Quick Hello!

I know I haven't blogged in a while so I wanted to drop in and tell you I haven't forgotten about you, just been very busy with edits for Captive Art and helping my critique partner, Erica Lucke Dean, with To Katie With Love, both books are coming out this spring/summer so you can imagine how excited I am.

Anyway, if you want to catch me on a more regular basis, you can find me every other Tuesday on YA Stands.

Hope you are all doing well!

*hugs*

~ Laura

Yay! for Happenstance

December is only days away, which means my wonderful critique partner, Valerie Haight’s novella will be out soon! It’s a great story and I’m very lucky to have been able to read it in its early stages. Valerie put a lot of work into it and it really shows by the sheer awesomeness of it!!! I thought you guys would like to hear a little more about it so I invited Valerie to drop by.

Welcome Val! *big hugs*

 

Laura! Thank you so much for letting me hang with you here! And when you’ve got such exciting news yourself!!! I’m so excited to be bouncing alongside you! I’m thrilled to be a guest for your awesome blog. My belly’s full from Thanksgiving and my heart is full from all this GREAT NEWS! December’s right around the corner and my first release is almost here. I can’t wait to shout it from the rooftops!

Happenstance is my debut novella available through Turquoise Morning Press and will be released December 23, 2012! When I’m not walking around in an imaginary world, I play gopher to a corporate executive so I get to see a lot of corporate setting relationship conflict every day. I file this good stuff away in my scheming brain for future novels but today, let’s talk Happenstance!

Taryn Ballard is happily married and a newly appointed analyst for a prestigious shipping company.  Her career upsurges in record time but she’s about to discover the real price of corporate life.

While on yet another business trip, Taryn suffers a brutal attack by a carjacker. Her husband, Wade isn’t there, but her co-worker, Devin is.  The accidental bond Taryn and Devin share pitches them into dangerous and confusing territory. Taryn struggles to discern both her feelings for her sexy protector and Wade's reaction to it all. Unfamiliar emotions blur the rules of the game and Wade's ready to quit.

Taryn must rise above disaster to save her marriage. But is she ready to let go of the man who saved her life? In a single moment, Happenstance changes everything.

Putting MCs through the wringer is my specialty and I didn’t cut poor Taryn any slack. She was so much fun to write because I took everything I knew about the corporate world and tossed it straight at her. She plays havoc on both Devin’s and Wade’s feelings and lives. Yes, I’m awful. J I mixed my two favs-suspense and romance-and came up with something that hopefully every reader can identify with and enjoy. Here’s a snippet to give you the feel of the book.

“Devin, it’s Taryn. You were right. The execs want me to meet them for dinner and I feel really foolish because I have a GPS and a connect-the-dot map from the concierge and I’m still lost.”

Devin laughed. “Not a problem. Where are you?”

Taryn took a second to locate the green street sign. “At the corner of First and Third at a tiny, ancient-looking convenience store.”

“Oh, I know the one. You’re right next to us. I could probably see you from the tower window. Okay, which restaurant are you looking for?”

Taryn gabbed the hand-drawn map. “Caminas.”

“I know where it is. Actually, it might be faster by freeway.”

“Of course it would. I just came from—”

An unexpected rush of damp, hot air hit her and Taryn turned, confused to see her door open wide. She sucked in a quick breath and saw too late the arm reaching for her. Terror gripped her as she zeroed in on the gun in her face.

I had so much fun writing this story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! You can purchase Happenstance here on December 23^rd!

Tweet with me @Valeriebrbr, follow me on Facebook or find out the latest on my Author Page about my upcoming short story Magnolia Brides in a wedding anthology out in June!


Thanks for dropping by, Val! I'm so happy for you and can't wait to get my very own copy of Happenstance!

TAG, you're IT!

Today has been one of the best days I’ve ever had at being a writer, and I did very little actual writing today.  First, I got picked as one of the top sixty pitches for #PitchMadness going on over at Brenda Drake’s blog.  And now, my awesome critique partner Alexandra Alessandri has tagged me in a great game of GUTGAA Tag.  She’s an amazing writer and you should absolutely check out her blog.

Without further ado, here are my answeres to the Tag questions...

What is the working title of your book?
Which one?  Okay, I’ll focus on CAPTIVE ART for the purposes of this post.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
It was mostly from Harry Potter with all the paintings coming to life at the school.  CAPTIVE ART has nothing to do with wizards, but there are some very uniquely talented characters.

What genre does your book fall under?
YA Magical Realism (with lots of romance)

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
If you check out my Pinterest board for Captive Art you can see all the pics, except for Dean.  I had to take that picture down until I can find some of the Nordstrom’s model I saw in Santa Monica a few weeks ago. (Other than the picture’s I took…see YA Stands blog.)

What is the one-sentence short synopsis of your book?
It’s about sixteen-year-old, Libby Tanner’s paintings coming to life and the boy who is trapped in them.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I am currently seeking an agent and would like to go the traditional rout.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Exactly sixty days.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Aside from the hot guys?  Well there is that one scene where they…oh, I probably shouldn’t give that away.  Let’s just say it’s very unexpected.

Okay, my turn to tag three more writers.  Be sure to check them out (their blogs that is).

Kristina Perez @babelbabble
Lauren Spieller @laurenspieller
J.A. Bennett @j_a_bennett
 

Questions/Answers for the GUTGAA Meet & Greet

-Where do you write?  In my rocking chair of course!  With my laptop and a Boppy pillow from when my daughter was born.

-Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?  My dining room table and a pile of Barbies. (I should probably have her pick those up.)

-Favorite time to write?  After 8 p.m. when my house is quiet.

-Drink of choice while writing?  Chai Latte or regular Coke if it’s too hot for tea.

-When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?  Complete silence, though I usually listen to music before I write.

-What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?  The inspiration actually came from the last Harry Potter movie.  Though ‘Captive Art’ is noting like Harry Potter.  It has to do with the paintings coming to life.

-What's your most valuable writing tip?  If you haven’t felt like quitting, your dreams aren’t big enough.

I'm No Susie Homemaker

This morning - tea in hand - I wandered around surveying the messy state of my house.  Four laundry baskets filled with clothes waiting to be folded huddled near the dining room table.  (At least the clothes were clean.)  The blanket fort built days ago in the living room, now resembled a leaning shack just waiting for a gust of wind to blow it down.  Dirty dishes needing to be loaded into the dishwasher filled the sink and covered the counter.  A pile of dog hair had collected in the corner of the kitchen and I wasn’t exactly sure what my sock was sticking to on the floor.

I briefly considered calling a cleaning service, but decided it would be more work to locate the phonebook in the piles of papers in my office than it would be to just start cleaning myself.  

So that’s what I did.

I folded and put away clothes.  I took down the poor fort/shack and put the blankets where they belonged.  I loaded the dishwasher and wiped the counters then swept and vacuumed the floors.  By the time I was done you’d never know I wasn’t ‘Susie Homemaker’, and I’m not.  In fact, I’m boarding on ‘Susie Homewrecker ‘.

But today I had a mission and by golly I was going to complete it.

Several hours later when I was finally finished, I sat down in my rocking chair and turned on my laptop.  As I waited for it to boot-up I took another look around the house feeling satisfied with what I’d accomplished.  I know I’m not alone when I say my writing and editing have a way of taking over every essence of my being.  When the words and ideas flow it’s easy to forget about all the other things in life that need to be tended to.

For now though, the house is clean, the laundry is as close to done as it can be and I’m ready for my next inspiration to hit.

In case you were wondering, my cleaning theme song was Love to Get Used, by Matt Pond PA.  Also, be sure to check out my guest blog post on Erica Lucke Dean's site on Friday, February 17^th.

I knew her when...

I’m not really a celebrity watcher.  I don’t pay much attention to who’s with who in Hollywood or who’s in rehab or who’s having a baby.  I also don’t put much stock into tabloids or shows devoted to giving us the scoop on the entertainment world at-large.  For the most part I think stars are regular people and their job happens to be to entertain us. 

However, I do get a sense of satisfaction when there is an actor/actress or singer that I have been watching or listening to for a while and all of a sudden they become popular.  For example, I started listening to ADEL back before Chasing Pavement even hit the airways and my absolute favorite song of hers is not one that’s played on the radio.  I have this feeling like I could say, ‘I knew them when…’, and now everyone else gets to know how talented they are.

I imagine this to be what an agent or editor must feel like when one of the books they’ve worked on hits a best seller list or gets optioned for a movie.  They can say, ‘I knew that author when their book still needed work’.  It’s like being the first one to know a secret everyone will eventually figure out.

