Sheryl Sorrentino

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How to Get Readers to Fall in Love with Your Novel

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Sunday, January 4, 2015,

Reading a novel can—and should—be sensual, intimate, and engaging. Through the written word, readers spend time with fictional characters and take in their struggles, desires, and conflicts. A good story with convincing characters will draw readers into another dimension—a fictional getaway that resonates so viscerally, readers want to visit again and again. This phenomenon is very much like falling in love, and can be almost as compelling, which is why good writers strive to give rea...


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Astor Place Vintage: A Well-Crafted Collision of Feminism's First and Third Waves

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Tuesday, October 15, 2013,

I was recently contacted, out of the blue, by a traditionally-published author for an honest review of her latest novel (tell me, how cool is that?). Although I already had the book on my Goodreads "To Read" shelf, I was afraid I might hate it. And then what? Unlike some, I would never trash a novel after being asked to review it. But at the same time, I couldn't very well accept a free copy and then not post a review--at least not without telling the author why I didn't enjoy her book enou...


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Self-Promotion for Chumps and Hos

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Wednesday, July 24, 2013,

Times may be tough, but it’s a great time to be in the self-publishing business. That is, if you happen to sell some variant of snake oil meant to transform an unknown writer into a best-selling author. Book ads. Virtual tours. Paid Tweetingthe possibilities are endless. The only catch is, these marketing devices can only deliver on one promise: To keep our fantasies alive while quickly emptying our wallets.

 

If this sounds a little like prostitution, there are definitely parallels b...


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The "New Normal"

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Sunday, July 7, 2013,
Now, there’s another term I truly hate. It’s a sorry euphemism for “we all know everything sucks, so suck it up.” It is apparently meant to justify the dulling of normal human sensibilities about what is considered impolite, unacceptable, and outrageous by labeling bad behavior “normal.”

For example, once upon a time it was considered incredibly rude to ignore a letter or phone message. Today, no one need bother answering anymore. In part, this is an understandable reaction to the...

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Trapped on Vacation

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Sunday, June 23, 2013,
It’s never fun when vacation plans are derailed, but it’s especially unsettling to take a long-awaited trip, only to wind up in the middle of a disaster area. I’d carefully planned our two-pronged retreat, first to a lovely, well-appointed condo in Canmore (near Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada); then—the highpoint of our trip—a secluded cabin in Jasper National Park, about a five-hour drive to the Northwest.

It rained off and on the first few days, but we were still able to en...

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Something Different, or More of the Same?

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Friday, June 14, 2013,
Check out full review of And the Mountains Echoed on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/559995391

We may give lip service to "reinventing ourselves," but it is a truism that people want and expect us to do what we do best in life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the arts. If a certain genre of book, music, or movie makes someone famous, fans will want more of that. Once an author, musician or director tries “crossing over” into something new and different, he or she risks...
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The Artistry of Writing

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Sunday, May 5, 2013,
Don’t tell my husband, but I am in love with a certain Latin singer. Not the man, necessarily, but his voice. As an "old timer" I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I’ve become enamored with Marc Anthony’s “second wave” of Spanish love ballads and salsa numbers. But this is not a blog about Latin music or Marc Anthony; I only bring him up because while immersed in his playlist, I got to wondering what it takes to be the literary equivalent of a gifted singer.

In Anthony’s case, ...

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Gun Control after Sandy Hook: Part One

Posted by Sheryl Sorretino on Tuesday, January 1, 2013,

As we enter a new year in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook rampage, there is precious little we agree on where gun control is concerned. So I’d like to begin with these fairly incontrovertible but conflicting premises:

(1)   Criminals and insane people do not respect the law.

(2)   “Bad guys” will always have access to guns, no matter how tightly they are regulated.

(3)
  
We each have a fundamental right to protect ourselves—and others—from violence, invasion, and threats of injury. ...


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The Legend of Doofus O'Reilly, One Badass Cat

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Saturday, November 17, 2012,
One week ago today, I had the gut-wrenching experience of having to euthanize my cat of nearly fifteen years. Sadly, he declined quickly the last month of his life, and sprouted an orange-sized tumor in less than a week. But he lived a good life of almost seventeen years’ duration, during which time that annoying, furry creature won my heart and earned my grudging respect.

