Change

None of us lives in stasis. We change moment to moment, day to day. Writing does, too. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. When my first novel was published, I imagined I'd found the magic and that I'd just freeze in place and keep doing what had worked that first time. As if it were possible. Which, of course, it wasn't. Even if I hadn't changed from one book to the next, the story I was telling did change and demanded something different of me. I struggled with that. Still do some days. 

The first book was action-packed. It had a lot of white space. Description and narrative were spare. Subsequent books have swung too far the other direction for my taste. So I'm working on that. While at the same time working on showing and inviting the reader into the emotional hits and . . . 

Yes, my writing has changed. I'd like to think that what I write and how I write it is an ongoing journey of transformation. I don't know if or when my writing will emerge from its cocoon or what the wing pattern will look like. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep working on change and on painting those wings.

Path Out of Stuck

Take it from someone who walked face first into stuck (that was really a kind of burnout I didn't know I had) and then flailed there for a very long time: There's a difference between stuck and burnout. You need to know the difference.

Stuck is frustrating. Stuck is scary. Stuck still has hope of breaking free. Stuck usually means something is wrong with the story somewhere (and that's fixable.)

Burnout is paralyzed. Burnout is numb. Burnout says 'I can't'. Burnout usually means something is wrong in your environment or possibly in your physiology. 

Burnout needs recovery time and effort and may require professional assistance either from a coach, a therapist, or a doctor. Stuck needs a little strategic psychology to pull you free of the mire and can usually be resolved within a few weeks. Burnout can take months or even years. 

Whether you're in burnout or whether you're stuck, the antidote for the poison is the same: So long as you say 'I can't', you won't. The only way out of stuck and out of burnout (eventually) is to begin asking 'how can I?' Example: Going from 'I can't make this work.' to 'How can I make this work?' It's not magic and it's not immediate. You have to ask the question and ask the question and ask the question. Then you have to sit and listen. Free write around it with no rules. Stream of consciousness write around 'how could I make writing work?' 'What would it look like to make writing work again?' 'What do I need in order to write again?' Just keep asking and keep noodling. Initially, the answers will all be I don't know. Then, one day, you'll get an outlandish, crazy idea. Mine was to get some plywood up into the attic and laying it down across the rafters so I could get a desk and plug up there as well as a little damned peace and quiet and solitude for writing. Living in Florida where attics are regularly a bajillion degrees made the idea unusable but it did start a protracted effort to find some privacy in an overcrowded house. It's s process that's still unfolding. Recovery is a process that takes a little self awareness, honesty, and a willingness to ask for help if it's needed. 

What I Wish I'd Known

 What I wished I'd known before my books were published:

Nothing. 

Not a damned thing. I'm glad I didn't know what a weird and wonderful and stressful trip being published would be. I'm glad I didn't know about awards and nominations before hand. I'm grateful that I had no idea that business relationships could or would twist into something unrecognizable and actively harmful. I'm also grateful that I came to my first several books filled with aspiration and faith and freedom. Not that I was writing whatever I wanted - I recognized the need to comprehend craft and story structure and to honor to contract made with the reader. But because I lived in beginner's mind, I came to writing without any preconceived thoughts or ideas about what it HAD TO BE in order to make a sale or hit a list. When you're out there in the pre-pubbed trenches, you can't imagine, nor should you, the slings and arrows that come with being published. I suspect that when you're newly published, you can't imagine the problems that come with being in demand or with scrambling to make a living from writing. The truism is that we don't get to run away from pain. We only get to pick our pain. Which means every stage of writing life has its issues and its rewards.

This is a profession. It's a job. Like any other job, you'll have good days and bad days and a lot of boring, grindy days in between. That's why it's so vital for the process of writing itself to be the reward. The doing has to be the thing that brings you to the keyboard everyday. If you live only for the results of your writing, you'll have a lot of hard days in before hitting The End. Control what you can - spoiler alert: the only thing you control is you and your writing. Accept that all of life is a learning process and the day you're done with lessons and possible struggle, it will be because you slid into your grave. There's a grace to not knowing everything and a particular sweetness to retaining the capacity to still be surprised. 

So no. I don't have regrets about what I didn't know. I'm grateful for what has been and for what might yet come to be. Right now, that's enough.

 

Ergonomic Free Here!

This is my writing view today. Beautiful, pine covered hills, blue sky, and a hand-made pine table. Which is definitely not in line with the week’s theme: the Ergonomic Edition.

No, this pine table doesn’t adjust. But it’s smooth and filled with wood grain character. No, the matching hand-carved pine chair definitely doesn’t adjust and turns the butt numb after an hour. But it’s got arms for me to rest my elbows on as I gaze out at nature and imagine what our near-future sci-fi world is filled with. And no, my laptop doesn’t support my wrists and gets a pretty good glare when the sun comes up. But it can travel from table to patio table with ease, enabling me to smell the pine and hear the wind rushing through the needles. 

At home I have a split keyboard which my wrists do love. I can work for hours without pain. And my desk chair at least goes up and down, but the best part about it is that it has a wide seat so I can sit crosslegged when I want to. 

Out of all the ergonomic options, I wish I were adept at using voice to text. How wonderful would that be! To walk around, pace the room, stroll outside while simultaneously writing? Amazing. But I haven’t trained my brain to use that tech yet. Someday, maybe. 

How about you? What ergonomic tools do you use and love?

A Change of Scenery

Happy Friday the 13th. Watch out for weirdos bearing knives. And chainsaws. And . . .

Listen. I haven't been to a conference in a very long time. I'm not likely to hit a conference for a very long time. Between Covid and cash, me traveling to conferences just isn't likely. So count me out on those. Networking with like-minded authors will have to happen some other way for the foreseeable future.

But writing retreats. Mmmmm. Let's chat about writing retreats. Here's my TLDR:

1. Writing retreats are best done solo.
2. Writing retreats are best done when you're the kind of person who needs a shot of the unfamiliar to jolt you - to put you in beginners mind where you wonder at all the things you've never seen before.
3. Writing retreats are *necessary* if you feel like you are in an environment in your home wherein you cannot fully inhabit your creative self without masking.

