Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal.
Jeffrey A. Carver

I just finished a book at the end of last week. I fought this book hard! I had ideas about where I wanted it to go and it had different plans. This book gave me no end of difficulty! I wanted something funny and light but in the end, after struggling with a few hundred words here and there, I just gave it the reins.

I let the story tell itself and in the end, that’s all I can do. It worries me sometimes because there are some stories that as you write them, you know they will push buttons. As an author you want the story to be easy to read, you want to write it in such a way that readers respond. But sometimes, the story will push buttons, it’ll be dark or emotional and it can only be what it is.

I know the popular refrain is to write to market. But in truth, the business moves slow but trends change fast so unless you’re right there when the trend hits, chances are by the time you finish and get the manuscript subbed, the trend will have moved on.

In the end, all you have is the story trying to get out. Tell that story and you will find readers. Trends are trends, but a well told story can have vampires or secret babies or greek millionaires or none of the above and move mountains.

Tell your story.

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!

I dream quite often, of a time, of a place in my life when everything around me will be still enough for me to sit and write, uninterrupted, for six daylight hours every day. This is a fantasy, a dream, a wisp of writersmoke that will of course, never happen in my life because I have three kids spaced apart in such a way that means I’ll pretty much always be running one of them around at any given time - because it’s my job.

Over the weekend I prepared to be gone for all of next week for RT. I’m the mom which means only I know the location of things important for day to day life. Only mom knows where that favorite shirt is, the names of not just teachers but other important adults, the times of various events, which things are verboten and which are mandatory. It takes longer for me to prepare to go away than to actuall be gone. So when I had envisioned the weekend to be one of oodles of writing, I knew I was fooling myself.

Still, I got my words by staying up late to finish them and doing extra on Friday because I knew this weekend would be insane.

Because no one but me knows where the right words are either. And so while I’m the mom in the family, the person who organizes and runs around, I’m the mom of my own writing too, and while my parents can help out around my husband’s schedule to make sure my kids get where they need to be, no one but me can finish my book on time.

So I’m doing it. I plan for it in the schedule just like anything else and while I love to think I’ll be uber productive, I know I probably won’t be at certain times so I just build all that into the schedule too. That way if I’m early, I can work on something else but if not, I have the time I need to get my work done.

Writing is a wonderful thing. I am fortunate to be able to make it a reality in my life. But it’s my job - like being a mom, like being someone’s partner, like the other things I have in my life - and so I plan for it accordingly. Yep, it’s totally anal retentive of me and other people certainly have different approaches that work for them.

Make it work folks, cause no one else can do it for you, but you.

Have a great writing week!!

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us

Albert Schweitzer

This writing gig is long and lonely and none of us makes it without the support of those around us. It’s easy to feel alone when we’re down. When you’re trying to wring out twenty words and you’re so tired you want to fall over. You just got the fourth rejection in a row. Whatever.

But we’re each one of us standing on steps someone before us made and I think a key to getting through the rough times is celebrating the good ones by recognizing those in our lives who’ve helped us achieve.

I’m a very blessed person. I am. I have so much to be thankful for and while I get cranky over stupid stuff, it’s never far from my mind just who much I have in my life to celebrate.

An example: Wednesday the UPS truck pulled up to my door and my totally handsome UPS delivery guy brought six boxes to my doorstep. Two of those boxes contained postcards I recently had made for the Vegas release and also for Undercover. Another one contained new business cards - all this designed for me by Frauke who is wonderful and fabulous.

Two more contained my author copies of What Happens in Vegas which I carefully opened and then stood there, just staring at the books within. They’re a good weight. I love the cover very much. I flipped through, loving the little scene break icons (nifty little vegas styled card icons) and then i read my acknowledgements and I started to cry.

This book sold at a time when I was really low. I was really beginning to wonder if I’d ever break into New York and it got me through in a way I can’t even think about right now without crying. I’m not used to not being confident about my work. I was raised to believe if you worked your hardest at something you’d succeed. The publishing industry doesn’t always work that way. It certainly takes hard work, but it’s not enough. Waiting is really hard and it can kill your confidence.

So when I picked it up and held it, I did so knowing that the sweet feeling belonged to more than just me. It belongs to my husband. Ray. He’s my best friend and my number one fan. He has supported my work without fail. It belongs to my agent and friend Laura Bradford who has been there for me, flogging the hell out of my books to editors for going on two years now. When she called me to tell me about my Berkley deal she didn’t miss a beat when I started to cry. She’s awesome and I love her. It belongs to my parents who raised me to know everything is possible (and my mom who harasses people in bookstores to buy my books!). It belongs to my readers who have supported me continuously across publishers - Renee and Tracy who’ve beta read for me countless times. It goes to a lot of people because none of us does this alone. Ann Leveille at Ellora’s Cave and Angie James at Samhain who’ve been such fabulous editors they’ve both helped me become a better writer with each book. Megan Hart and Anya Bast who’ve been my homegirls for a number of years now who have read my stuff and critted it and who have just been the kinds of people I can trust to never blow sunshine up my skirt.

Anyway, I’m being sort of schmoopy but I never, ever want to be that person. You know the one who tells everyone she’s the master of her genre or the best mother in the world or whatever. Because I’m not here solely on my own merits. I’m here because of the support and efforts of those people around me.

Our dreams are, in part, the dreams of those who love us too. Gratitude will always serve you well in this world and it’ll get you through the dark times as well as chocolate.

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…The wait is simply too long.” Leonard S. Bernstein

I don’t have a muse. Not really. There are times when the story drives me and I need to write it or it’ll make my head explode! Those times are wonderful and the words fall from your fingers like driving rain and you’re so in the moment. Writing is total joy when you’re in that space.

But you know, the life of a writer isn’t always that way. At least not my life. Sometimes I just don’t want to do it. I want to sit on my couch, eat nachos and watch reality television while I pretend not to hear my sons fighting or breaking something.

Sadly, if you choose the latter, you don’t finish your book on deadline. In fact, you don’t finish at all because sometimes writing is exhausting and unpleasant work and you have to force yourself to sit there and do it. If you don’t, if wait for some sparkly, shiny moment, you won’t finish. You’ll abandon the manuscript when you hit the dreaded middle or you’ll rush through revisions and it won’t be as good as it could be and an editor might take a pass on it because it just didn’t catch her eye.

Every bit of effort you give to your manuscript matters. it’s not always easy. It’s not always joyful. But there’s nothing in the world like finishing a book and sending it off, knowing it’s the best you could have made it.

So there are times when in my writing life - I. Am. Just. Not. Feeling. It. I want to put the book I’m supposed to be working on down and pick up something else. It’s the lure of the shiny and I’m like a human magpie, I LOVE the shiny. But in all but the rarest of cases, I need to just keep on keepin on.

So here I was - I don’t know my characters yet. The story seems just beyond my reach. I don’t feel connected at all and each word is work. Like, I have to clean the bathroom work. I’ve been there with this most recent WIP for the last three weeks or so and the flu didn’t add anything positive to the experience either. I’ve been writing, but it’s slower than normal. I read it back later and I’m happy with it, but I don’t feel connected to any of it.

This happens to me from time to time. Sometimes I’m into the story from word one. I can’t wait to sit down to write every night. I just know who these people are and what motivates them and most importantly, what attracts them to the other person. This story has not been that way!

But you know, I have deadlines and I have to meet them and cripes, how dare I whine about it? I mean, this is my freaking dream job! So I do it and when I shut the computer down every night I hope the next day will be the one when I click. When the story finally reveals itself to me and I *get* it.

Two nights ago, it happened. *Heaves sigh of relief* I opened the file and I’d been thinking on what was missing from the story and went back to add a scene and suddenly it just worked. My words came unstuck and my normal rate of production slid into place. I knew my heroine, I understood my hero and I saw my story the way it needed to be.

I re-read the whole thing yesterday morning and it works. Thank goodness. It actually follows a story and it’s believable and I love it.

The thing is, that could not have happened if I’d given in to the shiny of this other project I get to work on next. If I’d laid it down, I wouldn’t have picked it back up again for some time and maybe not have finished it at all. But I kept going, opened the file every day and worked to finish just even a bit more. Step by step and it’s now nearly done! If you don’t keep on keepin on when the story gets sticky, you can’t have that moment of clarity. So here’s to keepin on! Here’s to “the end” and here’s to clarity!

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. ~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958

Use it.

To be a writer is to sit down at one’s desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone – just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over….
John Hersey

Earlier this week I finished a book. Well, the first draft anyway. Then I put it down for a few days and tomorrow, I’ll pick it up and begin the process of editing and revision. Then I’ll send it out, chapter by chapter to my crit partners who will pick it apart and send them back to me and then I’ll revise again. And then, I’ll send to beta readers and of course they’ll see things I need to address so I’ll revise again and then I’ll send to my agent. And then after it’s been looked at, read, picked apart, put back together, tightened, shortened, lengthened and honed - it’ll be printed up and mailed to my editor.

I’m sort of afraid to pick it up.

Afraid for a multitude of reasons - this is my first NY single title. Will it be good enough? Will my editor like it or when she sees it will she rue the day she signed me? When I read it, will it be what I remember? Better? Worse? How much work will it be to revise?

The list goes on really because I’ve found fear to be a constant companion since I sold my first book. (And HelenKay wrote about this earlier this week as well). In truth, I’m not sure anything is truly worth working for if you don’t want it bad enough you have fear of losing it.

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing.
Ken MacLeod

But I will pick it up tomorrow and I will dive in. I will revise it and I will make it the best I possibly can. Because it’s the only way to finish. Because I love the story and I want my editor to love it too. I want the readers to love it. Because I’m a writer and we write.

I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I’ve been at it pretty much 50 years, and I’m now beginning to learn how to do the job well.
Harlan Ellison

A while back, I’d written an opening scene but it just wasn’t working for me, or it was fine but I want more than fine. So I cocked my head and thought about it, thought out how I’d open and *why*. I thought about whose eyes I wanted the reader to see through and again *why*. So I scrapped the first opening, or rather, moved it back a bit and it totally freed everything (and my editor loved it so yay!). Sometimes, writing is like a puzzle, you have to put the edge pieces together but when they all look like sky, it takes a bit of cocking your head and patience as you work through it.

For me sometimes beginning a new book can be daunting, sometimes it’s the middle or the end that makes 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.

As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?
Stephen King

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. There aren’t hard and fast rules. There are things that work for us, and heck, not even on every project. So for me, in the big picture is about being flexible while still being rigid about the foundation - as in, it is necessary to write to be a writer - how I go about the final product is something I’m still working on.

You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it.
Ursula K. LeGuin
…on writing

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.

“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.