside prison. After the drive back from picking up Reba, there’s this exchange, which as any alphabet series reader will tell you, is not just a bonding experience but possible evidence of a soulmate:

Kinsey: “We have time for lunch…”

Reba: “McDonald’s. I’d kill for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”

Finally, in S is for Silence, we meet Violet Sullivan, who disappeared in 1953. Kinsey’s first impression of Violet is provided by a black-and-white photograph: “The print…showed a woman in a floral-print sleeveless dress, smiling into the camera. Her hair, which could have been any color, was a medium-dark tone, long and gently wavy. She was small and pretty in a 1950s kind of way, more voluptuous than we’d consider stylish in this day and age. Over one arm she carried a straw tote from which a tiny fluffy pup appeared, staring at the camera with bright black eyes.” Pay attention to that dog, reader. It’s important.

What do all these descriptions have in common? Sure, we get physical characteristics—hair, eyes, height, dress—but what brings these characters to life is the point of view from which we see them, a singular head-on look through the eyes of one character—Kinsey Millhone.

Used properly, point of view is one of the best ways to reveal character and characters. Savvy readers will recognize that they’re getting only one side of the story and fill in the blanks—or, in the case of an alphabet mystery, suspect something Kinsey doesn’t.

In several of her later books, Grafton chooses to give us others’ points-of-view in addition to Kinsey’s. In S is for Silence, we get the points-of-view of those who knew Violet around the time she disappeared, while in T is for Trespass, we see Kinsey from the point-of-view of Solana Rojas, who’s slipped into another’s identity for less-than-legal purposes.

Initially, I wasn’t sure how I felt about these point-of-view shifts—and I would continue to discourage students writing mysteries to try them—because one of the joys of reading mysteries in discovering each clue along with the protagonist. But, as I read, I could almost feel Grafton itching to climb out of Kinsey’s head this far along in the series. Plus, the backstories in S work, and Solana’s POV in T gives us a view of Kinsey we’ve never had before.

The third week of next month, the Sue Grafton Project will look at D, which, as all writers know, is for Details. I hope you’ll join me.

Procrastination doesn’t mean one isn’t thinking about possibilities; rather, she’s just not following through on any of her ideas. In the case of Dissonance, I’d considered an electronic version, an audiobook, and a paperback version through Bosque Press (which I co-edit), among other venues. A friend in the publishing industry was making queries, for which I’d pay her agenting fees if anything evolved from her efforts. But I wasn’t giving it a hard push. Hard pushing is for the writing. Trying to sell stuff? Not so much. No: not at all.

But then, one day, a Santa Fe Writers Project newsletter arrived in my inbox. Maybe it was because I had time. (This is a line from Dissonance.) Maybe I had an intuitive nudge. Whatever the reason, I not only read that newsletter all the way through, I clicked on each link and read where it lead.

I found one link particularly riveting: the story of Andrew Gifford’s journey to start SFWP. A scion of the Gifford’s Ice Cream family in Washington DC, Andrew’s life was upended when his father disappeared, destroying the family business and leaving Andrew’s mother destitute. Then Andrew learned he had a debilitating nerve disorder that resulted in nonstop, excrutiating pain. After years of suffering, he decided to try an experimental surgery at Johns Hopkins. It succeeded. And Andrew knew he had to make good on his vow to start a publishing house.

I’m not one to be bowled over by stories about overcoming difficulties. In fact, I dislike those human interest features during the Olympics so much I hardly watched the games at all this year. But something about Andrew’s story touched me. And this time, there was a definite intuitive nudge. Keep reading, it said.

So it was that I clicked to see what books SFWP had published. I discovered that Andrew had a particular passion for reissuing titles that had had critical acclaim but less-than-stellar sales their first time around. Richard Curry. Pagan Kennedy. Alan Cheuse. I could hang out here, I thought.

Submission links led to a number of SFWP contests that were closing at the end of that month, to its literary journal, and last, to general submissions. I read the guidelines for each carefully, then selected general submissions. Without further aforethought, I uploaded the most recent version of Dissonance, a bio, and clicked submit.

Five minutes later, I got an email from Andrew. Are you sure you’re in the right place?

Yes, I responded.

Do you own the rights?

Yes, I responded.

Andrew details what happened next in a blog post of his own, which you can read here.

SFWP will be reissuing Dissonance in paperback and e-versions in September 2014. You can bet I’ll keep you posted.

This is a tough love post. If that scares you, don’t read on. But if you want your work to connect with readers, you must.

When someone I don’t know asks if I’ll work with them, I ask them to send me a page of their work.

