Last night I won the Spooky Award at my writer's group. It's an annual award and great fun. I have never won, and that's been fine with me because it's a big hairy spider and I'm still not sure how I feel about having it in my house!
BUT ask me how I feel about the piece I wrote? I don't think it deserved to win. There were others much better but I am still quite proud of it for a reason only other writers can probably understand. It was one of THOSE stories.
You know the ones. You come up with them, you love something in them, the character, the concept, the setting, the title... it could be anything. So you dive in, you dream, you dabble, you develop... then you begin to doubt. You just don't have 'it'. Whether the it is the story or the time or the talent, you convince yourself you are lacking. You try. You keep coming back to the project but you can't bring the words to life. Sometimes you can't work at all. So the story gets set aside or stuffed down deep, buried but good. But it's there. It's still there.
Then one day something jars the dust/dirt/dream loose (a movie, a contest, a sight, a phrase, another bout of doubt for yet another of one of THOSE ideas) and you wonder... and you go back and see what you had. Hey, this wasn't so bad! In fact, it has some great elements, if you just...
So you prune and nurture and shine some light in just the right spots and suddenly - you HAVE something!
No writing is ever wasted. It always teaches you something. It plants seeds that may take a long time to come to fruition but they will bloom somewhere, often when and where you least expect it. It might be a sentence that is perfect for another piece, it might be a character or setting that wasn't right for one story but is just what is needed for a current work. It may be a whole story that just needs a new venue.
Struggling to get something just right? To come up with a wonderful idea? Try just write. It won't be a waste. It might be one of Those stories. Plant some seeds today and rest assured, one day they will bloom.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Christmastime is here....
First, I am NOT one of those people who gets all upset when the Christmas displays show up in September (August, yes that makes me peevish - July, downright grumpy but once school has started again...). I love to look at all that stuff. LOVE all the glitter and sparkle and cuteness and well, Christmas of it all.
And I love vintage anything but vintage Christmas? The BEST. I have a lot of the things my parents had, that I remember growing up. And when I lived in Kansas City, I discovered the wonder of Estate Sales for finding holiday-themed treasures. There I began the custom of asking the sellers about the people who had collected the, um, Estate so when I set out my vintage finds I can say - this was my Mom's. This was from when I was first married. This belonged to Rose and Jack (I don't know Rose and Jack who but I like knowing they aren't completely forgotten).
I also love to find 'finds' in antique stores. Favs include plastic nativities, glass ornaments (esp in PINK) and Christmas aprons and...
Wait I started this to share some news about my next book... see what just thinking about Christmas even in October does to me????
I SAW MY LATEST BOOK IN WalMart today! It's a bit early but it's out there or will be soon.
Blessings of the Season (Love Inspired). My novella: The Holiday Husband (a story chock full of vintage Christmas stuff as my hero and heroine spend the weeks before Christmas in a department store window living like the perfect 1950s family!) I loved having Christmas pasts to draw on and having some really fun finds to 'anchor' the story in my mind. I set them around as I wrote and drew on a visit we had paid to an 'all electric house' museum where young women gave us tours dressed as hostess housewives of the day.
It made writing the book more fun, hope that shows in the finished product.
And I love vintage anything but vintage Christmas? The BEST. I have a lot of the things my parents had, that I remember growing up. And when I lived in Kansas City, I discovered the wonder of Estate Sales for finding holiday-themed treasures. There I began the custom of asking the sellers about the people who had collected the, um, Estate so when I set out my vintage finds I can say - this was my Mom's. This was from when I was first married. This belonged to Rose and Jack (I don't know Rose and Jack who but I like knowing they aren't completely forgotten).
I also love to find 'finds' in antique stores. Favs include plastic nativities, glass ornaments (esp in PINK) and Christmas aprons and...
Wait I started this to share some news about my next book... see what just thinking about Christmas even in October does to me????
I SAW MY LATEST BOOK IN WalMart today! It's a bit early but it's out there or will be soon.
Blessings of the Season (Love Inspired). My novella: The Holiday Husband (a story chock full of vintage Christmas stuff as my hero and heroine spend the weeks before Christmas in a department store window living like the perfect 1950s family!) I loved having Christmas pasts to draw on and having some really fun finds to 'anchor' the story in my mind. I set them around as I wrote and drew on a visit we had paid to an 'all electric house' museum where young women gave us tours dressed as hostess housewives of the day.
It made writing the book more fun, hope that shows in the finished product.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The harvest
I love this time of year. Love the bounty of harvest and the brightness of the large, low moon illuminating the landscape. And I love our little pumpkin patch. Just a tangle of vines on the hill behind the house, never any more pumpkins than my family could use for display. But this year, we only had four. Barely bigger than pie size and one hardly bigger than an apple - guess you could say we had a bad case of shrunkin' punkins.
I blame the rain. And the weeds. Too much of a good thing, too much of a bad thing, not enough or maybe too much work on my part. And a whole lot of other factors that I probably haven't taken into account because I can't control them.
A little like writing, huh? Years ago I heard a snippet from Garrison Keillor (that I have not been able to find since)where he compared writing to farming. My crop is prose, it grows in rows...
It's an image Ive always embraced. Partly because it helped me to feel better about praying for success (does a farmer feel its wrong to pray for his crop? Then why should a writer? ) And partly because, like a farmer, so much of what becomes of the seeds I plant is completely out of my control. Also, I like to wear overalls.
This past few weeks I've been able to not write - I have written some but for fun, and myself not for a project. I've blogged, and worked on my other job, and gone traveling a bit. As for what I've written that needs a home? I've done the work. Sent it off to market. It's out of my hands for the time being.
This used to panic me. I'd try to force it, tried to always get something else going like a scientist making plants bear fruit all year long. Those hothouse tomatoes never taste as good the warm, fat 'maters grown in season, planted in their own time and tended as they should be. And my hothouse writing was as often as not just as waxy, artificial and flavorless as the winter 'big boys' and beefsteaks (those are kinds of tomatoes, y'all).
So for now I think I will let the ground go fallow for a few days more. Let it rest so that when it’s time to plant again, it (and I) will be ready to receive the next crop, nurture it, bring it to market then let it go and pray it nourishes someone.
I blame the rain. And the weeds. Too much of a good thing, too much of a bad thing, not enough or maybe too much work on my part. And a whole lot of other factors that I probably haven't taken into account because I can't control them.
A little like writing, huh? Years ago I heard a snippet from Garrison Keillor (that I have not been able to find since)where he compared writing to farming. My crop is prose, it grows in rows...
It's an image Ive always embraced. Partly because it helped me to feel better about praying for success (does a farmer feel its wrong to pray for his crop? Then why should a writer? ) And partly because, like a farmer, so much of what becomes of the seeds I plant is completely out of my control. Also, I like to wear overalls.
This past few weeks I've been able to not write - I have written some but for fun, and myself not for a project. I've blogged, and worked on my other job, and gone traveling a bit. As for what I've written that needs a home? I've done the work. Sent it off to market. It's out of my hands for the time being.
This used to panic me. I'd try to force it, tried to always get something else going like a scientist making plants bear fruit all year long. Those hothouse tomatoes never taste as good the warm, fat 'maters grown in season, planted in their own time and tended as they should be. And my hothouse writing was as often as not just as waxy, artificial and flavorless as the winter 'big boys' and beefsteaks (those are kinds of tomatoes, y'all).
So for now I think I will let the ground go fallow for a few days more. Let it rest so that when it’s time to plant again, it (and I) will be ready to receive the next crop, nurture it, bring it to market then let it go and pray it nourishes someone.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Fifteen Minutes
9:43 I have to get something down and I have to get going. Fifteen minutes to not just spew out my thoughts, but present them in a readable way, which means editing and organizing and... tick tock, a whole minute gone already.
9:44 Okay - I just wrote a sentence, realized I didn't have time to explore and support that premise and wiped it out. Another minute lost.
9:45 Only it's not lost! My mind is whirring. My fingers flying. All the pistons are firing, which is not usually what's going on in THIS head. Whenever writers talk about doing writing exercises I give them the side eye and say "Tell me, do I look like a person who exercises?"
But ya know, this blogging thing, this time thing, it does tap into something that taking all the time and pages allowed by my deadlines and word count expectations just can't deliver. Immediacy. Honesty. Mistakes that might be the best part of the whole deal for instance I first wrote readerability instead of readability and that made me think about the importance of writing to the reader's abilities - so often it's tempting to write for other writers and forget not everyone cares about how many adverbs you use, they care if the story speaks to THEM).
9:51 Time is almost up. When it's gone, I will have something to work with, something to build on. That's my challenge to writers today - timed writing, just let it go for fifteen minutes. Lock the voices that tell you it's got to be this or that, think of communicating with a reader, put yourself out there. That's joy, even if it is a bit messy!
9:53 - yes, I went back and edited for typos, may not have gotten them.
9: 55 - a few minutes to spare but will pub it as is (yes I'm editing again but this time to add this thought) Writers - tell me about your experience with timed writing - love it? Hate it? Love to hear more.
9:44 Okay - I just wrote a sentence, realized I didn't have time to explore and support that premise and wiped it out. Another minute lost.
9:45 Only it's not lost! My mind is whirring. My fingers flying. All the pistons are firing, which is not usually what's going on in THIS head. Whenever writers talk about doing writing exercises I give them the side eye and say "Tell me, do I look like a person who exercises?"
But ya know, this blogging thing, this time thing, it does tap into something that taking all the time and pages allowed by my deadlines and word count expectations just can't deliver. Immediacy. Honesty. Mistakes that might be the best part of the whole deal for instance I first wrote readerability instead of readability and that made me think about the importance of writing to the reader's abilities - so often it's tempting to write for other writers and forget not everyone cares about how many adverbs you use, they care if the story speaks to THEM).
9:51 Time is almost up. When it's gone, I will have something to work with, something to build on. That's my challenge to writers today - timed writing, just let it go for fifteen minutes. Lock the voices that tell you it's got to be this or that, think of communicating with a reader, put yourself out there. That's joy, even if it is a bit messy!
9:53 - yes, I went back and edited for typos, may not have gotten them.
9: 55 - a few minutes to spare but will pub it as is (yes I'm editing again but this time to add this thought) Writers - tell me about your experience with timed writing - love it? Hate it? Love to hear more.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Welcome to Merciful
The township of Merciful, Georgia is the home of 41 families, 15 state football championships, 11 flourishing businesses, 6 farm festivals yearly, 3 hopeless romantics and a dog named Donut.
Oh, none of that (except Donut) actually exists.
Yet.
It's an idea that's been with me for a couple of years now but I haven't really fleshed it out. A place where people come for all sorts of reasons and find the things that matter most - love, faith, friends and themselves.
Not as slow paced as Mayberry not as fast talking as Stars Hollow, I see Merciful as a lovely blend of all the wonderful small and midsized towns that I love to discover as I wander the American countryside. (where I find gems like the Crump Theater in Columbus, Indiana).
The characters? Quirky, of course. And kind. Familiar, I hope and yet just different enough to reveal something unexpected to us about ourselves and the people we love (or hope to love ;)). I have a few story lines cooking. Have been speaking with an editor I've never worked with before who is just lovely, and has given her thoughts and have been trying to decide if I want to develop the story as a women's fiction series or as a romance series.
This is the fun stuff. That time when anything is possible. Like the anticipation of the perfect snowfall, a delicious meal, a romantic dance in the arms of a man who makes your heart skip, or a good book.
Ahhhh.
Welcome to Merciful - it's out there. Think I should try to find it? I have a map and some mental postcards and a few stories from people telling me it's worth the trip.
Oh, none of that (except Donut) actually exists.
Yet.
It's an idea that's been with me for a couple of years now but I haven't really fleshed it out. A place where people come for all sorts of reasons and find the things that matter most - love, faith, friends and themselves.
Not as slow paced as Mayberry not as fast talking as Stars Hollow, I see Merciful as a lovely blend of all the wonderful small and midsized towns that I love to discover as I wander the American countryside. (where I find gems like the Crump Theater in Columbus, Indiana).
The characters? Quirky, of course. And kind. Familiar, I hope and yet just different enough to reveal something unexpected to us about ourselves and the people we love (or hope to love ;)). I have a few story lines cooking. Have been speaking with an editor I've never worked with before who is just lovely, and has given her thoughts and have been trying to decide if I want to develop the story as a women's fiction series or as a romance series.
This is the fun stuff. That time when anything is possible. Like the anticipation of the perfect snowfall, a delicious meal, a romantic dance in the arms of a man who makes your heart skip, or a good book.
Ahhhh.
Welcome to Merciful - it's out there. Think I should try to find it? I have a map and some mental postcards and a few stories from people telling me it's worth the trip.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Don't Forget the Joy
Writing used to be fun. It used to be exciting. It used to be... mine.
I can't remember ever NOT wanting to be a writer. As soon as I had mastered the art of making big, soft shiny gray letters on paper, I began to fill my Big Chief Tablet with plays and poems and short stories and comedy pieces. In Mrs. Jackson's third grade class in Sherman, Texas, the boy who sat in front of me read one and said "Why do you do that? Nobody is going to read it."
I had met my first critic. And it didn't deter me. I wrote in middle school and high school and college, took a break to marry and start my family and when I had kids that needed a mom at home, I began again. My hubby used his first ever Christmas bonus to buy me an electric typewriter and the first thing I ever submitted was read by a real, live editor! She rejected it and that began a long line of rejections before I sold. I'd like to say after I sold that it got easier, that I had more of a sense of knowing what to do to get the sure sale, the great review, to make a list, to get the next offer.
But it was the not knowing that was the fun of it all. The challenge to keep learning, to keep asking more of myself, to make every day writing a new discovery.