Here's my attempt to explain. Aka: The deep dive.

1. Writing retreats - go solo. Unless you are some titan of discipline, going on a writing retreat with other people means no writing will happen. I know going in when someone says 'let's go here and write' that what will actually happen will be lots and lots of talking, lots and lots of eating, and absolutely zero writing. We might talk about writing, but we won't actually put words on paper. The point of a writing retreat, for me, is to isolate long enough to begin hearing my own voice. Not everyone else's. Not my partner's. Not my parents'. Not my boss's. Not even my own set of 'shoulds' that I plague myself with on a daily basis. A retreat needs to present a place where I can exist without any responsibility to any other living thing other than myself for a few days. 

2. A retreat works best for me If there's something new and different to see or experience. A simple change of scenery can work magic. Going somewhere I don't know kicks me out of cognitive ruts and I can come to my stories with new vision. Beginners mind sees everything as if for the first time - without preconceived thoughts or ideas. That allows room for new approaches, if they're wanted.

3. We all wear masks. Most, we wear joyfully: parent, partner, friend, etc. Some are less joyful, but they are the sum of what helps make us acceptable to others. This is basic socialization and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that we live in community with other humans and should probably strive to work and play well with others. The trouble comes from not having a safe place to unmask. Some of us are lucky enough to be partnered with someone who values who we are when we're not masking. Some of us aren't. Because masking accrues a cost, it can contribute to burn out. So retreats are a lovely option for people who need a safe place to take off all the masks and remember who they are in and of themselves - not who they are as defined by anyone else. This may not be a universal experience. It may be a spectrum thing. Take it if it resonates for you. 

So yes. I love writing retreats. I love wandering off into isolation, to exist in silence for a space of time, speaking only to order food, if I want. I love spending all that silence listening to what's going on inside, writing as fast as I can, uncovering whatever needs to be heard or seen or perceived.  I often pick up new stories on retreats. I hope they can be as fertile for you. 

SOAR

Writing is hard. If you’ve tried it, are doing it, or have done it, you already know that. But we’re not talking directly about that this week. We’re talking about failure, which is also hard, and necessary, and what wise words do we have for our past selves.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying failure means growth. That applies to writing as well. You write. You fail. You query. You fail. You publish on your own. You fail. You go on submission. You fail. You pay for marketing. You fail. 

The trick is to persist. 

Once upon a time I was a finalist in a national contest and found myself part of a group of talented, women writers. We called ourselves the Persisters. We celebrated, we toasted, and we had so many doors open. 

When you reach a high point—that first contract, that first sale, that first yellow badge—you think that’s it! I’ve made it. I’m a writer who belongs. And then, undoubtedly, something will unravel and you will fail. 

As a newbie writer you watch those overnight successes, which are never overnight successes, and you think that once you get there it’ll be smooth sailing. It looks like once you get there you’ll never hear a no, there will always be clamoring for your next books. 

Truth time. It’s not like that in real life. Even those best sellers have ideas that don’t get picked up or don’t sell. 

My wise words to my past self: Being at the top doesn’t mean the failures have ended, but persist. Because failure only means you’re growing and getting better. 

The Way Out of the Wasteland

 

This handsome dude is looking for his forever human and home. And this totally has something to do with our topic this week. You see. I write my blog posts on Thursday evening for publication on Friday morning. But this man. He had his neuter surgery Thursday. When I picked him up and got him in the car to come home, he went into respiratory distress. Our regular vet was closing down and they'd already sent techs home. So off we hied to the local urgent care veterinary place. An insane amount of money later, we discover that Ramases has pneumonia. Initially, they diagnosed it as aspiration pneumonia, which is dreadful, awful stuff. The urgent care vet wanted the cat hospitalized, so they transferred us to an emergency hospital nearby. We go there. That vet disagrees with the treatment plan and long story short, we get out of there at half past midnight with sick cat in tow. I'm operating on three hours of sleep. 

Drama over the 4th of July holiday has upended my current living arrangement. The ripples on that are slowly building to a tidal wave that I suspect will mean everyone packs up and moves. But in the meantime, HERE have an overdose of uncertainty! 

Whether it's my brain or whether it's rational to feel this way, I'd like to say everything's on fire.

I used to think these were things that needed to be recovered from - as if writing were something that needed to be held in reserve for when conditions were just right. I still suffer from this because I know a little about how my brain works best. But I am starting to realize that 'best' is an unobtainable ideal. All of these events in my life that make me feel like I'm going to explode, pack the cats into a car, change my name, drive into the middle of nowhere, and buy a house for under $200k to live in peaceful obscurity aren't one off events. They're life. My life. There is no calmer. There is no 'when stuff settles down'. This is it. It takes an act of radical acceptance to digest that realization. Then all that remains is to ask whether writing in the midst of all that life makes everything better or worse.

For me, the answer is better. I made writing my retreat - the little hit of dessert you sneak when you think no one is watching. It gives me energy and helps keep me sane. Because it keeps me saner than I would otherwise be, most of my family are invested in leaving me alone while I write. Sometimes. But this reframe isn't necessarily enough to refill an empty well. Silence, technology fasts, sensory walks (where you walk slowly and rotate through observation - what do I hear, what do I smell, what do I taste, what do I feel on my skin, what do I feel internally, what do I see) and any thing else that generates energy for you will help. Maybe you cook the world's hottest chili. Or you build model ghost ships inside bottles. If they make you feel better for having done them, they fill the well. Rescuing gives me energy when I finally match a cat like Ramases to his forever person. So hey. Anyone in FL or neighboring states what a handsome, sweet, spotted tabby who drools when he's happy (and he's happiest when you're petting him and giving chin rubs). I'll even deliver. 

