Odds

What are our chances of becoming a best-selling novelist? About 11,600 hardcover fiction books are published a year. Only about 90 sold 100,00 copies or more, less than 10 sold over 1 million. Odds, then, are around 1 in 125. That's if you find someone willing to publish your book, in the first place.

Long odds. Something else has to make it worth it. Make buying and learning how to work a computer and all the problems that brings, worth it. Something that makes the workshops, critic sessions, the rejections, worth it. If you ask, most writers say there was never a choice. It isn't that they want to write, it is that they must.

For every writer who must write and was published, there are over 125 writers, most of which are must writers, who have failed. So be it.

Frank Lloyd Wright said, the truth is more important than the facts. The truth, the truth I will listen to, is that if Dianne Wilson Elliott or Kaki Warner hadn't ignored the facts and gone ahead to write, anyway, there would be no chance that I would read Forever and Beyond or Pieces of Sky.

I think the truth here; my truth is I must write, I must try, today, despite fear. Fear of failure or fear of success. Oh, yes, always both fears. Fear of failure and the mirrored fear of succeeding. That nagging worry of success and its impact. For a writer who wants nothing more than to work away in the office without thought or worry about those other things that publishing brings: deadlines, promotion, networking, social obligations, the thought of success can be overwhelming.

I get panicky when I think that way. Silly, but I do. Another truth is, I have to do, try. I have to let go of what will happen or not happen and let it. Difficult to do when so much is riding on that. Difficult to do when so much is already beyond my control.

Again, truth is, I must.

Misc. Zen Thoughts

Misc. Zen Thoughts

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor. —D. H. Lawrence

 

The standard advice when the publishing/writing blues hit is to write. I prescribe to that advice 90% of the time, too, but…when you've bowed your head and forged ahead, you've kept at the page, writing even when you don't feel like it and what you've written just plain stinks, you have to try something else. You know: shred oranges or scrub floors or both.

Get out of your head, get off your butt, do something physical. Ideally, something with sounds and smells and feels. Marmalade or gardens, hikes or swims. Try that!

 

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things. —Ray Bradbury

 

All you have to remember is being a teenager, walking into the hangout, worrying whether someone would notice you, or no one would and the certainty both were equally bad. There's a way you walk and scour the room, hold your body and focus your gaze. It's so obvious you're nervous. That's how your writing comes across when you think too much. Every word shows it. Don't do that!

 

What, then, is your duty? What the day demands. —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 

What does your day demand to take that next step on your way to your writing goal? Is it edit? Brainstorm? Put in your word quota? Fill the well? Do it!

 

When you've got it, there's no place for it but a poem. —Wu Pen

 

Trying another genre from the one you normally write. It stirs your mind, bringing to the top fresh, new thoughts and ideas. No matter what you write or how well you write, every writer needs that stir once in a while. Stir that!

The Perfect Teachers

 

Sometimes, you’re just lucky and sometimes the time’s just right. And as they say, sometimes, when the student is ready, the teacher will come. I’ve found in my life, and the way it plays out, I have to be satisfied with unique means and methods for teachers to come. It is very often not a person.

So, this beginning of the year, after all the chaos of the holidays, the cooking, wrapping, shopping, and company, I was ready for a little inspiration and encouragement. Besides, there were all those resolutions/goals I wanted to meet.

The diet/live-it thing, I’ve resigned myself to realize is not a resolution or goal but more a daily way of living, but the writing thing, why, that is my soul and self nourishment. A way of life, too, sure, but sometimes, hard to maintain the upbeat attitude. I can use some help with that and with the ways and means of making my dreams come true now and again. Can’t we all?

And along comes help. All three in the form of a book. But isn’t that just like a book? The first was a book I had in my TBR shelf. I’ve been meaning to read it for years and finally, because it looked small and easy to read, but was a writing book, which I resolved to read at least two this year, fit my needs: The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell. The perfect book for me, at the perfect time. I always love Bell’s writing books. He’s to the point, with explanations and descriptions that I completely get and he touches every aspect of writing with smart, doable things to move forward with a writing career.

The next book The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen was perfect for opening my eyes to so many small ways I can sneak, steal, manage my time for more writing times and opportunities. When I read her writing books I always feel like she’s a big sister encouraging me on, telling me I can, even when the world, sometimes, tells me I can’t. So many times I feel as if everyone else is telling me how to spend my time. Cohen, tells you how to put your writing first to be better for everyone in your life.