Somewhere along the way, I lost that.
What happened?
It's tempting to lay the blame on writing becoming work. To say the demands of the market and issues with editors smothered my creative spark. I WANTED to believe that. In fact, I made some major changes in my career based on that very presumption.
I left my agent of 14 years (amicable, I still love her). I made up my mind never write for a certain house again. I dropped many of my professional obligations (clubs, lists, orgs). I began submitting to new agents.
None of that had the effect I had so longed for. I still felt panicked and anxious and stupid when I sat down to write. And it showed in every word.
I was ready to give up.
Then a few things happened - my dear friend Beth Harbison (read her books - Hope in a Jar out now) told me she couldn't get a certain story out of her head and I went back and looked at some of the pieces I had abandoned because they didn't fit the market of the moment. And I found out that back before I realized how difficult/scary/unprofitable it can be to be an AUTHOR that I was/am a pretty good writer.
I also began working in sales and marketing for Ram Jack of Lousville (foundation repair) where I was author and editor and chief distributor or all materials (you should see my nifty brochure for promoting our services to Realtors;)).
And thanks to another dear friend, Stephanie Bond (the Body Movers mystery series currently available) and watching her get mad and get moving at a time when most people would have caved in and lost hope, I began to rebuild a strategy for my writing career.
I also sold a Christmas romance that I REALLY love (I have one out Nov 1, btw, a novella called The Holiday Husband in Blessings of the Season from Steeple Hill - you can find it everywhere) because my sweet editor, Emily Rodmell, reminded me to put the romance first.
What wonderful advice from these amazing women.
Don't forget what you can do when you don't worry about how hard it should be.
When things don't go the way you planned, make new plans.
Put the romance first. Be it in life or in writing. Find the thing you love, find the thing worth fighting for and working toward, the thing that makes you better and don't lose sight of it.
Write. Love. Fly.
You can do it.
I can't remember ever NOT wanting to be a writer. As soon as I had mastered the art of making big, soft shiny gray letters on paper, I began to fill my Big Chief Tablet with plays and poems and short stories and comedy pieces. In Mrs. Jackson's third grade class in Sherman, Texas, the boy who sat in front of me read one and said "Why do you do that? Nobody is going to read it."
I had met my first critic. And it didn't deter me. I wrote in middle school and high school and college, took a break to marry and start my family and when I had kids that needed a mom at home, I began again. My hubby used his first ever Christmas bonus to buy me an electric typewriter and the first thing I ever submitted was read by a real, live editor! She rejected it and that began a long line of rejections before I sold. I'd like to say after I sold that it got easier, that I had more of a sense of knowing what to do to get the sure sale, the great review, to make a list, to get the next offer.
But it was the not knowing that was the fun of it all. The challenge to keep learning, to keep asking more of myself, to make every day writing a new discovery.
Somewhere along the way, I lost that.
What happened?
It's tempting to lay the blame on writing becoming work. To say the demands of the market and issues with editors smothered my creative spark. I WANTED to believe that. In fact, I made some major changes in my career based on that very presumption.
I left my agent of 14 years (amicable, I still love her). I made up my mind never write for a certain house again. I dropped many of my professional obligations (clubs, lists, orgs). I began submitting to new agents.
None of that had the effect I had so longed for. I still felt panicked and anxious and stupid when I sat down to write. And it showed in every word.
I was ready to give up.
Then a few things happened - my dear friend Beth Harbison (read her books - Hope in a Jar out now) told me she couldn't get a certain story out of her head and I went back and looked at some of the pieces I had abandoned because they didn't fit the market of the moment. And I found out that back before I realized how difficult/scary/unprofitable it can be to be an AUTHOR that I was/am a pretty good writer.
I also began working in sales and marketing for Ram Jack of Lousville (foundation repair) where I was author and editor and chief distributor or all materials (you should see my nifty brochure for promoting our services to Realtors;)).
And thanks to another dear friend, Stephanie Bond (the Body Movers mystery series currently available) and watching her get mad and get moving at a time when most people would have caved in and lost hope, I began to rebuild a strategy for my writing career.
I also sold a Christmas romance that I REALLY love (I have one out Nov 1, btw, a novella called The Holiday Husband in Blessings of the Season from Steeple Hill - you can find it everywhere) because my sweet editor, Emily Rodmell, reminded me to put the romance first.
What wonderful advice from these amazing women.
Don't forget what you can do when you don't worry about how hard it should be.
When things don't go the way you planned, make new plans.
Put the romance first. Be it in life or in writing. Find the thing you love, find the thing worth fighting for and working toward, the thing that makes you better and don't lose sight of it.
Write. Love. Fly.
You can do it.
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