Full-time writing...here I come

Tip of the Day: when you start to feel too old, hang around people half your age. Not only great research, but sometimes makes you feel young again!

Last night I met some of my new neighbors, and they asked the ever popular “what do you do?” question. My answer then was, “I’m currently unemployed.” But in my head I’m choosing to think of myself as a “full-time writer.”

Since I’m not technically making any money off my employment, I don’t really like to tell people I’m a writer. Even though the amount of effort put into making a book definitely feels like work. Sometimes really hard work.

So why don’t we always feel like sharing that with people?

In my case, I don’t want to have people follow up with questions like, “what have you published?” or then in a few months come back and ask, “so do you have any books out yet?” Because the general public doesn’t really understand the publishing business and how challenging it can be to break-in. And sometimes it takes months to make any progress, so chances are you are probably working on the same book you were a few months ago. Not really anything exciting to report or have to explain.

So for now, I will be a secret full-time writer.

Except now all you know my secret. Shhh…don’t tell.

Only problem is my office currently looks like this:


So my first official duties at my new job are to clean this mess up.

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

This Is Almost a Disgusting Post

Tip of the Day: How is revising a novel like a toilet? Check out Carmella's post at MigWriters.

As a general rule, I don't like to write that my main character almost did something. She shouldn't almost trip up the front step; she should slam into the front door. But I make an exception for a couple of things.

We all know what it's like to nearly vomit, and I don't want to read about that. Really. "She almost threw up" is good enough for me.

Strange things come in threes, and by coincidence, I think the last three books I've read have had characters--well, to be kindergarten polite about it, pee their pants in fear. They were secondary characters, so I couldn't get in their heads to hear that they almost peed. No, I had to see it. I would rather not have.

I'm all for realism, but if it should go in the toilet, can we almost see it instead of actually see it? Unless your main character is flushing her ex-boyfriend's love letters down the toilet. That I want to see.

Anyone disagree with me? Or feel free to add something to the "let's almost and not actually see it" list. (I'll refrain from adding a picture to this post!)

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Some thoughts on blogging

Tip of the Day: A really good berry muffin recipe right HERE.

I've been reading a few up-and-coming authors' blogs for a while, paying particular attention to the topics of their posts and why they have hundreds and hundreds of followers and get more comments than any other author blogs that I've seen.

And here is what I have concluded.

People like funny.

People like perky.

And people LOVE witty.

I actually talked to one of these authors recently about her blog's success, and she told me what I had suspected all along.

She works at her blog. She is intentional about what she puts out there, and only shows the world a very narrow slice of the pie of her life. She knows people don't want to read negative stuff. People don't want to read about depressing stuff. And people *really* don't want to read all-promo all-the-time-time stuff. They want to be informed or entertained. And so that's what she does, over and over and over again.

I'm guessing writing a funny, perky, witty blog post five days a week takes a lot of effort. Will it pay off when the book hits the shelf? My bet is yes, it will. Because you read these blogs that are thought out and well written, and they show us these wonderful people, and we want to be THEIR FRIENDS. And guess what? We like reading books our friends write!

My personal blog has been lacking in good content lately. I've been doing other things - exercising, hanging with the kids, making muffins and pies, going on walks, reading books. I've been blogging for 5+ years now, and I think perhaps I'm a little tired. Okay, a lot tired. And so I'm giving myself a break. But when I see what these authors are doing, how they've hooked readers to keep coming back for more and how that will most likely transfer to book sales, I start to wonder if there's a way for me to do that.

Except there are kids to play with, walks to go on, books to read and workouts to do. In the end, is there a payoff for the time spent blogging? Like, a big payoff? What do you think?

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career

Writing Kissing Scenes

Tip of the Day: This season's Big Brother After Dark (the midnight to 2am live feed of Big Brother that shows on Showtime every night) is so not worth staying up to watch. BORING! The Big Brother season itself is pretty boring this year but the After Dark is really bad stuff.



Ah, kissing scenes. We all love to read them but writing them? Hmm, sometimes it's hard. After careful review of all my kissing scenes in my books, I've found I like to write about first kisses. I like all the tension and build up and the "Oh yes, it's finally here, we're going to have that long awaited first kiss!" kinda stuff.

But the heavy making out leading to other stuff kinda writing? Hmm, not sure I'm up for that. I think I'd be blushing the entire time I wrote which would really be noticeable at the Starbucks where I do my writing I'm sure. And maybe it's the Italian catholic in me but I'm know I'd hear my mother gasping in horror and then saying my full name in my head too.

How do you guys write your kissing scenes? Does your mother scold you in your head too? Do you think oh dear, Grandma and Auntie Edna are going to read this and there WILL be e-mails? Or are you the type that says forget them all, I'm going there!






















Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

I've Done This Before? (or Just Little Bits of History Repeating*)

*With apologies to Miss Shirley Bassey

Tip of the Day: The new season of Project Runway -- with 90-minute episodes! -- continues with episode #2 tomorrow night!

My revised MG novel was rejected recently, and while it is an even more fabulous novel than it was before I integrated the revision suggestions, and there are a few more editors with their hands on my hot little manuscript, I am writing the next book.

I LOVE the next book.

I can't wait to share the next book with my agent!

I don't think I'm going to finish my first draft by mid-August the way I hoped. I did write 7000 words two weekends ago. And the first 1/3 of the book is really polished (thanks to CP feedback).

But when I'm here on word 51,000 out of at LEAST 65,000 (60k was my original anticipated word count), I wonder how the heck I finished all those other novels.

I've done this...seven times before. Seven! Really? Man, I'm pretty dedicated to this writing thing, lol! And every...single...time when I reach this point of being so excited about the ms that I want to share it, yet feeling so bogged down by it and like it'll never be ready for outside eyes, I wonder how I did it the times before.

And if history repeats itself, I WILL finish this WIP and it will be fabulous. :) Even if I'm short of my date goal.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Writing Handicaps

Tip of the Day: softball is a dangerous sport.

My current mode of transportation this week has been lots of fun getting used to!

Walking around with these makes me realize how much I appreciate having my feet in normal everyday situations. Because walking in crutches is not the easiest situation, especially if you are balance-challenged. At first it was a bit hard to get used to and I still almost fell while trying to get down a step this morning, but all in all I am getting better.

But having to move around with them has me thinking about handicaps in general, even related to writing. We all have writing handicaps, or things that might hinder us from writing. It might be as large as dyslexia or a physical impairment that makes it challenging. Or merely something that you aren’t as good at—such as having difficulty deciding what to write about, writing effective dialogue, creating compelling imagery, etc.

As I’ve learned this past week, complaining about it and dwelling on it does absolutely nothing. Was it annoying having to walk in crutches during a move, where there’s a maze of boxes blocking all paths, you have no idea where anything is, and your old apartment still needed to be cleaned. Yes, very annoying. But things still needed to get done. And the only way to get things done was to take it one step at a time and work on getting better with my current limitations (with the help of my amazing husband, of course).

Same thing applies with writing. I have a really hard time creating visuals in my scenes. My scenes often come to me as streaming dialogue. I have to make a conscious effort to add in visual clues throughout the entire chapter to get the reader into the scene. But I’ve been working on it every book. And now when I start writing my first drafts, I do include more visuals and it’s become easier to do from the start. Getting feedback and learning what to improve has made this possible. Otherwise, I might not have even known things weren’t coming through to the reader effectively.

So working on writing flaws can seem challenging, but if you want to be a published writer it doesn’t help to just dwell on all the things you can’t do or can’t do as well as other writers. Just remember how lucky you are to do the things you can do well, and then work on improving all the rest. With time, it should hopefully get easier.

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

What Exactly Is a Story Idea?

Tip of the Day: Having trouble coping with life's difficult questions? Try the web comic Basic Instructions.

I'm back from a long vacation touring North Carolina and Virginia. Vacations get me thinking in different ways and I'm always on the alert for a good story element. This year I became interested in hawks.

That's a picture of a judge in North Carolina who brings his hawk to court with him. North Carolina is really into hawks. It's hard to name a predator with such a strange relationship with humans. Now, my daughter has been bugging me to write a book about animals, but all the good ones are taken. There are a million books about dogs, cats, wolves, bears, dolphins, and owls. (Trust me, she's read them all.) But maybe not so many books about hawks, am I right?

The trouble is, I don't have a story idea. I have, I don't know, an interest.

So what is a story idea? Is it a plot, or is it a character with a goal and a problem? Can you rattle off a good story idea in ten words or less? If so, why don't the ideas come to us that quickly?

I go through this long process where I come up with characters and settings and challenges, and eventually, months and chapters later, I can distill this mishmash into a sentence. This is totally backwards. I should be able to come up with the sentence first!

Not that I haven't tried to formulate the sentence first. It just never survives the first few chapters.

But I think one day, it will happen to me. I'll be driving or folding laundry and presto! The perfect storyline will pop into my head, just like that. All these years of experience will have brought me to that point. And it might have hawks in it. And I will do an outline and (here's the key part) the story idea will be so good that I will stick to the outline!

Sigh. Vacations are all about daydreaming.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages