Working Hard Not To Be Repetitious As An Author

Our topic this week is what do we find ourselves doing over and over in our writing, like the way events unfolded repeatedly in the movie “Groundhog Day.”

First, I have to take a minute to say how much I LOVE that movie and also the commercial Bill Murray did for this year’s Superbowl wherein he revisited the adventure! Great stuff.

The movie “Edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt is another terrific science fiction movie with the “repeat the day” trope and deadly stakes, by the way.

Moving on to my own writing, as others have said this week, I have a list of words I overuse in the first drafts of my books, which starts with the word “that’. That is my single most overused assembly of vowels and consonants, usually with over 200 occurrences in a manuscript. Another word on my list is “moment”, which ironically was suggested to me by my editor at Carina Press in my first book and I got so overenthusiastic about using it, my current editor now has forbidden me to use it at all. (The word does sneak in a few times each book though.)  I don’t self-edit when I’m writing the first draft because I’ve found if I do, my creativity is stifled and grinds to a halt.  First draft for me is all about letting the story spill from my mind onto the page (computer) and not the time to stop and exorcise the ‘bad’ words.

I budget three solid days for the editing pass in which I do go through and clean out and replace ‘that’ and all his or her repetitious companions on my list. It’s kind of grueling but yields so many more interesting word choices and turns of phrase so the effort is definitely worth it. I know there are programs which are supposed to assist an author in finding and changing out these types of words but I prefer to do it by hand, at ground level, myself. Sometimes during this part of the process, I find some other word I’ve formed a temporary attachment to and then I work on revising there as well. I don’t try to eliminate every instance of these words – they’re English, they appear naturally in life and in conversation. I just try to prune so there aren’t say three ‘moments’ in one paragraph.

I have a very successful, award winning scifi romance series going, the Badari Warriors, and I have a different challenge there, not to basically re-tell the same story in each book.

Here’s the high level series premise:  Genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens. 

I have read series in the past where the author basically changes the names from book to book but everything else is the same, like old TV shows which followed a pretty strict formula. (Dare I say ‘cookie cutter’???)  I want to avoid that at all costs – I never want to bore the reader!

Just last week I had a really nice note from a reader who finished my newest book in the series, LANDON, and she in fact complimented me on the fact that I’ve managed to change up the circumstances in each book and provide new challenges for each couple, while remaining within the series world building.

Here’s what I said at one time about what I did to make the second book MATEER different from the first book AYDARR: With MATEER, I wanted to keep the series arc moving forward, advancing the overall plot, but I wasn’t done with the idea of a Badari warrior trapped in a lab and the human woman who helps him. There’s such a huge story potential inherent in the situation, which seems hopeless at first glance, but the hero and heroine will find a way out (this is romance – happy endings!).  I pondered how Megan, a doctor, would react to being awakened and finding herself a prisoner under threat of really despicable alien experiments – she’d naturally want to use her medical skills to help her fellow humans survive, but not get drawn into offering the enemy even the slightest assistance. And then there’s Mateer, the chief enforcer from the Badari pack, who’s been recaptured, much to the glee of the scientist running the lab. He has plans for Mateer and Megan together.

So while the two are mutually attracted to each other, they feel they have to resist the scientist’s plot designed specifically for them…and then something happens to Megan to totally change up the situation.

I think my biggest challenge for this book in the series was to make Mateer his own man, differentiated from Aydarr, the Alpha in book one. I had to sit and ponder how growing up in the same harsh circumstances as every other Badari would result in his being a unique person, with his own take on life. I also had a bit of fun in the beginning as Mateer envies the Alpha and his mate (from AYDARR’s events), and has confusion about how the whole concept of finding and being a mate works.  Not, mind you, the physical aspects, but how to know he’s met the one woman for him and how to impress on her that he’s the one man for her.

With Megan, who is the sister of book one’s heroine, but very different – younger, a doctor rather than a soldier as Jill was - I felt her medical training and knowledge would make her much more cautious about trusting her feelings in the high pressure environment of the Khagrish lab/prison.

I’ve played with many wrinkles and scenarios since the first two books, had a lot of fun, built the readership for the series and there’s no end to the stories I have in mind to tell going forward. So I guess this is my anti-groundhog day effort. I take it as a fun challenge and it’s also allowed me to explore a number of different SFR tropes within the series.

DARIK is probably the one where I had the most SF fun, giving a nod to the movies ‘Alien’, ‘Andromeda Strain’ and ‘Puppet Masters’ (the Heinlein classic, not the horror film franchise) in the course of the book. I’ve had hurricanes, avalanches, hidden Alphas, aliens hunting the hero and hero across the plains… (The hunt is a trope that has been used successfully in movies like 2010’s ‘Predators’, one of my favorites, and also in a classic TV movie about a big game hunter turning on his guide while they were out in the desert, and hunting him. I think that one’s been remade two or three times!)….a pregnancy, kidnapping, a heroine who says no to her fated mate (temporarily – hey, this is romance after all and she had a good reason!) and many, many more plot twists and turns over the twelve books so far.

Before I slide into repeating myself here, time to end the Groundhog Day and get back to work on my next book in the series which, yes, will have some new and different plot twists!

Happy reading!

Note: Graphics from DepositPhoto, book covers by Fiona Jayde

A Writer's Groundhog Day

In Groundhog Day, the 1993 movie with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell (and given a short sequel with a super bowl Jeep commercial) follows a man learning to be a decent human being by living the same day over and over and over again. Until he finally gets it right for all the right reasons.

I wish I could tell you that's what happened with my books. It's not that simple. Bill Murray's character Phil has to overcome self-interest and selfishness. My books have to overcome a multi-layered set of handicaps.

1. Thematic repetition - I write about finding your place in the world, so all my stories have that theme running through them somewhere. I keep hoping I'll move on, but it hasn't happened yet.
2. Characters having to learn to accept themselves - I suppose this is common stuff. It's part of the character arc, right? If we accepted ourselves fully, we'd have no impetus for change and then there'd be no character arc. But still. So far, every book has this running through it, too.
3. Repetitive phrases/gestures - this is purely a relic of my brain and my writing process. I'm trying to write fast, to get a really crappy draft down asap. That means I don't stop to think about how else I could have said something. Apparently, this is how you end up with 300+ exclamation points in a manuscript. Who knew.
4. Dark night of this writer's soul. Every book, there comes a point where I stop dead and stare at the carcass of my draft with all the bones sticking out and the sinews attached in places that make no sense and I boggle at it wondering what the hell I was thinking. We're there now. I'll get through it, usually by rearranging points of view and raising stakes. 

But there you have it. The terrible thing about Groundhog Day, the first half of the actual movie, in fact, is the despair of realizing you have to keep repeating your mistakes and missteps over and over again, hoping to heaven you can figure out what you're supposed to learn from it all. The wonderful thing about Groundhog Day (for Phil in the movie and for me in RL) is that you learn the patterns. Once you figure those out, you know what to expect and you can start twisting them. Maybe not to your advantage right away, but eventually. 

I'm looking forward to that part.

Groundhog Day writing...good or bad?

 (photo from the author's own monopoly fail)

It’s inevitable.

It’s gonna happen, you just know it.

Sometimes you don’t see it coming because you’re focused. Eyes on the board. Head in the game. But most of the time you know, because you know it happens every time…the fed-up-with-this-monopoly-game—board-flip. Boom. It happened.

Yes, you’re right, the topic of the blog this week is what Groundhog Day thing do you keep doing in your own writing. And I am getting to that, promise! But I wanted to point out that there’s Groundhog Day tendencies everywhere.

If you’re a creative, they’re not always bad. It could be your signature, that it factor that everyone recognizes as you. But more often than not we think of the repetitive in the negative, right?

My first thought was that I Groundhog the hell out of glancing eyes, but then realized that’s because I just finished re-reading a manuscript. Thinking back to the first book I wrote, and I had an overabundant use of was and just. My second book had the case of the glancing gazes. By the third book, I’d moved onto using too many sensory descriptions and not enough environmental ones.

Now in my fourth book, well, I’m only a handful of chapters in so it’s hard to say what will end up being my Groundhog Day for this one. But isn’t that great?! It means I’m learning with each book I write. No, I’m not perfect at what I’ve picked up, but I am aware of those writing pitfalls and take strides to not repeat them, I take strides to improve my writing.

So I guess I’ll go with that, my writing Groundhog Day thing is learning something new. Give me another five books or so and I’m sure I’ll have a new answer. ;)

‘Till then, I really, really want to go watch my favorite, cynical weatherman kidnap Punxsutawney and try win over the heart of the beautiful Andie MacDowell!

How about you? What stage are you at in your writing? Do you have any things you keep doing, good or bad? Or…maybe you just need to find a spot on the couch and turn on Groundhog Day too!

The eternal rut of authorial assumption

I think to some extent all of an author's books are the same. At least, mine are. My stories are all about found family and identifying your home base in a chaotic world. Considering I've been writing this theme my whole life, that probably isn't going to change.

Another thing that won't change: overuse of the words still and just. Sorry, those words. I hate to love you  -- and search-and-destroy you -- so much.

But the one thing that I keep doing over and over in stories and that does frustrate me and must be killed with fire is assumption. I keep assuming that the majority of readers have my brain, that they're going to share my weird sense of humor or my probably naive sense of wonder, that they'll get and appreciate the in-jokes and pop culture references, that they'll be charmed by the things that I'm charmed by, that they're going to appreciate big words and not being talked down to.

None of these assumptions has proven true in practice. Readers often say I lose them with jargon, that they just didn't get what I was trying to do there, that the pacing was bogged down by too much or too little exposition, or that the authorial structures I considered so fun and unexpected were, to them, boring and confusing.

So, like Bill Murray, I'm iterating. Learning. And someday, I'll write something sans assumptions. At that point, I'll consider sharing it with readers, crossing my fingers, and hoping to wake up, well, tomorrow. 

Bad Habits of Writing: The Beloved Words

What, oh what, had babits do I have in my writing? What things do I do over, and over, and over in my books, regardless of genre?

Dear reader, I have a list of Beloved Words that I overuse. It's a long list. During the drafting phase, my focus is on getting the story told; very "put words on page" versus getting hung up on selecting unique actions that demonstrate emotions. I can get lost in the weeds in an instant, massaging a single sentence for weeks as deadlines shoot past me. It's not something of which I am proud.

Then again, I'm not proud of the 142 occurrences of eye rolls, arm pats, growls, chuckles, or really any of the hundred+ go-to phrases I flog. Really bad is when those beloved words appear on the same page...more than twice. ~cringe~

Policing my beloved words is 100% my least favorite part of editing. I do it; otherwise, I'd have to retitle my works to "The Book of Batted Lashes, Volume 16."

To those readers who catch beloved phrases I don't realize I have: Sorry. I'm trying to be less annoying.

Writing Through the Cycle of Despair

Happy Groundhog Day! In celebration of this (dubious) holiday, we here at the SFF Seven will be discussing that THING we find ourselves doing over and over in our books. If that's not scary, I don't know what is.

