Be Brave With Me

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Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. –Emilie Autumn

Every author knows there are millions of reasons not to share our writing with the world. It’s not polished enough. Some people won’t like it. No one’s reading this kind of thing right now. I’m not sure I’m ready to share it. I might want to change it.

The list goes on and on.

When I first started writing, the very thought of letting other people actually read my words was chilling. In a way, it’s like opening your soul and letting others in. I think it’s the same for most creative pursuits, but since I’m a writer that’s the one I can best speak to. We really do pour our hearts out on the page. With romance in general and steamy scenes in particular, there’s always this moment where I have to disassociate the words on the page from the author doing the writing. I’m sure everyone wonders, especially at first, how much (or little) others will think of them when they read the intimacy between characters. How much does the author draw from their own lives? Where does the line between fiction and reality get drawn?

Just like everything else, we make up the reality of those steamy scenes. Just like everything else, there’s undoubtedly a basis in reality. Or at least a basis in imagination. That’s the key, that last bit: we imagine what it is like for our characters. We’re not transcribing our own lives on the pages any more than JK Rowling transcribed her own school experiences into Harry Potter or Robert Ludlum underwent secret government manipulation to write about Jason Bourne. We’re authors. We make things up.

But making things up still provides a window into our souls, even though it might be shuttered rather than wide open. And that means that one of the hardest things for most writers to do, especially in the early stages of their writing, is to share their work.

Writing is an isolationist sport. We do it alone. We even have the term “writing cave,” as if we need to prove that it’s a solitary pursuit. We spend so much time living in our minds, pouring thoughts out onto the paper or screen. The thought of inviting someone else in to share what we’ve created can be so scary.

As Emilie Autumn says, it’s scary but we do it anyway. We have to: if we want to succeed in the world of publishing, people will be reading our words. The sooner we get used to the idea that others, sometimes countless others, will read our words is a good thing. Does that make it any less frightening?

No. But we have to suck it up and share, because a novel sitting on a hard drive where no one can see it is one less novel out there in the world. It might be the best thing ever written, but if no one reads it, no one will ever know.

Lucille Ball said I’m not funny. What I am is brave. She also said ability is of little account without opportunity.

All I can say is take the opportunities as they come by. If I hadn’t taken the opportunity to enter Pitch Wars back in 2016, I wouldn’t be where I am today. If I hadn’t taken a leap of faith and entered the Golden Heart® contest this year, I wouldn’t be a finalist. Does it get easier? Of course. We writers have to have thick skins. Suits of armor sometime. Still, I hope I never get to the point where I read something I wrote, sit back and rub my hands together, and say yeah, that’s great. I want to always hold onto a modicum of humility, because I’d be nowhere without the people who were kind enough to read for me once I finally got brave enough to start putting my words out there. They’re the ones who encourage me. They’re the ones who give me the confidence to reach for the stars. And they’re the same ones who are there to pick me up and dust me off every time I fall.

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Writing Through the Tough Times

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

I’ve never met a career as soul-crushing and disheartening as writing.

I’ve also never met a career that can be as exciting and fulfilling.

So what’s the truth of it? Honestly, my truth will vary from yours and yours will vary from the next person, and so on. I can only speak with authority to what it means for me. As a writer, a human being, someone struggling to get her words out there, I will tell you that there are days when I want to just stop. That’s disheartening. That’s so tough.

Writers need thick skins. We hear that all the time, and it’s a universal truth. People either will or will not like our stories. Agents either will or will not be willing to try to sell them. Editors either will or will not accept them for publication. Small presses either will or will not be accepting that type of story. Critique partners, beta readers, reviewers, random people on the street–you get the picture. As a writer, there is no shortage of people willing to voice an opinion on the quality and marketability of our work.

We have to learn to be incredibly selective about who we listen to, and why we listen to those people. I’m not saying I don’t look for feedback, because I do. I enter judged contests. I’ve got a plethora of critique partners and beta readers. I’m actively querying, which puts my work out for scrutiny by agents and publishers, all of whom have different criteria for what they like and for what they’re looking to represent.

We also hear this all the time: writing is subjective. If that’s not a universal truth, I’m not sure what is. One reader will love the chemistry between characters. Another will hate it, or say it leaves them cold. One reader finds our work full of that elusive thing called voice. Another says they’re not a fan of the author’s voice. There’s an opinion for everything. With the short pieces I’ve had published, the reviews I’ve received have been all over the place. Sometimes I go back and reread them if only to remind myself how subjective this business really is. There is no one work of literature out there that’s universally loved, no one book that finds itself universally despised. That’s simply the way it is.

So why do we keep writing? A lot of people will say they write because they can’t not write. Some people will say it’s simply a learned skill or a job, and they do it every day because it’s what’s expected of them. I’ve always said I write because I have stories to tell. Will everyone want to read them? No. Will someone want to? Yes.

That’s why I write through the tough times. Those times when I think my life would be better served if I just gave up on writing and did something “useful” instead. But I’ve noticed something, and I don’t think I’m alone in this: when I don’t write for stretches (I can’t say how long because it varies), I get cranky. Unhappy. Depressed. Distressed. All those things make me want to not write. But if I power through them after a reasonable amount of time and make myself sit down and write, inevitably I feel better. More complete. Creative in new ways. I have more energy, more drive, more enthusiasm for the other things life has to offer.

And yes, I can do something “useful” and be a writer. Thankfully, those aren’t mutually exclusive.

#KissPitch

If you’re a romance writer with a Twitter account seeking representation, I hereby invite you to #KissPitch.

This is what happens when you’re sitting around with a group of smart and savvy romance writers. We all love #PitMad, but pine for the days when the feed didn’t go by so quickly that there was virtually no chance of your pitch being read. Even with genre sorting, it’s tough. Not all agents and editors surfing the contest are interested in romance only. So, we thought, what if we ran a pitch event strictly for romance writers?

Valentine’s Day was the only logical choice. So I’m happy to invite you to dust off your Twitter pitch-writing skills and join us for the event.

You can find all the rules on All The Kissing. If you’re interested and want to practice your pitching, join the All The Kissing Facebook group, where we’re working together to help with pitches. Even if you don’t want to practice your pitching, you couldn’t ask for a finer group of romance writers.

I’ve written before about Twitter pitch contests. Sometimes I love them. Other times I’ve been dismayed or confused by them. It’s fascinating to work on one from the inside. Actually, I could get to see both sides of it at once, since I’m currently querying a romance manuscript. Now that’s something to write about.

Mark your calendars for February 14. If you have any questions, ask away either here, on our Facebook group, or @ me on Twitter. I’m happy to clarify or seek higher wisdom for you from my contest co-hosts. Feel free to spread the word. This is definitely a case of the more, the merrier.

Cheers!

What Are You Up To?

Every time I hear that question, I mentally add the words my Juanita and think of Lowell George and Little Feat and their song Fat Man in the Bathtub. It’s off the excellent live album Waiting for Columbus, in case you’re looking for something to listen to.

I haven’t heard it for a while, but I can fix that. Hold please…there. Now I’m listening to it. I do best with music most of the time, but curiously not really when I’m writing a first draft. There, I don’t want anyone else’s words filtering into my subconscious.

I haven’t been writing a first draft. After a fairly epic NaNoWriMo where I churned out some 90,000 words of first draft, I took December off. I don’t like to edit too quickly after drafting–the work needs to sit for a while. In fact, I wrote a blog post over at All the Kissing about keeping on with your NaNo novel, and another one about being kind to yourself during the editing process. Every now and again, it’s good to take a break. Honestly, I’d reread my NaNo draft so many times that I couldn’t see the words on the page any more. I knew the MMC (that’s “male main character” for those of you who don’t write romance) needed a better arc and I decided to reorder a lot of what happened in the book, although overall I was pretty pleased with my first/zero/garbage draft. But I also knew I needed some breathing space.

Instead of working on that book, I went back and re-read my Pitch Wars manuscript and decided that needs work too, although nothing as extensive as a complete rewrite. Having worked on two more books in the series, there are little characterization tidbits I need to go in and firm up. Otherwise, it’s still pretty good.

Thumbs up!

I will say that going back and rereading something I wrote over a year ago leads me to appreciate how much I’ve grown as a writer since then. I suppose no work of fiction is ever really done. There are always things about it that can be finessed and improved. I also suppose that part of learning to be a writer is knowing when to let go and say enough. Time to let it go, send it off, send it to bed, shelve it–whatever the right thing is to do in the moment.

I reached that point with Book 2 in the series at the beginning of November. I’m pleased with it. It’s ready. I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement, because go up a paragraph. There’s always room for improvement. But at some point we have to let our babies leave the nest, right?

During December, though, I did a few things that weren’t writing. I visited family. I got back into my favorite art and crafts. I read, re-read, but didn’t touch my NaNo novel. I read a few books. I woke up to snow on Christmas morning, just in time to get to the Seattle airport (that was a fun trip; there wasn’t enough de-icing equipment at SeaTac but I made it to Arizona and my mom eventually). Mostly, I lived like a normal person, whatever that is. A normal person who didn’t churn out a 90k book in 30 days.

I’m so proud of myself.

Now I’m reading a manuscript for a critique partner. I’ll be reading a book sent to me for a review next, and finally getting back to my own series (oh, I decided on a SERIES TITLE for it too, which was fun, because it’s a theme common to all the books in it). I told people I wanted to wait to revise Book 3 until the ideas were so overflowing I could no longer contain them. I’m getting to that point. Dreaming about the characters, thinking about their story arcs, creating ways to improve them and make them more multidimensional than they already are.

So that’s what I’ve been up to, my Juanita, my sweet chiquita. Here, have some Little Feat.

O Content, My Content

I’ve been doing a lot of blogging about writing over at All The Kissing. That leads me to think about what I’d like to do with this blog. I don’t really want to be redundant–nothing bores me more than people who link and cross-link everything to one account and never include original content.