And finally, there was Chasing the Sun by Kaki Warner, the last in her Blood Rose Trilogy. It was so nice to know there was another great Western Historical out there to read, but everything ends. This trilogy ended perfectly and thankfully, Kaki is busy writing another series.

But for a writer, nothing brings a smile, tickles up admiration and gets the writing juices flowing the same way reading a great book does. Road-map, encouragement, inspiration and example- the perfect teachers.

Perfection

I want perfection from myself. I don’t expect it from anyone else, but from me, I want it. I wonder why that is? Especially, with my writing. I want every word perfect.

I’ve been writing all my life with a few breaks of steady writing due to…life. You know, that vast, beautiful wilderness desert of babies, diapers, railroad widowhood and early marriage poverty. I spent hours upon hours relearning typing, learning computers (kids are the best teachers for that and I had to raise them up to the age where I could absorb it by osmosis, time being what it was.) I had so much to learn to right at the level I wanted. I bought and studied the 1983 edition of How to Write a Romance and Get It Published by Kathryn Falk and devoured it cover to cover. I learned formatting and plotting and new computers. I took grammar workshops, struggled with wrestling time to write from all my sweet, loving, needy family members. I cried, fought, struggled and…

I’ve written about ten Western Historicals. Most are complete with only one more pass through needed to be ready for submission. So, why aren’t they out in the world? Why haven’t I been published? Maybe they just don’t cut it? They aren’t perfect and… truth is it’s mostly because I’ve been afraid they are not perfect. The timing was not perfect, for me or the world of publishing.

After all, I can’t begin to compete with the latest writing darling. I’m not the next Lavyrle Spencer, Penelope Williams, Jodi Thomas. The trend is not toward the Western Historicals and has not been for many years, but it is my favorite.

So…the writing wasn’t right. The timing wasn’t right. I wasn’t right. Thank goodness there were writers who didn’t care about all that. Thank goodness, there were writers who put their work out there. Writers like Kaki Warner, Jodi Thomas and Linda Lael Miller.

Perfection paralyzes.

One of the definitions in the Franklin Merriam-Webster Dictionary really struck me: an unsurpassable degree of accuracy or excellence. Unsurpassable. In other words, can’t be done.
What can be done is writing the best book I possibly can, taking a deep breath and sending it out in the world. I can work to improve, but realize I will never be perfect, but I’ll get better. And better is enough. Better is my personal best, at that time. Maybe, it will be enough to be published and maybe not, but it is certain not to be published if I don’t get the things out there.
As I wind down my final edit of Ellie and the Tie-down Man, and I listen to all the sobering news about the industry, I know my chances are slim, but I must try. For nothing more than myself. The goal has always been to get my work good enough to submit.

It’s a lot like fishing. My husband always wants to go fishing. When we do, he starts worrying about catching fish. I tell him, we were going fishing, not catching. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m casting the best bait I can write out there on the water and hope for a bit or two. But in the end it was really about the writing.

Goals or Resolutions

New Years Day with family is just about perfect in my mind and this year was great. Best was all the discussions. Of course, resolutions came up. I brought it up. One daughter-in-law mentioned she didn’t do resolutions and instead, made goals. I liked that thought.

I have wonderful daughter-in-laws, intelligent and beautiful, but still, I wondered—what was it I was really trying to do? Goal or resolution? Was there really a difference? Maybe knowing would help succeeding.

Every year I do a jumpstart anyway. I get ready and decide what the next year will be like and what I want to accomplish, weeks before. I’ve learned this is one of the best ways I can fight winter blues, cabin fever and seasonal affective disorder. All of which plaque me.

It’s been several years since I’ve been really psyched to do goals or resolutions. All I wanted was to accomplish something, anything. So many things were pushed back as I dealt with MPGN and being a primary caregiver. This year I'd like to give myself and my goals more attention. I know it will be a challenge with these other things and a retired husband around. (Although, he supports my writing. Smart man, he knows it is not a matter of my wanting to write, but I need to write. If I could not write, I would.)

Still, there are so many critical pulls to my energy, things I cannot ignore or change. The best thing I can think to do is give myself a way and means to try to do them. I know…there is no try, there is only do.

So, I looked up the two words in question in the dictionary. What else would a writer do? Well, she would look the words up in a thesaurus, too. Wouldn’t she?