As a writer I know I have tons of great ideas in my head waiting to be shared (okay, maybe they’re not all great, but tons of them anyway) and it’s one of those ideas that someone somewhere will pick up and say, ‘This is great, I’m glad I read it’.  Maybe they’ll get the satisfaction of saying, ‘I read her debut novel’, or ‘I read her work before she was a New York Times Bestseller’.  No, I do not ever expect to be as popular as J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer (I can dream of course), but I will share my stories just as they did.  After all, that’s really what it’s all about, sharing our stories with others, sharing part of us with the world.

This brings me to something I’m particularly excited about.  A few weeks ago I saw a commercial for a new show on NBC called SMASH and when I saw that Katharine McPhee is starring in it I nearly screamed (nearly).  I have enjoyed listening to her music since her American Idol days (even though I rarely watch the show) and I got all tingly inside thinking how wonderful it is that other people will finally see/hear, and appreciate, how beautiful her voice is.  Also, one of her songs played a major role in the writing of my first novel and I’m afraid that if it hadn’t been for that song I probably would never have finished writing it or even thought about writing more after I’d finished that first one.

So here is the song with the lyrics, maybe it will inspire you as much as it did me.  Feel free to share what other songs, or persons for the matter, have inspired you.

(P.S. If you haven't checked out this new site for writers, you are majorly missing out.  Pub(lishing) Crawl)

GOAL!

(You'll have to imagine me shouting the title with a crowd of people.)

Now that we are a few days into the New Year I thought I’d better get my ‘resolution’ blog posted.  Only problem, I don’t have any resolutions this year.  After my complete resolution debacle last year, I think I’m officially never making another New Year’s Resolution again.

The short story on 2011’s resolution:

Jan 1, resolved to exercise at least 4 days a week

Jan 3, fell on stairs and injured knee

Jan 4 – Feb 21, continued to stick to resolution even with increased knee pain

Jun 21, had micro fracture surgery on left knee

Nov 21, had partial knee replacement because previous surgery didn’t stop the pain

I’m not saying that my resolution is to blame for all of this, but I certainly don’t want to set myself up for failure.  So this year, instead of making a resolution, I’m going to set myself a goal, the goal of finding an agent.

(I’m not a soccer fan, but this is the best analogy I can think of.)

In soccer, there is ultimately one player who kicks the ball into the net (Me).  Your teammates assist by blocking, passing, etc (Family, Friends, Critique Partners).  The other team members are your obstacles (editing and polishing your manuscript, writing and sending query letters, writing a synopsis, researching agents, finding time to do all this, life in general).  The goalie on the other team is your ultimate obstacle.  It’s the one thing you can’t rely on anyone else to help you get past. It’s the one thing standing between you and your goal.  It’s the one thing that is with you all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  You eat and sleep with it.  You even go to the bathroom with it.

It’s YOU.

You are the only thing that will ultimately stand in front of your goal.

It’s you against you and this year I am getting out of my own way, even if I have to plow myself down to get the ball in the net (obviously that’s not legal in soccer, but hey, it’s my analogy).

Here's a little soccer inspiration for you and I’d love to hear what your ‘goals’ are for 2012.  Feel free to share some tips with the rest of us as well.

What's all the hype for?

I watched an ABC Family TV movie the other night.  It was good, really good, probably good enough for Hollywood, but it made me think that this is the difference between traditional publishing and self publishing.

I am not saying that self published (SP) authors don’t have the same quality writing as traditionally published (TP) authors.  Let me repeat that, I am NOT saying that SP authors do not have the same quality writing as TP authors.  What I’m saying is SP authors don’t have, or get, the same hype as TP authors.  They don’t get the prime spot on the book shelf or the big add on Barnes & Noble’s home page.  They’re lucky if they even get picked up by a corporate bookstore.

On the other hand there are plenty of Hollywood movies out there that got tones of hype then flopped at the box office, but they did get the hype and that’s the point right.  The point is to get people to at least try reading our story, to get our book into their hands.  Not everyone is going to like our stories, but the more people who know about us the better chance we have at finding loyal readers.

Self publishing is a lot of work, you must self promote.  Lots of TP authors have to self promote as well, just like actors and actresses do.  But imagine the crowd difference at an event featuring the hunky guy from the TV movie or say, Brad Pitt.  Now you see what I mean!  Brad Pitt still has to show up to the event, but he doesn’t have to work very hard to draw a crowd, his agent, publicist and movie producers have done this for him.  Just like a literary agent, editor and publisher do this for the TP author.

Again I want to emphasize that I am strictly speaking about the difference in hype, not writing quality.  I love Amanda Hocking’s stories just as much as Richelle Mead, but I wouldn’t have ever read Ms. Hocking’s work if a friend hadn’t been arbitrarily scrolling through Amazon looking for something else.  Though, Ms. Hocking has created quite the following as I’ve recently discovered.

What it comes down to for me is I need help with the hype.  I’ve never been good at self promotion.  I’m great at praising and promoting others, but have never been good at the ‘look at me’ thing.  And you need to be good at that to be a successful SP author.  So it’s the traditional road for me, the road I know will eventually lead me to publication.

How about you?  Are you a good or bad self promoter?  Does it even matter to you so long as your book is bound and available to others?

BTW: I would choose to meet the hunky TV actor over meeting Brad Pitt, just saying.

More Than Words

“Show not tell.”

How many times as an aspiring author have you heard this phrase?  Probably enough times to make you sick.  You’ve also probably read a thousand blog posts on the subject and reworked your manuscript countless times to solve this very issue.

But if you’re anything like me, you still struggle with it.

It’s an elusive goal we strive for with every word we write.  It’s the difference between saying how your character feels and describing what that feeling is.  It’s how we get our reader to put themselves in the character’s place.  If our character is scared our reader should feel their own skin crawl and heart race with freight, this is how we keep the reader turning pages instead of setting the book down and walking away.

The other day I was listening to the radio and the song MORE THAN WORDS came on by the group Extreme.  It’s an older song, but it fits this subject perfectly.  I’ve now added this song to my writing play list as a reminder to myself that it’s not about what my characters say it’s about what they do.

Here’s the song with lyrics, hope this helps anyone else out there struggling with this issue.

Balance

I’d be lying if I said it was great to be back at my day job after being off for so long (12 weeks).  It really was a very difficult week for me.  Physically, my knee was more sore this week than it has been in a while.  I’m tired from all the early mornings, especially with getting my girl off to pre-school at 7:30 a.m. and my nose is stuffy from the drastic drop in temperature that happened mid-week.  Emotionally, I’m frustrated because I’m tired of my legs hurting all the time.  I’m a little sad about my baby starting school.  And, as strange as this may sound to some, I miss my characters.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel very blessed that I have a job to go to that provides me with a comfortable standard of living, friendly coworkers and security in the fact that I had a job to go back to after such a long absence.  But, while I was off, I was able to complete the second book in the series I’m working on, as well as get another stand-alone book almost finished.  These two things bring my novel count to 3.75 completed manuscripts.  A feat I’m very proud of, yet I feel like I still have so far to go.

As I was saying, I miss my characters, because both the series and the stand-alone are not finished, I feel like I abandoned them.  You may think, ‘well, you know how the story is going to end, so you know the characters will be fine’.  Yes, that’s true, but isn’t the journey what’s important, not only in real life, but in novels as well.  After all, that’s why people read novels, for the journey the story takes them on.

So I guess what I’m saying is, I miss the characters’ journey.  I miss the daily contact with the characters and the thought process I go through to get them from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’.  I miss the writing routine I had developed that helped me get as much done as I did.  But most of all, I miss the freedom to write when an idea struck me, especially since I had a major idea hit me on my way back to the office from lunch one day!  (Let me tell you, it was hard to get any actual work done that afternoon…but don’t worry boss, I still did everything I was supposed to.)

While I realize that becoming a published author will not make me rich, and I will most likely have to keep my day job for years to come, I mostly just want to be able to find balance.  I want to find a way not to feel so tired at night that I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to type anything worthwhile.  I don’t want my stories or my quality of work at my day job to suffer because I’m distracted by one or the other.  And I don’t want to let anyone down, whether it’s my boss, my family or the characters I’ve created.

