Sometimes we forget the simple things. We get caught up in plot complexity or getting a manuscript sold or finishing a book on deadline. Seems to me this quote captures the simplicity and beauty of what we do as writers:

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. - Rudyard Kipling

I actually just finished my novella - yay!!! Since I’m one of those people who loses momentum if I don’t write for a few days, I’ll soon need to start a new project. That involves sitting down and writing a first chapter. Once that’s done, I can figure out the plot and character then go back and revise. That’s pretty much how every project starts for me. I’ve tried to do it other ways, like sitting down and plotting out everything before writing a word. Didn’t work. My process is my process.

There’s a quote from E.L. Doctorow that captures that initial writing feeling and environment for me. All writing, actually:

“Writing is an exploration. Your start from nothing and learn as you go.” -E.L. Doctorow

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” E. L. Doctorow

So how is the word count coming?

For those who don’t always (or never) plot out in advance, this is probably going to seem especially fitting.

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. -E. L. Doctorow

-Shiloh

Yikes! Forgot to blog! RT totally fried my brain and when I realized I had today–as in I should have posted this uh…16 hours ago? I figured a nice, quick quote would work.

Found this one

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

by Anne Rice, found here.

And how very apt. Because right now, I’m writing something I’m not sure makes sense to anybody but me, something I’m not sure anybody will like, characters I think some people might hate…or at least dislike. And I’m wondering–why

Anne Rice has the answer. Writing sometimes meet taking chances that cool make you look…well, weird.

Take the chance!

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
Reggie Leach

I’m at the Romantic Times Convention right now but I wrote this last week. *Waving* Hi everyone, I hope your writing is setting your soul on fire this week. I hope to come back with wonderful ideas and not a cold like I did last year.

Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.
P. G. Wodehouse

Last RT I had a moment. As I sat, packed into the plane, flying home, an intense swell of emotion came over me. I realized I’d made it farther than I’d ever imagined I would. I was an author. People came to have me sign their books. I had dinner with my editors and my agent. I talked writing with people I’ve admired for many years. It was real after so much hard work and it caught me by surprise that it would be so sweet.

I came home and worked more and I continue to work to this day. Because I never want to lose that sense of wonder at being set aflame with this dream.

Keep working and I’ll see you all next week!

“You fail only if you stop writing.” Ray Bradbury

This is, at heart, the truest thing I’ve ever heard about writing. In reality, very few people make it right away. Yes, people do. People get repped in five minutes and end up with their manuscript at auction the next day and become the next big thing and stay there. But most of the time, the road is long and filled with obstacles.

And sometimes when you hit a lot of obstacles at once it can be particularly dark and hopeless. You begin to wonder if you’re ever going to make it. You watch your friends get deals, you read Publishers Marketplace and see all those deals and a constant refrain in your brain is, “Why not me? When is it my turn?”

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
Isaac Asimov

Okay so to get to the moral of the story - Monday of last week I said to a friend - “you know, I’m just so sick of being on the verge of breaking. When do I reach the point where I accept it isn’t going to happen and just be happy with what I have?”

I hit this spot where I wasn’t necessarily sad, but I just felt sort of bleh and uninspired. I usually feel so passionate about writing but I think I was just in a big old rut. I was consistenly hitting my word goals and as the week went on I had a moment when the book shifted and I really learned who my heroine was and by the time Thursday rolled around I was golden again.

And then on Thursday morning I got the call from my agent. I’ve sold over twenty books but I’ve never gotten “the call” even for the anthology since it was four authors we all just emailed. Anyway, I’d sold a two book deal to Berkley Heat and suddenly, all I’d been working for had come together in that “right book, right editor, right time” sweet spot.

My head is still spinning and I keep giggling at random moments. I have a heck of a lot of work to do. But I will. I can and I will.

It can happen. It does happen. But it can’t happen if you quit.

From time to time people ask me why I write. Shiloh hit on this a little bit a few days ago. For whatever reason, I never have a great answer to the question since, honestly, the answer is: because I do. Not to sound corny or annoying but I write because I want to, am driven to and am lucky enough to have someone pay me to do so. Producer/screenwriter/actor Bobby Moresco described it like this in a magazine called Creative Sccreenwriting:

I write for the memory of my mother and father. I write for the future of my children and grandchildren who will know this world without me. I write because I can make a living at it. I write because someone once said I was good at it. I write because even though I know what I have to say is not nearly enough, ever; I know it’s all I have to give. I write because I hope tomorrow to have more.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Before I got my first publishing contract, I finaled in a few contests. Those finalist marks gave me both the courage and incentive to continue trying. I thought I could write but someone else was saying I could write. I thought I had something to say. Something to offer. Something I wanted to get down on paper and share. I wanted a chance and knew I had to earn it. But, man, I wanted it to come easier and faster. Then one day in May 2005 someone in NYC gave me that chance. An editor said I could earn money doing this thing I enjoyed and felt compelled to do. So now I write because I can and do.

This is a hard business filled with rejection both before and after you sell. There always will be someone out there who wins more contests, gets more requests and hears that phone ring with THE CALL before you do. After that, there always will be someone who is gets more attention, makes more money, acquires more publisher promo dollars and attracts more readers. This business ain’t for sissies, people who give up or for the easily disgruntled.

So, I’m thinking you need to have a reason to write. You have to know that reason, understand it and nurture it. When the whole process seems unfair - and it sure will - you can step back, dig down and remind yourself of your answer. Then push on. If the answer is as simple as “because I have to” that’s good enough. Know why and then write.

If you’re like me, you feel guilty when you don’t write every day — even if you didn’t write because you spent your time doing something writing-related, like research.

If you’re like me, you feel so guilty about not writing that you don’t take time off in order to recharge your batteries, not even when the writing is going badly.

By badly, I mean that you struggle with every word. You’re blocked and you can’t figure out what’s wrong with your plot. You can’t connect with your characters. You spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to fix your story…and you come up blank.

Challenges like NaNo and Sven, while wonderful for productivity, don’t always help with the guilt factor. No, I’m not knocking any kind of challenge that forces you to meet goals and write, but what I’m saying is that sometimes you have to step back and get some perspective.

That happened to me recently. I was doing well on the challenge, getting my 1,000 words/day. Then I hit a wall. I didn’t know where I was going with my plot, didn’t know what was going on with my conflict. But darn it, I had 1,000 words a day to write, and I was determined to do it, even if what I was writing was crap.

But…but…crap is good, because you can fix crap on a page, but you can’t fix an empty page, right? Right???

Er, not always.

Sometimes, forcing yourself to write will lead not to fixable crap, but to the wrong direction, which means you might have just wasted your time and will have to rewrite half the book because you didn’t step back and take the time to recharge your batteries, to get some perspective.

Last weekend, I was at that point. Writing just to get the words but not sure where I was going - and every word was torture…it could take all day to get my word count. So it killed me, but I took several days off. I watched movies, read novels I’d been putting off because I’m on a deadline, and I read craft books.

Once the “pressure to perform” was gone, suddenly, I was bombarded with ideas and directions to take my story. The craft books gave me ideas. The novels gave me inspiration. The movies…well, they gave me a fat butt because I just sat there like a mindless lump with popcorn.

Still…the batteries filled up, and when I got back to the challenge, I was pumping out over 2,000 words in a quarter of the time it was taking me to write 1,000 before the break. I made up my word count in no time.

So if you are like me, someone who experiences such massive guilt when not writing that you push through the word count NO MATTER WHAT, keep in mind that sometimes, NOT WRITING is more productive than writing crap that takes you in the wrong direction.

Recharge the batteries every once in a while. In the long run, your writing will benefit.

Okay, now to writing - I’m nearly 19K into Standoff (paranormal suspense and the last of a series and end to a big story arc) and happy with where I’m heading. The heroine, Grace, is a doctor but she’s not mouthy and tough on the exterior like Nina or Tracy. So I have to rein in my dialog impulses and nix the snarky on the outside. She’s strong of course, she’s Cade’s mate and she’s taken a huge risk to come to him. He realizes that but she’s got some stuff to deal with. She’s a scientist so her happy place is in a lab or with data and not necessarily with a lot of other people. It’s always a challenge to write every character and make them unique, make them as real as you can without essentially copying your base character again and again.

Sometimes beginning a new book can be daunting, sometimes it’s the middle or the end that make me insane. The last two projects I worked on were hard to start but once I hit a certain point, once I know my characters and where they need to journey to, things begin to ease in my head.

I don’t necessarily mean it becomes easy to write that journey, but what I mean is I know the map and feel confident about the waypoints if not the scenic markers of the route.

I remember thinking that at some point, it would get easier after I did it a few times. In some ways, it does. I know more now about how to heighten tension with a few sentences here and there. I know how to edit better, I know things that make me a better writer in a technical sense. But at the same time, the knowing means I feel more pressure to use all those tools to the best of my ability to write a book.

Each day I learn and grow. Each day I fail and succeed. Hopefully, the success will outweigh the failure. But in the end, it’s what I do, how I do it and that I continue forward.