His name was “Heathcliff” back in 1998 when I rescued him from my mother-in-law (who was about to return him to the...

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On Growing Wings and Learning to Walk

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Thursday, October 4, 2012,
The Floater is two months old today. I would have likened the release of my latest book to pushing a baby bird out of the nest. Perhaps in the best of worlds, this would be true—I’d give it a little shove, and it would fly away on ever-strengthening wings. (Unless it’s weak or ill-conceived, in which case, I’d watch in horror as it floundered, then crashed to the ground.)

But I now see why launching a book is often compared to the birth of a baby. You force this thing—this newly lib...

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When Did Anger Become a Four-Letter Word?

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Friday, August 24, 2012,

The Floater just received another five-star review, for which I am thrilled and extremely thankful. In it, the reviewer characterizes Norma’s boyfriend, Oscar, as “a bit of a hothead.” This got me wondering, is it no longer acceptable to express anger in an honest and appropriate way?

Oscar gets pissed when (among other things) (1) Norma slams the bathroom door on his hand; (2) the firm where he’s worked as a supervisor for 14 years demotes him to mail runner; and (3) Norma’s sister,...


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The High Price of Passion

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Saturday, July 7, 2012,
Not too long ago, I fantasized about eliminating the workaday pressures of practicing law, and instead living off my fiction writing. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening! I don’t care how good a writer you are, how committed, or how relatively successful. Chances are, you’re not going to single-handedly support a family on the vagaries of the literary marketplace.

Sure, you might get lucky and sell a few hundred copies of your title, or even get picked up by a publisher. If you’re really...

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Why I Write What I Do

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Saturday, June 30, 2012,
Oh, I can feel those labor pains. The Floater is in head-down position, and I’m at six centimeters. Just one reader left, whose feedback I await with bated breath. But the comments I've received from test readers thus far have proven invaluable. I am excited—and scared! My baby is about to be born, and somehow, I sense that her emergence will, like the birth of a new family member, change my life in unimaginable ways big and small.

At this juncture, I cannot help but take stock of my fir...

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Natural Energy Enhancers

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Saturday, May 19, 2012,
No, I’m not talking about the vitamin supplement kind; I’m talking about those activities and people that boost our energy level in spite of too much stress and too little sleep. I’m talking about passion—the absence of which leaves us feeling dead inside. As anyone who's viewed a loved-one's corpse and experienced that palpable, chilling absence of animus knows, we are all just empty shells filled with a strange, animating force that makes us who we really are. When we die (physicall...
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Not-So-Great Expectations

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Saturday, April 14, 2012,

It’s one thing to hope for the best, and quite another to cling to false hope. It’s good to have faith, but not to leave one's fate in the hands of wishful thinking or fantastical fantasy. There’s a fine line between being enthusiastically positive and utterly unrealistic. Sure, Don Quixote taught us a thing or two about living with passion and hope. But he is a fictional character (not to mention, crazy).

 

So where’s the balance? Never is this question more important than when ven...


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Sex, Race and Class (Oh My!)

Posted by Sheryl Sorrentino on Sunday, March 25, 2012,

As I prepare to launch my third novel, The Floater, later this year, I need to say a few words about the charged topics of sex, race and class. You may have noticed that my female protagonists aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to men or sex. (And “floater” Norma Reyes will be no exception.) I realize that many best-sellers feature a nonthreatening female protagonist who could be a poster child for Ladies Home Journal, but my women are a bit sloppier than that.

 

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Sheryl Sorrentino: Real Fiction for Real Women™


Sheryl Sorrentino is a practicing attorney by day who unexpectedly discovered her passion for writing after learning of a long-deceased half-brother in 2007. She is the author of five novels (Later With Myself: The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz; An Unexpected Exile; The Floater; Stage Daughter and Stop & Frisk) with a sixth (Smarter Than That) slated for release Spring of 2017. She lives with her husband and teenage daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can learn more about Sheryl Sorrentino by visiting her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/sheryl.sorrentino#!/pages/Sheryl-Sorrentino/249323025094995. Follow Sheryl on Twitter at @SherylSorrentin.

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