One page? How can I possibly know anything from one page?

How could I not?

Ask any editor or agent and you’ll hear the same thing, sometimes with even stricter parameters. More than one agent has told me she reads the first sentence, and only if she likes that will she read on. If she’s not hooked by the end of the first paragraph, she’s out of there.

This is not a paean to a magical first sentence. Nor am I advocating for the “hook,” which I think is overrated and often, counter-productive. Here’s a list of what I, as a reader, writer, editor, teacher, and mentor, demand of everything I read, published or unpublished. You might want to print it and hang it above your desk.

1. Voice is paramount. The best voices meld author, narrator, and point of view character so seamlessly that those who don’t study writing won’t notice. Those of us who do will take apart the text in order to see how it’s done.

2. Mystery keeps readers reading. I’m not referring to the genre, but rather to the questions that propel plot. Not just your entire manuscript, but every scene, must rise in action, from the moment it begins. Especially your first one.

3. Characters are people readers immediately want to learn more about. This applies to life, too—think of those with whom you love to spend time versus those you’d rather avoid. This doesn’t mean characters have to be likable. It does mean they have to be vivid. Especially the first time we meet them.

4. Mastery of craft, all aspects of craft, including not only the above, but point of view, setting, pacing, front story, backstory, and, and, and. You cannot shirk any aspect of craft if you want to be published. There are no exceptions.

5. Grammar, spelling, and tense agreement, and 6. Adherence to standard formatting. It pains me to have to include these last two items, but when I look at a manuscript that contains more than a few typos or uses a non-standard font, the lack of respect for me as a reader just pisses me off. If you’re not good at grammar, ask someone who is to help you. Give them something you’re good at, in exchange. If you don’t know what I mean by “standard formatting,” Google it.

If your first page doesn’t contain every one of the above, it needs work. Don’t pay me or someone else to tell you so, and don’t waste money sending a manuscript to contests when it doesn’t yet include all these important aspects of craft.

How do you learn to master these aspects of writing?

All of us at some point set out to write without knowing all the basics. But those of us who’ve been published apprenticed ourselves in one or more of the above ways. If you’re in a hurry to publish, fine. There are now plenty of avenues for you to do so. But if you care about the quality of your work, and how your finished product reflects on your own integrity, if you care whether you’re going to connect with readers—lots of readers—then you’ve got to master the skills, from basic to sophisticated, that every writer you admire has learned.

Editors and agents are underpaid and overworked. They aren’t looking for raw potential. They’re looking for writers who’ve done the hard work of translating what’s in their heads onto the page in a way that engages readers and doesn’t let them go.

You know in your gut if your work is doing this or not. If it’s not, don’t send it out. Let it simmer, revise, and rewrite, and someday, if you worked hard at it, you will succeed. I promise.

Here’s a nice surprise. When I went to update my website this past weekend, a note from Sue Grafton herself was waiting for me. “I’m pleased, flattered, and curious” about the Sue Grafton Project, she wrote. Was there anything she could do to help?

After I let her know this month’s blog topic, Grafton generously shared some notes of her own about backstory in a mystery series. So, this month, let’s begin with Sue herself.

Every mystery takes place on three levels: what really happened, what appears to have happened, and how the sleuth figures out which is which. I start with what really happened because until I’m thoroughly acquainted with that core story line, I can’t proceed.  The tricky aspect to murder (from both the killer’s and the writer’s point of view) is that the drive to take a life is usually critically important to the perpetrator of the crime. And if the determination is that strong, it’s usually obvious to the police who are very very smart. So the question is, how does the killer disguise his motive? If s/he’s driven by strong emotion, chances are someone else is aware of it which puts the killer in danger of being caught. If the motivation is money, that’s easily traced…unless the writer has a clever way to hide it. To cover a crime or to protect someone else? The set-up becomes more interesting. There are other motives, of course, but you need something solid and credible to jump-start a novel…and it better be subtle at the same time.

As if this thoughtful analysis weren’t enough, Sue sent me another email a little later, where she added, Most literary killers don’t have big stinkin’ public fights with their victims mere days before they do the deed. Most of us inclined to homicide are much more devious.

Note that Grafton does not consider backstory to be everything that ever happened to a character, but only what matters to this particular story. I mention this because, when writers realize just how much backstory can inform front story, they often get carried away. I could name a number of recently published books (all, for some reason I’ll not explore here, by men) where backstory meanders hither and yon—even though its bearing on what’s at stake in the novel matters only to the author.

