This is supposed to be fun…

Sometimes, just when you ought to be having lots of fun — say, you’ve sold another book and your editor is eager to get it on the shelves — life steps in to suck the fun right out of you. 

In my house we refer to that sort of thing as a fun-sucker. 

Fun-suckers must be stopped.  

With my third book, Daring the Highlander,  I sold it on a short synopsis.  I agreed to an 11 month deadline so they could bring this sequel out 12 months after the previous book.  I had my family prepared for Mom to be Busy.  They were prepared to eat out of the freezer and pick up the slack around the house.  My critique partners were lined up as cheer leaders, brainstormers, and critiquers. My desk was clean.  Really, it was.  I was mentally and physically prepared to write this book even though my palms were sweaty since I’d never written a book in less than 18 months before.  And I got to work.

Then Hurricane Isabel dumped multiple trees on my house.

After Hurricane Isabel, 2003

As if that wasn’t enough of a fun-sucker, the insurance company jerked us around for 9 months.  Once they settled with us, contractors were all over my house for six weeks, the six weeks before my deadline. Then, before I could even finish writing the manuscript my editor left the publishing house. I was assigned to another editor I’d never met and who didn’t particularly like what I’d written.  I rewrote the second half of the book in about 6 weeks… oh, yeah, and I had another book I was promoting at the same time.

Did I mention fun-suckers?

Writing a book is supposed to be fun.  Heck, I believe life is supposed to be fun, too, at least most of the time.  This wasn’t fun.  This book was supposed to be an adventure, a journey of discovery, an epic Highland story of intrigue and romance.  And it was in danger of becoming a tragedy.

So I decided to find a way to remind myself that … say it with me now… this is supposed to be fun.    I needed something to remind me that life needs to be taken with a pinch of mirth, even when the fun-suckers are doing their best to drag you to the dark side.  I needed something that would make me smile every time I looked at it.

I needed a fun-sucker antidote.

My fun-sucker antidotes

My hero, Dr. Seuss, to the rescue!

The bobble head Cat in the Hat on the left is from Universal in Orlando.  The one on the right is one of those puppets that collapse when you push up on the base and I have no idea where I got it from.  They both make me smile. They both make me remember nights when I was little with my dad reading Dr. Seuss’s ABC
(I’m a Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz, as you can plainly see!), The Cat in the Hat (loved, loved, loved Thing One and Thing Two!) and of course, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back with all that pink snow.   These two smiling fellows remind me that words entertain and teach and stretch our imaginations.  They remind me that I enjoy crafting words into stories. 

They are my fun-sucker antidotes and they have an honored place on my desk so I never forget, even when the writing gets tough and the words don’t want to flow and that deadline is looming and my palms are getting sweaty, that writing a story IS fun.

Laurin

Simpleology – a recommended resource

I found the Simpleology site via the Snowflake Guy, Randy Ingermanson, whose advice and insight I’ve found really helpful.  I have taken the free Simpleology 101 class, which is great for setting goals and getting yourself organized.  I’m taking another course now in the Great Teachers series on copy writing, which I’m finding wonderfully useful and which is providing new writing muscles and insight into marketing… something all writers have to do if they want to get their words out in front of the public.  And now they are offering a blogging course for free in exchange for a little promo here on my blog.  Since I like what I’ve learned from these folks, and the price for this new course is, well, free, I thought I share this resource with you.

So here’s the promo:

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Laurin

Do you write for love or money?

Do you write to the market or write the book of your heart?  It’s not an either or proposition, necessarily, but it can be a tricky road to navigate.

I just read an article by Naomi Rose that speaks to my own difficulties in balancing the commerce side of writing commercial fiction with the art side.  I often fret at the confines of “writing to the market” which include keeping the readers’ expectations in mind, word counts, in the romance biz ensuring a happily-ever-after, word count, what subgenre is hot, and almost always includes the admonition to write fast and publish often… as if I had any control over either of those aspects of this thing called writing. 

In the romance fiction world the common wisdom is that you have to get your name out there a lot to build a readership.  You have to publish a lot of books and you need to write them quickly so that your publisher can bring them out as close together as the marketing department can swing it.  I know a lot of authors who can do this well and happily, and can make a living at it. 

My process does not lend itself to that model. 

So does that mean there’s no future in publishing for the writer like me who needs time to let a project marinate, to mull over ideas, to consider options?  I don’t know.  In the literary world that seems to be an acceptable process.  In the literary world you can have a slim book (by commercial book standards) come out every couple of years and make a good career of it.  The question is, can one write commercial fiction at a literary fiction pace and make a career out of it?  I wish I knew. 

Perhaps the better question is, does it matter?  It will matter if your primary aim at writing fiction is to make money (and if it is, let me suggest a quick reality check).  But if your primary aim is to write the book, explore the story, figure out what happens to that character that will not stay out of your head, then the process of writing is what matters.  And in fact, the process of writing is the only thing you-the-writer have any control over — and many of us would claim little control even of that!

So do you write for the love of the process, or for the promise of the payoff?  Is that story you are writing art, or is it commerce?  Fiction can definitely be both and some writers are more adept at walking the art/commerce line than others.  I think the important thing to do is to honor your process, whatever it may be.  If you, like me, lean toward the art side, upsetting the balance with commerce, then revel in the art side until the project is complete.  Then suck it up and put on your marketing hat and see if there is a place for your art in commerce.

Laurin

Inspiration is all around me

 Where do you find inspiration?  Recently I’ve been finding it all over the place.  

Crepe Myrtles

I was inspired by all the folks who turned out to vote on election day.  I always find voting to be an inspiration and this year was even more inspiring than usual.

I find the fall foliage inspiring.  I love the colors and the play of light on the yellows, oranges and flaming reds.  The pictures are from my yard, snapped this morning before too many more leaves fall. 

And writing workshops inspire me.  Saturday the fabulous Debra Dixon of Goal, Motivation and Conflict fame gave a day long workshop on GMC and the hero’s journey as set out by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey.  I HIGHLY recommend both books to anyone who is writing fiction.  And if you ever get a chance to attend a workshop with Debra Dixon, run, do not walk, to it.  

Burning Bush along my driveway

I found myself so inspired by the workshop and the fabulous company of old friends and new that I got home ready to sit down and get serious about my NaNoWriMo project which has been rather… nebulous… so far. 

I also found this wonderful poem that inspires me, too: Poem

What inspires you?

Laurin