I think the important bit is to know what's important to you. Writing takes a toll. Rest and breaks are necessary. We tear up a lot of cognitive and emotional ground while writing - but it's *different* mental and emotional ground than our life dramas. Leverage that while recognizing that eventually, all those synapses need rest and that rest will not be rushed.

Secret Identity

Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash

I adore my pen name and the identity I have created. Truth be told, I like my pen name way more than my birth name. I have often thought of changing my name ever since I was a pre-teen when I was thoroughly convinced I had been adopted (those angsty teen years, amirite?). Having a pen name has allowed me to create a completely new persona, embracing a more outgoing part of myself that I hadn’t realized I was hiding. 

Having a secret identity has allowed me to fully pursue my writing career in the most uninhibited and organic way that I can. It also really helps me with marketing because I am not marketing myself, I am marketing a client. 

Speaking of, I cultivated a marketing career, writing non-fiction articles for magazines and websites long before I dove into fiction writing. I had kids in 2018 and then in the middle of 2020 my marketing career took a nosedive. I lost my clients due to everything being shut down, but I was extremely fortunate in that my husband has a steady job and we live frugally enough for me to stay at home with our children. I thought I was good with this being my lot in life - a stay-at-home mom maybe picking up part-time work once the kids were in school. Turns out, it wasn’t enough. My brain finally had it and it started screaming at me to write again. The stories I want to write now are a little too steamy for the small town I live in, so the next obvious choice was to create an entirely new persona. Now, it’s the only way I feel comfortable continuing my writing career. Publishing under a pen name helps me keep my private life and personal life separate. 

A secret identity can also be so liberating for us introverts. Marketing is easier, asking for features and newsletter swaps is easier, going live on social media is easier because I can so quickly slip on a mask and become Ophelia. Becoming Ophelia (ha! that sounds like a memoir in the works) helps me go live on social media more than if I was presenting as myself. There’s something that shifts and I am immediately more extroverted, friendlier, less socially anxious with the mask of my secret identity in place. Though there’s a separation between my personal life and Ophelia, in some ways, you see a more “raw” version of me when I am in front of the camera. The introverted stay-at-home mom who constantly asks if her kids need to pee is gone. The extroverted Ophelia is here, and she is ready to partaaaaay. 

As a stay-at-home mom, I am so reluctant to go back into the workforce. I wanted a job that allowed me to be flexible, home with my kids on sick days (because, let’s be honest, there are a lot of sick days lately), available for pickups and drop-offs, after-school activities and more. My children are only four- and two-years old so I wanted to get started on my writing early enough so that when they reach full-time school age, I have a decent idea of what our schedules will look like and what I can realistically get done in a day. As a former entrepreneur, the idea of being an indie author was appealing on so many levels. I could be fully in charge of my process, write the stories I want to write (and how steamy), as well as on the production schedule that fit me and my family’s lifestyle. But writing under a pen name was one of the few ways I figured I could tackle this adventure.

Creating this secret identity has been one of the most freeing things I have done for my creativity and my future. I can shift into “work mode” quicker when I’m Ophelia than when I’m me/‘mom’. It gives me the space I need to focus and hustle. It lets me be the author I want to be, connect with my audience, and pursue the projects I want to do.

Ophelia Wells Langley is the pen name of a mother to two boys. She loves reading, writing, and knitting, and you can almost always find her chasing after her high-energy children pretending to be a dragon or a dinosaur. Her debut novel, The Borderlands Princess, released November 28th, 2022. You can find her works here: www.opheliawlangley.com and you can join her late night writing sprints on TikTok @opheliawellsauthor

 

Leaving the Day Job - Don't Forget the Barbed Wire

A week ago I snickered to myself about how I didn't know how to write about what it's like not having a day job because I still had a day job. 

Now I don't. 

I guess this will be a learn-as-I-go adventure. I'm not raking in the sweet, sweet book cash. Not yet. The only reason I'm not running around like my hair's on fire is because there's a fall back position. I'm privileged to have a partner who does have steady employment. Let's not talk about how close he came to a layoff three days ago while we believed my position was secure. He got word he was safe and two days later my super-safe job evaporated. God, I love recession fears in the tech world. Sigh. 

This does bring me to the easiest way to cushion the slings and arrows and uncertainty of working for yourself. Have a cushion. That cushion could be someone else's steady income that your writing income supplements. That cushion could also be that you budget and plan to build a financial safety net that buys you time. If you want a year free and clear before you have to hit the bricks for another job, you better have done the math and have the cash stowed. Add up your burn rate - the amount of money per month you need to survive. Don't forget medical insurance in those costs. Factor in an emergency or two - car, veterinary, a rush airline ticket - whatever suits your circumstance. While you are gainfully employed in something that reliably hands you cash, start saving. If you make a sale or three while you are working a day job, put part of that advance into the 'writing full time' fund. Plan your exit date from the day job. Don't burn bridges! You may need that network one day. Keep writing. Keep publishing - either via a trad house or via self publishing. The money books bring in replenishes the financial cushion. The more you bring in, the longer you can stretch out the fund to support you through dry spells. Because those happen to the best and the worst of us alike.

What's it like not working a day job, though? It's randomizing. It's a little like living in a castle or a
walled city that is constantly under siege. The moment you aren't working a day job, people come out of the woodwork wanting your time and your energy because - well - you aren't 'working' working. Without really clear, strong boundaries, you'll find your entire day vanishes into a haze of doing things that serve everyone but you. 

Plan to put up barbed wire around your writing time and space. It helps to have a door that closes, maybe locks. Create the structure around writing that makes sense to you. It is the biggest piece writers miss when thinking about leaving a day job to write full time - the structure. With a day job sucking all the air out of the room, you had to fit fiction into the cracks and corners. The limits and structure around those times likely lent a sense of urgency to your word count  because you didn't have much time. Now, without a day job, the day stretches long like a highway across the desert. It's a mirage. Without planned structure in place, you'll blink and realize you haven't written a word or thought about your story for a week. Or more. It's a hard lesson to learn to say no to people, but it is necessary. It's a lesson I still struggle to learn. Just like I'm unexpectedly having to learn how to exist again without a day job defining my time. So as much is it unsettles me, check this space. There may be further developments in the 'what's it like to leave the day job' world.

Is This House Clean Yet?

Happy Sunday all! This week's topic at the SFF Seven is Preconditions: What must be true before you can sit down to write?

I'm a person who operates by routine and ritual. My brain likes order and completely goes on the fritz if anything feels like chaos around me. For this reason, I can't write in a busy place. I can't even write with music in the background. Some days, if my dogs are a big distraction, I struggle too. That being said, the usual preconditions for me, since I write at home, are that my morning routine is done, the house is calm, and I have a clean space to work. 

Over the years, things have certainly changed. I used to need every possible thing you can imagine to be in alignment in order to focus. I've improved drastically in that department, and I've gotten better about not having to clean the ENTIRE house before I can write too. My kids are now grown as well, and that makes my writing routine easier--there's less noise, less distraction, and less mess (I miss them, though!). Now, it's mostly just me and the bulldogs throughout the day. 

I have my usual morning routine which means I've turned on the Roomba, had my breakfast, completed my email checking/social media posts, done some laundry, changed into my 'writer clothes,' tended my Etsy store, cleaned up the kitchen and whichever room I feel like writing in that day, fed and watered the dogs, lit a candle, gotten my water ready for the day, and THEN I'm good to go. If I'm in hardcore writing mode--trying to complete a draft or revisions--I can force myself to ignore some of the above like laundry and cleaning and social media, but I'm not a fan of doing that. I need the structure of my typical morning.

Now, any other time of day? Like, if I don't wake up and act like I'm going to a day job that just so happens to be in my office on my daybed? Not much has to be true at all. I've been known to write short stories in the Notes app on my cell phone in the bath. I've written scenes on a notepad in the grocery store. Dialogue often hits me at night as I try to go to sleep. When something strikes my brain, I get it down. 

So I suppose you can say that sometimes I have preconditions and sometimes I don't. 

What about you? What must be true before you can sit down to write?

~ Charissa

Bad Reviews and Rejections

 

Is there anything worse than seeing that dreaded one star review appear below your book? Or get that dreaded “No” in the mail? 

For authors, I don’t think there are many things that are worse than rejection. We spend months or maybe even years on our manuscripts, polish them up, read them countless times, put beautiful covers on them and send them out into the world. 

And then...

We wait. For some authors, the wait is short. For others, it is excruciatingly long. 

Seconds slip by into minutes, which somehow become days. And then, it happens. 

Someone, somewhere in the world, has read the book. And they decided it just wasn’t for them. 

It has taken me a long time to realize that part of being an author is recognizing that not everyone is going to appreciate or enjoy our art. That’s just the way it is. Art is subjective, and no matter what we write, it won’t make everyone happy. 

Still, knowing that we will receive bad reviews is very different from actually experiencing the reality of someone taking the work we’ve spent countless hours on, and saying it is garbage. I wish I could tell you that as an author, you won’t ever get a bad review or a rejection. But I’d be lying to you. The terrible truth is, you will. We all will. I have, and I will again. 

How we choose to cope with them is up to us. 

First, let me say this: Never, ever engage reviewers. 

Especially not bad reviews. It will never end well. 

This is the golden rule. 

Do not engage reviewers. 

Reviews are not for authors. They are for readers. I know that sometimes we get a bad review that makes us itch and we want to say, “But wait! That’s wrong! You just didn’t understand ____.” 

But believe me. Any type of answer is the wrong one. You can, and probably will, make the situation far worse by replying to the reviewer. Don’t do it. Do not engage them. 

Just don’t. Please. If you take nothing else away from this, take that with you. Don’t reply to reviews. They aren’t meant to be personal, and they are almost always directed at the work, not the author. 

Remember this: whether it was a bad review or a rejection, it means your art was not a good fit with that particular reader. It doesn’t mean it was bad. It just wasn’t the right fit. 

When we get that one star review or that rejection (God forbid they show up on the same day), we have a choice to make. Are we going to let this rule our lives and destroy our productivity for the day (I’ve definitely done this), or are we going to try to be adults about it? 

While I’ve been guilty of choosing option A, there are much better and more productive ways to tackle bad reviews and rejections. Here are a few things that I personally find helpful. 

Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to not ever look at reviews. Right? That would make sense. If you don’t see them, you don’t have to do that. If you are able to do that, I applaud you. 

If you’re anything like me, however, common sense falls to the wayside when you want to see what people are saying about your book. In that case, read on, fellow author. 

1. Cuss a little. There are no rules saying you can’t do this. In fact, I find it helps. Get it out of your system. In private. Without anyone watching. Call the reviewer all the bad names you want and walk away. Take a break. Give yourself time to heal. 
2. Since you’ve already gone ahead and looked at reviews, take a look at some of those good ones. Copy them. Print them out. Frame them. Just because your work wasn’t the right fit for that dreaded one star reviewer doesn’t mean it’s bad. Other people probably think it’s amazing! Take that to heart. 
3. If you really need to write something out in response, do it on a piece of paper and then burn it. Don’t let that response see the light of day. But get it out of your system. 
4. Go look up your favorite book on amazon and read some of their one star reviews. Every book has them, it’s just a matter of time. 
5. Remember why you write. Everyone’s story is a little different, but we all have that reason. Let that be the driving force behind everything you do. Let it push you. 

And then—and this is the really important part—dust yourself off. Get back on the proverbial horse. 

Don’t let a bad review or a rejection stop you from pursuing your dream. Let it be a learning experience and grow from it. 

You are stronger than a bad review or a rejection. 

Happy writing, friends! 

Elayna R. Gallea is an author of young adult dystopian novels and new adult fantasy romance novels. She lives in beautiful New Brunswick, Canada with her husband and two kids. She is an avid true-crime lover, and in her spare time, she eats copious amounts of chocolate and cheese. If Elayna isn't reading and writing, she can probably be found watching The Food Network. Elayna and her husband have dogs and cats and enjoy touring their beautiful province whenever they can.

You can find her at: https://www.elaynargallea.com/

Reviews, Rejections, and Other Opinions

You want to know how I handle rejections, critical reviews, and other opinions? The facial expression of this photo of me in Ireland (at a 14th century monastery ruin) pretty much covers it. "Whaddya mean NO?"

Yes. You're going to get a lot of Ireland photos for the next couple of weeks cause I came home with 200+ and frankly, there's jack all to take photos of around here in the sweltering heat where everything and everyone is just melted. 

Listen. I don't know what it is about my make up - or my particular mental dysfunction - but most of the time, rejection and shitty reviews don't get me down. I've got a mental filing system for rejections and bitey reviews. 

First file: Crooked photocopy rejections and rubber band rejections. These are the easiest to blow off. They're meaningless rejections. These are the ones that come in so fast or so anonymously that it's obvious no one read my material. These aren't rejections. These are cries for help. Whoever sent them is so overwhelmed, they've closed to submissions without saying they closed to submissions. No problem. That's not really a rejection. They never even looked at the baby to tell me it's ugly.

Second file: Whiny one stars. These are the reviews people leave on a book that make me laugh and/or wonder aloud if they actually read the book I wrote. The second cousin to that review is the one star that whines 'man, this is nothing new or interesting why does everyone else like it?' Both of these reviews say more about the people leaving them than they do about my writing or story. Again. Easy to blow off (or leverage for a reverse psychology advertising campaign in you're into that sort of thing.) The first one is pitiable and the second is whining because their 'nothing new or interesting why does everyone like it' cry is code for 'I had an idea like this! How dare you write it!' Ask me how I know that and I'll show you the story I started in 8th grade (and never finished) that sounds a whole lot like the movie ET that came out a few years later and was a far better story anyway.

Third file: Rejection with cause. Critical reviews with specifics. NOW we're getting into the daggers to the heart. These rejections and reviews come from editors/readers who obviously read my work and read it thoughtfully. They've identified problems or issues I failed to address or that I hoped no one would catch. Occasionally, someone will catch something I was entirely blind to in a story. I'm pissy about the first and grateful for the second. I get het up about having issues and problem identified *when I knew about the issues and ignored them* - but note. I'm not mad at the person who called me out. I'm mad at me for thinking I could get away with it. Dumb move, author. For the people who call out issues I didn't see, I still get mad at me for not seeing it, but I'm grateful to having my eyes opened to it so I can fix it. It's possible I give myself a 24 hour pity party after it all hits before I have to adult up and fix my mess.

Fourth file: This one stings, y'all. This is BIG pain. Rewrite on spec and STILL get a reject. Not winning contests when a story finals goes in this folder, too. This one is when an editor asks for revisions on spec - they're asking for work with no guarantee that they'll acquire when that work is done. Of course I have to take the chance. I'm going to invest that time and that energy knowing that it may still not be good enough. It's that sunk cost that hurts when I feel like I got SO close (both in edits and in a contest) only to have what feels like the prize yanked from my fingers at the last second. Of course the 'prize', whether statue or contract, was never mine to begin with, but dang if my fingertips didn't brush if just for a second. The other tough aspect here is that when a rejection finally comes or a book doesn't win a content, there's no why. Typically, the editor won't go into reasons why the rewrite didn't hit the mark. They just say, 'not going to work for us. Good luck.' and contents say nothing at all. That twists the rejection knife becuase there's no clear action I could take to make my writing better. Again, I'm allowed to sulk like I'm three. But only for so long. Then to get past this, I have to turn my eye and my thoughts to what's next - the next goal, the next target, the next whatever it is. 

I suspect, for me, that having a new goal to move toward is the secret to recovering from rejection. I need activity - some new shiny to chase. I do have to give myself space to wallow in messy reaction. Based on my brain, I know that I have to sit with something emotionally loaded for 24 hours before the gears will shift. When those gears shift, ideas start rolling. The 'what if' thinking starts up - it's like having a relentless five-year-old in my head throwing "What if this happened? What if that happened? What if we . . .?" At that point, I'm not longer focused on the rejection. I'm focused on solution. Which may include getting spiteful and saying, "Fine. Your loss. I'll self-puh."

What were you supposed to be?

There’s a tweet circling on the Internet that reads:

Going as Former Gifted Child for Halloween and the whole costume is just gonna be people asking “What are you supposed to be?” And me saying “I was supposed to be a lot of things."

That joke always hits home for me. I, too, was supposed to be a lot of things, and none of them was an author.

The list of my intended vocations has expanded over the course of twenty years of school and studies, and includes but is not limited to: professional musician, mathematician, archaeologist, architect, airplane technician, historian, forensic researcher, translator and dolphin trainer. (If that looks like a broad range of interests, I must note that my sister was even more creative: she insisted in kindergarten that her dream job was to be a roadworker).

The idea of being a writer never really made it onto the list of possibilities until a few years ago. Which is remarkable, considering I have been writing since I was old enough to hold a pen and not draw on the walls with it.

I was always the daydreamer of the family – couldn’t fall asleep at night because I was too busy working out elaborate plots, couldn’t walk into a museum without exclaiming “I’m going to use this for a story!”, and always carried a little notebook around to jot down names and interesting thoughts as they came to me. And my parents were not at all unsupportive. My father read my first (and utterly terrible) full story and sat down with me to discuss how I might improve it. My mother gifted me her old laptop so I could spend more time writing. But when I suggested at ten years old that I was going to write a book and earn money with it, they kindly replied that while it sounded like a fun idea, things didn’t really work like that.

I was a good kid; I listened to my parents. So I filed writing under the category of “impossible” and focused on a variety of other career paths.