Whether you’re writing character-driven literary fiction or plot-driven genre fiction, what happened before the book began is the reason the narrative begins where it does. In a murder mystery, there’s gotta be a body—and a killer—and there’s a lesson there for all of us. What happened before that brings us to this particular now? Thank you, Sue Grafton, for reminding me—and our readers—that backstory is the key to a front story that works.

The third week of each month for the foreseeable future, I’ll be blogging about the Sue Grafton Project, and what rereading the alphabet series has taught me about writing. Next month, I’ll be looking at C…for Characters. Hope you’ll join me!

The discovery that all is not what it seems is often first step in the making of a writer.

-Fintan O’Toole

February 15th 3:00 pm          Bookworks     Albuquerque

a conversation with Charlotte Gullick, author of By Way of Water (SFWP, 2013)

Charlotte has been called “the current John Steinbeck.” Please join us as we talk about writing, teaching, & her recently reissued award-winning novel. Charlotte will read & sign as well.

February 20th             7:00 pm          Bookworks     Albuquerque

bosque (the magazine) vol. 3 launch party

I’ll be back at Bookworks with my ABQ Writers Co-op partner Lynn C. Miller to celebrate the third annual issue of bosque. Some of the writers included in this issue will be joining us, including this year’s bosque Fiction Prize winner Nancy Allen and bosque Discovery Phyllis Skoy, Colorado poet David Feela, and local writers Sue Hallgarth, Bev Magennis, Ruth Rudner, and Kelly Yenser. Please join us.

March 1st – 31st                      fourth annual bosque fiction contest

Please visit the ABQ Writers Co-op website to learn how you can enter our annual short fiction contest. This year’s judge is Manuel Muñoz. We’ve awarded over $3500 in prizes. Will you be the next winner?

March 31st – April 5th         National Undergraduate Literature Contest      Ogden

NULC offers the opportunity to present critical and creative work to an audience of like-minded individuals from around the country. With Ron Carlson and Bret Anthony Johnston, I’m honored to be a featured speaker this year.

May 17th – 18th                       ABQ Writers Co-op Spring Writing Mini-Retreat

Three consecutive master classes over two days will offer you the opportunity to meet with other writers, share your work, and hone your writing. Lynn C. Miller will offer a class called Context Meets Structure, Hilda Raz will explore the short forms, and I’ll be helping writers with time, pacing, and the minds of their stories and poems.

June 7th – 12th                                    Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference

One of the country’s premier writing conferences reconvenes at the Hyatt Santa Barbara for a week of workshops, panels, talks from writers like Thomas McGuane, Sue Grafton, Fannie Flagg, and T. C. Boyle, and meetings with agents and editors. My morning workshop, Discovering the Mind of Your Story, is a rollicking exploration of craft in your work and others’.

July 18th – 20th                                   Taos Writers’ Conference

For the first time, I’ll be teaching a weekend workshop about revision and rewriting techniques at another of the country’s premier writing conferences. Class sizes are limited, so you’ll want to register early to ensure a place.

October                              Santa Fe Writers Project reissues Dissonance (A Novel)  Eleven years after UNM Press first published Dissonance, Santa Fe Writers Project will be reissuing the book in paperback and electronic editions. Launch parties in Washington DC, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque are in the works as well as a book tour and book group visits.

Looking for my books? My first recommendation is always your favorite local indy bookstore. (Mine, as you may have gathered, is Bookworks in Albuquerque.) Other favorites include Under Charlie’s Covers and Home at the Range in Bernalillo, Garcia Street Books and Collected Works in Santa Fe, Maria’s in Durango, Changing Hands in Tempe, Chaucer’s in Santa Barbara, A Clean Well-Lighted Place in Corte Madera and San Francisco, Kepler’s in Menlo Park, Talking Leaves in Buffalo, and Tattered Cover in Denver. You also can order my books directly through my website. If you’re looking for a signed copy, whether for yourself or as a gift, please email me.

Teaching, editing, & coaching have become a still more integral part of what I do, so much so that the stack of my students’ published books is now two stacks. I’m very proud of my students—you can find links to their websites on mine.

If you’ve written, rewritten, & revised to the point where it’s time for an editor or coach, please email me. I’d love to help you complete the process.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a writing prompt. So grab a pen or open a new document, and, without further thought, explore the following: All writing begins with the things we can’t get out of our heads. Are there things you wished you’d said, or things you wish you never had? If you could turn back time or see into the future, how would change those conversations? Ready? Begin.

Last, thanks to all of you who’ve asked what happened to my newsletter. You’re right—it’s been years. I’d love your feedback, so don’t hesitate to email me with comments or suggestions, as I plan to send out newsletters every season.

Happy Valentine’s Day!