My bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

I'm headed to Tucson for three weeks of warm weather and sunshine. I love living in the Pacific Northwest. I love the rain. But around February, I need a break. And my family lives in Tucson. Well, except my brother who lives in North Dakota and that's not the kind of break I'm after.

Spyscribbler posted today (or was it yesterday) about what kind of experience writers are aiming to give their readers. I'd never really thought about it before, but I immediately knew I'm the Entertainment writer. I never know what theme my book might of might not have. I don't write with character growth in mind. I like to create a character and give her lots of interesting situations. I like to write a story that keeps the reader wondering what's going to happen next and how the hell is the character going to get out of the situation. When I think about the emotion, the themes, the morals--I just get depressed and lose interest in writing.

When I write, I'm seeing a movie in my head and then putting it on paper. When I read, I read the words and that creates a movie in my head.

I remember a time when some co-workers and I were talking about movies. One of the co-workers and I both remembered a funny scene from a movie. We talked about it at length, trying to remember what movie it was from. We both remembered the scene in the same way. After a lot of discussion we both realized that the scene was from a book.

I want to write scenes like that.

Fear of Deadlines

Writers live with deadlines. Constantly. Deadlines for proposals. Deadlines for manuscripts. Deadlines for edits. Deadlines for cover art sheets. Deadlines for blurbs. I need to be completing a cover art sheet right now, I think. Although there was no hard and fast deadline attached to it. But there was a gentle reminder that they need it.
Usually I deal with deadlines by jumping on the project so I'm sure to complete it before the deadline. Well before the deadline.
I should be getting the edits soon on my next book. It's the first in a series and the second manuscript is due in November. So, right after the edits, I'll finish writing the second book. I'll probably finish the manuscript and have it to the publisher way before November. Because if I don't, I'll worry about it to the point that I won't get anything else done.
But first, I need to finish that cover art sheet.

The
Liar's
Diary

Patry Francis' novel debuts today! Patry is battling cancer and unable to get out and promote her book, so several hundred writers are doing it for her. You can click on the book to buy it at amazon.
You can check out her blog and her website to learn more about the book. Or take a look at this trailer:



So, do yourself a favor. Go get this book.

Working Under Pressure

I've had so much going on that I've really slacked off with the writing. Part of it is that I don't have anything really pressing. I still have nine months to write the next contracted book and it's already started so I'm not worried about that. I just heard that I'll be getting another contract in a few weeks and that book will be due in about a year.
Then I realized that I have edits coming in February for the August release. And I really want to get the current WIP finished by June so I can finish the next contracted book by August, because that will only leave me 5 months to write the book that I'm getting the contract for in a few weeks. Plus July and August will be busy with promoting the August release.
Yikes!
I better get busy.
In order to jump start the writing I signed up for Mary Castillo's Book In A Week challenge. Of course none of us will really write a whole book in a week, but we've all committed to a certain amount of pages or words. I'm lagging a little behind. OK, a LOT behind. But it's got me writing again. I'm a little worried that it's all crap. But, hey, I can edit crap.
I've always been the kind that works well under pressure. When I was doing production art (the old-fashioned way with an X-acto knife and a waxer), I was the one who always had to paste up the huge sale liner page while the delivery person was cooling his jets in the lobby. In high school, I usually spent the winter break in the library writing the paper that was due on January 2nd. Of course, I couldn't think of a better place to spend two weeks than in a huge building full of books.
I've tried to establish a more consistent schedule. I've made plans to write a little each day and clean a little each day so that it all gets done. But, it never happens. I'll write all day for several days, then spend an entire day cleaning the house. There must be something to that saying that leopards don't change their spots.

New Book Cover

I tried to post the cover on the sidebar, but for some reason Blogger stretched it out. I'll have to work on it later. But for now, I'll put it here. I think it evokes the feel of the story really well, and it fits with the other covers in the series.
Getting a new book cover is always fun. Of course getting the box of books from the publisher is even better!

Back to the drawing board

Yesterday, Erica Orloff blogged about POV and it got me to thinking about my current WIP. I've started it in third person. But I keep thinking that maybe I need to do first person. But there's information that needs to come from another person's POV, so then I'd have to do first and third. I don't really have a problem with that. James Patterson and other authors do it, so why not me? But most of the books in this genre are written in first person.

So, I've been stuck. Added to that -- I don't have a complete outline yet. And I LIKE outlines. So, as I was thinking about her post and about my WIP, I realized that I just don't know enough about where I'm going with this. It's a new genre for me. Well, a new sub-genre.

I love the premise and the story line so far. So much so, that I've been trying to skip some necessary steps in developing the story. So, I think I need to stop writing the WIP and do some thinking, write some notes, figure it out. Actually it's a relief to have an idea of where I've gone wrong.

Starting Early.

Yep. I started early. It just felt right. I worked out Saturday and Sunday. And I'll be at the gym tomorrow as well. And today, I ate the way I'm supposed to eat. No sugar, no potatoes, no white flour. It really wasn't even a big deal. The health thing. Which we should all do and we know it but, well....you know.
I once read that you should spend New Year's Day doing what you want to do for the rest of the year. So, tomorrow I will go to the gym and I will eat healthy (gotta put the black-eyed peas in a bowl of water soon), but for fun, I will write. I will force The Husband to listen to me talk about the plot and he will supply me with many twists. I will work on my outline. I will write character bios. I will add to my word/page count.

I will write.

Break through

Finally! I've been wrestling with a plot point for days. And it took me a couple of weeks to even realize that was the point that was hosing up everything else. This particular plot point doesn't seem to be all that important, but there's a lot of later stuff that is based on it, so it was.
I went to the gym today. Lifted weights for about 20 minutes, then swam for half an hour, then jumped in the hot tub. After about five minutes of stewing in hot water, it came to me. I could hardly wait to get home and write it down.

Tomorrow we're going to see I Am Legend. I've heard a wide range of reviews for it but, hey, it's got Will Smith. How bad could it be?

Stuff I like to do, but goes so damn slowly

Synopsis. Yeah, I kinda like doing them. But this one is being difficult. I think it might be that I don't have the main character really set in my mind. But, actually, it feels like the whole story is there. Just churning around in the recesses of my mind. Possibly it's just not done yet.
If you're a writer, I know you're probably still sitting there wondering how I could actually LIKE writing a synopsis. There's a trick to it.
Write it before you write the book.
Seriously. It's so damn hard to write a synopsis after you've written 400 pages of story. You're too close to it, too invested in the individual stories that make up the whole book. My typical method of writing a book is this:
Get an idea. Sometimes it's a particular character, but usually it's just a premise.
Get a character. I figure out what kind of character would be involved with this premise.
Get all excited and pound out a chapter or a couple of scenes. Sometimes, this ends up being three chapters, but not more than that.
Realize that I love the premise, I love the character. And I have no idea where I'm going with it.
Then I write the synopsis.
I'm not so far along in the story that I'm married to any one idea. So, I just let my imagination go. It's not like I'm actually writing the book, so I can be as outrageous as I want to be. It's just a couple of pages. I can change it as often as I want.
Erica Orloff blogged about writing a synopsis on November 24. She mentioned that her agent always puts the tag line on the first page. I've never done a tag line but I liked the idea. So, I worked on one. Here's what I came up with:

Prophecy. Power. Corruption.
Everything hangs int he balance.

Probably doesn't make any sense to anyone but me. But it really encapsulates the book for me. As to whether it makes it into the final synopsis, we'll have to see.

Stuff I hate to do

No, it's not cleaning the bathroom (what's the big deal about that anyway?). It's promotion. Actually, I don't hate promotion--I just never know what to do. Friday I got an email requesting three books that are similar to my next suspense novel with a list of similarities and differences for each one. I am now reasonably certain no one else has written a book similar to this one. I suppose that's a good thing.

Anyway, the problem I had was what kind of similarities were they really looking for? There are certainly other novels with female private investigators. And thieves. And covert groups. And international terrorism. And assassination attempts. Just not all together.

So, I spent about 5 hours coming up with something that I'm sure isn't really right and probably not what they wanted. Still I'm done. And it makes working on this synopsis look like fun.

Driving myself crazy

I'm sure other authors do this, too. At least, I like to believe they do. I wrote a perfectly decent first chapter to my WIP. Then by chance an agent asked me to send a chapter or so to her. From our communication, I have to believe that she understands this is not complete, that I'm still working on it--that's what WIP means to everyone, right?

Now, this agent is one of my TOP choices. I do NOT want tot blow this with her. I want to send her the very, very best first chapter I can possibly produce. (A little aside: The first partial she requested from me had a grammatical error in it that happens to be one of her pet peeves. I don't want to screw this up -- again.) So, I started second guessing it. I decided it didn't start with enough action. Actually, I decided the whole thing sucked. Anyway, I rewrote it. Moved scenes around. Did more second guessing. Then I sent it to my writing buddy, Jeff. Jeff is incredible, but more about him later. He read them both and chose the first one. Hands down. Then told me to trust my gut.

He's so right.

So, now I'm working on the second chapter. And I'm second guessing myself again. Maybe I'll just send the first chapter to the agent and the second one to Jeff. I hope he's got a lot of spare time right now.

Celebrating a Friend's Success!

I first met Lori Armstrong online in an author's group. Then I met her in real time at the RT Booklover's Conference last April. Lori's the kind of person that you become instant friends with. She's also incredibly talented.
Today she's celebrating some great news.
A two book deal with Touchstone Fireside for a new mystery series. Publisher's Marketplace lists it as a "good deal".
*SQUEE*
You can check her out at http://www.loriarmstrong.com/
As for myself, I'll be writing sink copy today. Now, what's wrong with that picture?

I'm still here!
I got offered another copywriting job. It's like the old good news/bad news joke. Unfortunately the joke is that this time I'm writing copy for 154 sinks. At least they aren't all stainless steel.
Someday (soon, please the writing gods) I'll get back to my characters and stories. I just hope they haven't all forgotten what they're doing and why they're there and. . .I think I might have just given myself a headache.
But, seriously. Thanksgiving was wonderful. My daughter, Alana, and her family came over. Alana is a wonderful writer. But she has *completion issues*. She might outgrow them. She might not.
Anyway.
We all had a good time and lots of food. Somehow with a houseful of Buddhists and Pagans we ended up with a semi-Christian blessing. Although it did involve a "paws for Grace" which involves holding your hands up like kitty paws in memory of a cat named Grace. Pretty irreverent, so I loved it.
I had to laugh when Micah stood at the doorway of the kitchen and asked permission to enter. Then Alana explained that she'd told him the "rules" of my kitchen.
I'm one of those cooks who doesn't want anyone else in my kitchen when I'm cooking. I know where everything is. I know what has to be done and when (for the most part). Just stay the hell out of my way while I get the meal on the table.
I have a feeling I approach writing the same way. Evidently, I'll never give James Patterson a run for his money.

Slowly Hacking Away

At the TO DO list, that is. Copywriting is finished. Only one wall left to primer, although I still have 5 rooms left to paint. Starting the Business Plan this afternoon. Should finish the painting and the Business Plan by Friday. But, I decided I'm taking a couple of hours each day to write. Trying to break out of the "I can only do one thing until it's completed" mode.

And then there's promotion.
Some of my writer buds and I have been talking about promotion. We're all for it. None of us really has time to do it. I remember reading an interview with a fairly well-known, successful writer who said that she used to do book tours and signings and promotion but decided it wasn't getting her anywhere. It was much more important to write the next book and make it better than the last.
I have to agree. I really believe word of mouth is the most important promotion for a book. You can promote your ass off but if your book doesn't grab the readers, it won't do you any good.
Besides, I'm a writer, not a promoter. I'm happy to attend book signings, do interviews or whatever, but that's not my job. It's not my passion. I want to write. It's what I love. And if I'm good enough, the readers will seek me out. If not, then I need to fix my writing--not promote it.

The Day Job
I recently acquired a part time day job working at home writing copy for on-line retailers. The working at home part is perfect for me and the copywriting is something I did for years in a former life. Unfortunately I'm working on a fairly large project right now and the husband and I are painting and repairing our rental property.
Which means, I'm STILL not writing. Well, not writing fiction anyway. Soon, I keep telling myself. Soon.
Right after I primer and paint an entire house, finish the copywriting, oh, and write a business plan and update a website. By then, it'll be Thanksgiving. Wonder if everyone would be okay with frozen turkey dinners?

Catching up is just not possible.

I got back from Tucson yesterday. It was a great trip and I really enjoyed spending a chunk of time with my family. I (mistakenly) thought I'd get some writing done while I was there. I didn't so now I'm anxious to get back to my WIP. But first there's the laundry, the housecleaning, the email, the blogs, the groups. They all need to be caught up on.
It ain't gonna happen.
The laundry, sure. The housecleaning, eventually. The email-- well, some of it. But the blogs and groups, no way. I'll just have to start over again and ignore the fact that I've obviously missed stuff.

Working it out
I'm feeling distracted. My current WIP is a mystery and instead of sitting down and hammering it out, I'm wanting to write something else. This isn't actually unusual for me. It happens when I hit a part that's hard. A part that require me to think about what I'm writing. I actually wrote the first half of this book a while back, then life and other books got in the way, so I'm just now getting back to it. I've rewritten the first three chapters and I'm right at the point where I remembered that I don't have the entire plot worked out. I know basically what happens but there are details I haven't settled on.
And I'm feeling pressure. I'm spending the month of October in Tucson with my family so my writing time will be limited. I'd wanted to get the first draft done by now, but there was the wedding and some other stuff that had to be attended to. Although if I'd had that burning desire to write, none of that would have slowed me down. I would have sacrificed sleep or housecleaning in order to write.
Writing isn't a 9-5 job. There are times when I literally don't do anything else but write. The story pours out of me so fast that I can hardly catch my breath. Then there are days when squeaking out a page or two seems monumental.
At least I wrote in the blog today.

A rose by any other name would still have thorns

Today, I was reading some blogs and Tess Gerritsen posted about blurbs. I know I should be getting blurbs for the book that's releasing next August. But I hate to ask. I feel like it's imposing on the author(s) that I'd ask. Besides, the cover is already done (top right). I love the cover and there's no room for a blurb. And it's probably too late, right?
Anyway, thinking about asking for a blurb made me think about the book. I realized I've been calling it a cozy mystery but it really isn't. Sure, it has an amateur sleuth and there's no blood and gore. But it has elements that are most definitely NOT cozy. Gay husband, cross-dressing, divorce, unplanned pregnancy. The protagonist, Skye, even has sex with two different men. The sex is off-screen and it's not like she's doing both of them at the same time. Still, it doesn't seem like a cozy.
I don't think it qualifies as a chick-lit mystery either. Skye is in her 40's and that seems too old for chick-lit. I don't even know if hen-lit is a viable sub-genre anymore. Skye has a hobby that is important in the mystery, but aren't hobby oriented mysteries still cozies?
Then there's the WIP. It's a mystery, too, and I've been calling it a cozy, but really it doesn't qualify either. The main character, Frankie, is a little too snarky, and her family a little too crazy, to be in a cozy. Plus the murders are already adding up. I think maybe too many people die for it to be a cozy.
Bottom line, I guess I don't write cozy mysteries.
And don't get me started on the differences between Suspense and Thriller.

Back to the drawing board. Or keyboard.

I sent out a few queries on Friday, which is always a little nerve wracking. To my incredible delight one of my top picks for an agent emailed back asking for a few pages. Yippee! I sent the pages. Very soon, I received another email from her saying that she liked the pages and could I send her about 50 pages. I sent them.
Saturday morning I received another email from the agent pointing out some problems with the three chapters I sent. Then she wrote the magic sentence: Let me know.
Let me tell you. It doesn't get any better than this. Seriously. Of course, I mean other than the agent dropping everything to call and beg you to become her client.
I've been querying for a long time. I've queried several thrillers and one mystery. And I've received everything from the form rejection letter to handwritten notes telling me they really, really liked it but it wasn't right for them or they just didn't love it enough. Or vague comments that were hard to interpret like: "You have a great character, but you need to raise her game". Once an agent took the time to write me a 2 page letter of comments plus notes on the manuscript and sent the manuscript back at her own expense so I'd have the notes she'd made. Believe me I thanked her profusely. And it was probably an opening to a dialog, but I didn't take it. Because from the comments the agent made I knew that we would probably never see eye to eye about a manuscript. She just wasn't the right agent for me.
So, why was this one different?
Because her comments made sense to me. One thing she pointed out I'd thought of several times but had convinced myself was ok. It wasn't.
I wrote her back asking if she'd like to see a revision. I asked because it seemed the polite thing to do. I know this agent has to be busy because she's got a lot of really good writers in her stable. I'd like to become one of them.

Talent/Finesse/Desire
Jessica Faust had an interesting post about writers who have innate talent and writers who work harder to learn the craft and the writers who have finesse. She said that finesse goes beyond the writers who work to hone their craft and the innate talented writers to whom it comes so naturally. There's a lot of good and interesting comments about it.
I hope I have all three. I know I've worked hard to hone my craft. I try to believe that I have an innate talent. I'm afraid to even consider if I have finesse. But one thing I know I have is desire.
I'm not one of those writers who penned a story at the age of 3. I didn't tell stories as a young child. As far as I remember. I recall writing in Junior High School. I don't remember why or what the appeal was at the time, but it never went away. I had teachers who recognized it in high school. I did a little writing in my 20's and by the time I was 30, I was a copywriter. I continued to do that for another 10 years. Then I became a technical writer, and did that for another 10 years. And I made a few attempts at writing a novel. But even when I wasn't writing for a living or working on a novel, I wrote in my journal every day. He looked at me in surprise and said "Oh, you're a writer."
I think what he recognized in me was the desire to write. The inability to NOT write for any length of time. I don't know where that fits in with talent and craft and finesse, but it's there. It's a part of me.