Two Years Later

It has been two years now since I first experienced the symptoms that would later be diagnosed as a brain tumor.  And while I wouldn’t say that my life is markedly better now—indeed, sometimes it seems much worse—I met a lot of wonderful people during the process, made new friends, and reconnected with old ones.  If anyone asks, I know exactly which medications will help with nausea during chemotherapy, and I have been in the MRI machine so many times that I am now an old pro at having scans.  I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, or the best-looking, or the wealthiest person you’ll ever meet, but I am skilled at one thing:  surviving.

Faster Than the Speed of Life

There’s something to be said for taking things slowly and completing a project at a reasonable pace.  I recently finished writing a novel in two weeks’ time, and I hope and pray when I begin the editing process that it is worth reading.  My writing involves lots of brainstorming but rarely do I write anything down beforehand.  I simply open the document, write out a few passages or an entire chapter, save it and move onto my next project.  I am beginning to wonder if this torrid pace and method is a good idea.  I think I should consider some type of note-taking program where I can outline my ideas, but that also seems to run counter to the spontaneity and fluidity of writing.  When you write on the fly, you are free to change ideas without the entire story crashing down around you like a house of cards.

The good news about having two complete novels in the pipeline is that I can launch them simultaneously once I’ve completed the editing, formatting, and design.  I already have a cover in mind for one, so that’s another project for me to work on. 

Lie We Tell Ourselves

I had told myself that I was running out of book ideas—which is why I inexplicably am 25,000 words into a new manuscript I just started this week.  The good news is that I have already searched online and found the perfect cover for this book albeit not for free.  I guess time will tell if I can scrape together the money to purchase the rights for it.  The more I look, the more I realize there are some great potential covers floating around online.  So, the next time I tell you I think I’ve run out of ideas, and ask will I write again, you can answer a resounding “Yes!”

Will You Love Me Tomorrow

I will try to maintain this blog as long as there’s a thought in my head, but I have to be honest—writing is no longer the great creative outlet it once was for me.  I recently finished my novel, the one I had been writing in fits and starts for four months. I have completed the first round of edits for Chances, but I can’t say that it turned out completely as I had planned.  I have several ideas for a new novel, ideas that have been marinating for more than half a year, but I wonder if I start to write it, will it be as good as it seems in my mind’s eye?  I thought all of my books were good ideas before I wrote them down, and I've enjoyed reading and rereading each of them, though after enough of that everything starts to run together, and it’s no small miracle that I ever removed typos from any of them.  I hope that I will keep writing for as long as I am able, but I figure there’s little-to-no profound knowledge to be gained from reading this blog unless I treat it as either a journal or a travelogue and review the posts on my own in order to glean something.  The good news is that writing has been my income the past two years—it was never exactly either a substantial income or a living wage, but it was far more money than I had earned in the previous year of unemployment.

Taking Stock

It has been approximately two years since I published my first novel.  I’m too lazy to look for specific dates, but it was June 2012 when I was reading Windswept on my Kindle while I edited the rough draft of Kentucky Summer, which was published a month later.  In the following two years, I have published eight novels under my own name, another under a pen name, and two novellas under an additional pseudonym.  I also submitted Heart Trouble and had it published via Crimson Romance, which gave me the opportunity to have one of my works available through more than one sales channel; the paperback edition has also been added to the collection of at least one public library.  I am currently working on another novel that is taking much longer than my standard pace; at nearly three months and counting, I am still not sure when I will put this one to bed.  I have ideas for at least one further novel, but aside from that I am nearly tapped out in the ideas department.  So what have I learned from these many, many hours of hard work, multiple rejections, and many sleepless nights where the ideas wouldn’t be silenced?

1. Writing is never easy.  Even when it’s easy, it’s still not easy.  You’re always digging, searching, and forcing yourself to make everything the best it can be.  In the course of typing, you will put words where they shouldn’t be and in the process of editing will have to try to figure out what your intended message was.

2. Writing is not a quick trip to fame and fortune.  It has been my only income for the past two years, through no fault of my own—I’ve been in the job market for more than three years, and it has been almost as long since my last interview.  I have had decent months of income, but none of those occurred until I had published my sixth novel.  There have been other months where I made so little that I didn’t merit a payment at all.  My sales have really trickled down to nothing over the past several months, which doesn’t exactly provide a great incentive to continue with writing as a vocation.  If I ever built up a nest egg I would love to pay for professional covers if not professional editing for my novels.  Heart Trouble undoubtedly has my best cover.  If worse came to worse, I wouldn’t mind learning how to create my own covers via some type of graphics program. 

3. Writing does not necessarily lead to instant popularity.  Not everyone will care about your writing.  Some people will care about it only so long as it doesn’t cost them anything.  Ultimately you have to work to make sure your completed novel is something you enjoy, a piece of product that is the best it can be—and if not, spell check and edit the darn thing, massage it and streamline it until you can love it.  As conceited as this might sound, if you don’t love your own work, there’s very little point in putting it out into the world. 

Rewind

I would never presume to tell an author the right or wrong way to craft their work; I believe that whatever method works for you is the right one.  I tend to write in a linear fashion, from point A to point B without reviewing what I’ve written previously.  Indeed, sometimes I only find out what I left on the page when I go back and perform the first edit upon completing a novel.  There have been exceptions to this rule; sometimes I will write about six chapters and do a read-through just to refresh myself on what I’ve written, because the early chapters in any story provide the building blocks for your characters; their first meeting, or the inciting incident that brings them together, or any other source of conflict you can imagine. 

I found myself in an unfamiliar place on my latest project.  I completed 23,000 words in a quick amount of time, and then found myself stuck.  I closed the document, put the book aside, and began to write a novella that appeared unexpectedly in my head.  I completed the novella, edited and published it, and brainstormed how I was going to get back into the swing of things.  I knocked around a few ideas and considered some possibilities.  Honestly, I am still considering some of them as I write the book!  But I decided the best solution for this novel was to go back to the very beginning, reread the entire thing, do some revisions as I went, and then see where I found myself.

I deliberated and finally decided to introduce a new character in order to give the story some additional balance.  I changed a few things and added other new elements, which may or may not improve the overall story.  Time will tell.  The good news is that via this experience I was able to continue my writing in earnest, surpassing 45,000 words.  I’m not sure that I will ever work up to full-novel length again.  I did two novels in the 100,000 word range, but I tend to be the most comfortable between 70 and 75,000 words.  Those also seem to be the easiest to edit.   

Adaptation

My last novel was written in twenty-one days, which may or may not be a statistic worth repeating.  With the current one, however—I am 23,000 words into it—I find myself being a lazy writer, not having added any text for the past three days.  I think my lack of initiative may be the result of several different factors:  indifference to my last two books, lack of attachment to my current characters, or perhaps a loss of my writing inspiration.  I can clearly see my hero and heroine, the progression of their relationship and its ultimate endgame, but I don’t think I’ve been happy enough lately to give anyone else’s story its proper conclusion.  I have grown increasingly disenchanted not with writing but with lip service. I have eagerly been anticipating the paperback of my published novel for months now, as I have plans in my mind to promote it to a magazine with a large readership and wide coverage.  As the months pass, it seems increasingly pointless: if the book is ever printed, I will ship it for review, but it becomes a question of timeliness; will anyone care if the book is a year old by that point?  Have I missed my chance to make a big push and have people by the book?  I know all authors—all people, really—must multitask, and I can do it as well (or as poorly) as anyone.  But it’s very difficult to accomplish your goals when you have so much on your mind.

  

The Dangers of Procrastination

Call this particular blog a cautionary tale.  I completed a novel for NaNoWriMo back in November and it has been mentioned extensively in this blog.  For most of the next two months I did very little editing before jumping in feet-first in January.  As usual I was fairly happy with what I had written:  generally speaking I only change words and restructure sentences during the editing process.  After two-and-a-half edits, I was ready to publish.  I styled and began the upload process.  Herein lies the problem; due to the poor winter weather I have been unable to venture out and get everything done at once.  I have to travel to the public library in order to achieve a suitable internet connection.  I first began production of the books nearly two weeks ago, and while I completed the e-book in two sittings—I plan to redo the cover at some point—the paperback remains in the queue, with a cover that also needs to be edited amongst numerous other items on the checklist.  This experience has taught me that my focus needs to be on producing and promoting product in a timely manner.  Yes, the book needs to be a quality product, but it shouldn’t be a burden that consumes too much extra thought outside of giving the finished item some promotional muscle.   Lesson learned.

We Need a Resolution

As I have stated in the past, I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  I also don't set overarching goals for myself.  I tend to focus on short-term goals:  I want to write an entire book in one month, I want to apply for six jobs next time I'm online, etcetera.  There would be no point in setting a goal such as, "I want to travel to Europe by this summer," because I would never be able to earn that amount of money.  At any rate, I am continuing to work toward my goal of self-improvement for 2014.
1) I haven't given up on the beard, which is an accomplishment in itself.  For someone who never leaves the house without a razor first touching their face, this is a big step.  But heaven help me if the hairs start to come in grey...
2) I purchased several reference books, and though they would not come under the general heading of "self-help", I'm going to pretend that's what they are.
3) I'm trying to cut soda from my diet by tapering off.  I may need to keep it around just in case of emergency, because trying to remove the Pepsi drip from your veins after twenty-plus years is not easy.  I'm not so much concerned about the health drawbacks as I am the empty calories.  Perhaps one a day, counteracted by lots of water, is the way to go.  To be continued...
4) I've got to get back to editing the novel I wrote in November.  I actually haven't done anything to it since Christmastime, so I'm anxious/nervous about checking back in.

Round About Way

In the past I have complained about being rejected from both jobs and publishers and receiving either a form letter response, or none at all.  I will never do that again.

As an author, I have to say that the previous month has been by turns rewarding and draining.  I wrote an entire novel for NaNoWriMo that I am extremely proud of, but I have also received too many publishing rejections to count.  Most of them were innocuous enough, and I quickly moved on.  However, I am prone to pinning my hopes on a certain thing:  a job that I really want, a vacation that I want to be amazing, or a book that I really feel needs to reach a wider audience.  As such, I had entirely too much emotion invested in a novel that received a crushing rejection.  This rejection did not come in the form of a brief missive, however.  It was a lengthy, detailed email of several paragraphs, spelling out in comprehensive terms why this book was not only unacceptable for their line but also focusing on flaws in my story and its execution.  I will be honest and tell you that I did not read the entire email.  The breadth and scale of the rejection was more than I could take, and I decided to move onto the very next thing:  an email from a friend, letting me know that she was enjoying another of my novels, and that I was a very good writer.  It’s funny and interesting in hindsight that these two messages were received in the same batch.  It was almost as though some power greater than me knew that I needed encouragement and positive feedback in the wake of something negative and discouraging.  At any rate, I am editing two novels and readying another for publication, so hopefully my audience will stick by me—and hopefully I will be able to stand by my writing.

NaNoWriMo, Week Three

Last night I blasted past 62,000 words, but I couldn’t tell you whether or not this is a good thing.  We tend to have a jaundiced eye toward lack of quality when it comes to our own work.  As my friend and fellow Nano participant, Amanda told me, we are so involved in the process that it is difficult to actually see anything but the novel.  In my case I blasted through the 50,000 word challenge so quickly that I literally wasn’t seeing anything else.  As I have emphasized before, finishing a novel becomes a challenge, because you want every single thread, every drop of paint, to form a tapestry, a masterpiece of words and emotions.  And as with everything else in life, this is much easier said than done.  You may have to complete the work and remove yourself from it, stepping back out of the pond and letting the ripples fade to nothing, before you can truly see your work for what it is.  When I next post this blog, I hope to have completed the novel’s rough draft.  We’ll see how it goes.

NaNoWriMo, Week Two

As of this writing, I have completed more than 45,000 words of this novel.  My standard operating practice involves no going back and editing until the work is done, and I plan to do the same here.  My goal, again, is to blow past the 50,000 words that are required and get at least 70,000 before I put this one to bed.  Writing this novel with such speed, at such a torrid pace, was completely unexpected for me.  As I try to rake leaves and dodge snow, and do laundry and clean house and get myself ready for Christmas, I leave ample time every day to work on my novel. I continue to learn that writing is about pushing yourself and cranking out story even when you’re not feeling one-hundred percent.  When you push yourself past your limits, to the edge of your expectations and over the cliff, you find out how bad you want to cross the finish line and what you’ll do to get there.  As far as the novel is concerned, I have altered some plot points since I wrote my summary, but the basic story is unchanged.

NaNoWriMo, Week One

If writing is like exercise and a skill that must be practiced, then I allowed myself to atrophy and weaken in the two months while I took a sabbatical from the whole business of conceiving novels.  The good news is that I was able to slip back into a familiar routine and push myself to craft and create and image.  In the first week of this project, I have written upwards of 14,000 words, and while I am not sure if this is a personal best, it does prove that I remember something about how to lay out my thoughts.  I’m sure it also helps that this is a sequel to the last novel I completed as well as a story idea that I rendered in my head, figuring and refiguring and wondering about constantly.  This novel feels like it’s headed somewhere, and I have plans to write another, unrelated one next month if everything pans out the way I hope.

Sittin’ on the Fence

Lately I haven’t been writing, for a variety of reasons.  In the interim I have been pitching some of my work to agents and publishers and hoping for anything to stick.  In the beginning writing was a way to challenge myself, to see if I could actually do it.  Then it turned into crafting stories that I enjoyed reading.  Just because I like something doesn’t mean anyone else will, but I always hope it will speak to someone else.  You usually don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression so you’re always paranoid about your appearance—you don’t want your query to be rife with errors, and you want your opening chapter or writing excerpt to grab an editor’s attention immediately.  Any time you put yourself out there, you set yourself up for rejection.  I’m not a fan of rejection in any way, shape, or form, but I guess it’s just part of life.