Goal: the end toward which effort is directed (INTENTION)
objective, aim, end, target, wish, dream

Resolution: the act or process of reducing to simpler form as a: the act of analyzing a complex notion into a simpler one. b: the act of answering: (SOLVING)
resolve, decision, commitment, pledge, promise

I realize I need both. I need a goal, but I, also, need a simpler way to reach it. I need resolve. I love that word. It sounds tough and strong. It’s me, with my chin sticking out with determination, my shoulders strong and firm, ready for a fight or a 5k walk.

And I know I can do that.

New Year and Resolutions

The New Year and resolutions can’t be far behind. As always, there are those to lose weight and get more exercise. Work on health issues. I’m all over that, of course. It’s a daily, weekly, yearly battle or goal, depending on the successes.

Something else has come to my attention, though. Something that’s been nagging at me for some time. I neglected so much while I was sick. Nothing was filed, read or scanned. We kept the office clean and tidy, but when I got back to writing, that’s what I concentrated on. Organization suffered. Truth is it got out of hand and I’ve never dealt with it since. With good reason and decision, too, but now…Now, it’s time.

I’m like every writer I know, collecting articles and information, ideas and tickler snippets. I’m actually pretty good at filing all this mess of paper, but I’m in need of serious help now. The room is spilling out of its boundaries. I can’t always find what I’m looking for, which wastes too much time. I’m a tiny bit obsessive-compulsive, too, so the chaos shatters my concentration if I dwell too often or too much on all the things I haven’t done.

There’s no way around it. I need to do some sorting, organizing and eliminating. I’m smart enough to know it will be long-term work. Something that, a little at a time, will take many, many hours. There are writing books I’ve read I need to send to used books stores and magazines to toss. There are tokens and gifts and little things I’ve picked up to store. There are articles to scan, label and file for research.

Mostly, it’s time. That thing I never have enough of. I’ve begun this week between Christmas and New Years with the hope it will kick start the habit. The sad thing is I need to do the same in each room of the house and I plan to. I’ve come to realize it is a constant job—the sorting, storing, culling. Questions—Is this relevant in my life today and still? Do I still need or want this? Will I write about that? Do I need that nugget of information still? Have I used it and no longer need it?

Nothing earth shattering as far as resolutions go, but each little space I accomplish this with will pay me back and ease my mind.

And I begin today.

Opportunity

I’ve been working hard on editing “Ellie and the Tie-down Man.” The work has been, for the most part, going very well. As I said before, I could clearly see where I stopped when I was hit with MPGN, surrendered to fighting that. That brought forward many memories. Of hopelessness and fear. And worse, the question, would I ever write again?

Sometimes, surrender is the only thing you have control of. So, you do it. It kind of goes against my nature. As I’ve said before, it broke my heart. At the time, it felt like failure. It wasn’t. I was choosing to concentrate on what needed doing.

That was a lesson, I needed to learn and it’s served me well, too. I’ve been plugging away at this novel. Improving, tightening the novel, enjoying the work, thrilled with getting back into the story. I’m just four chapters from the finish. I’m ready to celebrate when this nagging thought keeps wiggling in the back of my mind. Word count. Word count? Word count.

What was the word count? What would it be if I kept going on as I had been? What is the word count for Historical Romance? Now, today? Not when I put it away. Not with the rough edges. But now.

I did some research. I added up my word count. I’m thousands of words over, if I leave everything as it is, but I’m just four chapters from the finish line. I feel as if I’ve been on a marathon and I have to go back and start over.

I’ve been on a four-day funk, too. Thoughts of banging my head against my desk sound helpful. Giving up this book, sound reasonable. I’m not even sure the book has anything to recommend it. There are other things: other novels, poetry, memoirs clamoring to be told. I’m not getting any younger. My time is limited. I’ve wasted enough time. I lost so much time and I have to be reasonable. Blah, blah, blah and yada, yada, yada….

Well, la, la, la, la, la, with fingers in my ears. It came to me. This isn’t about Ellie and the Tie-down Man. It’s about me learning something. It isn’t about getting published. It’s about lessons in learning to do this thing I was born to do. It’s opportunity.

It’s the opportunity to get this book right. Right now. It’s about pulling up my big girl pants, getting busy, and cutting a whole bunch of my carefully written words. And that’s what I’m going to do.


Happy Holidays