Oddly, putting food on the table was not a concern ever mentioned when I eventually ended up majoring in the field of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. If that sounds unfamiliar to you, it’s for a good reason: studying languages that died out thousands of years ago is not the kind of activity that makes the headlines. Nor does it earn anyone a lot of money.

It's respectable, though.

And that, I’ve come to realize over the past few years, was the main thing that held me back even when all I truly wanted to do was get these words out onto the paper, to get these characters out into the world – the idea that writing is somehow not a “real” career. Real adults don’t have jobs that require them to have conversations with imaginary people. Real adults sit in offices and do stuff with spreadsheets and talk about the weather. Somehow, somewhere in my life, I picked up the notion that writing is a choice to be ashamed of, that all that endless daydreaming isn’t something that should be indulged, let alone encouraged.

And if I’m honest, I’m still not entirely sure what eventually made me challenge that thought. Part of it was meeting other people who wrote their stories and seemed to be surprisingly sensible in spite of that. Part of it was discovering the indie book world and realizing there might be money to be made with words after all. Part of it was, unfortunately, being unhappy enough for long enough that I had no choice but to do some serious thinking about what I wanted in life. The answer, unsurprisingly, was that I wanted to write much more than I wanted to be respectable.

So I started publishing.

It doesn't yet make me a lot of money; it might never be more than a rather time-consuming part time job. I’m fine with that. It’s not the idea of earning a fortune with writing that’s made me so much happier since I started this business. Rather, taking myself and my stories seriously for the first time in my life is what has made all the difference.

And that's the one piece of advice I would give every writer struggling with the very respectable expectations of their parents or partners or past selves: take your own wishes more seriously. It’s not always easy and it’s not always fun, but it’s definitely easier than keeping those words bottled up inside.

If you're a writer, you know. And if you have stories to share, I don’t think there’s anything else you’re supposed to be.

Lisette Marshall is a fantasy romance author, language nerd and cartography enthusiast. Having grown up on a steady diet of epic fantasy, regency romance and cosy mysteries, she now writes steamy, swoony stories with a generous sprinkle of murder.

Lisette lives in the Netherlands (yes, below sea level) with her boyfriend and the few house plants that miraculously survive her highly irregular watering regime. When she’s not reading or writing, she can usually be found drawing fantasy maps, baking and eating too many chocolate cookies, or geeking out over Ancient Greek.

Find her at https://lisettemarshall.com/.

Stumbling into What You Shouldn't Do

I didn’t necessarily want to be a writer. Certainly no one ever suggested it. The first person to mention it was a high school biology teacher who told me he’d haunt me if I didn’t end up a writer. I preened, but I also smiled and nodded and dismissed the comment because I'd already had The Talk. 

Writing doesn't put food on the table.

So I didn't want to be a writer. Telling myself stories was just something I did. It was a way to pass the time until I got where I really wanted to go. The Air Force Academy. I was going to fly fighter jets. Yeah, I didn’t care that women couldn’t pilot fighters in those days. It was a stupid ass rule then and it’s changed now. I was confident that if I got to the academy, I could and would change minds. I studied hard.

All the while, I told myself stories. I did that because no one knew my childhood was filled with sleepless nights. I thought it took everyone two to three hours to fall asleep every night. I didn’t question. I just filled those hours in the quiet and the dark spinning unlikely adventures in my head. Finally, one boring summer, I borrowed Mom’s typewriter and committed a few of those unlikely adventures to paper. But it was just a lark. I was going to the Air Force Academy.

Stories were my therapy; a place to dump the angst of the day. I kept writing them down. Got made fun of a few times when people would run across a page and read it. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to stop. It was too useful a tool and it was something to do until I got where I wanted to go.

When my father found a page and scoffed at the admittedly terrible writing, I got the dinner table lecture. You know the one. Writing doesn’t put food on the table. I, responsibly, I thought, refrained from asking him who wrote newspapers and magazines and TV shows and movies. Instead, I responded that I didn’t want to be a writer. I wanted to be a pilot. Dad looked disappointed. You should be an engineer, he said. To make him happy, I took technical drawing to see if I could master even the simplest part of being an engineer. No. That answer was decidedly no. I couldn’t. Back to piloting. I joined the Civil Air Patrol as a steppingstone to the Air Force Academy. I joined the Sea Scouts – padding the resume, you know.

And then, at a physical during my sophomore year in high school, my doctor had to sit me down and explain to me why I would never join the military, much less go to the Air Force Academy. It was a medical issue – genetic. Nothing to be done about it except to accept the hard facts. And honestly, if you know me, you already know the military was an epically stupid idea given my issues with authority. I soothed myself with stories, but I still wasn’t interested in being a writer. It was just a past time - something I did to make myself feel better.

I won’t lie. I flailed for a few years. What do you do when you lose the thing you thought you’d wanted? I went to college because it was something to do – not because I had anything in mind. A psychology professor tossed off a comment – Marcella processes the world through writing – that burrowed in, and the thought finally landed. Maybe I could be a writer. Maybe my silly little stories could mean something to someone besides me. What if they could?

Detours ensued. Jobs – because poverty sucks. Life. A few published books under my belt.

And here I am. Proving my dad wrong. I am putting food on the table because I’m writing. Granted. It isn’t fiction, necessarily, though that happens, too. I’m a technical writer in my day job. It’s writing. It pays well. I still tell myself stories. Sometimes, those stories mature enough to make it out into the world for other people to read, though admittedly, it takes longer now with a day job. Do I still dream of writing a great big hit and retreating to the ivory tower of writing full time? Of course. But until that day I pay bills with writing. And I tell myself silly stories. You should do that last bit for yourself, too.

 

Wishes for Younger Writer Me

 If I remember rightly, this topic might have been my suggestion, and I think I suggested it because at the time I imagined it would be easy to drop a top ten list and waltz away.

You'll notice there's no top ten list.