Just last weekend I did a video chat with an author friend, because I asked for her help with some brainstorming. We also chatted about our current projects and deadlines. Now, she's had multiple books on the NYT Bestseller list and commands enviable advances. She has a large and passionate fandom. But she was at the phase of her current book where she doubted *everything* about it.

I said, "the phase where you're certain the book is not only TERRIBLE, but the one that will destroy your career forever?"

And she said, "YES!"

This is an inevitable Groundhog Day cycle for me. (For those who don't know, this metaphor comes from the 1993 Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell movie, Groundhog Day, where he is trapped reliving the same day in an infinite loop. If you haven't seen it, it's both entertaining and a terrific analogy for working through the same issues repeatedly until we find our way out of them.)

My Groundhog Day writing cycle goes like this:

Baby love -> potty training -> school years -> horrible teen that smells bad and begs you to kill them -> off to college -> adult reconciliation

I know that's a metaphor within a metaphor, but I feel that's on brand for me.

Basically, when I start a draft, everything is joy, cuddles and sweet-smelling new everything. Then there's a bit of wrestling to get it to behave - the potty training phase - but then I settle into helping the book grow up, get smarter, stronger, bigger.

And then we hit the teen years. The teenage phase for the book is when it totally rebels. It drags bad company home. It smells terrible and is generally filthy in every way. It's recalcitrant, miserable to be around, and you begin to wonder if you should kill it and bury it in the back yard to spare society.

That's when I'm utterly convinced that the book is not only TERRIBLE, but the one that will destroy my career forever.

It's funny because, even though this crisis occurs with every book, it's no less a black moment for that. Even though I *know* this is part of the writing cycle - that I've gone through it before and emerged with a good book - each time I hit that crisis it feels new and especially true. I'll actually think (and my friends will point out) that I've gone through this before, that it's a natural part of the cycle and to just keep going - and then the panicked voice will take over and shout:

NOT THIS TIME! THIS TIME IS REALLY IT! THIS BOOK IS SO EXECRABLE THAT IT WILL NOT ONLY FLOP, IT WILL CONTAMINATE EVERYTHING ELSE I'VE EVER WRITTEN OR WILL WRITE AND DESTROY MY CAREER FOREVER.

It even shouts in all caps like that.

I don't know why this is. It's a deeply emotional, even existential doubt that overpowers all rational sense. Sometimes I think it's a test from the universe, a chasm of despair that must be crossed to prove that you want to create the thing badly enough to keep going.

And eventually, if I keep going, the teenager gets their hormones under control and leaves home. Later we can reestablish our relationship as adults, with mutual respect and understanding.

Speaking of which, I have the copy edits in hand for THE FATE OF THE TALA. Barring disaster, I should be able to finish those today, which means the book will be live on the website store by Wednesday at the latest, and then going live on the retailers after that!!

My copy editor called it "A triumph!" Just saying. :D

Talking About the New Coronavirus

DepositPhoto

Our subject this week is a favorite feel better recipe for the flu or other bugs. I can’t help you much because I favor sleep, a cup of hot sweet tea and chicken soup. Simple stuff with no recipe! I also get the flu shot without fail every year and have had all the various pneumonia shots.

It is a timely topic with the 'novel coronavirus' on the news right now, and everyone waiting to see if the relatively few cases (so far) outside China will turn into the great pandemic we’ve all been dreading for so long. On the one hand I feel like we’re living in the early pages of an End of the World As We Know It scifi novel (a genre I enjoy but have no desire to encounter in real life or to have anyone anywhere have to deal with)…and on the other hand, I’m clinging to Mark Twain’s old saying about most of the things he worried about never happening.

This outbreak seems to resemble the opening scenes in the 2011 movie “Contagion,” right down to the way the Patient Zero in that one caught the virus. “The wrong bat met the wrong pig...” as a CDC scientist says in the film. CNN published a list of movies with this kind of plot, should you be in the mood to see how the world fares in fictional mode, some plots being more realistic than others. Lucky for us there won’t be zombies or vampires rising from the after effects of the virus. I’m pretty confident of this.

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(I‘d skip the scenes involving bone saws – just a word to the squeamish like me.)

I’d also add the TV series “Containment,” which only lasted one season but which dealt pretty effectively with the results of a deadly outbreak in Atlanta. Of course there were all kinds of conspiracy theory level shenanigans going on too in that one, which I don’t believe are happening here. As another scientist says in “Contagion”, “The birds are weaponizing the flu,” in answer to a question from the Homeland Security official as to whether someone intentionally set the virus loose in the world. All the wild animals and birds passing viruses back and forth are Mother Nature’s toxic laboratory at work.

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I’ve been watching the excellent Netflix documentary “Pandemic,” which is not about the current coronavirus but everything the doctors and scientists are discussing is quite applicable to the situation we’re watching unfold today. (There was also a made-for-TV series with the same title in 2007 and there’s no connection.) The documentary “Pandemic” shows the amazing lengths to which scientists all over the world are going to try to study the evolving viruses in the nonhuman sector. It also shows what steep odds doctors are up against in developing countries and those with less than robust health care infrastructure.

 

These outbreaks have patterns, going back thousands of years. There’s a good article on Health24.com detailing what they consider to be the Top 10 epidemics in history.

Yes, I’m kind of a geek on this stuff, but I think it’s good to know as much as a layperson can without getting utterly terrified, and to consider different scenarios.

I even wrote a scifi novel about a deadly epidemic breaking out on an interstellar luxury liner, STAR CRUISE: OUTBREAK. I did a lot of research into various viruses and other medical conditions which can seem similiar and created my own nightmare scenario for these travelers of the future.

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Here’s the website for the US Government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is a good source for updates. Here are the CDC’s tips for what a person can do to protect themselves, bearing in mind as yet there’s no vaccination for the novel coronavirus, nor is there a specific medication to cure it:

There is currently no vaccine to prevent 2019-nCoV infection. The best way to prevent infection is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, including:

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol if soap and water are not available.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.

Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

Stay home when you are sick.

Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.

Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.

Personally I think one of the most important things to remember is to avoid touching your face if you possibly can. The opening minutes of the movie “Contagion” are pretty chilling and true to life about how easily these viruses are transmitted  just by touching a cup, a credit card, or anything an infected person has recently handled and then touching you mouth, nose or eyes.

Additionally, some people are contagious with this new virus before they run a fever or show any symptoms at all, so the hand washing component of self-care is very important.

Wishing you good health!

Anti-Flu Strategy

I live with elderly parents. Or maybe they live with me. I'm not sure how that should be phrased. What can't be denied is that my father (whose birthday is today: Happy Birthday, Dad!) is medically vulnerable at this point in his life. So for handling flu season, I turn to a strange blend of science and magic. 

Modern science provides this entire household with flu shots as soon as they are available. A single flu at this stage could take Dad out. I refuse to be the one who brings into the house. All four adults in the household get those shots every year. 

We do our best to keep the house reasonably humid which sounds funny in Florida, but this winter has been unusually dry with repeated cold air invasions from the north. Dry air allows viral particles to remain airborne longer. In higher humidity, they get weighed down and pulled to the floor or other surfaces. In dry air, we breathe the little bastages and all hell breaks loose. So in really dry weather, we'll do our best to bring up humidity in the house a little. And we step up the house-keeping routine so our food prep surfaces and the surfaces we all touch are cleaned often.

From there, I spend the entirety of the winter taking a nightly hit from a bottle of Sambucol. 10ml to prevent viral infection, and up to 40 ml per day to treat in acute situations. For years, science went back and forth about whether or not this stuff worked. First is was no. Then yes. Then pff, of course not, it's wishful thinking. Then a series of articles published the mechanism by which black elderberry worked: By blocking viral insertion into cells so the viruses can't replicate. Y'all, this stuff is basically contraception for viruses. That's some serious magic.

Articles on the effectiveness of Black Elderberry:

Mercola

Nutrition Review

Building your arsenal for flu season?

Sadly, ancient swords and plasma pistols aren’t much help in this department. There are some helpful flu-fighting posts already up this week that you should check out. Jeffe shared a great naturopathic list and like her, I’ve always got powdered Vitamin C and Oscillococcinum®. And if I can’t avoid everyone like they have the plague, I now have a hot toddy recipe! See…helpful, go check them out! 

But, no matter what you choose, when the cold or flu lays you out we all turn into listless, muddleheaded, babies. And one thing I’m sure to have handy when I’m chilled and achy: Creamy Rustic Soup.

I shared this pic about a year ago and had demands for the recipe. Unfortunately I must have some of my grandma in me because as much as I love to cook…I don’t always use a recipe. I know! I know! I’ll write it down…next time. ;)

So, this is my attempt at a recipe for what I like to call Creamy Rustic Soup because it’s...well, creamy, roughly chopped, and a soup! If you try it out, let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Creamy Rustic Soup

In a stock pot…

Sautée:

1 chopped onion

2-3 diced garlic cloves

Brown 1 lb ground meat (or diced chicken) and season:

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried sage

1 tsp chopped parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Then add the following:

5 chopped carrots (it's rustic! uneven's the name of the game!)

2 stalks celery, chopped (if you have some)

1 large rutabaga, chopped (I had rutabaga to use up, feel free to sub potatoes, my faves are Japanese sweet potatoes)

4-5 c stock (whatever kind you have, I make my own vegetable stock from leftover peelings and it turns out so lovely and dark)

1 c coconut milk (because I had some leftover to use up, but feel free to sub half and half/whole milk...think creamy decadence)

Heat to boil then simmer for ~30 min or until the veggies are fork tender.

Last, this should go without saying...eat while reading a good book for maximum effect.

The Happy Introvert's Guide to Flu Season

I was just reading back through the SFF Seven posts this week and taking notes. So much good advice for getting through the cold/flu season so we writers can focus on the thing that makes our magic. That would be, um, writing.

I personally am neither a medical expert nor a particularly effective home-remedy user. If my kids get sick, I take them to the doctor. If my partner gets sick, same. If I get sick... well, the world doesn't stop needing to be dropped off places, so I just plow on through and try to ride it out with a buffet of over-the-counter syrups and pills at the ready.

Wouldn't call myself a big believer in essential oils, necessarily, but inhaling the steam from a bowl of hot water and a couple drops of melaleuca oil seems to help with sinus infections and congestion. Guess you could say I recommend that?

In my ideal world, though, I would handle flu season thusly: From October to March, I would have all my groceries delivered to my home and would venture out of my house only occasionally to soak up a little sunshine in the privacy of my back yard. If you get viruses from other people, chiefly, then what better way to avoid illness than to never encounter another human?

This prescription works best for introverts.

(Like me.)

And people who work from home and live alone.

(Sadly, not me.)

(Pass the tissues? Achoo.)

It's Plague Season, Now Featuring "Fix It"

It's plague season. The Petri dishes are running amok, spreading their snots and coughs and general oooge throughout the realm. From the first tickle of the throat or the third successive sneeze, we all fear that realization that we too are among the doomed. All too soon we're couch-bound beneath a bankie and clutching a box of tissues. If you've succumbed, dear readers, and are not driving anywhere for 8-10 hours, then snuggle up, Dr. Feel Better is poking around the kitchen.

Some call it a Hot Toddy. Some call it Mercy in a Mug. My family calls it Fix It.

Ingredients:

• Honey
• Decaf/Herbal Tea (Flavor of choice, I recommend lemon or orange. If your tummy isn't your friend, pick peppermint. Back away from the high-test stuff unless you want to stay awake, but you're sick, so sleeping is sort of the point.)
• Hot Water (if you don't have tea concentrate)
• Whiskey (Any member of the whiskey family to include: bourbon, rye, scotch, malt, Irish, single malt, etc.)

Make your hot tea according to your personal preferences. Pour in a mug, not a dainty cup. Add honey to just this side of too sweet. Add whiskey according to tolerance. Minimum 1shot:6oz of tea. Stir. Sip. Savor the way the honey coats your throat while the booze warms your body and numbs the irritation.

Caution: Don't add too much booze. The point isn't to get shit-faced 'cause then you'll only feel worse; plus, puking is to be avoided at all costs. Achieving a "nice buzz" is good. Maybe it takes two mugs to get there. You're sick. When that first yawn attacks, give in. Have a good rest. You can make more Fix It tomorrow.

Dr. Money's Flu Remedies

It's Flu Season, so this week at the SFF Seven we're talking about our favorite tea, soup, or homeopathic feel-better recipe.

As you all may or may not know, I was clever enough to get myself an in-house physician. My hubs, David Money, is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. As part of his schooling, he learned all about nutrition, herbal formulas, and various supplements.

Really, the best flu remedy is not to succumb to it in the first place. So, if I start feeling under the weather, these are my go-to home remedies.

Vitamin C and NAC

We buy Pure Vitamin C in powder form. I put a scoop of that in some filtered water and take it with NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine). I also take NAC as a daily supplement, but it's great for kicking up my immune system. The two taken together are like the wonder twins of amping up health.

L-Arginine

If the Vitamin C + NAC isn't doing the job - especially if I'm feeling fatigued - I'll take some L-Arginine. That often does the trick to give my system the boost it needs.

Echinacea

Sometimes, if I'm really feeling like I'm battling a bug, I'll take the L-arginine with some
Echinacea tincture. Mine is literally homemade: I grow my own flowers, use gardening techniques to intensify the plant health, harvest at the optimum time for max potency, and brew the tincture. The stuff I have is powerful!

Gan Mao Ling

For a pre-made, store-bought herbal formula that's great for kicking the flu and other nasties, Gan Maol Ling is our go to. Really, it's great stuff that actually works.

Oscillococcinum®

If none of these are working, we buy some Oscillococcinum®. It's a homeopathic remedy that always does the trick for us if none of the above have worked. It's been a real rescue for me, more than once.

Stay healthy out there people!

Also, since lowering stress is part of staying healthy, I'll mention that I'm teaching a workshop on Taoism at the New England Chapter of RWA in February. Even if you're not a member, you can attend in person for only $5!

10 Quotes About Reading

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Our topic this week is our favorite quote about books and reading and why. 

Here’s the thing – quotes, like poetry, jokes and geometrical formulae, don’t stay in my head. I read them, I nod, I ‘like’ it if it’s on Facebook and I move on. You can tell me the same joke every day and I’ll laugh as if I never heard it before because my brain doesn’t retain the information. I have a prodigious memory and always have, but only for certain things.

So what I decided to do this week is go to my favorite source for quotes, BrainyQuote, and search there. I found no less than 1000 quotes about reading which they curated, so I’ve selected the first ten I found that appealed to me in some way or another.

There is creative reading as well as creative writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have no idea what he was thinking but to me it points out the reader brings their own experiences to a book, a concept which I liked…

Which leads to this quote:

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. Albert Einstein

Oh dear, I’m afraid Dr. Einstein and I would have to agree to disagree. Strenuously. But perhaps a mind such as his (which probably did retain all kinds of formulae while also making up his own) was too elevated to merely read. On a side note, I’ve eaten in the Caltech dining room where he used to sit when he lived there…

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Now I do agree with this one:

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou

I’ve always thought whatever the child wants to read, be it comics or Nancy Drew or anime or the encyclopedia or whatever, should be encouraged! Reading is reading and a child can always branch out to other material later.

A rather chilling warning here:

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

I liked this one:

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes

Of course I don’t know that people in future centuries will be reading my scifi romances but an author can always hope!

One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it. H. P. Lovecraft

So true!

Personally, I like reading adventures which really have happened to people, because they show what kinds of things might happen to oneself, and they teach how to ‘Be Prepared’ to meet them. Robert Baden-Powell.

I definitely subscribe to this one, probably in part because of my fascination with the sinking of the Titanic, and who survived and who didn’t. I remember giving a lot of thought as a child to what I would have done and how hesitation in a crisis was a killer. My copy of A Night to Remember by Walter Lord is too dog eared to read any longer! My daughter bought me a new copy in fact. I think that entire aspect of my nature – to be prepared (not that I was ever a Boy Scout, or a Girl Scout LOL!) is an outgrowth of being determined not to be left behind when all the lifeboats are gone because I dillydallied when there was still a chance to escape. I love to read about disasters and to think through what I would have done (or not done)…Inaction can be the worst mistake.

I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve. Montesquieu

So much this ^^^. Losing myself in a favorite book (hello Nalini Singh and Psy-Changelings) can make any day better. Or becoming engrossed in a really good new-to-me story.

We shouldn’t teach great books, we should teach a love of reading. B F Skinner

Because speaking for myself, if I hadn’t already been a voracious reader at a very early age, some of the BORING awful things we had to read in junior high and high school just because they were deemed to be CLASSICS could have turned me off books forever. (Looking at you, Charles Dickens.)

And I’ll conclude with this:

The unread story is not a story; it is black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K LeGuin

Happy reading!

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Two For the Price of One Quotes

My favorite reading quote wasn't something I'd ever really thought about before now, so it took me a minute to find a way to put into words what I'd valued about reading all my life. It was the place I felt like I should belong, where I could be safe if only for a little while. (Not that I was ever in any kind of danger other than the sort of normal emo danger most kids are in at any time of their lives.) It's just that when it's you getting the jeers and sneers of classmates, a massive fantasy novel behind which to ignore them feels very empowering. So. My two favorite reading quotes:

I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage. 

Arthur Schopenhauer

My second favorite book quote:

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

Reading...it's elementary.

The more that you read, 
the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, 
the more places you’ll go.

~ Dr. Suess

That’s one of my favorite quotes about books. Like many of you, my love for reading started early on. *Thank You, Mom!* And I have many fond memories of wandering through the bookshelves of my elementary library, inhaling the aroma of aged pages…and the occasionally stinky feet, and to pull book after mind-challenging book down to hold in my hands.

Reading has given me so much, so much more than the oft necessary escape. It’s given me the ability to use and understand multiple perspectives, it’s given me knowledge (yes, my handsome man, even knowledge about made up magic systems counts as knowledge), and it’s given me the inspiration to dream. 

So, tell me, what’s your favorite quote about books?

Books are practical magic

Hands down, my favorite quote about books or reading is this one from Steven Wright: "I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done." My second favorite is a quote from Doctor Who: "We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one." (I have one of those inspirational cuff bracelets with this quote on it, cuz I am a hardcore fangirl like that.)

I bet you were hoping for something more profound, hmm?

Truth is, my lived experience is not all that profound. Books were sanctuary for me when I was growing up. I spent a lot of time in the public library, and then I went home and read some more. Books were instructional and safe and dependable. I guess you could say books raised me, so I think of them as a beloved granny maybe, not a magical portal or secret religion. Or, as Oprah Winfrey put it, "Books were my pass to personal freedom."

So in a sense, the truest truth would be to say that books are practical magic.

Fav Quote about Reading: There is Nothing...

I wish my search skills were strong enough to find the source of that quote. I remember it from posters in elementary school, one of those classroom signs at which you stare instead of paying attention to the lesson. There were various background illustrations and some were plain text on beige paper. My favorite was in the base library's children's section. It was a colored pencil sketch of a little brown-haired girl, sitting on the floor, huddled over a book, her face scrunched up in deep concentration.

Decades later, that quote (or some variation of it) has proved true, time and again. Recipes, foreign languages, home repair. Problem-solving, social skills, manners...empathy. That last one is where genre fiction really leads the way. The settings may be improbable, the characters simple or complex, but the interactions are relatable and in many ways prepare us for how to cope/handle/respond to a real-world situation we've never encountered. Books take us out of the echo chamber of our insulated lives and make us think, make us wonder, make us imagine what it's like to not be us.

Reading: To Enter a World

Some exciting news! Book three in the Forgotten Empires has a title!
THE ORCHID THRONE, THE FIERY CROWN (out May 26), will be followed by...

THE PROMISED QUEEN.

 I really love it, don't you? I recall as a kid being captivated by the title "THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING," the Arthurian retelling by T.H. White. It was one of the first times a title really piqued my interest. I feel like I'm evoking a tiny piece of that magic.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is our favorite quote about books and reading, and why.

For some odd reason, I can never think of my favorite quotes when asked the question directly. If I'm babbling on about other things, the quotes just fly into my head. But when I have to think of one out of the blue?

Nothing.

I blame my brain's filing system, frankly.

I know there's a quote on books and reading that I've loved for a very long time - and I was certain I could search for it and get the exact phrasing. I got out my Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I Googled. I looked in a few other books.

Nada.

I asked on Twitter and Facebook, and got lots of great suggestions that came close to the same sentiment, but the exact one nudging my memory?

Nope.

The one I'm thinking of I could swear I even had on a bookplate or bookmark, once upon a time. Maybe in the late 70s or early 80s. With flowers on it? It's an interesting thing about Googling stuff - certain things have made it onto the internet in thousands of instances, sometimes with near infinite variations. Other things from BI (Before Internet) molder away on hard copy, never to be found again.

What's also amusing - and what a few people offering suggestions also noted - is that many quotes that came close were by other writers, attributed to themselves. So, I decided, what the hell? I'm going to try to recreate this quote. And if anyone knows the one I'm trying to remember, please say so!

To open a book is to open a door into another world - a very real magic spell that allows us to live as someone other than ourselves. 

~ Jeffe Kennedy, author and reader

My Writing Schedule or Lack Thereof

Schedule! DepositPhoto

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week involves our writing schedules – what’s our most productive time of day, when do we actually write, how much time each day, week, month, etc.

When I left the day job five years ago to be a fulltime author, one of my personal vows was to never set an alarm clock again unless I had to be at an airport or in an operating room that morning. No more scheduled meetings! No more scheduled reports! Freedom! All those years of rising way early in the day to commute to the office, with a week chockfull of meetings and tasks assigned to me by other people, OVER and done. WOOT!

