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Since Lord Midnight received a 5-heart review at Sizzling Hot Book Reviews, it is included with all the other 5-heart books in a competition for "Sizzling Read of the Month". There are some wonderful books there, so go vote for your favorites, but don't delay. Voting lasts for only one day!
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It's awful to see it pointed out like that. But it's really all we need to know. Unfortunately, these are also two of the hardest parts of writing a book.
We talk about getting started. And talk, and talk, and talk. And then get up to check on the dust bunnies in the corner. Or refill our coffee. Or do some stretches. Because it's important that we take care of ourselves while we're Not Writing. Ooops.
We tell ourselves we're "getting started". It's a process, after all. Then we sit back down, and well, we better check Twitter, and Goodreads, and our email, and it probably wouldn't hurt to check the blog stats while we're at it. Stats? Almost forgot to see how things are doing on Amazon and Smashwords. It's best to clear all of those distractions from our minds so we can get going on our WIP, or those pesky revisions that have been haunting us since the dawn of time.
And then it's time to start the whole "getting ready" cycle again.
Or maybe we're really good at starting a book. And then starting another one. Maybe we have tons of books we've started, but they languish on the hard drive, desperate for our attention. But we can't be bothered, because we've been lured into starting yet another book.
The finish line keeps getting farther and farther away, because we're too worried about making the book perfect, and if we finish it imperfectly, we won't be able to handle the disappointment. Somehow it's easier to convince ourselves the regret of never finishing a story is better than the anguish of finishing one that will need revision.
Fear makes us run away from what we desire the most.
So what's the answer?
I am as good at avoiding and procrastinating as the next writer. In fact, I've practically made a religion out of Not Writing. The funny thing is I get itchy and twitchy when I can't write, or when I haven't written for a while. Once I do get started, I'm enthralled and obsessed and entranced and don't ever want to stop. I'll forget to eat. The sun goes down without me realizing it. I'm totally lost in this world that I was trying to steer clear from.
I have to sit myself down every once in a while and remind myself why I write. I love my stories. I love my characters. I also want readers to love them. But they can't if I won't finish my stories and share them.
So that is my motivational tool today, reminding myself of the exhilaration I experience when I hear someone say they love my book. That's what I'm using to get myself undistracted from all the shiny toys on the internet, and finishing all the stories that make me laugh and sniffle happy tears and have me falling headlong into love all over again.
Hopefully I'm not the only one.
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Sometimes the internet can feel like an antiquarian bookstore, filled with obscure research treatises and unexplored literary tomes. You enter this vast place intending to look for one thing, but then you follow a link, and then another, and yet another, forgetting where you commenced your journey, but unable to let go of the tantalizing possibilities still ahead, beyond your reach.
This is how I recently stumbled across "Date A Girl Who Reads" by Rosemarie Urquico. It's one of the most enchanting posts I've read in a long, long time.
It's presented as advice, detailing why a girl who reads is such a wonderful catch. But it's also a love letter to those of us who have always lived our lives through books.
If you're not a reader, it's hard to understand our obsession for books and the characters contained inside them. It's not a chore, or an assignment, because we're not merely reading words on a page. We inhabit the world created in that book. We shadow the characters during their adventures, experiencing their joys and heartaches as if they happened to our own hearts. If we could, we would jump inside that chapter and console the characters while giving them advice on what to do next.
In her post, Ms. Urquico delightfully depicts this intertwined relationship between a reader and her book. Even better, she shows what a rich life can be had when one loves a girl who loves books.
I read this post several times, smiling and nodding my head knowingly at each new paragraph. I had a hard time deciding which section I wanted to highlight, but I finally chose this one:
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
The entire post is worth reading, and re-reading, so go check it out now if you haven't already. I suspect it may become one of your favorites.
I also guarantee the last sentence will make you smile. For a really long time afterwards.
This is one of my favorites from last year, and I just had to bring it back. Hope you enjoy.
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I received my first book blog review for Lord Midnight. Sizzling Hot Book Reviews gave it 5 hearts, their highest rating, and I'm so excited. Actually I'm beyond excited. I'm thrilled. That doesn't quite describe it either. Hang on while I find a thesaurus so I can type in every possible variation for giddy.
While I'm doing that, go check out the review. And feel free to bring back some champagne so we can celebrate!
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I'm guest blogging today at the Romance Book Junkies, where I'm talking about highwaymen, and the hero of Lord Midnight. I hope you'll stop by. One lucky commenter will win a free e-book of Lord Midnight.
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I’m in the midst of revising a manuscript, one that I haven't looked at for a while, and I'm quite tickled with it. I'm delighted at how fresh it sounds when I read it. I've chuckled several times at the humorous dialogue, and I've smiled at how engaging the characters are. I excitedly turn the pages, as if I don't know how it ends. I'm really happy with my efforts, telling myself, "You know, it doesn't need as much revising as I thought".
And that's when I stop dead in my tracks.
Whenever I think something like that, all of a sudden Endora the muse swoops in, with a clipboard filled with rules and regulations. She cackles with way too much glee as she reminds me of how I need to keep this in mind, and keep that in mind, and next thing I know I can't remember why I thought this manuscript was worthwhile. She's convinced me it should be totaled, thrown onto the junk heap, and smooshed into oblivion.
Thankfully I stumbled across a great post by George Angus, where he talks about a time when he was an auto claims adjuster and had to take pics of a stolen car that had been recovered. On the back of the car was a bumper sticker that said "Drive It Like You Stole It". He says:
In a lot of ways, I think the best kind of writing happens this way. I know that when I’ve been inspired, the adrenaline kicks in a bit. I rip out the turn indicator and rear view mirror and toss them on the side of the highway. Don’t get in my way ’cause I’m on a mission and I’m treating the ride like it don’t belong to me. The rules of the road matter little and I’m cruisin’ with no particular destination in mind.
This is exactly how I drafted this manuscript, with my foot planted on the accelerator, dodging the rules like they were pylons in an obstacle course, zooming to the finish line with a grin on my face. I could sense that unbridled sense of joy when I first started reading the manuscript. That devil-may-care attitude permeated every single scene.
But then all of a sudden fear crept in. It threw a huge roadblock in front of me, one that had warnings and caution signs and all kinds of penalties for breaking the rules. I slam on the brakes and yank the steering wheel to the side, bracing for a horrific crash, the mournful strains of "Last Kiss" playing as I wait to see the manuscript engulfed in a fireball.
Miraculously I somehow steer around the roadblock. How did I manage such an amazing feat?
I remembered why I loved this story, and why I felt compelled to write it in the first place. I didn't know as many of the rules then as I do now, blissfully ignorant to anything but how much I enjoyed the characters and the situations they were in.
I was reminded that the rules aren't meant to impede your forward progress, as you merrily zip from Point A to Point B. They are meant to guide you around trouble spots, to help you avoid massive plotholes that could derail your entire journey. They are designed to get you to the end of the trip so you don't drive around in circles or follow every detour and forget where you were headed.
Rev your writing engine. To hell with limits. Go as fast and as far as your story takes you, and then spin around and do it again. So let 'er rip today.
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I was inspired this week by a blog post from a Twitter friend, Susan May. She discusses how writers are not only competing with other writers, but more importantly, with ourselves.
In her post, "Your Biggest Competition--You", she says:
I spend every day separating myself from the Writer Me of the day before with a few more thousand words of experience. I hope next year, also, to be encouraged by my improvement and grateful to the Writer Me who spent another year working at her apprenticeship by belting out pages and pages of good and bad writing.
Before reading her post, I hadn't really thought of competing with myself, or more accurately, my former self. But in a sense, that is what is occurring. I'm doing my best to learn and improve so I can distance myself from that writer.
At the same time I look back with genuine fondness on The Writer Formerly Known As Me. I can see how much I've grown, and advanced, as a result of my devotion to my manuscripts.
I can see exactly when I finally understood how to use one POV, giving up head hopping forever, even though it was a practice that was in vogue and made perfect sense to me when I started to write stories. Now I comprehend what a powerful tool POV is, and how much more control of the storyline I have when I utilize one POV per scene.
From this vantage point in time, I can also see how episodic my stories were back then. I was so enthralled with these lifelike characters that seemed to appear almost magically on my pages. I didn't really know how to motivate my characters. And why on earth did they need goals? I was happy to move them around from scene to scene, as if they were paper dolls, because I was enchanted with every word they uttered, even if it was complete nonsense.
When I got rejections on my manuscripts, I found out not everyone felt the same way I did about my stories. However, they did enjoy my characters, and that's when I realized I would have to give the poor heroes and heroines something to do besides charm the heck out of me.
Those early writing attempts also gave me the first glimpse of my voice. I hadn't learned to trust it just then. I knew there was something lively about my stories, something vivacious, but I didn't quite understand the value of it. I know now it's how I tell my stories, and each time I scribbled something new, I discovered more about my writing personality, until I grew comfortable in it.
Each story teaches me something I hadn't quite mastered before, or gives me a chance to practice another element a little while longer. I'm still learning how to do a lot of things, and I hope I never stop adding to my store of writerly knowledge.
Still, each story makes me fall in love with writing again, and makes me look back with awe at my enthusiasm when I knew so little about what I was attempting. Sometimes it's best not to know what you're getting into ahead of time. I might have stopped if I'd realized how heartbreaking the writing process can be, when the muse flees or the words freeze up.
Fortunately it was the exhilaration that kept me moving forward, doggedly, until I got to meet The Writer I Am Today.
There's still plenty of journey ahead, and I can't wait til we get to meet up with The Writer I Will Be.
I just know we're gonna have a lot of stories to share.
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Tell me your story.
You're a storyteller. So tell me what I need to know, about the characters, and what they're feeling, and the events they're experiencing. Tell me what's so important about these people, and why I should be interested in what happens to them.
Don't show me how clever you are with the current incarnation of writing rules. Don't show me your awareness of the latest storytelling trends.
Instead, tell me a story that only you can tell. Tell me you trust your instincts about this particular tale. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief about a lot of things, as long as you entertain me, and make me care about your characters.
Have no doubts--I'm going to watch HOW you accomplish your storytelling feats. After all, I'm a writer too. But I won't be doing that while I'm engrossed in your story. That will come afterwards, when I finish racing through the pages, and barely have enough breath left to say, "Wow!"
I've read plenty of stories that were sheer technical perfection. . .but they left me unmoved. I knew exactly what the writer was doing, and why they did it. I could see how they followed every single rule: No adverbs. Jump right into the action. No flashbacks or backstory.
But that's all I could see. I couldn't see any life in the story. The characters were emoting, but they were not filled with emotion. They certainly weren't providing me with an emotional experience.
And that's the danger of not telling our stories the way they need to be told.
There's a reason you have certain crazy ideas pop into your head when you're writing. Explore those to the nth degree. See where they take you. You might have to retreat and rewrite and revise. But that's why erasers and delete keys were invented--along with thumb drives and external backup disks. You can investigate plot threads and storylines and character arcs to your heart's content, saving each discovery and deleted scene, until you decide on the best way to tell the story you've been carrying around in your heart.
That's the story I want you to tell me. The one that is filled with your passion, and your idealism, and your belief in the characters you've created. The one that bravely proclaims, "This story could only be told this way".
That's a book I can't wait to read.
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We have had it pretty easy, weather-wise, this winter. But after Mother Nature lulled me into thinking there was going to be a straight shot to spring without a lot of nasty snow or cold wind, she threw a changeup. Right now she's hurling sleet and fog at us, and I'm confused and dismayed.
I can't do anything to change the weather, or Mother Nature. (I suspect she and my muse Endora share a LOT of the same DNA.) But I can offer a little respite from the brutal conditions.
Today you can get a FREE copy of my novella, Summer Lovin', at Smashwords. Just use this coupon code when you check out -- KZ52R -- and you can be transported to the dog days of summer. The coupon expires tomorrow, so don't wait too long!
I hope you find this an enjoyable diversion from the biting cold of winter. And, if you do, I hope you will want to leave a review somewhere to let others know how you felt.
Now I'm off to figure out what kind of appeasement will suit Mother Nature. I really hope she likes coffee. . .
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When people find out you're a writer, one of the first things they ask is, "Where do you get your ideas?"
My answer? "Everywhere".
Seriously.
It's like I'm swimming in idea-infested waters. They constantly bump into me, nudge me, try to get my attention in all kinds of devious ways. There's something about mundane tasks, like driving, or taking a shower, that revs up the idea generators. Okay, I confess. Sometimes when I'm stuck on a scene, I'll take a shower or a leisurely drive, just to wake up the brain cells.
I used to worry about losing a great idea, which is why I have millions of scraps of paper and Post-it Notes (most of which I can't even find anymore) with obscure scribblings on them, which of course means more ideas bubble to the surface as I'm trying to decipher what the hell I wrote.
My brain is always latching onto information, like a packrat that can find a use for every oddity it encounters. It never fails to amaze me how much writing occurs just from seeing people go about their daily business, or reading something completely unrelated to what I'm writing, or overhearing bits of conversation.
For example, one time while I was in the Sea-Tac airport, I walked past a bank of pay telephones (yeah, that tells you just how long ago it was), and I overheard a woman's disdainful voice enunciating to the person on the other end of the line, "My husband's body is not at the airport".
Wow. All kinds of possibilities there, which of course I've written down until I can get to it. If I can remember which notebook I used.
Another story idea came from something I misread. What I thought I saw on a book cover was, "from one of the most rejected writers in the business". You have to admit there are so many more interesting possibilities than if I hadn't mentally substituted "respected" for "rejected".
My romantic comedy, Shoot Me If I Do, starts with gunfire at a wedding. I truly can't remember where that idea originated. When I attended a conference a couple years ago, and Lisa Scottoline mentioned a family member being ostracized for bringing a gun to a wedding -- well, it made me feel like I was on the right track! It would be nice to say her story inspired me, but since I'd started the manuscript a while before that, I'll have to keep digging through the memory banks to see how I came up with that idea.
The idea for Lord Midnight came about from a newspaper article I read on how the U.S. Vice President's political fortunes pretty much hinge on something happening to the President. It made me think of English aristocrats and their line of succession, and how it's a similar situation. Mmmm. What if someone tried to kill the heir, to make himself next in line?
The hard part isn't coming up with AN idea. There's so many to choose from, and they can generate a rush of excitement that makes you sit down and start drafting a scene, or a chapter.
The tricky part is when the initial idea does its job, and then you have to decide what's next in line. That's when you go back to the idea cauldron, give it a stir, and see which bits collide and then bubble to the surface.
And if that doesn't give instant results, then it's time for a shower. Or maybe a drive.
Note: My days off have changed recently, and my poor rattled brain did not realize yesterday that a blog post was due today. I hope you enjoy this previously published one while I work on an idea this post stirred in my mind.
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