So, when's the next book going to be done?

Good afternoon!

As most of you know, I released my third novel, Fresh Ice, this past December.   It is exhausting, especially for someone who is self publishing, to release a book.  I don't know a single author, whether e-pubbed or traditionally published, who isn't working a "real" job doing something else.  We are office workers, nurses, full time moms, teachers, volunteers, mentors, full time dads.  We have to go to the job, help out at school, bake cookies, make costumes for a play, buy groceries.  Writing, editing, publishing, and marketing a book?  That's going to have to happen in the wee small hours of the day when we are also doing laundry, writing thank you notes, returning emails, and making lunches for the next day.

So when someone who self publishes puts out a book...it doesn't mean they're done writing, but it does mean they're done publishing...at least for a little while.

Maybe it's my own fault.  My first book, Dream in Color, came out in 2010 after a long editorial process and it was my first so not only did I have that one ready to go, I had my other novel, Lies in Chance, ready to rock and roll.  I e-pubbed Lies in Chance less than a year after Dream in Color came out and then I did a re release of Lies in Chance in early 2012 as a print book as well as the digital copy.

And then Fresh Ice came out at the end of 2012.  So for those, like my co-worker, (yes, the whacky one I'm writing about right now) who read Dream and Lies in a single weekend and then read Fresh Ice last weekend, it seems like I cranked out a ton of books very quickly.  The truth is, I'd been working on Dream for six years and Lies, well, the final version of Lies in Chance took me a nice round 30 years to do.  And Fresh Ice, with all the fits and starts, took me two years.  I'm getting better, but turning out a book is still a thing that takes time.

Those of you who work the way I do, you know what I mean.  The simple act of finishing a novel, getting to the words, "THE END" seems like a huge mountain to climb given all the time constraints we have in our real lives.  We'd like to rest, to take a break for a minute to breath.

And then we go to work, where your Whackadoodle coworker has read all the words, and critiqued them  and complained about things she didn't like so much you're to the point where you doubt you're going to let her even know you're thinking about the plot for another book, and she says this:

"So when's the next book coming out?"

Now, if she'd asked that one time, I would smile and say, "I'm working on it."  But she asked me this four times...a day...for four days.  And that was the first four days after she'd read Fresh Ice.

I'm working two jobs, active in my church, raising two teens, four cats, and a very nice husband.  I've got a mother who expects me to be at family gatherings, and a body that seems to create its own health issues every other day.  When's the next book coming out?

Who knows?

Don't get me wrong...I love that people love the stories I've written.  I thrive on emails I get, Face book posts, and oh yes, those all so important reviews on Amazon.  (If you've read it and you liked it, please tell others!)

But it's not like we authors drink a cup of coffee and then spew out brilliant 80K word stories that touch the heart and make the reader turn the page.  It doesn't work that way, not in the real world.  It's a process.  I'm better at it than I was ten years ago, but I'm still forced to work in the fringe hours of the morning and night to get words on paper.

Friends, if you're a writer burning the candle at both ends like I am, know you're not alone.  I know we work as hard to bring a book to light as many of us have raising our kids.  And if you're a reader falling in love with our stories, you have no idea how much we appreciate you, your support, and your feedback.

But we also need your patience.

That next book is coming...I just have to make a couple more pots of coffee!

There's no resting on the laurels for an indie writer!

Hello everyone!

I got a message from a college friend of mine last week begging me to write another book.  I told her I just released one less than a month ago.

Apparently, she'd already read that one and wanted another.

Which made me realize that there is no down time for an e-pub indie author.

The perception among many traditional authors is that e-pubs live by their own schedule and write when they feel like it.  Speaking as one of those e-pub authors, I can tell you, deadlines are very real, especially since there's no one out there helping you hit those deadlines.  All delays are strictly your fault and there's no one to blame but you when things don't go right.

Add to that the fact that every single e-pub author I know has to work other jobs.  No big advance for us, nope.  We find writing time at either end of what is typically a long work day.  This is not to day that traditionally published authors don't also have to work outside of writing.  Many do.  But many are able to work at jobs that are writing focused because, well, they are recognized authors.  In the world of e-pubbing, we are still working in the shadows, and therefore, to pay the bills, we have to work other jobs. 

So I thought since I'd put out a novel in 2010, 2011, and 2012, that I was okay for a couple months.  Nope, I guess not. 

Some statistics show that e-pubbers are churning out novels more than two a year.  That is a staggering amount of work for a population already working full time, especially considering most e-pubbers do the bulk of their editing, formatting, and marketing.  (I personally would be lost without the help of my wonderful critique partners and the team over at 52 Novels who do my formatting.)

What's the bonus to reading e-pubbed novels?  Well, for one, you're supporting a completely talent driven market. E-pubs don't get Oprah's seal of approval, and most e-pubbers aren't reviewed by the talking head reviewers who tell us what to read.  Our reviews come from readers.

Which means, for those of you who are not writers, you still get to push forward an author's career.  A positive review from reader is so vital to an e-pubber.  Forget leaving reviews for John Grisham's latest pile of words.  He doesn't need them and he doesn't care what you think.  Trust me.  Instead, find a book that has one, maybe two reviews.  E-books typically aren't more than $3, so you're not out that $24.95 I know you probably paid for Snookie's book.  (By the way, don't bother reviewing her book either.  My bet is, she can't read it.)  So spend the $3 and read a book written by someone who is probably more like you than you know.

And leave a review.  Without reader reviews, we indie authors are dead in the water.

Meanwhile, I have to go write another book so my college classmate is happy!

Puzzling over a critique.

Good evening. 

A good critique partner is vital to anyone who is serious about writing.  I know people who are in big critique groups, and I've tried that, it doesn't work for me as well as having one critique partner I truly trust.

My critique partner is my friend Linda Schmalz who is herself a published author.  Her books are wonderful and you should read them, by the way.  The thing I love about Linda's critiques, and those of you who have critique partners know what I mean, is that she's gentle, but firm.  I've had partners in the past who have told me, "This is terrible.  Why are you even bothering?"  And I've have partners in the past who say things like, "well, it's not my cup of tea, but if you like it keep working."

Neither is helpful.

But Linda is one of those rare critique partners who manages to be nice while getting her point across.  Take, if you will, my current work in progress; Fresh Ice.
The first time I sent chapters to Linda, she informed me that the story was terrible, the characters were terrible, and frankly, there was no way I could continue writing it.

But she said it so nicely.

Now I've finally, after two years, finished the first draft of Fresh Ice, and Linda, who has been very interested in the story up until now, just dumped a big bowl of ice water over my head.

Izzy:  Don't let the pink skirt fool you
This lady is tough!

"They've been on a date for a third of the book, " she tells me in an email.  "We get it, they love each other.  Can we have some conflict, please?"

Quinn...isn't he ever so dreamy?

As writers, we get so wrapped up in our characters.  And while we want our characters to suffer...because that's why we became writers in the first place, to make the voices in our heads suffer...we also want that happy ending for them.  So yes, Quinn and Izzy  have, in this first draft, gotten several pages of self indulgent fluff conversation from me.  Mostly because I can hear Quinn in my head and frankly, I'm in love with him.

But the bit about creating more conflict was a good point.  A book...and this is any book other than a cook book maybe, isn't worth reading if there isn't conflict.  If there were no conflict every story would be, "Once upon a time, everyone lived happily ever after."

Snore.

So Linda's completely right.  While I have a wonderful villain in the beautiful and deadly Serena...I don't use her enough.  Which is a shame, because she's a lot of fun to write.  And let's be honest:  Izzy, my heroine, has a lot of people she could be bringing in for conflict and resolution.  (Mother issues anyone?)

So I've got a weekend ahead of me, and puzzle piece writer that I am, I'm working on a scene.  I don't know where it's going to fit in the final product.  That's the fun part about writing puzzle piece style:  I write a ton of scenes, and then sort of put them together.

All I know is, Linda is going to love this!

Planning or pantsing...which works best?

Good morning all!

Today one of my goals is to sit down and actually begin solid writing work on my new book of office stories.  (By the way...go vote for a title for this book here.)  It's the first time that I can recall that I first planned out a book and then sat down and wrote it.

Must debate is made...some of it right here...about what works best when it comes to writing.  I know writers who spend long laborious hours with character backstories, story boards, outlines, the whole thing.  By the time they're ready to sit down and write, they have presentation material that would make any business CEO sweaty in the naughty places.  (Okay, sorry, but I just had a vision of some big CEO guy getting all juiced up because of a stack of story boards.  LOL)

As for me...well, I just don't have that kind of time.  I write the way I make friends.  Things develop as I go along.  Sure, I have to go backwards often and adjust things about the character or in the plot because I've decided to take a different route further down the line.  The best example of that is while I as writing Dream in Color.  I had an idea where the book was going.  My main characters had other ideas. 

Which is better, which saves time?  Both and neither, I believe.  For those who plan...time is chewed up in the planning stages.  The actual writing, I'm told, is a breeze.  But it's the planning that takes all the time.  For those of us who write by the seat of our pants, a lot of time is taken up "fixing" things behind us that we've changed ahead.  My new novel, Lies in Chance, took me nearly 30 years to write...and I can't blame all of that on my real life.  That book should have, could have been done long ago...had I had a clear idea of where these characters were going.   (By the way...word on the street is that this book is better than my first.  Those are some of the early reviews I'm getting from friends who've read it.  I'm just sayin'!)

The end result of either method, however, is the same:  a completed writing project.  So does it matter how we write?  I don't think so...so long as we actually WRITE.

So today I'm starting work on a book that I've actually plotted out.  It's a weird feeling, knowing how this is all going to go.  In my head I'm hoping I'll be done writing it later this morning.  In reality, however, I've given myself until mid December to get this out into e-book land.  And then I'll continue my fun seat of my pants ways.

Meanwhile, pantser or planner, go forth and WRITE!

One week down...and already this year is flying by!

Hello all!

I'm closing up shop for the week and I can't help but notice just how fast 2010 seems to be moving. It's can't possibly be the 8th already, can it?

The phrase, "Time flies when you're having fun," isn't quite complete. Yes, time seems to move faster when you're doing something you enjoy, like spending a day at Great America, or watching a really good movie. And time does seem to drag when you're doing something you don't enjoy, like shopping with the mother-in-law or listening to a really, really long sermon at church.

But time also flies when you're way, way, WAY busy and you have a deadline you must meet.

So I have this self imposed deadline to finish "7/8ths Time" by the end of the month. If I could stay at home and write all day, this would be a stretch, but as it is, I work a full time job, so writing gets pushed aside. And, now that it's the 8th of the month, time is flying faster and faster.

Will I finish? I don't know. But I'm going to give it my best try. And the best part about that is, if I don't finish, I'll be darn close. Maybe I don't enter the contest I want to on the 7th of February, but this push will get me closer to my goal of getting a second book published.

Have a great weekend all and do something that makes your time fly!

A goal, no matter how ridiculous, is still a worthy goal.

Good morning all!

I'm writing to you from the icy depths of my home office in my basement. We are mere weeks away from my home office moving to the heated level of the house, but for now I'm still in the dungeon. (Yes, I'm taking a rare vacation day from the Evil Bossman, and doing NOTHING.)

Hopefully you all had a good Christmas or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate at this time of the year. We have New Year's coming up, which is a time to spend with friends, as opposed to Christmas which is the forced march of doom to the bosom of your family. I am looking forward to spending New Year's with my very good friend and critique partner and her family this year.

But I digress.

I have a deadline my friends and I'm afraid I've bitten off way more than I can chew. Last year, many of you remember, I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel of the Year contest. I had some success, making it to the quarterfinals, or the top 500 out of 10, 000 manuscripts. Not too bad, right?

Well, I got notice again this year that the deadline for the 2010 contest is fast approaching. And I've decided to enter. But, I've also decided it's probably not a good idea to enter the same novel. (Even though for marketing purposes I have made a bunch of changes to said novel.) So, I've decided to take my notes from a story I've had in my head for about ten years and write a full novel in a month. The absolute deadline is February 7.

Yes, I have lost my ever lovin' mind.

It took me almost 30 years to write my first and Dream in Color, my second novel, took me six years, not counting the intense year of editing with Aly, my editor at Wild Rose Press. So what makes me think I can have a novel fully written and contest ready in a few weeks?

I have no idea.

But think of it as a new approach to a new year's resolution. This is about focus. Maybe I get the thing done, maybe not. But it's time to sit down and write something new and this might be the thing for it. I'm hoping to take a week off of work at some point in January and really get it going, but as any writer will tell you, it's not the time off from anything that produces a book. It's the focus.

I've done my best writing late at night when all others are in bed and the house is quiet. I've also done good work at work when I simply keep my flash drive open on my work computer and work when I'm not answering phone calls or emails.

My point is that while it's not likely to happen, I've set a goal for myself, and it's one that I really do want to achieve. And, in the end, maybe I don't have an entry for the contest. But I'll have a new novel to edit and market.

And, in the world of writers, isn't that a worthy goal?