Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 2

Random Thoughts about Writing and Publishing

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I need to find a way of lowering my non-writing tasks so that I can do more of what I really want to do: write. I have been in this writing sphere since 2009. Back then, you could only publish your books on Amazon and Smashwords. Sadly, I only know three authors from those days who are still actively writing and publishing. I have met a lot of authors along the way. Most authors have disappeared from the writing world, and I wonder if they’re doing okay.

It’s been sad to see so many vanish. I suspect it has to do with the stress of trying to make money. It’s not easy being a writer. I doubt it’s ever been easy for most writers to stick it out in the past. But in this day, we have come to expect that we’ll make money at this. In 2009, we didn’t think about making money because we didn’t think it was possible. I spoke with traditionally published authors who said the most they made was enough to buy a purse. Of course, you always had your big time authors who had movies made from their books, and so on. I don’t know if they were making big money. I assume they were, but I have not studied this. What I have found is that most authors didn’t make much, if anything.

The gold rush of self-publishing really was a gold rush. I still can’t believe how easy it was to make money back then. I also can’t believe I made the kind of money I did. There are authors who do still make good money with their writing. Not all of us still do. Some of us saw a drop in the sales that never recovered. Could those of us who lost income have done something to avoid it? I guess you could make the case for it, but can we ever know for sure? No. We can’t know for sure because that’s an unknown variable. When I first came out and said my income was going down, I was criticized by a couple of writers for not doing enough marketing. Sometimes I think income just drops, and it’s not the authors’ fault. Sometimes things just change. It’s not personal. It’s just the way things happen.

It can be easy for authors to blame themselves when income drops. It can be easy to chase after some new marketing strategy that has worked for someone else. If that new strategy doesn’t work out for them, they blame themselves and maybe even get blamed for not doing it right. Maybe those authors did do it right. Maybe it just didn’t work. Luck and timing are factors at play. It takes more than talent and hard work to make authors succeed in a financial way. Luck and timing were the two things that I stumbled upon in the gold rush era. But the gold rush ended, and that was that. I have made peace with this aspect of my past. It was painful, but striving to keep earning money burned me out, and I lost my joy in writing. Sometimes writers do lose their joy because they aren’t earning money. When we are used to hearing about writers making “six figures”, we believe this is the norm. When we believe it’s the norm, we are disappointed (and understandably so) when it doesn’t happen for us. That’s why we latch on to different marketing strategies so much. But the reality is someone can’t guarantee that their marketing idea will work for you. You can try it if you want. There’s no harm in trying if it’s something you truly want to do.

An author friend and I were emailing recently, and this was a topic that popped up. She and I have both seen so many writers come and go. She thinks some took on new names. Maybe that’s where some of them went to. I wonder how many got burned out and walked away because they had nothing left in them. She and I both agreed that writing books is not easy to keep doing year after year. It’s rewarding. I have never regretted a book I wrote, even ones that sold very little. There are some books I reread from time to time, and I’m reminded of how much satisfaction there is in having written something I wanted to read. You can tell when an author loves what they’re doing. There’s a spark in their work. I wish I could say that spark was in every one of my books, but I can tell when I was suffering because the business end got to me too much.

I guess with all of this rambling, I have come to the conclusion that if I want to have the spark in all of my work, I need to cut out the stuff that distracts me from my writing. If what I really want to do is write, then I need to write. I need to let go of the business. I will still have to keep track of expenses and any income I bring in, of course. The government wants to know how much you owe in taxes. If you aren’t keeping track of those things, you could end up paying too much (by not factoring in your expenses) or paying too little (and ending up with some fines and a letter in the mail like I did in the past). As a quick note, the IRS NEVER calls or emails. They only send physical snail mail. I know there are some scams out there, and I don’t want anyone to fall for them. When in doubt, go to an accountant.

Back to the topic…

Now, I do think if an author is making good money and has a system in place where they can keep doing so, then that’s something they should do. There’s nothing wrong with treating this as a business. Each author is going to have their own path. You have to figure out the path that works best for you. If you want to make money, you should try for it. There’s nothing worse than looking back on your life and having regrets because you didn’t pursue your goals. Even if you don’t meet those goals, at least you tried. It’s better to have failed than to have never tried at all.

For anyone who is exhausted from focusing on the marketing and the money angle of writing, it’s okay to cut back on things you don’t enjoy doing. You have the freedom to decide you’re not going to pursue the marketing stuff that’s out there. It doesn’t make you any less of a writer than someone who has made this their “six figure” business. There is nothing inherently good or bad about “why” someone writes. I’m not a fan of the way the writing community looks down on authors who aren’t “taking this seriously” by endeavoring to make a living at this. Some of those authors who used to preach about writing to market burned out and stopped writing. I’m thinking of one in particular who was quite vocal about how silly it was to write for passion because there was very little money to be made in it. Yes, his attitude was upsetting to me. I didn’t like it. I don’t like any writer who treats other writers like they are wrong for doing what they want. Even if you choose to write for passion, that does not mean you’re a hobby writer. Being a “hobby writer” implies that you don’t care about the quality of your work. This simply is not true. Plenty of writers who write for passion care a great deal about their books. We want to make good, polished stories. We want good covers. We want good book descriptions. We like having a website, a blog, and/or other forms of social media presence. We can write for pleasure and be professional writers. Why is it that we’re in a culture that tells people it’s okay to be whatever they want, but when we don’t all agree that we are writing for the same reason, we are somehow frowned upon? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Enough rambling for now.

I Will Take August Off From Writing

Originally, I was going to pick back up with writing today because I am done with my portion of edits for The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride. Then I got sick. It’s not a head cold, though that is what I expected at first. Whatever is happening is in my sinuses and, to a lesser extend, in my lungs. It’s come with some headaches. So I am sure this is the result of stress.

I pushed myself too hard in July. At first, I was trying to write while editing. Then I was taking the Author Summit online conference while editing. Then I was finishing the narration for The Hero Least Likely while editing. I could feel that I was doing too much but had trouble saying “no” because there was so much to do. There’s still so much to do. But I have to learn to step back and tell myself no.

I have decided that I will take August off from writing. I will still be working. So I’m not technically going anywhere. I just need to tend to the stuff that often gets moved to the side while I’m in my writing and editing mode. This is mostly the business end of things. Mostly, I need to get back into the walking that I haven’t been doing in June and July due to the heat. I don’t do well in heat, but I need to suck it up and deal with it because I’m sure not walking has contributed why I’m sick right now. Walking is the best way I’ve found to manage stress. The stress can’t be fully helped. Not when I have a husband and four sons who usually come to me with whatever is bothering them. I appreciate the fact that they feel comfortable enough with me to do that, but sometimes their frustrations get “stuck” to me, and I need a way of shaking it off. Also, writing is really like any other job with its own forms of stressors. I have found some relaxation in cooking meals from scratch and experimenting with different ingredients. I have found just cutting up fruits and vegetables has a nice soothing effect. However, nothing beats walking. There is something about physical exercise that helps the mind relax.

