Stepping Outside of the Safe Zone

I write in so many different genres that most people would think a new one would be easy for me to pick up. By the end of this year I will have had releases in erotic contemporary romance, action-adventure futuristic erotic romance, historical romance (regency time period), and an erotic historical western romance. I like to joke that my ADD makes it possible for me to jump from one genre to the next. But, when I found myself writing the western, it charged me up and sparked a ton of new ideas but it also scared the hell out of me.

I had a bad year personally. It dragged me down and really hurt my writing. Stress kills my creativity. I found myself dreading to sit in front of the computer to write. That had never been a problem for me. I loved writing, but now I was faced with the dilemma of finding the energy just to do edits. But, apparently, I had gotten too complacent, too lazy to try something new. Then, I started writing The Seduction of Widow McEwan.

For a couple of years I’d told Beth Williamson I wanted to write a historical western erotic romance. I even had the basics of the story: Older woman, younger man, lots of hot lovin’. So, she called my bluff. She approached Becka Goings and myself with an idea of a western anthology. I can’t say no to a challenge—and she knew that–so I jumped on board and then panicked.

What the hell was I thinking? I’m a very contemporary writer and it is a struggle to have a book in another genre. My historical are always hard for me and dialogue in them takes twice as long as it does for my other books. And now, I’m throwing in another quirk, western, with all its lingo and speech patterns. So, after a lot of chocolate, and a lot of self-pity, I forced myself to get to work. Once I sat down, plotted it out, I got to work and found myself excited about writing again. The challenge of a different genre, of researching, got my creative juices going. I had forgotten one of the reasons I love writing so many genres was the challenge.

I am stepping out of that comfort zone again. I have a new series that is uncontracted that is on my list to work on when I get done with everything due in this year. It is a five book series, one storyline that starts with the first and ends with the fifth. It is my first time trying something like that and it has me all excited. That has bubbled over into my other writing. I no longer hate the idea of writing, even edits. I find myself breaking my own word count records. 

It taught me that playing it safe isn’t the way to go. Yes, writing in genres, or storylines, that I have done, is okay, but I need challenges. I need something that isn’t so easy and makes me work to keep my creativity alive.

Define style? (And I don’t mean in writing, but in your person.) Go ahead, I’ll wait . . .

If I can’t, does that mean I don’t have one? I am not hip, hep or otherwise known as cool. I have {gulp}30+ cardigans in my closet. Jeans out the wazoo—ew that could hurt. And 80, yes I counted, pairs of casual shoes and only 4 dressy heels—I know Mik is all aghast, but WHEN would I wear them? At the grocery store, naw, a slip and fall waiting to happen. At the doc’s office? Uh, the guy can hardly pay attention as is, like he needs another distraction–did I mention the one time he was seeing Spare and his zipper was undone the ENTIRE time??? We laughed so hard afterwards.

Anyhoo . . . I look around at other people my age—the other moms, mostly up at the grades K thru 7 schools because that’s where 75% of my adult interaction is. Even there, some of the moms primp and prep—and for what??? The Principal? PTA pres? He’s nice guy, friend of the Dh but yeah, no. These women keep the big-haired Texas woman alive and well! Me, well hmm, more often than not—my hair is up in a clip or in a pony tail—I can’t stand for it to touch my face; it’s a thing I have—not an issue, just a thing. I rarely wear makeup. A little mascara and lipstick—when I remember to put it on. Maybe having all boys has contributed to some of this. I don’t have to set an example. I don’t need to know how to do makeup correctly. (and frankly I don’t feel I need makeup, I only wear the mascara because my eyelashes are so pale you can’t see them otherwise—I think I look just as cute—ugh—killer word—with or without it).

Don’t get me wrong, BK—before Kiddoes—I was all the glam I could handle. Then I had over 100 pairs of shoes and dresses and skirts out the ying-yang—again, could be painful. I watched trends and trolled them for what I liked.  But not any more.Can a lack of style then become your style? That I-just-threw-this-together look? I work from home, if you call being a full-time mommy and author working—and Oh I do. I have no reason to wear anything that is not uber-comfortable. I’m not a slob—at least, I hope not. But I have steadily slid down to mommy frumpdom and haven’t had the motivation/ambition to claw my way up the stacks of microfiber pants and silky shirts.

My one wild attempt at fashion diva is my vibrant choice of hair colors—and even then I hold back from what I really want to do—though I did check out some highlights that you don’t find in normal hair color under the age of 90. That’s progressive right?

Characters with no good reason to do the horizontal mambo. *sigh*

It does….uh…put a kink in things to say the least–or no kink, as the case may be.

I also have this problem with endings. I’ve got 80 pages of the first novella and 75 of the second so I’m on the home stretch but I still have one novella to write and of course those elusive endings! I know myself well enough to know that there’s a real good chance those endings will come after I write that third novella, so I’m totally not sweating it. And after talking to Raine last night and Lynn yesterday afternoon, I know how the third novella will go, so I should be able to whip it right out *cough* (BTW Lynn we’re going with the shop-o-holic angle LOL).

Anyway I still have to go back and rip that first novella apart. Why? Well besides the fact I can’t get my characters to CONVINCINGLY fall into bed (Convincingly being the key word because if I can’t convince myself they have a reason to get naked, I can’t convince a reader either. ), I realized something.

See lemme backtrack. I got stuck early on (like page three) and decided to write the first novella in third person from His and Hers POV’s, which I rarely do, but I realized a few days ago that his POV didn’t really add anything, there’s no huge character growth and there’s no way to solve his problems in a novella format. If they’d been a single title, I’d keep it and just keep on going but as it is, I’m gonna have to scrap his POV and probably flip it back to first person. *stabs self in eye*

So what does this all boil down to? Knowing yourself as a writer. I know my weaknesses (endings), I TRUST my gut and I’ve learned to listen to said gut and not waste time gnashing my teeth going “woe is me,” because I’m stuck on something.

So, what do you know about yourself as a writer? What’s your weak spot? That thing you might not confess to anyone outside of your critique group? And do you listen to that little voice or no?

When I first started taking my writing seriously, one of my first hangouts was a message board on E-Harlequin.  At the time it was called the Writing Round Robin, and the participants would take the beginning passage posted by a pubbed author and write follow-up chapters.

I had, in fact, subbed my first MS to Harlequin a year or so before, and received an encouraging rejection.  The heroine of my MS was named Roxanne St. Claire, and her friends called her “Rocki”.  She was very independent, drove an old Vokswagon Beetle, and her story involved being stranded in a small cabin with a hunky piece o’ man.

You may imagine my surprise when the first author I encountered in the Round Robin was named Roxanne St. Claire, called “Rocki” for short—and the story snippet she wrote involved an independent young woman who drove an old Volkswagon Beetle being stranded with a guy in a cabin by a storm…

I’d submitted my MS to more than that one publisher well before the author Roxanne St. Claire was pubbed, so no, I’d never heard of her before.  (She has heard this story since then and, being the nice person she is, thought it was hilarious).

Maestro?  Cue Twilight Zone music, if you please…

(more…)

‘Kay see, I gotta have something loud going when I write. Doesn’t have to be anything special, but has to be loud, be it TV, the CD player, hell even the kids yelling (as long as it’s not crying or hitting).

I can’t write when it’s quiet–I don’t like quiet. (Just ask Ames after being locked up in a car for 16 hours, though I did do a hell of a lot better on the ride home–I tried to give her some peace!) I need the noise to be able to focus. If it’s quiet, I think too much. My brain goes into a “what should I be doing” mode rather than the doing mode it can get in when it blocks out noise.

I can only image what my neighbors must think. My desk is at the front of the house and yesterday I had the music practically busting the speakers. The faster the beat, the faster my fingers type! It almost reminds me of that Ipod accessory . . . never mind, won’t go there. And the louder the more I can focus (Yeah, I know covered that already).

I have a compilation of songs ranging from Michael Bublé, to Gary Allan, Tobi Keith and Chris Cagle, to Nickleback, Fergi, Fall Out Boy and Daughtry, to Emerson Drive and Rascal Flatts–plus a few more you don’t really wanna know about–like I said a total compilation! I listen to the same songs over and over which drives the family insane, but I find that if I need to back out of the story and think for a sec, to fix a point, I can focus in on a song I have heard a hundred times and POP right back into the story without too much transition–but that’s probably another post all together (I think it’s a little of my OCD!).

