Care And Feeding Of A Writer, Volume One: Recharging The Batteries

 (Author's note: this is the first in a series of posts on how to combat everyday obstacles and other setbacks to the creative process. If there's a specific topic you'd like me to discuss, let me know in the comments.)

We've all been there, probably more often than we'd like to admit. Whether we attribute it to writer's block, stress from the day job, or our printer being out of ink, sometimes we just can get the words out of our brains and into our WIP. A closely related condition is when a scene forms perfectly in your head, but when you write it, it comes out something like this:

"She woke up, then went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. A bolt of lightning illuminated the darkened room, revealing the dark smudges beneath her eyes, all that was left of her nightmare."

Or, if it's not horribly cliched purple prose, it's this:

"Hero: Me John. You want date John?"

Yeah. The only thing that crap's good for is the delete key.

So what's a writer to do when they want to write, but can't? In my experience, the best thing to do is recharge your creative batteries.

Many things take a toll on our creativity, whether it's a day job, financial stress, or just plain being tired. Why, this past winter it was 20 below in my neck of the woods, and let me tell you there is no way I was creating anything except a cozy spot in the blankets. The snow melted eventually, and while sunlight is an excellent way to recharge, there's one specific type of event I'd like to discuss today: the writer's conference.

These conferences vary greatly, and so will your experiences. It's important that you choose conferences that are germane to your subject; for instance, if you write Amish romances you probably don't want to attend something focusing on splatterpunk. That doesn't mean you can't have cross-genre appeal, but be aware of what the conference will be focusing on and who your fellow writers are.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending Anthocon in Portsmouth, NH. Check out their website, and their Facebook page. Here's their mission statement from the website: In its fourth year, AnthoCon is three days of panels, workshops, readings, and demonstrations related to imaginative fiction and art. Let me tell you, it's a lot more than that.

Anthocon is a wonderfully diverse and inclusive event, and they welcome all writers of speculative fiction. There is a large concentration of horror writers, but paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and even middle grade fantasy is well represented. The attendees run the gamut from multi-published, award-winning authors to those just starting out. It's three days of talking, and commiserating, and just being with other writers. Remember the bee girl?

At Anthocon, I feel like the bee girl :)

I brought my laptop with me, but I was so busy having fun I didn't write a single word. Since I came back home, I've written over ten thousand. The moral of the story is that nothing gets the creative juices flowing like being around creativity. 

I leave you with the one picture I took during Anthocon, the Bloody Mary I had on Sunday morning. Boy, did I need it!

Doesn't this look tasty?

How do you recharge your creative batteries? Tell us in the comments!

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Obligatory New Year's Post, Complete With Resolutions #AmWriting #HappyNewYear #Resolutions

I don't know about ya'll, but I'm pretty excited for 2015. 2014 was...well, let's put it this way: it could have been worse. It was a much better year for me and my family than 2013, but it could have used a bit of polishing.

2015 is already shaping up to be a great year, and here are a few of the reasons:

1. The Wonder Twins will be starting school! Seriously, I have no idea where the time has gone.

Ember and Robby, two weeks old. Now they're headed into Pre-K!

2. I will be transitioning from a job that I'm especially unsuited for into a position that I've wanted for quite some time. It even comes with a salary increase :)

3. Last but not least I will have three, count 'em, THREE books coming out in 2015! The release schedule is as follows:

Heir to the Sun - Book One of The Chronicles of Parthalan: March 17, 2015
Copper Veins - Book Three of the Copper Legacy: July 7, 2015
The Virgin Queen - Book Two of The Chronicles of Parthalan: October 20, 2015

Some of you may remember Heir to the Sun when it was first released back in 2011. It's been reworked with a fresh new edit, new cover and lots of extras! I'll share the cover as soon as I can. I'm very, very happy that I'll be able to get Parthalan's stories out into the world again. In case you missed the cover reveal for Copper Veins, here it is:

Pretty, huh?

This rather intense release schedule segues nicely into the resolution portion of this post. They are, in no particular order:

1. Promote my work in new and innovative ways
2. Make connections with other authors who write in similar genres. Network, network, network.
3. Read more comic books. Watch more cartoons. Make time to play.
4. Trim down my extra assignments and concentrate only on those that can further me as an author.

The last one is going to be a long process, and it will probably take me at least half the year to figure out what works and what doesn't. I've already decided to stop a few assignments, and I may dispense with a few more.

All in all, I think 2015 is going to be great. What are you looking forward to this year?

#NaNoWriMo's Over, Now What Do I Do?

Now that the dust has well and truly settled on NaNoWriMo 2014, it's time to look at what we accomplished during that month of madness. For those who aren't familiar with the magic and wonder that is NaNoWriMo, read this post.

It all comes down to this: 50,000 words in 30 days. Totally doable.

How do I know? I did it. Actually, I killed it.

I hit 50k on day 19 of NaNo, and I ended up with 60,565 words by November 30. Crazy? Yeah. Despite my apparent insanity (and a caffeine addiction that was more severe than anyone realized), I wrote a not-too-shabby first draft. I must say, as first drafts go I'm more pleased with this that I have been with any other.

Which means that I need to put it away and ignore it for at least a month. Maybe two, or three.

Um, what? Ignore my masterpiece? Why would I neglect my new baby?

Easy. Because it's not done yet.

As some of you know, I work for a publishing house that accepts open submissions every December. The slush pile rapidly fills up with still-smoking NaNo manuscripts, and we've never, not even once, offered on one. Yes, we can tell when it's your NaNo project. Yes, we're proud of you. Now go polish that baby up!