The Real Thing

I started writing this blog as I went through the editing process of my first novel—and while I worked on the second one—but it has always been easier for me to inhabit that fictional world than this very real one, where I project feelings and emotions onto the computer screen for all to see.  If I can write a 70,000 word novel in four weeks, surely I can craft a decent blog every few days?  Right?!  Easier said than done—this poor blog gets abused and even neglected as I pursue other creative endeavors.  Pinterest is somehow easier to deal with most days.  Even when this blog drifts far away from its original goals and purposes, please know that I am still fumbling my way through this thing.  If life is a constant struggle for self-improvement, then we should always strive to better our work, no matter what it is.

I have submitted my latest manuscript for publishing, but I am not currently working on another novel.  Time will tell whether or not this is a good strategy.

Ace in the Hole

In the course of editing, revising, and prepping Heart Trouble for publication, I completed two additional novels.  I’m either an overachiever or a masochist, but any regular follower of mine knows that I have a lot of spare time on my hands.  My latest novel, at 70,000 words, is the longest thing I’ve written since I completed TheArt of Love.  Now the fun begins, sarcasm included at no additional cost.  Editing is always a fascinating process—some passages you read over and think, “That’s pretty good—I wrote that!” while other times you review a paragraph and scornfully question, “Was I lucid when I typed that?”  Typos are a fact of life, but I always find myself worried about the inevitable continuity errors.  I’ve been lucky in that regard, considering I write on-the-fly with the outline existing only in my head.  Little wonder I don’t sleep well, huh?  It’s hard to turn that neon sign of thought and creativity off.  This recent novel also branched into a genre I’d never touched on before, adding an element of danger and suspense to the proceedings.  I’d actually envisioned Kentucky Summer as a suspense thriller before the characters led me in a completely opposite direction.  I’m still not sure I did the genre justice, but it was nice to have my characters thrown together against their better judgment and working toward a common goal.  And now I work toward my next goal—getting published again.

All I Can Do

I think as a writer that you develop certain characteristics, traits, and a comfort zone—but at the same time, you strive to avoid repeating yourself.  I know I have repeated myself—as the first person who edits my novels, I have a pretty good handle on what the content is.  At the same time, you hope that you’re saying something different and unique, that each book is forging its own path and means something to a reader.

Additionally, the pre-order links for my novel have finally come in! :)
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Trouble-ebook/dp/B00DV0XJ7M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373634941&sr=8-1&keywords=heart+trouble+tommie
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/heart-trouble-tommie-conrad/1116059074?ean=9781440571466
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/heart-trouble/id672327811?mt=11

Easy

After a two-month hiatus from writing, where my primary task was editing Heart Trouble, I have ventured forth with another novel.  The idea for this one has been recorded on my computer dating back to last year, but I never had the confidence to tackle it.  Truth it, I’m still not sure I can do the idea justice, but plot and characters are mine alone.  If I don’t give them life, no one else will.  So far it’s going well; let’s hope I continue to feel that way tomorrow.  I’m shooting for the kind of book I put out easily when I first starting writing, something around the 75,000 word mark.

Pretty Place

I don’t consider this blog a travelogue, but I have written on several occasions about various sources I have utilized to inspire my fiction, and locations are chief among them.  Last weekend I was fortunate to attend a wedding at the Pretty Place Chapel near Cleveland, South Carolina.  I had not Google’d it beforehand and therefore was amazed, in the best way possible, when we arrived at the venue.  The wedding was incredibly beautiful as well, really a lovely ceremony, but I still can’t get over the chapel.  It was built literally on the edge of a cliff, high above a valley below.  One of those “On a clear day you can see forever” deals.  There is something undoubtedly spiritual and soul-stirring about an open-air house of worship placed within the clouds.  It is a memory I will carry with me for a long time.  Anyway, even before seeing the chapel I thought it might make a good setting for a novel, and I still feel that way.  I just have to synthesize some of my ideas into something cohesive.  Personal stress plus the inevitable worries that come with publishing have led to a prolonged writer’s block, although I haven’t started a new novel and thus the block only exists in the metaphorical sense.

Dorothy:  “You have to have written to have writer’s block.  Otherwise we all have it!”

 

Broken Connections

I live in an area with so-so internet service, and merely decent phone service.  Recently, however, my phone signal dropped out for weeks and would only work maybe every six hours.  It can be a little frustrating trying to promote yourself and your publishing ambitions when social networking is closed off to you.  The good news is that I’ve been promoting myself when I do have a stronger signal, blasting very blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts about myself.  I’m still in the formative stages even though I’ve been putting books and blogs out for over a year now.  I find myself wondering if there’s a right or wrong way to do blogging.  How much do you need to inspire your followers?  How much of it is simply catharsis, hoping that another person out there will read your words and find some meaning in them?  I ask too many questions, don’t I?