Alright. so with all of that aside, I still want to blog, and I need to get to emails. I have let the emails pile up. That’s a form of stress in itself, and I get overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that I struggle for a good half hour to an hour on even what to say. It should be easy since I’m a writer, but this isn’t fiction. But I will start in on the emails tomorrow. I will hopefully get to the Monthly Newsletter blog tomorrow, too. I have some ideas for this blog that I’ve been wanting to do, and since I won’t be writing, I think I can finally get to them this month. So you’ll still see me around in August.

Updates on What I’m Working On

The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride is now out to my editing team

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Obligation Series.

I just wrapped my initial edits this week. The longer the book is, the longer it takes for me to go through the initial edits. Initial edits involves me rewriting portions that don’t work, removing as many typos as I can find, fixing consistency issues, etc.

Side issue that is more writer related:

I hear a lot of authors insisting that each books needs a developmental editor before moving to this stage, and I’m going to push back on this. I don’t believe every author needs a developmental edit. I don’t believe every author needs to give a thorough rewrite of their book. I have also learned that not every author is better off editing as they go. I have not been in the habit of editing as I go in the past, but I thought I’d give this advice a try on this book. It has made no difference in my editing time. I spent just as much time cleaning up and rewriting that I did on my other books. The irritating factor was that I wasted time editing as I went along when I could have been writing instead. I spent a good 15 to 20 minutes each writing session editing instead. So a lesson has been learned. I do not benefit from editing as I go.

My point in the above paragraph is to emphasize that the “rules of writing” do not apply to every single author. Every author is different. They need to find the method that works best for them and do it. So if another author is telling you that what you’re doing is wrong, ignore them. It’s not fair to put all writers into a single box and say that one method works for all of them.

End of side issue

Okay, so I am done with the initial edits and have sent the book to people who are helping me polish it up so it’s the best it can be. I like to have more than one person looking over my book. I feel this helps me see the book from enough perspectives to give me a solid (more objective) view of it. Everyone brings something valuable to the process.

I’m not putting this one on pre-order. This time, I thought I’d experiment with just releasing it and then announcing it after it’s out. Right now, the book will be out in September. I don’t have a date set yet.

My guess is that Masquerade Bride will be out in January

That’s my hope anyway. I got no writing in while editing The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride.

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.

I was taking an online Author Summit with the Better-Faster Academy with Becca Syme. Every once in a while, I like to participate in something that feeds the motivation factor of writing. I really enjoy Becca Syme. She emphasizes that all writers are different and need to do things differently, and when you take the strengths test and then connect it with her YouTube videos, you figure out “why” you operate the way you do as a writer. Probably the biggest takeaway I got from the summit was that it’s okay to slow down and have patience. A lot of times, the writing community tells you that you must be faster and that you must aim for more of everything (more followers on social media, more money, more books, etc). Knowing it’s okay to slow down and relax helps me to focus on what’s most important: the writing itself. I’m not going to stress deadlines anymore. When the book is done, it’s done.

I’ve also learned that I need to work on different stories to keep up my creativity. Becca Syme has a word for it. It’s called a Laboratory Author Platform. Now I understand why I could never just focus on one specific genre. I needed to work on historical western romances and Regencies. Before that, I was separating out my interests between historical western romances and contemporary romances. But I fell in love with the Regency characters and the world I made for those characters, and I don’t want to leave it. I was not attached to anything in the contemporary setting, so it was an easy trade to make. I recently discovered something else I want to write, but that will have to fall under a pen name. That will separate out my writing time and make books under “Ruth” slower in coming out. I need to go down this path, though, because I’m fired up by these other books in my writing lab.

I’m sure all of this sounds nuts to a lot of people, but it’s the best way I can explain it. If I want to keep up my enthusiasm and enjoyment for historical western romances and Regencies, I need to dive into another area, and I don’t mind saying it’s a mix of romance and horror (the two genres I love most), and it’ll be set in the contemporary world because I want to mix technology in with these stories. Due to how different this off-shoot is, I am creating the pen name.

I’m Stalled on The Preacher’s Wife

This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series.

I am 30,000 words in. I expect this to be at least 70,000 words, though given how much is involved with this one, we might be looking at 80,000 words. And while I know the high points, I’m having trouble filling in the lower points that need to connect them. I will make an attempt to continue on with where I left off before I dove into the edits on The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride, but if the story isn’t flowing, I’ll put it on pause for a while. I am not going to write until I know where to go. I’ve forced stories in the past, and I’ve never been satisfied with the outcome.

This could put a wrench in the 40-50-aged hero and heroine trope that I promised someone I’d write. Book 3 in this series features a woman in her 40s and a man in his 50s. I have no idea when I can deliver on that, and I do feel bad about it. I tried to carve this age trope into the Love Under Desert Skies Series. It didn’t work. I was pushing for a character to be in her late 30s, but it made a friend uneasy since I had already established that the hero was going to be in his late 20s. So I pushed the character’s age to her mid-30s. That is now what this person wanted. This person wants older than 35. So I’ve had to give up the idea there. I have no plot ideas to go with this age trope for my Regencies. I think a lot of this has to do with the historical setting. I can make this work more easily in a contemporary setting, but that’s under a pen name, so… Yeah, I feel stuck in this situation. If the person who requested 40s-to-50s is reading this, please know I have not giving up on the idea. The idea is just taking forever to get to. In a world where books come out fast, I understand how frustrating it is to wait.

What Book is Next?

I don’t have a title for it yet. This will be Oscar’s story, and it’ll be Book 2 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series. I do have the plot established. This is a plot idea I’ve had for years. I’ve just been waiting for the right characters to place for the plot. Now I have it. I have idea what I’m going to title the thing. I was originally going to go with The Virgin Widow, but the heroine is not going to be a widow anymore. I’ve decided she’ll have an annulment to get her out of the first marriage instead.

My mind is blank on Book 3 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series.

I can’t write Book 3 in the Oregon Series until The Preacher’s Wife is done, though I do have the plot in mind for that one. Ironic, I know.

Progress on YouTube

I am just over halfway in uploading The Hero Least Likely on my channel. I did create a Playlist for it that I thought would make it easy to go from one chapter to the next, but it might not be working that way. It might not be converting as nicely as I expected.

I have tried to put all of the chapters into a file on iMovie, but I don’t have enough space in one single file on iMovie to do this. My guess is that I’d have to pay in order to create a full audiobook in one file. I don’t have the kind of money to do this. I make nothing on YouTube. I’m not expecting to make anything on YouTube. I don’t have the time to do a professional job, nor can I pay someone to narrate in a way that makes this professional. So we are stuck with the quality we have.

I am going to finish reading The Hero Least Likely. After that, I’m taking a couple of months off. My sister is a trucker, and she listens to these books while she’s driving. I will continue reading books for her. I don’t know if anyone else listens to them (or even enjoys them), but she enjoys them, and that’s enough of a reason to read them. She has requested Bid for a Bride and Bride of Second Chances, so those books are next.

I think I’m going to delete my Rumble account. No one is over there, and the two comments I received were from some scammers wanting me to give them money for marketing. What a joke. I know there are scammers on YouTube as well, but I don’t think there is an actual “real” person listening to my books over on Rumble. At least on YouTube, I know my sister is there. Having to upload to Rumble is more time out of my day that could be spent writing. My goal is to focus more on writing and less on the other stuff. I can’t be everywhere and do everything. Nor can I pay someone to do it for me. So we are stuck with a one-woman-shop and what this one woman can accomplish.

What’s So Appealing about Romance and/or Horror?

I did a video to give an audio version of this post if you’d rather listen to this content than read it:

I’ve been doing some thinking over the past couple of months about why romance and horror as a genre. These seem to be the redheaded step-child in the book world. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people dismiss romance and horror as being “trash”. They aren’t seen as “real” books. At least, they aren’t as respected among the literary community like other genres.

Note: this is how I perceive things from my own experiences. I will admit that my perspective might not be what others pick up on when doing a genre comparison. For example, someone out there might believe the technological future of AI in a science fiction story would be way more terrifying than any horror book out there. But since this is my blog, I am issuing my own opinions because I don’t personally find AI scary, though I am not in favor of using AI to write actual books. Also, I’m not a fan of AI taking jobs in other industries. But I do not fear AI. Some people do fear it. To them a story about AI is a lot more terrifying than a story where some monster is hunting down people to kill.

Okay, enough rambling. Let’s get to the post…

What I think of when I consider other genres:

When I think of literary fiction, I think of a book that will end up being on an English teacher’s required reading list where the teacher will make students dissect different aspects of storytelling. Elements like symbolism, foreshadowing, setting, and theme. When I think of science fiction, I think, “This is a look into where the future might take us.” It can be a look into technology or an alien species. Sometimes it will even look into diseases and how people, especially the government, will respond to it. When I think of fantasy, I think of adventure and magic. It’s often the journey of some humble, unknown person who ends up performing some great feat that makes them a hero. When I think mystery, I think more of a puzzle that needs to be put together in order to solve it, so this is more intellectual than anything else.

So those are the main genres that make me think of a more low-key emotional experience. I mean, there are certainly high emotional experiences within these genres if the author chooses to use them, but overall, the stories are pretty “calm” to me. There aren’t high emotional stakes. I see these as more intellectual or perhaps “emotionally satisfying enough”, depending on how the author takes the story. These stories are not all that exciting to me as a reader unless they merge a strong romance or horror angle to them.

Now that is just my opinion. That’s how I see those genres, and it’s why I don’t spend much time in those genres.

As a reader, I am looking for an intense emotional experience. I prefer feelings over intellect. I want to be in the character’s heart, not the character’s head. And this is why romance and horror is appealing. I’m going to give a quick side note here to address thriller. Thriller, to me, is a cousin of horror. Done right, thriller can be just as intense as horror. I am especially a big fan of psychological thriller because I think it’s what you don’t “see” that can be even more terrifying than what you do “see”. The human imagination can really fill in some blanks that can cause a lot of emotion.

A tangent about how I hate “loose ends”:

That said, I do think the author should give answers to questions that are raised during the course of the story. To “leave the ending up the reader” or decide to not answer a key question is lazy writing, in my opinion. If I wanted to come up with the answers myself, I would have written the story. The author’s job is to deliver on the promise. In horror and thriller, the author needs to answer all questions. Just as in romance, that author needs to deliver on the “how” the hero and heroine get to their happy ending. If a romance author decides that the hero and heroine just end up together because “it’s a romance”, that is also lazy writing. The romance author needs to show the emotional development between the hero and heroine as they grow closer together and then solidify the journey by making the commitment for love.

So why the Romance and Horror Genres (with a nod toward the Thriller Genre) Appeals to People:

I’m tuning in specifically to romance and horror because they have clearly high emotional stakes attached to them. They are genres that exist simply because emotions exist. They need to pull an emotional reaction from the reader in order to be effective. Other genres don’t need to do this to be successful. As I mentioned above, those are fine dealing strictly with the reader’s mind. Romance and horror require the reader’s heart. Whether it’s love, terror, excitement, dread, joy, anger, or sorrow, the reader needs to “feel” something in order to enjoy the book.

I have no way of proving this, but my theory is that people who enjoy romance and/or horror are higher in empathy than those who don’t. I think readers of these genres are comfortable with their feelings and the feelings of others. On the surface, you might see a romance book and think, “Smut. Porn.” On the surface, you might see a horror book and think, “Gore. Disgusting.” What they aren’t getting to is the stuff that surrounds the steamy love scenes or the stuff surrounding the murders that happens on the page. I understand why people don’t like these genres. But I personally love these two genres the most, and I’m just explaining why.

We are not reading romance for the sex. We are reading the romance for the thrill of finding love, of being connected with that one special person we’ll get to spend the rest of our life with. It’s the emotional completion we are looking for in a romance. If you ever fell in love, you’ll remember how exciting those emotions were. I’ve been married for 25 years now. Not every day has been a paradise with my husband. No marriage is perfect because humans aren’t perfect. But I’m happy to be married to him. I don’t want to be with anyone else. But it’s still fun to “fall in love for the first time” all over again. That’s the pull of romance. I get to fall in love. Love is a highly-charged emotion.

We are not reading horror because we want some person or some entity to hunt us down in real life and brutally kill us. We are reading horror for the thrill of being scared. There is a thrill to being scared, but that thrill is only fun when you are actually safe. I remember being a kid, and my mom would tell me and my sister scary stories that creeped us out so much that we had to sleep in the bedroom with her. (My dad was in the civil service of the military, so he went on quite a few overnight trips for work.) I remember being creeped out of my mind while safely in her room, but I loved it, and I think fondly back on how safe I was despite the fear because she was in the room with me. I love Halloween stories. I love exploring things aren’t real. I love “not knowing” what will happen next in a book, and horror will deliver on that, more often than not. The not knowing factor plays a role in the dread and tense emotional pull in horror.

So that’s the appeal in romance and horror: the two genres I love most.

A Look Into the Brainstorming Process (How a Book is Born Series: Naming the Characters)

This post is not about any book specifically. I just wanted to have fun. This is a peek into what goes through the mind of an author as they come up with a new book.

Each author has their own way of doing things, of course. This is just how I do them. I usually start with the character names. Most of the time, I already have a plot in mind, and those plots come during the course of writing a book. Sometimes I get inspiration from other books, from movies, and the like. Once in a while, I’ll get an idea from a dream or during a conversation I’m having with someone.

For the sake of this series, we’ll say that I have no plot in mind yet. I have decided to start with the characters. We’ll look into the plot in another post.

To illustrate how a character’s name is born, I will have a conversation with the hero and the heroine of the story I will eventually write. (It’s more fun to write if an author thinks of their characters as real people.)

……..

Ruth: We’re gathered here today to start a new book.

Character A: What is this one about?

Ruth: I don’t know yet.

Character A: If you don’t know anything about the book, how can you put the right characters in place?

Ruth: Granted, it would be helpful if I knew the plot, but right now I don’t. We’re just going to dive in and name the main characters. Since we know this is a romance, we’ll need a name for the hero and a name for the heroine.

Character B: I hope it’s not a name that you’ve done for another one of your books. I can’t help but notice that you have repeated a couple of them in the past. Obviously, you like the name Chris because you did a contemporary romance with a Chris in it, and you did a Regency with a Christopher in it. Then there was Anthony in a Regency and Tony in a historical western. Sure, it was a slightly different version of the names, but those were still the same names.

Character A: And let’s not do any nicknames that bounce off a name you’ve already done, OK? There are so many names in existence. There’s no reason why you should repeat any of them, even if you have written over 100 romances by now.

Ruth: I do not set out to use the same name over and over again. I just forget that I had that name in another book. It’s not until I’m ready to publish a book or have already published it that I realize I used the name before.

Character B: If you realize the mistake before you publish a book, you can go back and change it.

Ruth: Do you know what a pain in the butt it would be to try to go through and replace a single name in an entire book? The “find and replace” feature is not as smooth as one would think. For instance, let’s say I name another character “Chris”. If I were to change the name to something like Mike, it would alter every word with “chris” in it. So instead of “christening” or “Christmas”, I would end up with “miketening” and “Mikemas”. That would create a whole slew of problems for me in a full-length book.

Character B: I don’t recall you ever using the word “christening” anywhere in any of your books. And how many times do you put “Christmas” in one of your stories?

Ruth: I was illustrating a point. There are tons of other words out there that can be modified for the worst in a last-minute name change.

Character A: All right, we get the point. There’s no reason to continue on this particular discussion. We’ve got a book to write. 

Character B: You know, Christina is a name you have not used yet for a female lead. That might be something to consider for this one.

Character A: And if you don’t like the name Christina, you could always do a nickname like Tina. You haven’t named a character Tina, have you?

Ruth: I don’t think so. But I should go back and search through my book list just in case I have used that name before.

Character B: What about the name for the man? What name should we give me?

Ruth: Are you the male lead in the story?

Character B: Well, I thought since Christina or Tina was already taken by the other character in this discussion that I should take on the male lead.

Ruth: To be fair, we didn’t commit Character A to being the heroine in this romance. But it doesn’t matter at this point which role you both take. So yes, we can let Character A be Christina or Tina, as long as we verify the name has not been used for a main character in another one of my books. Let’s look at men’s names now.

Character A: I suggest you do a search that isn’t a simple Google search for “1800s historical Victorian names”. That’s how you end up using the same names over and over. Names really don’t change much from year to year.

Ruth: I can’t go with anything too modern. This is going to be a historical book.

Character B: It’s funny how you don’t give much thought to being authentic when it comes to verifying when something was invented or how people would have actually spoken back then. But when it comes to names, authenticity suddenly matters.

Ruth: I could write you out of this story and put someone else in your place, Character B.

Character B: Pretend I said nothing. We can always delete that comment if you want.

Ruth: I don’t think so. I want people to know what kind of abuse I put up with from my characters. People read a book and assume the characters were sweet little angels the entire time. It’ll be good for them to know the truth.

Character B: Whatever. Let’s get back to the point of this brainstorming session. I think it’d be easier to come up with my name if we know what the historical time period is. Is this for a Regency or a historical western?

Ruth: I haven’t decided yet.

Character B: Why not?

Ruth: Because the purpose of this session is to come up with the names. We are going to figure out the plot later. The plot will determine if we’re better off with a Regency or a historical western setting.

Character B: I suppose that makes sense. Okay. What about Brad?

Ruth: Hmm… That name sounds familiar. I think I’ve done that one.

Character A: I know you’ve done Chad. That was in one of your earlier books.

Ruth: Yes, I remember using that name for sure. I know I’ve even used a Tad. Oh wait. I used Brad in a Regency. Married In Haste. So cross off the names Brad, Chad, and Tad.

Character A: *giggles* Those all rhyme. Do you have any other names that rhyme like that?

Ruth: Well, in one story, I did have siblings I named Sandy and Randy. That was in a contemporary romance. And yes, I did that one on purpose. The parents were quirky that way. Brad, Chad, and Tad weren’t all in the same book. Oh, wait. I guess Brad and Tad were. One was the heroine’s brother, and the other was the heroine’s husband.

Character B: We will not be rhyming names in this book. So don’t make the male name anything that rhymes with Christina/Tina.

Ruth: We know not to use the name Chris. So that’s something we can dismiss.

Character B: Now we’re rhyming with our sentences?

Ruth: For putting up such a fuss, we could always name you Gus.

Character B: *groans*

Character A: Christina/Tina and Gus might go well together in a historical western. I can see some guy out west named Gus. At least for a nickname. Is Gus short for a longer name?

Ruth: I have no idea. But for the sake of this brainstorming session, we’ll use Gus. I’m pretty sure I haven’t used the name before, and I agree it needs to be in a western because I can’t see anyone in England using the name Gus. The name makes me think of America. So we’ll go with Tina and Gus, our hero and heroine who are going to embark on a historical western romance.

Character A: Sometimes the historical setting comes before a plot then.

Ruth: Indeed, in can.

End brainstorming session.

A Peek into Drama in the Business Side of Writing

Our true story begins about three years ago when my youngest son decided to use my email address to create a Spotify account. I had also used this email for my Findaway Voices account. Findaway Voices was a distributor I was using to upload the human-narrated audiobooks I have. (Thankfully, I was unable to pay for more than five of them and only managed to narrated two. So I’m not out my entire catalogue at this point.)

But fast forward to this year where we are now at in this story. Findaway Voices is closing. All the audiobooks are moved over to Spotify. Since the email I used in Findaway is the same as the one my son used for his account, guess what happened? He had full control of this new Spotify account, only he doesn’t remember the password, and he hasn’t been over there for three years. I tried looking for a “forget your password” option to at least take full control of the account. Sometimes when you forgot your password, you can get an email allowing you to change the password that way. On the Spotify account, I was unable to find that option. I needed my son’s password, and as I said above, he doesn’t remember it.

I did manage to invite myself through another email, but I could not get access to my audiobooks that way. I tried to remove my son from the administrative dashboard in hopes that it would kick the access directly to me. That ended up with both of us being locked out of it now.

I have already sent an email to Spotify and explained the situation the best I could. I don’t know if it’ll work. All I know is that this business side of writing is a big pain in the butt. I realize this is what I get for not having a publisher. It’s a price I’m willing to pay because I want full creative control over my work.

I was fighting this for most of the day. It’s not resolved. It might never get resolved. I have no idea if Spotify is any good about working with authors. Some places are better than others. I finally came to the conclusion that worrying over this isn’t going to solve anything. I have done everything I can. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.

Then I got myself ice cream and am eating a small apple pie and a couple pieces of chocolate to help decompress. I rarely eat dessert anymore, and today was a day that I needed it.

A side note that has nothing to do with the business side of writing but contributed to why I’m frustrated at the moment:

The last two weeks have been rough. I spent all last week going with my husband from a family care doctor to an ER doctor to an optometrist to figure out what was happening with his eye. Then I had some stress involving my deaf kid. Deaf people miss so much. They do not read the written language the same way hearing people do. Anyone remember that game of telephone where a group sitting in a circle would whisper something to the person sitting next to them? By the end of the circle, the message was different from what the original person said? It’s like that. The deaf person has a concept of what was said but often lacks the exact context. For someone who grew up hearing, I’m sure the situation is much better. But for someone born deaf, like my son, this is definitely an obstacle. What makes things worse is that some deaf people can misunderstand on their end, too, and they get upset with other people. I have to explain to my son that people did not mean things the way he believes they did. He doesn’t hear the way something is said, and sometimes a person’s facial expression can take on a meaning that really isn’t there. For example, if I am feeling overwhelmed because I woke up late, dropped a plate of food on the floor, and am trying to clean it up before I’m ready to drive him to work, he assumes I am mad at him because of the expression on my face and my frenzied movements. Sometimes we are too late for me to sit and explain exactly why I’m upset. I have to do it later in the day. But that kind of thing does create friction for deaf people.

Back to topic:

I also got news today that Radish is going to be closing its doors at the end of the year. This means I’ll have to go in and remove all of my Radish links. With a hundred books linked up, this is going to take some time. Some of my Barnes and Nobles links don’t work because Barnes and Noble did some adjustments to the urls. I didn’t even get a notice on that one. But I don’t even know how many people actually go to the links. I spent so long on them in the past, and I think it wasn’t even necessary. I think having the links when the book first comes out is good enough, really. I’ve been doing this since 2009, and I have gotten a lot of feedback, but the links are not one of them.

Draft2Digital is now transferring my books from Smashwords to my Draft2Digital dashboard. I hope that goes smoothly. I don’t need another Findaway to Spotify debacle. At the moment, I’m aware that some of the books will be doubled up. There’s supposed to be some way to resolve that. I have bookmarked the information in case I need to use it. But that is going to take a while because I published almost 100 of my books on Smashwords. I do know that Draft2Digital has good customer service, so if I run into problems, I should be able to get the help I need.

So anyway, it’s never a dull moment when you’re an author. You’d think that you could get away with just writing. I remember when I started putting books up on Amazon and Smashwords back in 2009, and I honestly thought I would only be writing.

I guess if I were to talk to someone new at this writing thing today, I’d say this:

Make sure you keep a list of your income and expenses because you need that information for tax time.

The more widely you publish, the more time you’ll need to maintain the books on those platforms, and if a place closes up or transfers to another one, there might be bumps in the road. I am not exclusive to Amazon with their Kindle Unlimited program; however, I can see how being just in one place would simplify things.

On the flip side, being widely available helps to offer a buffer in case something does go wrong on one platform. For example. right now, I am so grateful I have audiobooks available on sites other than Spotify.

Realize that you will not just be writing. You will have to do the business end of things as well. You are not just the writer. You are also the publisher. The work doesn’t stop after you get the cover and editor. Books need to be maintained once in a while. You might need to update back matter. You might need to fix an error. You might need to change a cover or the book description. You might need rewrite the whole thing. If you run into an issue with a retailer, you have to deal with it. It might not be resolved in your favor. (Do all you can but realize you can’t do everything. For example, if Spotify won’t help me, that is something I ultimately have no control over.) But for the most part, you can take care of things without a retailer’s assistance.

Join writing groups so you can have support and advice. The writing community is good about helping each other.

As much as I’d like to say otherwise, your book will probably be pirated. I’ve watched authors run after pirates, but in the end, it’s like playing whack-a-mole. However, an author should never have to deal with someone stealing a book and trying to make money with it on Amazon or some other retailer. That is the worst that’s ever happened to me as an author. Don’t let it stop you from publishing because it’s your dream.

Anyone who tells you that you can’t write a book primarily for yourself is wrong. Yes, you want to share your book with the world because there is bound to be someone who’ll enjoy it. But that’s no reason to avoid writing the book with you as the primarily audience. If you write the book you love, you’ll be more likely to create a much better story than something you’re only writing that “other people” want to read.

So even if there is some unpleasant drama that comes with writing, it’s still worth it because of the books.

Okay, I’m done rambling. I had to get all of that off my chest. I hope it helps someone.

A lot of Noise

Over the weekend, I was sorting through social media and some emails, and I started to get overwhelmed by all of the books that are out there. My eyes started to glaze over. While some graphics and book covers were pretty and made me pause, my eyes began to glaze over once the book descriptions, author interviews, etc came into view. Then I realized that none of these efforts that these authors have put into their marketing were sticking with me. I felt so overwhelmed by it all that I mentally checked out. I thought, “This is a lot of noise.” It’s like white noise. Noise that you can easily place in the back of your mind while you focus on other things. Since I am an author who also must promote so people know my books exist, I realized that what I am doing is creating noise as well.

This is an unfortunate side effect of a culture that’s inundated with the internet. There is so much out there. It’s hard to keep focused. It doesn’t help that we are accessible by phone even when we’re not home. I can’t tell you how many times I wished for the days of the rotary phone when I was grocery shopping but had to stop in order to speak to a teacher about something in the middle of a school day. And since we are in an instant gratification environment, we pretty much expect to get what we want quickly. We can order something online and usually have it delivered later that day or the next. Texting and chatting can be done instantly whatever you are. I remember taking one of my sons in to see a GI doctor (and running other errands with him that day), and someone started giving me a hard time about the way I handled a particular situation. (I’m not perfect. I do my best. Sometimes my best is not enough.) But this texting continued on and off from about 11am to 7pm. I only continued since that person would have gotten back to me in another day if I didn’t address it then and there, and quite frankly, I don’t like having things hanging over my head like that. So I dealt with it. But at the end of that day, I was so exhausted that I was unable to do anything but sit in front of the TV and watch movies the next day.

I am overwhelmed. There is so much to do. There’s never enough time to do it. I can’t be the only person who feels this way. I can’t be the only person who gets to the point where all of the promotional stuff authors do turns into noise. I feel guilty for feeling this way because I am an author. I understand why they need to do it. How else is an author going to be noticed except by word of mouth, and word of mouth only happens after someone finds your book and tells others about it?

Honestly, all I want to do is write the book. I do love picking out a cover and getting it out into the world. I even enjoy rambling on this blog because doing so clears the cobwebs in my head so I can think clearly in order to write. This blog is my online journal. I opened my story today to start writing but realized I couldn’t because I’m overwhelmed. So I came to this blog to write about how I’m overwhelmed, and already, I feel much better.

The world seems to be lost to people who just want to write. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do to get noticed. Well, I have ideas, but I have no magic bullet. Believe me, if I did, I would still be making a living with my writing income. I have some ideas, though, so why not jot them down. Maybe no one else will find it inspiring, but I need a pep talk. I’m feeling bummed out because it’s hard to sell books in an era where there is so much noise that I can’t even think straight. (The crazy inflation we’ve seen since Covid has not helped. I realize a lot of people are struggling like I am to pay bills, etc. If we could go back to pre-Covid prices, then this wouldn’t be hitting so hard, but that’s not going to happen, so we have to deal with what we have.)

So anyway, these are ideas that I hope will get me back on track, rather than being stuck in this land of overwhelm:

It’s okay to just want to write the book.

Obviously, this comes with the caveat that this is not the most effective way to get visible. Back in 2009-2012, you pretty much could, but times have changed. That doesn’t mean all authors have to want to market their work. Writing is the fun part for some of us. It’s where the magic happens. We want to play in our characters’ world more than we want to do anything else. So why should we feel guilty if we aren’t excited by the prospect of marketing?

Yes, money is important, but surely, there can be a way of managing the money so we aren’t so dependent on our writing income.

I need to work on this one. It’s actually my main goal right now. I’m sick of feeling like my finances are out of control. While the writing income isn’t the full equation to this dilemma (because there is the inflation rate that went nuts on us), it’s difficult to write when you’re stressed out about money. I can tell the quality in my work based on periods in the past where I was stressed about making money and based on periods in the past where I wasn’t stressed about it. I know the books that didn’t live up to their potential, and even now, I think if I had just taken more time to write them, they would be so much better. Money matters. I’d love to say it doesn’t, but it really does.

Side note: It doesn’t help when readers say they will only read your free books, even though you are their “favorite” author or that they just “love” your work. If someone loved my work, they would be willing to pay for it. I really think that the whole “I love your books so much but can’t afford to pay $0.99-$3.99 for them” is a ploy to guilt trip authors into giving everything away to someone for free. I’ve seen some of these people in the past go on to brag about their new car, their vacation, their tickets to a brand new movie they just saw, or their expensive dinner out. You can’t tell me that all of these places are giving these people those things for free. So if an author decides not to give this person free books, they will feel like the jerk, and no author should feel like a jerk for wanting to get paid for their work.

Back to the actual topic: If an author can’t make more money because sales suck, then what? How can an author alleviate the stress from not making it? Obviously, removing excess spending is an easy way to get on good financial footing. Pay off debt. Don’t spend more than you make. Etc, etc. We all know this. These are the basics. This is your financial foundation. So I have stopped eating out. I make everything at home. This does mean less time writing because I spend more time in the kitchen now. I have found eating out to be the biggest non-essential expense in my house. I don’t know what yours is. But if you can work on that area, at least you can put that extra money into getting into a better financial position.

The area I’m targeting is investing. With writing, I have to keep getting more books out, and I have to hope those books will sell more than before. For years, my sales have been going down. (Obviously, I suck when it comes to marketing. I have been told if I did X, Y, or Z to market, sales would just take off. I’m exhausted with marketing. It’s become a lot of noise to me. I think that’s why I suck at it. Plus, I would rather be writing.) But with investing, I can use the Always Be Buying approach and have the chance of seeing actual money growth for the long term. I pick something with a good track record to invest in and have the money grow for me while I sleep. Personally, I like the S&P 500 since it’s a collection of the largest 500 US companies. It’s a wide basket, and over the past century, it has an upward track record. (Some periods dip, but overall, it has been going up.) I am not able to contribute much, but I keep telling myself that something is better than nothing. For the record, I’m 50, and my husband is 52. I just opened a Roth for both of us last year. We are not going to be millionaires when we reach retirement age. We started late. I say this to offer hope to others in my situation. A part of me dies every time I hear someone say, “If you didn’t start investing in your 20s or early 30s, you’re screwed.” Don’t give into that mindset. Something is better than nothing. And not everyone needs to be a millionaire to make it in retirement. I believe it’s in how you manage the money you have. I’ll be honest, though, I am still trying to figure out how to be better at it.

Sadly, the paragraph above is easier said than done, and sometimes authors do run into unexpected expenses that deplete their emergency accounts or require them to go into debt. God help you when that kind of thing happens because it’s depressing. A year ago, I reached this point, and it’s why we had to sell the house. It was the only way to get back on track. All I can think of for that is to rebuild the financial foundation if you’re able to. I have very little, to be honest, and that’s because of the years we wasted money. When I made great money at writing, I blew through all of it like an irresponsible kid. My dad did warn me when I was in my 20s. I can’t say that I didn’t know better. I did. I just lacked discipline. So did my husband. Things were going to eventually implode. I’m just relieved we aren’t out on the streets.

And now for my final idea:

Being genuine matters.

When I was sorting through social media and emails, one thing I noticed was how “same” everything seemed. That’s why it was so easy to glaze over everything. Writers pretty much end up saying the same kind of things. I’m guilty of this, so I get it. We think the same way in a lot of areas. While I think that’s good in some respects, it does have the drawback of making authors blur together. I get why book covers need to look similar in a certain genre. You are targeting that group of readers. You need to look similar. For example, no one wanting a romance is going to pick up a book with an alien ship on the cover. There are things authors need to do in order to package their books correctly. Even book descriptions are going to have some similarities because you need to tell the readers what tropes and plots you’re covering.

When I say be genuine, I mean to be who you really are. Let people see you. Yes, your books are a part of you, but you are more than your books. The things you write/talk about matter. The things you care about matter. In a culture consumed with things and social media, I think we’ve lost a lot of human connection. AI is only making it worse. I don’t see AI going away. AI is too convenient. And AI isn’t all evil. There are some good things AI does, like helping you find a location while you’re driving or helping you research a topic you know nothing about. But AI has also done some damage. The obvious one is people using AI to write the actual book for them. That is wrong, and I worry about the consequences this kind of thing is going to have through the author community. It’s why I stay away from AI for anything to do with writing. I don’t want to get tangled up in it. I am speaking more than what AI is doing by writing books. I am speaking about how we are replacing real people with AI “people”. I saw a commercial about an app that has an AI “person” that you can have a conversation with. I even saw something about an AI girlfriend app. We are replacing people with AI.

There is something AI can never be, and that is genuine. AI can only be what you feed it to be. It will have no original thought. It will have no free will. People will probably befriend it. People will even probably fall in love with it. But it won’t be real. Real connections aren’t perfect. Real people aren’t perfect. AI might seem perfect, but it’s not real, and since it’s not real, it’s not meaningful. I realize that some of us are introverts who thrive more off of being alone. I’m an introvert and require a lot of alone time to build up my energy to deal with people. But even introverts require some level of meaningful human connection. Humans are social creatures. We need other humans. We need connections that are authentic.

So if you’re an author who doesn’t have the most exciting personality around, that’s okay. There is something you care about. There are people you care about. It’s okay to focus on that. You don’t have to impress everyone. (It’s impossible to do that anyway, so there’s no point in making that your life ambition.) But you will connect with some people. It doesn’t matter if that’s a large group of people (which is what extroverts thrive off of) or a small group (which is more manageable to introverts). What matters is that the connection is real. You care about the person, and that person cares about you. I’m not saying everyone needs to be a close and personal friend. I’m just saying that even people you connect with once in a while can be meaningful as long as the acquaintance is authentic.

Let me end this with a quote: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That is by Maya Angelou.

***

That concludes my rambling. Now you can see why it was so difficult for me to write this morning. All of the above was swimming around in my mind. I feel a lot better now that I got it out of the way.

The Hero Least Likely is Now Available!

This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series.

Book 1: Tagalong Bride

Book 2: The Hero Least Likely

Book 3: Hearts of Passion (to be written)

Here is the description:

She’s a proper lady. He’s the lawman least likely to succeed. Tossed into the same adventure, can they find everlasting love?

Arizona, 1885. Bernadette Reid longs to be cherished. Delighted to meet a handsome and courageous rancher, the mail-order bride wants nothing more than to marry, settle down, and raise a family. But after her intended ropes her into joining the pursuit of two outlaws, she ends up having to spend time with an inept deputy who has the audacity to think he’s a rival for her affections. 

Zeke Ritter tires of all the snickering he’s endured his entire life. Determined to prove worthy of his badge, the young man joins the hunt for a pair of outlaws—only to be shocked at the beauty of a reluctant posse member. And when her rugged fiancé focuses more on wrangling bandits than her heart, he vows to help her find happiness even if it leaves him shattered. 

Discovering Zeke’s hidden charm, Bernadette struggles with the realization that her brother’s matched her to the wrong husband. And though Zeke knows the woman he craves deserves someone who truly appreciates her, he refuses to steal another’s fiancée. 

Will they defeat their fears and find strength in each other? 

In this book you’ll find a virgin hero and heroine, an underdog hero, one sex scene within marriage, an actual gunfight (which held me up for three whole weeks to get right), comedy, and the Red Ghost itself. (And, just for fun, I scared Lucas with another scorpion. You know, just because it’s fun to mess with your characters once you know their weakness.)

If this sounds like your kind of book, you can find it at these places:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Smashwords

Google Play (ebook)

Google Play (audiobook)

Radish

A Look Into My Personal Life

Just a note: I’m not going to do a video/audio to go with this post today since I am due to go walking in an hour. I will try to break things up so you can scroll to the topics that interest you.

The quest for better health (walking and eating)

Summer is here, and this is the time of year I spend a good deal of time outdoors. I am still writing, but I’m not doing as much sitting at home that I tend to do while it’s cooler outside. My goal last year was to work my body up to being able to walk 3-5 miles at least three days a week. I want to keep that up this summer. I want to take care of my health because I’ve watched my parents die young. My mom was 48. My dad was in his 60s. While they died from smoking-related causes, they weren’t exactly the kind of people who ate healthy or exercised. I’ve seen them go through enough with doctors that I decided I want to spend my time as far from doctors and hospitals as possible.

This has also affected the way I eat. I used to eat out a lot. I’m not a big fan of cooking, but I have finally come across some recipes that are healthy and do not require a lot of work. (If anyone is interested in these, let me know, and I’ll make some blog posts about them.) My dad had high blood pressure. My mom had diabetes. I don’t want to end up with these issues, either. As of my last physical in September or October, I have a clean bill of health, and I’d like to keep it that way. I am doing the Healthy Keto plan. I’ve been doing it for about two years now. I have lost 40 pounds, but I lose weight slowly. I’m like a turtle. But I also don’t put on the weight fast, either, so that’s the trade-off. I still have another 40 pounds to go before I’m at my pre-pregnancy weight. I would love to get there, but if I never do, I can be okay with that as long as I continue to be healthy. I follow Dr. Eric’s Berg program. (I’m linking to his YouTube channel if you want to check it out.)

I’ve tried other methods, but his is the one that works for me. (I think there is no one-size-fits-all eating plan for everyone. We have different body types.) I feel a lot better than I did even when I was in my 30s. I feel like I’m in my late 20s. That is a big deal for someone who felt like she was 60 when she was 38. I still remember writing at the park with little energy, brain fog, and back pain. I didn’t start Dr. Eric Berg back then, but I did cut out a lot of sugars at that point. (I hate Starbucks withdrawals like you wouldn’t believe. I used to live on those drinks.) That got me to feeling like I should have been at 38. But when I started Dr. Eric Berg’s thing, I felt even better. (But I did have to seriously cut out sugar, and I remember going to the kitchen and seeking out sweets, esp. the ice cream. I wasn’t even hungry. I just wanted my next “fix”. The ice cream was the hardest habit to break. It took a month before I stopped with those cravings.) When they say you can get addicted to sugar, they are not joking.

So anyway, I do enough walking and cooking from scratch that it takes up a significant part of my time. Because of this, I don’t do as much writing or engagement online as I used to. Once in a while, I will get a question about when a new book will be ready, and I am very happy people care enough to want to read more books. I want to write more books. The reason I went through all of this rambling is to first of all say thank you for still reading my books. Truly, it means a lot to me. I also want to explain why my writing has slowed way down. It’s more than having been through burnout. I have come to realize it’s also about taking time to take care of my health in order to have the capacity to keep on writing. My goal is to be doing this for another 30 or so years.

The family

I also want to make sure I spend time with my family. My husband and I still date, though he doesn’t get as excited about the walks as I do for these occasions. My kids are entering adulthood. The oldest is now 22. Then the others are stair steps. So it’s 22, 21, 20, 19. Now that they’re adults, I might as well give their names. I tried to protect them while they were minors just because you don’t know who is reading the blog posts. (My mom used to watch a lot of true stories about killers. That kind of thing makes you cautious about what you share, which is why I try not to give away anything personal.)

So anyway, Craig is the oldest. Eric is second. John (my deaf son who is just shy of autism) is 20. Adrian is the youngest. Craig loves video games, and I have discovered that some of these games are movies with a “choose your own adventure” angle to it. I really enjoy that, but my gaming skills suck. (We played one game together called “It Takes Two”, and he had to wait for me to finish my portion of the scene for 30 minutes or so. I remember he ended up scrolling on his phone for something to read while he waited for me to successfully pass my part of the game.) Also, if you want someone to die in some quick time event, I’m your girl for that because I have trouble remember where the correct button is for a certain action. I’ve gotten the hang of Mario Party (which I play with Craig and my husband, Tony), but the other games don’t come as easily to me. For the most part, I watch Craig play a game in order to watch the movie. That way, the characters end up alive. Anyway, he does have a full-time job, so when he is off, I try to do something with him.

Eric is the one I usually walk with. We do most of our walks in downtown Omaha. They have Gene Leahy Mall there, and it’s a nice part of the walk. We also go across the Bob Kerry Bridge. We did take a couple of walks through Dundee, and this is the area where the older homes are. I don’t know when they were constructed, but I like to imagine that Richard and Amanda Larson lived in one of them. (If you’ll recall, they were two characters from the Nebraska Series.) Richard was a construction worker who ended up with his own business, and he built a house specifically using her ideas. I like to play the “what kind of house did they live in” game. I also try to imagine what historic buildings in Omaha he might have done. This is all a part of the mind of a writer, and while it has no basis in reality, it is fun to imagine the characters doing something visible in real life. Anyway, I want to take advantage of this time with Eric. He’ll be going off to college in a couple of years, and then he wants to leave Nebraska. My father-in-law used to say stuff like, “I should have done this with my children when they were young.” I don’t want to look back and say that. Also, given the fact that my parents didn’t live that long, I want to get the most out of the days I do have. I had always wanted to spoil my nieces and nephews. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that. I am hoping I can someday spoil my grandchildren. But in case I don’t get the chance, this is another reason why I put an emphasis on spending time with my children while they are still around.

John is the third child. He’s deaf. We had him tested for autism, and he’s right under on the threshold of being autistic. (Like a couple of points off.) I am limited in how much I can do with him. He mostly likes to be alone working on languages. He loves foreign languages and will devote hours a day to it. He does work at a shipping place, so he’s able to hold down a job. He can’t drive, though, so I am his taxi to and from work. That takes up 1.5 hours total of my time a day. I have tried to take him out to the zoo and other places, but the older he’s gotten, the less he’s able to do outside. So even though he doesn’t quality for being autistic, he does have stuff in common with autistic people. Like he is very rigid on a schedule, and he needs things done a specific way. I do what I can, but I have to do it within a limit.