When you're still in that first flush of love with your new project you tend to overlook its flaws, like how you type "if" when you mean "of", or how you wrote three chapters in the wrong character's POV. Or said that the main character had blue eyes in chapter one, green eyes in chapter three, only to go back to blue in chapter ten.

Not that I have *ever* made those mistakes. My first draft errors are much, much worse :)

Anyway, my point is that there are only two groups of people you want seeing your first draft blunders: your trusted beta readers and critique partners. Wouldn't you rather they pointed out the flaws in your draft, instead of your dream agent when they reject you?

I sent my NaNo project, Changing Teams, out to my beta readers a few weeks ago, and I steadfastly refuse to make any changes until feedback has been received and processed. Will it be ready for submission then? Probably not, but it will be well on its way.

*sigh* Who knew being a writer would require so much patience?

Well? What are you doing with your NaNo projects? Tell me in the comments below! And, if your interested in seeing a teaser about my NaNo project, go here.

Teaser Tuesday, #NaNoWriMo Edition

Hey all!

For this week's Teaser Tuesday, I thought I'd post an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo project, working title CHANGING TEAMS. This is my first foray into NA contemporary romance, and I can't wait to hear what people think about it!

The excerpt below is from the third chapter, and is told from the POV of our hero, Sam MacKellar. And, away we go!

“Britt,” I murmured, my hand coming to rest on the curve of her bottom. “Short for Britney?”

“Not hardly.” When I kept looking at her, she elaborated, “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh.”

“Scout’s honor,” I said, squeezing her bottom for good measure.

Britt buried her face against my neck; whatever this story was, it had to be good. “Well,” she began, “my mom got pregnant in the school library.”

“The school library?” I scandalized.

“Yeah, yeah,” Britt said, her breath hot on my neck. “Anyway, once Mom knew she was expecting she went back to the aisle it, um, happened in, and picked out a name from the books on the shelves.”

“Wait.” I rolled onto my side so I was looking Britt in the eye, and asked, “Is your full name Britannica?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, “Mom got knocked up in the encyclopedia section.”

“Well,” I said, with my best straight face, “at least it wasn’t in front of the Funk and Wagnall’s shelf.”

We burst out laughing at that, and Britt pounded my shoulder. “Sam, you promised you wouldn’t laugh,” she shrieked. Once we calmed down I rolled onto my back, and Britt laid her head on my chest. “You’re different here.”

“Different how?” I murmured. I folded one of my arms under my head so I could watch her, and smoothed those brown waves away from her face.

“You’re voice, for one. It’s… I don’t know, deeper? And, your fake Southern accent’s gone.”

“My accent is authentic Midwestern,” I huffed.

“Uh huh.” Britt traced the column of my throat with her fingertip, then she kissed my Adam’s apple. “And, you’re just Sam. Not photographer’s assistant Sam, or awesome partyer Sam, just Sam.”

“I’ll thank you to replace ‘photographer’s assistant’ with ‘aspiring photographer’,” I snapped, rattled that Britt had effortlessly seen through to the truth of me. “You like ‘just Sam’?”

“I do.” She looked up, fixing me with her honey brown gaze. “You don’t let many people meet the real Sam, do you?”

Oh, if she only knew. “Only those worth it.”

###

As you can see, Sam's got it bad for Britt. But, what's he hiding? Comment below with your best guesses. 

Stop by on December 4, when we'll have the cover reveal for COPPER VEINS! Later, ya'll!

Authors and Amazon: A Strange Relationship, Indeed

If any of you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you probably saw some of these pictures late last week:

 



I just about died when Copper Girl hit #37

And then, lucky # 13!

 

We had a bit of excitement there, with Copper Girl heading all the way up to #13 in the Fantasy Romance category on Amazon. I, for one, couldn’t look away. I mean, author rankings are updated every hour. Every freaking hour! Not so long ago, authors had to wait weeks or even months for sales numbers. Yet here these ranking are, in almost real time.

Is it any wonder, then, that no matter how much someone detests the large book store chains, or Amazon in particular, authors are always drawn to them? Yes, we should all be supporting our local indie bookstore (I highly recommend The Spiral Bookcase – ask for Ann, she’ll take good care of you!), but Amazon has so many guilty pleasures: reviews, sales rankings, even a little map showing how our work is selling in each state. It’s an information-starved author's dream.

But, what is this information really telling us? As a quick Google search on Amazon author rankings will reveal, next to nothing. When you log into your Author Central page you can see BookScan numbers, this much is true, but you don’t see all the numbers. What’s worse, you don’t know which retailer’s numbers you’re looking at, because it isn’t specified. And, Amazon’s numbers are specifically not included, because they consider their information to be proprietary. Unless you’re self-published and put your work up via Kindle Direct Publishing, you don’t even get Kindle sales.

Copper Girl may have reached #13, but for the life of me I have no idea how many copies it sold to get there. I do, however, have access to a lovely sales graph.

What does all this mean? Well, the numbers may not be complete, but they’re better than nothing. You can also do some lovely sprucing up via your author page, adding such things as book trailers, Twitter feeds, and other information. All in all, it’s not such a bad system.

And, I will never forget how great it felt to see my little book reach #13. Happiness is priceless.

 

 

Sara had always been careful.

She never spoke of magic, never associated with those suspected of handling magic, never thought of magic, and never, ever, let anyone see her mark. After all, the last thing she wanted was to end up missing, like her father and brother.

Then, a silver elf pushed his way into Sara's dream, and her life became anything but ordinary.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Print

Barnes and Noble

Books A Million (BAM) {Ebook}

Books A Million (BAM) {Print}

The Book Depository

Facebook Page Copper Girl

Goodreads