But I will take a moment to talk about All The Kissing (ATK for short). It’s a website a bunch of us co-founded. We call it for romance writers by romance writers, but the information there is applicable to people writing all genres, really. I would love to invite everyone reading this to surf on over and check it out. Since I know a lot of you invested in NaNoWriMo, I invite you to read my post on Keeping Strong with your NaNoWriMo Novel – Editing. It’s of interest to me, and not just because I wrote it, but because I’m about to embark on a first round of revision. I’ve been following my own advice and have taken December off from touching my novel. It’s been a great thing for my objectivity.

To be honest, it’s also made me want to set fire to the whole thing and start from scratch. But there’s some very good writing in it, and with thoughtful layering and characterization I’ll be able to turn it into something delicious.

But back to this blog! I’ve been writing book reviews. Good Reads no longer supports cross-blogging, but I’m thinking rather strongly about repurposing this as a book review blog and as a place to showcase other writers.

Maybe a poll is in order. At least it will show me if anyone’s still reading here!

NaNoWriMo Update

This month has flown by in an absolute tizzy of words. I haven’t done much else, and there’s much more I need to do. This November, so far, I’ve learned the perils and rewards of working without a real outline. I’ve got a sprawling character study! With the no-editing clause in full effect, I have to go through five more days of do-not-touch-the-structure, but then in December I can rip it apart.

Usually when I’m drafting I’m far too close to the characters to see how to pull it apart and rework it, but I woke up this morning with a clear revision path in mind. I’m impressed, and it’s not often I impress myself.

I refuse to boast about word count. I haven’t even got to the end of the novel yet–I’ll just say I’m above the required. But instead of adding more lovely characterization, I’m going to sketch out how to get from here to the end and fill it in loosely. Then I’ll be satisfied.

I only changed the name of the novel once. That’s also impressive. I have written every day, which is good for me during NaNoWriMo, but doesn’t necessarily apply to my everyday life. Eleven months out of the year, I write when I can as often as I can, but don’t generally have the time to sit down and write for three or four solid hours. And you know what? It’s all good.

NaNoWriMo hasn’t been as much a rush to the finish for me as a learning-to-navigate-my-lack-of-outlining-skills experience. But as my mom always said, “As long as you learn from it, it was worth doing.” Now I can’t wait to craft it into something solid.

Photo by * NightHawk24 * on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-ND

Happy November! That Means NaNoWriMo.

I usually approach National Novel Writing Month with a combination of excitement and dread. I’m never sure which is more appropriate but one thing is certain: it’s always exhilarating.

Me, hard at work. Photo via Visual hunt

Last year I worked on a novel right on the heels of Pitch Wars. To say I was burnt out is an understatement. Reworking a novel in a couple of months is no mean feat, much less preparing for the agent round, which always coincides with the start of NaNoWriMo. This isn’t a complaint, though. I learned so much from Pitch Wars, particularly about my weaknesses as a writer. For one thing, I’m not much of an on-paper plotter. I know where a story is going in my brain, after a vague fashion, but putting it down in an organized fashion makes me want to tear out my hair. I had to do it for Pitch Wars, but now that I’m on my own I’m free to own my bad habits, as long as I recognize them.

We hear a lot about the two main types of writers (plotters vs. pantsers). At this point I’m a hybrid between the two. I know where a story starts, where it wants to end, and a few of the most important plot points in between. I’ve also written (and rewritten) enough romances to have a fairly decent feel for where I am in the story at any given moment.

I’m also a bit of a rebel, and like to break the rules. Not all of them, because romance novels need to have a certain reliable emotional sequence in order to work. Just because standard wisdom says the characters shouldn’t have sex before the 50% mark doesn’t mean that works with all characters in all settings.

I’m proud to announce that today, on Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, I managed to get an intimate scene in there. To be fair, I wrote the first chapter of this book previously (don’t worry, I’m not cheating by including that chapter in my word count), so I have a small idea about my characters and their emotional makeup. Also to be fair, this is the third book set in a specific world. That also goes a long way toward making the words flow more easily–I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Most of the characters are new, which is fun. One is an old favorite who’s evolved so much over the course of the first two books that he’s a pleasure to write, even if he’s only really evolved in my brain. But that’s why we write! To get the stories out of our brains and onto the page.

I’ve also just begun querying my last book (not last year’s NaNo novel, that got scrapped but served as good groundwork for the one I’m shopping, which I wrote in a personal May-June version of NaNo, then edited to the ground). I see November as three things: writing every day (something I learned how to do from my very first NaNo experience), researching agents and sending query letters (something I got really good at after Pitch Wars), and getting into the groove with the website a bunch of us have been working on (All The Kissing – by romance writers, for romance writers). Ultimately, that means it’s shaping up to look like a normal month.

But I have my NaNoWriMo buddies to cheer on, and to cheer me on. It’s so much fun!

Tell me, how are all of you? What are you working on? How’s autumn treating you?