DepositPhoto

Now having said that, I do have a personal routine I follow. I actually am a super annoying morning person with or without a job outside the home and somewhat to my surprise I find I still tend to get up around 4:30AM. I like having the day ahead of me, I love the feeling of being one jump ahead because I’m awake and bustling around before most of the still-sleeping world (well, still sleeping in California anyway) rises…there’s also the not unimportant fact Jake the Cat was used to having his breakfast around 4:30AM. He was quite resistant to having his food-in-the-bowl time shifted to later, although now after five years he’s a bit more mellow.

Or possibly resigned to the fact…

After breakfast I start my ‘work day’ in much the same fashion I used to follow at the old day job. I check my e mail and then I go to the internet and read certain news sites, catch up on my social media (I did not do the social media loop at the old office let me hasten to add)…and then I dive into the work. I blog on various platforms and I also do my weekly New Releases report every Wednesday, so I have tasks not related to the current creative work in progress (WIP). Most days I take care of those items before going to the WIP because they hang over my head and distract me.

When I first transitioned to this career versus the old day job, I had a hard time getting myself to see that these other tasks weren’t the actual work. They had deadlines, I owed them to people (even if only in the sense of not letting down my fellow bloggers)…so they looked more like ‘work’ to me in some sense than writing my novels did. Some of this was the lifelong fact that writing my stories was done in between everything else or after work or after the children went to bed or on a lunch hour or in study hall. So I had to overcome this unconscious perception I was carrying that the writing had to be fitted in around the other tasks.

Jake the Cat

There were a lot of things to deal with when I transitioned to fulltime author that did surprise me besides the issue of the affronted cat with an empty food dish! (Hey, he always has dry food available…)

Sometimes I prompt myself to switch my focus by reminding myself the books pay the rent. None of the other activities I might find myself doing directly contribute to paying the bills or buying the cat food. That usually helps clarify for me what I ought to be working on!

I’m organized in my own fashion – NO spreadsheets here though. Shudder. If I had to track anything to do with my writing in the form of a spreadsheet I. Would. Not. Write. That level of detail is so not me. Kudos to Jeffe, the queen of spreadsheets – I’m always in awe of her methodology but I think the idea of too much structure or tracking mechanisms applied to my own writing sends the rebel in me up the wall.

I do keep a weekly To Do list, which helps me focus on the most important non-writing tasks for the week but never when it comes to the writing. The closest I ever come to letting the To Do list touch my writing is if I need to request a new cover from the wonderful Fiona Jayde for example and I keep forgetting to search the stock photo databases for inspiration. Then I might add that as a bullet point on the messy list.

DepositPhoto

So, to circle back around to the topic at hand, the writing schedule, usually around 8:00AM I’m ready to dive into the current book. I might make a cup of tea to signal the change of pace to myself, I sit down here at the keyboard and I type.  I write until the Muse is tired, however long that may be in any given session. Sometimes it’s a few hundred words and other times it’s a few thousand. I use a timer to remind myself to take breaks because of the physical toll sitting here and typing for hours takes if I don’t.

Some days I only work on the book once. Other days I might go off and return two or three times. Some days I don’t get to the writing until the evening, if for instance I’ve gone to babysit my toddler grandson or if I had a day full of appointments or errands. Despite being a morning person to the core and winding down as the sun moves across the sky and sinks, taking my energy with it, I can do a burst of creative writing in the evening. I have to be firm with myself, come in here and sit, open the manuscript file and start typing on whatever scene comes next in the narrative, but I can do it.

The one rule I did make for myself was that I must do either one 25 minute timed session or 1000 words (which usually takes me about that much time). Last year at one point I found myself skipping days as a result of some family and health issues and I can’t afford to do that, hence the rule. Twenty five minutes slides by really fast if I’m caught up in writing and I usually end up doing more words but at least with a solid 1000 a day I’ll finish a first draft of a book in 5-7 weeks, depending on the length.

If I’m in the editing and revision phase, then obviously I don’t log too many new words, but I will enforce upon myself the 25 minute session rule to be sure I’ve made some progress for the day.

I only work on one book at a time. I may be thinking ahead a bit to the plot of the next one but I haven’t found it productive for me to try to divide my creative attention.

It’s my method, it works for me and I think it serves to illustrate that there’s no one rule for every author to follow! My output for last year was nine new novels, two re-releases and a box set, so I feel overall my system has proven itself for me.

6 of the 9 New Books I Released in 2019

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.

A schedule for writing?

Sunrise in Custer St Park

photo courtesy of @wyomingflygirl

Way back before I was a starry-eyed writer I thought…well, I thought writing a book was impossible, but I also thought that authors wrote and wrote until the book was done. Oh, what sweet innocence. 

Once I decided to attempt the impossible and write a novel I quickly found out that the book didn’t just pour out in one long chunk. There was a ton of research needed and an even more exorbitant amount of staring off into space required. But the best piece of advice I garnered was Jeffe’s advice to track your writing time. 

And so….spreadsheets! 

If you’re a new writer, or you have writing-time flexibility but struggle to get words down when you do sit down, I suggest trying out the Jeffe-writing-spreadsheet-method. When I did my first writing-time tracking I was still working full time and alone time with my computer was sporadic, which actually came in handy because I was able to compare all times of the day and night. 

My results: 

Creative brain power peaks between 7-11 AM. 

Editing capabilities are sustainable throughout the afternoon.

Writing after 5 PM…forget about it.  

