When to Write (or Not)

You’re sitting at your desk (or in your easy chair or in a coffee house or wherever), staring at a screen (or a typewriter or whatever), and nothing’s coming. You’re blank. Your head is blank. The page is blank. You want to get up and do something else (anything!), but you know that’s no good. The little voice in your head keeps telling you to stick with it, to keep trying until something happens, even if you write trash.

You might be surprised to learn that at this point, I give up and go do something else. Or you might not be too surprised, since I only have four novels out. But I’m a writer, so that’s what I do, isn’t it?

Let’s be honest here. I’m not a full-time writer, no matter how much I like the idea. I have a day job. I have other hobbies and interests. I have family. Writing is only part of my life. It doesn’t rule my waking hours or dictate that I spend a certain amount of time with it. If you want to know what a full-time writer goes through, you’d better ask one of them.

But if you want to know what a part-time writer does, here I am. I’m sure I will disappoint you when I tell you that I only write when I’m feeling it. (Rewriting is a completely different story. If I only did that when I wanted to, I’d never get it done!)

That’s right. All that nonsense you’ve heard about muses and inspiration might be true after all. I don’t think I have a little angel whispering plots in my ear, but my head has to be prepared to come up with something and it can’t do that if I’m overworked, stressed, angry, grief-stricken or just empty-headed. I must have had some quiet time recently to mull things over. I have to feel comfortable with my characters, sure that I know their motivations and personalities.

Here’s the thing: write when you feel like it. If that’s two hours a day, do it. If that’s an hour every other day, do it. If it’s every other Tuesday, do that. If you don’t like writing, you shouldn’t be doing it.

     And that’s why I never force myself. Writing is one of those things that gives my life more meaning. I’d be lost without it, so I’m not going to turn it into a chore. It’s a joy, and I plan to keep it that way.


P.S. The fifth novel is a work in progress. Stay tuned!

Trust Your Readers

Part of your job as a writer is to set the scene, to explain to the reader what is happening, but you need to be careful: unnecessary information can be distracting … and sometimes annoying!

For example, if I wrote that Hawkins went to the starboard side of Penumbra and then I added an explanation that the starboard side is the right side of the ship, my readers would roll their eyes and sigh. Yes, Diane, we already know that. If they didn’t know that, I apologize, but they can certainly look it up. That’s what Google is for, right?

How many times have you read a story and wondered why the writer insisted on telling you things you already know? It’s simple: the writer doesn’t trust you.

This includes the distracting facts that tell you the writer is simply showing off: how fast light travels, how many bones are in the human body, what the square root of 3,472 is. Most of the time, the reader doesn’t need to know these facts to appreciate the story. Only if it is directly relevant—for example, the forensic scientist found 202 adult bones, so four are missing—should these little tidbits be included. It’s never a bad thing for a writer to know these facts, but it’s in bad form to include them in the story when they’re not needed.

It’s also bad when you tell the reader things that he/she should be able to figure out from what’s happening in the scene.

For example:

    Bobby kicked open the door and hurled his keys across the

room. He muttered under his breath as he slammed the door

shut and flung himself into a chair.

    Katrina appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What—?”

    “Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Now let me ask you this: what is Bobby’s mood at this point? Do I need to tell you or can you figure it out for yourself?

How about this?

Bobby slammed the door. He was angrier than he’d ever been.

Katrina appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What—?”

“I’m so mad at Joe!” Bobby shouted.

In this case, I’d be a little ticked off myself, mostly because the writer doesn’t trust me enough to figure out Bobby is mad on my own. As a reader, I never appreciate it when the writer decides to spell out the obvious for me.

I admit that it’s a fine line. Sometimes you’ll need to step back and pretend you’ve never seen this scene before; then decide if everything you’ve included needs to be there. You could also have someone else read the scene and tell you what can stay and what should go.

When in doubt, though, trust your readers.

Silence

I'm like the Grinch in one respect. No, I don't hate the Whos. I don't hate Christmas. I don't yell at Max. But I do hate the noise, noise, noise.
Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. I know that part of it is because I have tinnitus. If you don't know what that is, have you ever had your ears ring after a particularly loud sound or a noisy concert? If you were to have that sound in your ear(s) all the time, without relief, that's tinnitus. It can be different sounds for different people. Mine is a high-pitched shrieking sound, like a tea kettle whistle. Tinnitus is apparently supposed to make a person more sensitive to sound, and I am proof of that.
What I don't understand is that people around me seem to require sound/noise all the time. I listen to the radio, I watch TV, but there are times when I like to sit in relative silence, a thought that would make many of my co-workers recoil in terror. "Silence? How can you stand it??"
When I was growing up, nobody thought silence was bad. As a kid, I played outside without a radio to listen to or videos to watch. My family traveled to the mountains and went on long hikes where all we heard was occasional wind and the birds. I don't remember considering that torture (well, except for the tough hiking part). We might even spend an evening reading, with no sound except pages turning.
Now everybody's got to have ear buds or a radio or a phone or a TV or something. It puzzles me.
People ask me, "How do you come up with all those ideas for your novels?"
Here's the answer: silence. Almost all of my ideas come when I'm walking in nature or staring at a computer monitor, in silence. Silence lets my mind settle down, roam at will and make connections that it could never make with constant outside stimulation. It needs that breathing space to get creative.
I don't hate music or TV or whatever. These things are entertaining and have an important place in anyone's life. But don't let them rule your life.
Give yourself a break once in a while to let your mind wander. You'll be surprised by what you might come up with.

Reconnecting

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I made my usual trek up to Nebraska to spend time with my family, which makes this one of my favorite holidays. I love my family and I'm always glad when I get to reconnect with them.

During this time, I was able to ask someone who grew up on a farm about how corn grows. At first I was afraid to look dumb, but then I asked the question anyway ... and I got a useful answer. This might not seem important to you, but it was huge for me: the reason I asked about corn is that I'm trying to write a scene involving some characters running around in a cornfield.

That's right: I'm writing a scene! After over a year, I'm starting to reconnect with my characters. There was a dog named Nick in the National Dog Show and I immediately thought of my pilot. I'm starting to think about asking Reg's advice again. I'm trying to look at problems through Lamont's eyes.

What a relief. There were times I thought this would never happen again. It doesn't mean that I'm going to sit down and write my whole fifth novel next week, but now I really am beginning to believe there's a good chance it will get finished.

To those of you who write, I know you've probably gone through writer's block before. Maybe you're going through it now. Believe me, I know how scary it is when you think you're never going to write anything more than an email again ... but I'm here to tell you this: you will get past it! Just keep trying, just keep hoping, just keep writing (even if the result is awful). Remember what it is about your characters or story that excited you in the first place.

I have to laugh at the timing. I'm ready to get to work again, just as I'm getting hit with holiday decorating, gift-planning, baking, parties, etc. But I don't mind. Writing is a gift and I'm going to take some time to unwrap it again.

Have a magical holiday season.

Shelter

A few days ago, I was sitting in my car, waiting at the stop sign in front of my house, when I spotted something small in the cross street. It looked like a bird, but that didn't make any sense. A big white SUV drove by, making me wince, but its tires straddled the little shape, which was buffeted by its passing. By now I was sure it was a bird. No matter how strange the situation was, it was time for me to do something.

I backed up my car so I could park at the curb and hopped out. There was another car coming, which made my heart beat a little faster, but then it signaled that it would be turning onto my street. Sensing an opportunity, I stepped into the street and found myself standing over a little female sparrow. She was young, but she had feathers so she'd left the nest. How she got into the street was a mystery, but she was obviously in shock because she didn't even try to get away from me.

Another car was coming so I bent down and scooped her up in both hands. Her little body was warm, which was a good sign, and she was very soft. I carried her from the street into our side yard, where I carefully deposited her in a depression under one of our forsythia bushes. She settled in there and didn't move. I wanted to stay, but I knew that would probably traumatize her even more, so I left. The good news is that when I came home for lunch, she was gone. I'm hopeful that she recovered enough to fly away to safety.

I've thought of that a few times since then. The poor little bird must have been overwhelmed, sitting on hard pavement with gigantic beasts rushing over her head. Then two big hands wrapped themselves around her and carried her away. After all that, though, she found herself in cool grass with shade so she could gather her wits.

I think we all need that once in a while. I know I do. Sometimes things just seem to pile up in my life until I feel buffeted and confused, unsure how I got there or what to do. Those of you who see a religious answer to this are certainly welcome to make that connection, but I found a somewhat more secular response.

I was at work a day or so later, feeling a little overwhelmed by several things going on in my life at the same time, when I asked a co-worker about meditation. I know she's interested in that type of thing and I wondered if it might be good for me. Without judging or questioning me, she immediately gave me some advice and found a Youtube video that might be helpful. She also told me I could talk to her about it anytime. I'll admit that I almost cried at her compassion.

Sometimes those hands appear when you need them the most.

My advice is this: if you see an opportunity to be the hands to help someone else, please take it. It might only take a little effort on your part and it might make all the difference to that person. And if you're on the receiving end, show your appreciation if you can and try to carry on in a better state of mind because that's what the owner of those hands was hoping for.

I wish the little sparrow a long, happy life. And I'm giving meditation a try.

Unwriting

Writer's Block.

The mere phrase strikes terror in the hearts of writers everywhere. Nobody wants to think about it, but it happens to all of us.

I have several methods to deal with it. I go for walks so I can think. I listen to my favorite music. I read books by other people. I reread my own books (to remind myself that I can do this).

Lately, though, I've recognized that something else is called for. This one took me a long time to figure out when I first started writing.

Here's what's happening: I write a few sentences and then it's as if my characters stop and look at me to ask what's next. I write a few more sentences and they stop again. They're not running out ahead of me like they usually do. They're looking at me as if to ask, "What are you doing?"

After this has happened several times, I finally admit it to myself: they're doing this because something is wrong. If I can't figure out what happens next, it means I'm not happy with where I am. Somehow, I've gotten off track and I shouldn't be here.

So I do one of the hardest things for a writer: I "unwrite." In my case, that involves cutting and pasting text into a Rejects file, in case I want to use some of it later. Basically, it means removing a big section of what I've written most recently. That hurts, especially when I've been battling writer's block and I'm so proud of myself for actually writing something, anything. It has to be done, though. My characters are telling me that they shouldn't be here, so I have to take them back to where we went wrong and start again.

This has worked for me in the past. I think my subconscious recognizes that I went astray at some point, and I just have to figure out when that was and correct it. Once I get it right, my characters usually run out ahead of me again and we're all on track together.

Meanwhile, I've also recognized a major plot mistake in this novel, so I'll be trying to correct that.

All in a day's work for a writer.



Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to post comments. Happy 2017!

Break It Up

I read a book last week that had a very complex but interesting plot, as well as characters that seemed well-rounded. It was a thriller and it kept me reading throughout, even though it was 400 or so pages. When I put it down, I thought that I might like to read more by the author, except for one thing: I don't want to wade through conversations that are very hard to follow anymore.

It's a shame, but we all have to decide where to concentrate our reading, since there are SO MANY books out there. Maybe I'm being unfair to this writer, but it's also not fair to read a book while thinking how frustrated I am with the writing. So I'll spare the writer further denigration. (Obviously, I'm not going to name the writer here.)

I've already written a blog about how to use "he/she said" and here it is: He/She Said

Now I'm going to expand on the fourth method: not using "said" at all.

This is my own example that I just made up, but it gives an idea of what I was seeing:

     "You can't do that." She took a step back and frowned.

Who do you think made that statement? "She," right? Wrong! In several cases, the writer would have a statement like that and follow it immediately with the listener's reaction in the same paragraph.

Please don't do this to your readers! I was forced several times to go back to where "Jack said" told me who was speaking. Then I had to count lines down to this statement to find that Jack said it and his girlfriend was reacting to Jack saying it. Very confusing!

The solution is so simple:                                 Or even better:
     "You can't do that."                                         "You can't do that," Jack said.
     She took a step back and frowned.                 She took a step back and frowned.

Whenever you have two people speaking and reacting to the other's statements, please make it clear who is speaking and who is reacting. You don't have to use "Jack said" on every other line, but don't mix characters. If the statement is made by one person and then another person speaks or reacts, put that in a separate paragraph.

Give it a try. Your readers will thank you.

It's a Mystery

Happy Mother's Day!

I've been spending a lot of time in the wooded park north of town and I've discovered something: birding is a lot like reading a mystery novel. You get a bunch of clues and you have to put them together to get the answer. The only drawback is that in birding, you can't always read to the end to get the answer!

Both involve a little investigation and thought. You read the first few chapters of the mystery to get a sense of what the crime is and who the possible perpetrators are. You move around to try to get a better idea of what that bird is and you run through in your head what the possibilities might be.

Here are some things to consider:
1. Where is the bird?
This refers to geographical location, type of surroundings (forest, field, desert, etc.) and where you are seeing the bird: on the ground, in a tree, flying overhead, flitting around in a shrub.
2. What are its distinguishing marks?
Sometimes you get lucky and see a detail that makes it easy to identify the bird, and sometimes you aren't so lucky. Take a look at its head, eye, wings (bars or not), tail (notched or not), chest and legs/feet. I'm very good at looking at everything except the one detail I need to make a firm identification, but I'm getting better at looking at the whole bird, not just one characteristic.
3. What sounds is it making?
4. What time of year is it?
I can expect to see yellow-rumped warblers here in April and May, but not in July. If I think I see one in July, it's obviously something else and I need to look at it again.
5. What is it doing?
If it's wading in water, hopping up the trunk of a tree, running along a trail or pecking at leaves, this behavior can give you a clue to its identity.

Now it's time to go to the book: your trusty bird book, which you should have with you at all times. I know people use apps and websites to identify birds, and I'm okay with that, but I like being able to flip through pages looking for something close to what I just saw. Use whatever works for you. I find this site very helpful when I want to verify my identification of a bird or check how it sounds:  www.allaboutbirds.org

It's also helpful if you know someone who's a good birder. Many times I've emailed my friend Bob to ask him about an identification and sometimes he's pointed out that I made a mistake, which helps me learn. I wouldn't know nearly as much about birds if I didn't know Bob.

I had to do a little sleuthing this weekend to identify a couple of birds, so that's what prompted this post. (By the way, it's my 150th post!) I was able to confirm that I saw a Tennessee warbler using the very steps I mentioned above. Of course, there are always those days when I come home frustrated, because I never did get a good look at that bird and I don't know what it was. It happens. But I know I can always go out and try again.

Happy birding!

(Note: It looks like I might want to try again with the cover of The Other Side, so there's one more delay. I'm sorry about that. Stay tuned for updates.)

A Writer's Enemy?

If you want to alarm or vex a writer, mention the word “adverbs.” It’s almost guaranteed to provoke a reaction, usually along the lines of wide eyes or an instinctive reach for the Delete key.

Adverbs are the enemy. They must be eradicated!

But I’m not so sure. I’m reasonably certain I can think of a few that aren’t evil.

There are some adverbs you’ll almost always want to avoid: happily, sadly, angrily, excitedly, etc. Emotion should be conveyed by the verb and/or the circumstances. If Smith is down on his knees with his head in his hands, I don’t need to tell you that he’s going to speak sadly. If he’s pumping both fists in the air, I think you’ll know he’s happy without me telling you that.

Let’s face it, adverbs are like anything else in writing: you should use them judiciously and in moderation.

Sometimes they can make a big difference. Let’s consider our friend Smith.

Smith knew her.

Smith knew her instantly.

^ Do you see the difference there? In the first sentence, the relationship is vague and there’s no real indication of any emotion we should feel or what’s happening. In the second sentence, you can feel a little tension: something has happened that makes Smith’s knowledge of her identity important. Whether he saw through her disguise or just stumbled upon her body, it’s more significant that he knows her.

Smith shambled (or stumbled, or shuffled).

Smith walked unsteadily.

^ This one’s a little less clear-cut. The first sentence is perfectly fine and uses the verb to tell you how Smith was moving. This is preferable when you can find the right verb. Verbs are a writer's friend, as long as you don’t stretch too far to use something like peregrinated. You don’t want to confuse the reader. I also like the second sentence because there are subtle differences in how someone walks and none of the verbs was exactly right. This is a matter of personal preference. You’ll know which works better for your particular sentence.

My point is that adverbs are not the evil plague that some writers claim. You want to minimize them, but using a few of them won’t make you a terrible writer.

Besides, if you use Word’s Find function to seek out and destroy all words that include ly, you might accidentally wipe out burly or fly or lyric, so be careful!

If an adverb works, use it deliberately and proudly.

Placement of "He/She Said"

Most of us have characters who speak. Each character should have his/her own pattern of speech, vocabulary and accent. Much of the time, your reader should be able to tell who’s speaking by how it’s said, but the rest of the time, you’ll need to identify the speaker.

So how do you do this? You use “said.” But how do you do that?

I have four main methods:

1. “Then,” Smith said, “we saw it.”

I like this one because it lets you include a dramatic pause without having to worry about using a dash, ellipsis or other punctuation mark. Strategic placement of “he/she said” can change the whole effect of the sentence. “If you get out of here,” Smith said, “come back for me.” The pause makes me think Smith isn’t very hopeful.

Use this sparingly, though, so you won’t annoy your readers with needless interruptions … and make sure it actually fits. This is just stupid: “Then we,” Smith said, “saw it.”

2. “Then we saw it,” Smith said.

The second method is more common and I use it most of the time. You don’t want to use this for every sentence in a conversation or it will be overwhelming. However, you do want to sprinkle a few of these in there so your reader isn’t forced to count lines to determine who said what.

3. Smith said, “Then we saw it.”

I rarely use this one, but I do find it useful when I write an entire paragraph about one character and then I have a completely different character say something.

For example, in the fourth novel, I have a paragraph that shows Hawkins jogging in the dock area when he gets an unexpected call over the radio.

I followed it up with this:

Bartucci said, "Reg, you need to come up here and tell somebody I'm not your personal secretary."

Otherwise, the reader would have to get to the very end of the sentence to know who's saying this and it might be confusing.

(I hope you're excited to read a snippet of the next novel before anyone else!)

4. None of the above.

Of course, sometimes you can avoid "said" altogether if you use an action to identify the speaker.

Hawkins laughed. "I don't think anybody's got him completely figured out. I think he likes it that way."

That's from Outsider. (You get extra credit if you know who Reg is talking about.)

One more thing: beware of using too many synonyms for “said” or it can get ridiculous. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got when I started my first novel was to take out every “mumbled, stated, declared, proclaimed, grumbled, or asserted” and replace them with “said.” It made the story much smoother and better. I throw in the occasional “shouted” or “demanded,” but I use them sparingly.

I hope this is helpful. You want to identify who’s speaking so the reader can follow along, but you don’t want the reader to stumble over it.

Play around with these and see which works best the next time one of your characters has something to say.

New Horizons

This is the week that New Horizons will fly by Pluto and we'll have the first close look at it in history. I think that's pretty exciting!

There have been images released already, but this week's images should be better and give scientists much more information about the dwarf planet. Who knows what they will learn?

Here's a site by the Planetary Society that gives more information about what will be happening this week, as well as links to other sites that will have news about the flyby: New Horizons Info

So what will it mean to us? For me, it's the equivalent of when you're taking a hike in the mountains and you see that the trail curves ahead of you. You might have been hiking for a while, you might have a vague idea of what's around that curve ... but you can't know for sure. How many of you would turn back with a shrug and say, "Oh, it can't be anything that new or exciting"? And how many of you would realize you can't lose: no matter what you see, even if it's not new, it should be worth a look?

I'm definitely in the latter camp. Maybe Pluto is a chunk of rock. Maybe there won't be any amazing features (like the so-called "face" on Mars). But it's still something we've never seen before! It's like when you visit an art gallery for the first time: some art you'll like, some you won't, but you'll enjoy exploring it because it's new. Maybe Pluto isn't a work of art, but I'm willing to take a look.

Speaking of new, I've added a new page to my blog. I am certainly not an authority on writing or publishing, but I've learned a few things along the way. Every once in a while, I try to share what I've learned, because other writers have done the same and helped me. So if you look to the right under Pages, you'll see the new one: Advice for Writers. If it helps only one writer, I'll be happy with that.

Thanks again for reading.

Browsing for Books

Today I had a fun experience that I hadn't enjoyed for a while: I went into a bookstore and browsed.

I've always loved to read, but I'm afraid I haven't done as much of it as I should have for the past several years, mostly because I've been spending a lot of time writing, editing and trying to get noticed. I still enjoy scanning a shelf, though, letting my eyes guide me to something interesting, so it was nice to have the opportunity again, thanks to my local bookstore, Spellbound. (And yes, I walked out of there with three books.)

Some people don't have a local bookstore, sadly, and this is becoming more common. So what should you do if this is the case? You can try a site like amazon.com, but you kind of have to know what you want there. Most of the time, book shopping isn't a matter of knowing what you want in advance.

Thanks to Facebook, I have found a website that can help. If you like to browse through books without exactly knowing what you want, this is the place: iAuthor
(It's based in the U.K. but has authors from the U.S. as well.)

The fun thing about this site is that you can search for books by either genre or theme. There is an amazing variety of themes, too: Fiction written in the first person singular, Books with a fiendishly clever twist, Female Protagonist, Funny Mysteries & Crime Fiction, etc. When you select a theme, you will see a whole page of book covers (and you can click on 'More" at the bottom). When you hover over a cover (wow, look at that fun phrase!), you can see a blurb on most of them. If you click on the cover, you can see all sorts of information about the book, the author, how to buy it, how many people liked the cover or the blurb, and how many people have recommended it. You can also learn more about the author.

I'm afraid I could get lost in there, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Give it a try sometime.

In case you're interested, you can find my novels in the themes Character-Driven Sci-Fi, Science Fiction and Space. I'll probably add them to more themes when I can. It's another way I hope to get my novels discovered.

I hope you'll take a look. Who knows? You might find your next favorite book!

Remember Your Readers

I was browsing on Facebook today when I ran across a site that had posted a list of 10 rules for writers. It mentioned reading, outlining and not waiting for inspiration, among other things. As you can imagine, it inspired a lot of comments from writers who agreed or disagreed with one or more of the rules. Most of the comments were very thought-provoking and insightful.

One of them, however, made me roll my eyes and shake my head. The person stated that creativity is more important than grammar or spelling. As if to prove the point, the person used "your" instead of "you're" and randomly inserted commas in inappropriate places in the sentences.

Sigh.

I'll be the first to admit that I throw words at paper without worrying whether they're what I want, spelled correctly or even coherent, but that's why it's called a rough draft. After that, it's my job to make sense out of it ... so my readers can make sense of it.

I'm a writer because I love to write, but I never forget that I intend for someone else to read what I write, so I need to keep that person in mind as I polish the rough draft. I can't expect someone to read gibberish.

All writers should remember this:
If you don't care about your readers, they'll know it.
If you don't care about your readers, why should they care about you or your writing?

Write for yourself, but edit for your readers.

Leadership

As part of my job, I have to read "training materials," books that claim to teach me about management and leadership. Some of them are yawn-inducing, some are entertaining, and some of them have at least a few good points to consider.

As I read, I think two things: does this apply to me, and does this apply to Lamont?

I've had several managers over the years, some of them memorable and some forgettable. One of them, a man named Tom, stands above the rest as someone I would have done almost anything for. I drove to work through the snow at 2 a.m. because he asked me to update the software. I did what I thought was impossible because he believed in me.

I was a temp when he saw me sealing envelopes. For reasons I'll never fully understand, he asked me to run the company software. I had no background in computers or electronics or anything relevant. And I'll never know why I said yes, except that I was tired of being a temp.

He told me how good my predecessor was and then he gave me the tools to succeed: he trained me in what he knew and gave me a support line number for the rest. Then he stepped back.

I struggled. There was a lot to know and I was ignorant. It wasn't long before I made a major error because I misunderstood a process. When I took it to him, he didn't get mad. He explained why it was a problem and said, "Fix it." I called the help line, we fixed the problem, and I never made that mistake again.

Every time I had a question or concern, he would listen and either find a solution or tell me I could figure it out. He always trusted me to get it done as well as I could. And after a while, he stopped mentioning my predecessor.

When I write about Lamont, I try to include what I learned from Tom (and the less-successful managers I've had). Some of the things I've learned are these: Help your employees succeed any way you can. Give them the knowledge and tools they need. Stand up for them when they deserve it. Trust them but hold them accountable. Listen to them. Set a good example.

I want Lamont to be the boss that everyone wants to work for, just like Tom was.

Thank you for your example, Tom.

Book Signing Advice

You've been asked to do a book signing. Now what?

Well, first of all, don't panic! I'm one of the world's shyest people, so if I can do it, you can do it!

Your next step is to communicate with the people at the venue. Find out several things from them:
Who takes care of publicity? (Usually both of you will contribute to this.)
Where will you be located? (Don't let them stick you in the back. Near the front door is best.)
Will they provide a table? Chair? Book stand(s)? Pen(s)? (I always bring my own pens, just in case.)
Will people purchase the book from you or the store? (The store is better because they can take care of the sales tax.)
What is your share? (I wouldn't worry too much about this because you're really concerned more about publicity than money, but you don't want to get cheated either. If your books are on consignment there, you'll already know this.)

Make sure you tell everyone you know about the upcoming event. Post it everywhere you can online and put up posters wherever you might find book lovers (the library is a great place). Usually the venue will also want you to put up a poster. Make sure it looks good and gives the date, time and location. It should also feature your book(s) and give a teaser so people will want to come learn more about it/them.

As the day approaches, consider what you want to wear. Make it appropriate for the location and your genre. If you're a writer of children's books, I wouldn't recommend fishnet stockings! Don't be too formal because you want people to think you're approachable.

You should also consider how many of your books to bring with you. Often the venue can give advice on this, but you'll also have some idea of what to expect. If you're J.K. Rowling, you'll bring a few more books than if you're Diane McCallum. (I usually take five or ten copies.)

You should get there early so you can set things up the way you like. Arrange your books in a way that catches attention. Spread out any business cards, bookmarks or other materials you have. It's a good idea to have something that people can take with them, even if they don't buy anything. You never know if they might decide later that your book sounds good after all. (I have separate bookmarks for each of my novels.)

Have in mind what you're going to write when you sign the book, but beware: some people only want you to sign it, so ask first! I always get their name (and ask them to spell it, even if it's Jim) and ask who to make it out to, because sometimes the book is a gift. Think about what else you'd like to include to make it more personal. If there isn't a big line waiting, chat with the person to get some ideas. If there's a line (which has never happened to me), then have a fallback phrase that you can sign ("thanks for your support," "thanks for coming to the signing," something like that).

Here's the most important advice, though: make eye contact and smile! And have fun! If you're in a good mood and seem approachable, people will be more likely to step forward to meet you, even if they don't plan to buy a book. Sometimes you can convince them that they want to support you because you're such a nice, outgoing person ... and they'll buy a book. You never know.

With a little preparation, your first book signing will be an enjoyable experience. Even if you don't sell a single copy, you've made yourself available and received some valuable publicity.

Congratulations! This is one step in the process of getting your books discovered. Make the most of it.