I've spent the week contemplating what I'd tell younger writer me if I had the chance. It was stuff like 'being published doesn't equal success'. 'Being published does not mean you have it made.' 'Polish up your armor, you're going to need it.' It's all super depressing stuff and the key piece that finally made me pull up short on a "Hey. Wait a minute." was the fact that not a single thing I could think of to say to younger writer me is actionable. 

Maybe I've grown jaded, but cryptic advice without concrete, actionable goals/outcomes aren't worth the breath to utter them. Or the heartbeats spent listening to them. 

So I've had a rethink. What actionable things do I wish I'd known before I'd been published. Okay. I suppose the first piece is that I wish I'd known that agents could do as much harm as good - but the kicker is that there's no way (assuming you've done due diligence around knowing who you're hiring) to know until you're in the situation. The actionable piece to that is to enter into that business relationship with eyes wide open and with the full knowledge that a day may come when one or the other of you may have to sever the relationship.  I wish I'd known to have a plan for both best case AND worst case scenarios regarding options clauses. That means I wish I'd come up with a plan for what I'd do with book three whether my publisher wanted the book or not. I didn't. So I flailed. In hindsight, I perceive how devastating flailing is for me. A writer needs a plan and this writer in particular needs a plan, even if that plan is nothing more than drafting a novel just for the fun of seeing how the characters spark and ignite.

I notice that most of what I wish I could communicate isn't actually about writing, it's about the business thereof. I believed I had a reasonable grounding in the business of publishing because of RWA - and maybe I did, but in no way was I adequately prepared to face some of the challenges that came with being published. It is true that driven by those challenges I took a couple of crash business courses aimed at entrepreneurs. They helped - it was there that I learned to plan for both the best and worst case scenarios. I think if I could only give younger writer me a single piece of actionable advice, it would be to take those business classes before getting published. The ride might still have been bumpy, but it might have involved slightly less flailing. Or maybe different flailing.

That's the thing about changing the past. You never know what kind of snowball effect it'll have on the future. 

Huh.

You know what? I take it all back. If I could tell younger writer me anything, it simply be "Write. Never give up on it. Never give up on you."

Pandemics, Politics, and Face Plant

This photo is 100% representative of the past two years of writing for me. The picture is from July 2021. I'd just face-planted on a downtown Austin sidewalk. Fat lip. Broken nose. 

So yeah. Pandemic. Politics. Face-plants. I've been a mental and emotional train wreck since January 2020. I've finished nothing. I've barely managed to put one word in behind another on a book that should have been finished in late 2019. 

Why?

1. Lock down and unrelenting introvert exhaustion. Don't get me wrong. I love my family. Most of the time. But I need serious alone time. THERE'S BEEN NONE FOR TWO YEARS AND I'M ABOUT TO CRACK. Four adults and too many cats in one house has been crushing to this introvert. 

2. Living with someone who's immune-compromised. If you look up 'COVID-19 comorbidities' you'll find my father's photo. That's a lot of worry and a lot of pressure. It meant living in several months of fear that one of us would bring illness home and kill my father. As a result, no one went anywhere. For a really, really long time. Even past being vaccinated. To this day, no one goes anywhere unless double masked. It also means that while I used to be able to leave the house to get some alone time out in the world, you can see how THAT stopped.

3. I picked up a day job. Initially, when I picked up the technical writing gig, there was plenty of time and brain space for fiction. Then the projects at work kicked into high gear and ate my brain. 

Now, there are parts of life in these times that I cannot impact. I can't do anything about a pandemic. Nor can I do as much about politics as I'd like. But I can change how work happens and the day job is scaling back in January. I can't change the fact that life has fundamentally shifted. The parental units both need extra help and I'm having to adjust to the fact that alone time is going to be thin on the ground for the foreseeable future. 

Adapt or die. I thought it was a movie slogan. I'd never expected a bit of Jurassic Park to apply to me.
 

Fashion Victim

Writer. Fashion.

Isn't that an oxymoron? I mean, at conferences maybe some of us could be viewed as semi-fashionable. I am not among that number. I'm far more fashion victim than fashion maven. Used to be you could count on me to dress up for conferences and events - to the point that it was clear I was trying too hard. But not now. A day job and very limited time to write makes my writing uniform pretty flexible. It's boat clothes, y'all. Boat clothes. Even if there isn't a boat at the moment. I'm still out here in cut off shorts, men's tee shirts and wearing men's Keens. I've found my gender-neutral happy place, and regardless of whether I'm out on the lanai writing or walking at the treadmill desk, this less than fashionable outfit stays relatively cool and dry. I never imagined I'd need to plan for fungal diseases like jungle rot (not a joke - my grandfather had it and never got rid of it) but staying cool and dry is a thing here. So every last goth bit of me has been packed away in a box for that time in the future when wearing black won't be a death-by-heat-stroke sentence.

The only thing that might change is whether or not I'm wearing the blue-light blocker migraine glasses. Or the Cefaly. Distinctly not fashionable, but so worth using to keep migraine at bay. 

I'm afraid if there are author beauty contests, I'm going to have to let the cats stand in.

Scheduling Issues

It occurs to me that I come here to the blog and say, "I don't want to be THAT person." and then I go right on ahead and make myself THAT person.

Gonna again. My Writing Schedule:
ANY DAMNED TIME I CAN

Look. I care for aging parents, cope with chronic pain issues-though I think we finally found something that might be working, praise the gods and pass the Depakote!-but when there's both the family I was born into and the family I made when I married that need managing, writing often gets slipped into the cracks. Some days there just aren't any more energy packets to be doled out. I've still discovered ways to get the Jaws of Life into those cracks and pry them open enough for me to breathe more easily.

For example, if I say, "Hey, I have an online meeting every morning at x o'clock. I'm going into my room, shutting, and locking (because one of the damned cats figured out how to open) the door." Nobody bugs me for that hour. I can concentrate. It's not actually a lie. I DO meet people online at x hour each morning. We get into a Zoom room and we all write. It's based on the personal trainer philosophy. If you know someone is waiting on you, you're more likely to get up out of bed and go work out.

The other thing that started working for me was to fling rotting word salad at 4thewords.com before I go to bed every night. I gave myself permission to just play around in the game, learn the system and pursue some of the simpler quests. The writing was total junk. Pure mind dump stream of consciousness stuff. Until about the middle of the second week when suddenly my hero walked into the middle of my mind dump and suddenly, I was mind dumping about the WIP, the plot, the characters and what I thought needed to happen. That went on for another few days. Then suddenly, the pair of them were talking to one another and to me. The words are still ugly. I mean it's all dialogue and there aren't even any tags. I hope to all the gods I can parse it when I try to edit the MS. But in that time after everyone else in the house has settled down and the time I tip over from exhaustion, I can get 1200 words if a scene is really going. Some days it's just more rotting word salad. But it's less often. And I feel like I know more about how this book wants to flow. So I'm counting a success.

I have goals to expand writing time and to expand daily word count to at least 2k again. But for right now, I'm writing daily. Even if it's just 500 words. Something flows. And for me, it breaks the surface tension and keeps my well from stagnating. Man. I don't even want to count the mixed metaphors.

Moral of the story: Who cares what your schedule is so long as it does the job you need it to do. So long as you're happy and reasonably healthy. Some people write a book like lightening striking. It's not wrong. And then some people, like me, write a book like they're extracting the most delicate of artifacts from the depths of the earth. One itty bitty brush stroke at a time. I just start plying that brush at 8AM every morning before the cats start bouncing off the walls wanting to play.

Seven Things You Must Avoid If You Want to Write

These three books are on sale right now. THE MARK OF THE TALA, the book that started it all, first in The Twelve Kingdoms series. Also THE PAGES OF THE MIND, my RITA® Award-winning novel, which kicks off a new phase in the overall series, and PRISONER OF THE CROWN, first in a stand-alone spin off trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria. If you've been thinking about reading my books or this series, it's a great time to start!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week regards the writer's Seven Deadly Sins: the list of things you MUST avoid if you want to finish a project on time. Of course, if you're supposed to be writing, and you're reading this, you've already broken three of mine. Oops. But never fear! There is still hope for you. Read on.


1.  Avoid the internet, full stop. 

We all know this, right? And in a different world, we could avoid the time suck and distractions of the internet entirely. But with so much tied to the internet - from our phones to messages to mail - it's not viable to ignore the internet entirely. There's always the cabin in the mountains, but people still want to that you haven't been eaten by a grizzly bear.

2. If you must internet, avoid social media.

So, if you do have to check something connected to the internet, don't open Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I disable my notifications (which they really hate and are always messaging me to change) so I only see that stuff if I actually go to the site. That takes some willpower, yes, but nothing like what it takes to break free of the gravitational pull once I do look. 

3. Stay away from click bait and rabbit holes (like this).

When I inevitably see an internet something, I have to exercise additional will power not to click on links. Remember: they're designed to make you WANT to click. (I made this post title click bait on purpose to illustrate the point.) Once they have your attention in their greedy clutches, they use all sorts of tricks to keep you there and spiraling ever downward. Best not to look in the first place. If I see something I really want to know about, I save the link. 

4. Prioritize your work over peopling.

There's a good reason so many writers are introverts: because they find it easier to avoid peopling. Even then, however, socializing can really disrupt a writing schedule. For me, I have to block out more time to write than I use actually writing. I need time to settle in, to ramp up, to take breaks. People who don't write rarely understand this. They also don't understand the trancelike focus writing requires and that their "one quick question" can derail a writer for hours.

5. Ignore people who don't (or won't) get it. 

Which is why you have to draw a bright, hard line for the people in your life. Do whatever it takes to get them to understand and respect your writing time. If they still don't get it? Well, I'd venture to say that we don't need people in our lives like that. A hard stance, I know, but if they won't respect your passion and livelihood, what exactly DO they add to your life?

6. Kick other people out of the room.

Not physically, because we did this in #5, right? These are the people in your head who like to yammer on about what you're writing. Some might be positive influences. Others might be severely critical. There's always someone yelling about what you CAN'T POSSIBLY DO. How can a person write in all that noise??? That's right, we can't. So kick them all out and enjoy the blessed silence.

7. Acknowledge fear and let it go.

I have a sign over my desk that says, "What would you write if you weren't afraid?" Sometimes when I tell people this, they reply that they're not afraid of anything. Bully for them. Also, I don't believe them. Any time I worry about how something I write will be received, that's fear. Ignoring that concern does nothing. Instead, whenever I fret over something in a story, I try to acknowledge that fear, look at my poster, and then write what I would if that worry had never occurred to me.

If I can avoid these pitfalls, I just might get my book finished on time. 

Finding Motivation when Life Spirals Downward

The moon rises over the mesa at Ghost Ranch where Georgia O'Keeffe had her summer home. We went on a sunset horseback ride to see her house and the landscape she painted.

It was just extraordinary.

We also did a tour of her winter home and studio in Abiquiu. I've done this one before and love to do it every time I have an out-of-town visitor interested. Seeing where and how this prolific and fantastic artist lived and worked is an enormous education in examining life choices. She surrounded herself with beauty and - though she was a millionaire by that point in her life - Georgia lived a very minimalist and simple life.

All of her choices focused on making herself into a better artist.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "Finding motivation when life spirals downward."

What I've discovered - for myself and from examples like Georgia O'Keeffe - is that the spiral of my life depends on my art, not the other way around. Writing provides an anchor and a ley line* for my life. The creativity is the wellspring of energy, writing is how I channel it, and that channeling provides the buffer and balance for everything else.

Sure, being able to produce art depends on having a life set up to be peaceful enough to do that, but for me - as Georgia did - that means constructing my life to put my work at the center. If my writing is going well, everything else goes well.

*the concept of a "ley line" is found in fantasy a lot and is like a river of magical energy