At this point, balance is elusive.  But I’m determined, even if I have to suffer through a few miserable days as I find a way to make things work.  I know I can do it.  I know I will do it.  I’m not giving up on my dream to become a published author just because I’m tired, or my leg hurts, or I had a bad day at work.  And I’m also not going to let the other areas of my life suffer just so that I can become published.

So how do you find balance?  What does and doesn’t work for you?  Please share and maybe we’ll all find balance together.

Dedication

We all have our ups and downs in writing.  We have days when our characters won’t shut up.  Days we can’t type fast enough to get what they want to say and do out of our head and on paper (or screen).  Then there are other days when our characters are giving us the silent treatment and no matter how hard we try they just won’t talk to us.

Lately, and thankfully, I’ve been experiencing the former.  I have a character in my head that refuses to be quieted.  She keeps me up at night and wakes me early in the morning.  I’ve skipped meals just to finish a scene and move her to her next obstacle (or next meeting with her love interest).  I’ve admittedly been absent minded about things like house work & paying bills (thank goodness for direct deposit and online banking).  I’ve even been a bit neglectful of my family, but luckily my husband understands and my daughter thinks it’s fun to color while I type.

But I know the day will come when the words won’t flow and I’ll get frustrated enough to fold a load of laundry or pay for my garbage pickup.  I’ll play a game of Candy Land with my 4yo and watch a movie with my husband.  I’ll read a book I’ve been wanting to, but haven’t found the time.  Then I’ll listen to some new music and sit in my rocking chair wondering why my heroine has decided to turn away from me.

Have I done wrong by her?

Have I taken her story in a direction it wasn’t meant to go?

Have I changed her development to a point that she is unrecognizable?

And then the cycle will start again.  She’ll come back to me.  I’ll want to hug her and tell her I’ve missed her and I’ll promise to never do wrong by her again as long as she continues to help me right her story.

Because, after all, it is her story…not mine.  I’m just here to write it down for her.

Earlier this summer I was lucky enough to find an amazing group of women who were gracious enough to let me join their critique group.  I’d finished editing (well, as finished as I could get on my own) my current novel and was looking for someone to help me polish it up.  What I found were five of the most talented and encouraging women I have ever known.  Each one of them brings their own spice to the group and I am so honored that they have allowed me to read their heroine’s stories.

I share this with you because I know that some of them have been on the down part of the writing cycle and it can be lonely there.  It’s like a wasteland where you crave words instead of water.  But with the encouragement and support of other writers you can find that one word or one sentence that will shoot you right to the top again.  The top of the writing cycle where your heroine has gripped you so forcefully that you couldn’t let go if you wanted to.

So I dedicate this post to Erica, Lizzie, Rachel, Sydney & Valerie for writing down the stories of some incredible heroines and for being incredible heroines themselves.

Valentine Lake

I just realized it’s been a month since my last post.  Between travel and home life things have been quite busy.  I’ve also started working on a new novel and I’m very excited about it, so I thought I’d share with you the place I worked on it this past weekend…

There is possibly only one place in the world I prefer to write more than in my rocking chair.  That place is sitting on the settee at Valentine Lake.  The settee is in a small alcove off the living room of a friend’s cottage.  The alcove has two large windows with one overlooking the private lake and the other overlooking the woods.  There’s a small table to set my tea and notepad on and an electrical outlet nearby to plug in my laptop.  It’s close enough to the fireplace so that on cool mornings I’m warm and on warm days the windows give a nice cross breeze.  It’s my little piece of heaven on earth.

My best friend from childhood and I live several hours away from each other so we don’t see one another as much as we’d like to, but every summer we make it to Valentine Lake.  The cottage is owned by the mother of one of my other best friends who’s no longer with us (that’s a story for another time) and we’ve been going there for nineteen years (Wow! that feels like a long time when I say it out loud).

Over the years our lives have obviously changed, we’ve grown up, gotten married, had kids, but the cottage has remained constant.  Our husbands laugh at us because BFF and I spend several hours just sitting together while I write (before I started writing I did word finds or Sudoku) in the settee and she reads in the overstuffed rocking chair next to me.  When the weekend is over my hubby always asks me what BFF and I talked about and every year I tell him the same thing, ‘not much’.  He wonders why we don’t ‘interact’ while we’re together, but between the phone, texting, email, Face Book, and even Skype, BFF and I actually communicate quite a lot.  Enough that when we’re together at the lake it’s nice just to sit quietly and enjoy the lake and enjoy the fact that we’re there together after all these years.

Now that I’m home in my rocking chair and well rested from a relaxing weekend, I have lots of energy to keep the words flowing and I even have a few new ideas.  So I’ll leave you for now so that I can get some of those ideas down…but first I have to call BFF and tell her what 4yo said to me this morning.

Happy Writing!

Savior (My 1st Flash Fiction)

The peach trees in the orchard near Eve’s house were almost ready for picking.  The smell of the sweet fruit filled the air as she wandered amongst the trees, ducking under low branches then letting her fingers graze the leaves above her.  The summer air was warm as the sun’s rays peeked through the canopy of branches.

Eve walked a bit further before turning around and heading home.  Something in the distance caught her eye and for a moment she walked toward it.  But the more steps she took the more the air began to cool and the sky began to darken.  She started back for home, moving at a quick pace, but the air remained cold around her and soon it was like night had come hours early.

She began to run, but it felt like the orchard had doubled in size and there was no way she would reach her destination in time.  Then, as if pulling the darkness from the sky, a figure formed in front of her.  It towered in height and began to move towards her.  She screamed and turned to run in a different direction.  The cold air burned in her lungs, but she kept going as the figure gained on her.

It moved so quickly she didn’t dare look back to see how close it was…and then it was on her.  It wrapped its arms around her.  She screamed again and kicked, but there was no way she could break free.  Her feet were no longer touching the ground and all she could see was blackness.

Her body was weak from running, but she continued to struggle, refusing to give up.

Just when she was sure her time had come a flash of light beamed through the darkness stinging her eyes.  She fell from her captor’s arms only to be caught by something else.  The light was too bright to open her eyes and she didn’t feel the need to.

The pain in her lungs began to ease.  Where she had felt cold before, she felt warm now, like being wrapped in the softest blanket she’d ever known.  She wanted to speak, to thank her savior.  But when she could finally open her eyes he was gone and she was standing at her front door.

Her heart began to ache for him as if it knew she’d never see her savior again.

I Am A Writer

Admittedly, I haven’t always loved to read and write.  In fact, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I even incorporated those things into my regular daily routines.  But now, I can’t imagine my life without them and I feel like I’m constantly playing catch up with all the great books out there that I have yet to read and all the stories floating around in my head that I have yet to write.

Before the summer of 2008 I could count on one hand the number of complete novels I’d read for pleasure.  I never thought I had enough time to read and never really found anything I enjoyed enough to finish.  Then my best friend insisted I read a book that she loved and knew I would love it too…and she was right.  I couldn’t put it down.

The book happened to be the first in a series and I rushed right out to buy the whole set.  But when it ended I felt this incredible sinking feeling like I’d lost someone or something that had been so dear to me.  I called my BFF and told her how upset I was and you know what she told me…

“Read another book.”

And so I did.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a tragedy in my life caused me to write my first novel, but this also happened around the same time I had begun reading more.  Those events collided in a way that changed my life so much it’s hard to express the magnitude of that change here in this one short blog.  But the other day while visiting with my brother he asked me why I didn’t do a certain hobby I used to and my husband chimed in, “Because she’s a writer.”

That was it, I am a writer.  It was the first time my husband had said it that way, so simple yet so profound.  I am a writer.  I may not be as great at it as (insert name of your favorite writer here), but I am a writer.  And while I don’t earn an income yet from my writing, my day job is no longer the correct response to the question ‘What do you do?’ the correct response is…

I am a writer.

Are you?

Write What's In Your Head

The topic of today’s blog post is in response to a tweet from one of my twitter pals, Joani Plenty, who, by the way, if you’re not following her you should be because she’s awesome.  Anyway, as I was saying, Joani mentioned that she already had a plot and an ending and that she loved the story, but…the story was a mystery which was out of her genre.

What to do? What to do?

I tweeted her back of course, but could merely reply with what would fit in the 140 characters that Twitter allows, so here you get the long version.

My response to her was to write it anyway then perhaps have it under a Pen Name.  I know normally agents and publishers don’t suggest this until you’re a well established author, but I still think the story should be written.  The reason for this is I think you should write what’s in your head; whether it’s a line, a page, a chapter or an entire novel, get it down on paper.

The first novel I ever wrote was a coming of age/family drama and the main characters were a twenty-something man and a seventy-something woman.  I wrote it as a sort of grieving process at the time, but when the story first came to me it was all I could think about and dream about.  It was on my mind almost every waking moment.  Then, as I started to write it down, it began to occupy less of my thoughts and gave my brain and body a chance to rest.

I finished the novel in about a year.  When I typed the last words the story was completely out of my head and I could move on to the next project…which happened to be a young adult fantasy that only took me sixty days to write.

I did pitch this novel to a few agents, but it was mostly just to get the experience and I never really expected it to go anywhere.  But I feel like if I hadn’t written that first novel down it would still be in my head and there wouldn’t have been room for the second story which I am pitching and have had several agents ask to read.  There also wouldn’t have been room for all the other ideas I’ve had since completing my second novel.

The other reason you want to write it down is because you may have a line or scene in mind for a story that isn’t fully developed in your head, but that line or scene can eventually turn into a fantastic novel, even if it’s ‘outside’ your genre.  You would also be kicking yourself later when and actual story line comes along and you can’t remember that line or scene that was so great in the first place (trust me I’ve done this several times).

So if you’re worried about staying in your genre, I’d say to just write what’s in your head and in your heart because it will make room for all the other great ideas that come along…and they will come, just keep writing!

The Greats

For the past several days I have been staying with my mom while recovering from knee surgery.  It’s been very relaxing and she’s not the type of person who hovers so I’m actually getting a lot of editing and writing done.  (Yay for not having to go to my day job!)

I’m actually staying in my mom’s room since it’s bigger and can accommodate all the equipment one bum knee requires.  But as I sit here and look around the I realize I’m surrounded by greatness.  I’m not talking about the color of the walls or the view from her window.  I’m talking about the fishing pole in the corner that my great grandfather made for my mom when she was a child, and the two quilts on the bed (yes two because my mother insists on having the air at full blast), one quilt made by each of my great grandmothers, or the bed itself and a ring that sits on the dresser that were my great aunts.  I’m talking about the things that have survived and been passed down.

As I look at these things I wonder how much of me is like any of these people.  Do I have quirks that they did?  What features of mine are most like them?  Are my dreams and aspirations like any of theirs were?  Mostly I wonder if writing is in my blood.  Did any of my greats write anything that I don’t know about or did they want to write something, but never did?  I sort of wish I had something they’d written, even if it was a letter or old school assignment; something that would give me a glimpse of who they were or would have shown me their ‘voice’.

My point in all of this is that as I write I hope I’m able to give this glimpse of myself to my future greats.  I hope that the words on the page carry a part of me with them and that I stay true to who I am as I continue to develop my craft.  I don’t want to ‘fake’ it.  I don’t want to write something just because I think it would attract a certain agent or publisher, or because I think it would sell well.  I want my story to be my own and hope that by doing that the story will be great itself.

Are you a 4 am writer?

There are very few books that I have stayed up past midnight to read, or as my husband likes to call it 'Pumpkin Time'. Normally my brain just stops functioning and I’m forced to go to bed.

But last night, or rather early this morning, I found myself captivated in a way that so rarely happens for me.  I found myself thinking ‘just one more page’ then ‘just one more chapter’.  When all was said and done I finished the book, turned out my light, put my head on my pillow and drifted off to sleep as my clock clicked to 4:03 am.

There are probably less books than I could count on one hand that I have done this with.  That is not to say I haven’t read a lot of books or haven’t found a lot of books I thoroughly enjoyed.  What I am saying is the power and the passion of the author’s writing made it physically impossible for me to put the book down until I had read every single word she’d written.

Most of my 4 am books have been unexpected, by authors I hadn’t read before or in a genre I don’t usually read.  My goal therefore is to be that kind of writer.  To share my stories with readers of all kinds in a way that makes it physically impossible to put them down.  I want my readers to eat meals with my books, go to the park with my books, stand on a subway platform and miss their train because of my books (though I don’t want anyone to be late for work).  I want my readers to go to bed with my books and stay up into the wee hours of the morning until they have read the last word on the last page and then leave them wanting to turn around and read the whole thing over again.

So from this day forward I pledge to write stories so captivating that when the clock strikes twelve they ignore the chime (and the rotting pumpkin) and keep right on reading.

I pledge to be a 4 am writer, do you?