Am I alone here? About the need for background noise. I know I am weird. Trust me it’s pointed out to me frequently! (by just about everyone) Surely, I am not the only need-noise-writer. What do you use for the background?

I can’t remember what triggered the thought…..OHHHHHHHH Yes I do. It was Jordan’s post on having a writing plan. Anyway so after I read her post, I started thinking…see I had a five year plan to quit my dayjob (which I love but I’d love to also be a full time writer). Ambitious maybe to say I can do it in five years, but there you go. Then, I freaked out because I couldn’t remember how long I’d been writing

I had to backtrack and it went something like this…..

8/2007: New K contract for 2 books AND New agent (who I adore)

7/2007: First RWA Nationals

6/2007: First print book released.

5/2007: Broke up with last agent (spent two months moping until K kicked my ass)

3/2007: Agent rejected second proposal (the feeling of DOOM sets in ).

3/2006: Signed with second agent

2/2006: Sold to Aphrodisia

1/2006: Decided to quit writing. Took down website and blog.

(here’s where things get hazy)

9/2005: Subbed to Aphrodisia

1/2005: Came up with idea for Aphrodisia –thank you Bill Engvall and friends.

8/2004: Fired first agent (moped for months and months and did very little writing)

6/2004: Hired first agent (with fourth manuscript).

Which means sometime in 2003 I started writing my first manuscript…I THINK it was June–and I was in heaven.

I remember entering my first RWA contest in October 2003 and FINALING with it. Go figure. I nearly fell out. I definitely didn’t final more than I did but I entered a lot of contests between 2003 and 2006 and queried a lot of agents and editors, racking up well over 100 rejections.

When I started my kids were 10 and 8 and honestly, it was easier to write. They left me alone more–I don’t know why. I had more writing time, the words came easier and faster and by damn it was FUN! It’s still fun (sometimes) but it’s more like work now. At least I get to work at something I like though, right? Right!

I also stopped watching TV for like a year. I totally blame Law and Order: SVU for sucking me back into the black pit of TV watching despair. How did I ever live without that show? Oh well, now I have a DVR that will tape four shows at once

What would I do different in hindsight? I dunno. I might have made some different choices. I definitely never would have turned that TV back on again. There were opportunities I turned down in favor of other opportunities (that I sort of regret), but if there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that we all walk our own walk. I have a few regrets…but life’s too short to waste your time and energy on something as negative as regrets.

So what about you? Is there anything you’d do different? Any regrets? What was your walk like?

And I’m going to leave you with this quote:

“Finish every day and be done with it…You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it…serenely, adn with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let’s talk about HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

No, no, not that land-mine of a discussion about whether a romance MUST end in one.
Let’s talk about the DEFINITION of HEA.
Sometimes I’m a glutton for punishment.  I like tinkering with the idea of this in my stories, stretching the boundaries here and there.

So I’d appreciate any feedback on what any of you would consider a HAPPILY EVER AFTER.  I’ve listed a few ideas below, or feel free to post your own definition.

The hero and heroine end up together.  Period.

The hero and heroine get everything they want, and live in joy for all their days.

The hero and heroine get ALMOST everything they want, and the few things they lack serve to bring them even closer together.

Every day of their future life is bound to be a struggle—but they have each other.

The frog does NOT turn into a handsome prince after he’s kissed—but the heroine has come to love him anyway (and he proves to be awfully good with that long tongue).

He’s condemned to Hell by some higher power, and she goes with him because…well, because.

They both die, but their essences live on in some romantic dream land.  (Sex optional, sharing of souls mandatory).

Not only is today Samhain - BUT it’s also the beginning of NaNoWriMo! I’m totally excited about it since I’m actually DOING it this year. I’m hoping to finish … something. Yeah. I still don’t know what I’m working on. Isn’t that sad? My goal is 2000 words a day. That should put me over the 50K mark before the end of the month. I hope.

Sounds easy.

Right?

Right.

I’m crossing my fingers and hoping I can do it. I NEED to do it. In the infinite words of Yoda, Do or do not. There is no try.

Nothing like using The Force to get you through NaNo, eh? HA

So are you NaNoing this year? What’s your daily word goal? Next week, I’ll post my Word-Meter with all my fabulous progress.