Who out there is struggling to finish that book while holding down the 9-5? The problem with knowing that I was a morning writer was that I still had the day job M-F. To those authors working full time, I salute you and will send you all the good vibes! It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Keep going and when you do have opportunities to shut yourself away during your peak writing-times, do it and don’t think twice! There’ll be guilt about taking the time and you’ll miss out on events and family/friends, but it’s part of the sacrifice to the end goal. 

Fast-forward a few years and now I’m blessed to have a spouse that can support our family while I’m a stay-at-home author. He’s incredible and the only reason I’m able to write during my peak hours. And it’s made a huge difference in my daily word counts and consistencies, which veers into writing routine territory. For those who have a flexible writing-schedule, once you know when your brain works best then you can move towards a writing routine. And that, that’s a whole other writing post.

Schedules aren’t for everyone

There’s really only one cardinal rule in professional writing: make decisions that are kind to you. That’s it. I mean, it’s great if you can write 2,000 words a day or keep to an intricately washi-taped planner. It’s also great if you can write seven books per year. And also it is similarly great if you can’t do either of those things.

Expert-type folks have told me that prime time for a creative brain begins at roughly 11 in the morning. Others swear by pre-dawn writing, and still others claim that the only way they can get a book done is to lock themselves in a hotel room and write for four days straight. In other words, advice for optimal scheduling of writing time is all over the place.

Which, considering that we are all different individual humans, is kind of how it should be, eh?

Me, I’m a study in chaos. If I have a deadline, I will make it happen. If I don’t... well, let’s just say that I’m easily distractible by things like taking care of my family, feeding my dogs, bathing on the regular. I know: so self-indulgent. Guess what else? My lack of discipline for Writing Every Day At The Appropriate Time bothers me not at all.

I guess someday if I am able to make a career out of this writing gig, I will attempt to create office hours and do the thing at a specific time of day. But right now, no. It isn’t feasible, and beating myself up about it changes nothing.

Writing does not rule me. I tell it when it needs to happen, and by cracky, it will obey!

Narrator: It did not, in fact, obey...

Writing Schedule: When, How Often, How Many Lives Ended for Interrupting...

Oh, okay, maybe not that last one.

My writing schedule is "whenever my mind can settle," which is first-ish thing in the morning and again in the late afternoon/evening. There's a ritual involving dog care and coffee that has to happen before writing or I end up with 60lbs of wriggling fur all up in my personal space. I don't do late night writing sprints because my brain is pudding by then. If real-world stuff has to happen, then it has to happen before noon so I can hit the mental pocket in the second window of productivity.

I like to get my analytical stuff done in the morning (that includes editing, reviewing marketing, budgeting, etc). I do my best creative stuff in the evening (drafting, ad development, social media, etc.). I take a break every two hours at the dog's insistence (plus, it's good for that whole "don't be too sedentary lest pulmonary embolisms" thing). I do this 7-days a week, 10 months a year. Twice a year, I schedule 30-day no-writing vacations (except for this blog, obvi.).

I am a hardcore creature of habit, so anything that interrupts THE PLAN OF THE DAY will have me shifting from Smeagol to Gollum in a nanosecond.

My motto: Spontinantiy is fine, as long as it's planned.

How I Became a Morning Writer

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week involves our writing schedules – what’s our most productive time of day, when do we actually write, how much time each day, week, month, etc.

I chose this photo I took of the moon at sunrise, because seeing amazing sights like this has become one of the great benefits of being an early riser. Who knew that catching the moon at dawn could be so very beautiful? I certainly didn't, because I was never naturally an early bird.

See, I was one of those who *loved* to sleep in. In the early days - and years - of our relationship, the hubs and I would sleep until 10 or 11am on the weekends. I'm groggy in the mornings, slow to come alert, and not particularly talkative. People ask me questions and I blink at them in incomprehension. Conversation, not so much.

BUT... I can write.

I discovered that mornings are my most productive time of day when that was the ONLY time of day I could consistently write. Those first few years after I committed to being a writer, I struggled - as many newbies do - to actually produce work. I had a busy life - a full-time career in science, two young stepchildren, debt we were determined to pay off (and did!), classes in the evenings (both taking and teaching) - and not a lot of "free" time. Waiting for that time to write to fall into my lap definitely wasn't working. Sandwiching in a bit of writing before I went to bed - delaying sleep when I was already exhausted - meant I got nothing done, very little done, or what I wrote was utter drivel.

I finally too the advice to write every day at the same time. I resisted that for years, but ultimately I knew I had to do SOMETHING different. So, I tried that, and it worked for me.

That meant, however, rising very early in the morning, because those dawn hours were the only ones when I had nothing else booked. I could write for an hour or two in the pre-dawn darkness, before anything else kicked in. That meant rising at 4 or 5am for a few years there. Some of the stuff I wrote then is pretty wild, but I built the writing habit, and it's stuck.

Now that I have the luxury of writing full time, I don't set an alarm. I get up when I wake up - usually after lying there for a while gazing dreamily out the window - and that's done wonders for me being actually alert when I'm on my feet. (I think when I made myself get up at a particular time, I wasn't always fully awake - thus my inability to process much in the way of conscious thought. I was upright, but I wasn't AWAKE.) I wake up between 5 and 7am, and mornings are devoted to writing, for the most part.

I find that if I can get my 3K words/day done by early afternoon, that's ideal. Generally I work in 1-hour sessions, with about a 30-minute break between. I'm not always good about keeping the breaks short, which I'd like to get better about in the new year. Most days I write 4-6 hours, with 3 hours of that actual fingers tapping on keyboard.

I'd really like to consistently get that down to 4 hours total, saving the time-sinks of chatting, social media, email, etc., for after the words are down. That's one of my goals for this year, so we'll see how I do!