Give the Muse Fairy a Vacation!

Tip of the Day: Looking for cover art? My friend Traci directed me to morguefile.com - it's an incredible database of stock photos!

I'm a frantic writer. Once I get a golden idea, I write constantly. Evenings, weekends, in the car, in bed, in the bathtub - doesn't matter where or when, I must write until the book is done.

It's not an easy way to live.

Give the Muse Fairy a Vacation!
courtesy of Microsoft Clipart

And once I've vomited out the first draft of a book, the last thing I want to do is write. In fact, every time I finish a book I quit. I tell my husband I'm done. I look for jobs online. I consider other careers. I dream about going back to school and getting my MA in Museum Studies (my BA is in medieval history with a minor in evolutionary anthropology).

So how do I get the writing mojo back again? I do something new or something that makes me happy - and here's the key - it has nothing to do with writing. Writing prompts annoy me. Begging the muse to come back is futile (even muse fairies need a vacation once in a while).

Here's how I recharge:

1 - I read - but only books outside of the genres I write. This means no YA and no epic fantasy. I love drowning in thrillers (James Rollins), detective novels (Joe Konrath), romance (Tracy Garvis Graves), scifi (Ernest Cline), classics (Chaucer), nonfiction (Dian Fossey), and mystery (Elizabeth Peters).

2 - Day trip - I visit museums, zoos, and aquariums. These are some of my favorite brain vacations.

3 - Volunteer - I help out at my kids' school or with my local Friends of the Library.

4 - Catch up on TV shows - Right now I'm loving Vikings. I've also got Game of Thrones, Season 1 on Blu-ray waiting for me.

5 - Clean my house - Okay, so I'm not a clean freak. I don't clean anything but the bathrooms on a regular basis. So when I finish a book, I tend to look away from my computer for the first time in weeks and see that the house really needs a good scrubbing. I organize, donate, and toss.

By the time I've worked my way through a combination of these stress busters, I always think, "OMG, I really miss writing! Why have I been wasting my time with all of this other crap when there's a novel waiting to be written?"

You may have already guessed by now...I'm not the writer who says you must write 1,000 per day every day of the year. When I'm in the writing groove, I frequently pump out 3,000 to 4,000 words a day. It works for me. The books get written - and that's the most important part of being a novelist.

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber

Ready Writer One! (or Alex Awards: The ALA's New Adult?)

Tip of the Day: Three of the Author2Author Misses have birthdays within the month! Wish Emily and Kristina a great year of writing! (Oh, and I'm number three. :))

I was thinking about Kristina's post from last Thursday on the New Adult genre and how I see an audience for these books at my library -- among my own staff.

There are a lot of young-twenty-somethings working part-time at the library, either college grads deciding what to do for careers, grad students finishing their programs with the hopes of soon finding full-time jobs, or those who are content to work multiple part-time jobs because they fit into their lifestyles. These young men and women are often single, dating, breaking out of long-term relationships, starting new serious relationships, or figuring out if they ever want to get married/have families.

In other words, they are way beyond relating to high school drama, but not yet relating to the world of careers, marriage, children, aged parents, home owning, etc. And I know they often want to find entertaining fiction to read that they can relate to.

I will definitely recommend some of the ebooks that are becoming popular in this genre, but also ironically, one of the most fitting books I've seen fit the bill in a while is a futuristic sci-fi: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Did I shout it loud enough?

!!!I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!

It is funny, witty, has great 80s pop culture references, a virtual reality world, a treasure hunt, puzzles to solve, and a character who ages from high school to his young twenties, trying to figure out what to do with his life/who to trust.

It made the 2011 Alex Award List (ALA's list of books published for adults that will appeal to teens), which is what made me pick it up, and I have recommended it to many readers who have all loved it too -- teen boys, "new adult" guys, adult librarian women, my 35-year-old husband, and my 29-year-old brother -- which is to say that eeven if a book is pubbed as "new adult," it will find a wider audience.

So, two things to take away from this post: 1) try your hand at reading and writing a new adult if the urge strikes, despite what the market may say, and 2) read READY PLAYER ONE before it comes out as a movie. You won't be disappointed.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing