Second Guessing Myself

So a couple of weeks ago, after the thunderstorm I think, I told you I had a couple of stories roaming around in my head. One night last week I decided to sit down and put one of the openings down on paper. (okay, actually written with the keyboard in a word doc.)

What I thought was just a mere couple of pages in my head, turned out to be a full chapter. Which was okay. 2k words in one sitting after not writing for 6 months is pretty good I think. Baby steps.

Now, this story is a contemporary romance, with paranormal elements, (I guess that's what they are, I'm not really sure) flashback scenes, women's fiction elements, and it starts with a plane crash. Oh, and it's only a short story. Yeah, totally a hot mess.

However, here's the thing where I'm second guessing myself. I have 6 and a half pages of what I like to call lead-in material -- others call it backstory, (but let's not quibble) before we even get to the actual plane crash. And then we only guess the plane crashes. We don't really find out it crashed until Chapter 2 or maybe 3. Because the opening of Chapter 2 is a dream type sequence so we're not really sure of anything until "he" shows up. And even then, we're still not sure. Because I am such an awesome writer. *snort*

Anyway, the "rules of writing" are messing with my head. Don't you hate that? We need to begin with action. But if the reader doesn't have empathy for the character right from the get-go, then the story falls flat, the reader can't engage, and no one buys the premise. Hence my 6 pages of lead-in material.

Sarah, my MC, is at the airport, returning home after meeting with a client.  We find out in these first 6 pages --

Sarah is an architect, up for a partnership if she can get the client to sign on the dotted line
her mother is worried - mother hates to fly
her father is picking her up at the airport
Sarah's been up since 4am with too much caffeine in her system
she likes chocolate milk
she has a fiance named Ted
Sarah doesn't want to get married until after she gets the promotion
there's a client she hates coming to the office that morning
she needs to be back at the office by 9
she meets a woman named Mavis who looks like Gladys Knight
Mavis is going to Providence to sign off on her late husband's estate so she can get his money
Mavis is wealthy
and there is a severe thunderstorm looming on the horizon

So what's a poor writer to do? Do I cut some of this? Do I keep it? Do I condense it? I have no idea. If I weren't a "seasoned professional" (again *snort*) I would just go blindly along and write the story any old way I durn well please. Right?

But when do we chuck the rules? When we know them? When we hate them? When we can't do anything else other than to write the story we want to write and the hell with what we know is correct?

I've already decided I'm going to write the story the way I want to. I'm chucking the rules. You know why....because I have awesome critique partners who will tell me what sucks and what doesn't. THEY will make the determination on what I keep and what I let go of.

More and more, I see other indie "professionals" who openly acknowledge they rely on their critique partners instead of an "editor". Who knows us best anyway? Writers who know us and our work, whom we TRUST, or someone who's paid to edit our work.

You could pay me to edit your masterpiece, but I don't know you. I could tell you to take out the whole of chapter 4 but that would lead you to call me nasty names because chapter 4 relates to the ending and the next book in the series. Who am I? If you paid me enough I would tell you the book is fantastic and there are no changes to be made at all.

My critique partners have no problem telling me when the writing sucks. And I believe them. Because they know me and have been with me for years. And yes we disagree from time to time on the amount of suckiness in my stories, and sometimes I do disregard what they say, but that's my right as the creator of the story. (What if Stephen King's editor told him to make Cujo an Airdale instead of a St. Bernard? Yeah, right.) But see what I'm saying? It's MY story. I can do whatever I want.

So, I guess this post is all about whom we trust when we second guess ourselves and our writing.

Tell me -- What do you do when you second guess yourself? Do you have a back-up plan? Do you have a critique partner(s) who tell you what to do? Or do you just write blindly into that good night?

Robynne Rand (c) 2013

So, Just As I Was Getting Ready to Write...

...A tornado hit. Oh, the weather people aren't calling it a tornado, they're calling it a severe thunderstorm, but I was standing in the second floor bedroom watching the wind blow in at 70 mph and the hail pound in the backyard. I watched the 80 foot trees bend to touch the roof of my house.

The storm lasted a little less than an hour. When it was done, I walked down the street to my parents house because there was no power. Seven trees were down. Seven very tall, very large trees, had crashed into the back yard. They all missed the house, thank God, but they hit my father's John Deere little mower, the Agri-fab thing, and his/my new trailer for his/my mower.

My father and I took a ride to the old house, the house that I used to live in. What was usually a 12 minute trip took nearly 45 minutes. The roads were closed due to all the downed trees and power lines. Cars were crushed up the road. A house had its roof blown off. Another house had a tree right in the middle of it.

And the weather people said it was just a severe thunderstorm. Obviously they got their weather degree from Romper Room.

I started the clean up Friday morning. I've been working like a dog since then. What was the most fun was that the power wasn't restored until Saturday night at 10. I lost all the food in the fridge and let me tell you how good it felt to finally take a shower.

I have no idea how long it's going to take to clean the mess. My body feels like it's been run through a couple of rounds with Joe Frazier.

I hate the fact that I have two great stories running around in my head and I can't sit down to write them.

However, all my bitching aside, I'm grateful that nothing happened to anyone in our neighborhood. Three people did die from the storm in Wilkesboro. I'm really thankful that nothing happened to either of the houses.

I'm just disappointed that I won't be able to write any time soon. But then, this just might make it into my next book.

Are You Jealous of Your Friends

Last month I wrote a post about friends being jealous of you. For whatever reason. I dealt mainly with the issue of "real life" friends because I've been in real life mode for the last couple of months.

But one day last week I decided to finally troll the blogs and see what I was missing. I'm not going to say this was a big mistake, but it was certainly an eye-opener for me and my feelings.

See, I always wanted to be published by Avon. They have a line that my books would fit into. But after a couple of rejections, and a couple more years of writing, and being on the blogs, I realized that wasn't going to happen. So I decided to self- publish.

I don't regret my decision at all. Self-publishing, albeit a decided learning curve, was the best way to go for me.

That being said, when I was cruising the blogs, I couldn't believe how many people got contracts, agents, deals that were announced in Publisher's Weekly. It was enough to make this grown woman cry. I didn't, but I sort of wanted to.

I'll admit, I'm jealous. I don't know if I would have done anything differently over the last few years. I like that I'm in control of my books. I can make corrections and revise any time I want. I can price my books any way I want. I can take them off sale if I want.

Being with a publisher, you can't do that. You get one shot to make a great story. You get one shot to impress an agent. You get one shot to promote that book and then it's over. On to the next. But you know there's someone behind you, helping you, pulling for you, making great covers for you, editing for you.

And yes, I have a great cover designer. And yes, I have beta readers and critique partners who are the bomb and totally made of win. And yes, I have friends who will listen to me whine, or congratulate me when I publish another masterpiece (lol). But, no matter what, it's still just me. I'm the woman behind the machine. If it all goes south, it's my fault.

And I think that's what I'm jealous of. If I go south, there's nobody to blame but me. If I had an agent and the shit hit the fan, I could blame her. (Because you know it wouldn't be my fault.) If the cover was lousy, I could blame the designer. If the ms. had typo's, I could blame the copywriter or the printer or whoever.

In self-publishing, there's no one to blame but yourself if you make a mistake. There's no one to blame if you don't market and promote. There's no one to blame if you have a crappy cover.

And I guess that's what I'm jealous of. I have no one to blame for my ineptness except me. That's a hard pill to swallow when you're trying to make it into the bigs.

But, I think I'll get over it. I just won't read blogs anymore. That way I won't see what my friends are doing. Yeah, sure, I'm happy for them. (Honestly.) But jealousy is an insidious monster and takes over when you're not looking. I don't want to be that way.

So, I guess I'll just Keep Calm and Carry On doing what I'm doing, writing and self-publishing.

Tell me -- Are you jealous of your writer friends who get ____________ (fill in the blank).

Robynne Rand (c) 2013

Social Media and Lemmings

I've been writing all my life. I've been a blogger for almost 4 years (I think. I lose track of time.) I've been on Twitter for about a year. LinkedIn, Pinterest, Goodreads et al. for about the same.

