This is a question that a lot of kids ask each other at one point or another. I know when I was a very young teen, I briefly went through that phase. Often, it’s just a fun socialization game. Other times, it leads to kids thinking they know how to hold a seance or operate an Ouija board.

But what if someone really could do it? What if someone was convinced they could actually call forth the dead for a nice little interview, or a fireside chat?

What would the dead say? And would the living really want to hear it? And what would you give to have that conversation? Would you go to GoldFellow cash for gold? Give up a prized possession? Would you regret it after you did?

Food for thought. And a question that may be explored, fictionally, in the near future.

This is where a novel can either rise or fall. If it rises, the story will build suspense as the action escalates and none of the characters will really violate who they’ve been established to be. Their believability will be maintained, even as they choose actions beyond the norm.

Alternatively, if the characters don’t drive the story developments, this is where everything could unravel, unwind and unsettle readers enough to decide that the journey’s just not worth the ride.

It’s a delicate time, so I’m trying to proceed with a mixture of confidence and caution. If I get the mix right, things will go well for EMBER and the book will indeed spark interest in sequels. If not, well… let’s not go there, save to say I may need to find a safe fat burner for all the excesses in my manuscript.

But hopefully my plot matches the characters well enough that that won’t be necessary. It’s an exciting time.

Well, that’s not quite true. I can do it. But then I lose focus and my progress on my novel suffers an interruption that usually derails me for a while even after the short story is written.

Sure, some folks can write a novel, while also working on a collection of weight loss success stories and a handful of guest blogs and the like. Me? I’m a writer who thrives when I’m tightly focused. That’s just how I work best.

It arrived far faster than expected and I am now loading it up with a couple games, Kindle for Android and an Office-compatible writing app so I can get ideas down when I am away from my laptop or home desktop.

Now to finish EMBER, get it published, and start work on the follow-up, so that I can get some cashflow flowing my way from my writing, and maybe be able to upgrade to an unlimited data plan so I don’t have to watch my bandwidth.

But let me just pause to say that I am indeed thrilled with my G2 Droid. It makes my old phone seem about as useful as rain boots in a blizzard.

I’m all for giving readers the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision, but for the most part, I’m against doing that through the use of a disclaimer in a book blurb. Here’s why: the purpose of a book blurb is to enchant a reader with enough of a taste of the sort of content they will discover when they buy your book, so that they make the decision to click the Buy button.

Nothing about a disclaimer enhances a purchase decision. No matter what sort of content you’re trying to alert the reader to, all a disclaimer achieves is to alert the reader to: oops, there’s a reason you might not want to hit the Buy button.

Instead, I think through a cleverly-worded book blurb, once can achieve the same informational effect without the negative impact of a disclaimer.

For example, if one has a novel in which there will be a fair amount of sex and violence, tell me which of the following approaches seems more intriguing. (I’m making up the following example.)

MURDER AT KITCHEN STADIUM

All her life, Janice Smith wanted to own a restaurant, so when she accepted the opportunity to compete against some of the world’s top chefs on the Food Network, it was a dream come true for the south Philly sous chef. Then, when the host of the popular cooking competition is found with a knife in his chest in the green room, suspicion is cast on every competitor!

DISCLAIMER: This novel contains foul language, violence and adult situations that might be disturbing to younger readers.

Sounds like a nice cozy mystery, right up until the disclaimer, right? And the disclaimer is a head-turner, and could turn a likely sale into a no-sale. The save the date cards are wasted after that punch-out-of-left-field.

However, try this on for size:

MURDER AT KITCHEN STADIUM

Janice Smith grew up on the mean streets of South Philly; she never had anything handed to her, scraping her way up from hostess to sous-chef at any cost. Until she was invited to appear on the Food Network, that is. The chance to make a name for herself against some of the world’s top chefs seemed like a dream come true, until the host turned up dead in the green room. Now, Janice’s take-no-prisoner manner and juvenile hall background make her a natural suspect; will she find herself framed for murder, or can Janice not only prove her innocence, but that her cuisine deserves to reign supreme before the cameras roll?

See, this was done quick and sloppy, but with a few key words as tip-offs, most readers would not be going into this novel expecting it to live up to cozy standards; a few key words should clue most people in that this is a novel with some grit to it. Yet it’s still enticing, still inviting a potential customer to click “Buy” instead of passing it by.

Both methods inform the customer; I believe the latter method would result in more sales. And with a bit more time and effort, it could still accomplish both goals while being a bit less ham-fisted.

Book covers for eBooks can be made in color, but most eReaders display only black and white, although that is slowly changing. Even those that display color, however, are still susceptible to a market dynamic that has their covers displayed in a 200-pixel tall thumbnail on eReaders and on eBookstore Web sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Therefore, it is more important than ever for eBooks to have covers that look legible in thumbnail – and in black-and-white.

If someone is browsing Amazon.com via their Kindle instead of a desktop or laptop, and looking through books to potentially purchase, an illegible cover can cost an author potential sales.

Now, I’ve been preaching this in cover feedback topics on the Kindleboard Writer’s Cafe for some time now. I’ve even gone so far as to mock up covers for some writers, to show them how big, bold fonts “look better small” than a more subtle, skinny font does.

Some book titles and authors names simply disappear in a muddled mess when shrunk down to thumbnail size. This is a point a blog called The Book Designer made recently, too. But instead of doing it in Kindleboards discussions, he posted examples of good and bad eBook cover design on his blog.

It drove the point home. I’ll admit, I got a little frustrated over all the fuss made over his article, though, because it was identical to advice I’d given Kindleboards authors for months, without the “public” humiliation aspect of it. I’ve helped some folks veer in the right direction, but others didn’t listen as closely.

In the end, though, whether authors hear it from me, or from The Book Designer, or from Joe Konrath or whoever, doesn’t really matter. Getting the point across is what matters; covers in the eBook era must be designed for eBook market dynamics… and that means looking as good and legible in thumbnail as it looks in full 600×800-pixel glory.

So remember these basics, folks: Make sure the book title and your name as author are legible at 200 pixels high. That’s thumbnail size. If it’s not, you’re losing potential sales, no matter how pretty the rest of your book cover design may be. And them you might as well be tending to a fig tree in your back yard.

And considering I tend toward mysteries, sometimes my craft involves both… though the latter is blessedly figurative. Hopefully over then next couple-three days, I can get a lot of writing done.

I suppose that’s to be expected. This was my first NaNoWriMo, and I guess it’s more of a challenge than I took it to be. I’m not counting myself out just yet, mind you, and I’m completely grateful for the progress the event has helped inspire in me. But it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t finish on time, or the end of EMBER. It just might take longer than a month to complete the first draft.

Frankly, I do most of my writing at night and for the first couple weeks, I hit a decent pace. But as this cold sneaked up on me, I started getting tired in the evening; too tired to write. And the more I pushed myself to write anyway, the more the cold took hold, because my body needed rest and wasn’t receiving it.

So if I don’t quite make it to 50,000 words by November 30, I’m OK with that… as long as I keep on pushing and make it there and beyond, to the natural end of the EMBER novel, at a decent pace that doesn’t endanger my health.

I imagine I’ll sign up for NaNoWriMo next year once again; once you’ve tried it, it’s a good discipline to maintain. And perhaps because I tried it this year, even if I don’t win, I’ll probably have the first novel in the EMBER series that I’m planning out on Kindle by the time I sign up for NaNoWriMo 2011. And that’s a better deal than even the best Cyber Monday special you can find!

While a solitary life offers one more time for writing, what sort of life experience could you ever really write about, if all you do is stay in front of a computer all day, typing away? It is by having a spouse, friends, co-workers and such that you encounter the raw material of all good writing: life.

And one key element of life is other people; they surprise you at times. If your characters haven’t done that, perhaps the problem isn’t with your plot; perhaps it’s with your solitary life. Get out and about; meet people; spend time with friends. Talk to a stranger once in a while.

People will surprise you in ways that will inspire your characters to be equally as unpredictable. Otherwise, you’re better off writing Medicare part D plans at an insurance office, because the pay’s a whole lot better.

For example, one recent thread had people criticizing the flashback as a plot device. “Just start at the beginning and tell the dang story,” was the general line of comment. The tone was frequently overly-critical in nature, suggesting that anyone who needs to write a flashback sequence is somehow a lesser writer.

Which, I guess, would include most writers, including talents like Stephen King and James Patterson, Inc.

It’s one thing to suggest that a plot device can be overused; that’s legit. But to say that anyone using it is a bad craftsman? That’s over the top. That’s like suggesting HP printers are the only printers in the world… rather than just the best-selling.

EMBER is the project for which I first created my fictional setting of Hope, Wisconsin, based off over five years of living in the wooded joys of northwestern Wisconsin. The title refers to my main character, a teenage girl who is in that age category where effective acne products are more important a concern than saving the world.

It’s a bit supernatural, a bit of a mystery, and exists on the far reaches of the superhero genre.

It’s also a bit more than a bit of fun. Can’t wait to get started!

One daydream I’ve spent more and more time considering of late, because I’m hearing so many good things about them, are Outer Banks rental homes. I was looking at one in particular recently, the Seahawk, which appeals to me because my wife is originally from the Pacific Northwest, and of course, the Seahawk brings to mind the Seattle pro football team, so… there’s some novelty in that alone.

Of course, Carolina Designs has done a beautiful job with the house, which rents at anywhere from $800 to $3500 a week, depending on when you go; and the great thing about the Outer Banks area is there’s never a bad time of year to go. I drove through part of the Carolinas once in college, on the way down to Florida, and it was beautiful. Plus, it’s within a hop, skip and a jump from Kitty Hawk, NC, where Orville and Wilbur Wright pretty much invented the airplane! How cool is that?

The Seahawk, one of the premiere rental homes at The Outer Banks.

While the Seahawk is huge – five bedrooms, ten TVs and the like, which is way more than the two of us would ever need, even if we took Dad with us – I take one look at that stately three-story home and the gorgeous hardwood floors and the picturesque countryside that surrounds it, and the access to the beach and the ocean (which would really appeal to my wife) and I could easily imagine going there not only as a reward to myself for getting a book done and published, but as a great place to get started on my next one.

About the only downside I can see is that it’d be hard to want to come home when our time there was up. But as far as a great motivator for my writing efforts, it’s hard to imagine anything that would be more effective than the idea of a week-long getaway at a place like that!