Who I am as a Writer

Jennifer Crusie wrote a great article in this month’s Romance Writers Report. It started out being about finding the right agent, and it ended up being a guide for career planning. Some of the questions listed in the article were:

1. What are your influences?
2. What was the first story you knew you had to tell?
3. What are you writing next?
4. What does that have to do with getting an agent?
5. Why do you want to be published?
6. What kind of material environment do you need in order to flourish?

And so on. The idea was that, once you could truly define yourself as a writer, only then could you plan a long-term career and find the right guidance.

Some of my friends, Margery, Kacey, Katie, and Vicki read a recent proposal of mine and all of them hit upon something major–that in this proposal they heard my true writer’s voice. Do you know how amazing that is? How liberating it is? :bounce: All this time I’ve been worried that I needed to take a chill pill, to rein in my reckless nature, when just the opposite was true. With this last proposal, I let ‘er rip. I had the most fun I’ve ever had in writing a book. Okay, there were also moments when I was ready to rip my fingernails out and scream bloody murder, but that was when I got off-track. For the most part, I LOVED this book. I wanted to write it no matter what. I was excited about it. And all because I let my writer’s natural voice just go nuts.

I started looking at another book I’m planning to revise for the American Title II contest, sponsored by Romantic Times. I decided–what the heck. I’m going to entertain myself and uncage my voice again. Once I did that, the book started to improve vastly. I think this can be said for everyone. No two “voices” are alike. And your natural voice is the one that comes out when you have a magical scene, one that writes itself. You know, the one where dinner is burning, your kids are screaming, “MOM, she hit me!,” and you don’t care a bit. Because you MUST FINISH THIS SCENE.

Go back and read your own writing. Do you see that scene, the one where you reread it and thought, “D*mn, I’m good! Did I write that?”

That’s your voice. Now go finish the rest of the book and make it yours.

The Writer’s Life

I printed my proposal out last night, slapped it in a pre-paid envelope, and it’s going in the mail today. :cheers:

In other news, my hair dryer died. Which got me to thinking–if I made a kazillion dollars writing romance (pick yourself off the floor and stop laughing–I’m aware of how royalties work)–I wouldn’t have to dry my hair. I could be in my jammies and write books. Ah, the luxury.

But then I remembered last summer. The good news? I was averaging 8-10 pages a day of new stuff. The bad news? When a scene didn’t work, I would head for the pantry and eat potato chips. Or chocolate. Or whatever else I could get my hands on. And I often didn’t wear make-up for weeks.

I have a feeling that once I become a selling author, I will go through a transitional phase of slob-dom. Every year when I start teaching again, I lose a few pounds because I’m on my feet all day and I don’t have time to eat. When I’m home all day, it’s just the opposite. So, I’m slightly afraid of who I might become when I’m home all day writing fabulous books. I might be a character out of a Stephen King novel.

Now, if I could just teach myself to EXERCISE when a scene isn’t going well, I’d be a freaking size 2. (No offense to the size 2’s out there, but I hate you. I really do.):mrgreen:

It’s done

:cheers: Stick a fork in me! I’m done with the proposal.

Thanks to Kacey’s help, I now know where I need to tweak the synopsis to make it work. It’s the longest one I’ve ever done–9 pages. Ack! I’m usually a 5 page kind of girl. The quicker the better. On the bright side, it means I will probably be able to write this book faster than the others I’ve done. Maybe. It took me almost 3 weeks to do the synopsis which is HORRIBLE. The book turned out Amanda Quick-ish. I tried very hard not to do a villain in this book, but I guess I’m not quite ready to tackle that level of character-driven story. My idol is LaVyrle Spencer. Someday I’ll be as good as her level of writing (okay, so I’ll be ninety, but I’ll get there, okay?).

The kids enjoyed their Easter Egg hunt. My son was having a marvelous time. My daughter sat on the ground, looked at the three eggs beside her as it to say–you really expect ME to pick those up? Allow the peasants to serve me. It’s their purpose, after all.

If any of you have little boys and little girls, do you notice a difference in the way they behave? My boy is shy, but he has a great smile. My daughter has a sunny personality, but she is definitely a Princess (and don’t you forget it).