Adrian is my youngest, and he’s usually gone most of the day. He has two jobs and is trying to get his own place with a roommate. Today he’s looking at appointments. I don’t see him much, but when he’s around, he talks a lot. And since he’s a talker, and I’m more of a listener, I get way more information than I want to know about him. Sometimes I have to tell him to censor himself a bit because as a mom, I don’t want to know EVERYTHING. (And if you’re a parent, I’m sure you can guess what “everything” is.) I do want my children to feel comfortable coming to me about whatever is on their minds, but there are even limits I have. So I just let him know that I get the idea, and I don’t need to know anything else. I mean, I’m not stupid. I realize how the culture is, but even I have my limits. He’s an adult. He has to make his own decisions. I respect that.

So anyway, I went on and on about the kids, and I didn’t say much about my husband, but I do make an effort to spend time with him and we date, as I mentioned earlier. He’s a good, stable guy. Kind of like the heroes I enjoy writing about. If you ever wondered why my romances are the way they are, it’s because my marriage has been stable. We don’t have extremes for ups or downs. It’s pretty much a day-in and day-out routine. I’m happy with it. I like stability. I like routine. I like predictability. I have read some romances where there’s a ton of drama, and that is not for me. I would have a heart attack on those crazy ups and downs. The soap opera life isn’t for me. We only knew each other for four months before getting married. Looking back, I realize that was pretty fast. It’s probably why my characters don’t take long to fall in love. I just knew he was the one early on, and I saw no reason to wait. I also didn’t want to live with him first. So we just got married with at the courthouse and have been together ever since. We’ll celebrate 25 years this July of being married. As an elderly woman told me when I was 24 years old, “Marriage lasts when you make a commitment to stick it out through good and bad times. You choose to make it last.” There’s a lot of truth in that. Marriage is not a romance novel. It’s a choice to stick it out. (Granted, there are times when you can’t, like in infidelity and abuse.) But for the most part, love is a choice you make. For better or worse. No matter what. A lot of those days will be mundane. There will be times you have to put effort into the romance. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with stability. Stability is security, and love thrives best when someone is secure.

Alright, that’s it. I will discuss books I’m working on in my next post. This one went on way too long.

Creativity Killers and How to Tackle Them

Here is the video to go with the blog post if you would rather listen to it. (The blog post will not involve the rambling the video did. WARNING: spoilers in the video.)

The movie that inspired this post is called The Menu. The premise is that these people have been invited to this elaborate dinner where things start out pretty light but quickly turn dark as the evening progresses. (It’s labeled as a horror, suspense, and dark comedy type of movie. So warning: it’s not for the faint of heart.) I enjoyed it a lot because there were elements I saw in this movie that applies well to the issue of “creativity” that authors face.

In the movie, the main chef used to love to cook. He started out flipping burgers, and he was very happy doing this. It was an art. (Likewise, our writing when we are enjoying our work stems from the simple act of telling the story that is in our hearts. But over time, we will probably come across some creativity killers that will rob us of that joy. In the movie, the chef lost his passion by catering to others who ultimately took all of the joy from him.

Each table in the movie represented a creativity killer that the chef faced. I’ll list these out below and apply them to the writer’s own creative life, so we can be aware of them (and protect ourselves from them).

Table 1: The Critic

This is the group of people who will nitpick and tear down your story. Usually, the stuff is minor, and the criticism often doesn’t offer anything of real value. It can be something as little as a typo or two in a 70,000-word novel. It can be the bickering over passive vs active voice. It can be someone telling you that you should use “better” language to tell a story, like using words other than “is” or “was” or “walk” or “said”. Little stuff that ultimately makes no difference to the story itself.

How do you tackle this? Ignore the critic. These people aren’t there to help you. They are simply there to pull out their red pens and criticize your work. They find enjoyment out of nitpicking things. Let them nitpick, but you do not have to listen to it. As long as you and your readers are happy with the book, that’s all that matters.

Table 2: It’s All About the Money

Often in writing groups, the focus is on the money. Writers will brag about how much they make. Some will even show charts. The bottom line for these people is that writing is a business. To write for any other reason is to be “less than” in the eyes of these people. They might say your passion books are just as valuable, but you know that they have this “you’re a hobby writer” mentality that makes them look down at you. To them, there is no reason to write and publish books unless you plan to make money. This can put pressure on you to write stuff you don’t enjoy but feel like you have to for the sake of the money.

How do you tackle this? Realize that it if VALID to write and publish a book for pleasure. Out of all the people in the world, your book does have an audience. Of course, the problem is finding the audience. Visibility is an issue. But your book is worth having in the world. Only you can tell the story you have in your heart to write. It’s okay to have fun. Also, keep in mind that money does not always equal happiness. I remember a time when I was in a writing group and there was an author who was crying because she was miserable. She was making good money, but she hated what she was writing. She felt trapped. She wanted to write something else but was too scared to take the leap. I don’t know about you, but if writing is going to be like that, then what’s the point?

Table 3: All Work and No Play

In the pursuit of making money, authors can get into the trap of working all the time. They spend as much time writing and marketing as they can. After a while, this will take a toll on you. Even if you enjoy what you’re writing and you have an assistant, the nonstop urgency to do more only snowballs until you burnout.

How do you tackle this? Take time to do other things. Give yourself a life outside of the writing world. Find people and/or hobbies that allow you to relax. The key is to do stuff you enjoy. (Don’t make yourself spend this time on people or things you hate. That will only make you more miserable.) When you give yourself time to decompress, you’ll fill up the creative well again. Also, to better learn the craft of storytelling, it can be nice to watch movies, TV show or to read books that you enjoy. So you are still “working”, but in a fun way. (Still I would allow for purely non-writing stuff in my life to give me a balance.)

Table 4: The Overzealous Fan

While it’s fun to have someone who loves our work around us, you don’t want someone who is crazy. I’m thinking specifically of the book/movie “Misery” by Stephen King. Now he took this to the extreme in showing this “overzealous fan” dynamic, but if you are aware of this, then you know what I mean. This is someone who goes overboard. They want to be too intimately involved in your life. This can make you uncomfortable. (For the record, I do NOT have anyone like this in my life, thank goodness. And I think most authors never face this.) But it is something that would kill your creativity if it happened to you. Also, if you have a reader who loves your stuff and tells you they want to see you write something a certain way, it can be hard to NOT write it because you want to please them. You might have to choose between writing the story in the direction you want to go vs. the way they want the story to go. That is probably a more realistic dilemma that you’re bound to face at some point in your writing career. If you write according to someone else’s vision, that will hinder your creativity.

How do you tackle this? If you have someone too involved in your life, set up boundaries that put some distance between you and that person immediately. You don’t need to answer emails right away. You don’t have to text anyone. You don’t have to call anyone. You can even block if things get too nuts. I don’t have experience with this personally, but that is the stuff I would do. Now, I have had to decide to write the story my way instead, and I have politely told the person that, and the person understood and was happy with my work. So it’s often a matter of just being honest (and nice) about things.