When I first started writing seriously with the aim to be published (about 7 years ago), I was going to pursue the traditional avenue. Of course, not having a clue how to do it, I thought I'd just write a book and submit it to a big name publisher and wah-la, my book would be published and I'd be an instant success.

Okay, you can wipe the smirk off your face. (People tell me I'm a young soul in an old body. I don't know much.) One of the mommys in my daughter's preschool told me one day I should blog. I had no idea what she was talking about. (I was still separating chapters with line breaks in my ms. so that should tell you how "young" my soul really was.)

Once I got on the blogs and learned my way around, the "guru's" (those who knew better than I) said I needed to build my platform and one blog just wouldn't cut it. I had to be everywhere. Enter social media. So I joined all those other places. Because they said I should. (Lemming anyone?)

Two years ago, I made the decision to self-publish. It was a decided learning curve, but I did it, it was fun, and I made some money at it. During the course of 2012, I published 5 novels, 6 novellas and two collections of shorts. Three of the novels, and 5 novellas were brand new -- meaning I wrote them all in 2012.

Can I just say, that's a lot of work. Not only the writing, but the editing, revising, proofing, formatting, reformatting (learning curve) and then the uploading. Couple that with blogging, marketing, "socializing on social media" and then moving last summer and I'm exhausted.

In January of this year I published my 4th novel. In March, I published my 5th. I made one announcement on my blog for each and one Tweet. And that was all the socializing I did.

And you know what, my books are selling. Not the way they used to (Amazon changes their algorithms a couple of times a year so it's anyone's guess who's going to come out ahead anymore.) But they're selling. You know why? Because I have a bunch of books out. You know why? Because I realized early on that the only way to market successfully was to just keep writing. (Okay, maybe I read it on the blogs somewhere.)

The last time I checked my Twitter feed, I played on it for 4 hours. Did I get any writing done? No.
The last time I checked my Pinterest page, I was on it for about the same. Did I get any writing done? No.
No one's really sure what LinkedIn is for, but when I go there, I'm usually there for a couple of hours. Do I get any work done? No.

So what's the point of social media if all we do is socialize? I don't give a shit what you had for lunch, or what color the blouse is you saw in the shop window. I don't want to socialize, I want to write.

I'm sick and tired of listening to all those people who say we need to socialize to sell our books. Why?

I write in a niche market. There are only so many people who read what I write. (And I read recently that Regency romance is dead again. It comes and goes in cycles and we're entering the go cycle now.) I don't want to waste my time trying to brow beat someone into reading what I write if they don't want to.

On my Twitterfeed there are thousands of Tweets a day for books I will never read. 5star review feeds I will never look at. Guru's say spamming is not the way to do it, you have to "socialize" for people to read your books. I call bullshit. Those people who spam Tweets are selling books. That's called marketing and promotion. But I won't do it.

I did. Oh yes, I did for books 1-3. Did it work? I have no clue. All I know is that it was a giant time suck trying to figure out buy links and Bit.ly and then promoting my friends books because that was also part of the marketing plan (because someone on the blogs said that was how to get attention to your book -- reciprocity and all that -- yeah, again bullshit, very few retweeters). So I stopped doing it. What's the point.

I'm not a lemming. I'm a writer. I'm reclusive and shy, don't really socialize at home so why should I do it at work. When I was a chef I'd put in 15 hour days. When I worked in transportation I worked 12 hour days. Why should I think writing is any different.

When I was writing last year my days were broken up into 4 hour chunks of time for writing. Obviously it worked. Look at my titles. You can't do that playing around with social media. Okay, I can't do that. But there are lots of writers who can. Good for them. I'm not one of them.

I'm not going to drive myself into a nervous breakdown just to bring in a 1000 units a month. Sure that would be fantastic, but I just don't have it in me. I have a daughter, elderly and ill parents to take care of, and 3 acres of lawn to mow every week. Sitting down and playing at Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, and all the rest is just crazy. I don't have the time. Especially if my writing time is limited. (School is out next week.)

So social media is fine and all if you can hack it. If it helps you sell books, good for you.

Me, I'm just going to write.


Robynne Rand (c) 2013