Last night I had my three-year-old son laughing hysterically. He asked me, “Mom, what are we having for dinner?” Usually I answer, to which he’ll respond–”I don’t like that. I’ll just have peanut butter and jelly.” I informed him it was bugs and sticks. He laughed so hard, he couldn’t contain himself. Gotta love three-year-old humor. But MAN, I was sick of that question.

Easter Egg Hunts

My kids are going on an Easter Egg hunt in a few hours. On my son’s first hunt when he was 14 months old, he picked up an egg and whacked it on the head of his best girlfriend. Now that’s courtship. Today, my daughter will have her first hunt. She’s eleven months old today. Not walking yet, but maybe she’ll crawl around. I’m curious as to what she’ll do. She’s the sort that would whack eggs (on her brother’s head). Her confidence and bullheaded personality are unbelievable (obviously, she MUST have gotten that from her father).

Anyway, Cheyenne McCray has a website Easter egg hunt. What a cool idea! You should go check it out.

In the meantime, I am wrapping up this synopsis. It is way too long (8 pages). Mine usually run about 5 pages, but for some reason, I feel the need to explain the characters’ goals, motivations, and conflicts. Gee, what a concept! Heh heh.

Now, to find a poor, unsuspecting editorial assistant….bwahahaha….:batman:

Synopsis

Ha! I beat my synopsis into submission.

I’m going to finish it today. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to clean up any and all historical details in my proposal and make sure they’re completely accurate. This includes the title issues.

I think the United Kingdom deliberately made the most convoluted rules of inheriting titles. My head is swimming with earls, marquesses, courtesy titles, and so forth. Thank goodness for the folks at the Beau Monde. They’re keeping me straight.

In the meantime, my daughter will be up for sale soon on E-bay. She has not slept past 4:30 a.m. this entire week. My brain is now in mushy mode. I’m supposed to be teaching WWII at my day job, but stringing together coherent sentences is becoming challengies. TGIF! :bounce:

My goal is to have this proposal done this weekend and MAILED by Monday. Then it’s onto revisions for My Wild Irish Rogue, which has an agent waiting for it. Heck, she has one of my books already. She can read that while she waits.

Just keep writing

When I first saw the movie Finding Nemo, one line stuck with me–”Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.”

I’ve adapted it to my own–”Just keep writing, writing, writing.”

There was a post on the PRO-link about a woman who had been writing for ten years and was completely fed up with the publishing industry. She ranted about how hard it was to break in, and how she thought she’d never make it. I predict she won’t.

See, in this business, there are so many elements to breaking in. Luck is a big part of it. If you happen to hit the right editor who loves your work, and you have a book that they think will sell really well, you might break in. But until you find that right editor and until you have that fantastic book, you will keep hitting your head against that wall.

The thing is, this woman seemed to think that once she’d sold, everything would fall into place. I believe that’s pretty naiive. All authors compete with one another. If I want to become a NYT bestselling author, I have to write better–yes, that’s right, BETTER–than Nora Roberts. And Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Because even when I do sell (affirmation!), I’ll be competing against the big names. The only way for me to be successful is to be the best writer I can be, learn my craft, and to develop my own unique voice.

Voice is key. You can’t imitate the best-sellers. You have to be your own person and you have to develop your own audience. What’s ironic to me is that, I think my voice is a smidge snarky at times. And though it could probably make a funny contemporary, I just can’t write those. I have no idea why. I’ve tried a few times, but it feels like I’m putting on someone else’s underwear. Eek.

Historicals fit me. I love the rich backdrops, those hunky knights, those swaggering outlaws. What fun! But for me, the story always comes first. In my current mss., I’ve been debating whether to set it in the Victorian period or the Regency period. To the history buffs, this is outrageous. Surely I must need to THROW MYSELF into history and read oodles and oodles of books before I even CONSIDER writing a story.

That’s not how I work. I let the characters drive me, tell me what they want to say, and then I’ll decide when their story takes place. The people come first. It doesn’t really matter to me whether they wear an empire gown or a bustle. The story is the same. I’ll set their story in the era that feels right. And when it comes time to really flesh out a scene, THAT’S when I’ll dive into the research and make sure that they really did use tea cups and what they used to sweeten it. I’m not saying that I don’t research–not at all. I have about ten different books on my shelf on medieval Ireland. But I waited until the characters came alive and then found out what I needed to know. Maybe that’s working backward. Maybe it horrifies the history buffs (who really need to realize that people don’t freaking care about how many forks were on the table —if the hero is yummy, that’s all that matters). But that’s me.

And I will break in one day. Can’t wait!

Dentists

My darling son had his first dentist visit today. It was a bit of a travesty. He took one look at the other patients (they had an open layout with only desks dividing the chairs) and a look of horror crossed over his three-year-old face. But he bravely climbed up into the chair, armed with a stuffed animal, prepared for the worst. He smiled gamely when they took his first dentist visit picture, though to me it looked like he was about to face a firing squad. She revealed the dental tools, and I noticed him staring at the dental pick like–Oh, God, no. What is that THING?

But it was all over when she turned on the polisher to show him how it tickled. The grinding sound made his little face screw up with an “Oh, HELL, no” look to it. It’s a wonder he didn’t flee from the chair. I tried to convince him to touch it. You’d have thought I asked him to touch a rattlesnake. We tried to have him open his mouth so she could look at his teeth. My son gave me a look that basically said–are you on CRACK, Mom? No way.

So, needless to say, he picked up his free toothbrush, waved at the hygienist (at which point she got the first glimpse of his teeth with his big smile of goodbye-you-weird-scary-people).

We’ll try again in six months. Sigh.

Do you want it?

Suzanne and I were talking about writing tonight. It got me thinking about goals. Being a published author has been my dream for as long as I can remember. Everything I’ve written when I was a child, even before I discovered romance novels, was a love story. Victoria Holt was the first romance author I ever read. I devoured her books. Then Jude Deveraux introduced me to spicier romance with The Maiden.

I kept a yellow three-ring binder with my stories. I wrote my own tv episodes to Beauty and the Beast (do you guys remember that show? Ron Perlman and Linda whats-her-face-terminator-chick). When I was fifteen, I submitted my first story. I’ve been submitting ever since (and I won’t tell you how many years that is). There’s a thrill in submitting, of waiting for an answer in the mailbox. Harlequin was the first house to request a full historical manuscript from me, and that has only fueled the desire to do more.

With each book I write, the excitement grows. Oh yes, I mourn when a book is rejected. I wallow in misery and wonder if I’ll ever be able to write another book because SOMEBODY THOUGHT MY BABY WAS UGLY AND REJECTED IT. But I do write that second book. And I fall in love all over again with those new characters.

Now, if I can just talk the art department into putting Daniel Day-Lewis on the cover, I’ll be set.

Murphy’s Law

So, just as I had the blog beautiful, and pretty, I discovered that those of you who have browsers set at 800×600 resolution were getting overlapped pages. Major argh. I think I’ve fixed that issue now, but for those of us (myself included) who have larger browsers, the menu and comment areas are a little, shall we say, spaced apart.

I will fix it. Promise. As soon as I learn this flipping CSS code. I actually spent last night on a date with my husband at Barnes & Noble (best place to have a date–coffee, dessert, and books—what more could you want??). I deliberately looked for a book on CSS so that I could do this blog properly. And you know what? All the books on computer code cost $45.00 and up. Can we say library??

I think the reason is because computers and technology are growing so quickly, you just can’t keep up with it. They have to sell their books at a jacked-up cost in order to make any sort of profit–because next year, heck even six months from now–the information will likely be outdated.

In other news, I am ALMOST there on this synopsis. Just a little more. Yay! And then I can slap this puppy in the mail.

Did I mention that I entered the Golden Heart this year? For those of you who don’t know, the GH is like the Oscars for unpublished romance authors. Winning or even finaling is a bit of a crap shoot…it all depends on which judges you get…but nonetheless, just finaling is an honor. It opens all sorts of doors to you. I’ll find out on or before March 25th, so the countdown is on. I have my dress picked out, too.

Fingers crossed!

New blog!

Okay, it’s official. This is my new blog site. Hang onto your shirts because I am still learning about CSS. Every once in a while, I’ll try something and the menu will fly off the page or other weird things will happen. That’s okay–part of the learning process.

In the meantime, please post a comment (it’s the teacher in me, taking attendance) and let me know if everything shows up okay on your screen. If anything doesn’t, let me know, and I’ll try to fix it.

And, if it ever happens that the screens overlap, images take up the whole page, or things disappear, you’ll know that I’m tinkering with the sytem. I have NO CLUE what I’m doing. But I’ve saved this code, so if all else fails, I can always restore it.

Do you like the new castle?